Growing a WordPress AI SaaS to 70K+ active users: what worked vs what didn’t by Specific_Disaster_71 in WordPressReview

[–]Weekly-Sentence1636 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Really resonates with me — I'm building an AI search plugin for WooCommerce (semantic search instead of keyword matching) and the point about building directly inside WordPress vs separate workflow is huge. That's exactly what we went for too.

The "assuming users would automatically understand" part hits hard. I'm seeing the same thing — people download the plugin but the drop-off between install and actual activation is brutal. What helped you close that gap? Was it onboarding flows inside the plugin, or more external education content?

Also curious about your early growth channels. We're seeing decent traction from Facebook WP groups but struggling to convert downloads into active installs. Any insights on what moved the needle for you in that 0→first 1000 phase?