Renewals and reminders

Renewing by hand

A license that expires can be renewed from My Account › Licenses with Renew, which appears once the license is within 30 days of expiry, or from the renew_url your plugin receives from /validate and /update. Renewing puts the license’s product in the cart, marked as a renewal. When the order is paid:

• the license is extended by the product’s term per unit bought, from the later of today and its current expiry, and its updates period likewise;
• the key and its sites stay the same.

A renewal applies only when the buyer owns the license: the same account, a signed-out checkout with that account’s email or, for a license bought as a guest, the same billing email. Otherwise the order issues a new license and says why in an order note.

Reminder emails

Two WooCommerce emails, edited and switched off under WooCommerce › Settings › Emails:

• License expiring soon, a set number of days before expiry (14 by default).
• License expired.

Both carry the masked key and the Renew link. Their templates can be overridden in your theme’s woocommerce/ folder.

Automatic renewal with Payments via Polar

When a licensed product is also a Polar subscription (Payments via Polar), each paid renewal order extends the same license: same key, same sites. While a license renews automatically:

• My Account and the license panel say “Renews automatically on” and the date, instead of offering Renew;
• there’s no renew_url and no reminder or expired email.

If the subscription is set to cancel, the license keeps working until its paid expiry, and the usual reminders come back. The elm_license_auto_renewal filter is how a billing plugin reports a license’s next automatic renewal.

Refunds

• A full refund of an order that issued keys revokes them, and a partial refund revokes as many as units were returned. Refunding a first order revokes its key even after renewals.
• A full refund of a renewal order, or a returned renewal line, moves the license’s expiry and updates period back by one term per unit, once. The key isn’t revoked: it works until the earlier date.
• A refund doesn’t cancel a Polar subscription. Cancel it as well, or the next period is charged.

Checked against ZealDen Sell Your Plugins 1.1.4 on main, 19 October 2026.