RankReady Pro features are missing or the licence will not activate

Pro is built to fail closed. Any failure in the licence check leaves Pro locked rather than unlocked, so “features are missing” and “the licence did not activate” are usually the same problem. Work through these in order.

1. Is the free plugin active

Pro requires the free RankReady plugin and does nothing without it. If the base is inactive, Pro shows an admin notice saying exactly that and stops. Activate the free plugin from WordPress.org first. Pro 1.1.0 also needs Free 1.4.0 or newer. If Free is older, Pro shows an “Update RankReady to use Pro” notice and stays locked until you update Free.

2. Are both plugins active at the same time

Pro is an add-on, not a replacement. Deactivating the free plugin after installing Pro breaks Pro. Both stay active, permanently.

3. Did the licence actually activate

Open the RankReady Pro entry on the Plugins screen and check its account or licence screen. If it is asking for a key, the licence never activated, whatever happened in the purchase email.

4. Are your licence seats used up

A $49 licence covers one site; $99 covers up to 100. Staging copies, local installs and deleted-but-never-deactivated sites each hold a seat. Deactivate the licence on sites you no longer use to release them. See activating and moving a licence.

5. Can the site reach the licensing service

Activation is an outbound HTTPS request. A firewall, a locked-down host or an offline development environment blocks it, and the result is a locked Pro rather than an error you would notice. The diagnostics report is the place to confirm outbound requests work.

6. Check the version

Pro has the same minimum WordPress and PHP requirements as the free plugin, listed on the RankReady page on WordPress.org. Keep both up to date.

A specific symptom worth naming

If the screens show Pro markers where the real controls should be, that is precisely the unlicensed state rendering correctly. It is not a display bug. Fix the licence and the controls appear in place.

Still stuck

Send the diagnostics report. It answers most of the questions above in one paste, which is considerably faster than describing the symptom.