Install Free, establish a monthly baseline, then activate Pro 1.5 and roll out its seven guardrail groups from Monitoring to Enforcement.
Free needs no Activation Code. An active Pro subscription is required to download, activate, change paid settings, use Smart traffic/revenue decisions and early alerts, and receive seller-hosted updates and support. After expiration, saved monthly limits and the seven guardrails continue; Smart decisions and early 50/75/90 alerts pause.
Download the verified Free ZIP from this official product site. When the WordPress.org listing is live, this same link can send you to the directory release instead.
Hard-stop and Smart Protection for WordPress AI costs.
In WordPress Admin, open Plugins → Add New Plugin → Upload Plugin, choose the verified ZIP you just downloaded, select Install Now, then Activate.
Creator's NEXT
Open AI Cost Control from the WordPress admin menu. Set sitewide or per-source monthly USD, request, and token limits, then save. Add current token rates when you use estimated-USD enforcement.
Start in Monitoring mode and observe several days of normal usage. When the limits reflect real demand, switch to Enforcement.
Choose Pro at $10/month or $99/year for one normalized production hostname, Agency at $299/year for up to 10 normalized production hostnames, or Unlimited at $499/year with no managed-hostname count under the fair-use policy. Card subscriptions renew automatically until canceled online.
Pay by card in Stripe. After payment is confirmed, use the checkout completion link to return to the secure License Dashboard in the same browser. The Activation Code is created after you register a hostname in the next step.
In the License Dashboard, download the Pro ZIP and upload it from Plugins → Add New Plugin → Upload Plugin. Activate Pro, then add the production WordPress URL in the dashboard; authorization uses its normalized hostname when issuing the Activation Code (Auth Code). Pro takes over the shared settings and safely deactivates Free.
Copy the one-time Activation Code from the dashboard. In WordPress, open AI Cost Control → License, paste the code, and select Activate Pro. A backup email is attempted when transactional email delivery is configured.
Run each supported native AI feature once. Events shows the inferred source, resolved provider/model, and execution context. In Tools & privacy → Advanced request guard, confirm whether the status is Default AI Client transport guarded or Lifecycle fallback only.
Add current input and output rates when using estimated-USD policies. Configure the Free-included per-source monthly budgets in Limits. In Guardrails, enable the Pro master switch, choose contexts, and configure only the velocity, per-request size, repetition, retry, and model rules you need.
Keep the global mode in Monitoring and exercise normal traffic. Review Would block reasons in Events and adjust thresholds that would interrupt legitimate work.
duplicate_request_looprequest_retry_circuitSend the built-in test email. For optional Slack or an allowlisted custom webhook, review the destination and minimized payload before saving; delivery is confirmed when a real incident occurs.
Review Would block decisions, disable or adjust unsafe rules, then switch the global mode to Enforcement. Treat Human, Bot, Unknown, and revenue as probabilistic signals below absolute limits.