Royal Ledger – WordPress Cost Tracker & License Key Manager

Royal Ledger is the simple, free WordPress cost tracker that finally answers “what does my site actually cost?” Track every recurring expense — premium plugins, web hosting, domains, CDN, email, SaaS subscriptions — and securely store the license keys you receive from third-party vendors with AES-256 encryption. No signup, no phone-home, no premium tier, no upsell.

Royal Ledger itself is 100% free, fully functional, and has no premium tier, no license check, no usage limits, and no external service. Every feature works out of the box on activation.

Stop losing track of what you’re paying for.

Most WordPress site owners have no idea how much their site actually costs. Between premium plugins, hosting, domains, CDNs, email services, and SaaS tools, expenses add up fast. Royal Ledger gives you a clear picture of your total site spend in one place.

What You Can Track

Royal Ledger isn’t tied to any specific vendor — track anything that bills you on a monthly, quarterly, or annual cycle. Common examples:

• Premium WordPress plugins — WPForms Pro, Yoast Premium, Elementor Pro, Rank Math Pro, Astra Pro, ACF Pro, Gravity Forms, WP Rocket, Smush Pro, MonsterInsights, OptinMonster, WP Fastest Cache Premium, and any other paid plugin renewal.
• WordPress hosting — HostGator, Hostinger, SiteGround, Bluehost, GoDaddy, WP Engine, Kinsta, Cloudways, Pressable, Pantheon, Flywheel, Liquid Web, A2 Hosting — managed WordPress, shared, VPS, or dedicated.
• Domain registrars — Namecheap, GoDaddy Domains, Google Domains, Cloudflare Registrar, Hover, Porkbun, Dynadot, Name.com.
• CDN and performance — Cloudflare Pro / Business, KeyCDN, BunnyCDN, StackPath, Fastly, Amazon CloudFront.
• Security and monitoring — Sucuri, Wordfence Premium, MalCare, iThemes Security Pro, Patchstack, Jetpack Security.
• Email and SMTP — Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Mailgun, SendGrid, Postmark, Amazon SES, Brevo (Sendinblue), Resend.
• Premium themes — Astra Pro, GeneratePress Premium, Kadence Pro, Divi (Elegant Themes), Avada, Genesis Pro.
• SaaS subscriptions — anything else tied to your site: page builders, analytics, search, AI services, design tools, file storage, anything billed on a recurring cycle.

Key Features

• Cost Dashboard – See your monthly burn rate, annual costs, and active subscriptions at a glance
• Visual Breakdown – Doughnut chart showing spending by category (plugins, hosting, domains, SaaS, etc.)
• Renewal Calendar – Month-by-month calendar view of upcoming renewals so nothing catches you off guard
• License Key Vault – Store the license keys you receive from third-party plugin and service vendors with AES-256 encryption. Copy with one click, auto-hides after 30 seconds
• Plugin Auto-Detection – Automatically scans your installed plugins and adds them as trackable cost items
• Email Reminders – Get notified before renewals are due (configurable: 7, 14, or 30 days ahead)
• Export & Import – CSV export for spreadsheets, JSON backup for migration between sites
• Dashboard Widget – Quick overview right on your WordPress dashboard

Categories

Track costs across six categories:
* Plugins
* Themes
* Hosting
* Domains
* SaaS Services
* Other

Security

License keys are encrypted using AES-256-CBC with HMAC tamper detection, derived from your WordPress security salts. Keys are never stored in plaintext.

Privacy

Royal Ledger stores all data locally in your WordPress database. No data is sent to external servers. No account required.

External Services

Royal Ledger does not connect to any external services. The plugin makes no outbound HTTP requests, does not call any API, does not check any license server, and does not phone home. All processing — cost calculations, encryption, plugin scanning, renewal reminders — happens entirely on your own WordPress site. The “Plugin Auto-Detection” feature reads your locally installed plugins via the standard get_plugins() WordPress function and uses the existing update_plugins site transient that WordPress core already maintains; it sends nothing externally.

GPL Compliance and Free Functionality

Royal Ledger is licensed under GPLv2 or later, and every feature is fully unlocked for every user on activation. There is no free-vs-premium split, no feature gated behind a license key, no trial period, no usage quota, and no time limit. The plugin’s source code contains no calls to any license server and no conditional code paths that disable functionality based on payment, registration, or activation status.