Activation turns a purchased theme into a working Pro install. It takes about a minute when it goes well. This page walks the whole flow and covers every point where it can stop, because that is where most people arrive here from.
#Before you start
The purchase is complete
The confirmation email arrived
The files are downloaded
The theme is installed and activated in WordPress
Activation is a sign in, not a key you paste.
There is no field where you type a license key by hand. You authorize it in a window that talks to our server, and the result is written to your account, so you can always see which license sits on which domain.
A theme that asks you to paste a purchase code into a text field records none of that, and cannot tell a real code from a copied one.
#Two ways in
Both lead to the same window.
- The onboarding banner
Appears in the admin right after you activate the theme, with an Activate License button on it. The shortest route.
- The theme dashboard
Open the theme menu in the WordPress sidebar and go to the License tab. The same process, available whenever you want it.
#Get your browser ready first
Activation opens a separate browser window. Before you click:
- Allow popups for your site, or accept the window when the browser asks
- Check extensions that block third-party windows and scripts
- Use a current browser. All the common ones work
Almost always a popup blocker. If nothing at all happens when you click, it is rarely an activation error. Allow the window and click again.
#The flow
Click Activate License
A separate window opens with two choices.
Choose how to sign in
Activate via Hub is the main route and the one to use unless you have a reason not to. It covers every purchase we sell directly, and it works for Envato buyers too. Sign in with email, Google, GitHub or Envato, or register first if you have not yet. Your license then lives in an account you can open any time, which is where you deactivate a domain, add activations, buy support, download updates and file a ticket.
Activate via Envato exists for purchases made on Envato or ThemeForest, and it is a shortcut rather than the main door. You sign in to Envato and we verify the purchase code through the Envato API. The license still lands in a Hub account, because a license has to belong to somebody, and if you already have one under that address it lands in yours rather than in a new one.
Pick your license
After signing in you see your licenses for this item. A free one can be selected. One already in use shows the domain it sits on and cannot be selected. A blocked one can be selected but will refuse to activate, with a warning explaining why.
Accept the terms
The agreement checkbox is required, and the activation button stays disabled until you tick it. That is not a bug.
Read the terms and conditions and the refund policy before you tick it. Activation is use of the license. Once a key is live on a domain, a refund request goes through extra verification instead of being processed on request, so know where you stand while the decision is still free.
Activate
A short wait, then a success screen. The window closes itself after a couple of seconds and the admin reloads. Your license is now active on this domain.
The domain is detected from your site address. You never type it in.
The two buttons are not interchangeable.
The Envato button verifies the selected code through the Envato API, so a direct purchase cannot be activated through it. Direct buyers use the Hub button. The reverse is not restricted: an Envato buyer can sign in to Hub, including with the same Envato account, and activate from there.
#After activation, the site keeps checking
The license re-verifies itself in the background on a schedule. That keeps your account and your site in agreement about which domain holds which key, and it cannot be switched off.
It depends on two things, both of them on your server:
- Outbound HTTPS has to keep working, not just once at activation. If the site cannot reach us, the license enters a 72-hour grace period and then stops being active. A firewall, a security plugin or a host that blocks outgoing connections is behind almost every "it worked and then deactivated itself" report.
- WP-Cron has to be running, because it triggers the check. A host that disables it and calls
wp-cron.phpfrom a real server cron is fine; a site where nothing calls it at all never re-checks and never recovers on its own.
#Staging and test sites
Every license carries one free staging slot on top of the domains you paid for, so you can try an upgrade somewhere before it reaches your readers. You claim it with a checkbox during activation, and the site has to qualify.
A staging site, for this purpose, is one the public cannot reach. That is the whole test, and it is checked rather than taken on trust:
- A reserved address that cannot exist publicly:
.test,.localhost,.local,.internal,.invalid,.example, or a local IP - A staging hostname your host issues and you cannot mint yourself, such as WP Engine, Kinsta, Flywheel, Pantheon, Cloudways, InstaWP, WPMU DEV, Lando or DDEV
- A domain that does not resolve on the public internet, or resolves to a private address
- A site behind a password, meaning it answers 401, 403 or 407
A name is not evidence. staging.example.com on a public server that anyone can open is a live site with a suggestive label, and it is treated as one. A noindex tag is not evidence either, because every pre-launch site sets noindex. Noindex counts only when the hostname also announces the environment.
The free slot is for a site you are working on, not for a second live site that happens to be quiet.
An internal site, a client preview you keep online, a maintenance copy, a members-only build: all of those are live sites, and each of them needs a paid slot. Staging domains are re-checked weekly. A domain that has gone live is flagged on our side rather than cut off, and the theme keeps working, but the slot is not a free extra domain and using it as one is a terms violation.
#When it does not work
Organized by where you got stuck, because that is what you know.
#The window did not open
A popup blocker, an extension that blocks third-party windows, or a browser mode that forbids them. Allow the window and click again.
#The window opened blank or showed a network error
Your server or network is not letting the request through to Hub. Check the connectivity result on the theme diagnostics screen.
We do not serve Russia or Belarus.
We are a Ukrainian studio. Russia is running a war of terror against our country and Belarus is helping it, so neither is a market we sell to. This is about the customer, not only about the server: a Russian or Belarusian customer is refused wherever the site is hosted, and hosting in those countries is refused at our infrastructure level on top of that. Activation does not complete, updates do not arrive, and tickets are not answered. There is no appeal to write to, and the terms say the same thing in full.
#It says there have been too many attempts
The activation pages are rate limited, and clicking repeatedly triggers it. Wait a minute and try again. Nothing is broken and nothing is blocked.
#Sign in does not go through
Usually the wrong account, a session that expired while you were filling in the form, or a browser already signed in as somebody else. Close the window, sign out of the other account, and start again.
#The license list is empty
You signed in with an account that does not hold this purchase. Almost always a second email address. Check which address received the purchase email and sign in with that one.
#The license is already in use on another domain
The most common case of all. Free it on the site where it currently sits, using the deactivate button in that site's admin. If you no longer have access to the old site, remove the activation from your customer hub instead.
#The license is blocked or refunded
A refunded purchase or a license blocked for a terms violation will not activate. If you believe that is a mistake, send a support request.
#You have run out of activations
Every slot on the license is in use. Free one from a site you no longer run, or add capacity: activations are sold in your customer hub and land on the key you already own, with nothing to reinstall. See buying more activations.
#The code belongs to a different product
This happens to people who own several of our items. Check which item the license belongs to in your account.
#The window closed but the license is not active
Reload the admin page first. Then check that the domain in your account matches the site you are on. Then clear your object cache and page cache. If none of that helps, send a support request and say which of these you already tried.
#It activated on the wrong domain
Normally this cannot happen by accident. We normalize what the site reports, so a www prefix, a trailing slash, a port, an uppercase host and the query strings that translation plugins add to a URL all come back to the same site. www.example.com and example.com share one slot, and a site running WPML or Polylang does not use up a second slot on its own language paths.
If the domain in your account is a different site from the one you are on, deactivate and activate again from the address WordPress itself is set to, under SettingsGeneral. If it still does not match, send a support request with both addresses.
If none of these match, send a support request. The activation system rarely produces a case we have not seen, so an unusual one is worth reporting.
Include these in the request: your domain, the item name, the screen you stopped on, the exact wording of the message, and the diagnostics report showing the Hub connection.
#What activation sends us
You agree to this at the checkbox, so here it is.
When you activate, we receive the site domain, so the activation can be bound to it. We receive the IP address of the request, as protection against abuse. We receive your name and email from the account you sign in with, so the license can be shown as yours. Nothing about your content, your visitors or your database is involved.
Activating means accepting the terms of use and the privacy policy.
One license covers the number of domains you paid for. If you need another one, buy the extra activation in your customer hub and it lands on the same key. That is cheaper than any workaround, and it leaves nothing to fix later.
#Nulled themes and tampered activations
Running the Pro build without a paid slot is forbidden, whether that is a nulled copy, a patched activation, or anything else that fakes one. Activation runs against our server, so it leaves a trail, and where we find it the license is blocked and the account is frozen. The terms set out what else follows.
Our free themes stay free: run them on as many sites as you like, with nobody counting. Everything sold as Pro needs a license behind it.
#Common questions
Do I need a Hub account if I bought on Envato?
Yes. The license has to belong to an account, and there are two ways to have one.
You can register with the address you used on Envato, before or after buying, and the license attaches to that account. Or you can sign in with Envato in the activation window, and the license lands in the account under that address, created then if there is none yet. If you already have an account, sign in with it.
Either way it is one account, and it is where your licenses, remote deactivation, downloads and support live.
What permissions does the Envato sign in ask for?
Your email address and confirmation that you bought this specific item. Nothing else in your Envato account is accessible to us.
Does the theme keep working if the license is not active?
The public part of the theme still renders, and the Pro features stop along with updates. That is the technical answer.
The legal one matters more: running a paid theme on a live domain without an active license is not allowed. Activate the license, or take the theme off that domain.
My site was active and deactivated itself a few days later
Almost always a blocked outbound connection rather than anything about the license itself. The background check enters a 72-hour grace period when it cannot reach us, so the site looks fine for days and then stops.
Check outbound HTTPS on the diagnostics screen first, then a security plugin or a host firewall. Also confirm WP-Cron runs, because a check that never fires cannot succeed either.
Can I activate on a staging site?
Yes. Every license includes one free staging slot alongside the domains you paid for. You claim it with a checkbox during activation, and the site has to be one the public cannot reach. The staging section above lists what qualifies.
Does the staging slot use up a paid activation?
No. It sits outside the paid allowance, so a one-domain license runs one live site plus one staging site.
It is one staging slot per license, not one per paid domain. If you need several test environments at once, they need slots of their own.
#Still stuck
Open a support ticket and say what you tried and where it stopped. Your product, your domain, a screenshot and the exact message you saw are usually enough to settle it in one reply.
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