Frequently asked questions

Pricing and licensing

How much does the plugin cost?

There are three tiers, all billed once a year:

• Personal, R349 / year, covers 1 site
• Business, R899 / year, covers 5 sites
• Agency, R2,399 / year, covers 25 sites

For larger footprints (hosting companies, theme bundlers, multi-brand groups), contact us at sales@kasicode.com for a Bundler quote.

Full pricing detail is on the plugin page on kasicode.com.

What counts as a site?

One activation on one WordPress install. A staging site and a live site are two activations. A multisite network counts each sub-site as one activation. If you deactivate the plugin on a site, that activation slot is freed for use elsewhere.

What happens if my license expires?

Your license entitles you to the plugin and its updates for one year. At renewal time you’ll get a reminder from your KasiCode account. See the Terms of Service for the full licensing detail.

Can I try before I buy?

We don’t offer a free tier or lite version. Pricing starts at R349/year on the Personal tier, small enough to try on a real store.

Google API key and billing

Do I have to pay Google?

You do, in theory. In practice, Google gives every new Cloud account a monthly free credit (currently around R3,700 in Maps Platform usage). Most single SA stores use a few rand a month at most, well inside the free credit.

You pay Google directly for anything above the free credit. We don’t bill you for API usage, don’t mark it up, don’t proxy requests through our servers.

Why don’t you just bundle a shared API key?

A shared key would mean we pay for every customer’s Google usage. That cost would get baked into the plugin price, meaning a store processing 50 orders a month subsidises a store processing 5,000. Bring-your-own keeps pricing flat and predictable, you pay for what you use.

It also means you own the relationship with Google. Your keys, your restrictions, your quotas, your data.

Can I use a key I already have for a different plugin?

Yes, as long as that key has both Places API (New) and Maps JavaScript API enabled, and your shop’s domain is in the HTTP referrer restrictions. Check the Google Places API Key guide for the exact restrictions.

I’m worried about unexpected Google charges, can I cap usage?

Yes. In Google Cloud Console → APIs & Services → Quotas, set a hard daily cap on the Places API (New). A 1,000-request daily cap is plenty for most single stores and keeps Google charges to a few rand at most, even if something goes wrong.

South Africa specifics

Will this work for my international customers?

The plugin is deliberately locked to South Africa. The autocomplete only suggests SA addresses, and the Suburb-required enforcement only applies when the customer selects South Africa as their country.

If a customer picks a different country at checkout, they get WooCommerce’s standard address experience, no autocomplete, suburb-as-optional. Everything else works normally.

Does it cover townships and informal areas?

Google’s coverage is good for formal addresses across all SA provinces. Township and informal settlement coverage is patchier, Google may not have a street name, or may return “suburb” fields that don’t match what locals call the area.

The plugin handles this gracefully. If Google doesn’t have a clean suburb for the address, the Suburb field stays empty, the customer can type it themselves, and the Suburb-required check ensures they do. Nothing breaks.

Does it work with SA shipping plugins?

Yes, the plugin only writes to the standard WooCommerce address fields (street, suburb via Address Line 2, city, province, postcode). Any shipping plugin that reads those fields (which is all of them) sees clean, Google-standardised values.

If your shipping rules are built around exact suburb spelling, double-check that Google’s spelling for the suburbs you ship to matches your rules. The Troubleshooting guide has more on this.

Post-install questions

I entered my license but the status stays “Inactive”

Double-check you used the exact email you purchased with (no typos, same capitalisation). The license key should be copy-pasted from your KasiCode welcome email to avoid manual-typing mistakes. If it still won’t activate, email support@kasicode.com with your order number.

Do I need to turn the plugin off when I’m doing site maintenance?

No. Deactivating the plugin does free up a license activation slot, but there’s no need to deactivate during updates or maintenance work. Your license data and Google key are preserved across deactivation and reactivation.

If you uninstall the plugin (not just deactivate), all settings including your license and Google key are wiped. You’ll need to re-enter them when you reinstall.

Can I run this plugin and another address plugin at the same time?

Technically yes, there’s no code conflict. In practice, two address plugins fighting over the same checkout fields is a support-ticket waiting to happen. Pick one.

How do I update the plugin?

Updates arrive through WordPress’s normal update system as long as your license is active. You’ll see “Update available” in Plugins → Installed Plugins, click it, done.

If you prefer to review what’s changed first, check the Changelog before each update.