What is a staging site?
Staging sites allow you to work on, experiment with, and perfect your site before taking it live.
Normally, you need an Elementor Pro license activation for every WordPress installation, regardless of whether it is a live site, development site, sub-domain, sub-directory, etc. However, in order to help creators work with staging sites, there are a number of staging and development domains that do not count towards your license activations.
What domains can be used?
Following is a list of staging/development sites that won’t count towards your license activations – just replace “example” with your site name. Keep in mind that the domain name must match one of the following formats in order for it not to count as an activation.
TLD (Top-level Domains) that are not considered as an activation:
- .dev (example.dev)
- .local (example.local)
- .test (example.test)
- .staging (example.staging)
- .example (example.example)
- .invalid (example.invalid)
- .lh (example.lh)
Subdomains that are not considered an activation:
- dev.* (dev.example.com). This can also be implemented as:
- exampledev.* (exampledev.example.com)
- local.* (local.example.com)
- test.* (test.example.com). This can also be implemented as:
- *.test.* (example.test.example.com)
- staging.* (staging.example.com). This can also be implemented as:
- *.staging.* (example.staging.example.com)
- staging[0-9].* (staging6.example.com). This can also be implemented as:
- *.staging[0-9].*(example.staging6.example.com)
- stage.* (stage.example.com). This can also be implemented as:
- *.stage.* (example.stage.example.com)
There are also specific hosting companies or other web services with domains that do not count toward license activation.
WP Engine staging sites
- *stg.wpengine.com (examplestg.wpengine.com)
- *dev.wpengine.com (exampledev.wpengine.com)
- *stg.wpenginepowered.com (examplestg.wpenginepowered.com)
- *dev.wpenginepowered.com (exampledev.wpenginepowered.com)
Pantheon staging sites
- dev-*.pantheonsite.io (dev-example.patheonsite.io)
- test-*.pantheonsite.io (test-example.pantheonsite.io)
- autopilot-(.*)\.pantheonsite\.io (autopilot-example.pantheonsite.io)
Kinsta staging sites
- staging-*.kinsta.com (staging-example.kinsta.com)
- staging-*.kinsta.cloud (staging-example.kinsta.cloud)
- stg-.*\.kinsta\.cloud/ (stg-example.kinsta.cloud)
- staging-.*\.kinsta\.cloud/ (staging-example.kinsta.cloud)
- staging-.*-staging\.kinsta\.cloud/ (staging-example-staging.kinsta.cloud)
- staging-.*\.kinsta\.com/ (staging-example.kinsta.com)
- env-(.*)premium\.kinsta\.cloud/ (env-example-premium.kinsta.cloud)
- env-(.*)premium[0-9]\.kinsta\.cloud/ (env-example-exapremium.kinsta.cloud)
WordPress.com staging sites
- staging-[a-z0-9]+-.*.wpcomstaging.com (staging-example.wpcomstaging.com)
DreamHost staging sites
- *.stage.site (example.stage.site)
- *.dream.press (example.dream.press)
GoDaddy staging sites
- *.c*.store.godaddy.com
Pagely staging sites
- *.pressdns.com (example.pressdns.com)
- *.sites.pressdns.com (example.sites.pressdns.com)
- *.sites.se.pressdns.com (example.sites.se.pressdns.com)
Other staging sites
- *.myftpupload.com (example.myftpupload.com)
- *.*.myftpupload.com (example.example.myftpupload.com)
- *.cloudwaysapps.com (example.cloudwaysapps.com)
- *.ngrok.io (example.ngrok.io)
- *-dev.ksysweb.com (example-dev.ksysweb.com)
- *-stg.ksysweb.com (example-stg.ksysweb.com)
- *.mystagingwebsite.com (example.mystagingwebsite.com)
- /ec2-\d{1,3}-\d{1,3}-\d{1,3}-\d{1,3}(\.[a-z0-9-]+)*\.compute(-1)?\.amazonaws\.com (/ec2-18-246-17-224.us-west-2.compute.amazonaws.com/wordpress)
- *.flywheelstaging.com (example.flywheelstaging.com)
- *.*.mwp.accessdomain.com (example.example.accessdomain.com)
If the domain name you’re using for staging/development does not meet the above requirements, you will need to purchase an additional license (or upgrade to a higher tier plan) in order to activate Elementor Pro on it.
You can also remove the license from your main site, activate it on your staging/development site, and then return it back to the main site once you’re done with the changes.
For more details see, Can I transfer the Elementor Pro license key from one domain to another? | Elementor
If you still need help, please contact our Support Center.
To get the most out of Elementor, check out the Elementor Academy for helpful learning resources.
