Progress Planner
Progress Planner is a free WordPress plugin by Emilia Projects BV that delivers personalized, gamified website maintenance tasks to non-technical SMB website owners, with a €99–149/year Pro tier for expert-led challenges and courses.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2024
- HeadquartersWijchen, Netherlands
- Headcount1–10
- GTM typeB2C
- OfferingSoftware
What Progress Planner does
Progress Planner is a WordPress plugin product built and operated by Emilia Projects BV, a private Dutch company headquartered in Wijchen, Netherlands. The core offering is a free WordPress.org plugin that delivers personalized, expert-curated website maintenance tasks to non-technical website owners, presented through a gamified dashboard with a mascot named Ravi, weekly task checklists, badge/streak mechanics, and integration with major WordPress SEO plugins (Yoast SEO since April 2025, All-in-One SEO since October 2025).
The product is built on standard WordPress/PHP architecture under GPL licensing, with a companion plugin ecosystem (AAA Option Optimizer, Brand Assets, Comment Experience, Comment-free Zone, Fewer Tags, Glossary, XML Sitemap for PDFs for Yoast SEO) and shipping cadence of roughly monthly major releases throughout 2025. Underlying technology leverages modern web APIs in companion plugins (HTML Popover API, CSS Anchor positioning).
Monetization is a freemium + annual subscription model: the core plugin is free, and a Pro tier priced at €99/year (early bird) or €149/year (standard) unlocks interactive challenges, expert-led workshops, personalized site analysis, and in-context mini courses. The product-led growth motion is reinforced by an extensive content marketing engine, a YouTube-based 'Site Spotlight' free website review series, and broad social presence across Instagram, Facebook, Threads, LinkedIn, X, Bluesky, and YouTube. In June 2026, Progress Planner joined Your.Online, a European hosting group, with founders Joost de Valk (Yoast SEO creator) and Marieke van de Rakt assuming group-level leadership roles (Group Head of AI & Growth and Group Head of Brand & Community, respectively).
Progress Planner firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- Progress Planner
- Legal name
- Emilia Projects BV
- Website
- https://progressplanner.com
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2024
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 1–10 employees
- Short description
- Progress Planner is a free WordPress plugin by Emilia Projects BV that delivers personalized, gamified website maintenance tasks to non-technical SMB website owners, with a €99–149/year Pro tier for expert-led challenges and courses.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
Progress Planner industry classification
Industry- Product category
- WordPress Website Maintenance Software
- NAICS
- Business Schools and Computer and Management Training (6114), Professional and Management Development Training (611430)
- SIC
- Services-Prepackaged Software (7372)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Competency/Skills Analytics & Learning Progression Mapping (EDAFAFAF)
Keywords
Where Progress Planner is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- Wijchen
- HQ country
- Netherlands
- HQ region
- Europe
Offices1 record
Markets served
Progress Planner business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2C
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Personnel, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Operations
Revenue model
- Freemium WordPress Plugin: The core Progress Planner plugin is free to install and use on WordPress.org. It provides a limited set of recommendations, task tracking, and badge features at no cost. This drives broad organic adoption within the WordPress ecosystem.
- Progress Planner Pro Subscription: A paid annual subscription (€99 early bird / €149 regular) that unlocks exclusive Pro features: personalized site analysis for broken links, step-by-step challenges with video tutorials and reading materials, live interactive workshops with experts (Taco Verdonschot and Joost de Valk), and in-context mini courses for website page optimization. The Pro membership is required for course content access.
- Companion Plugin Ecosystem: Additional plugins sold or distributed by the same team: AAA Option Optimizer (now with bulk editing for unused autoloaded options), Brand Assets, Comment Experience, Comment-free Zone, Fewer Tags, and Glossary. Some of these may have paid tiers or Pro versions.
- GPL-Licensed Software Support & Updates: Per the Terms of Service, support services and software updates are provided by Emilia Projects BV to paid subscribers. Support is delivered mainly via email, with updates available for active subscriptions only. The software itself is GPL-licensed, meaning the codebase is open source while support and updates are commercial.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Freemium | Others | Progress Planner Free — Core WordPress plugin |
| Subscription | Annual | Progress Planner Pro — Early Bird |
| Subscription | Annual | Progress Planner Pro — Standard |
Go-to-market motion1 record
Distribution channels5 records
Marketing channels12 records
Progress Planner product offering
Product offeringCore offering
Progress Planner is a free WordPress plugin that gives website owners clear, practical, expert-curated tasks to optimize their websites without requiring technical knowledge. It provides personalized recommendations, a weekly task checklist with a 'golden task' priority, gamified badges/streaks/points, and a single dashboard consolidating all tasks. A premium Progress Planner Pro subscription (€99/year early bird or €149/year) adds interactive challenges with personalized site analysis (broken links), step-by-step video tutorials, live expert workshops, and in-context mini courses for website optimization.
Product overview
Progress Planner is a WordPress website optimization platform consisting of a core plugin (Progress Planner) and multiple add-on plugins. The core product is a free WordPress plugin providing personalized recommendations, task checklists, gamification, and progress tracking. Premium tier (Progress Planner Pro) adds interactive challenges, expert courses, and personalized site analysis. Additional plugins include AAA Option Optimizer (performance optimization), Brand Assets (brand file management), Comment Experience/Comment-free Zone (comment management), Fewer Tags (tag management), Glossary (term definitions), and XML Sitemap for PDFs for Yoast SEO (sitemap generation). The platform integrates with Yoast SEO and All in One SEO for comprehensive website optimization.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Brands
- Progress Planner Pro: Premium version of the WordPress plugin offering exclusive challenges, expert guidance, in-context courses, and advanced website optimization features at €99/year.
- Ravi
- Site Spotlight
Products and services
- Progress Planner Free WordPress plugin that delivers personalized, expert-curated website improvement tasks, weekly task checklist with 'golden task' priority, to-do list, gamified badges/streaks/points, and a unified dashboard. Targets non-technical WordPress site owners who want to optimize their websites without coding knowledge.
- Progress Planner Pro Premium annual subscription tier that adds interactive Pro challenges (broken links), personalized site analysis, step-by-step video tutorials, live expert workshops, and exclusive in-context mini courses on optimizing About/FAQ/product pages — all delivered inside the WordPress backend.
- AAA Option Optimizer WordPress add-on plugin that improves site performance by identifying and disabling unused autoloaded options; v1.4 added bulk editing to disable many at once.
- Brand Assets WordPress add-on plugin that creates and maintains a professional brand assets page on a website so visitors can find and download brand files.
- Comment Experience WordPress add-on plugin for managing and improving the comment experience on WordPress sites.
- Comment-free Zone WordPress add-on plugin that disables or restricts comments on specific pages or sections of a WordPress site.
- Fewer Tags WordPress add-on plugin that helps site owners manage and reduce tag usage to keep WordPress sites well-organized.
- Glossary WordPress add-on plugin that surfaces inline tooltips with definitions for technical terms, using the HTML Popover API and CSS Anchor positioning for an accessible, standards-based presentation.
- XML Sitemap for PDFs for Yoast SEO WordPress add-on plugin that generates XML sitemaps specifically for PDF documents and integrates with Yoast SEO.
Quantifiable outcome
- Tasks completable in under 5 minutes each, enabling consistent progress without large time commitment
- +2 more outcomes
Companies that use Progress Planner
Customer profileSegments4 records
Ideal customer profiles3 records
Progress Planner technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- No
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Integration2 records
AI capability2 records
Feature11 records
Progress Planner partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
Five partnerships are on record, tiered flagship, core and minor.
- Your.OnlineflagshipProgress Planner announced it is joining Your.Online, a European hosting group with multiple local hosting brands. Joost de Valk joins as Group Head of AI & Growth and Marieke van de Rakt as Group Head of Brand & Community, working across all brands in the group. The partnership provides AI capabilities, European hosting infrastructure, and a much bigger growth plan behind Progress Planner.
- YoastcoreProgress Planner has a first-party integration with Yoast SEO, the world's most popular SEO plugin (created by Progress Planner founder Joost de Valk). The integration adds SEO-specific tasks to the Progress Planner dashboard, guiding users step-by-step through Yoast SEO configuration settings to improve search performance.
- All in One SEOcoreProgress Planner 1.9 introduced integration with All in One SEO, another major WordPress SEO plugin. This integration adds tasks to help users configure SEO settings and boost search performance directly within the Progress Planner dashboard.
- Emilia CapitalminorEmilia Capital is referenced as the copyright holder for hero images and branding elements. The Progress Planner plugin codebase is maintained under the Emilia-Capital GitHub organization.
- FAIR (Federated And Independent Repositories)minorFAIR is a decentralized, community-governed network for WordPress plugin and theme distribution, replacing dependence on a single WordPress.org hub with multiple independent repositories with cryptographic signatures and provenance metadata. Team member Joost de Valk participated in advancing FAIR at CloudFest Hackathon, where the project won recognition.
Scale indicators3 records
Recent moves7 records
Expansion highlights6 records
Progress Planner competitors and assessment
Company assessmentBroad incumbents
- Jetpack: Automattic's flagship WordPress plugin bundle covering performance, security, analytics, backups, and content tools. Represents a broad-incumbent overlap with Progress Planner's website optimization scope, though Jetpack is far broader and operates as part of Automattic's WordPress.com ecosystem.
- ManageWP: A broader WordPress site management dashboard for managing multiple WordPress sites, including maintenance, backups, security, and updates. Operates as an incumbent in WordPress site management—a category-level overlap with Progress Planner's maintenance positioning.
- WPForms: A leading WordPress form builder plugin from the same SaaS-to-WordPress-plugin business model playbook. Targets the same non-technical SMB WordPress audience and demonstrates the commercial ceiling achievable in the WordPress plugin space—a useful comparable for Progress Planner's monetization trajectory.
Direct peers
- WP Rocket: A premium WordPress performance/caching plugin sold on a similar freemium-to-paid SaaS model via the WordPress.org ecosystem. Targets the same non-technical SMB WordPress audience seeking easy performance wins—directly overlapping with Progress Planner's site speed and optimization positioning.
- Yoast: Founded by Progress Planner's own Joost de Valk, Yoast is the world's most popular WordPress SEO plugin with overlapping audience (SMB WordPress site owners), overlapping integrations, and overlapping content authority in the SEO/website optimization category.
- SEOPress: WordPress SEO plugin competing in the same category as Yoast, All in One SEO, and Rank Math. Targets SMB WordPress site owners with technical SEO, content analysis, and schema features—an adjacent competitor that Progress Planner could integrate with to expand coverage.
- All in One SEO: A direct competitor to Yoast in the WordPress SEO plugin category and a partner/integration of Progress Planner. Targets the same SMB WordPress site owner segment with SEO configuration guidance, and is one of the two SEO plugins Progress Planner natively integrates with.
- MainWP: An open-source WordPress site management dashboard for managing multiple sites from a single interface. Overlaps with Progress Planner on the maintenance and update-tracking workflow for non-technical WordPress site owners.
- Rank Math: A fast-growing WordPress SEO plugin competing directly with Yoast and All in One SEO. Targets the same WordPress SMB audience with SEO optimization features and is part of the same SEO tooling category that Progress Planner layers on top of.
Emerging players
- Tutor LMS: A WordPress LMS plugin that turns WordPress sites into learning platforms. Comparability is thematic (gamified learning progression, mini-courses within WordPress) rather than direct, but Tutor LMS operates in the same WordPress plugin economy and competes for the same end-user dashboard attention.
Market position
Strengths5 records
Weaknesses5 records
Competitive moat4 records
Key risks6 records
Key highlights7 records
Customer concentration
Progress Planner social profiles
Digital presenceProgress Planner financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
Progress Planner leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles6 records
Progress Planner funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds
Investors
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Progress Planner M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about Progress Planner
What does Progress Planner do?
Progress Planner is a free WordPress plugin that gives website owners clear, practical, expert-curated tasks to optimize their websites without requiring technical knowledge. It provides personalized recommendations, a weekly task checklist with a 'golden task' priority, gamified badges/streaks/points, and a single dashboard consolidating all tasks. A premium Progress Planner Pro subscription (€99/year early bird or €149/year) adds interactive challenges with personalized site analysis (broken links), step-by-step video tutorials, live expert workshops, and in-context mini courses for website optimization.
Is Progress Planner a public or private company?
Progress Planner is a private company. It is classified as corporate owned and is currently operating.
When was Progress Planner founded?
Progress Planner was founded in 2024. It employs 1 to 10 people.
Where is Progress Planner based?
Progress Planner is headquartered in Wijchen, Netherlands, in the Europe region.
How does Progress Planner make money?
Four revenue lines are on record. Freemium WordPress Plugin is the primary driver. The others are progress Planner Pro Subscription, companion Plugin Ecosystem and GPL-Licensed Software Support & Updates.
Who are Progress Planner's main competitors?
Broad incumbents on record are Jetpack, ManageWP and WPForms. Direct peers are WP Rocket, Yoast, SEOPress, All in One SEO, MainWP and Rank Math. Tutor LMS is listed as an emerging player.
Does Progress Planner have an API?
No public API is recorded for Progress Planner.
What industry is Progress Planner in?
Progress Planner's product category is WordPress Website Maintenance Software. Its primary akta.pro industry code is EDAFAFAF, Competency/Skills Analytics & Learning Progression Mapping. Its NAICS code is 6114 and its SIC code is 7372.