Directorist 2025: A Year of Strengthening the Foundation

If 2025 for technology-focused companies could be explained in a single word, it would likely be the shortest acronym possible – AI.

Wherever you looked, products were being labeled “AI-powered,” “AI-driven,” or “AI-based.” Existing tools were suddenly “supercharged with AI,” and new solutions emerged almost daily, promising faster, smarter, and more automated outcomes.

However, Directorist review of 2025 shows that it followed a slightly different path. While we introduced our AI-powered builder toward the end of 2024 with the release of our much-discussed v8 update, we deliberately chose not to make AI the sole focus of 2025. Instead, our attention shifted to something far less flashy but far more important: stability.

The reason was simple.

By the end of 2024, Directorist had grown into one of the most widely used WordPress directory plugins. With that growth came responsibility. Rather than prioritizing rapid feature expansion, we focused on what our existing users needed most – strengthening the core, improving reliability, and ensuring the product could scale confidently with real-world businesses.

For us, the theme of 2025 can be summarized in three words: focus over noise.

More details below.

2025 in Context: Choosing Focus Over Noise

Directory websites are no longer side projects or experimental builds. For a growing number of people, they are real businesses – local service hubs, classified platforms, niche marketplaces, and community-driven ecosystems that depend on reliability every single day. That shift in how directories are used fundamentally shaped our priorities in 2025.

Instead of redefining what Directorist is, we concentrated on making it more dependable, more usable, and more scalable in real-world conditions. This meant refining core behaviors, strengthening existing workflows, and ensuring that the plugin performs consistently as directories grow in size, traffic, and complexity.

The objective was straightforward – to ensure Directorist remains a long-term solution that business owners can confidently build on; not just a powerful WordPress directory plugin filled with features. In a year dominated by hype and rapid experimentation, we chose discipline, responsibility and focused over noise.

Directorist Growth at a Glance in 2025

Directorist has grown throughout the year in terms of number of users, revenue, reviews and social media traction. We didn’t quite excel in a few metrics such as website traffic and impressions but that didn’t massively impact any other output. Below are the details.

A Community Milestone We’d Been Working Toward for Years

In 2025, Directorist crossed an important milestone: 20,000+ active installs making it the first WordPress directory plugin to achieve this feat.

This wasn’t something we achieved overnight, nor was it the result of a single year’s effort. We had been building toward this moment for a long time but 2025 was the year we finally passed it. The next milestone is already in sight: 30,000, and we’re aiming to reach it in 2026.

More than the number itself, what mattered to us was how we got there through steady adoption, word of mouth, and long-term users continuing to build with Directorist.

Steady Revenue Growth in a Volatile Year

Revenue-wise, 2025 was not a year of dramatic spikes but it was steady.

We closed the year with an overall YoY growth which we don’t consider extraordinary but context matters. The WordPress ecosystem faced heavy disruption from the AI bubble, “vibe-coding” trends, and a wave of short-lived tools promising instant results.

Against that backdrop, maintaining consistent month-over-month growth especially after the roller-coaster patterns of previous years was a positive and stabilizing outcome for us. It signaled resilience, not stagnation.

Trust Signals That Continued to Strengthen

Community trust continued to grow steadily. In 2025, Directorist reviews on the WordPress repository edged close to 700 total reviews, with nearly 600 five-star ratings, maintaining an average rating of 4.7.

For us, this mattered far more than raw numbers. Reviews reflect lived experiences, support interactions, real use cases, and long-term satisfaction and they remain one of the strongest indicators of product health.

Growth Through Video & Education

One of the most encouraging developments in 2025 came from video marketing. Our YouTube channel saw:

• The highest views we’ve had so far
• The most consistent publishing schedule
• A noticeable improvement in production quality

Users responded especially well to how-to videos and step-by-step tutorials, reinforcing our belief that education is the key to user success, not features. This momentum led us to conceptualize Directorist Academy toward the end of the year – an initiative focused on structured learning and deeper guidance. That journey will continue in 2026.

Traffic Realities in a Changing SEO Landscape

Not every metric moved upward. Compared to previous years, we did see a decline in organic traffic. This wasn’t entirely unexpected. The overuse of AI-generated content, shifting search behaviors, and a broader decline in SEO discipline across the web have affected many established products, not just Directorist.

Rather than chasing short-term traffic hacks, we chose to stay aligned with sustainable content and product-led growth.

A Lean Team, Consistent Output

From a team perspective, Directorist did not grow larger in 2025. Over the course of the year, the team shrinked, with a few familiar faces moving on. During this transition, the remaining team members stepped up by sharing responsibility, taking greater ownership, and distributing additional workload to ensure that commitments were met and delivery timelines remained intact.

This collective effort allowed us to maintain consistency in development, support, and overall execution, reinforcing a culture of accountability rather than dependence on headcount growth.

Product & Development: What We Built in 2025

The Product & Development team approached 2025 with a clear goal: strengthen what already works while carefully expanding capabilities where it matters most. Through a combination of core enhancements, new extensions, and improvements to existing premium add-ons, the team balanced stabilization with purposeful growth. Here’s a breakdown of that work across the year.

Enhancing the Core Plugin

Throughout 2025, our primary focus was strengthening the Directorist core. Instead of adding surface-level features, we prioritized stability, performance, and usability.

• Fixing long-standing edge cases across search, taxonomies, and forms
• Refining the Directorist builder for smoother listing form creation
• Implementing REST API V2
• Integrations with FormGent for creating more tailored form

Releasing and Improving Extensions

2025 brought several new Directorist extensions as well as massive improvements of a few existing ones:

New Released Extensions

We released 4 new extensions to give users powerful options to enhance their directory websites.

1. Search Alert
2. Universal Search
3. Advanced Review
4. Directorist Analytics

We maintained a strict roadmap and released them over different quarters.

Improved Extensions

Among improved extensions: noteworthy are Business Hours and Booking. Both these extensions were completely revamped with even richer features such as: Google Calendar Integration (Booking) and dynamic business hours display across various locations.

We also announced the development of the Directorist AI Pro – personal AI directory website builder to our users and included it exclusively for our BFCM Lifetime plan customers.

Education & Promotion: Telling the Directorist Story in 2025

Throughout 2025, we ran multiple seasonal and milestone-based campaigns – including New Year, Ramadan, Labour Day, Summer, Independence Day, Black Friday & Cyber Monday, and Year-End deals. Together, these initiatives helped us onboard 3,500+ new premium plan purchasers. Here’s a glance of some of our promotional activities in 2025.

Visibility Through Value-Led Content

We published 81 in-depth blog articles focused on practical, value-oriented topics.

These efforts resulted in:

• 8.03M Google impressions
• 124K organic clicks

On social media, we shared 156 unique posts (images, links, and videos), generating 4M impressions across platforms.

Education via Video

Education remained a key focus:

• 41 long-form videos and 63 short videos published
• 100K+ total views
• 872K impressions on YouTube

We also embed them within relevant documentations to bring all learning and guiding materials in one place.

Email & Lifecycle Communication

To keep users informed, we sent 572K emails during the year – primarily product updates, release notes, and educational content, with limited promotional messaging.

We also introduced automated email sequences to deliver timely resources and guidance.

Affiliate & Partner-Led Growth

Affiliate marketing remained one of our strongest channels, generating 537 referral sales and contributing meaningfully to annual revenue growth. We also collaborated with creators and publications including WP Eagle, SaaS Master, WPLTDs, The WP Weekly, and InfluenceWP.

On the partnership side, we collaborated with other WordPress product companies for cross-promotion. Some of those notable companies are: Barn2 plugin, Elegant Themes, WPXPO, Bit Apps, DotCamp, WPExperts, Motif Creative, weDevs, WPPOOL, Themexpert, BDthemes, and WPMet.

Recognitions & Nominations

In 2025, Directorist received recognition from within the broader software and WordPress ecosystem.

• Directorist was nominated for “Most Dynamic Plugin” by The WP Weekly and TemplateMonster – even though we missed securing the top position.
• SoftwareSuggest awarded Directorist “Best Support” in 2025, acknowledging our continued investment in customer support.

These acknowledgements reinforced our focus on long-term quality, user trust, and operational maturity.

Customer Experience & Support: Building Trust at Scale in 2025

Customer experience remained a core priority throughout 2025, especially as Directorist continued to grow in scale and complexity.

Support at Scale, Without Compromising Quality

We offered round-the-clock live chat support for instant assistance, alongside priority support for premium users. Over the year, the team:

• Served 8,000+ customers through support tickets
• Replied to 10,000+ support emails
• Maintained 80%+ customer satisfaction across interactions

Rather than focusing solely on response speed, our approach emphasized clarity, accountability, and practical solutions.

Community Trust & Public Validation

Trust signals continued to strengthen beyond direct support. In 2025, our WordPress.org plugin page received 35+ new five-star reviews, further reinforcing credibility and user confidence.

We also expanded our Client Showcase by adding around 80 real directory websites built with Directorist. This helped illustrate the breadth of use cases possible – from local services to niche marketplaces, making the product’s potential more tangible for prospective users.

Helping Users Make Informed Decisions

Support extended beyond tickets and emails. Throughout the year, we actively engaged with directory website owners and enthusiasts across Facebook groups, Reddit, and other public forums, helping users ask the right questions and make educated decisions. This open engagement reflected our belief that long-term trust is built through transparency, not pressure.

Team, Community & Contribution: Building Beyond the Product in 2025

In 2025, we said goodbye to some core and highly valued members of the Directorist team whose contributions helped shape the product. Despite these transitions, momentum remained steady.

The team adapted by sharing ownership and adopting AI-assisted workflows across development, product planning, documentation, and support – helping manage increased workload without compromising quality. Team members also participated in skill-building workshops, including sessions on using AI effectively to improve productivity and accelerate growth.

The team behind Directorist, SovWare, proudly served as Platinum Sponsor of WordCamp Dhaka 2025 and participated in several WordPress meetups, strengthening ties with the community and sharing knowledge. During Black Friday, we gave FormGent Pro to selected Directorist users as a gift, showing our appreciation and commitment to growing with our community.

What We Didn’t Do in 2025

Our Directorist review of 2025 revealed that, everything didn’t go according to plan. There are areas where we need to focus on in 2026:

1. Pricing Plan Revamp: Originally planned for 2025, this update was delayed. We are fully committed to delivering it early in 2026.
2. Divi Integration: While not a formal commitment, we worked hard to introduce full Directorist compatibility with Divi. Work will continue in 2026.
3. Directorist AI Pro: Our AI-powered Pro tools didn’t reach the level we aimed for, so the release was postponed and is now scheduled for 2026.

These lessons reinforce our focus on delivering quality, reliable updates rather than rushing features for the sake of timelines.

Looking Ahead: What’s Next for 2026

2026 will be a year of refinement, growth, and new possibilities. We’ll continue enhancing Directorist across core stability, extensions, themes, and integrations.

Check out our roadmap for quick updates on what’s coming, including our Pricing Plan revamp, Divi integration, and Directorist AI Pro release. We remain committed to building tools that empower directory website owners, support our community, and deliver value every step of the way.

Final Word

2026 is not about hype or overpromising. It’s about solid execution and measurable outcomes. We’ll only commit to what we can confidently deliver.

Our customers come first – always. That’s why we’ve actively collected real user feedback and shaping our next steps around what you truly need and deserve. Directorist will continue to be built around real user needs, real use cases, and real business growth.

Everything else comes next.