Our Honest Experience with Polylang — and Why We Feel Deeply Disappointed

We feel extremely alienated by the company’s business practices. We used the free Polylang plugin and manually translated numerous pages, investing a great deal of time and effort. Later, we wanted to automatically translate additional pages, translate the menu, duplicate pages, manage SEO — simply the features that the Pro version was supposed to provide.

So we purchased the Pro plugin. After installation, however, we discovered that the Pro features are not compatible with the Breakdance Builder editor we use. There is no mention anywhere on the company’s website that Polylang does not work with third-party editors like Breakdance. As a result, the Pro plugin is completely useless for us, and we requested a refund and cancellation. The Pro plugin has since been uninstalled.

We were told that a refund would only be possible if we also stopped using the free standard version. Even after several rounds of back-and-forth communication, Polylang insists on this condition — citing flimsy arguments such as being a small company and suggesting that if we don’t like Polylang, we should delete it entirely.

There is a total lack of understanding that the incompatibility with Breakdance is not our fault as customers. Instead, they seem offended and are essentially trying to force us to pay for the Pro version just to be allowed to keep using the free one. We have never experienced anything like this before.

We will continue to use the free version, as we have already translated a lot of content with it. The Pro version has been paid for but deleted, as it is unusable with Breakdance. We hope our payment helps them get through the next month — or whatever else it may be. 🙁

PS: We could have simply uninstalled the free plugin, requested the refund, and then reinstalled it afterward. But unlike them, we’re an honest company — even though we’re also small and have a limited budget.