One of the most common questions we are asked by WordPress beginners is: “Why can’t I add plugins in WordPress?”. It usually follows up with how the user is seeing an upgrade message or that their admin area doesn’t have the plugins menu. If you’re encountering this issue, then you’re in the right place. In this article, we will explain why you cannot add or install plugins in WordPress.
1. You are On WordPress.com
WordPress.com is a blog hosting service that offers a limited version of the popular self-hosted WordPress software. See our guide on the difference between WordPress.com vs WordPress.org for more details.
WordPress.com users cannot install plugins unless they upgrade to the business plan which costs about $299 per year. If you are on a free, personal, or premium plan, then you cannot install third-party plugins.
If you don’t want to pay the $299 per year, then you can move your blog from WordPress.com to WordPress.org. If you need assistance in doing that, then use our free WordPress blog setup service (just make a note that you want us to transfer your site, and we will do it for free).
2. You are Facing Memory Limit Issue
The second most common scenario is that you can see and access the plugins menu but unable to install plugins.
The failure notice is usually caused by the PHP memory limit. There are settings in your WordPress hosting and inside your WordPress core that define the amount of memory a PHP script can use. When a process reaches this limit, it either gets terminated or it gives an error like this:
Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 67108864 bytes exhausted
The quick fix to this problem is increasing your PHP memory limit. You can do that by adding this line to your wp-config.php file:
define('WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '256M');
For more detailed instructions, see our guide on how to fix WordPress memory exhausted error.
3. User Role Restrictions
WordPress comes with a built-in user role management system. Sometimes web developers don’t give administrator access to their clients. Instead, they create an editor account for them.
Only administrators can install and activate plugins on a WordPress site. If you are the owner of the website, then you need to ask your developer to make sure that you have administrator permissions.
4. You are on a Multi Site Network
Another possible reason as to why you can’t see the plugins menu in WordPress could be that your site is part of a WordPress multi-site network, and the network admin has disabled the plugins menu item on network sites.
It is pretty much the same scenario as WordPress.com. The network admins need to consider the server stability, WordPress security, and load balancing issues. To solve this problem, you can ask your network administrator to install plugins for you.
For more on this topic, see our guide on why do you not see all plugins on WordPress multisite installs
We hope this article helped you learn why you can’t add or install plugins in WordPress. You may also want to see our list of must have WordPress plugins for your website.
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DaninMCI says
How ridiculous. I have several websites and I was going to create a new WordPress-based site that needed to use a comparison chart but I’m not willing to pay $300 a year for plugins. I’ll go elsewhere I guess.
WPBeginner Support says
As we say in that section, if you do not want to pay $300 per year, we would recommend using WordPress.org which is a WordPress site on another hosting provider
Admin
Richard Ross says
I have inserted the plugin name but it still prompts me the same error.
Error: The plugin has no name. Add a Plugin Name: line to your main plugin file and upload the plugin again. For more information, please review our documentation on Plugin Headers.
WPBeginner Support says
If the plugin is one you’re downloading from an external site you would want to reach out to the plugin’s support with that error message. If it is a custom plugin then you would want to ensure your plugin name is set as a comment in the header.
Admin
Pascal Idhiarhi says
Hi, I tried to add new plugin, and theme. But I am currently getting 403 Forbidden error. What can I do?
Deborah says
I have a multisite and I installed several plugins but one isn’t showing. I can see it when I go to plugins and I have activated it but it is not showing up in my dashboard so I cant use it. Help. Why isn’t a particular installed and activated plugin showing up in m dashboard but other plugins are?
WPBeginner Support says
Not all plugins work with multisite installations, we would recommend checking with the support for that plugin and they would be able to help with any issues like this.
Admin
Akshay says
Hi,
Thank you for sharing knowledge. We have a wordpress website hosted on our company internal server. Now we would like to migrate it to our cloud platform.
I tried to click Add new plugin to install “All-in-One WP Migration”. However whenever I click on ‘Add new’ link server is returning 503 error. Rest all links on admin page works fine.
Any suggestions?
WPBeginner Support says
For specifically the 503 error, we have a guide on how to resolve that error below:
https://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-to-fix-503-service-unavailable-error-in-wordpress/
Admin
Monisha says
Thanks this helped! : )
WPBeginner Support says
Glad our guide helped
Admin
Arif Ammar says
Thanks WP team. My problem is solved.
Thanks again for you precious support.
WPBeginner Support says
Glad our guide was helpful
Admin