Installation

From WordPress.org (recommended)

  1. In your WordPress admin, go to Plugins → Add New
  2. Search for "WP PulseView"
  3. Click Install Now, then Activate
  4. Done! Visit PulseView in your admin menu to see your dashboard

Manual installation

  1. Download the .zip file from this website or WordPress.org
  2. Go to Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin
  3. Choose the zip file and click Install Now
  4. Activate the plugin

Getting Started

PulseView starts tracking visitors immediately after activation. There's nothing to configure — no tracking codes to paste, no external accounts to create, and no cookie consent to set up.

Click PulseView in your WordPress admin sidebar to open the analytics dashboard. You'll see real-time data within minutes of your first visitor.

Requirements

  • WordPress 5.8 or higher
  • PHP 7.4 or higher
  • MySQL 5.6 / MariaDB 10.0 or higher

Dashboard Overview

The dashboard shows six key metrics at the top:

  • Live Visitors — Currently active visitors (refreshed every 15 seconds)
  • Visitors — Unique visitors in the selected period
  • Pageviews — Total page views in the selected period
  • Sessions — Total sessions (a session expires after 30 minutes of inactivity)
  • Bounce Rate — Percentage of single-page sessions
  • Avg. Time — Average session duration

Below the stats, you'll find an interactive area chart (click any stat card to switch the chart metric), a world map, top pages, country breakdown, and device split.

Time periods

Use the period tabs at the top to switch between:

  • 24h — Last 24 hours (hourly buckets)
  • 7d — Last 7 days (daily buckets)
  • 30d — Last 30 days (daily buckets) — Pro only

Pro License Activation

After purchasing a Pro license:

  1. Go to PulseView → Settings (gear icon in the dashboard header)
  2. Enter your license key in the format XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX
  3. Click Activate License
  4. Pro features will unlock immediately — no page reload needed

Your license key is sent to your email immediately after purchase. If you didn't receive it, check your spam folder or contact support@wppulseview.com.

Privacy & Compliance

PulseView is designed to be privacy-compliant by default:

  • No cookies — Zero cookies set, no localStorage, no sessionStorage
  • No fingerprinting — We don't canvas-fingerprint or use WebGL hashing
  • No external requests — Everything runs on your own server. No data leaves your site.
  • IP anonymization — Visitor IPs are hashed with a daily-rotating salt. The original IP is never stored.
  • GDPR compliant — No personal data is collected or stored. No consent required.
  • CCPA compliant — No sale or sharing of personal information.

You can safely remove any cookie consent banner that was only there for analytics tracking.

Caching Compatibility

PulseView works with all major caching plugins and services because tracking is handled via a lightweight async JavaScript call to the WordPress REST API.

Tested and confirmed with:

  • WP Rocket
  • W3 Total Cache
  • LiteSpeed Cache
  • Cloudflare (including APO)
  • WP Super Cache
  • Autoptimize

No special configuration is needed. If you use HTML caching, the tracking script loads dynamically and is not affected by cached pages.

Troubleshooting

Dashboard shows no data

After activating the plugin, visit your site's frontend in a different browser or incognito window. PulseView excludes logged-in admins by default. Data should appear within 1-2 minutes.

Visitor count seems low

PulseView counts unique visitors using a privacy-safe daily hash. This is typically more accurate (and lower) than cookie-based counting because it doesn't count the same visitor multiple times across devices.

REST API blocked

Some security plugins block the WordPress REST API. Make sure the endpoint /wp-json/wppv/v1/ is accessible. In your security plugin, whitelist this path.

Uninstall

Deactivating the plugin stops all tracking immediately. To completely remove PulseView:

  1. Go to Plugins, deactivate WP PulseView
  2. Click Delete — this removes all plugin files and database tables

All analytics data will be permanently deleted. If you want to keep your data, export it first using the Pro export feature.