Store Locator Plus® Spring 2026 Release Notes: Maps, Profiles, and Plugin Updates

Store Locator Plus® Spring 2026 Updates for SaaS and WordPress

We’ve rolled out a new round of updates across the Store Locator Plus® platform covering both our SaaS offering and WordPress plugins. This release window focused on improving map compatibility, cleaning up modern React-based admin experiences, refining subscription behavior, and tightening up several WordPress compatibility details.

If you are a SaaS customer, these improvements are already part of the hosted platform. If you use the WordPress plugins, updating to the latest releases will ensure you get the newest fixes and compatibility improvements.

SaaS Updates

The SaaS platform saw continued work on modernizing account and profile management screens.

My Profile improvements continued during this release window, including updates to the React-based interface and fixes that help components bind more consistently and behave more predictably. We also refined account-status handling so customers with a canceled subscription that still has time remaining are not shown as expired too early.

Subscription and billing workflows also received an important reliability update. Renewals now better respect the remaining active term on subscriptions that were canceled but not yet fully expired. In practice, this helps avoid starting a replacement subscription too early and makes account transitions cleaner.

We also added additional testing hooks and continued internal UI cleanup work around profile-related screens. These updates help us keep improving the SaaS dashboard while moving more of the administrative experience toward faster, more maintainable React-based interfaces.

SaaS highlights:

  • Continued improvements to the React-based My Profile experience
  • Better account-status handling for canceled subscriptions that still have time remaining
  • Subscription renewal timing improvements for not-yet-expired canceled plans
  • Additional internal UI/testing improvements to support ongoing dashboard modernization

WordPress Plugin Updates

All WordPress plugin updates are automatically part of the SaaS platform updates.

For WordPress plugin users, this release included several map and compatibility improvements across the main plugin and add-ons.

A major focus in this window was Google Maps compatibility. Store Locator Plus®, Premier, and Power all received updates related to Google’s newer Advanced Marker system. These changes were followed by additional patches to make marker behavior more reliable across admin and front-end experiences. The goal here is simple: keep maps working smoothly as the Google Maps platform evolves.

We also improved how Google Maps assets are loaded and configured. That includes refinements to script enqueue behavior, updates to map-related dependencies, and better handling of map domain and country support settings. These changes help reduce edge-case failures and improve consistency across different WordPress environments.

Another useful WordPress improvement in this cycle was expanded Google Maps country support. The country list was updated to reflect a much broader set of supported countries, helping site owners working in more regions configure maps more accurately.

WordPress highlights:

  • Google Maps Advanced Marker compatibility updates across core and add-ons
  • Follow-up patches to improve marker stability and map behavior
  • Improved Google Maps loading and dependency handling
  • Expanded country support for Google Maps configuration
  • React admin rendering updates to reduce deprecation issues
  • Premier map fallback fixes and general maintenance cleanup

Admin and Interface Refinements

This release also continued our effort to modernize older admin interfaces.

In the WordPress plugin stack, some React-powered administrative modules were updated to use newer rendering patterns. That reduces deprecation warnings and helps keep the codebase aligned with newer WordPress and React expectations.

On the SaaS side, we continued that same modernization path in customer-facing admin screens. While much of this work is structural, the user-facing benefit is a more consistent and reliable dashboard experience over time.

Fixes and Stability Improvements

Several smaller but meaningful fixes also landed in this release window.

For Store Locator Plus® core, we improved script enqueue handling to better account for edge cases in WordPress behavior. We also resolved issues around incorrect script registration timing and cleaned up related loading logic.

For Premier, a center-map fallback setting issue was fixed, helping map displays behave more consistently when certain location or viewport data is unavailable.

Across the codebase, we also completed compatibility and maintenance work such as PHPDoc cleanup, versioning updates, and dependency refreshes. These changes are mostly behind the scenes, but they help us keep the products stable and easier to maintain as WordPress, React, and Google Maps continue to change.

What You Need To Do

SaaS customers do not need to do anything. These updates are already part of the hosted platform.

WordPress plugin users should update the core Store Locator Plus® plugin and any active add-ons, especially if you rely on advanced map behavior, Premier pagination and map features, or Power reporting/admin tools.

As always, if you spot anything unexpected after updating, please reach out through our contact form. Real-world usage reports help us prioritize the next round of improvements.

Image by piviso from Pixabay

SEO Pages, Profile Updates, and Patches

The January 2026 update is out for the Store Locator Plus® products and services. Both the SaaS platform and the WordPress plugins have been updated with a variety of bug fixes and user experience updates. We have been testing modernizing the administrative interfaces by replacing PHP code with newer React components. Part of the process is intended to modernize the user experience which goes hand-in-hand with making the Store Locator Plus® platform faster and more stable.

My Profile Interface Progress (SaaS)

Our primary work with the updated user interface has focused on the My Profile page. This is a low impact part of the application, meaning it has near-zero risk of changing how the map and directory presentations behave as deployed on websites. It has allowed use to test implementation of new JavaScript driven React components while improving data display and user interfaces. This has been a measured test of new interfaces.

This process has been laying the groundwork for better interfaces across the application that we intend to roll out throughout the year. Eventually we expect to have a newer, faster, and more modern design not only on the administrative interface but also to make it easier to provide modern interfaces for user-facing map and directory designs with little-to-no coding experience for our user base.

Hot Fix and Subscription Updates

hot fix

Today’s update to Store Locator Plus® includes a hot fix and subscription update. The hot fix impacted some of the SaaS Professional and Enterprise users that are taking advantage of a couple of specific user interface modification settings. WordPress plugin users that have the Experience add on installed should update to the latest 2505.14.XX release.

Read more: Hot Fix and Subscription Updates

Hot Fix Details

Users that were taking advantage of one of several user interface options that are available to Professional or Enterprise level accounts on the SaaS were receiving a fatal 500 level error when embedding the map. This was related to a patch in the 2505.08 release that addressed the User Interface module from the Experience add on from being loaded too early. A code autocomplete mechanism truncated a variable in a parameter passing routine that was causing a fatal missing parameter error in PHP. The fix was minor which allowed for rapid resolution and testing of the patch.

The fix impacted both the Experience WordPress plugin users as well as SaaS users. Impacted users of the SaaS were not seeing their locator map being rendered on page.

Generate Embed hot fix testing for a client for SaaS 2505.14

SaaS Subscription Updates

At the start of 2025 we launched a major update to the SaaS platform. That update included upgrades to several foundational elements of the SaaS platform, one of which was the Stripe payment processing library. The Stripe library upgrade is mostly backwards-compatible with the hundred of lines of PHP and JavaScript code included in the SaaS payment module, but it is not 100% compatible. While we addressed major functional changes before our January 2025 roll-out of the updated SaaS software, several elements still needed to be patched.

The SaaS update released today, 2505.14, patches several key features of the Stripe interface. Many of these patches only manifest in subtle ways — for example seeing details on subscription dates, next renewal date, and other details re-appear in the subscription section of “My Profile”.

The cancel subscription interface is back online; turns out Stripe also had a parameter passing issue in their upgraded API interface forcing us to modify a function call that was unchanged for a decade due to an undocumented change to the Stripe API.

Profile and Subscription Updates In Progress

Also included in this update is the start of our continued conversion to a React-centric interface that will rely far less on outdated WordPress-driven PHP user interfaces. The updated interfaces use new React MUI components. SaaS users will start other see this roll out in several areas over the remainder of 2025. The first update was the new “Style Manager” interface with the map preview which went online a couple of months ago. This update includes new a new “Site Info” component on the “My Profile” page — it works but is not fully styled yet as we decided it was better than the prior version that was on production and thus shipped with other components that passed testing and went along with the hot fix update.

We’re continuing to work on UI/UX and functional improvements for Store Locator Plus® and hope to continue regular rapid updates over the coming months that create an improved product and service experience for our client base.

If you have suggestions or feedback please contact us and share your thoughts.

Post Image by Dirk Hoenes from Pixabay