Understand domain authorization limits
Every POM AI plan authorizes a number of domains. This page explains how that number is counted, what consumes a slot, and what happens when the limit is reached.
Where to see your current position
Two screens on account.pom.es show it:
- My Account → Licenses & Downloads. The POM AI card shows a Domains figure in the form used / total, or used / ∞ on a plan with no fixed limit.
- My Account → POM AI Management. The Manage AI Domains card lists the authorized domains themselves, with a badge showing how many are authorized.
The first tells you whether you have room. The second tells you what is using it.
What counts as one domain
The count is of active authorized domains on the license. One entry equals one slot.
| Situation | Slots used |
|---|---|
example.com and www.example.com |
1 — www is ignored when matching |
example.com and shop.example.com |
2 — a subdomain is a distinct host |
example.com and example.es |
2 |
| Production plus its staging copy | 2 — staging always counts |
| A multisite network with 6 AI-enabled subsites | 6 — each subsite host is separate |
| A domain you deactivated | 0 — deactivated domains do not count |
| A retired site you never deactivated | 1 — it still holds the slot |
The last row is the one that catches people out. Capacity is consumed by authorization records, not by whether a site still exists.
Plans with no fixed limit
Some plans have no numeric domain limit. On those, the account shows ∞ instead of a total and activations are not refused for capacity.
A plan of that kind may be bound to a single WordPress network. When it is, the first activation records which network it belongs to, and later activations must come from the same network. Using the key on a different network is rejected as not authorized for that network. This is a plan policy, not a side effect of allowing multisite — a plan can allow unlimited domains across any number of networks if that is what it grants.
If you are unsure which kind of plan you hold, the account is authoritative. Ask support rather than discovering it during a migration.
Local and staging domains
Capacity is only half the question; eligibility is the other half.
- Staging domains — hosts whose name contains
staging,stage,dev,test,preorsandboxas a distinct part — are always eligible and always count. - Local and development domains —
.local,.test,.localhost,.invalid,.internal,localhost, hostnames with no dot, and IP addresses — are only eligible when the plan explicitly allows local domains. On other plans they are refused with a message saying so.
A developer who cannot authorize a local site is hitting a plan rule, not a bug. Either use a staging host that looks like a normal domain, or move to a plan that allows local development.
When the limit is reached
The next activation is refused with a message stating that the maximum number of authorized domains for the plan has been reached. Nothing is replaced and nothing is silently dropped; the existing authorizations continue to work.
You have three options:
- Free a slot. Deactivate a domain you no longer use. See Remove an authorized domain.
- Upgrade the plan. More capacity is a subscription change on the account.
- Add a second subscription. When a user holds several active POM AI licenses, adding a domain from the account uses the first license that still has capacity, so a second subscription genuinely extends the total.
Planning your capacity
Count these before choosing a plan, not after:
- every production site;
- every staging or pre-production copy that will run AI;
- every local development copy, if you intend to use AI there and the plan allows it;
- every subsite of a multisite network that will use AI;
- any additional domain that serves the same site under a genuinely different host.
A common under-estimate is the staging copy. A team with four client sites and four staging copies needs eight slots, not four.
Auditing the list
Review the authorized domains on a schedule — quarterly is enough for most agencies — and check three things:
- Every listed domain still exists. Deactivate the ones that do not.
- Every listed domain should be spending your credits. A domain you do not recognise is worth investigating at once, and rotating the key if you cannot explain it. See Rotate a license key safely.
- The environment labels look right. A production label on something you consider staging usually means the hostname does not signal its role, which is worth knowing before someone treats it as safe to experiment on.
The usage log on the same account screen shows credits used per domain, which makes an unexpected entry easy to spot.
Related
- Authorize a domain to use POM AI — how a slot gets used.
- Use one account across authorized subsites — sharing one subscription deliberately.
- POM AI credits — the balance those domains draw from.