SA-based WordPress site owners had no affordable, locally-aware audit tool. Existing tools (US-built, all of them) flag the standard checks: security, performance, SEO, accessibility. None of them know what POPIA is.
POPIA (Protection of Personal Information Act) is South Africa's data privacy law. If your WP site collects personal data from SA residents, you have obligations under it. No existing plugin audit tool checks for any of them.
Build it as a real WP plugin, not a hosted report tool. On-site analysis only. Results stored in a custom WP table. Four free axes run without a license. Three Pro axes behind a license gate.
wp.org distribution from day one. No SaaS overhead, no monthly subscription for the basic tier.
Each free axis runs on-site via WP cron or manual trigger. Results stored in a custom table with timestamps. Historical comparison shows what changed between runs.
Installs directly to WP. No outbound API call for the free tier. Your data stays on your server.
Results stored in a wpdb table with run history. Not post meta, not options. Queryable, migratable.
WP REST API for the JS frontend. Nonce-authenticated. Results fetchable without page reload.
License server for Pro tier activation. One-time license key, no recurring auth calls for free checks.
The differentiation from US-built competitors is the POPIA axis. SA site owners collecting personal data (contact forms, WooCommerce orders, newsletter signups) have specific obligations. SiteLens checks the practical ones: cookie consent mechanism, privacy policy presence and link placement, third-party script disclosure, form data handling indicators.
It's not a legal opinion. It's a checklist. But it's a checklist no other WP plugin audit tool provides for the SA market.
SiteLens 0.1.0 is on staging. wp.org submission pipeline prepared (readme.txt, screenshots, tag structure). Pro tier license server is built. POPIA axis is the primary differentiator for SA SMB market.