WP Ultimo type sandbox?

[urbancollective]

Hi all!

Can anyone point me on the right track to create a similar user experience as the WP Ultimo sandbox enviroment? I need to create a similar experience on creating a sandbox for clients to test the website. Add an email, create sandbox with random subdomain, delete it after 2 hours. Something I can install on my own server.

Thank you in advance!

[superdav42]

Would it just be a special free product that is a sandbox and when customers checkout with it they get a site they can play with then a cron job deletes the site? It would be pretty easy to write some code to do this. Tell me more of the requirements.

[urbancollective]

Hi, thank you for the reply.

Yes, a special sandbox free product that would be deleted after 2 hours.
Nothing fancy. No ability to upload/install plugins. Just play around, activate plugins, change themes, edit the website.

Thank you again for the reply, totally forgot about posting here too :)).

[superdav42]

This snippet should do it:

/**
   * Delete demo sites and memberships after 2 hours.
   *
   * This function should be hooked to a scheduled cron event.
   * Run it via: wp cron event run wu_delete_expired_demo_sites
   */
  function wu_delete_expired_demo_sites() {

        // Get the demo product ID (replace with your actual demo product ID)
        $demo_product_id = 123; // TODO: Set this to your demo product ID

        // Calculate the expiration time (2 hours ago)
        $expiration_time = gmdate('Y-m-d H:i:s', strtotime('-2 hours'));

        // Get all memberships with the demo product
        $memberships = wu_get_memberships(array(
                'product_id' => $demo_product_id,
                'number'     => -1,
        ));

        if (empty($memberships)) {
                return;
        }

        foreach ($memberships as $membership) {

                // Check if membership is older than 2 hours
                $created_date = $membership->get_date_created();

                if ($created_date > $expiration_time) {
                        continue; // Skip if not expired yet
                }

                // Get associated site
                $site_id = $membership->get_site_id();

                if (!$site_id) {
                        continue;
                }

                // Delete the site
                $site = wu_get_site($site_id);

                if ($site) {

                        // Delete the actual WordPress site
                        wpmu_delete_blog($site->get_blog_id(), true);

                        // Delete the wu_site record
                        $site->delete();

                        wu_log_add('demo-cleanup', sprintf(
                                'Deleted demo site #%d (blog_id: %d) for membership #%d',
                                $site_id,
                                $site->get_blog_id(),
                                $membership->get_id()
                        ));
                }

                // Delete the membership
                $membership->delete();

                wu_log_add('demo-cleanup', sprintf(
                        'Deleted demo membership #%d',
                        $membership->get_id()
                ));
        }

  }

  /**
   * Schedule the cron event if it doesn't exist.
   */
  function wu_schedule_demo_cleanup() {

        if (!wp_next_scheduled('wu_delete_expired_demo_sites')) {
                wp_schedule_event(time(), 'hourly', 'wu_delete_expired_demo_sites');
        }

  }
  add_action('wp', 'wu_schedule_demo_cleanup');

  // Hook the cleanup function to the cron event
  add_action('wu_delete_expired_demo_sites', 'wu_delete_expired_demo_sites');

drop it in a mu-plugin.
Maybe I'll add a special product type for this if there's enough demand.

[wvpalarao91]

Hello. Hope this will be added as part of the main plugin rather than snippets

[urbancollective]

Hi, I have tried the snippet provided, but it did not work.

Still, I have fed the code to Claude and created a plugin.
It works now. It also has a Settings screen, to set the Product ID, a Manual Cleanup, Sites pending deletions and Recently deleted sites:

Maybe we can build on it, I can only talk with Claude, but maybe it's not necesarily the best way to do it.

delete-demo-site.zip

[urbancollective]

Hi guys, I did un update to the plugin. Mostly UI/UX, but also some new features, like options to also delete the new user related to the demo site.

I hope it will be useful to those that need this feature.

Thanks again to superdav42 for the initial code, I could not have started this with Claude without it's code.

multisite-ultimate-demo-cleanup.zip

[urbancollective]

Thank you!

I'll do this and come back with a reply.

Have a great day forward!

[urbancollective]

+1 from me on this to be added in main plugin.

…

On Thu, 2 Oct 2025, 10:37 wvpalarao91, ***@***.***> wrote: Hello. Hope this will be added as part of the main plugin rather than snippets — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#109 (reply in thread)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ADVGK7B33IYPT7QH4LAHPUT3VTI4LAVCNFSM6AAAAACBXGYN7GVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43URDJONRXK43TNFXW4Q3PNVWWK3TUHMYTINJXGA4DCOA> . You are receiving this because you authored the thread.Message ID: <Multisite-Ultimate/ultimate-multisite/repo-discussions/109/comments/14570818 @github.com>

[superdav42]

@urbancollective I just review possible implementing a demo product in the plugin but want to make sure I have all the data. Why don't you just use free trials and use the payment option Allow Trials without Payment Method? It seems best to convert anyone who uses the product into a paid customer and let them keep whatever data they may have created even on a demo account.