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Best Free WordPress Plugins for Expire

15 plugins compared · Updated August 2026 · Expire

All 15 Free only Premium only

Choosing a WordPress plugin for expire comes down to a few things: whether it is still actively maintained, whether real users rate it well, and whether it does the specific job you need without dragging the rest of the site down.

We ranked 15 plugins using our WPScore, which weighs the user rating (adjusted for how many people actually rated it), how many sites run it, how recently it was updated, and which WordPress version it is tested against. 15 of them have enough public data to be scored; the rest are listed below the ranked block, clearly marked, rather than being given a number we cannot justify.

How this list is funded. Some links here earn us a commission if you buy. It costs you nothing extra, and it does not move anything up the list — the order comes from the WPScore, which is calculated from public ratings, install counts and update history. See the method.

At a glance

  1. 1. Auto Prune Posts Best overall 70/100
  2. 2. Auto Post Expire 67/100
  3. 3. Show/Hide Content at Set Time 55/100
  4. 4. Auto Post Expiration 54/100
  5. 5. Simple Expires 53/100
  6. 6. Expire Sticky Posts 50/100
  7. 7. Expiring Posts 49/100
  8. 8. VA Simple Expires 49/100
  9. 9. WP Post Expires 48/100
  10. 10. Simple Post Expiration 48/100
  11. 11. Password Protection Expiration 48/100
  12. 12. Post expire date Sidebar 46/100
  13. 13. Media Expirator 46/100
  14. 14. Content Scheduler 44/100
  15. 15. Page Expiration Robot 44/100
1 Auto Prune Posts
Best overall Free by ramon fincken

Auto Prune Posts

Auto deletes expires (prunes) posts after a certain amount of time. On a per category basis (single category, or all at once.

4.2★
from 10 ratings
1k+
active installs
Updated
Nov 2025
Tested to
WP 6.8.8
70

WPScore

Read review View on WordPress.org
3 Show/Hide Content at Set Time
Free by Dave Clements

Show/Hide Content at Set Time

Shortcodes to wrap around text, which specify at what date or time that content should appear or disappear, either once, or on a recurring basis.

4.9★
from 33 ratings
10k+
active installs
Updated
Oct 2019
Tested to
WP 5.2.26
55

WPScore

Read review View on WordPress.org
4 Auto Post Expiration
Free by ViitorCloud Technologies Pvt Ltd

Auto Post Expiration

A simple plugin allows to set the posts expire date on desire date and time which set the posts to "draft" status.

3★
from 4 ratings
800+
active installs
Updated
May 2024
Tested to
WP 6.5.10
54

WPScore

Read review View on WordPress.org
5 Simple Expires
Free by abmcr

Simple Expires

Enable Posts and Pages to automatically expire and change at a certain time, and provide notification of expiration.

5★
from 2 ratings
500+
active installs
Updated
Aug 2011
53

WPScore

Read review View on WordPress.org
6 Expire Sticky Posts
Free by Andy von Dohren

Expire Sticky Posts

A simple plugin that allows you to set an expiration date on posts. Once a post is expired, it will no longer be sticky.

5★
from 2 ratings
1k+
active installs
Updated
Dec 2014
Tested to
WP 4.0.38
50

WPScore

Read review View on WordPress.org
8 VA Simple Expires
Free by kuck1u

VA Simple Expires

This is the fork of Simple Expires created by Mr. abmcr. Simple plugin which can set up the term of validity.

4.4★
from 7 ratings
800+
active installs
Updated
Dec 2016
Tested to
WP 4.5.33
49

WPScore

Read review View on WordPress.org
9 WP Post Expires
Free by X-NicON

WP Post Expires

Plugin adds post expires time after which will be performed actions: add prefix to title, move to drafts or trash.

3.3★
from 14 ratings
2k+
active installs
Updated
Nov 2020
Tested to
WP 5.5.20
48

WPScore

Read review View on WordPress.org
10 Simple Post Expiration
Free by Syed Balkhi

Simple Post Expiration

A simple plugin that allows you to set an expiration date on posts. Once a post is expired, "Expired" will be prefixed to the post title.

4.6★
from 7 ratings
400+
active installs
Updated
Oct 2016
Tested to
WP 4.7.35
48

WPScore

Read review View on WordPress.org
13 Media Expirator
Free by Marco Alluvion

Media Expirator

Media Expirator plugin allows users to set expiration dates for media library items.

5★
from 1 ratings
100+
active installs
Updated
Oct 2015
Tested to
WP 4.3.34
46

WPScore

Read review View on WordPress.org
14 Content Scheduler
Free by Paul Kaiser

Content Scheduler

Schedule content to automatically expire and change at a certain time, and notify people of expiration.

2.4★
from 8 ratings
200+
active installs
Updated
Dec 2014
Tested to
WP 4.1.0
44

WPScore

Read review View on WordPress.org
15 Page Expiration Robot
Free by Bill Zimmerman

Page Expiration Robot

The official #1 most intelligent, scarcity countdown timer plugin ever created for WordPress to expire posts AND pages on autopilot!

4.2★
from 100 ratings
90+
active installs
Updated
Nov 2016
Tested to
WP 4.4.34
44

WPScore

Read review View on WordPress.org