Quick Start Guide
If you just want the fastest route to a faster site, follow these steps in order. The whole thing takes a few minutes, and you can fine-tune later using the full Scalability Pro Installation and Options guide.
Step 1: Install and activate
Go to Plugins > Add New, upload the Scalability Pro zip, and activate it. Then visit wp-admin > Super Speedy and enter your licence key so you get automatic updates. Now go to Settings > Scalability Pro.
Step 2: Create all the indexes
This is the single most important step and it is completely safe. Indexes speed up queries all over your site without changing any behaviour, so there is no downside. Go to the Indexes tab, click Select All, then click Update Indexes.
Do this at a quiet time, because on a large site building the indexes can take a few minutes and can slow the site down while it runs. Don’t edit anything while it’s building. For a lot of sites the indexes alone make a big difference, and if your slow queries were caused by missing indexes you may not need to change anything else.
On a very large table the create can time out. If it does, just refresh the page and click again – it continues from where it left off until every index is built. The indexes are ordinary MySQL indexes after that, so MySQL keeps them up to date automatically and they never need rebuilding.
Step 3: Decide what you’re optimising
The rest of the options are grouped by the problem they solve. Turn on the tab that matches your goal.
If you’re optimising imports
Go to the Imports tab and enable the options there. They are all aimed at making bulk imports and product updates fast, and they’re safe to enable:
- Defer term counting counts categories once at the end of an import instead of once per row. This is usually the biggest import speed boost.
- Cache Post Counts stops WordPress recalculating post counts on every row.
- Optimize Action Scheduler keeps the Action Scheduler tables from growing out of control.
- Optimize Product Attributes Lookup speeds up WooCommerce’s attribute lookup rebuild.
- Avoid expensive WP All Export meta_key enumeration – set this to Cache (or Prevent) if you use WP All Export on a large store.
- Remove Image Sizes Globally is optional. If your imports generate lots of image sizes you don’t use, configure which sizes to keep. Nothing changes until you set it up.
If you’re optimising archives
Archives are your product category pages, shop page, blog and custom post type lists. These options live on the Query Speed tab (called Archive Pages in older versions), and here you need to be careful, because most of these options change behaviour rather than just speeding things up quietly.
The commonest mistake here is ticking every Query Speed option at once because it sounds faster. Most of them change how your archives behave, not just how fast they are. Enable them one at a time, read each description, and check the front end before moving on.
Read the description on each one before you enable it. Two are completely safe to turn on, so if you’re not sure, start with these:
- Remove CAST on wp_postmeta – safe, lets your meta queries use the indexes.
- Optimise WooCommerce Group By – safe, removes redundant grouping.
The rest change how your archives behave, so only enable them once you understand the trade-off:
- Remove SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS definitely changes behaviour: your pagination stops showing the real number of pages, so most people pair it with an infinite scroll plugin.
- Remove sort options drops your custom sort order and uses the natural database order.
- Alter main query to use EXISTS is experimental, and it also removes sorting.
- Remove OR check for private items hides private posts on the front end and can break some full site editors.
If in doubt about any archive option, leave it off and ask us on Discord. We’re happy to tell you whether it’s safe for your specific setup.
Step 4: The safe admin speed-ups
Whatever your goal, the caching options on the Bloat and WP Admin tabs are safe to enable and speed up wp-admin: cache the product category dropdown, cache user and author counts, remove the WooCommerce order summary widget, and disable the marketplace suggestions. The one to think about is Switch off phone home. It’s very effective, but it blocks outbound admin requests, so add any plugin that needs to reach its own server to the allowlist.
In short
Install, enter your licence, and create all the indexes first. That’s safe and often enough on its own. Then enable the Imports tab if you’re speeding up imports, or work carefully through the Query Speed options if you’re speeding up archives, remembering that most archive options change behaviour. When you’re unsure, stick to the safe options (Remove CAST, Optimise WooCommerce Group By, and the admin caching options) and ask us on Discord about the rest.
- Enter your licence key under wp-admin > Super Speedy for automatic updates
- Indexes tab: Select All, then Update Indexes (at a quiet time)
- Imports tab options if you run bulk imports (all safe)
- Bloat and WP Admin caching options (safe), then treat Switch off phone home carefully
- Query Speed options last, one at a time, reading each description
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