ShortPixel Referral: 200 Free Credits – Plugin Review

Keen to try out ShortPixel Image Optimisation Plugin to optimise the images on your website? Use my ShortPixel Referral Code Link: 3354636 to receive 200 Free Credits for a trial before committing.

ShortPixel Referral Code: 3354636

https://shortpixel.com/free-sign-up-referrer/referrer/3354636

What Is ShortPixel? What Formats Can I Optimise With ShortPixel?

ShortPixel is a plugin that you can download in your wordpress to optimise your images. You can optimise JPEG, PNG, GIF and PDF type files, and they also have the option to generate the WebP or AVIF.

You can use ShortPixel even if you are not using WordPress so long as it uses PHP.

How Much Can I Optimise With ShortPixel?

You have the choice to choose Lossless, Glossy and Lossy to optimise your images.

Lossless: Optimised images are pixel-by-pixel identical with the originals, but they offer a smaller size reduction compared to either Lossy or Glossy processed files

Glossy: Slight loss of page speed is an acceptable compromise for a top notch image quality

Lossy: Smallest optimised images you can get (Most often used)

The best thing about ShortPixel is that you can change your mind to reoptimise into another option anytime, and also restore back to your original images if you are not satisfied with the current option. However, this is provided you have credits to use.

How Does ShortPixel Work?

ShortPixel Image Optimisation:

The plugin sends original images to their Cloud where they are compressed, then downloads the optimized images and the unoptimized originals are replaced with their optimized versions.

ShortPixel Adaptive Images:

This is something which I have yet to use and explore, but it is written that “every time one of your website’s pages is loaded by one of your visitors, the plugin analyzes its HTML/CSS and JS code and replaces each original image with the right-sized & optimized image for that browser and device size. Each replaced image is served from the ShortPixel CDN.”

What Are ShortPixel Credits For?

ShortPixel credits are used to optimise images. If you run out of your free 100 credits that month, you will have to wait 30 days from the day you signed up, to receive another free 100 credits. You will be able to check how long till the month is up on your ShortPixel dashboard.

When you sign up with my ShortPixel referral link, you will receive 200 Free Credits. This is the 100 Free one time Credits from my referral on top of the usual free 100 credits that you will receive every month. This is sufficient for you to test out only the Image Optimisation plugin, because for Adaptive Images, it is charged differently.

Unless you only have a few images in your whole website, do not use the Bulk Optimisation function at first. If you are just testing the plugin out, say on your header or homepage images which are usually the huge ones, test individually on those images first.

This is because when you sign up with my Referral Code Link, you only have 200 credits in total.

Let me explain why.
Example: Let’s say you optimise your Header in JPG. There are 4 thumbnails that your header has on top of the original image. You will be using up 5 credits in total.
If you decided that you want the WebP and AVIF versions too, they will be converted and optimised so you will use up another 10 credits for the different sizes of thumbnails.
Thus, just for the header alone, you have used up 15 credits already. Depending on what plugins you are using and the sizes of thumbnails that are on your website, you might incur more credits.

A credit is used each time ShortPixel Image Optimizer optimizes an image or thumbnail by at least 5%. If an image or thumbnail is not optimised by at least 5% then no credit will be used.
ShortPixel Adaptive Images spends 1 credit for every 5 MB of CDN traffic you use.

However, don’t fret!

What’s Good About ShortPixel?

100 Free Credits Monthly:

First of all, everyone who signs up with ShortPixel received 100 Free Credits monthly. Yes, even if you do not buy any packages or sign up for any monthly subscriptions, you will still receive the free credits every month without fail.

Optimise Images Individually In Lossless, Glossy and Lossy:

You will be able to optimise just the images that you want individually. To do so, make sure your media is in List Mode and not Grid Mode. You can change the mode in your media library.
Just click on optimise and it will be put into the queue for optimisation. After that, you can choose to compare the before and after, reoptimise into another type or even restore from back up if you aren’t satisfied.

Thus, if you want to save on spending, just optimise your popular pages’ images first. Those pages that aren’t really visited, you can leave them be till next month when you receive your new free credits.

Also, when you optimise them individually, you have control over everything, whether that image should be lossy or lossless or compare them to see if they affect your pagespeed.

That is exactly what I did for my website at first before buying the package and it really did help my pagespeed as my header slowed down my site a lot before optimising.

Credits Plans Best Suited For Your Budget and Websites:

Moreover, ShortPixel credits pricing come in three forms.

1. Monthly Plans
   – 100 Free Credits falls in this category, which means you receive 100 free credits every month without fail
   – $3.99 for 7,000 Credits to $83.33 for 220,000 Credits (per month, unlimited websites)
   – Monthly plans credits will expire (Everyone’s billing cycle date is different so check in your dashboard, so as to fully utilise the credits given)
2. Unlimited Plans
   – Unlimited credits per month, prices according to 1, 5 or 10 domains
3. Credit Packages (One time Payment)
   – You buy a certain amount of credits and they won’t expire
   – Ranges from $9.99 for 10,000 Credits to $249 for 500,000 Credits

You have a choice to choose the plan that is most suited for you and your website.

The plan which I bought was the credit packages because I do not upload that many images a month and for the monthly and unlimited plans, the credits expire every month. However, I do have a lot of images on my website which need optimisation, and credit packages do not expire, so it is the best choice for me.

Very Good Promotions:

If you are interested to make a big purchase, I would suggest for you to wait for promotions. As per the last Black Friday promotion, I managed to receive double the number of credits for the same cost. They will send you an email when they have a promotion so you don’t have to worry about missing out.

Transparent and Clear Optimisation:

Under each individual image, you can see how many thumbnails there are and what has been optimised. Furthermore, you can look at your dashboard and even download a report to check which images have been optimised or used the credits in details, so it is definitely transparent.

Fast and Good Customer Service:

Last but not least, they have a friendly and fast customer service which actually helps and answers your questions, instead of providing standardised replies which are useless. Even if you are a free user, they still provide good service and we all know how important it is to be able to get help when you need it.

I actually met with an issue right after I used it, and there were thumbnails generated from old plugins and so I sought help from them and they kindly explained that the plugin only optimises current thumbnails in my server and were nice enough to provide me with extra one time credits so that I can still test out the plugin after it was resolved.

This is what I like about ShortPixel so I am introducing it to you all.

Settings and Bulk Optimisation:

You can set your settings of what images and thumbnails sizes you want to optimise and whether you want them in Lossless, Glossy or Lossy. You can also choose to resize large images, remove EXIF convert PNG to JPEG, optimise media on upload, generate WebP and AVIF etc.

Clicking on Bulk Optimisation also allows you to know how many credits are needed for your website, according to the settings you have made, without needing to run the optimisation.

Do note that if you are just testing it out with the free credits, do not run Bulk Optimisation, or else your credits will be gone before you even blink your eyes. 😉

What’s Bad About ShortPixel?

Paying by credits per image, per thumbnail is definitely hard on the pocket, especially if your website is images heavy. However, you do receive free credits monthly and with the generous promotions, it is not that bad.

One image = One Credit so if in the case you have 10 thumbnails/ images to optimise but you only have 5 credits left, 5 thumbnails or images will not be optimised until you receive your monthly free credits or if you buy a package or a plan. In which, the 5 credits that are needed will be directly deducted.

Under Settings, once you have set it in Lossy, everytime you optimise an individual image, it will be in lossy version. Also, if you have the settings “Optimise when upload activated”, the images will also be in lossy version. Thus, if you actually want it to be in Lossless for that image, you will have to manually change it or switch off Optimise when upload in settings.
If not, you will be losing credits since credits are used when you upload the image and it is optimised to Lossy, and to switch to Lossless, credits will be used again.

Now that you have read my review of ShortPixel, if you are still interested to sign up, use my:

ShortPixel Referral Code Link for 200 Free Credits.

Likewise, I will receive 100 credits when you sign up.

Once you have signed up and you are interested in referring your friends, you will be able to find your personal referral code link in your account, and you will receive the same when they sign up.

This is what they will receive when you email them directly in your ShortPixel account:

Hey,

I’ve been using ShortPixel image optimization plugin for WordPress and it made my website load faster. Sign up using this link and get access to 100 free credits each month + another 100 one-time credits, because of this invite 🙂

https://shortpixel.com/free-sign-up-referrer/referrer/3354636

Enjoy!

Enjoy optimising your site! Stay safe! 🙂