The browser will ask someone to install your site when it feels like it. Or it will not ask at all. That is a bad product decision to outsource to Chrome.
Most WordPress PWA setups stop at “make the site installable.” Manifest, service worker, HTTPS, done. Then they wait for the browser’s default banner. On Android that banner often shows up on a cold first load, before anyone has decided the site is worth a home-screen icon. On iOS there is no polite banner in the same way, so you get nothing unless you teach Add to Home Screen yourself.
Either way you are not choosing the moment. Progressify is built around choosing it.
Installable is not the same as asking well
A site can be a valid PWA and still ask badly.
Ask too early and people dismiss the prompt, learn to ignore the next one, or bounce. Ask with one generic banner and you get the same look every competitor has. Ask only when the browser decides, and you lose the visits where someone already scrolled three product pages and would have said yes.
Progressify separates the plumbing from the invitation.
The plumbing is the boring half: manifest, service worker, icons, splash screen, theme colour, platform-specific install logic. That is what makes Add to Home Screen work. The invitation is the half most plugins treat as a single banner. Progressify gives you five styles (banner, popup, overlay, button, or QR code) and rules for when they appear: visit count, time on page, or scroll depth. If someone dismisses it, you can keep it dismissed for as long as you set, instead of nailing them again on the next refresh.
That is the difference between “we turned PWA on” and “we ask for the install after they have a reason.”
Pick the moment on purpose
A useful default for a content site is not visit one. It is visit two or three, or a few seconds of real reading, or enough scroll that they have seen more than the hero.
Stores can wait for a product page scroll or a second session. Membership and course sites can wait until someone has opened a lesson. The rule is the same: the prompt should land after the site has already earned a little trust, not as the first thing they see under the logo.
Progressify’s install prompt settings are where that lives. You pick the style that fits the page (a quiet button in the header is a different offer than a full overlay). You set the trigger. You set how long a dismissal sticks. Install analytics by device, browser, and country tell you whether the rule is too shy or too loud, so you can tighten it from real installs instead of guessing.
None of that requires a theme edit. The prompt layer sits on top of what you already run.
What else has to be true when they say yes
An install only helps if the thing they open later still feels like an app.
Progressify covers that half too: fullscreen launch, splash screen, bottom navigation tab bar, page transitions without the white flash, dark mode that follows the system, pull to refresh, toast messages, skeleton loaders. Offline is not a generic browser error. You get cache rules per file type and your own branded offline page. Background sync queues comments, form submits, and WooCommerce cart actions when the signal drops, then replays them when it comes back.
Push sits in the same plugin. You send from wp-admin (by hand or when new content goes live), with image, action buttons, and a badge count, without a separate push vendor and without per-message fees. That is the re-engagement loop the home-screen icon is for.
If you also want Play Store and App Store listings, Progressify can generate the Android and iOS bundles from the same site. That is Pro. Most sites never need it on day one. Home-screen install plus timed prompts plus push is already the useful product.
We already wrote about when a WordPress site is overdue for a PWA in the 7 signs post. This one is narrower: once you decide to be installable, do not let the browser pick the awkward moment.
One membership, not another PWA bill
Progressify is free on WordPress.org. That is the same plugin, with Pro features locked rather than removed. Pro unlocks the deeper install analytics, app store builds, and the rest of the paid half on the Progressify product page.
It is also one of five Pro plugins on a DaftPlug membership. One licence unlocks Progressify (PWA), Lightify (performance), Generatify (AI), Rankify (SEO and GEO), and Snapshotify (backups). Plans differ only by site count: Pro $37.99/year for 1 site, Pro Plus $74.99/year for 5, Pro Max $138.99/year for 100. Features are identical across plans. New Pro plugins shipped while you are subscribed join the membership. Checkout is Freemius. Fourteen-day money-back. See pricing.
Make the site installable. Then ask for the home screen after someone has a reason to care, not on the first paint.