AccessNow Image Optimizer Pro: measure the difference

AccessNow Image Optimizer is a free WordPress plugin that compresses images on your own server and makes WebP and AVIF copies, with no account and no monthly limit. Today it gets a paid edition. Image Optimizer Pro answers the question every image optimiser leaves open: how much did it actually help? It measures your own pages before and after, on your own site, with nothing sent anywhere.

To launch it, Image Optimizer Pro is 30% off for as long as you keep renewing, for licences bought before 30 April 2027: US$13.30 a year for one site instead of US$19. See the plans.

A speed test you can trust

The idea came from my brother, who asked a fair question: every optimiser claims to make sites faster, so why not prove it? Pro’s Speed test loads your own pages in your own browser, on desktop and phone sizes, the way WordPress alone would serve them and the way they’re served now. It takes them in turns, three times each, and reports the median and the range: how much image weight each page sheds, and how much sooner the largest image appears.

It is honest about what it measures. The image weight saved is real on every connection. The time saved depends on the connection: on a fast one, or on a test site on your own computer, it can be too small to tell apart, and the report says “no clear difference” rather than inventing a number. On a slow phone connection, it is the difference you feel. Run it before you optimise for a true “before” (later results compare with it only when it agrees with their own like-for-like “before”), print the summary or download it as a spreadsheet, and pass it to a client. Before and after speed test (Pro) explains how it works.

Home page, desktop: images 1.6 MB to 1.2 MB (29% less), largest image appeared 2.4 s sooner (median of 3; 2.3 to 2.5 s). Compared with the measurement taken before optimising: images 1.6 MB then, 1.2 MB now; largest image at 9.2 s then, 7.0 s now. — The same test site’s home page at desktop size, with the connection slowed to a typical mobile speed (Slow 4G: 150 ms latency, 1.6 Mbps down) and the processor slowed four times. Images 1.6 MB → 1.2 MB (29% less); the largest image appeared 2.4 s sooner (median of 3, range 2.3–2.5 s). The measurement taken before optimising agrees with the test’s own “before” (9.2 s and 9.4 s to the largest image, 1.6 MB of images either way), so the report compares it: 9.2 s then, 7.0 s now. When the two don’t agree, the report says so and leaves the earlier timing out.

Speed test results table for a home page and a gallery page on desktop and phone: image bytes, image requests, when the largest image appeared, page load and first byte, before and after, with medians, ranges and the change in words. — Every number from one run (home page and gallery, desktop and phone), measured on the test site with the connection slowed to a typical mobile speed (Slow 4G: 150 ms latency, 1.6 Mbps down) and the processor slowed four times. The largest image appeared 536 ms to 2.7 s sooner, except on the gallery at phone size (52 ms sooner, range 28–52 ms), where the page still finished loading 943 ms sooner. First-byte times show no clear difference, as you’d expect: the plugin changes images, not how fast your server answers.

Speed test result for a gallery page on a phone: images 668.0 KB to 481.7 KB (28% less), and the largest image appeared 36 ms sooner (median of 3; 28 to 40 ms). Two bar charts compare before and after: 668.0 KB and 481.7 KB of images; the largest image at 3.2 s and 3.2 s. — A gallery page at phone size, measured on a test site in Chrome with the connection slowed to a typical mobile speed (Slow 4G: 150 ms latency, 1.6 Mbps down) and the processor slowed four times. Images 668.0 KB → 481.7 KB (28% less); the largest image appeared 36 ms sooner (median of 3, range 28–40 ms), at 3.2 s either way. The largest photo on this page is one whose file barely shrinks, and the test says so rather than borrowing a bigger number from elsewhere.

Images in your theme and plugins

Your theme’s header photos and your plugins’ images never pass through the Media Library, so the free plugin, which only changes files in your uploads folder, leaves them alone. Pro optimises them too, along with any other folder you choose inside your site’s content folder, with backups and WebP and AVIF copies. Theme and plugin images (Pro).

Photo details, field by field

The free plugin keeps your photos’ details by default, or removes the location, or the camera and location. Pro lets you choose field by field: keep the copyright and the lens, drop the camera’s serial numbers and the place a photo was taken. It can also clean the location out of every photo already in your Media Library, in batches, with a count first and a backup of every original. And if you switch on the optional credit, you can write it in your own words. Photo details in Pro.

The launch offer

30% off for as long as you renew, for licences bought before 30 April 2027: US$13.30, US$34.30 or US$69.30 a year for one site, five sites or as many as you like.
Or pay once: a lifetime licence for the first 100 buyers, from US$35.
Copies on your own computer and at staging addresses never use a licence, every plan includes updates and priority support, and there is a 14-day money-back guarantee.

The free plugin stays free

Nothing in the free plugin has moved behind a paywall, and it never will. Version 1.4, released today, adds backups you control and photo details kept your way, for everyone. Pro installs over it in the same place and keeps every setting.

Get it

Choose a plan on the Image Optimizer Pro page, where you can also see how it compares with EWWW, Smush, Imagify, Converter for Media and ShortPixel. Already bought it? Activating Image Optimizer Pro takes two minutes. The free plugin is on the AccessNow Image Optimizer page.