EWWW IO is a company that provides an invaluable image compression solution for website owners. EWWW IO will speed up your website, helping you to retain those all-important website visitors.
With fantastic customer reviews, fair prices and flexible payment options, I was eager to find out more about EWWW IO. I was lucky enough to grab an interview with founder Shane Bishop.
Where It All Began
EWWW IO is an easy, practical solution for a very common problem; slow-loading web pages. Unsurprisingly, the original product – back in 2012 – enjoyed big success very quickly. Shane told me all about the beginning of this product and how his company has grown since then:
“Back in 2012, I was helping a few businesses with their websites, and was looking for something to make image optimization easier. There were only two image optimization plugins back then, CW Image Optimizer required root/admin server privileges to run, and WP Smush.it relied on Yahoo’s unreliable Smush.it API (now defunct). I knew a little bit about some of the command-line tools used by CW Image Optimizer, so I rewrote it to work with my shared hosting server at Bluehost. I thought perhaps someone else could use it, so I submitted it to the plugin directory on wordpress.org as EWWW Image Optimizer. That’s short for Exactly WWW, but also my dry humor showing through, as in “EWWW, those images are huge and bloated and need to be optimized!” I know, I know, I’m terribly clever like that…
When the plugin had 500 downloads in the first week, I knew there was a need there, and I continued working on the plugin in my spare time. About a year later, I decided to see if I could run a simple image optimization API for the folks on web hosts that weren’t compatible with the command-line tools. That simple business idea took off, and now just about every image optimization plugin out there has used the API-style compression. EWWW IO continues to offer both modes: command-line tools for free zero-knowledge optimization, and our Compress API for folks who want a little more bang for their buck”.
Impressive Customer Service
As mentioned at the beginning, EWWW IO has lots of positive customer reviews. Some are proudly displayed on the company’s homepage and there are thousands of excellent reviews on WordPress.org too. The popular plugin is being used to speed up an impressive 900K websites. As such, it’s not surprising that Shane rates his company’s customer service very highly:
“I give our service an 11 out of 10, but that’s because folks tell us it’s amazing. We use Help Scout to assist all EWWW IO users, both free and paid, so it makes sure nothing slips through the cracks. I hired Adam a couple years ago to help me with the support load, and that’s allowed us to continue our strong focus on customer support while continuing to improve our plugins and services”.
EWWW IO's Free Plugin
The free Image Optimiser plugin by EWWW IO is a comprehensive and effective solution. It promises to speed up your site, lower your bounce rate, and ultimately improve your SEO efforts. Some notable features of the free plugin include intelligent image conversion, SSL encrypted communications, 30-day backups of your original images and ‘pixel perfect’ optimisation.
Shane explained how he considers this product to be the company’s greatest strength:
“The free plugin gives folks more power than any other plugin on the market. You can achieve significant savings with Google’s WebP format, lazy load your images, get automatic scaling for responsive images AND unlimited lossless compression of your original images. When that’s the foundation, it’s easy to take things to the next level with our paid services”.
Unlimited Compressed Images
I asked Shane what he is most proud of about EWWW IO. Here’s what he told me:
“That we don’t limit the number of images folks can compress. Back in 2020, we started an experiment for the folks who couldn’t run the free version of EWWW IO. We gave everyone on those servers free lossless API-based compression. No size limits on the images, and no limit to the number of images. A few months later, our API servers processed 1.5 million images in a single day, about 6x the previous daily high, all without skipping a beat. It was so flawless, that I didn’t even know it had happened until I was looking at the stats a couple weeks later!”
EWWW IO's Best-Selling Plan
There are three different EWWW IO premium plans to choose from, beginning at just $7 per month when paid monthly. I wanted to know which plan is the most popular amongst customers. Here’s what Shane told me:
“Our new Unlimited plans have been a huge hit. We took both our traditional API-based service and our Easy IO CDN service, added our new SWIS Performance plugin, and put it into a single package. Folks get all the tools they need to make their site faster, with no limits on the number of images, so they can mix & match whatever works best for any given site. In eight months, more folks have signed up for the Unlimited plans than any other subscription we’ve had over the last 8 years”.
The unlimited plan is aptly named ‘Infinite’. It costs only $25 per month when paid monthly or $250 when paid annually. Furthermore, there is a convenient free trial option enabling you to try before you buy and check it’s right for you and your requirements.
Lots Of Future Plans
EWWW IO has encountered great success over the years. Shane explained his plans for further expansion and what we can expect next from the company:
“Oh, we have lots of plans, next up we’re working on a CriticalCSS.com integration in our SWIS Performance plugin, and then later this year we plan to implement AVIF support in EWWW IO. If folks want to see what we’re working on, or suggest something new, they can visit https://feedback.ewww.io“
Lastly, a big thanks to Shane for answering all my interview questions. EWWW IO is a brilliant company offering essential tools for speeding up websites. I’m looking forward to seeing what’s in store for the company and its customers moving forward.