ExcerptBuilder generates accurate excerpts for your WordPress posts using the WordPress AI Client (Settings > Connectors). No separate API key to manage – it uses the provider you have already configured for your site. Three edit modes Write – create a new excerpt from the post title and content Rew
PricingFree downloadThe WordPress.org download is free. Pro versions, add-ons or external services may cost extra.
CompatibilityRequires WordPress 7.0 and PHP 7.4.
SourceWordPress plugins · Oct 30, 2026
01 / Source details
Aboutthistool.
ExcerptBuilder generates accurate excerpts for your WordPress posts using the WordPress AI Client (Settings > Connectors). No separate API key to manage – it uses the provider you have already configured for your site.
Three edit modes
Write – create a new excerpt from the post title and content
Rewrite – improve an existing excerpt, correcting inaccuracies against the post content
Tidy – fix only spelling, typos, capitalisation, and line-break errors, without changing meaning
On-demand and automatic
Generate from the post edit meta box, preview, and save
Excerpts at publish: when an editor publishes a post without an excerpt, ExcerptBuilder offers a draft for confirmation. For scheduled, imported or REST-driven publications, it can write the excerpt directly or hold it for later review, according to your setting.
Uses the WordPress AI Client
ExcerptBuilder requires WordPress 7.0 and a configured AI provider at Settings > Connectors. It stores no provider key of its own. Choose which model answers from the models your key can use, with an optional strict mode.
Framed for your site and its readers
Excerpts are written from more than the post copy. On the Customize tab you describe your publication, what kind of site it is, and who reads it. ExcerptBuilder passes that context to the model so an excerpt is pitched at your actual audience rather than a generic reader, and it feeds the SEO-aware writing too.
This applies to Write and Rewrite. Tidy deliberately ignores it, because Tidy must never reframe or change meaning.
If you also run PublisherKits Insight Engine , ExcerptBuilder picks up the shared site profile automatically and you do not need to describe your site twice.
Free and Pro
Everything you need to give individual posts great excerpts is free: the three edit modes (Write, Rewrite, Tidy), the publish-time auto-draft, SEO-aware writing, and audience and author framing.
ExcerptBuilder Pro adds Bulk Fill – scan your entire published archive for posts with no excerpt and write one for each in a single operated run, with a live count, a per-year breakdown, a progress bar, a per-post log, and stop/resume.
ExcerptBuilder is one of a small range of tools built for people who actually run publications. Each works on its own, and all are free on WordPress.org:
PublisherKits BioBuilder – stop leaving author profiles blank. When a post is published, BioBuilder finds the author’s professional profile and fills in their bio, social handles, job title and employer.
PublisherKits SocialPromoter – write, post and schedule social promotions from inside the WordPress editor, straight to X, LinkedIn, Facebook Pages and Bluesky.
PublisherKits PluginTidy – works out which plugins your site actually uses, records every plugin change, and makes removing one safe.
External services
1. Freemius (licensing, checkout and optional diagnostics)
ExcerptBuilder uses the Freemius SDK, from Freemius, Inc., for optional account connection, licence administration, checkout and optional usage diagnostics. Updates to this free package are supplied by WordPress.org. This free plugin does not download, install or update the separately distributed Pro package.
When data may be transmitted: when you opt in to the activation flow, connect or manage an account or licence, use checkout, or consent to optional usage diagnostics.
What may be transmitted: broad account and installation information such as the site URL, the administrator email address you provide, plugin and WordPress version data, and licence identifiers. Opting in to the activation flow is optional – you can skip it and every free feature keeps working. Usage diagnostics are sent only when you consent.
Your post content and the excerpts ExcerptBuilder generates are never sent to Freemius.
Terms of service: https://freemius.com/terms/ Privacy policy: https://freemius.com/privacy/
2. Your AI provider (excerpt generation)
Excerpt text is generated by the AI provider you connect at Settings > Connectors, through the WordPress AI Client. ExcerptBuilder does not operate an AI service of its own and has no hosted fallback: if no provider is configured, no request is made and no excerpt is generated.
A request is sent only when an administrator or editor triggers one, specifically when you: click Generate in the ExcerptBuilder box (Write or Rewrite); click Tidy; accept or request a draft in the publish-step panel; run the self-test on the Setup tab; or publish a post while “Excerpts at publish” is enabled, which generates a draft in the background.
A request may contain: the post title; the post content, with tags stripped and truncated to the first 3,000 characters; the existing excerpt, for Rewrite and Tidy; your publication, site-type and audience description; the post author’s display name, role or job title, employer, and a short biography summary, where those are available; and any custom instruction you have configured.
The provider you selected processes the request, and that provider’s own terms and privacy policy apply to it – please consult the documentation for whichever provider you connect. ExcerptBuilder does not write generated text into the live post excerpt until the workflow you chose allows it: in the editor you preview and save it yourself, and at publish time it is either offered for confirmation or handled according to your scheduled-post setting. Always review generated output before relying on it.
3. PublisherKits Support Service (optional support assistant)
The Help button on ExcerptBuilder admin screens opens an optional support assistant provided by the PublisherKits Support Service at bwtlsupport.com, operated by Black and White Trading Ltd. Nothing is sent until you open the assistant and accept the privacy notice shown inside it. Passwords, API keys and post content are never collected automatically.
Who answers your question. If this site has its own AI provider configured, your question and chat history are sent to that provider, and the support service is used only to supply documentation matched to your plugin version – it still receives the authorisation and diagnostic metadata described below. If no provider is configured, or if the local attempt fails, your question and chat history are sent to the PublisherKits Support Service instead, which answers them.
Identifying data. Every request carries your site address, and where available the Freemius licence installation identifier for this site. These are used to authorise the request and to apply the fair-use limit described below. On the free tier a value derived from your site address is stored against a monthly counter for that limit, and kept for the current and previous month only.
Operational metadata. Each request also carries this plugin’s version and those of installed sibling plugins, the identifier of the admin screen you are on, a short whitelist of non-sensitive diagnostic settings, your support tier, the question category, and counts and response timings. This is retained only as aggregated operational statistics, in a non-identifying day, plugin and counter format. It is not retained as a per-site behavioural event log.
Question content. This is the question you type and the chat history sent so the assistant can follow the conversation. It is transmitted in order to answer the request, processed transiently, and not retained after the response is returned. Because you control what you type, a question could contain information you consider personal – please avoid including anything sensitive.
Escalation payload. Only if you open the ticket form in the assistant (“Send to support” or “Still need to raise a ticket?”) and click “Create ticket” does the plugin send the conversation (up to its 20 most recent messages), the identifying data and operational metadata above, the question category, the contact email address you enter (pre-filled with your WordPress account email) and the first and last name from your WordPress user profile. These are retained so that a support agent can answer you. Nothing is retained from an ordinary question that you do not escalate.
Terms of service: https://publisherkits.com/terms/ Privacy policy: https://publisherkits.com/privacy-policy/
Source code and build tools
ExcerptBuilder’s own PHP, JavaScript and CSS source is included in this package in human-readable form. Nothing first-party is minified, compiled or obfuscated.
The bundled Freemius SDK includes one compiled file, vendor/freemius/assets/js/pricing/freemius-pricing.js, which is a webpack build of the Freemius pricing app. Its source and build instructions are public:
Freemius WordPress SDK source (GPL v3): https://github.com/Freemius/wordpress-sdk Freemius pricing app source and build instructions (MIT, npm install then npm run build): https://github.com/Freemius/pricing-page
The bundled SDK is based on Freemius WordPress SDK 2.13.4, byte-identical to upstream master at commit fa43eb9 when it was vendored. One small PHP 8 multisite compatibility fix has been applied and is documented in full in vendor/freemius/BWD-PATCH-NOTES.md, which is included in this package. The SDK’s internal loader marker reads 2.13.5 so that this fixed copy takes precedence over an unpatched 2.13.4 copy bundled by another plugin on the same site. The patch will be dropped and the stock SDK re-vendored once an official release contains the fix.
See it in action
Screenshots & previews.
The ExcerptBuilder panel in the post editor. Choose Write, Rewrite or Tidy, set a length and a tone, and generate an excerpt without leaving the post.Setup. ExcerptBuilder uses the WordPress AI Client, so providers and keys are configured once at Settings > Connectors and shared across the site - ExcerptBuilder stores no key of its own.Customize. Describe your site and audience so excerpts are framed for the right readers, set your defaults, and decide what happens when a post is published without an excerpt.Support. The built-in Support Copilot answers usage and setup questions, and is fully disclosed: what it sends, where it sends it, and consent before the first chat.
02 / Source details
Gettingstarted.
01Install and activate PublisherKits ExcerptBuilder from Plugins > Add New, or by uploading the plugin ZIP.
02ExcerptBuilder requires WordPress 7.0 or later and PHP 7.4 or later. It uses the WordPress AI Client, which is part of WordPress 7.0; on earlier versions the plugin stays inactive rather than generating anything.
03Connect an AI provider at Settings > Connectors (this is a WordPress screen, not an ExcerptBuilder one). ExcerptBuilder stores no provider key of its own and uses whichever provider you have configured there.
04Open ExcerptBuilder from the WordPress admin sidebar. There is also a Settings link on the Plugins screen.
05On the Setup tab, confirm the status reads Ready and choose a preferred model if you want a specific one. On the Customize tab, describe your publication and audience and set the default mode, length and tone.
06Edit a post and use the ExcerptBuilder box: Write creates an excerpt from the post, Rewrite improves the existing one, Tidy fixes only spelling, typos, capitalisation and line breaks. Preview the result, then save it to the post.
07Optionally enable “Excerpts at publish”. When an editor publishes a post with no excerpt, a draft is offered at the publish step for confirmation. For scheduled, imported or REST publishes there is no editor present, so ExcerptBuilder either writes the excerpt directly or holds it for review in the post editor, according to the setting next to it.
08Generated text is a starting point. Review every excerpt before relying on it – AI output can be inaccurate, and the excerpt is often what search engines and social networks show.
09The Help button on ExcerptBuilder screens opens an optional support assistant. It sends nothing until you open it and accept its privacy notice; see “External services” below.
10Bulk Fill, which writes excerpts across a whole published archive in one operated run, is not part of this plugin. It is included only in the separately distributed ExcerptBuilder Pro package.
03 / Source details
Frequently asked questions.
Why use this when there are other excerpt tools?
Three practical differences.
It has no API key of its own. ExcerptBuilder uses the WordPress AI Client, so you configure a provider once at Settings > Connectors and every plugin on the site shares it. There is no key to paste into yet another settings screen, and nothing to redo when you rotate one.
It knows what your site is. Most excerpt tools see only the post. ExcerptBuilder also passes a short description of your publication and its readers, so the excerpt is pitched at your audience rather than at nobody in particular.
It has a mode that does not rewrite. Tidy fixes spelling, typos, capitalisation and stray line breaks, and nothing else. That matters when an excerpt is already right and you only want the errors gone.
There is also a safety net: with “Excerpts at publish” enabled, a post cannot quietly go live with an empty excerpt – including scheduled posts and imports, where no editor is present to be prompted.
What effect does the site profile have on the excerpt drafts?
On the Customize tab you describe your publication, what kind of site it is, and who reads it. Those fields are sent to the model alongside the post, as a short context block, before the excerpt is written.
In practice it changes emphasis and register rather than facts. The same article on a B2B trade title and on a consumer blog will lead with a different detail, assume a different amount of prior knowledge, and use different phrasing.
It applies to Write and Rewrite. Tidy deliberately ignores it, because Tidy must not reframe or change meaning.
Leaving the fields empty is perfectly fine – the excerpt is then written from the post alone.
Do I need an API key, and which AI providers work?
You need one AI provider configured on the site, but not a key belonging to this plugin. ExcerptBuilder reads whatever is set up at Settings > Connectors through the WordPress AI Client, and stores no key of its own.
The Setup tab lists the providers it can see and whether each one’s plugin is active. If nothing is configured, ExcerptBuilder makes no request and generates nothing – it has no hosted fallback and never sends your content anywhere by default.
The Setup tab says the AI connection is not ready. What now?
Install and activate a provider plugin, add its key at Settings > Connectors, then return to ExcerptBuilder’s Setup tab and click Run self-test . The self-test performs one real request and reports exactly what came back, which is usually enough to identify a wrong key, an inactive provider plugin, or a model your key cannot use.
If you need a specific model, set it under Model on the same tab. Leaving it alone is fine – a sensible default is used.
Does it need WordPress 7.0?
Yes. The WordPress AI Client that ExcerptBuilder depends on arrived in WordPress 7.0, so earlier versions are not supported.
Will it overwrite excerpts I have already written?
No. Nothing is overwritten without you asking.
The publish-time feature only ever acts on a post whose excerpt is empty – if there is already an excerpt, it does nothing. In the editor, Write and Rewrite show you the result in a preview box and you decide whether to save it.
Rewrite and Tidy are the only features that change existing text, and only when you run them deliberately on that post.
Which post types does it work on?
Posts. The ExcerptBuilder box appears on the post editor and the publish-time behaviour applies to posts.
Does it work in the Classic Editor?
Yes. The generation box appears in both the block editor and the Classic Editor, and the publish-step prompt works in both.
Does this work with my SEO plugin’s meta description?
ExcerptBuilder writes the WordPress excerpt. It never reads, writes or overwrites any SEO plugin’s own fields, so there is nothing for the two to fight over.
What it does do is write excerpts that are usable as a meta description: front-loaded so the important part survives truncation, self-contained and accurate to the article, no clickbait and no trailing ellipsis, and on Short or Medium roughly search-snippet length.
Whether that excerpt actually becomes your meta description is your SEO plugin’s decision, and the two most common ones behave differently:
Rank Math sets a post’s meta description to the excerpt out of the box, so a generated excerpt is used as the search snippet with no further setup.
Yoast ships with an empty meta description template and will not use the excerpt for the search snippet until you set one. Search Appearance > Content Types > Posts, and set the meta description to %%excerpt%% . Yoast does already fall back to the excerpt for Facebook and X descriptions.
For any other SEO plugin, look for its post-type description template and set it to that plugin’s excerpt variable.
Either way the excerpt is worth filling: themes, feeds, search results pages, archive listings and social previews all use it regardless of your SEO setup.
What is actually sent to the AI provider?
Only when you trigger it: the post title; the post content with tags stripped and truncated to the first 3,000 characters; the existing excerpt for Rewrite and Tidy; your publication, site-type and audience description; the post author’s name, job title, employer and a short biography summary where those exist; and any custom instruction you have set.
It goes to the provider you configured, and nowhere else. Your content is never sent to Freemius. The full disclosure is in the External services section below.
What is free, and what is Pro?
Everything that gives an individual post a good excerpt is free, with no quota or trial: all three modes, the publish-time draft, SEO-aware writing, and site, audience and author framing.
Pro adds one thing – Bulk Fill, which scans your whole published archive for posts with no excerpt and writes one for each in a single operated run, with a live count, a per-year breakdown, a progress bar, a per-post log, and stop/resume.
Does uninstalling remove my settings?
Only if you ask it to. “Delete all ExcerptBuilder settings when the plugin is uninstalled” is off by default, so your settings survive a reinstall. Shared PublisherKits site data is never removed by ExcerptBuilder.
What other tools do you make?
Two more are on WordPress.org, free:
PublisherKits BioBuilder – finds and fills author bios, social handles and job titles automatically.
PublisherKits SocialPromoter – post and schedule social promotions from the editor to X, LinkedIn, Facebook Pages and Bluesky.
The full range, including tools not distributed on WordPress.org, is at publisherkits.com – among them Insight Engine , whose shared site profile ExcerptBuilder will use automatically if you have it.
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