WordPress Cron Settings

WordPress Cron Settings

WordPress includes a built-in task scheduler called WP-Cron that handles background jobs such as publishing scheduled posts, sending email notifications, running plugin update checks, and clearing expired transients.

How WP-Cron Works by Default

By default, WP-Cron is not a true scheduled job. Instead, it is triggered every time someone loads a page on your site. WordPress checks whether any scheduled tasks are due, and if so, runs them during that page request.

This approach has a significant limitation: if no one visits your site, scheduled tasks never run. On low-traffic sites, a post scheduled to publish at 9:00 AM might not actually go live until 11:00 AM or later — whenever the next visitor happens to arrive.

FlyWP’s System Cron

FlyWP replaces the default visitor-triggered WP-Cron with a real system-level cron job that fires on a configurable schedule, independent of site traffic.

Note

Enabling this feature disables the default WP-Cron trigger and replaces it with a true server-side scheduler. Scheduled tasks will run on time even on sites with no traffic.

To access the cron settings for a site, go to your site dashboard and select the Cron Settings tab.

Configuring the Interval

You can set the frequency using two fields:

• Interval — a number value
• Unit — seconds, minutes, or hours

The default is every 10 minutes, which suits most WordPress sites.

Tip

Every 10 minutes is a reliable default. Only reduce the interval if your site schedules very frequent tasks — for example, a news site publishing posts every few minutes. More frequent cron runs consume slightly more server resources.

Site Cron vs. Server Cron Jobs

These settings control only WordPress’s internal task scheduler (WP-Cron). They are separate from the server-level cron jobs you can manage under your server’s Cron tab.

Feature	Site Cron Settings	Server Cron Jobs
Scope	WordPress scheduled tasks	Any shell command on the server
Configuration	Interval and unit	Full cron expression
Location	Site dashboard > Cron Settings	Server dashboard > Cron

Use server-level cron jobs when you need to run custom scripts or commands outside of WordPress. Use site cron settings to control how and when WordPress itself processes its own scheduled work.

Related Pages

• Server Cron Jobs — manage custom cron jobs at the server level
• Helper Plugin — the FlyWP helper plugin that integrates site-level features with WordPress