WooCommerce Review 2024: Pricing, Pros & Cons

WooCommerce is a highly configurable e-commerce platform that’s popular with small to medium-sized businesses. With more than 3.9 million online stores having already been built, the platform was recently ranked on the Forbes list of Best E-Commerce Platforms. Below is a list of pros and cons that best illustrate what you can expect with WooCommerce.

Pros

• It’s free: The WooCommerce WordPress plug-in is always free.
• Sell all types of products and services: You can sell physical products, digital downloads and services through your WooCommerce online store.
• Open source: Since WooCommerce is open-source software, it allows for tremendous flexibility in site design and functionality that doesn’t exist with closed-source software.
• Mobile-friendly: It’s easy to make your online store mobile-friendly with WooCommerce.
• Search engine optimization: E-commerce websites built with WooCommerce can be optimized to give you an advantage in search.
• Thousands of themes: There are dozens of free WooCommerce themes available and thousands of paid themes. Premium themes typically cost from $35 to $129.
• No contracts: You don’t have to enter into a long, expensive contract, which gives WooCommerce another advantage over most e-commerce platforms.
• Built exclusively for WordPress: WooCommerce is built for use with WordPress websites. WordPress is the mostly widely used content management system (CMS) globally.

Cons

• Not user-friendly for beginners: WooCommerce has a steep learning curve—especially for those not already using WordPress—making it a poor choice for novice or less tech-savvy website builders.
• Frequent updates: You’ll need to update your WooCommerce software regularly to ensure it remains secure and glitch-free.
• Hosting is not free: You can only use WooCommerce with self-hosted WordPress websites, which means you will have to invest in hosting services separately.
• Limited support: Unlike other e-commerce platforms, WooCommerce does not offer email and phone support; free support is offered via the WooCommerce online Documentation portal.

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Using WooCommerce is relatively straightforward if you already have a WordPress website. WooCommerce can be used on any WordPress site but it’s important to understand the differences between WordPress.org vs. WordPress.com. This review focuses on using WooCommerce for self-hosted WordPress.org websites.

Getting started with WooCommerce is as easy as downloading the free plug-in on your website. However, configuring WooCommerce for your site and setting up your online store are where things begin to get complicated and sometimes expensive, as costs for extensions, third-party integrations and expert developer help with customizations can add up.

There are several decisions you must make when building an e-commerce site. For instance, you must decide what you want your online store to look like and select and activate the appropriate themes (some businesses prefer to work with a WooCommerce developer for site design).  You’ll also, of course, need to determine which products you want to include in your online store, how you’ll promote those products and how you’ll direct your visitors to navigate your store so they have a good experience. Just as importantly, decisions must be made regarding product pricing, product descriptions, product images, payment options offered, shipping options, how you’ll collect taxes, methods for inventory management and what tools you’ll use to monitor your online sales.

WooCommerce offers all the features you need to build a fully functional e-commerce website.

There are several features that you want to look for when shopping for an e-commerce platform. You need to be able to process payments, handle shipping, deliver a strong customer experience and tap into marketing capabilities that let you successfully promote your products and services. You also need strong analytics that give you full visibility into sales performance. WooCommerce delivers on all accounts.

Product Management

With WooCommerce, you can sell all types of products and services, including physical products, digital downloads, services, subscriptions and memberships. You can also upload products in bulk or add one at a time.

WooCommerce lets you add a detailed product description for each item in your online store as well as a shorter description that summarizes the product’s key selling features. And to enhance your description, you can set a featured product image and add a product gallery of images and videos.

To keep your products organized and easy to find and manage, WooCommerce allows you to:

• Add categories, tags and attributes—such as color and size.
• Enable reviews so customers can share their experience with your products.
• Create product search filters to make it easy for your site visitors to find what they want.
• Add upsell or cross-sell suggestions for any product on your website.

Payment Processing

There are several options for accepting and processing payments on your site. WooCommerce Payments is a popular payment processor that lets you accept major credit cards plus Google Pay and Apple Pay. In the U.S., you’ll pay a base fee of 2.9% plus 30 cents per U.S.-based transaction with WooCommerce. International payments for U.S. businesses incur an additional 1.5% fee plus a 1% currency conversion fee. Payment dispute fees are $15.

There are nearly 80 payment extensions available for WooCommerce, so you have plenty of payment processing options available, including Stripe, PayPal Payments, Square for WooCommerce and Authorize.net.

WooCommerce Payments is a popular and easy-to-use payment gateway.

Shipping

WooCommerce offers 71 extensions for shipping, delivery and fulfillment. In addition to the WooCommerce Shipping extension, the platform integrates with top third-party shipping platforms, including ShipStation for WooCommerce, Shippo, AliExpress Dropshipping for WooCommerce and Amazon Fulfillment (MCF) for WooCommerce.

Marketing Capabilities

There are over 160 marketing extensions that you can add to your website to promote your store and capture more sales. You can also add essential functionality to your site via integrations with your email marketing solution and social channels, and use WooCommerce extensions to create coupons and discounts, gift cards and loyalty programs for your online store.

With WooCommerce, you can also extend your sales reach by adding extensions that let you sell on other platforms such as Etsy, eBay and Walmart.

Customer Support Features

When selling products or services online, it’s important to include customer-friendly features that support your site visitors’ specific needs. These include live chat, support tickets, refund policies, return processes and automated help desk features, which can all help increase customer satisfaction. WooCommerce offers more than 25 customer support extensions.

Analytics and Reports

To be successful at selling online, you need unfettered visibility into what is and is not working. The WooCommerce dashboard offers an overview as well as a detailed view of site performance. You can easily view total sales, net sales, number of orders, number of products sold, number of visitors to your store, top product categories and top products sold.

WooCommerce analytics also tells you which orders were sold at full price and which customers used a coupon or discount code. When you add an inventory management integration, you can also tell which products are out of stock, low in stock or on backorder.

WooCommerce analytics dashboard from WooCommerce.com

The WooCommerce plug-in is free; however, this does not mean you can create an e-commerce website with WooCommerce for free.

If you have a self-hosted WordPress website, you’ve already purchased a domain and website hosting. If not, you’ll need to register a domain and purchase website hosting services for your WordPress site. On average expect to pay $8 to $20 per year for domain registration and $80 to $300 per year for WordPress hosting; services typically vary based on bandwidth and storage requirements.

Other costs you can expect:

• WooCommerce theme: These average $0 to $120.
• Payment gateway costs: Varies by provider; average 2.9% plus 30 cents per sale plus $0 to $30 monthly fee.
• Third-party integrations and extensions: From $0 to $300-plus per year, depending on which types of integrations you add to your site.
• WooCommerce developer costs: If you need expert help, expect to pay $10 to $100-plus per hour for developer services; this could add up into the thousands.

To begin the process of adding e-commerce functionality to your WordPress website, simply upload the WooCommerce plug-in to your site and activate it.

Upload then activate the WooCommerce plug-in on your WordPress website.

If you don’t already have a self-hosted WordPress site, you’ll need to build one (see How To Build a WordPress Website in 9 Steps).

Once activated on your website, WooCommerce will prompt you to answer questions about your store details, industry, product types you plan to offer as well as details about your business such as the number of products you plan to sell, other platforms you’re selling on and current revenue.

WooCommerce offers prompts to guide you through your initial e-commerce store setup.

As part of the setup process, you are also given the opportunity to add several free specific business features to your site, including WooCommerce Payments, WooCommerce Shipping, WooCommerce Tax, TikTok for WooCommerce and Jetpack, which helps enhance site speed and security.

Once you’ve completed answering the questions in the activation phase of setup, your WooCommerce plug-in will appear on the left column of your WordPress dashboard. In addition to adding products to sell, you’ll also need to set up payments processing. WooCommerce will also prompt you to add tax rates, explore options for getting more sales and personalize your store.

For some, WooCommerce is easy to use and for others, not so much. Frankly, it all depends on your technical skill level and whether you’ve used WordPress before.

Installing the WooCommerce plug-in, though, couldn’t be easier—just a few simple clicks and you’re ready to start adding e-commerce functionality to your WordPress website. However, deploying WooCommerce and customizing it for your exact needs can get complicated.

With WooCommerce, many of the advanced features you’ll want will require third-party integrations or extensions that will require frequent updates. Other e-commerce platforms, including Shopify and BigCommerce, are all-in-one solutions that have popular e-commerce features built into their platforms. The advantages with these are that you have fewer integrations to manage and don’t have to deal with so many software updates.

Since WooCommerce is built on WordPress, your website is as secure as your WordPress installation. Choosing a highly secure web hosting service is the most important step you can take to keep your website safe from hackers, malware and other online security threats. There are a number of WordPress plug-ins that provide additional security for your site, including Jetpack, Wordfence and Sucuri.

Other steps for ensuring site security include having an SSL certificate; keeping your themes, plug-ins and WordPress software up to date; using secure passwords; and employing two-factor authentication for site administrators. Also, remember that when you’re selling online, you must keep customer data—including identity and payment details—secure. Be selective when choosing your payment processing gateway.

Online stores can encounter fraud that even the tightest security protocols won’t catch. When selling online, it’s important to be on guard for suspicious purchasing activity, such as large-volume purchases for items that aren’t typically purchased in volume. You may want to consider putting buyer authentication measures in place—such as manual verification—before shipping large or high-dollar orders. You can also install a fraud protection plug-in.

Unlike many other e-commerce platforms, WooCommerce does not offer email and phone support. The only free support that is offered for self-hosted WordPress sites is via the WooCommerce online documentation center and public support forums.

WooCommerce also has a team of developers called WooExperts that you can hire for anything from troubleshooting to full website builds. WooExperts’ consulting services start at $90 per hour and specific projects are custom-priced based on your project’s timeline and scope.

WooCommerce has a number of attractive features that can help you be more successful selling products and services online. Some of these features are free, though many come with an add-on fee, so it’s important to weigh the value of premium upgrades relative to their cost.

Mobile App

You can manage your store from anywhere with the WooCommerce Mobile app. Edit or add products, get real-time alerts about new sales and reviews and manage the entire fulfillment process remotely. You can also use the app to track your store’s performance stats.

The Jetpack-powered WooCommerce mobile app is free and is available on Google Play and Apple App Store.

Manage your e-commerce initiatives on the WooCommerce app (image source: Apps.Apple.com)

Sell Subscriptions and Memberships

You can sell subscriptions and memberships via WooCommerce by adding the appropriate extension to your site. Use the free WooCommerce Subscriptions extension to sell subscriptions. The WooCommerce Memberships plug-in costs $199 per year and lets you develop a multifaceted membership program or gate site content based on membership status.

WooCommerce Dynamic Pricing

The basic WooCommerce plug-in lets you assign time-sensitive discounts to any product on your site. The WooCommerce Dynamic Pricing extension—which costs $129 annually—gives you even more pricing flexibility.

With Dynamic Pricing, you can give discounts based on the quantity purchased or assign preferred member status to some buyers and offer a discount based on that status. You can also give a set discount across an entire product category, such as 20% off all coats.

Checkout Options

You can optimize the checkout experience using the free WooCommerce Blocks extension. The extension uses the WordPress Gutenberg editor to create a seamless checkout flow for your customers, while instantly validating checkout fields and integrating with your store’s theme for a cohesive brand experience

Product Recommendations

The Product Recommendations extension from WooCommerce costs $99 annually and can help you promote relevant products to customers who are shopping on your site. Upsells, cross-sells and customer suggestions that you can create with this extension include:

• Frequently bought together
• Recently viewed products
• Recently reviewed categories
• More from this category
• Top rated in this category

WooCommerce at work in terms of production recommendation and upselling

Product Reviews

WooCommerce comes with a free built-in customer reviews feature, which can help you land more sales on your site. Once you’ve activated reviews, customers can assign a star rating and share comments about their purchase. You have complete control over which reviews appear on your site; you can approve, unapprove, edit, reply or mark views as spam or trash.

Accept Cryptocurrency

You can set up your WooCommerce online store to accept crypto payments. To do this, you’ll need to integrate your site with a third-party payment processing solution that accepts crypto, such as DePay Payments, HAVYN Pay, Coinbase Commerce or OpenNode Bitcoin Payments.

The WooCommerce plug-in is free, but that doesn’t mean you can set up an e-commerce store for free. First, you’ll need a self-hosted WordPress website—which requires purchasing a domain and a hosting plan. You can spend hundreds—or even thousands—each year by adding extensions that expand your website’s e-commerce capabilities.

Site speed is another factor to consider when building an e-commerce website. Slow site speeds can impact the customer experience and negatively impact your success in search. Typically, the more plug-ins you add to your WordPress site, the more sluggish it will become.

WooCommerce is a plug-in and, in all likelihood, you’ll add even more extensions to your site that will further burden site processing. If you’re on a shared hosting plan, this can be problematic; you may need to upgrade your hosting plan to run your WooCommerce site effectively.

	WooCommerce	Shopify	BigCommerce	Ecwid
Rating (out of 5 stars)
Pricing	No monthly fee	Plans range from $29 to $299 per month	Plans range from $29 to $299 per month	$0 to $89 per month
Free trial	Always free	Three-day free trial then $1 a month for three-month trial	15 days	Free plan
Contracts	None	Monthly and annual plans	Monthly and annual plans	Monthly and annual plans
Transaction fees	When using WooCommerce Payments, 2.9% plus 30 cents per transaction. Additional 1% fee for non-U.S.-issued cards	No transaction fee with Shopify Payments; 0.5% to 2% if using third-party payment provider	None	None
Discount codes/coupons	✔	✔	✔	✔
Subscriptions	✔	✔	✔	✔
Support	Online help resources only	Phone, email, live chat, social media, community forum, online Help Center	Phone, email, live chat, online Help Center	Varies by plan; phone, email, live chat, online Help Center
Learn More	—	On Shopify’s Website	On BigCommerce’s Website	—
Read Reviews	—	Read Shopify Review	Read BigCommerce Review	Read Ecwid Review

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WooCommerce vs. Shopify

In the head-to-head between WooCommerce vs. Shopify, the best choice for you depends on your exact needs. The WooCommerce plug-in is free, but doesn’t come with the built-in features and functionality you get with Shopify. The latter is a closed platform, all-in-one online shop builder; WooCommerce is not. You must have a WordPress site to use WooCommerce.

WooCommerce vs. BigCommerce

If you’re debating between WooCommerce vs. BigCommerce, you’ll have to consider the level of support you may need, as well as how much you want to pay to host your e-commerce-enabled website.

Once again, if you already have a well-established WordPress site that you’re comfortable managing, WooCommerce might be the best choice for you. If you’re starting from scratch and need an easy-to-use platform, BigCommerce could be the better option.

WooCommerce vs. Ecwid

The contest between WooCommerce vs. Ecwid is close, as both can be used with WordPress sites. Ecwid can also be used on other platforms, such as Weebly, Wix and Squarespace—which aren’t supported by WooCommerce. Ecwid charges a monthly fee but no transaction fees. WooCommerce, however, charges transaction fees, but the plug-in itself is free.

In terms of customization, WooCommerce has the edge, but Ecwid is a bit more user-friendly, offering multichannel selling on all its plans as well as point-of-sale (POS) capabilities on some plans.

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Wix

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Web.com

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$1.95 per month

Website Building

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Customizable templates, easy grag-and-drop technology, SSL certificate

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Web.com

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Squarespace

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$23 per month

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Since WooCommerce is open source, it offers exceptional flexibility so you can fully customize your e-commerce presence. That makes WooCommerce particularly popular among developers and WordPress site owners that are technically savvy.

WooCommerce is a top choice for small to medium-size businesses that already have a WordPress website. It’s also popular among those with relatively complex e-commerce business requirements that require more configuration flexibility and greater scalability than many all-in-one platforms such as Shopify and BigCommerce allow.

WooCommerce is an excellent tool for adding e-commerce functionality to your existing WordPress site. It offers near limitless flexibility thanks to its open-source software and the myriad of extensions and integrations available.

For those with considerable WordPress or website administration experience, WooCommerce is user-friendly. However, beginners and less technically inclined individuals may find the learning curve too steep.