WooCommerce Review 2024

Edited by Amy Smith

Updated


Disclosure: Our content is reader-supported, which means we earn commissions from links on Digital. Commissions do not affect our editorial evaluations or opinions.

Bottom line: WooCommerce isn’t a stand-alone platform, but a plug-in that transforms your WordPress site into a thriving e-commerce marketplace. With WooCommerce, you can enjoy easy-to-use and intuitive design options for your e-commerce store housed in an SEO-friendly, non-technical interface that you can assemble in a single day. The store offers the ability to sell any type of e-commerce product, whether it’s a subscription, membership, physical, or e-product.

Who should choose WooCommerce? Midsize and enterprise businesses can benefit from WooCommerce. It’s also a great tool for small businesses looking for an easy-to-use e-commerce tool that isn’t too technically challenging.

What we like about WooCommerce

  • Customizable: To stay relevant with today’s pool of prospects, business owners need to remain agile and tailor to their needs and expectations. WooCommerce makes it easy to create a truly custom solution for your ideal customers thanks to its open-source design.
  • Inclusivity: Sell anything to anyone, and get unlimited global support while doing it. WooCommerce is a pioneer for diversity in the development space and connects with development and operations professionals from all around the globe.
  • Integrable: WooCommerce is made even better by the thousands of available plug-ins and extensions, giving your store a unique feel and experience.
  • Intuitive: WooCommerce was built for use exclusively with WordPress e-commerce stores, which makes it especially easy to include in your daily management process and learning experience.
  • Visually compelling: The plug-in has endless possibilities for themes and layouts to encourage your customers to buy. It differentiates your site with a unique brand presence from the time of launch.
  • Limitless: You can enjoy unlimited bandwidth with the WooCommerce interface, and upload unlimited numbers of products and options for your customers.

What fell flat

  • Requires a domain: If you’re looking for a stand-alone site solution, it likely won’t be WooCommerce. The plug-in is built for use with native WordPress sites, and cannot function outside of a pre-purchased WordPress domain.
  • Limited customer service options: The WooCommerce customer service team is relegated to Helpdesk options only, which are live chat and email, exclusively. If you’re looking for more hands-on customer support, you may want to try a different tool.
  • May require layers: While WooCommerce has plenty of functionality as an e-commerce tool in its own right, it may require “layered” plug-ins or extensions to give you the full spectrum of services that you’re looking for.

Featured Partners

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Grey circle with an i in the middle Featured Partners pay us for placement on our site. When you sign up for one of them using our links, we get paid a small percentage at no cost to you.

Hostinger

The cheapest and easiest option

Starts at $2.49 per month

  • 150+ design templates
  • 0% transaction fees
  • Marketing integrations
  • Free AI tools and site builder

Bluehost

For easy WooCommerce setup

Starts at $9.95 per month

  • Custom WP themes
  • Unlimited listings
  • Store promos
  • 24/7 ecommerce support

Shopify

All-in-one ecommerce solution

Starts at $25 per month

  • Built-in features
  • Infinitely scalable
  • Automatic alerts
  • Structured store building

WooCommerce’s Editorial Review

WooCommerce is one of the most popular WordPress plug-ins, claiming nearly 250 million downloads. This number is with good reason because WooCommerce is one of the most easy-to-use and seamless e-commerce management tools for WordPress store owners. Its commitment to safety, user experience, and customization makes it a strong tool of choice for nearly every type of e-commerce storefront, whether you offer subscriptions, services, or physical products.

The WooCommerce plug-in holds even more value for midsize and larger-scale enterprises looking to fully customize and tailor their customer experiences, thanks to the wide range of access available via the Extensions or plug-in marketplace.

WooCommerce is a comprehensive tool for total-store management that’s completely open-source, immediately giving it a leg up on the competition. It’s designed to help you to grow and scale quickly, offering you the option of self-setup or of a concierge-level onboarding experience, making it suitable for business owners at every technical skill level.

See how we rate e-commerce platforms.

Plans & Pricing

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  • Free (process payments with WooCommerce for 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction for U.S.-issued cards)

Features

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  • Store design
  • Product upload
  • Order management and shipment
  • Multichannel sales and POS integrations
  • Multilingual options and international currency support
  • Open-source design
  • Tiered product arrangement and designation
  • Endless customizable themes
  • Payment processing
  • Google Analytics integration and dashboard reporting (via extension)

Security

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WooCommerce is one of the more secure open-source software solutions that you can use for your e-commerce store. It maintains compliance with GDPR requirements for EU citizens and site visitors, as well as PCI-DSS compliance.

Support

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  • Live chat (via Helpdesk)
  • Email (via Helpdesk)

Improvements

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  • Filter UI updates
  • Product search as a variation of the WordPress core Search block
  • Recommendations for marketing extensions

Plans and Pricing

Free: You can choose to use a different payment processor, or process payments with WooCommerce for 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction for U.S.-issued cards.

  • Good for: Midsize and large businesses looking to centralize and scale their operations.

WooCommerce is a free plug-in that integrates with WordPress-hosted sites. Let’s explore what’s included in the base WooCommerce plug-in. You can always customize your experience with its different extensions later on.

All WooCommerce installs come with the ability to add unlimited products, endless integration opportunities via WooCommerce extension options, unlimited template and experience variation, and flexible shipping options and tax support automation.

While the plug-in is free, payment processing is not. You can choose to use a different payment processor, or process payments with WooCommerce for 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction for U.S.-issued cards.

There are also fees for paid extensions. Popular extensions may cost about $50 to $100 per year or more.

Features

WooCommerce, while reliant on several other extensions and plug-ins for the full e-commerce experience, comes with a set of native features that can optimize your store experience.

Store design

With WooCommerce, it’s incredibly easy to style your store using any of its hundreds of templates. Each template offers you the opportunity to reach your customers in a unique way, giving them a visually compelling and buyer-forward purchase experience.

WooCommerce is also tied into the same innovation and design elements powering WordPress, so you can benefit from the latest update via WordPress 5.0. In this update, you’ll have access to the “Gutenberg Block Editor,” which lets you toggle your site’s features and functionality in a convenient block format. This editor also allows for shortcode inclusions, so you can truly tailor your shop’s experience.

Theme customization runs deeply through the available options and elements in the WooCommerce selection tool. You can adapt nearly all of your page elements to reflect your store’s unique look, including the header and footer, design elements, and homepage/shop pages.

I easily navigated through the editing process and was pleased to learn about the Storefront Powerpack extension. It enhances the customization options for the native storefront look and allows you to brand your shop elements. You can get the Storefront Powerpack extension for $59 per year.

the Storefront Powerpack add-on
Source: WooCommerce

Product upload

I was able to add products to WooCommerce in just a few clicks, navigating to the “Products” tab and following the on-screen prompts. Also, I could differentiate beyond basic title and description, with options to identify your items as a downloadable digital file, virtual service, or physical product.

For established brands with multiple types of products, it may be more helpful to move them over en masse with the Product CSV Import Suite extension. At $49 per year, this extension allows you to completely sync your site with your entire product catalog.

It covers both complex and custom data elements, which is helpful if you’re using Bookings, Brands, or tools like the Google Product Feed. The custom taxonomy capabilities allow you to update your fields with any custom information or text, which can save you hours of time updating on the back end.

While some business owners may consider the additional required extensions for certain functionalities to be limiting, many appreciate the modular structure and customizable elements that WooCommerce is able to supply WordPress e-commerce stores, offering only what you need in a sleek, centralized interface.

Order management and shipment

order and fulfillment management
Source: WooCommerce

WooCommerce has updated to include a status and activity panel, allowing you to manage orders seamlessly. The tool automatically assigns each order to a unique Order ID, which helps to streamline and track each customer’s checkout process. As the order moves through the statuses on an automated basis, you receive real-time information about the status.

You can easily access this information via the Orders tab in your main dashboard.

WooCommerce tab inside of WordPress
Source: WooCommerce

The main order management display area looks like the above, including key details such as order number, customer name, billing and shipping address, and the total amount of purchase. You can toggle these elements to see a custom display at any time. Also, you can search and filter to quickly access the information that you need on a per-order basis.

Shop owners can add to or edit an order at any time, which can save hours spent on customer service requests. In addition, you can seamlessly recalculate, discount, or refund orders if the situation requires it. After mastering your setup and customizing your view, you can enhance your reporting capabilities and analytic/reporting systems with WooCommerce Admin.

Multichannel sales and point-of-sale integrations

WooCommerce works in tandem with the Multichannel extension for easy listing and sales on various third-party platforms such as eBay and Amazon.com. The best part is it is completely free, which allows businesses on a budget to launch and scale.

When you download your WooCommerce extension, you can sync your catalog of goods and services, giving you a simplified management experience. The default functions are especially helpful, allowing you to set a specific web price increase or decrease or simply permitting a live sync with the currently available data. It is especially useful when you have a larger-scale catalog of goods to sell.

There are several other features that you can set, including:

  • Categorization: The categorization perk is perfect for sites such as eBay, which can then compare your product with similar ones and boost sales.
  • Shipping: You can upload multiple shipping vendors and allow your customers to choose. Suitable for both domestic and international shipping.
  • Auto-list capabilities: Business owners can opt for convenience and set any other added product to “auto-list.” This automatically updates connected third-party sale sites with any product information that gets added to WooCommerce.

WooCommerce Point of Sale Extension:

  • $199 per year

The benefit of going with the WooCommerce POS Extension:

  • Built exclusively for WooCommerce
  • Manage multiple “outlets” or registers in real-time
  • Take any third-party payment options you wish
  • Maintain and update records with every sale.

While this seems like an easy-to-use, comprehensive, and free integration tool, business owners may want to keep in mind that it isn’t the simplest process. Navigating this specific extension may take time, especially when you’re first updating permissions.

If you’re looking for cheaper or alternative options, you may opt for any of the partnered integrations, such as WooCommerce or Square.

Multilingual options and international currency support

WooCommerce offers multilingual options and international currency support through the use of extensions – preserving the global atmosphere that WordPress has created for bloggers and shop owners around the world. These easy-to-use enhancements are part of why WooCommerce is so helpful to international business owners, or to those shipping to different global zones. Below, I explain how you can unlock both of these functionalities using WooCommerce-recommended extensions and strategies.

If you’re looking to tailor the language options and experience for international clients, WooCommerce recommends that you use the MultilingualPress plug-in. You can connect an endless number of sites without the worry of a “lock-in” effect, where the site would experience data loss after removing the plug-in. There is a way to make translation easy with a flexible language switcher widget embedded in the page, and full-scale translation that extends to taxonomical terms (like tags).

Currency and taxation can be complex when you’re running your e-commerce storefront. However, WooCommerce has a native solution. If you’re looking to alter tax calculation to be based on different factors, you can easily toggle this via the Settings > Tax > Tax Options areas in the dashboard. You can also set tax rates by country, eliminating the guesswork when it comes time to cash out your customer. This doesn’t just apply to tax rates, though. It is easy to set shipping rates the same way for a near-automated checkout experience for international clients.

Open-source design

WooCommerce heavily markets its open-source design and development format, making it one of its defining elements of brand identity. But what does open source mean, in this case? And what benefits can shop owners get from this element of its design?

Open-source software solutions have a variety of benefits, some of which include:

  • Cost-effectiveness: Often, these types of software or hosts are free and are perfect for businesses on a budget. Because of the free price point, they are often quite easy to scale.
  • Customizable: With open-source solutions, you can easily customize the software to be exactly what you need, tailoring your customer experiences without the need for 10 different complimentary tools in your development or tech stack.
  • Availability: Open-source software offers so much more than just convenience. Due to how accessible and decentralized the framework is, assistant developers and tech specialists can help you develop the custom solution you need to succeed.

Tiered product arrangement and designation

With WooCommerce, product listings aren’t just product listings. There are many different ways to group and tantalize your shop visitors with your arrangements, setting customized segmentation to drive as many sales as possible. We’ll start with some of the more basic grouping styles and iterations, and work our way down to the more complex types.

  • Type: This designation is helpful to identify whether something is a product, service, membership, affiliate item, or more. It carries throughout the checkout process to keep everything simple and trackable.
  • Featured: This is a handy designation to use if you want to drive sales to a specific product.
  • Up-sells and Cross-sells: These options allow you to target users at different points in the customer journey, and can help you to close more sales with no marketing cost.

Endless customizable themes

WooCommerce is an extremely competitive editing tool that has helped to elevate the standard for e-commerce storefronts across the web. The variety of theme options and intuitive WooCommerce storefront support are great resources for business owners looking for variety, tailored templates, and an easy-to-use editing and migration tool.

WooCommerce has hundreds of website themes built specifically for its own WordPress-friendly websites, many of which you can test and experience with just a few clicks. You can use any of the toggle tools in the navigation bar to search by shop type, theme level (i.e. Free or  Storefront-specific) and pick your perfect look.

WooCommerce themes
Source: WooCommerce

Theme selection was straightforward, and I found the setup to be incredibly easy compared to other site builders. It’s very visually driven and modular, much like you’d expect to see within a straightforward WordPress site.

Designs are aesthetically appealing, clean, and effective for their use case. You can edit your appearance even further with the Storefront Pro WooCommerce plug-in, offering you a no-code editing experience with endless customization choices. There are several third-party plug-in choices that you can evaluate and research to determine if it’s worth the cost of investment.

Payment processing

WooCommerce payments plugin
Source: WooCommerce

WooCommerce has endless opportunities and integrations for payment processing, and partnering with larger brands such as Stripe and Square. Business owners might also benefit from the WooCommerce Payment extension, which is fully optimized for WooCommerce and is completely free to add to your site.

One of the best features of this extension is its “free-to-play” setup, which allows you to process payments with no setup or monthly costs. You can automatically take over 135+ types of currencies with this extension, allowing you to easily scale.

Other benefits include:

  • Chargeback support: You can track and manage your chargebacks or disputes through a single centralized dashboard.
  • Minute-transfers: You have the ability to unlock your money and transfer it to your account in minutes, even during non-business banking hours. The cost to do this stays at 1.5% of the payout amount.
  • Credit card tracking: Your store users can opt to save their credit card information for a better overall customer experience.
  • Centralized banking options: You enjoy fewer “hands” on your money, and more convenience through a single streamlined process, rather than relying on more third-party processing tools and apps.

Google Analytics integration and reporting

While WooCommerce isn’t equipped with native Google Analytics integration or capabilities, it has an easy-to-use free plug-in option via the WooCommerce Google Analytics Integration tool. After you set up Google Analytics and Universal Analytics, you can toggle and customize tracking options for your e-commerce store.

If you’re looking for more advanced analytics and options to refine, we recommend opting for the paid WooCommerce Google Analytics Integration tool.

There are plenty of additional perks, including:

  • Checkout behavior analysis: This tells you what is and isn’t supporting sales out of your e-commerce storefront.
  • Enhanced link attribution: This feature is best to improve the accuracy of your analytics, differentiating links by unique IDs.
  • Advanced tracking: There are many different forms of advanced tracking available with this tool, including:
    • Cart quantity shifts
    • Coupons used
    • Coupons removed
    • Provided email
    • Cart page viewed
    • Selected payment method
    • Customer profile admin clicks
    • Customer email open rates

You can enjoy the pro version of the WooCommerce Google Analytics Integration tool for just $79 per year.

Security

Security extensions
Source: WooCommerce

I rated WooCommerce in comparison to several other e-commerce plug-ins and found that it is more secure than many open-source solutions on the market. Open-source tools are known around the development community to be easier to hack, but WooCommerce has created a safer experience for its users.

It focuses the most on payment protection, as this is the most sensitive data you’ll encounter during your purchase process. The site maintains both GDPR and PCI-DSS compliance.

If you’re looking for additional protection and options for your customers, we recommend trying any one of the safety extensions available in the WooCommerce marketplace. It also offers premium payment gateways, custom options, and traceability through transparent data use information readily available to business owners and consumers.

Support

While WooCommerce has significantly fewer options for supportive outreach when compared to other e-commerce tools, it does have reliable assistance via Helpdesk live chat or email. There’s also an informational forum for users to help launch and scale their sites.

WooCommerce currently only offers support via its Helpdesk, which offers live chat and email support to users based on their needs. While this can be helpful for one-off needs and technical questions, it makes it difficult to find clear, quick answers for some of the more nuanced problems.

This disadvantage is noticeably offset by how inclusive and optimized the platform is and can be further minimized if you opt for the concierge setup experience when you first integrate your site.

If you’re looking for assistance, the quickest way is to visit the Contact Us page. You can easily navigate through the prompts to find the department you need and contact them quickly.

If you’re looking for full-scale support (specifically for development, customization, or other more complex needs), we recommend hiring a WooExpert. WooCommerce has a directory of these pros listed on its website for easy access, with an average cost of $50 to $150 per hour.

Recent Improvements

WooCommerce is one of the most rapidly changing e-commerce tools I’ve encountered, with improvements and fixes coming at a fortnight’s pace, on average. It’s rare to see this speed from such a large-scale plug-in, and it points to future improvements coming at an (even faster) rate for current WooCommerce business owners.

Here are just a few exciting changes that took place in the later iterations of WooCommerce 7:

  • Filter UI updates: The filter block UI has a cleaner look and feel and has a new Reset feature for each filter.
  • Product search as a variation of the WordPress core Search block: The Product Search block is now a variation of the WordPress core Search block with many more customization options than before.
  • Recommendations for marketing extensions: When you click on the Marketing page, you’ll get recommendations for marketing extensions organized into categories.

Compare WooCommerce Alternatives

WooCommerce is a great tool for e-commerce, especially if you’re looking for a more modular solution for your storefront and experience. However, if you’re looking for more of a centralized hub for your e-commerce operations, we have other suggestions that may align more with your needs. Competitors such as Wix, BigCommerce, and Shopify may be more what you’re looking for, and at a less total cost after you add your needed WooCommerce extensions.

Our recommendations are a result of hours of research and personal use of services. We’ve provided objecting information about each option so that you can find the best fit for your needs.

Ecommerce Platform

Pricing + Basic Plan Features

Free

  • Unlimited products
  • Lots of integrations
  • 54 themes
  • Flexible shipping options
  • Tax support automation

Consider WooCommerce for: A free solution to centralize and scale your operations.

$29.95 per month

  • 24/7 support (phone, email, chat)
  • Advanced Reporting tools

Consider BigCommerce for: Advanced reporting and analytics.

$29 per month

  • Advanced marketing tools
  • 24/7 support options
  • 2% transaction fee

Consider Shopify for: Advanced e-commerce marketing support and centralized software experience.

$27 per month

  • Unlimited products
  • Ticket, phone, and social media support

Consider Wix if: You are designing your store and want the freedom to customize every detail but need an easy setup process.

Frequently Asked Questions About WooCommerce

Is WooCommerce different from WordPress?

Yes. WooCommerce is a plug-in that is compatible with WordPress sites only, and it allows you to have fully-functioning storefront accessibility from within your WordPress site.

Is WooCommerce free?

Yes. WooCommerce is free to use. However, it is skeletal, which would require many e-commerce business owners to invest in the different paid add-ons for the service. Other anticipated accessory charges would be from the cost of your WordPress domain (if you don’t already have one) and any premium extensions you’d add to your WooCommerce experience.

How do I Install my Woo theme?

You can install a theme from WooCommerce in seconds. Simply visit your “Downloads” page and click on the icon to claim the .zip file. You can go to the “Themes” area of the site, click add new, and upload. You’ll be able to activate it by following the prompts on the “Themes” page.

How do I customize my Woo theme?

Simply navigate to your Theme template area, and follow the on-screen prompts to easily alter elements in your current theme of choice. Different themes may offer varying degrees of customization.

Does my Woo theme work on WordPress?

Yes. WooCommerce’s intuitive templates and themes are designed to be compatible with WordPress sites exclusively.

How do I purchase a plan on WooCommerce.com?

You don’t need to purchase WooCommerce to begin the integration process. You can visit the main homepage and select “Start a New Store,” following the on-screen instructions to connect it to your WordPress domain.

How do I cancel my account?

WooCommerce is free, so you can opt to remove the plug-in from your WordPress site. To stop all payments to related WooCommerce subscriptions, navigate to your “Settings” page and disallow the software to enable subscription payments.

What is the difference between a WordPress plug-in and a Woocommerce extension?

By developer definition, a plug-in offers additional benefits that the core program of the main element wouldn’t have. For example, as a stand-alone platform, WordPress wouldn’t have storefront functionality without WooCommerce – at least not to the same degree. An extension can either enhance or modify the core function of an element, which is what the extension library does to the main WooCommerce software as you customize.

How I Rated WooCommerce

I test e-commerce providers based on the following factors:

  • Value: What do you get for each plan — and does it hit that sweet spot of cost ratio to features?
  • Ease of use: Is it simple to use the platform with intuitive tools, familiar interfaces, and supportive tutorials or tours?
  • Features: Does the platform offer tools that support your business, including marketing integrations, plug-ins, reporting, and management? How effective are the features?
  • Security: Which measures does the platform take to protect your business? Does it offer Payment card industry (PCI) compliance and Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificates?
  • Support and improvements: How well does the platform help when you need it? And will it continue to grow with your needs?

Learn more about our review methodology.

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