WooCommerce is the open-source commerce plugin for WordPress: install it and you have unlimited products, orders and API access with no platform fee and no revenue share. Payments are your choice of gateway, shipping zones and tax rules are configurable, and thousands of extensions cover subscriptions, bookings, memberships and marketplace sync. Because it runs on your own hosting, you control the data model, the theme layer and the checkout code, which is what makes it viable for catalogues with unusual pricing or B2B rules. The trade-off is that every part of the stack is yours to own.
Who it is for
Sellers with in-house WordPress capability who need custom pricing, B2B rules or full ownership of the data.
Key features
- Free open-source core plugin
- Unlimited products, orders and API access
- Any payment gateway without penalty
- Configurable shipping zones and tax rules
- Extension marketplace for subscriptions and B2B
Where it falls short
The plugin is free but the stack is not — hosting, security patching, backups, developer time and each extension licence are separate annual costs, and there is no vendor to call when checkout breaks.
Pricing
The core plugin carries no licence fee and no revenue share, so platform cost is effectively zero. Real cost sits elsewhere: hosting scales with traffic, and each extension is an annual subscription bought individually. Payment processing is whatever your chosen gateway charges, and development or maintenance time is an ongoing line item rather than a one-off.
Prices move; the tier structure is the part that stays true. Check current pricing on WooCommerce.
Alternatives to WooCommerce
Frequently asked
Is WooCommerce free?
Partly. The core plugin carries no licence fee and no revenue share, so platform cost is effectively zero. Real cost sits elsewhere: hosting scales with traffic, and each extension is an annual subscription bought individually. Payment processing is whatever your chosen gateway charges, and development or maintenance time is an ongoing line item rather than a one-off.
What is WooCommerce best for?
Sellers with in-house WordPress capability who need custom pricing, B2B rules or full ownership of the data.
What are the best alternatives to WooCommerce?
The closest substitutes we list are BigCommerce, Ecwid and Shopify. They sit in a similar price bracket but make a different trade-off, so read the weaknesses section of each review before switching.
Which platforms does WooCommerce run on?
WooCommerce is available on Web and API.