WooCommerce pricing: what you pay for a store on free software

WooCommerce pricing: what is free and what you pay for

WooCommerce's pricing page describes WooCommerce as the free, open-source ecommerce platform for WordPress and says it is free to download and use. You install it as a plugin on a WordPress site. The pricing page lists the core software as: Free, with no monthly subscription. It also shows a $0 platform fee and a 0% revenue share on sales. The free core includes: Unlimited products, orders, and APIs.

The costs come from what the store needs around the software: a host to run the site, any paid extensions you add, and a payment processor that takes a fee on each sale. WooCommerce charges no plan fee, so the total depends on the host, extensions and payment method you choose. The table lists each cost with the amount its own official page gives.

Every store pays for hosting, and every card sale pays a processing fee. Extensions are optional. WooCommerce's pricing table also lists product variants on the free core as Unlimited.

Hosting: the main monthly cost of a WooCommerce store

WooCommerce runs on your own WordPress site, so the site needs a web host. WooCommerce gives no single hosting price. Its pricing page estimates $25 – $350/month for most stores, and says hosting scales with traffic and performance needs.

WordPress.com is one host with published plan prices. Its help center says plugins, which include WooCommerce, can be installed on these paid plans: Personal, Premium, Business, and Commerce. The free plan, at US$0, cannot install plugins. The table shows the four paid plans.

WordPress.com is one example. Other hosts set their own prices. On WordPress.com, paid plans list a custom domain free for the first year. The pricing page adds: Monthly plans do not include a free domain. On a monthly plan, a custom domain is a separate cost.

Extensions and themes: what is free and what costs a yearly fee

Paid extensions add features such as recurring subscriptions, bookings or product options. WooCommerce puts their price at $29 – $299/year per extension. The three paid extensions in the table are priced per 1-year plan, and WooCommerce describes Subscriptions and Bookings as a paid annual extension with a 30-day money-back guarantee.

An extension bought on WooCommerce.com comes with a WooCommerce.com subscription. By default that subscription is set to auto-renew, and each renewal costs 100% of the current listed price. If you stop renewing, the extension remains installed on your site but will no longer receive updates.

Several official extensions cost nothing to install, including the Stripe and PayPal gateways and the shipping and tax tools. WooCommerce's own theme, Storefront, is also free. The table shows the published price of each one.

With WooCommerce Shipping you pay only for the labels you buy, so postage is paid per order as you buy each label.

The three paid extensions also have a 2-year plan that saves 20% against two single years. For extensions and themes bought on the WooCommerce Marketplace, WooCommerce offers a full refund within 30 days of your date of purchase.

WooPayments fees for a US store

WooPayments is the payment solution built by Woo and fully integrated with WooCommerce. WooCommerce lists it with no setup costs and no monthly fees, and it charges a fee on each payment instead. The table lists the US rates from WooCommerce's WooPayments fee page.

WooCommerce's pricing page gives an approximate rate, ~2.50-2.90% + 30¢ per transaction with WooPayments, and names no country. The US card rate on the fee page is 2.90% + $0.30, and this page uses that rate.

WooCommerce's fee page says: Transaction fees are not refunded. A sale you refund in full still costs you the processing fee on it.

What one $30 sale costs on WooCommerce

Example: one $30 candle, paid online with a US card through WooPayments, with free shipping and no sales tax.

1. Start with the platform

   WooCommerce charges a $0 platform fee and takes a 0% revenue share, so nothing comes off the sale for the software itself.

2. Add card processing

   WooPayments charges 2.90% + $0.30 on a US card payment. On this $30 sale that is $1.17, and the rest is paid out to you.

3. Add extras that apply to some orders

   A card issued outside the US adds +1.50%. A customer paying in another currency adds +1.00%. A chargeback costs $15.00.

4. Spread the fixed costs

   Hosting is billed by the month or year and extensions by the year, however many orders you take. Divide the month's hosting and extension costs by the month's orders to see the full cost of each sale.

WooPayments compared with Stripe and PayPal on WooCommerce

WooCommerce's pricing table lists its extra fee for using another payment gateway as None, so with Stripe or PayPal the cost of a sale is that company's own rate. The same $30 sale through three gateways:

WooCommerce cost compared with a hosted store builder

Shopify, a hosted store builder, says it includes secure commerce hosting with your Shopify plan, so there is no separate host to pay. Shopify Basic costs $29 a month billed yearly, or $39 a month billed monthly, and Shopify Payments charges 2.9% + 30¢ per online card payment in the US. Using another payment provider on Shopify Basic adds 2% per sale.

With WooCommerce you pay a host instead of a platform plan, and switching to another gateway adds no WooCommerce fee. You also choose the host and run the WordPress site yourself. Which one costs less depends on the host and extensions you need.

Ways to keep WooCommerce costs down

Card processing is charged on every card sale whichever gateway you pick. The other costs depend on choices you make when you set up the store.

• Pay for hosting yearly if your host offers it. On WordPress.com, the Personal plan is US$4 a month, billed every 12 months ($48 a year), against US$9 a month on monthly billing.
• Start with the free official extensions for payments, shipping and tax, and buy a paid extension only when you need the feature. Paid ones cost $29 – $299/year per extension.
• If you know you will keep a paid extension, the 2-year plan saves 20%. If it does not fit, WooCommerce offers a full refund within 30 days of your date of purchase.
• Turn off auto-renew on extensions you no longer use. WooCommerce.com subscriptions are set to auto-renew by default, so they are charged again at each renewal date until you turn that off.
• Compare gateways on your own order mix. The chart above uses one domestic sale; your share of international, in-person and buy now, pay later payments can change which rate is cheapest.
• Keep sales in one currency where you can. WooPayments adds +1.00% when the buyer's payment currency does not match the currency of any of your payout bank accounts.
• Use instant payouts only when you need the money quickly. WooPayments charges 1.5% of the payout amount for each one.
• Answer disputes with evidence. WooPayments charges $15.00 per dispute and returns it if you win.

Where Nation fits

Questions about WooCommerce pricing