Are you looking for the best WooCommerce alternatives? You’ve come to the right place.
As the most popular WordPress eCommerce plugin, WooCommerce has a lot to offer. But it isn’t the best option for everyone. It all depends on what you’re selling and the features and functionality you’re looking for in your online store.
There are a handful of excellent alternatives to choose from, no matter what your budget is.
🔎 In this post, we’ll cover:
Choosing a Platform for Your eCommerce Site
When starting an eCommerce store, there are a handful of platforms to choose from.
One option is an online marketplace such as Etsy or Amazon. They make creating a store a simple process, but also tend to charge high transaction fees. Your products can get lost in the crowded, competitive environment. Plus, you have little control over the customization and customer experience.
Another option is Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platforms, like Shopify, BigCommerce, or Gumroad. But most only offer brief free trial periods followed by pricey monthly subscriptions. Some (like Gumroad) take about 10% of your sales and can get more expensive as your business grows.
The third option, which is often the most affordable and flexible, is self-hosted WordPress. WordPress is a free, open-source Content Management System (CMS) used by millions of website owners. It’s beginner-friendly and completely customizable.
A WordPress installation is free. You pay for a domain name and WordPress hosting, plus any premium plugins or themes. While WordPress doesn’t come built-in with eCommerce functionality. But you can easily add it via plugin. Some hosting providers even offer one-click installations.
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WooCommerce is the most popular eCommerce plugin for WordPress. It lets everyone from bloggers to business owners create online stores and sell products on their WordPress websites without coding or programming knowledge.
WooCommerce is user-friendly with incredible ease of use. It offers a variety of customizable options and extensions. However, it isn’t without its cons. Before assuming it’s the ideal eCommerce solution for you, it’s smart to consider the best WooCommerce alternatives.
Why Consider WooCommerce Alternatives?
WooCommerce is a great plugin for creating an eCommerce website. But there are some drawbacks. It’s geared toward sellers of physical products and goods and items. If you sell digital products or downloads, there are simpler, more focused solutions.
WooCommerce may require additional plugins for key eCommerce features you might’ve assumed were included. The cost of premium addons for things like shipping options or payment gateways can add up.
Also, as such a robust tool, WooCommerce stores typically use a lot of resources. So they may require more expensive hosting plans than would otherwise be necessary.
Finally, WooCommerce is backed by a large, engaged developer community. There are many tutorials and documentation online to help you use it. But WooCommerce doesn’t offer much direct support or customer service, which can make it hard to get help when needed.
Summary of the Best WooCommerce Alternatives
WooCommerce Alternative | Free Plan | Premium Pricing | Shopping Cart System | Best For |
---|---|---|---|---|
Easy Digital Downloads | ✅ | $199.50 – $999.50/yr | ✅ | Digital products, downloads, & subscriptions |
WP Simple Pay | ✅ | $49.50 – $299.50/yr | ✖️ | Few products & donations |
WPForms | ✅ | $49.50 – $179/yr | ✖️ | Payment & order forms |
MemberPress | ✖️ | $179.50 – $399.50/yr | ✅ | Online courses & membership sites |
BigCommerce | ✖️ | $29 – $299/mo | ✅ | Large stores with external hosting needs |
5 Best WooCommerce Alternatives for WordPress
Ready to learn more about the top WordPress plugins to use for eCommerce? Below are 5 of the best WooCommerce alternatives.
1. Easy Digital Downloads
Easy Digital Downloads (EDD) is the best WooCommerce alternative. Whereas WooCommerce is ideal for selling physical goods, EDD is the better option for downloadable and digital products. This includes eBooks, software, files, templates, etc. Plus, you can use it to sell subscriptions and accept recurring payments.
With EDD, you can easily create an online store, manage customer accounts, track orders, and more. It has built-in support for popular payment gateways like PayPal and Stripe to make accepting payments incredibly simple (and safe!).
Another factor that makes Easy Digital Downloads the best WooCommerce alternative is that even its free version is packed with powerful features. Many of the eCommerce tools included with the core plugin are ones that other WooCommerce alternatives only offer with premium licenses.
🔑 Key Features
- Full shopping cart system
- Unlimited digital products
- Flexible payments & multiple currencies
- Quick & easy setup
- Discount codes
- Social media & email marketing tools
- Notifications & purchase receipts
- Full real-time data reporting (including support for Google Analytics)
- Extensions & integrations
- Product reviews and wishlists
- eCommerce/EDD-supported WordPress themes
- Designed for large or small stores
- Software licensing
- Buy Now buttons
- Amazon S3 or Dropbox integration for file storage
- Customer support from a dedicated full-time team
💰Pricing: Free, with multiple pricing tiers available starting at $199.50. With a Pro pass, you can access premium addons to extend and expand the plugin’s functionality.
✍🏻 To learn more about the differences in plans, check out EDD Free vs Paid: Which One Is Right For You?
2. WP Simple Pay
WP Simple Pay is another one of the best WooCommerce alternatives. It’s especially great if you don’t need a full shopping cart or store. It makes selling services/single products and accepting one-time payments quick and easy.
It offers prebuilt templates and a drag-and-drop builder for creating payment forms. WP Simple Pay supports multiple payment gateways, including PayPal, Stripe, and Authorize.net.
Additionally, the freemium eCommerce plugin is incredibly simple to set up. You can add buy now buttons and accept donations. It’s a powerful tool if you don’t sell physical products and don’t need shipping or inventory management.
🔑 Key Features
- eCommerce without a shopping cart
- One-time and recurring payments
- Pre-built templates and form builder
- Donations
- Multiple payment gateways
💰 Pricing: Free | Premium plans start at $49.50. With a Pro license, you can accept on-site and recurring payments.
3. WPForms
WPForms is like WP Simple Pay because it offers a simple, straightforward way of accepting payments via order forms on your WordPress site. It’s a solid solution if you don’t need a complete shopping cart or checkout system but have a single product or service to sell.
As one of the best form builder plugins for WordPress, WPForms lets you create and add billing/order forms to your site using an intuitive drag-and-drop interface. In addition to online order forms for selling products and accepting credit card payments, you can also use it for registration, newsletter, and contact forms.
🔑 Key Features
- Online billing & order forms
- 400+ templates
- Drag-and-drop form builder
- Conditional logic & advanced form fields
- Form landing pages
- Support for multiple payment gateways (Stripe, PayPal, Square)
- Recurring subscriptions
- Surveys & polls
- Automated notifications & confirmations
- User journey tracking
💰 Pricing: Free. However, you’ll need a Pro license or higher to accept payments through your forms.
4. MemberPress
If you’re looking for the best WooCommerce alternatives for selling online courses, MemberPress is definitely worth considering. This impressive, premium WordPress plugin is built for creating, managing, and selling course content, membership websites, and other exclusive content.
It lets you easily configure subscription payments, add custom/Drip content, and create membership levels. There’s a wide variety of virtual assets you can use it to sell, from online classes and webinars to digital newsletters and podcasts.
🔑 Key Features
- Online courses
- Membership sites
- Subscriber-only (drip) content and paywalls
- Quizzes, podcasts, & webinars
- Member activity tracking
- Automated emails
- One-time or recurring payments
💰 Pricing: Plans start at $179.50. There is no free version, but there is a 14-day money-back guarantee.
5. BigCommerce for WordPress
BigCommerce itself is not a WordPress plugin. It’s its own fully hosted solution.
What does that mean? Simply, it’s an individual SaaS platform that provides an all-in-one package of eCommerce services. Besides hosting, this includes web design, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), payments, etc.
The biggest downside is that it lacks customization options. It’s also on the pricier side.
However, if you want to (or already) use BigCommerce, you can integrate it seamlessly with WordPress using the free BigCommerce for WordPress plugin. This can be an effective way to free up server space and resources. Plus, you can optimize your site for WordPress and integrate it with the WooCommerce plugin.
🔑 Key Features
- Fully hosted platform
- Seamless WordPress integration
- Digital download support
- Advanced shipping & complex product catalog support
- Multiple payment options
- Customer account management
- High scalability
- Option to sell across multiple platforms (Instagram, Amazon, etc.)
- Coupon codes and discounts
💰 Pricing: The BigCommerce for WordPress plugin is free, but you need a BigCommerce plan to actually use it. Plans start at $29.50 per month.
Best WooCommerce Alternatives: FAQs
Next, let’s look at some FAQs. Then we’ll wrap up with a summary review of the best WooCommerce alternatives.
Can I accept payments directly on my WordPress site?
Yes, it’s possible to accept payments directly on your WordPress site. To do so, you’ll need to integrate a payment gateway with your website. Popular options include PayPal, Stripe, and Authorize.Net.
In addition to using dedicated payment gateways, you can also use an eCommerce plugin like WooCommerce or Easy Digital Downloads. These tools let you create an online store and accept payments.
How can I sell on WordPress without WooCommerce?
You can sell on WordPress without WooCommerce. You just need a different eCommerce plugin or payment gateway integration. There are plenty of affordable WooCommerce alternatives.
If you need a free option, what are the best WooCommerce alternatives?
The best free WooCommerce alternative is Easy Digital Downloads. It’s a complete eCommerce WordPress solution for selling digital products and downloads. But if you don’t need or want a full shopping cart system, WP Simple Pay is also an excellent option.
Summary of Best WooCommerce Alternatives
WooCommerce Alternative | Free Plan | Premium Pricing | Shopping Cart System | Best For |
---|---|---|---|---|
Easy Digital Downloads | ✅ | $199.50 – $999.50/yr | ✅ | Digital products, downloads, & subscriptions |
WP Simple Pay | ✅ | $49.50 – $299.50/yr | ✖️ | Few products & donations |
WPForms | ✅ | $49.50 – $179.50/yr | ✖️ | Payment & order forms |
MemberPress | ✖️ | $179.50 – $399.50/yr | ✅ | Online courses & membership sites |
BigCommerce | ✖️ | $29 – $299/mo | ✅ | Large stores with external hosting needs |
Download EDD as a WooCommerce Alternative
WordPress is a flexible, powerful solution for building a website. But it’s important to use the right eCommerce plugin. The best WooCommerce alternatives depend on the type of online business you have and what you’re selling (among other factors).
For digital creators offering downloadable products, you can’t go wrong with Easy Digital Downloads. Plus, with SiteGround Managed EDD Hosting, you can get your online store up and running in no time!
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Trying to install easy digital downloads. It says cannot find the url. Do i need to launch the site first or can it be installed while I’m preparing the site for launch?
Hi, Greg! If you can reach out to our support team, they can help!
3 different installations of WooCommerce. 2 of them brand new. No other plug-ins. It doesn’t matter what configuration. There is always the message about “shipping options, not available” Support. Sucks. NONEXISTENT. So, I am trying the eCommerce Product Catalog, but there are no shipping options. There is no way to get live rates from any of the carriers. I am searching for a better option. Does anybody know one? I just tried Hostinger.com to try a hosted solution. Same junk No live calculated rates despite what they advertise