WooCommerce — Open-Source Ecommerce Platform for WordPress

WooCommerce describes itself as the most flexible ecommerce platform, an open-source commerce platform for WordPress that gives merchants full control of their checkout, their data and their costs. Merchants can choose any payments provider, any features and any host, and sell online and offline, locally or globally. The site reports more than 4 million online stores built with WooCommerce, a 31% share of the top 1 million ecommerce sites, and notes that 43% of the internet runs on WordPress.

• Open-source commerce platform for WordPress
• 4M+ online stores built with WooCommerce
• 31% of the top 1 million ecommerce sites
• Sell online and offline, locally or globally
• Enterprise solutions available on enquiry

Woo is the company behind WooCommerce. It began in 2008 as WooThemes and decided to focus exclusively on ecommerce in 2017. Its first plugin, WooCommerce, was released in 2011, and an early blog post records the plugin passing 5 million downloads.

• Began in 2008 as WooThemes
• First WooCommerce plugin released in 2011
• Focused exclusively on ecommerce from 2017
• Reached 5 million plugin downloads

WooCommerce is free and open source, with no platform fees and no revenue share. Merchants pay only for the added features they use, plus hosting. The pricing page provides an estimator for working out total costs.

• Core platform free, no monthly subscription
• 0% revenue share
• Extensions priced $29–$299 per year
• Hosting typically $25–$350 per month

Stores are extended through hundreds of extensions and themes sold on the WooCommerce Marketplace, some built by Woo and others by third-party developers. Listings can carry an "Excellence verified" label, indicating they meet elevated standards for security, compatibility, maintenance and customer satisfaction. Categories span payments, marketing automation, product configuration, shipping and data export.

• AutomateWoo — marketing automation
• Composite Products — product kit builders and configurators
• Product Bundles and Product Add-Ons
• Gift Cards and Smart Coupons
• Authorize.net and PayPal Enterprise Payments (formerly Braintree)
• Shipment Tracking and Conditional Shipping and Payments
• Bulk Shop and Buy More Save More
• Customer / Order / Coupon Export and Google Analytics for WooCommerce

The site groups its audiences into merchants selling with WooCommerce, developers building stores for others, and store owners adding new features through extensions. Published case studies include Nutribullet, which worked with a dedicated Customer Success Manager on its checkout and increased conversion by 35%, and House of Malt, which raised average order value by 22% with WooPayments and Apple Pay and cut time to deposit from seven days to one. Dan-O's Seasoning used WooCommerce to sync sales across its site, TikTok, marketplaces and third-party retailers, reaching 4,000 monthly orders on its WooCommerce store. Blog interviews also cover smaller independent merchants, such as a Parisian fashion designer who had Striiiipes.com running in under two days.

• Merchants selling online and offline
• Developers and agencies building stores for clients
• Enterprise brands with custom checkout requirements

Woo publishes a separate developer blog at developer.woocommerce.com covering release announcements, roadmap information and technical updates from the Woo team. Release notes are posted there for individual versions, including security and bug fixes. The main site also invites developers to join a global community building ecommerce solutions on the platform.

• Developer blog with release notes and roadmap posts
• Technical updates published by the Woo team
• Open-source contribution community