Learn how WooCommerce, the free open-source WordPress ecommerce plugin owned by Automattic, works, what it costs, and its key features for 2026 online stores.
WooCommerce is a free, open-source plugin that adds full ecommerce functionality -- product catalogs, cart, checkout, payments, shipping and order management -- to any WordPress website, making it one of the most widely used ecommerce platforms on the web by installation count.
The plugin originated with WooThemes, a WordPress theme shop founded in 2008, and launched publicly on September 27, 2011, as a fork of the earlier Jigoshop plugin. It grew rapidly, reaching 1 million downloads by 2013, and in May 2015 was acquired by Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com and Jetpack, for a reported 30 million dollars.
Because WooCommerce is a plugin rather than a hosted SaaS product, store owners run it on their own WordPress installation and hosting, giving them full control over their store's code, data and infrastructure, in contrast to closed hosted platforms like Shopify.
The free core plugin supports unlimited products and orders, a full REST API for custom integrations, and built-in tools for tax calculation and shipping label printing, including direct USPS label printing and carrier integrations with UPS and FedEx.
Payments can be processed through WooPayments, Automattic's native payment gateway, or through more than 100 supported third-party gateways such as Stripe, PayPal and Square, giving merchants flexibility in how they accept credit cards, digital wallets and bank transfers.
A large marketplace of official and third-party extensions adds functionality such as subscriptions, bookings, memberships, advanced shipping rules and marketing tools, letting merchants build a store that matches their exact needs rather than accepting a fixed feature set.
The WooCommerce plugin itself is free and open source, with no platform fee or revenue share on sales, unlike hosted ecommerce platforms that charge a percentage of transactions.
Store owners instead pay for hosting (commonly 25 to 350 dollars per month depending on traffic and performance needs), a domain name, and any optional paid extensions, which typically cost 29 to 299 dollars per year each.
Payment processing fees apply per transaction through WooPayments or whichever third-party gateway a merchant chooses, similar to standard card-processing fees across the industry.
Yes, the core WooCommerce plugin is free and open source with no platform fee or revenue share; costs come from hosting, domains and optional paid extensions.
WooCommerce is owned by Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com and Jetpack, which acquired the plugin's creator WooThemes in May 2015.
WooCommerce launched publicly on September 27, 2011, developed by WooThemes as a fork of the earlier Jigoshop plugin.
Yes, WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin and requires an existing WordPress installation to run.
WooCommerce is a free, self-hosted plugin giving full control over code and hosting with no revenue share, while Shopify is a fully hosted platform with monthly fees and, on some plans, transaction fees, but less setup and maintenance responsibility.
WooCommerce supports WooPayments, its native gateway, along with more than 100 third-party payment gateways including Stripe, PayPal and Square.
No, the free core plugin includes unlimited products, orders and a full API; extensions are optional and add specific functionality like subscriptions or advanced shipping.
Yes, WooCommerce can scale to large catalogs and high traffic with proper hosting, caching and performance optimization, and is used by stores of many sizes.