One of the best parts of using WordPress is having access to thousands of plugins. However, a lot of those hide some of their best features behind premium licenses. That applies, in particular, to niche ecommerce plugins, which can make launching a store harder than it should be. Fortunately, there are a lot of free ecommerce plugins for WordPress that don’t “gatekeep” their best features. 😎
All it takes is digging through libraries of plugins to find the kind of tools that can help you level up your store without breaking the budget.
In this article, we’re going to introduce you to some of the best free ecommerce plugins for WordPress to save you from having to dig around.
Some of these have premium versions, but their free tiers offer everything you might need.
Let’s get to it! 🐇
1. WooCommerce
You know WooCommerce, it’s one of (if not the) most popular free ecommerce plugins for WordPress. This plugin transforms the Content Management System (CMS) into a full-blown ecommerce platform.
WooCommerce enables you to sell physical and digital products, handle shipping, offer discounts, set up product variations, manage inventory, and a lot more. All of that is part of the core plugin, which is 100% free.
A lot of niche WooCommerce extensions require premium licenses. However, considering how popular WooCommerce is, it’s not usually difficult to find free extensions that add the features your store might need.
2. Easy Digital Downloads
Easy Digital Downloads focuses solely on enabling you to sell digital products. The plugin enables you to create and list digital products and to set up downloads after receiving payments.
You can use the plugin to integrate your website with multiple payment platforms, and it also offers a lot of advanced settings to product downloads. Plus, it’s available in multiple languages.
Easy Digital Downloads is a great alternative to WooCommerce if you plan to focus solely on digital products. If you need access to shipping tools, you may be better off looking elsewhere.
3. GetPaid
Sometimes, you don’t need a plugin that transforms your website into a full-fledged online store. If you’re selling services online, you might be better off with a solution that enables you to add Buy Now buttons and send invoices. That’s what GetPaid does.
This plugin is perfect for freelancers and recurring service providers. You can use Buy Now buttons to sell standalone products and send invoices for more complex jobs. The plugin also offers the option of creating customizable checkout pages and setting up recurring payments.
4. Ecwid Ecommerce Shopping Cart
Ecwid Ecommerce Shopping Cart is similar to WooCommerce in functionality and it’s also one of the most popular free ecommerce plugins for WordPress. However, the plugin focuses more on physical products.
This plugin enables you to manage shipping and taxes, and it integrates with several popular payment providers. Ecwid also offers multiple blocks that you can use to design an online store that looks exactly the way you want it to.
5. Dokan
Dokan is unique among free ecommerce plugins for WordPress in that you can use it to set up a multi-vendor marketplace. That means you can use Dokan to create an eBay clone where vendors can set up accounts and publish items for sale.
That puts you in more of a managerial role instead of running your own ecommerce operation. Dokan enables you to configure commissions for products sold on your site, decide who can create an account and publish items, give access only to sellers that pay for a subscription, and more.
6. WP EasyCart
WP EasyCart is a great option if you want to sell products online without spending too much time setting up a store and tinkering with it. The free version of the plugin is designed to sell physical products, but it leaves all shipping management up to you.
What the plugin does handle is integration with multiple payment platforms, including Stripe and PayPal. You don’t get access to a lot of design customization options either, but the plugin’s base design looks good on most sites.
7. Forminator
Forminator is one of the most versatile form plugins on the market. You can use it for everything from setting up contact and signup forms to creating payment forms. All of this using an intuitive drag-and-drop builder.
In terms of payment forms, you can use Forminator to accept payments for services and products, donations, and more. The plugin works with Stripe and PayPal and it doesn’t limit what kinds of forms you can create.
8. Simple Membership
There are a lot of plugins that enable you to set up a WordPress membership website, but Simple Membership is perhaps one of the most configurable options. This plugin gives you the option of setting up as many membership tiers as you want and charging for access.
You can use Simple Membership to protect private content on your site and only give access to specific membership tiers. The plugin also supports free memberships and you can make any content you want private, including ecommerce products.
9. TranslatePress
As your online store grows, you might want to start selling products internationally. We consider TranslatePress to be one of the best free ecommerce plugins for WordPress because it gives you the tools to translate your online store into other languages (and it works with WooCommerce!).
TranslatePress lets you go over each string on your online store and translate it into the language of your choosing. You can also display a language switcher so visitors can choose what language they want to see the store in.
10. Social Warfare
Sharing content on social media is a key component of most modern websites, including online stores. Social Warfar adds social sharing buttons to your WordPress content, and it supports most popular ecommerce plugins.
That means you get to add social sharing options to WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads products, just to give an example. This enables users to share the products they want with their friends with only a few clicks.
11. User Registration
A lot of ecommerce sites enable users to make purchases without registering. That can be good for users, but it lessens your ability to track important information such as lifetime spending and repeat buys.
User Registration gives you the tools you need to customize the user registration process completely. You can create custom forms that are as simple as you need to encourage users to sign up before they make a purchase from your store.
12. myCred
You’re probably familiar with the concept of gamification. It involves giving users rewards for completing basic actions to encourage them to spend more time on your site and interact with each other.
myCred adds gamification to WooCommerce by offering users loyalty points and ranks. Customers can redeem these points for discounts or access to special perks of your choosing. With myCred, you can design a whole loyalty program from the ground up and let customers manage their own rewards.
13. Customer Reviews for WooCommerce
Reviews are one of the most essential aspects of the online shopping experience. WooCommerce comes with a review system, but it’s rather basic when you compare it with what a lot of popular retailers offer.
Customer Reviews for WooCommerce levels up that system. It enables users to include images, rate different aspects of the shopping experience, search through reviews, and more. The plugin also enables users to browse reviews using tags and filtering for different ratings.
14. CartBounty
Being able to reach out to users with abandoned carts can net a lot of additional sales for your store. CartBounty works with WooCommerce and it’s one of the only free abandoned cart plugins that includes automation.
That means you can configure the plugin to send reminders to registered WooCommerce users with abandoned carts. The plugin gives you a lot of configuration options to decide who gets reminder emails, so you can choose how strongly you want to pursue them.
15. Booster for WooCommerce
If you’re going to install one extension for WooCommerce, it should be Booster. This plugin adds over 100 new features to WooCommerce, including support for PDF invoices, displaying prices in multiple currencies, creating product add-ons, and more.
Booster for WooCommerce focuses on packaging as many simple features as it can to improve the shopping experience. Not only is it free, but it also means you won’t need to use dozens of WooCommerce extensions to add the same features to your store one at a time.
Conclusion 🧐
When you’re running an online store using WordPress, it can be easy to fall into the idea that you need premium plugins to do anything.
The truth is, there are a lot of amazing free ecommerce plugins for WordPress that add most of the features you need and that you can get up and running quickly. 🤩
If you’re considering launching an online store, we recommend that you start with either WooCommerce or Easy Digital Downloads, depending on what kind of products you want to sell. GetPaid and Forminator are great alternatives if you’re selling services and only need to send the occasional invoice.
Do you have any questions about free ecommerce plugins for WordPress? Let’s talk about them in the comments section below.
Or start the conversation in our Facebook group for WordPress professionals. Find answers, share tips, and get help from other WordPress experts. Join now (it’s free)!