15 Best WordPress Ecommerce Plugins – Expert Picks

eCommerce is a multi-trillion-dollar market and growing by the year!

If you’re thinking of jumping in with a WordPress site but don’t know what eCommerce plugin to use, you’re in the right place.

We’re about to share what we consider the best WordPress eCommerce plugins in 2024.

We know how to build successful online stores as we have done it multiple times.

We live and breathe eCommerce and are constantly surrounded by plugins, themes and all things WordPress.

In this article, you’ll learn:

• The best WordPress eCommerce plugins
• Essential plugins to make your eCommerce website even better
• What you need to build an eCommerce store
• How to choose the right WordPress eCommerce plugin

Let’s begin!

Top 5 WordPress eCommerce Plugins

Although we cover all plugins in detail, here’s a quick comparison of the 5 best options.

10 Best WordPress eCommerce Plugins

We’ve organized this post into two main sections:

1. 10 WordPress eCommerce plugins for store functions
2. 5 essential supporting plugins to enhance your store

Some are great for selling physical items, others for digital products or services, and some are all-in-one solutions.

Whatever type of store you’re building, there’s a plugin here to help!

1. SureCart

• Price: Free + premium plans starting from $19/mo ($228/yr)
• Best for: All types of stores that need modern features out of the box

Our list kicks off with SureCart, a versatile WordPress eCommerce plugin perfect for any eCommerce store.

Whether you deal with services, digital and physical products, subscriptions, non-profits or membership sites, SureCart is our go to solution.

This all-in-one eCommerce solution gives you the essential features out of the box which usually need extra plugins.

Features such as support for:

• Payment gateways
• Installments/recurring payments
• Order bumps and upsells
• Cart abandonment recovery
• Tax calculation
• Subscription management
• Affiliate management
• Custom branding
• Notifications
• And so much more

SureCart has more to offer. It uses headless technology to deliver world-class performance.

SureCart hosts your online store on its server while the storefront is hosted on your website.

This approach keeps your database bloat-free and reduces database calls which improves website speed.

Another advantage of this model is the extra security layers on SureCart server that protect data.

Even though SureCart is powerful, it’s also extremely user friendly. Its setup wizard helps you set up your store in minutes!

If you pair SureCart with the Astra WordPress theme, you can build a stunning eCommerce store in a few clicks – without touching a line of code.

Thanks to SureCart supporting Starter Templates.

Here are a couple of the many templates you could use:

Cycle Shop

Skin Cleanser Store

All in all, SureCart is an excellent solution if you’re looking for a straightforward yet robust WordPress eCommerce plugin.

SureCart features:

• Flexible payment options such as one time, recurring, partial and others
• Fully customizable checkout pages
• Seamless integration with SureTriggers for automations
• Built-in performance and security features
• Top notch support and comprehensive knowledge base

We like SureCart for its simplicity, power and ability to run complex stores while maintaining optimum performance.

2. WooCommerce

• Price: Free + optional paid extensions
• Best for: Store owners that want to sell physical items and who don’t mind a learning curve

WooCommerce is another powerful WordPress eCommerce plugin to help transform your WordPress site into an online store.

Its extensive library of free and paid addons helps you add any feature you can think of.

But what makes it so popular is its compatibility with most WordPress themes and plugins.

This video outlines the top 10 WooCommerce addons for your eCommerce store:

Just like SureCart, you can use WooCommerce compatible themes to design your store with minimal effort.

For instance, a Starter Template from Astra can give you this design.

Even though WooCommerce is easy to understand, beginners might need time to get the hang of it.

Don’t worry if you get stuck – there are plenty of online tutorials to guide you through everything.

WooCommerce features:

• Very accessible WordPress eCommerce plugin
• Basic plugin is free with optional premium extras
• Supports digital and physical items
• Works with multiple payment gateways
• Superb documentation and support

We like WooCommerce for its flexibility, power and a huge number of addons to build stores of any scale.

3. BigCommerce

• Price: Free + premium plan starts from $29/mo ($348/yr)
• Best for: eCommerce store owners interesting in running a retail and wholesale business

BigCommerce is another headless WordPress eCommerce plugin, like SureCart.

You can control everything from your WordPress site while BigCommerce handles the heavy lifting on its secure servers.

It’s a great choice for carrying out B2C and B2B eCommerce simultaneously.

It allows you to customize the shopping experience for wholesale customers as well as retail, while keeping them separate.

Unlike WooCommerce, you need to sync your products from your store into WordPress as custom post types.

Visitors see the products on your WordPress site but are directed to your BigCommerce store when they click to purchase.

BigCommerce features:

• Combines BigCommerce hosted solution with WordPress
• Very straightforward to set up and use
• Headless places fewer demands on your web host
• Full customization options for the WordPress side of your store
• Great documentation and support

We like BigCommerce for its diverse approach and ability to handle B2C and B2B on a single website.

4. Easy Digital Downloads

• Price: Free + premium plan starts from $99.50/yr
• Best for: Online stores that sell digital products

Easy Digital Downloads (EDD) is perfect for selling digital products like eBooks, WordPress plugins, apps, and software.

It’s super easy to set up and use. Just install the plugin, add your digital items, and set up checkout.

Its in-depth reporting module helps you view your entire performance.

While other eCommerce plugins also handle digital items, EDD is focused on simplicity and speed. Setting up and listing products takes just minutes.

EDD supports plugins for payments, testimonials, translations, and more.

To learn more about how EDD compares to WooCommerce, check out our Easy Digital Downloads vs. WooCommerce comparison.

Did you know that EDD and Astra are a great combination? Check out how they are made for each other.

Easy Digital Downloads features:

• Over 100 integrations including Stripe and PayPal
• Comprehensive reports keep you informed for everything
• No bandwidth charges for downloading items
• Supports recurring payments and many payment options
• Useful extension library for adding new features

We like Easy Digital Downloads for ultra easy setup and in-depth reporting.

5. Ecwid

• Price: Free + premium plans start from $21/mo ($252/yr)
• Best for: Businesses selling goods and services on multiple platforms

Ecwid eCommerce Shopping Cart is a flexible WordPress plugin useful for selling anything, anywhere.

You can display items on your website, social networks such as Facebook, Instagram and others.

While you can display products anywhere, the transactions are handled seamlessly by your store.

It’s a tried and tested alternative to WooCommerce and ideal for multi-channel eCommerce.

Setting up Ecwid is easy. Just install, activate, and import your products directly. They’ll appear in your dashboard, ready to list or customize before publishing.

Similar to BigCommerce, Ecwid is a headless eCommerce solution with a hosted backend. This gives you all the performance benefits that are a part of this model.

Ecwid eCommerce Shopping Cart features:

• Includes mobile apps for selling and managing your store
• Works with multiple platforms including social networks
• Seamlessly integrates with WordPress
• Can use WordPress themes and custom designs
• Provides the full path to purchase by linking to your Ecwid store

We like Ecwid eCommerce Shopping Cart for selling across multiple channels on the go.

6. MemberPress

• Price: Free + premium plans start from $179.50/yr
• Best for: Selling subscriptions on membership sites

Next in our list is MemberPress, a WordPress plugin that specializes in subscriptions.

It’s ideal if you sell products on a recurring basis because it handles payments, notifications, and everything except shipping.

It’s a great solution for creating a learning management system (LMS), a subscription website, or a premium news site.

You can also effortlessly create membership levels and add content, products, or services to each level.

The plugin supports content dripping, online courses, digital downloads, corporate memberships, and other membership options.

It also includes members-only dashboards, monthly or weekly billing, affiliate memberships, and more.

If you’re looking to include memberships in your store, check out SureMembers. This in-depth review will tell you everything you need to know.

MemberPress features:

• Fully-featured subscription plugin
• Supports user levels, tiered pricing and drip fed content
• Works with any WordPress theme
• Compatible with most payment gateways
• Optional extensions to add more features

We like MemberPress as it’s simple to use, supports subscriptions and makes it easy to create roles and capabilities.

7. WP EasyCart

• Price: Free + premium plans start from $69/yr
• Best for: Deploying an eCommerce store backed by topnotch support

While WP EasyCart might not be as well-known as WooCommerce or SureCart, it’s still a capable choice that shouldn’t be underestimated.

Geared towards smaller stores, WP EasyCart focuses on simplicity.

Once you install it in WordPress, it provides a user-friendly dashboard for managing products, shipping, payments, and more.

WP EasyCart lets you sell products on social networks and supports digital downloads, subscriptions, coupons, gift cards, and other essential eCommerce tools.

It works with popular payment gateways like Stripe, Square, PayPal, and many others. It integrates with QuickBooks, MailChimp, and other apps too.

WP EasyCart also offers features such as coupons, promotions, and abandoned cart tools, which can enhance your eCommerce store.

WP EasyCart features:

• Very easy to use and accessible for small businesses
• Streamline product listing process
• Can work with WordPress themes and custom designs
• Offers Android and iOS apps for easy management on the go
• Can be extended with optional addons

We like WP EasyCart for its easy customization and store management through the mobile app.

8. WP Simple Pay

• Price: Free + basic plan starts from $49.50/year, renews at $99/year
• Best for: Freelancers, consultants, and service-based businesses in need of simple payment integration with Stripe.

You don’t always need a full-blown eCommerce store. Perhaps you’re a photographer or a nutritionist looking to get paid for your services.

WP Simple Pay is a WordPress eCommerce plugin that can help with that.

It allows you to accept payment on your site without the hassle of building a full eCommerce store.

You don’t need to worry about adding products, managing stock, or shipping.

You can build customizable payment forms and integrate Stripe easily to start accepting payments in multiple ways.

This includes recurring payments and automatic billing for subscriptions.

One primary benefit of having WP Simple Pay is performance. It’s lightweight that keeps your website lean and optimized

Key features:

• Unlimited payment forms and transactions
• No transaction or monthly fees
• Premade customizable payment form templates
• Collect custom data through custom fields
• Subscription management features

We like WP Simple Pay for its straight forward approach. You can embed a payment system wherever you need without having to set up a full store.

9. Dokan

• Price: Free + premium plan starts from $149/year
• Best for: Entrepreneurs and established businesses who need to set up a multi-vendor marketplace on a single website.

If you want to build an eCommerce marketplace like Amazon or Etsy, Dokan is the plugin you need.

Unlike regular eCommerce plugins that build a single store, Dokan turns your WordPress site into a complete online marketplace.

Dokan gives vendors an easy-to-use dashboard to handle products, orders, and earnings independently.

You can set commission rates, control what vendors can do, and make unique storefronts for each vendor. It’s super flexible!

Some of its features include:

• Vendors can submit products from the frontend
• Customer reviews for vendors
• Managing vendor payouts

It’s no surprise Dokan is leading the pack in multi-vendor eCommerce, with over 60,000 active installs.

Key features:

• Enables multiple vendors to sell on one platform
• Admins can manage vendor capabilities and commission rates
• Vendors can manage products from the frontend
• Provides dedicated dashboards for vendors to track sales
• Scales effectively to accommodate growing vendor networks

We like Dokan for its versatility and how it can transform a WordPress site into a powerful marketplace.

10. WCFM Marketplace

• Price: Free + premium addons. For instance, Ultimate addon costs $59/yr for 2 sites
• Best for: SMEs looking to pay for only the features they need

Just like Dokan, WCFM Marketplace creates your very own marketplace.

Once you install it, you’ll have a marketplace ready in no time which you can also manage on the move with its free mobile apps.

The plugin fills in some essential gaps that others haven’t addressed yet. For instance, it offers features like store vacation mode and vendor reviews.

You also get more advanced options for nearly everything such as sales commission, product management, reports, coupons, discounts and more.

WCFM provides more user friendly front end management to avoid switching between the front and back ends of your marketplace for most tasks.

The basic version of the plugin is free to download with premium addons for additional features.

Key features:

• Multilingual support
• 100+ payment gateways including PayPal, Stripe and Skrill
• Support 40+ integrations
• Allow product search near user’s location
• Extensive customization options for storefronts

We like WCFM Marketplace for managing eCommerce on the move through its free apps on Google Play and the Apple Store.

Plugins To Power Up Your Store

The WordPress eCommerce plugin you choose is just one piece of the puzzle.

There are also a huge number of supporting plugins that can contribute to the success of your store.

Here are 5 plugins we think work particularly well.

11. Cartflows

Cartflows is an impressive plugin designed to boost sales with its specialized features.

It’s packed with powerful tools to convert visitors into customers and guide them through checkout.

Cartflows can significantly increase sales using sales funnels, order bumps, upsells, cross sells and other techniques.

This plugin provides ready-to-use templates for various tasks, integrates seamlessly with drag and drop page builders, and offers comprehensive documentation and training.

Even if you’re new to managing websites, Cartflows makes it easy to enhance sales and conversions!

12. Convert Pro

Convert Pro is a lead generation plugin. Once you set up your store, you will spend more time marketing and promoting it than anything else!

This is where Convert Pro comes in.

It includes email opt-in tools, a popup builder and a drag and drop editor to help you create beautiful opt-in forms.

Convert Pro is one of the best-selling lead generation plugins in the world and for good reason.

13. Yoast SEO

Yoast SEO is a free SEO plugin with a premium version that takes care of the majority of your early SEO needs.

When you first start out, hiring an SEO specialist is likely an expense you can do without. Yoast SEO helps.

It’s a fantastic plugin that helps you build proper page titles, configure page metadata to help the search engines.

You can also perform basic keyword research and build rich snippets so the search engines can describe your pages accurately.

14. WP Rocket

WP Rocket is a caching plugin that helps speed up WordPress.

Page speed is a primary SEO indicator and something visitors pay a lot of attention to.

WP Rocket helps keep pages fast by using caching and preloading. It can also help shrink your pages and your images so they load faster.

Check our in-depth review of WP Rocket to learn more. If you want to speed up your website using WP Rocket and Spectra, take a look at this tutorial.

15. Wordfence Security

Wordfence Security is one of the best WordPress security plugins around and effectively handles a wide range of threats.

It’s an essential additional security measure to protect against financial fraud, phishing, spamming, DDoS attacks, and other threats.

Wordfence provides a user-friendly interface with beginner-friendly terminology to set security measures for your online store.

With Wordfence, you can set blocking rules, monitor hacking attempts in real-time, enable two-factor authentication, and activate a firewall to enhance security.

What You Need To Build an eCommerce Store

Creating an eCommerce store is simpler than ever. Whether you’re a beginner or more experienced, you can set up a store in just a few hours.

You will need:

• A fast, WordPress-optimized web host
• A relevant domain name to reflect your business. Preferably add a keyword for clarity and SEO benefits
• An SSL certificate to secure sessions between your website and browsers
• An affordable and user friendly WordPress eCommerce plugin that meets all your needs
• Inventory of items to sell.
• Lots of dedication to manage sales, marketing, delivery, site maintenance and a number of other tasks

It may seem like a lot, but it’s all part of running a successful business!

What Makes a Good eCommerce Plugin?

Even though we’ve covered all the top WordPress eCommerce plugins, picking the right one still requires careful thought.

If we were to start an eCommerce store, here are 12 essential factors we’d consider to make the best choice.

• Customization – Pick a plugin that’s easy to tweak to fit your needs
• Version update – Make sure the plugin stays up-to-date with every version of WordPress
• Reviews and downloads – Check user reviews and number of downloads. What users say and how developers respond can tell you a lot
• Product type – Choose a plugin that fits your product type. For instance, EDD is a great plugin for digital products
• Compatibility – Before installing the plugin, ensure it works with your existing plugins or theme
• Shopping experience – Use plugins that offer a smooth shopping experience.
• Extension libraries – Look for plugins with extension libraries to add extra features
• Page speed – Avoid unoptimized eCommerce plugins to avoid an impact on website speed
• Friendly interface – Look out for a plugin user-friendly interface for easy set and store management
• Easy integration – Choose a WordPress eCommerce plugin that easily integrates with other apps and services
• Compatibility with other plugins – It’s best you check the compatibility early on before investing time and money into your new plugin
• Payment gateways – Select a plugin that supports various payment gateways to offer multiple payment options for better sales

We know that’s a lot to take in but we use this criteria every time we’re testing out new plugins!

Which eCommerce Plugin Works Best?

What do you think of our list of the best WordPress eCommerce plugins? Does one fit the bill? Like some more than others?

We think they are all worth considering but if we had to choose between them, we would choose Surecart or Ecwid.

SureCart stands out for its power, flexibility, and simple setup that suits everyone.

It’s designed in a way to keep your website running smoothly without any unnecessary clutter.

What’s more impressive is that they’re always adding new features and offering top-notch support from a team of experts.

Ecwid has all the tools you need to create a thriving multi-channel store.

What do you plan to use for your eCommerce store? One of these WordPress eCommerce plugins or something else? Tell us your thoughts below!

Frequently Asked Questions

What plugins do I need for eCommerce?

The plugins you need for WordPress eCommerce depends on the type of store you run. You will need a plugin like SureCart or Easy Digital Downloads to create your store. Then you will need a payment plugin, security plugin, caching plugin, sales funnel plugin and perhaps other plugins too. The plugins in this guide are enough to get you started.

What are eCommerce plugins?

eCommerce plugins are WordPress plugins that add essential features for online stores. They offer features such as the store functions (SureCart, BigCommerce or EDD), payment gateways, stock control, notifications, shipping details, invoicing or other features.

Is WordPress good for eCommerce?

Yes, WordPress is a robust and user friendly platform for building your eCommerce store. You get complete control over your websites which helps you scale your stores however you want. This also includes the revenue part, you only need to spend for the services you use.

What are the cons of WooCommerce?

There are certain challenges when you decide to use WooCommerce. You need multiple plugins for adding the most essential features such as payments or shipping. It requires more attention to keep your website optimized, which can drag you away from more important tasks. If you’re new to this, you may also need someone to manage the technical side.

​​How do I optimize my WordPress eCommerce website?

At the very core, you need a good web host, a flexible eCommerce solution, powerful SEO and cache plugins. You may also need someone to help you take care of the technical side of SEO. It becomes a lot easier when you choose WordPress eCommerce plugins like SureCart. It handles most of the heavy tasks so you have less to worry about.