When it comes to getting more online donations through your WordPress website, I’ve found that it all comes down to a few best practices.
By giving potential donors the information they need and removing potential roadblocks, you can easily raise more money from donations. This can help you keep up with rising costs, expand your reach, and achieve new goals.
Luckily, this is really easy to do by making a few key changes to your WordPress donation forms. And today, I’ll share the most important donation form best practices that I’ve discovered can seriously boost donations in WordPress.
Note: This is a guest post by Thomas Griffin, the president of Charitable and WP Simple Pay, two of the best plugins for accepting donations in WordPress. This is an expert column that we publish where we invite a WordPress expert to share their experiences with our readers.
I will cover quite a few topics in this post. Here’s a handy list so you can jump to the section you are most interested in:
1. Choose a WordPress Plugin Designed for Donations
Because there’s so much involved in optimizing a donation form for conversions, my first piece of advice is to choose a WordPress plugin specifically designed for donations.
This won’t just save you time and effort so you can focus on your mission, but these plugins are also designed from the ground up to optimize conversions and boost your donations.
The best donation plugins integrate with secure payment gateways to protect your donors and gain their trust. They also offer the features you need to use the best practices I will outline below.
For many organizations, WP Simple Pay is an excellent choice. It’s one of the best credit card processing plugins for WordPress, includes user-friendly donation features, and its drag-and-drop form builder offers pre-made templates custom-designed for donation pages.
Other organizations may prefer a dedicated donation and fundraising plugin for WordPress. I recommend Charitable because it includes a lot of different features for collecting donations and creating complete fundraising campaigns.
While there are free versions of these plugins to help you get started, you’ll need the premium tools for features such as recurring donations. As a bonus, you won’t be charged any transaction fees, so you can make the most of the money given.
2. Make the Donation Form Easy to Find
It goes without saying that you won’t get many donations if no one can find your form. Making your donation form visible and discoverable should be your first priority.
You can simply start by adding your donation page to your navigation menu in WordPress. Better still, I recommend adding a button to your nav menu and using a contrasting color that stands out.
Make sure you use clear button text that can be understood at a glance. Some popular examples include ‘Donate’, ‘Donate Now’, ‘Give Now’, and ‘Support Us’.
You should also include the donation form with other important links in your website’s footer.
At key times of the year, you can make your donation form even more visible using a popup. For example, nonprofits make a huge 25% of their total online donation revenue in December, making it an ideal month for a popup marketing campaign.
Using a carefully designed popup to promote your donation form at strategic times of the year can boost conversions by 250%.
3. Explain How the Donations Will Make a Difference
Now that a potential donor has landed on your donation page, it’s super important to grab their interest by explaining how their donation will make a difference. Being very specific can reassure potential donors and gain their trust.
Studies show that donors want to know how an organization spends its money before donating, and 63% of millennials research organizations before giving. However, only 4% of donation pages explain how the donations will be used.
The UNICEF donation page does this well. They use a pie chart that illustrates how each dollar is used. This shows that 82 cents go directly to programs, while 13 cents are used to raise awareness, and just 5 cents are used for administration.
But they don’t just quote figures. They also use compelling storytelling and photography to connect their work with the reader’s emotions and help them visualize the impact of their donation.
Video content allows you to present lots of information without overwhelming your donation page. It can increase conversions by as much as 86% and is easy to consume on mobile devices.
I often remind organizations that a donation page is essentially a specialized landing page and should be optimized like one. It should start with a compelling headline, provide essential information, and end with a clear call to action.
A landing page is a standalone web page created with one focused objective. It leads visitors towards a single action… This is the page’s CTA or call to action.
Complex forms can scare users away. If a form looks like it requires a lot of work or asks too many personal questions, then users might be reluctant to complete it.
It’s a good idea to keep the number of fields on your donation form to a minimum. You should only ask for essential information like name, email address, and donation amount, and pre-fill as many fields as possible to make the form easy to complete.
Some users prefer to give anonymously, so make sure fields that ask for a name or contact details are optional. You can also reassure users by stating on the form that you will not share their personal data with third parties.
When you do need to collect a lot of information, the best practice is to create a multi-page form with a progress bar and ask the easiest questions first. This will help the user start to fill out the form without feeling overwhelmed.
5. Allow Donors to Give Securely Using Their Preferred Method
Users who have decided to give money can become frustrated when you don’t offer their preferred payment method. Removing this sort of friction and inconvenience will ensure they don’t have second thoughts about giving to your cause.
Luckily, top donation plugins integrate with secure payment gateways like PayPal and Stripe. This lets you offer multiple payment methods, ensure safe transactions, and build donor trust.
When you clearly display the payment methods you accept, you demonstrate that you value your donors’ preferences and are committed to secure online transactions.
For example, the UNICEF donation page clearly states that all donations are protected by SSL and lists the payment options they accept, including credit card, PayPal, and Google Pay.
For maximum flexibility, plugins like Charitable also allow donors to use offline payment methods such as checks, bank transfers, and more.
6. Allow Donors to Choose Preset Donation Amounts
You might be surprised to learn that many first-time donors have difficulty knowing how much they should give. This uncertainty can lead to hesitation or even abandonment where the visitor leaves the page without donating.
Offering a few suggested donation amounts makes the choice easier, allowing users to simply click on an amount on the form. You should also allow donors who know how much they want to give to type in the amount.
It can also be helpful to show the benefits that different-sized donations make.
For example, the Oxfam donation page breaks down what can be achieved with different amounts.
The World Animal Protection donation form does something similar.
When you click on one of the preset amounts, you see a photo and description of what that amount of money can achieve, such as paying for the monthly vet costs for a bear.
Preset amounts can also encourage larger donations. The Loggerhead Marinelife Center in Florida found their visitor center donations increased 400% when they started suggesting donation amounts.
7. Allow Recurring Donations
Allowing recurring donations on your form can turn a single one-off payment into an ongoing revenue stream. This can provide consistent funding for your long-term projects.
It also makes life easier for donors who want to give on an ongoing basis because any future donations they agree to will be paid automatically.
Let’s look at the math. While the average donation amount for one-time gifts is $121, the average for recurring gifts is just $25 per month. But that $25 is paid multiple times, bringing the average for recurring donations up to $287 each year.
Monthly recurring donations are far more popular than weekly or yearly. Many donation forms keep things simple by offering a one-off donation or ongoing monthly payments.
The donation forms above also highlight that the monthly option makes the biggest impact.
Personalized thank-you messages and confirmation emails make donors feel appreciated. One report found that first-time donors are 80% more likely to give again if you send a personalized acknowledgment.
Both WP Simple Pay and Charitable can easily redirect a user to a thank you page after they make a donation. This is a page where you can express your appreciation and explain the impact the donor’s gift has made.
In my experience, showing your appreciation like this can quickly turn a one-time donor into a lifetime supporter. You can also take the opportunity to show the donor further ways they can support your organization, such as by volunteering or subscribing to your newsletter.
9. Make It Easy to Share Your Donation Form
One of the best ways a donor can help after giving to your organization is to share your donation form with their friends, family, and co-workers.
This encourages like-minded people in their network to think of making a donation. Plus, studies have found that each share can raise an additional 18% of the gift that was made.
The World Bicycle Relief organization does this by using an effective, multi-pronged approach to encourage donors to share their donation form.
First, you have the option to give the donation in honor of someone else. This allows you to send an e-card or printed card to that person, which may prompt them to match the donation.
They also allow you to search for your employer to see if they’ve submitted a policy to match your donation. This could instantly double the donation.
Third, they encourage donors to spread the word by clicking social share buttons.
Finally, at the bottom of the thank you page, they give you a fourth option: fundraising. Donor-driven campaigns are very effective, allowing nonprofits to recruit 300 new donors on average.
Over our years of helping small websites and companies grow and compete with the big guys, we’ve learned that the right business tools can make a huge difference in their success.
Whether you are looking for something to help you with email marketing, customer support, customer relationship management, or something else, there are plenty of plugins and software options that can fit the bill.
That’s why we’ve done the research and put together a huge list of the best business tools for small businesses. We’ve broken down everything into different categories so that you can find the best options for your needs.
Quick Pick: The Best Business Tools for Small Business
Here’s how we reviewed different small business tools for this guide:
Real-World Experience: At WPBeginner, we actively run small businesses of our own. We’re involved in starting new projects and managing existing websites, so we’ve used and tested these tools extensively ourselves. We ensure that they meet our high standards of reliability and ease of use.
Comprehensive Research: We perform our own dedicated research to stay up-to-date on the latest developments in each category. We regularly update our recommendations accordingly, holding each tool to a high standard.
User Feedback: We’ve combed through various third-party sites and even performed polls for users to see how they enjoy using these tools.
Why Trust WPBeginner?
At WPBeginner, we’re a passionate team with over 16 years of hands-on expertise in WordPress, design, and online marketing. Our mission is simple: deliver top-notch content and valuable resources to our audience. We achieve this by thoroughly evaluating and reviewing the plugins and software we actually use.
Running a business is no small feat. Luckily, there’s a wealth of online tools available to streamline your workflow and ease your burden. Choosing the right ones can feel overwhelming, though.
At WPBeginner, we’ve been testing and refining our top picks for years, keeping pace with the ever-evolving market. We’ve narrowed down our favorites to a curated list across various categories.
However, it can be a chore to figure out which is the right tool for your business.
Here are just a few reasons to add some of these small business tools to your repertoire.
Increased Productivity: The right tools streamline business processes, automate repetitive tasks, and enhance overall efficiency. This leads to increased productivity among your team members, allowing them to focus on more strategic and value-added activities.
Improved Collaboration: Many small business tools come with collaboration features that facilitate communication and teamwork. This is especially important in modern work environments where remote or dispersed teams are common. Collaboration tools enhance communication, file sharing, and task management.
Enhanced Customer Experience: Tools such as a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system help businesses manage customer interactions, track leads, and provide personalized services.
Data-Driven Decision Making: Software with analytics and reporting capabilities provides valuable insights into business performance and customer journey. With accurate data at your fingertips, you can make informed decisions, identify trends, and adjust strategies to align with your business goals.
Time and Cost Savings: Automation tools can significantly reduce the time spent on manual tasks, saving both time and money. You may have limited resources, so software that automates activities allows you to allocate resources more efficiently.
That said, it’s time to cover the best business tools for small businesses. Feel free to use the links below to jump to any section you need a solution for:
Every business needs to build an email list. Sure, you could keep in touch with your customers via social media, but you don’t own the audience there.
An email list is something you own and can continually contact customers or leads anytime.
That’s why you need an email marketing service. These services allow you to send bulk automated emails to your subscribers. Not only that, you can segment users into groups, track their performance, and create marketing workflows.
Constant Contact is the most beginner-friendly and fastest-growing email marketing service out there. It boasts an impressive 97% deliverability rate and offers a handful of time-saving automation that every small business could use.
Out of the many email service providers we’ve tried, we really like the user interface. From the moment you make your account, Constant Contact guides you through their simple process. You can create email newsletters, social media posts, landing pages, and events in minutes.
One of Constant Contact’s most unique aspects is its ability to segment the audience based on engagement level. Sure, it’s got all the standard segmentations, such as dividing contacts by location, membership, sales, email activity, and more.
That said, Constant Contact lets you segment your audience into four categories: most engaged, somewhat engaged, least engaged, and everyone else. For example, your most engaged customers could be your most loyal subscribers, to whom you can send upsell or cross-sell promotions.
Pricing: Plans start at $12 per month. If you need more storage, users, and advanced features, there are also higher-tiered plans.
Pros:
Very affordable pricing
It offers powerful integrations such as Facebook ads and eCommerce platforms.
Constant Contact offers 200+ templates to fit your needs.
Cons:
No advanced dynamic tags.
Why We Recommend Using Constant Contact: You can’t go wrong with Constant Contact as it’s good at just about everything. We especially like that they offer really outstanding customer support via live chat, email, phone calls, and community support, along with a large library of helpful resources. That way, you’ll always get your questions answered.
Brevo, formerly known as Sendinblue, is an email and SMS marketing software perfect for small businesses.
One of the best things about Brevo is that you receive unlimited email lists and contacts no matter which plan you choose. With contact segmentation, you can easily target smaller groups and engage them with relevant content.
Their advanced plans go well beyond just email marketing. They offer a sales CRM, live chat, landing page builder, and Facebook Ads integration. That means that for the price you are paying, you’re getting a lot more value than most email marketing services can offer.
Brevo is also known for high deliverability, guaranteeing up to 97%. That’s because they support many setup options, including email API, SMTP relay, webhook, and plugin. This means you can send bulk emails and have more control over your batch sends.
Pricing: Brevo is free to get started. However, their Starter plan begins at $25 per month and has unlimited contacts.
Pros:
You will receive access to an unlimited number of contacts on any plan.
A built-in CRM app is included.
You can send advanced automation campaigns based on list-based behaviors.
Cons:
You have to pay for a higher-tiered plan to get access to more advanced reporting features.
Why We Recommend Using Brevo: We like Brevo as an all-in-one marketing automation software that can do a little bit of everything. For instance, you can send timely SMS messages to promote your products and personalize them accordingly.
Drip is the best email marketing service for advanced users, especially for businesses looking to deliver hyper-personalized campaigns to their audience.
One of Drip’s standout features is its ability to create seamless workflow automation. The visual workflow builder makes it easy to visualize and customize user journeys.
When building your workflows, there are intuitive trigger options based on page visitors, tags, and other on-site behaviors that start the flow. Then, choose from dozens of actions to build the desired automation sequence.
If you’re running an online store, Drip offers integrations for WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and Shopify. That allows you to send strategically segmented campaigns to visitors and customers. For example, there are templates for just about everything, including cart abandonment emails and workflows.
Pricing: Pricing starts at $39 per month for up to 2,500 people on your email list. The price increases the more subscribers you have. All plans come with a 14-day free trial.
Pros:
Drip has plenty of merge tags that dynamically replace content within an email based on the info you’ve collected in your contact or lead forms.
You can A/B split test automation workflows to see which one performs better and ultimately provides the best conversion rates.
It offers an eCommerce revenue attribution feature, so you know exactly how much revenue is generated from your email marketing campaigns.
Cons:
Some learning curve is involved. For example, there are countless Liquid tags to learn about, which can be a lot of information if you’re used to using simpler email marketing services.
Why We Recommend Using Drip: At WPBeginner, we switched from MailChimp to Drip largely because of its more advanced segmentation and personalization features. That allows us to send more relevant and targeted campaigns to our readers.
While adding your mobile number to your WordPress site might seem convenient, it’s unprofessional and exposes your personal privacy.
That’s why you want to get a virtual business phone number and use a dedicated business phone service. This is a secure and professional solution. It allows you to:
Make calls over the internet: Eliminate expensive phone bills.
Use call forwarding, routing, and recording: Enhance team collaboration and capture valuable customer interactions.
Track call metrics: Gain insights into wait times, hold times, and call duration to optimize your customer service strategy.
In essence, a business phone service is essential for any business that wants to improve customer service and effectively manage inbound and outbound calls.
Nextiva is the best business phone service, and it makes it easy to manage communication between you and your customers.
The phone service is highly efficient and reliable, and you get helpful features beyond voice calling. There are plenty of features your call team can take advantage of, such as advanced call routing, voicemail to email and text, unlimited free domestic calling, text messages, and more.
Nextiva offers a treasure trove of data to help support your decision-making. You get critical information such as talk time, net promote score, first-time resolution rate, etc. Call center and sales team managers can easily interpret the data and come up with solutions to better improve performance.
If you’re using a traditional landline office phone system, Nextiva makes it easy to transition to a VoIP system. That means you can run your calls over the internet rather than complex landlines. They work with a variety of VoIP phones, headsets, and other call devices.
Pricing: Nextiva pricing starts at $14.95 per month per user for unlimited voice calling.
Pros:
Nextiva provides 99.99% uptime for excellent reliability.
They offer 24/7 customer support, so you always get the help you need.
It’s an all-in-one phone system with a wide range of features to handle both outbound, inbound, and internal team communication.
Cons:
Somewhat pricy, but the value is definitely there for what you pay for.
Why We Recommend Using Nextiva: Nextiva gives you everything you need to handle communication in your business. They offer a comprehensive set of VoIP service features that help you take your customer service to the next level. That way, your agents can work efficiently, and your customers can get their issues resolved quickly.
WPBeginner readers also get a special Nextiva Coupon to unlock an additional 21% off your purchase.
RingCentral is an affordable alternative to RingCentral that offers high-quality business phone services. Despite its cost-effective price, it doesn’t skimp out on quality.
With the entry plan, you get unlimited calls and texts, team messaging, file sharing, and other basic features you need. For smaller teams of 20 people or less, the $20 per user per month price point is a great deal.
We like the call routing capabilities, which allow you to direct callers to various departments and extensions. You can create and manage custom answering rules to ensure you get callers to the right people. You can even route the most important calls directly to your mobile device.
Pricing: Plans start at $20 per user per month, billed annually. Pricing varies depending on number of users and features available.
Pros:
RingCentral comes with video meetings, team messaging, and screen sharing.
It integrates with useful tools like Google Workspace and Microsoft, so you can easily connect data across platforms.
You can enjoy a user-friendly interface that allows you to easily understand where and how to use all of its features.
Cons:
You need to pay for the higher-priced tiers to get access to Interactive Voice Response (IVR) menu options.
Why We Recommend Using RingCentral: RingCentral is a good beginner-friendly option for small businesses just getting started with phone services. It lacks a few advanced capabilities that Nextiva has but gives you all the essential features needed for any business phone service.
The good news is that WPBeginner users get 33% off when they use our special RingCentral coupon code.
Ooma is one of the top VoIP providers for small businesses. It offers virtual numbers, collaboration tools, call forwarding, voice mail, and more. It’s great for small businesses without IT teams because it provides everything you need in an easy-to-use way.
Ooma features a virtual receptionist feature, which is great for directing calls for your small business. You can easily set up a custom greeting, provide a menu of options that guides callers to the right departments, and send them to various extensions. It also helps to reduce the call load and average wait times, which your customers will appreciate.
Every Ooma plan has a mobile app so that your agents can easily answer or make calls while on the go. You can do all the important tasks, such as checking your voicemail, reviewing stats, and more.
That said, when comparing Nextiva vs. RingCentral and Ooma, this service isn’t ideal for call centers since it doesn’t support desk and conference phones.
Pricing: Plans begin at $19.95 per month per user. No contract is necessary, so you won’t be tied to a year-long commitment.
Pros:
Ooma offers unlimited domestic calling in the US, Puerto Rico, Mexico, and Canada.
Pricing is relatively affordable.
Easy to use mobile app.
Cons:
Missing a few advanced features unless you upgrade to the higher plans.
Why We Recommend Using Ooma: We like Ooma because it’s ready to use out-of-the-box. It requires zero technical installation, and just about everything is already configured when installed. They use an auto-configuration technology that automatically detects all the settings needed for your system to work.
Live chat software is a tool that helps connect customers to an actual human support representative so that you can resolve their issues in real time. That way, your customers can get the answers they’re looking for quickly.
They’ll spend less time sifting through your knowledge base and waiting to find a solution.
This goes hand-in-hand with your business phone services. By offering live chats on your website, you provide a more omnichannel customer experience, reducing your call load and average handling time.
Groove is a popular help desk software used by big brands like HubSpot, AppSumo, AT&T, and CloudApp.
It offers all the essential features a small business needs to deliver fast and responsive customer service. These include a knowledge base builder, shared inbox, collaboration and reporting tools, and live chat support.
Using Groove, we quickly realized how accessible the software feels. Think of it like a simple inbox that manages all customer communication in one place. Each conversation can be assigned to specific team members, so it’s clear who’s responsible for managing each conversion. Even better, you can label and assign agents to conversations based on certain conditions, such as department or type of inquiry.
Sticking to the theme of simplicity, Groove makes reporting as easy to understand as possible. Rather than giving you a ton of analytics that may confuse small businesses, they stick to the most important options.
For example, some of the metrics include response time, agent performance, busiest times, customer feedback, number of customers helped, and number of resolutions.
Pricing: Starts at $16 per user per month, billed annually. There is also a free trial available.
Pros:
Groove integrations with the most popular business tools like Shopify, Slack, and Mailchimp.
The knowledge base builder is customizable, and there are time-saving AI writing tools to help you quickly create support articles.
Live chat lets you deliver fast service to customers
Cons:
Groove isn’t the most customizable in terms of layouts and themes.
Why We Recommend Using Groove: Groove ranks as our top choice based on its value and ease of use. The entire system is easy to adopt, so you can better manage your support reps without having to spend a lot of time training them on how to use the software.
Heroic Inbox is the best WordPress-powered help desk and customer support market in the market. It allows you to easily manage customer emails and support tickets right within your WordPress site.
This can streamline workflow by keeping all support-related tasks in one place so you can respond to customer inquiries faster.
After testing the inbox, we found that it comes with all the features you’ll need to manage support emails. For instance, you can create canned responses, add notes to conversations, track your ticket history, and assign messages to team members.
Best of all, it pulls multiple inboxes into one place. Chances are, you may have various inboxes to respond to, such as sales, support, customer service, and partnerships. This allows you to ensure that an important message is never missed.
If you want to add knowledge base capabilities, then you’ll simply need to download Heroic KB, which gives you the ability to add a searchable knowledge base to your website.
Pricing: Starts at $199.50 per year.
Pros:
Manages customer service inquiries directly in WordPress.
You can connect multiple inboxes in one place.
It offers the ability to add notes and assign tickets to users.
Cons:
It doesn’t have live chat capabilities.
Why We Recommend Using Heroic Inbox: Juggling a lot of software can be a problem for a lot of small businesses. With Heroic Inbox, you can manage all inquiries in your WordPress dashboard. Since it lives within the WordPress ecosystem, it also seamlessly connects with other plugins, such as WooCommerce.
LiveChat is an all-in-one customer service software that works seamlessly for WordPress website owners. With over 35,000+ businesses that trust LiveChat, it’s a very popular tool for building live chatbots.
You can create a chatbot that asks the user questions before they’re automatically transferred to the right agent. During the chat, the agent is able to share files back and forth with the customer, send calendar links, or complete a purchase. On top of that, you can set up canned frequently asked questions type of responses to save time.
Beyond that, you can add pre-chat survey forms before and after each live chat session. That way, you’re able to evaluate your sales reps and customer support agents and how they’re performing.
It even integrates with popular tools like HubSpot, Zendesk, and Google Analytics, so you can better understand where your customers are coming from and who they are.
Pricing: LiveChat starts at $20 per person, billed annually, with higher-priced plans that track more users and better features. There’s also a free plugin available.
Pros:
Plenty of integrations to seamlessly connect data across platforms.
You can initiate a chat with a visitor as they are browsing on your site.
There are lots of customization options to help users find a solution.
Cons:
Price can quickly add up for large teams.
Why We Recommend Using LiveChat: LiveChat is an AI-powered help desk software that has a lot of advanced tools to help you sell more. For example, their custom forms, product cards, and AI automation can help turn inquiries into actual sales.
HubSpot Chat is an all-in-one marketing platform that also offers a chatbot builder and live chat feature.
You’re able to customize the live chat design to help route leads and customers to the right person on your team. The live chat widget can be edited to match the look and feel of your brand. You can even send targeted welcome messages on your live chat widget based on segments of your audience or different web pages.
The routing feature works during a chat, where your services team passes a lead to a sales rep. In addition, it provides useful automation features so you can deliver canned responses for faster response times.
Since HubSpot is an all-in-one tool, all chats are automatically stored in the CRM. That means your team will have a clear view of each customer interaction.
Pricing: It’s free to get started. But if you want the suite of marketing tools or CRM, you’ll need to buy the entire package. Prices vary based on what suite you choose.
Pros:
HubSpot Chat is free to use.
You can connect the tool to Slack so your team gets immediate notifications when a visitor requests to speak with your support team.
You’re able to route leads to anyone on your team.
Cons:
It’s missing advanced features such as post-chat survey forms.
Why We Recommend Using HubSpot Chat: We like HubSpot Chat because it offers all the essential features of live chat software and is absolutely free to use. That said, if you want more advanced automation or more sales-related features like product recommendations, then you may want to consider LiveChat or ChatBot instead.
ChatBot is the best helpdesk software for creating AI-generated answers to customer questions.
Where ChatBot stands out is its ability to build visual workflows that help customers get their questions answered and guide them to a sale. It comes with pre-built templates so that you can use them out of the box. For example, after a customer asks a question about a specific product category, you can immediately offer a limited-time discount to incentivize visitors to take action.
If site visitors want to chat with a real person, you can easily forward them to a live customer support representative. That said, the customization options are quite limited compared to LiveChat.
But, when it comes to AI automation, ChatBot can make your life easier. For example, depending on how users interact with your site and chatbot, you can add them to a segmentation and then import them to a CRM or email marketing service. This is great for nurturing leads and sending follow-up emails.
Pricing: Chatbot starts at $52 per month, billed annually or $65 month-to-month. However, there is a 14-day free trial, with no credit card required.
Pros:
ChatBot saves time with its powerful and expansive automation features.
It allows you to segment lists and trigger actions based on visitor behavior.
It integrates with WooCommerce and WordPress.
Cons:
ChatBot lacks high-level live chat features.
Why We Recommend Using ChatBot: If you want to automate your helpdesk and chat support, ChatBot is the way to go. It has many templates that help guide users into a sale.
Managing your team members is arguably one of the most important functions of a business. No matter what type of business you run, you’ll need to pay your employees and manage their hours.
With HR payroll software, you can automatically send out paychecks through bank direct deposit, manage PTO and bonuses, streamline employee onboarding, withhold a percentage for taxes, and more.
When your HR and payroll are organized, employees know what to expect, and you don’t have to worry about running into tax compliance issues.
Best of all, HR software streamlines all the tedious admin tasks that you would otherwise have to do by yourself.
Gusto is the best payroll and HR software that helps you automate both basic and advanced payroll tasks for employees and contractors. With its beginner-friendly approach to payroll management, it’s definitely a tool to have in your corner to ensure everything runs smoothly.
Even if you’re a small business without a full accounting team, Gusto makes it easy to handle payroll. It automatically runs payroll for you as many times a month as you need, and taxes are filed automatically. In addition, it automatically syncs health insurance, workers’ compensation, time tracking, 401K, PTO, and more.
Besides payroll, Gusto makes hiring and onboarding a breeze. There are features like custom offer letters, onboarding checklists, document signing, and even software account creation.
Pricing: Gusto starts at $40 per month, plus $6 per month per additional user you add.
Pros:
Relatively affordable to use.
Very beginner-friendly for both business owners and employees.
Gusto is a self-service tool for employees where they can hop online to check their pay stubs and important documents and request time off without the need for HR to intervene.
Cons:
Gusto is only available in the United States.
Why We Recommend Using Gusto: Gusto is an all-encompassing tool for payroll and HR tasks. You don’t have to worry about the nitty-gritty tasks like filing payroll and tracking all the taxes withheld. Plus, its higher plans offer next-day deposits, so employees get paid faster.
BambooHR is an excellent HR software and payroll solution for small businesses. The program is better suited for human resource tasks like compensation, hiring, onboarding, and company culture.
Inside, you get an application tracking system (ATS) that helps you speed up the hiring process and weed out potential applicants who don’t meet the job role requirements. Its automated alert features ensure you stay on schedule and keep candidates in the loop during the hiring process.
Once you’ve made your decision, you can use one of the many offer letter templates that come with auto-fill features so the new hire can sign and accept everything digitally.
That said, Bamboo HR also does all of the essential payroll tasks. It automates tax filing, so you don’t have to do it manually. As a result, you’ll avoid tax penalties and ensure you accurately report your employee earnings and taxes withheld.
Pricing: BambooHR offers free pricing quotes. To receive customized pricing, you will need to complete their contact form.
Pros:
BambooHR offers self-service tools so employees can access information such as tax forms and pay stubs online.
It automates the payroll process to avoid mistakes.
The ATS makes hiring much easier and faster.
Cons:
BambooHR is not as contractor-friendly as Gusto since it doesn’t have many features that cater to freelancers.
Why We Recommend Using BambooHR: BambooHR is a great choice if you have a remote team based internationally (outside of the U.S.). It makes it easy to manage your hiring and payroll across multiple countries.
QuickBooks is a payroll software designed to make life easier for small business owners. It’s primarily used for accounting tasks, allowing you to calculate all your balance sheets and perform payroll.
One key area where QuickBooks shines is that it offers same-day or next-day direct deposit processing, depending on the plan you choose. You also get useful features such as automated tax calculations and payroll, business receipt capture, paycheck creation, and more.
There’s a dedicated mobile app, so employees can easily access their PTO and health information and even look into their paystubs on the go. For administrators, you can manage payroll from anywhere, ensuring your team never misses payday.
Pricing: Price starts at $37.50 per month, plus an additional $6 per additional employee per month.
Pros:
Quickbooks offers a 30-day free trial.
For Elite users, QuickBooks Payroll provides a tax penalty protection of up to $25,000 per year.
QuickBooks Payroll integrates with QuickBooks Online, meaning you get a payroll and accounting system in one.
Cons:
There are limited third-party integrations.
Why We Recommend Using QuickBooks: If you’re focused on getting your accounting and payroll right, then QuickBooks is the way to go. With the tax penalty protection, you’re getting great coverage. That means if you make an error, they’ll not only help you to fix the issue but also cover any penalty and interest fines along with it.
Juggling customer data across scattered Excel sheets can be chaos. You may deal with missed follow-ups, forgotten birthdays, unsent emails, mixed signals, and frustrated teams and customers.
CRM apps eliminate this nightmare. They consolidate all customer data into a single, accessible platform. This empowers your sales, marketing, and customer support teams to:
Effortlessly access information: No more scrambling for details.
Boost efficiency: Automate tasks and free up time for strategic work.
Sales reps can prioritize high-value opportunities and close deals faster. Plus, marketers can leverage customer insights to craft impactful campaigns. Customer support gains a complete view of each interaction, providing exceptional service every time.
HubSpot CRM is the most popular CRM software on the market. It is cost-effective and offers a wide range of features, making it a great choice for most small businesses. You can get started with the free plan, which already gives you access to unlimited users and contacts.
Where HubSpot excels is its all-in-one capabilities. Since it combines sales, marketing, customer service, CMS, and operation hubs, you can easily connect data between departments. For example, you can easily pass contacts from your marketing team to the sales department without having to sync information to another system.
HubSpot is also really easy to navigate. It provides a full picture of customer interactions and comes with customizable reporting dashboards so that you can see how your team is performing. By looking at the opportunities and deal stages, you can quickly see what’s currently in the pipeline and focus on high-leverage prospects who are ready to buy.
Pricing: Hubspot CRM is free to get started. If you want the entire marketing suite, it’s $800 per month for 3 seats, billed annually, and an extra $45 per month per additional user. HubSpot Sales suite costs $90 per month per seat.
Pros:
HubSpot has an easy-to-use interface.
There are tons of features and even apps that you can download to make your experience better.
Visual dashboards and reporting make it very easy to track team performance and spot opportunities for growth.
Cons:
While HubSpot has a very generous free plan, its pricing gets steep quickly if you wish to upgrade.
Why We Recommend Using HubSpot: HubSpot is one of those can’t-miss tools for beginners. Sure, it could be more customizable or offer more affordable plans. But with that said, its free plan is enough to get small teams started.
FunnelKit Automations is the best CRM and marketing automation engine for WooCommerce. It’s filled with a wide range of features to help get your online more repeat sales and higher order values.
Geared towards e-commerce business owners, you have a complete 360-degree contact view of your customers. You’ll be able to see their name, gender, email, tags, lists, geographical location, and custom field data.
In addition to the CRM tool, you can build high-converting checkout pages and flows. The drag-and-drop builder connects with other major page builders, such as Divi, Elementor, Oxygen, and Gutenberg.
Once customers complete the purchase, you can create upsell pages to showcase higher-tier products, increasing your total order value.
Pricing: FunnelKit starts at $99.50 per year. That said, there is a free version as well.
Pros:
You get plenty of automation templates and workflows to increase conversions.
You can view the customer’s complete profile, including purchase history, order placed, etc.
Everything can be tracked, including what pages and workflows led to revenue.
Cons:
You’ll need a mailer plugin, such as WP Mail SMTP, since WordPress isn’t built for high-volume email.
Why We Recommend Using FunnelKit Automation: If you’re running an online store, adding FunnelKit Automation is a no-brainer. Keep your opt-in leads and customers organized so that you can send them more relevant product recommendations.
Pipedrive is a sales-focused CRM app for small businesses. It’s an all-in-one sales platform to boost revenue and track all of your leads and customers.
What we like about Pipedrive is its smart, in-platform tips. It comes with a sales assistant that provides performance tips and recommended features to help your team get acclimated to the software. For example, if you’re not sending follow-up emails after demo calls, it might send reminders to your reps.
Pipedrive goes beyond simple CRM with powerful automation features. Imagine automatically nurturing leads with timely emails, assigning tasks, and moving deals through your pipeline.
These automated workflows free up your sales reps to focus on closing high-value deals, not repetitive tasks.
Pricing: Pipedrive begins at $14 per seat per month, billed annually. But there’s a free 14-day trial you can get started with.
Pros:
Fairly affordable to use.
The smart assistant feature helps you improve your team performance.
It has a lead enrichment feature, which scrapes data online to find information about your prospects based on the email you’ve collected.
Cons:
It lacks phone support.
Why We Recommend Using Pipedrive: If you want a comprehensive sales tool to help manage your leads and drive home more revenue, Pipedrive is a solid choice. They offer many AI-powered features to make your life easier and save a lot of time.
Aside from these top business tools that we mentioned above, we also use and recommend the following plugins to better manage our WordPress sites.
WPFormsis the most beginner-friendly contact form plugin used by over 6,000,000 sites. It features an intuitive drag-and-drop form builder, allowing you to build beautiful contact forms, payment forms, user registration forms, multi-page forms, and more.
All in One SEO is a WordPress SEO plugin that helps you improve your WordPress SEO. It provides powerful on-page SEO optimization tools to help search engines better crawl and index your site, among many other capabilities.
SeedProdis the ultimate drag-and-drop page builder plugin for WordPress. With this software, you can design high-converting and beautiful pages that convert visitors into leads and leads into customers. You can create everything from landing pages and custom home pages to 404 pages and more.
MonsterInsights is the best Google Analytics plugin for WordPress. It brings the power of Google Analytics right to your WordPress dashboard, so you can get detailed reports of important metrics to see what’s working and what could be improved.
OptinMonster is the best lead generation and popup plugin that helps you convert website visitors into subscribers and customers. With this tool, you can create a wide range of campaigns, including popups, scroll boxes, floating bars, and fullscreen welcome mats.
MemberPress is a popular WordPress membership plugin for building membership websites. It has advanced membership features, including the ability to create gated content, add member levels, accept payments, create members-only forums, and more.
PushEngage is a web push notification software that helps you engage and retain visitors once they’ve left your site. When users leave, you can send them all types of reminders, such as product announcements, blog post notifications, cart abandonment reminders, and more.
WP Simple Pay is the best Stripe payments plugin for WordPress. It allows you to easily create payment forms or buttons that accept 13+ payment methods and collect recurring payments.
Smash Balloonis a social media feeds plugin for WordPress websites. It allows you to display custom Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube feeds on your site to boost followers and engagement.
WooCommerce is the world’s most popular eCommerce platform. It is cost-effective, super-flexible, and easy to use for beginners. You can easily create product pages, accept payments, manage orders, and much more. Basically, you can create your entire online store from scratch.
Frequently Asked Questions About Business Tools
What should you look for in a business tool?
The most important factors to consider when selecting a business tool are:
Integration with WordPress: If you own a WordPress site or WooCommerce store, you’ll want a business tool that easily connects the platforms. That way, no crucial information is lost in translation.
Ease of Use: The tool should be user-friendly and have an intuitive interface. Small businesses often have limited resources and may not have dedicated IT personnel, so it’s essential that the tool is easy for anyone on the team to use.
Scalability: Will it be able to grow with your business? Make sure the software can accommodate increasing data, users, and business complexity.
Cost-effectiveness: Evaluate the cost of the software pricing and its value for your business. Consider both upfront costs and ongoing fees. Some tools offer scalable pricing plans, which can be beneficial for small businesses.
Feature Set: Identify the specific features that are essential for your business. Whether it’s task management, CRM, eCommerce capabilities, or content marketing, make sure the service aligns with your business needs.
Customization: Look for a tool that allows some level of customization. This ensures that the tool can be adapted to meet your business’s unique requirements.
Customer Support: Reliable customer support is crucial. Check the availability, response times, and level of support provided. This is especially important when technical issues arise.
Security: Security is vital, especially when dealing with customer data. The tool should adhere to industry security standards and have measures in place to protect your business and customer information.
Mobile Compatibility: With an increasing number of users accessing websites through different devices, the software should be mobile-friendly.
Community and Reviews: Check for testimonials and user feedback to gain insights into the experiences of other small businesses using the tool.
Data Backup and Recovery: Make sure the software has reliable data backup and recovery mechanisms to prevent data loss in case of unexpected events. That said, if you don’t already have a WordPress backup plugin, Duplicator is our go-to recommendation.
Do business tools integrate with your WordPress site?
Yes, the best WordPress plugins should seamlessly integrate with the most popular third-party business tools. However, if there isn’t an integration, we recommend using Uncanny Automator.
It is the best automation plugin, allowing you to create unlimited automated workflows in WordPress. That means you can connect your website to a specific tool to complete an action.
Let’s say every time someone completes your contact form, you want to automatically add those contacts to your prospects list to your CRM tool. You can create an automated workflow through Uncanny Automator that will easily execute that action for you.
Are there any free business tools available?
Yes, many of these tools offer a free version with limited features. That means you can test the product and see if it meets your needs. That said, you can also check out our list of the best free business tools for small businesses.
At WPBeginner, we’ve helped many nonprofit and small business projects get off the ground, and we’ve seen how the right crowdfunding tools can make all the difference.
Sifting through the many crowdfunding plugins for WordPress can be a headache, and let’s face it: not all plugins are up to par. The right tool allows you to easily launch and scale your campaigns with minimal difficulty or fees.
That’s why we’ve done the research and put together a list of the best WordPress crowdfunding plugins so that you can find the right fit for your next venture.
What Is a Crowdfunding Plugin, and Why Do You Need One?
Fundraising can be a challenge, especially for entrepreneurs and small businesses. You might have the perfect business plan and website, but that doesn’t matter if you don’t have the funds to start it.
That’s where crowdfunding comes in. It involves raising awareness about a new business venture that you are considering developing and getting small contributions from people.
Rather than go to sites like Kickstarter and IndieGoGo, which take a cut of your funds and restrict your ability to add customizations, a crowdfunding plugin gives you full control.
There are many advantages to crowdfunding in WordPress, such as:
Access to capital: Crowdfunding allows you to get access to capital when it may not be feasible or easy to secure funding from traditional sources like banks or other lenders.
Market validation: By presenting your idea to the public, you can gauge the interest and see if your product is something that people would actually pay for. For example, you can accept donations and include a survey form so that your team can collect valuable feedback from contributors.
Audience building: Crowdfunding allows you to reach a large number of people so you can generate awareness and build an audience. Those who contribute to your campaign will likely be loyal customers and advocates. It’s a good idea to use a plugin like MemberPress so you can give contributors a place to share their thoughts and ideas in a private forum.
Customization: You have control over your enter campaign design and branding. You can even combine other plugins to help boost your crowdfunding efforts. For example, you could use other plugins like RafflePress to incentivize others to share your campaign to increase awareness.
Data ownership: When you choose WordPress, you own the data. You can build your email list with plugins like OptinMonster, which allows you to send updates to your subscribers about your new business venture.
With all said, let’s dive into the best tools building for starting your crowdfunding campaigns.
Out of all the options we tried, Charitable is the best crowdfunding plugin for WordPress. It allows you to create peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns without using a separate hosted fundraising platform, and it doesn’t charge transaction fees.
It allows you to easily build attractive fundraising pages and forms on your website. Plus, it lets you set up peer-to-peer fundraising and build brand awareness much faster, which ultimately can get you more funding for your business venture.
Charitable offers a wide range of add-ons, making it possible to handle just about any use case. For example, you can find addons like Donor Comments to add testimonials. You can also add a video introducing what your new business project is all about. It’s a great way to get people excited about the idea and increase conversions.
Here’s an example of a video, description, and donation button added to the crowdfunding form on Charitable.
Charitable comes with other cool extensions like PDF receipts, so contributors can keep their invoices for tax write-offs. Plus, you’re able to connect the plugin to email marketing services so that you can send subscribers updates about your venture, which keeps them informed and excited about what’s going on.
Pricing: Charitable starts at $69 per year. There’s also a free version of the plugin.
Pros:
Lots of add-ons to increase functionality
Plenty of payment methods
Easy to use crowdfunding form editor
Cons:
You will need to pay for the premium versions to get access to the add-ons.
Why We Recommend Charitable: Charitable is the best way to raise money with crowdfunding in WordPress. Since you can set up peer-to-peer fundraising, it allows businesses to leverage their networks to reach more people.
WP Simple Pay is the best Stripe payments plugin for WordPress. It allows you to easily accept donations and other types of fundraising payments on your site. One of the best things about this plugin is that you won’t need to set up an online store or even a checkout page.
You can build a crowdfunding form and embed it anywhere on your site. Plus, with its advanced form builder, you can customize it however you like. There are plenty of text fields, dropdowns, and price options to add.
The flexible donation and fundraising forms offer cool features to help drive more conversions. For example, you can create a predefined suggested donation amount to increase the average donation.
We particularly appreciated how WP Simple Pays offers recurring donations because this allows you to create a steady stream of funding for your organization. Best of all, the plugin accepts 13+ payment methods, so you can appeal to a wide range of donors from around the world.
Pricing: WP Simple Pay starts at $49.50 per year, but there is a free version available as well.
Pros:
Accepts 13+ payment methods and multiple currencies.
You can provide customizable receipts that help contributors for tax purposes.
The advanced form builder is easy to use.
Cons:
It doesn’t offer any community-building features.
Why We Recommend WP Simple Pay: We like WP Simple Pay as a quick and easy solution for accepting donations. You can choose to create payment forms or an entire donation page, and the payment process is seamless.
GiveWP is another donation plugin for WordPress with a variety of crowdfunding features. Like many of the other plugins on our list, it comes with an easy-to-use form builder so that you can easily customize the donation form without any code.
One of the best aspects of GiveWP is its mobile donation capabilities. Mobile-friendliness is integral for any business, let alone a new venture you’re starting.
The easier you can make it for contributors to donate, the better. GiveWP offers easy-to-pay options like Venmo Donations, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and even Text-to-Give. That means, with a simple text message, donors can easily contribute to your new venture anytime from anywhere.
Inside the plugin dashboard, you’ll receive real-time crowdfunding reports, so you can view metrics like top donors, average donation amounts, and more. This allows you to optimize campaigns and tweak your form or page for better conversions.
Pricing: GiveWP is free to start, but the basic plan starts at $149 per year.
Pros:
GiveWP offers a few mobile-pay options.
It provides in-depth reporting.
Easy-to-use plugin.
Cons:
The plan is pricey once you upgrade to the paid version.
Why We Recommend GiveWP: GiveWP is a comprehensive tool that gives you all the essentials for crowdfunding. It’s great if you want to prioritize mobile donations since users can easily pay through texting or popular apps like Venmo.
WPForms is a contact form plugin for WordPress that can accept crowdfunding payments and other transactions. With crowdfunding forms, you can accept donations through a wide range of payment gateways, such as PayPal, Stripe, Square, Authorize.net, and others.
Chances are, if you’re building a new product or business, you’ll need other form types as well. That’s where WPForms excels. You can create forms for all sorts of purposes, like contact forms, newsletter signups, surveys, registration forms, and more. It’s an all-in-one form builder with over 1700+ templates to choose from, which is more than any other plugin on this list.
Out of all the plugins we tried, WPForms is the best for collecting user responses in your crowdfunding forms. That’s because advanced features like the smart logic condition allow you to collect relevant information based on the contributors’ responses.
For example, depending on the contribution level, you may consider adding a reward.
Let’s say VIP contributors will get access to a special launch event. In that case, you’d need to collect information about them so they can RSVP. Or if you’re sending physical rewards like gifts or merchandise, then the smart logic would prompt users to provide their shipping address for delivery purposes.
WPForms comes with a wide range of add-ons like email marketing so you can send donors updates. There are plenty of integrations with third-party apps to enhance functionality. For instance, adding integration with CRM apps allows you to follow up with contributors once your business launches.
Pricing: You can get started with WPForms for $49.50 per year, but there’s also a Lite version.
Pros:
WPForms comes with 1,700+ templates.
Smart logic is a great option for showing or hiding fields based on responses.
There are plenty of third-party integrations to increase functionality.
Cons:
It’s not a dedicated crowdfunding platform.
Why We Recommend WPForms: We like WPForms because of its wide range of templates and customizations. Beyond that, smart logic is an excellent way to show only relevant fields, which is great if you offer reward-based crowdfunding.
WP Crowdfunding is a crowdfunding plugin that leverages the power of WooCommerce to accept and manage pledges from backers.
It’s great because it integrates with all of your other products and categories.
For example, let’s say you have a dropshipping store but want to build your own branded products and start private labeling them. Rather than investing time and resources into products your customers aren’t interested in, you can raise money to help support items that people are willing to pay for.
You can even add all of your crowdfunding campaigns in one place, similar to Kickstarter or Indiegogo. That way, visitors can see which product to support.
The plugin also has its own Native Wallet system, which tracks all of the proceeds that are raised on the crowdfunding project. That way, you don’t mix up online sales with donations. You’ll get stats along with a list of backers, so you know all the contributions made.
Pricing: WP Crowdfunding costs $149 per year for a single site.
Pros:
WP Crowdfunding connects with your WooCommerce store.
It helps you decide which products to launch.
Backers can donate visibly or anonymously.
Cons:
It only uses Stripe.
Why We Recommend WP Crowdfunding: This plugin is a great choice for online stores that want to start selling their products. Visitors can see all of the crowdfunding campaigns available to contribute to and see the progress towards each goal.
Formidable Forms is another form builder plugin, like WPForms. It comes with a wide range of donation forms, payment forms, calculator forms, contact forms, and more.
With this plugin, you can easily create donation and fundraising forms that accept payments via Stripe or Authorize.net. When using Formidable Forms, you’re taken to a visual form styler, giving you plenty of customization options. You can add a donate button, custom amounts, and just about any field you’d like.
While it is a contact form plugin, you can still view donation stats based on all the contributions made. There are beautiful graphic charts that help you visualize your campaign’s performance.
It also has integrations with powerful apps like Zapier, so you can automate workflow tasks. For example, you can set it up so that all contributors receive a thank-you message via email or text.
Overall, we found that Formidable Forms had lots of built-in customization choices. After thorough testing, we do like that it has advanced calculation features. For example, for large donations, you might include a calculator to estimate the tax-deductible portion of the donation.
Pricing: Formidable Forms starts at $39.50 per year but also offers a free version.
Pros:
Lots of form templates.
A visual form styler to customize the fundraising form to fit your brand identity.
Visual reporting to easily see campaign performance.
Cons:
It’s not specifically designed for crowdfunding purposes.
Why We Recommend Formidable Forms: This plugin could be a good choice if you need a customizable tool for collecting donations. It supports all the popular payment gateways, and you can add advanced features like calculators to your donation forms.
Patreon WordPress is a fundraising plugin that allows you to connect your WordPress site to your Patreon account to boost your pledges and patrons.
Let’s say you already have a built-in audience on Patreon but want your visitors to also have access to your community. Then, you can easily import your existing Patreon posts and content.
The plugin will sync data automatically to WordPress. When donors pledge and subscribe to your Patreon, they can easily access everything from your website.
You might have a new business idea. All contributors can be added to your Patreon community, giving them exclusive access to your gated content. You can choose to restrict any single post or all of your posts. In addition, you can select the tiers or minimum pledge amount needed to access any custom post or type of post.
Pricing: Patreon WordPress is a free plugin.
Pros:
Good for creators and existing Patreon users.
It syncs from Patreon to WordPress.
You can choose to lock or unlock any single post or all posts.
Cons:
It’s not useful for anyone who doesn’t plan on using Patreon.
Why We Recommend Patreon WordPress: This is the perfect plugin for creators, artists, musicians, bloggers, and other creatives who are already on Patreon. You’ll be able to bring the power of Patreon onto your website and integrate the platforms.
How Do You Choose the Best Crowdfunding Plugin?
The right crowdfunding plugin will depend on your needs. Some plugins are specifically designed for crowdfunding, while others offer fundraising forms as part of their larger offering.
If you offer other products or services or want to set up different types of forms on your website in addition to the fundraising form, then using an all-in-one plugin could be the more cost-effective solution for you.
Beyond that, it’s vital that you provide donors with a fast and easy checkout experience. That means you should offer a wide range of payment gateways so contributors can pay using their payment method of choice.
If you’re only planning to build a few pages to gauge interest level with any of these plugins, you may want to use SeedProd. It is the best page builder plugin on the market, with a powerful drag-and-drop editor that allows you to easily create any type of page, like a landing page or a custom homepage.
That way, you don’t have to spend time building out your entire website around a particular plugin or system until you have contributors rolling in to support your business idea.
Which Is the Best Crowdfunding Plugin for WordPress?
Through all of our testing, we’ve found that the best crowdfunding plugin for WordPress is Charitable. It has all the tools you need to set up a fundraising campaign. With the peer-to-peer fundraising capability, you can have ambassadors spread the word and increase your donation amount. Beyond that, you can accept recurring donations, connect them to your newsletter software, and more.
If you just want to simply add a crowdfunding feature to your existing website, WP Simple Pay or WPForms are good, cost-effective solutions. You can add a simple crowdfunding payment form to any part of your website and start raising money.
Are you looking to learn how to create a one-click checkout in WordPress?
Optimizing checkout for a smoother experience for customers is one of the highest priorities when running an eCommerce site. Specifically, adding a one-click checkout in WordPress helps users complete transactions faster, which makes them more likely to return.
In this article, you’ll learn how to create a one-click checkout in WordPress to boost conversions and increase sales.
Why Do You Need to Create a One-Click Checkout in WordPress?
Long checkout pages can drive away visitors who would be interested in making a purchase. Having to click through a list of checkout fields and fill out a lot of unnecessary or repetitive information makes the buying process drag on and on.
The longer the checkout process is, the higher the chance that customers will drop off at some point.
The average cart abandonment rate is 70.19%, and 22% of shoppers cited that a too-long or too-complicated checkout process was the reason for their abandonment.
That’s where the one-click checkout process comes in. It’s as simple as adding a buy-now button, so returning customers get to enjoy a streamlined checkout process.
A one-click checkout is an easy for customers to buy items online with just a click of a button without having to enter their shipping, billing, and payment details every time they make a purchase.
It’s similar to the auto-complete feature, except users don’t even have to fill out the fields since your website will automatically process the transaction without even going to the checkout page.
With just a single click, visitors can complete their purchase fast, which leads to higher conversion rates and reduced cart abandonment rates. Whether you have an online store, a service business, a membership site, or any other type of website, it’s a simple and easy way to increase sales.
That said, we’ll cover the five methods for adding a one-click checkout in WordPress:
Method 1: Create a One-Click Checkout in WordPress Using WPForms (Easy + Free Option)
Using WPForms, you can easily create a one-click checkout process for buyers. WPForms is a form builder that allows you to easily build all types of forms without any code.
The drag-and-drop builder allows you to easily collect payments with Stripe payment functionality so that you can create payment forms, user registration forms, expense approval forms, and more. Also, with 1,700+ templates to choose from, you can practically find any form type, meaning you never have to start from scratch.
Note: The good news is that you can use WPForms Lite for this tutorial since we’ll only be using the Stripe integration, which is free. However, if you want more advanced features, then you’ll want to install the Pro version.
Upon activation, head over to the WPForms » Settings page from your WordPress admin dashboard. Then go to the Payments tab.
Under Stripe, you’ll need to hit the ‘Connect with Stripe’ button.
This redirects you to the Stripe connection wizard, where you’ll be able to connect to your existing account or create a new account.
Follow the steps in the Stripe connection wizard.
After completing the steps, you’ll be taken back to the WordPress dashboard.
You should see a green checkmark indicating that your Stripe account is now connected to WPForms.
Now, you can start accepting payments on your website and are now ready to create your checkout form.
Go to WPForms » Add New. From here, you can name your form, which will be helpful for reference later.
Then, pick a payment form template that suits your needs.
For the sake of this tutorial, we’ll be working off of the Stripe Payment Form template. Under the template, click on ‘Use Template.’
You’ll be taken in the drag-and-drop form editor, where you can easily customize the form to your needs.
Any time you want to add a field, just drag and drop it from the ‘Add Fields’ panel on the left to the right side. To edit the fields, click on the element, and you can make adjustments under ‘Field Options.’
For example, if you were to create a wholesale form, you can edit the multiple-choice field with radio buttons.
Then click on the element, and under ‘Field Options,’ you can add the different products.
You’ll need to activate Stripe Link, a one-click checkout solution that securely stores all the customer details and allows buyers to reuse them on your site. They use Level 1 PCI-compliant servers, which means that your customers’ data is encrypted and secure.
To activate the Stripe Link checkout option, head over to the Settings » Payments page in Stripe. Then, go to the Payment Methods tab.
From here, you’ll select the ‘WPForms LLC’ menu for Select Platform.
This connects all available payment methods from your Stripe account to WPForms.
Scroll down the page, and you will see the different payment methods and settings for WPForms.
Make sure that the Link option for express checkout is Active.
After that, go back to WordPress to finish creating your checkout form. Go to the Payments » Stripe tab.
Then turn on the ‘Enable one-time payments’ option so that Stripe is activated on your form.
Once you’re done with that, hit the ‘Save’ button.
Then click on ‘Embed.’
You should see a popup message appear. Here, you can choose to embed this form into an existing page or create a new page.
Assuming you already have a checkout page, we’ll hit the ‘Select Existing Page’ button.
The form should automatically be embedded into the page you choose.
From there, just hit the ‘Publish’ or ‘Update’ button up top.
Make sure to preview the checkout form and see if the payments are going through to your Stripe account.
Once activated, it’ll pre-fill their credit card details that are saved on Stripe.
Keep in mind that customers with Stripe accounts will be prompted to enter a one-time passcode authentication to use Link.
Method 2: Create a One-Click Checkout in WordPress Using WP Simple Pay (Multiple Payment Methods)
WP Simple Pay is another great option for accepting one-time and recurring payments on WordPress. This is the better choice if you want to offer a variety of payment methods for your one-click checkout process.
WP Simple Pay offers 13+ payment methods, including debit and credit payments, ACH debit, Google Pay, Apple Pay, Venmo, and more. Also, you can even provide customers with the option to ‘Buy Now Pay Later‘ with Klarna.
To get started, install and activate the WP Simple Pay plugin. Upon activation, you’ll be taken to the setup wizard, which will guide you on how to start accepting payments on your site.
Make sure to follow the steps all the way through.
You should be asked to connect your Stripe account as well. If you don’t have a Stripe account, you can create one.
After you’ve completed the setup wizard, you’ll be shown a success page that confirms that the setup is finished.
Next, go to the WP Simple Pay » Settings page. Under the Stripe Tab, make sure that the Stripe account is connected and that you’re in ‘Live Mode.’
Before you go into creating your payment form, you also need to ensure that Stripe Link is enabled.
To do that, go to the Settings » General tab. Then, under the Advanced tab, check the ‘New Payment Experience’ box.
From here, you’re ready to start customizing your checkout form.
Head over to WP Simple Pay » Add New, and you’ll be taken to a library of available templates.
You can choose any template that fits your needs, but we’ll be using the Payment Form template for this tutorial. Under the template name, select ‘Use Template.’
Next, you’ll be taken to a form builder. In the General tab, you can fill out the necessary information.
Give the form a Title and Description. You can also check the CAPTCHA and email verification options to prevent spam submissions.
From there, navigate to the Payment tab so you can start adjusting the pricing and currency options.
You can also set the pricing to a one-time or subscription option.
Below that, you can have a wide range of payment methods to choose from.
Click the checkboxes of the options you wish to accept.
In the Form Fields tab, you can add any fields you want by selecting them from the dropdown menu and clicking on ‘Add Field.’ You can also edit your existing fields.
To enable Stripe Link, expand the Email Address dropdown menu. Then, you’ll have to click on the checkbox under ‘Offer Saved Payment Methods.’
Then, head over to your Stripe account. Go to the Settings » Payments page.
Under the Payment Methods tab, make sure to choose ‘WP Simple Pay’ from the ‘Select platform’ dropdown menu.
Then, go back to WordPress and finish customizing your payment form.
Once completed, go ahead and hit ‘Publish.’
Now, you can go to any page you want and add the newly created form.
Hit the ‘+’ icon and then add the WP Simple Pay block.
Then, choose the payment form you’ve just created, and it should appear on the page.
Click on the ‘Publish’ or ‘Update’ button at the top.’
Now, you’ve successfully created a one-click checkout experience with WP Simple Pay.
Make sure to preview the form to ensure it works.
Method 3: Create a One-Click Checkout in WordPress Using Easy Digital Downloads (Digital Products)
If you sell digital products, there’s no better plugin for creating a one-click checkout in WordPress than Easy Digital Downloads.
With over 50,000+ users, this plugin allows you to easily manage and sell digital products like eBooks, PDFs, audio, online courses, templates, and more.
To get started, you’ll need to install and activate Easy Digital Downloads. Upon activation, the plugin automatically creates a checkout and cart page for you.
That said, we can add a one-click checkout process by adding a buy now button with EDD. The buy now button automatically bypasses the add to cart and checkout process, sending the customer directly to payment.
First, go to the Downloads » Settings page in the WordPress admin panel.
Under the Payments » Stripe tab, you’ll want to click on ‘Connect with Stripe.’
You’ll be taken to the Stripe Connect Wizard.
Simply connect your existing Stripe account or create a new one.
Once connected, you’ll be directed back to WordPress.
You should see that Stripe is one of the payment options checked off in the General tab.
In addition, you’ll need to go to your Stripe account. Then head over to the Settings » Payments page.
Under the Payment Methods tab, make sure to choose the ‘Easy Digital Downloads’ option from the ‘Select platform’ dropdown menu.
By doing so, every time someone purchases your digital products, Stripe Link will be activated, and their credit card information will be auto-completed into the fields.
Next, go to the Downloads » Downloads page. Then, find a digital product to which you want to add the buy now button and click ‘Edit.’
Once you’re in the block editor, click on the black side panel widget at the top.
Scroll down in the panel until you reach Button Options. From there, select ‘Buy Now’ from the dropdown menu.
Then you’ll hit the ‘Publish’ or ‘Update’ button.
From here, you can preview your page, and you should see a ‘Checkout’ button at the bottom of your product page, which takes you straight to the checkout page. Then, you can enter your email, and Stripe will autofill your billing and payment details.
Method 4: Create a One-Click Checkout in WordPress Using FunnelKit (eCommerce Stores)
If you have an eCommerce store, FunnelKit Funnel Builder is the best choice for setting up your express checkout process.
This popular sales funnel builder allows you to easily create a high-converting sales funnel to boost your average order value, reduce cart abandonment rates, and capture more leads.
You can do everything from creating lead capture pages and order bumps to creating checkout forms and slide-in carts. Best of all, you won’t need to write any code.
For this method, you’ll already need to have your product pages set up for WooCommerce. If you have not set up your store yet, check out our complete step-by-step WooCommerce tutorial.
To get started, install and activate the FunnelKit Automation plugin. Upon activation, head over to FunnelKit » Cart. You’ll want to turn on the ‘Enable Cart’ option. Under the ‘Express Checkout’ tab, click on ‘Connect with Stripe.’
After that, you’ll be taken to the Stripe Connect Wizard.
Simply follow the steps to connect your Stripe account to FunnelKit or create a new account.
Once your Stripe account is connected to FunnelKit, you’ll be taken back to WordPress.
You’ll want to activate the ‘Credit Card (Stripe)’ option and then hit ‘Save and Continue.’
Next, you’ll be asked to set up a webhook so that you’re able to automatically process payments with a single click.
Click on ‘Setup Webhook Now.’
From here, you need to enable the express checkout option for Google Pay and Apple Pay.
Then, hit the ‘Confirm’ button.
You should see a confirmation message that says that the Stripe setup is successful.
Feel free to select the ‘Live’ mode if you’re ready to start accepting payments. Otherwise, you can choose the ‘Test’ option for now. Then click on ‘Save and Review Settings.’
Next, you’ll want to head back to FunnelKit » Cart. Then, under the Express Checkout tab, simply turn on the ‘Enable Express Checkout on Cart’ option.
Then, hit the ‘Save’ button to save changes.
Once that is enabled, you’re good to go.
Just go to a live product page to see it in action.
When a customer chooses the ‘Pay Now’ option, a window will pop up.
All of the payment details saved to their Google and Apple Pay accounts will automatically appear.
Method 5: Create a One-Click Checkout in WordPress Using WooCommerce (Free)
It’s a free plugin that adds a one-click buy button to your store.
Upon activation, go to the WooCommerce » Settings page. Then, navigate to Payments » Express Checkout.
From here, click the checkbox that says ‘Enable Express Checkout.’
The plugin offers a wide range of customizations. You can customize where you want the one-click checkout button to appear, as well as the color of the button and the text shown.
Now you’re all set.
Simply go to a product page or your storefront to see the one-click checkout button.
Are you ready to see some eCommerce statistics that will help you take your online business to the next level?
It’s safe to say that in the last 20 years, eCommerce has grown beyond our wildest expectations. And it’s still evolving faster than ever. If you want to keep your customers happy and build a relationship with new prospects, you need to stay current on the latest stats and insights.
In this post, we will share some of the best and most relevant eCommerce statistics of 2024. Our goal is to help you stay informed and make meaningful, data-driven decisions the next time you work on your website or marketing strategy.
Ultimate List of eCommerce Statistics
Before we get started, here’s a list of all the topics we will be discussing today. Feel free to jump to the part that catches your attention or read the whole thing from top to bottom!
First, let’s start with some statistics about the general state of eCommerce and online stores.
1. Globally, there are over 12 million eCommerce websites.
Over 12 million eCommerce websites might sound like a saturated market at first glance. But you will be happy to know the answer is a little more complex than that.
While competition is fierce for online stores, this statistic also shows that this is a growing market and there’s room for new business owners across all industries. The keys to success are to choose your target audience, cater to their goals, needs, and pain points, and create a website that separates you from everyone else.
By catering to a specific audience and offering a unique, memorable customer experience, you can carve out your own spot in the eCommerce world. Remember, even giants like Amazon started small, so there’s room for you to succeed, too.
2. More than 80% of US shoppers say they occasionally buy from eCommerce stores.
If your goal is to get more customers, then this statistic is very exciting. Business owners across all industries can be sure that their audience is out there and interested in their products and services. All they have to do is reach them.
If you’re in this position, make sure you start an online store with a blog and write plenty of great content so people have a reason to stay once they discover your site.
Think about it this way: four out of every five in a population of 331.1 million is about 265 million people! And that’s just in the United States.
3. It’s estimated that the eCommerce market will be worth $6.8 trillion by the end of this year, an almost 10% increase year over year.
The eCommerce market share is currently projected to hit a whopping $6.8 trillion by year’s end – that’s a 10% leap from last year!
This huge growth is fantastic news for both established businesses and those just starting out.
For veterans, it means a bigger customer pool to tap into. With more consumers shopping online, there’s a chance to expand your reach and grow your brand in new and exciting ways.
New businesses can also benefit from this boom. As more people shop online, they are more open to discovering new brands. This presents a golden opportunity to get your foot in the door and establish yourself in the market.
4. Amazon made close to $575 billion in net sales revenue in 2023, making it the biggest eCommerce seller in the world.
There’s no question that Amazon’s success shows the potential of online sales. We were shocked to find that 44% of shoppers check Amazon for products before they turn to Google.
But here’s the thing – they aren’t the only ones profiting. The entire eCommerce market is thriving and ready for smart, dedicated people who want to build customer-centric products and services. This means there’s space for you to win, too.
5. When it comes to eCommerce platforms, WooCommerce leads the pack, with over 6.6 million active users.
WooCommerce is the most popular eCommerce platform, with an eCommerce market share of 37.7% and 6.6 million users.
For context, Squarespace Online Stores takes second at 14.67%, and WooThemes takes third at 14.95%. The runner-ups are popular enough, but they don’t compare to WooCommerce.
People prefer to use WooCommerce to start a store because it’s user-friendly, flexible, and comes with tons of great features and integrations. Plus, it’s customizable so you can use it to create an online store that matches your vision.
More General eCommerce Statistics
Across all industries, the average conversion rate on an eCommerce website is 2.86%.
The top four drivers of online purchases are free shipping (49.4%), discounts (37.9%), customer reviews (31.6%), and an easy return policy (30.4%)
The largest group of online shoppers are people between the ages of 25 and 34.
Nearly 55% of people prefer shopping online over traditional brick-and-mortar stores.
China contributes the most to the eCommerce market share, as it is responsible for 52.1% of all eCommerce sales.
But India is the fastest growing market, with a projected growth of 14.11% between 2023 and 2027.
There are 604 eCommerce platforms to choose from.
eCommerce Marketing Statistics
Marketing is key to an online store’s success. Let’s now take a look at some eCommerce marketing statistics.
6. eCommerce businesses with three or more marketing channels see 251% more engagement than those that stick to a single marketing channel.
Standing out online requires reaching your target audience, and this stat makes it clear: using just one marketing channel limits your reach. And if you can’t connect with your audience, then it’s hard to grow your eCommerce business.
The solution is actually quite simple – add more ways to get your message out, and you’ll unlock more opportunities to reach potential customers.
We suggest investing heavily in email marketing, social media outreach, and search engine optimization (SEO) since these are three of the best ways to generate traffic and conversions.
7. Content marketing helps brands generate 3x more leads than their non-blogging counterparts.
Imagine getting 3x more leads just by writing informative blog posts! That’s the advantage that content marketing offers.
Businesses that blog regularly see a huge jump in leads. Here’s why it works: blogs attract potential customers looking for answers.
By consistently creating helpful content related to users’ goals and interests, you can build trust and become an expert in their eyes. This makes them more likely to choose you when they are ready to buy. It’s like giving away valuable advice to build relationships—and ultimately, sales.
Our advice is to spend plenty of time doing keyword research so that you know what matters to your target audience. It’s much easier to create eye-catching content if you know what matters to your audience.
8. 71% of shoppers expect businesses to use personalization in their marketing and 76% get frustrated when that doesn’t happen.
Forget one-size-fits-all marketing. Today’s shoppers crave personalization, and the numbers back this up. A vast majority of shoppers want businesses to use macro and micro-personalization in their marketing, and people get annoyed when that doesn’t happen.
Including things like an email subscriber’s first name or referencing a product they purchased in the past shows that you are paying attention and want to build rapport to help them reach their goals.
If you don’t personalize at least a few parts of your marketing campaigns, then you may struggle to generate leads and connect with your prospects.
Similarly, if someone buys from your site and doesn’t see personalized messages or offers based on their interaction, they may choose another business that offers these experiences the next time they need to make a purchase.
For example, if someone is looking at a specific product page, you can use OptinMonster to create a popup that only shows up on that page with a unique offer. This is a great way to drive sales and grow your email list.
9. SEO marketing matters, because search engines are the number one way people discover new products (30.6%).
SEO is more important now than ever before. Most people discover products through search engines, with TV and word-of-mouth coming in second and third place respectively.
If your site does not appear on search engine results pages (SERPs), you are missing out on a massive chunk of potential customers. The good news is that there are plenty of ways to optimize your site for search engines.
All in One SEO (AIOSEO) is the best WordPress plugin you can use for the job. Currently, over 3 million people use it to check their on-page SEO, optimize their websites, and so much more. It’s a great tool for beginners and experts alike because it manages to be both user-friendly and has plenty of advanced features.
Video is a powerful marketing tool, with 73% of people saying they’d be more likely to buy a product if they could watch a video about it first.
75% of shoppers say they need to see photos of a product before they buy it.
eCommerce advertising influences over 56% of in-store purchases.
Ad spending for eCommerce is worth $38.4 billion, which is 3x what it was in 2019.
75% of shoppers say they’ve used a paid search ad on Google to find a new product.
Nearly three-fourths (73%) of people shop across multiple marketing channels.
Mobile eCommerce Statistics
Mobile browsing is more popular than ever, and the same goes for mobile shopping. Here are some key eCommerce statistics for mobile shoppers.
10. 71% of U.S. shoppers say they’ve made a purchase from their mobile phone.
This stat is a wake-up call for all eCommerce business owners: having a mobile-friendly website is no longer optional. It’s necessary.
If your website isn’t easy to navigate and use on a smartphone, then you are missing out on a ton of traffic and potentially losing a huge chunk of sales.
Mobile optimization includes things like a smooth user experience, clickable calls-to-action, fast loading times, and a layout that adapts to different screen sizes. By prioritizing mobile users, you will be meeting your customers where they are and making the buying process as convenient as possible.
11. During Q3 of 2023, 74% of all eCommerce visits happened via mobile.
Based on this statistic, it’s clear how people prefer to browse websites and shop online. This means you need to go beyond a responsive design and instead focus on creating a mobile-first experience.
Imagine what would happen if 3 out of 4 people who visited your site had trouble browsing your product landing page, contacting your customer support, or reading your blog. Odds are, you’d see a significant dip in engagement.
If you follow mobile-first practices, then you’ll be in a much better position to capture your audience’s attention and turn them into customers.
12. 40% of shoppers say they are likely to leave an online store if it isn’t optimized for their device.
At a glance, it’s concerning to see that almost half of shoppers say they’ll leave a site if it’s not optimized for mobile. This could lead to a significant portion of potential customers bouncing off your website, simply because it isn’t user-friendly.
The good news is there’s a solution: SeedProd. It is one of the best page builders on the market and features a responsive option that allows you to fine-tune how your website displays on desktops, tablets, and mobiles. This ensures a smooth user experience for all visitors, regardless of their device.
Expert Tip: If you are looking for a different option for building a mobile-friendly website, Thrive Architect is another great choice!
More Mobile eCommerce Statistics
The average mobile order is between $90 and $110, which is less than the average desktop purchase.
However, mobile eCommerce is growing faster at 29%, which is better than the 22% growth rate of desktop eCommerce.
In the United States, there are 187 million active smartphone shoppers.
Mobile apps convert 3x more customers than mobile websites.
49% of smartphone shoppers use their devices to compare prices of different products when shopping online.
38% of shoppers say they’ve never used a mobile device to shop, while 7% report never using desktop computers to make a purchase.
eCommerce Payment Statistics
Next, let’s see some impressive eCommerce statistics for online payments.
13. When it comes to paying for online orders, credit cards are still the most popular payment method, making up 53% of transactions.
Credit cards might reign supreme for now, but the future of eCommerce payments is digital. While a solid 53% of customers still prefer credit cards, this statistic shouldn’t overshadow the rise of digital wallets and debit cards, which follow closely behind at 43% and 38%.
There’s no question that digital payment methods, like Apple Pay and PayPal, offer a faster, more convenient experience for shoppers, so integrating them into your website can dramatically boost conversions.
The bottom line is every step a customer has to take to complete a purchase adds friction to the process. Digital wallets eliminate the need to manually enter card details, which will streamline your checkout process and result in more happy customers.
14. In one survey, half of eCommerce business owners say they lose about 10% of their international revenue because their payment vendors do not have flexible payment options.
Not having the right payment gateway on your site will result in people leaving without taking action. You don’t want to put your visitors in this position because not only are you leaving money on the table, but there’s a good chance they will not come back even if you add their preferred payment method later.
The solution is to offer a wide range of payment methods as soon as possible. When customers have options they trust and use regularly, they are more likely to complete their purchases.
Here’s where a plugin like WP Simple Pay can be a game-changer. This Stripe payment plugin allows you to easily integrate over 10 different payment methods into your website. This ensures a smooth checkout experience for customers, regardless of how they want to pay.
15. Optimizing your checkout page can improve conversions by 35%.
Optimizing your checkout process will have a noticeable impact on sales. When customers can quickly place an order with little to no friction, they’ll take action.
You’ll be happy to know that getting your checkout page in good shape is easier than you might think. The key is to simplify as much as possible by offering a guest checkout option, limiting forms, and providing a progress bar so that customers can see how close they are to the end of the process.
Be transparent, too. Don’t surprise customers with hidden fees. Clearly show taxes, shipping costs, and anything else upfront so they don’t get frustrated and leave. Building trust leads to happy customers, and happy customers mean more sales!
Over 65% of shoppers look up price comparisons in physical stores before they pay.
Venmo is growing at an impressive pace, with a 9% year-on-year increase, bringing its revenue to $6.7 million.
However, their totals don’t come close to touching PayPal, which handles countless eCommerce transactions every day. They made $7.4 billion in revenue in 2023.
Experts predict that the total number of Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) customers will increase by 400% between 2021 and 2026.
Social Media eCommerce Statistics
Social media is one of the best ways to reach new customers and promote your online store. Here are some important social media eCommerce statistics you need to know.
16. Businesses that use social media generate an average of 32% more revenue than ones without it.
Social media platforms aren’t just for entertainment anymore – they are a direct line to your target audience. So, don’t underestimate the value of social media marketing. We are confident that all eCommerce business owners would love to see a 32% boost in revenue!
Beyond direct sales, you also get plenty of opportunities to engage with your audience. Think about it: you can showcase your products, highlight special offers, and build brand awareness – all without spending a dime on traditional advertising.
You can use a plugin like Smash Balloon to share your social media on your website. This can have a dramatic impact on engagement and help you get more followers. Plus, adding a social feed to your site is fast and easy.
17. 74% of shoppers turn to social media when they are thinking about buying a product.
It turns out that social media is also one of the most widely used research tools for online shoppers. This statistic highlights that about 3/4s of people turn to their favorite social sites when they want to learn more about a product or discover something new.
For you, this means social sites are the perfect place to introduce yourself to prospects, show off your products, and get to know your existing customers.
It’s a good idea to spend some time on social media every day so you can connect with your audience and build a community. Then, once your page gets to a certain point, the algorithm will begin recommending your channel or profile to people who don’t follow you. This is an easy way to build your social audience and customer base.
18. 67% of affiliates and virtually all influencers use social media sites to boost their sales.
There’s no question that affiliates and influencers have a strong relationship with eCommerce business owners.
This shouldn’t come as a surprise when you consider these groups often partner together on social media because it’s a win-win-win situation. The brand sells more products, the affiliate makes a commission on their sales, and the customers get great products.
The increase in profits and ease of access is probably why 68% of marketers say they plan on investing in an affiliate program this year.
We suggest using AffiliateWP to create and manage your affiliate program. This easy-to-use WordPress plugin allows you to set commissions, issue one-click payouts, and collaborate with your affiliates in new and exciting ways.
19. 80% of marketers who sell products on social media say consumers have made a purchase through these platforms.
Some business leaders think that social media is just for window shopping. However, many people are turning to social media to make purchases, and that isn’t going to change anytime soon.
This can seem intimidating if you are currently not using social sites like Facebook and Instagram to sell your products. But there’s still plenty of time for you to get involved.
By integrating social commerce features, you can streamline the buying journey for customers. They can discover your products, learn about them, and complete their purchase – all within the familiar social media interface.
34% of marketers say Facebook generates the most sales, which makes sense when you consider that over 53.5 million people have bought something from the site.
16% of social media managers use automation to communicate with prospects.
When it comes to Gen-Z and millennial shoppers, 28% have bought something directly from social media in the last 3 months.
The top categories for social media shopping in order are apparel, beauty, and home products.
70% of people say they are far more likely to buy a product from a brand if they have a positive experience with them on social media.
Almost one-third of shoppers say they turn to social media to learn about new brands or products.
Email eCommerce Statistics
Email is an important tool for any online business. Here are some of the most important email eCommerce statistics.
20. A vast majority (86%) of eCommerce marketers use email to build rapport with their audience and improve brand awareness.
There’s a reason why email marketing remains a favorite among eCommerce marketers: it’s a direct line of communication to prospects and existing customers. When you can have a one-on-one conversation with people, there’s a better chance you can learn about their goals and pain points while overcoming their objections.
With what you learn from these encounters, you can share relevant content, advertise exclusive promotions, showcase new products, and ask for feedback, among other things.
If you are looking for a good email marketing service, then Constant Contact is our number one choice. It’s extremely easy to use and allows you to do everything you’d expect, like create templates, design a calendar, and more.
21. 52% of people say they’ve made a purchase as the result of a marketing email.
This statistic highlights the value of email marketing for eCommerce businesses. There’s no doubt that it’s a cost-effective, powerful way to reach your audience and directly influence their buying decisions.
If you want to create emails that capture the attention of your subscribers and boost sales, then make sure you focus on personalization. About 80% of people say they are more likely to engage with a business if it personalizes content and offers to match their needs.
For instance, we suggest using information subscribers have sent you, as well as their purchase history, to curate an email campaign that aligns with their interests.
22. 14% of marketing emails never reach their destination.
It’s shocking to think that so many emails never reach their destination. For business owners who use email marketing to engage with their customers, these deliverability issues could result in missed opportunities to build rapport and lost sales.
Luckily, tools like WP Mail SMTP can help with this problem. This powerful WordPress plugin tackles deliverability issues head-on and makes sure that your emails will end up in your users’ inboxes.
72% of email marketers struggle with low open rates.
Personalized subject lines can get between 10-14% more people to read your email.
Emails letting customers on a waitlist know a product is back in stock convert a staggering 8695% better than a traditional, generic email.
78% of people say they don’t mind getting emails once a week from brands they love.
57% of marketers have between 1,000 and 10,000 email subscribers.
Mobile-responsive emails are essential because 70% of people will delete an email if it looks bad on their phone.
eCommerce Shopping Cart Statistics
Next, let’s take a look at some eCommerce shopping cart statistics.
23. Across all industries, the average shopping cart abandonment rate is 70.19%.
Shopping cart abandonment occurs when someone adds an item to their cart but leaves your website before checking out. And it’s way more common than you might think.
It doesn’t matter what industry you are in. You will see this happen more often than you’d like. Instead of letting it bother you, you can find ways to reduce abandonment, such as by creating a cart recovery email series.
Sending 3 emails to people who joined your list after they abandoned your cart can help you recover around 60% of lost sales. Generally, it’s a good idea to send one email after they leave, another 24 hours later, and the last one about a week after they leave with items still in their cart.
24. The number one reason shoppers abandon their shopping carts is unexpected costs.
Most people have decided to abandon a shopping cart without taking action because of unexpected costs. You’d be hard-pressed to find someone who hasn’t.
That’s because shoppers expect the price at the end to be close to what they were shown when they added the items to their cart. Imagine thinking a new shirt will cost $25, only to see $60 after shipping and taxes.
You can reduce this type of abandonment by embracing an “always-on” shopping cart that shows visitors their total regardless of where they are on your site. Then, you can offer free shipping on orders over a specific amount.
25. 26% of people who leave items in their cart will go on to buy a similar item from a different store.
You may be shocked to learn that people will buy the same type of product from a different eCommerce website after they first view it on another site. This means you need to do everything you can to capture visitors’ attention so you don’t lose sales and opportunities to engage with your customers.
To win people over, there are two key areas you need to focus on: product information and enticing offers.
Additionally, strategic discounts are a game-changer. Consider offering targeted promotions or deals specifically for recovering abandoned carts. This sweetens the deal and incentivizes customers to complete their purchase at your store instead of heading to a competitor.
26. Exit-intent popups can help you connect with 53% of visitors before they leave.
This is why you shouldn’t underestimate the power of a well-timed popup. This statistic reveals that exit-intent popups, which appear when a visitor shows signs of leaving your site, can help you reconnect with a whopping 53% of departing customers.
With a tool like OptinMonster, you can streamline this process and turn more visitors into subscribers, which can later be converted into customers.
With its drag-and-drop builder, you can design beautiful, high-converting popups – even if you don’t know how to code. OptinMonster offers customizable campaigns, from exit-intent popups to lightbox forms, which lets you reach visitors at various touchpoints in their journey.
92% of visitors don’t intend to buy something the first time they land on your site.
54% of shoppers say they are more likely to revisit a website and complete their order if they are offered a discount.
Despite this, only 38% of marketers say they use email to reduce abandonment.
Organic search traffic is less likely to abandon their cart (76%) than visitors who find your site through social media (91%).
A little less than half (46%) of shoppers have left items in their cart because a discount code they received didn’t work.
Using predictive AI to personalize product and content recommendations can reduce abandonment by up to 18%.
While it’s hard to pin down an exact number, experts estimate over $4 trillion worth of products are left in abandoned shopping carts each year.
Customer Experience and eCommerce Statistics
Providing a good customer experience is important if you want your eCommerce business to succeed. Here are some statistics to keep in mind.
27. 76% of people say they are more likely to buy from an online store if they personalize their shopping experience.
This stat highlights a crucial factor for eCommerce business owners: creating unique shopping journeys that resonate with each customer.
Think about it: People who see generic offers that don’t resonate with their needs will likely ignore them in favor of ultra-personalized, relevant promotions. Personalized content and product suggestions will make customers feel like you are there with them, understand their needs, and are committed to their success.
Interestingly, 85% of leaders believe they are already doing a good job personalizing content and offers, but only 60% of shoppers agree. In other words, there’s a gap that you need to be mindful of when designing your personalization strategy.
28. 95% of shoppers look for reviews and other forms of social proof before making a purchase.
It’s impossible to deny the power of social proof in eCommerce. We bet that you look at reviews every time you buy something new online – after all, most people do.
When potential customers see positive reviews, testimonials, or user-generated content, it builds trust and validates your brand’s credibility. Imagine walking into a store and seeing it packed with happy customers – that feeling of social validation translates to the online world as well.
It’s a good idea to display reviews and testimonials on key parts of your website. The social wall plugin Smash Balloon can help with this because it lets you embed a reviews feed and show website visitors what people are saying about you on social media and other websites.
Plus consider using the social proof plugin TrustPulse to add engaging real-time live sales notifications to your site.
29. If your customer service team is unresponsive and a user has a question, 79% will leave and may never return.
You probably know that customer support is essential to your business, but did you know that 4 out of 5 people who don’t get their questions answered will leave for good? This startling statistic highlights why it’s so important to have a well-rounded customer support plan in place.
The consequences of having an unresponsive customer service team are quite severe. You’ll miss opportunities to connect with potential customers, people will think poorly of your brand, and existing customers may churn in favor of a company that offers 24/7 support.
Our advice is to use a mix of live support agents and chatbots to help your customers quickly and easily find what they are looking for.
Groove is a great help desk option that can make life easier for your support team. It allows you to quickly and easily respond to customers, track user history, create tasks, monitor feedback, and much more.
More Customer Experience Statistics
78% of people are more likely to place an order if there’s a fast and affordable shipping option.
Around 35% of shoppers say they would shop online more if they could virtually try a product before they buy it.
48% of internet users say if a site has a bad web design, it instantly loses credibility.
Less than 20% of people say customer service interactions with retailers exceeded their expectations.
Solving a customer’s problem could result in them telling 4 to 6 other people about their experience.
Globally, poor customer experiences cost businesses $75 million a year.
82% of people claim they are willing to spend more money on a product if they consistently receive excellent service.
The Future of eCommerce
We already know that online shopping has been growing over the years. So, let’s take a look at the future of eCommerce.
30. By the end of 2024, global eCommerce sales are projected to grow by 10% from the same time last year. Meanwhile, in-store sales are expected to see a 2% boost.
The future is bright for eCommerce businesses! This statistic paints a clear picture: online shopping is on a steady upward trajectory, while traditional brick-and-mortar stores see a more modest increase.
Plus, we expect this trend to continue in the years to come.
31. Experts predict the eCommerce market share to be worth over $8.1 trillion by 2026.
This is a very exciting prediction for eCommerce business owners across all industries. This means there’s a booming marketplace on the horizon, which translates to a wider audience for your products and more sales.
If you want to take advantage of this surge of new eCommerce traffic, make sure you are doing everything you can to align with your customers’ needs. This will give you the knowledge and experience you need to scale your business.
We recommend using a plugin like MonsterInsights to learn more about your eCommerce visitors. You can see at a glance who is visiting your site, how they found you, and more. Combine all of this data and you can learn so much about your target audience, like their needs, interests, and goals.
32. About 20% of all retail sales occur online. It’s estimated that this number will reach 25% by the end of 2025.
This statistic aligns with the others we have already listed – eCommerce is on the rise.
Over the course of the next year, we will see retail sales jump to 25%. This is partially due to new businesses opening up, and existing brands building a website and taking their products online.
More eCommerce Predictions
By the end of 2025, it’s estimated that PayPal, Venmo, and other digital wallets will make up over 52% of payments.
Most professional marketers agree that mobile eCommerce sales will reach $710 billion by 2025.
Mobile eCommerce sales are expected to bring in $729 billion in revenue by the start of 2026.
By the same time, subscription eCommerce will be worth an estimated $904.2 billion.
In 2027, eCommerce revenue in the United States alone is estimated to hit $6.43 billion.
There you have it! We hope this extensive list of eCommerce statistics helps you on your journey. If you are looking for more interesting statistics, check out some of our other posts below!
Do you want to create a recurring donation form in WordPress?
The right WordPress plugins allow you to easily accept recurring donations on your website. That way, your organization can gain consistent funding to help with budget planning and executing long-term projects.
In this article, we’ll show you how to create a recurring donation form in WordPress.
Why Create a Recurring Donation Form in WordPress?
Recurring donations are contributions made by donors on a regular basis to support a non-profit or cause.
Instead of a one-time donation, supporters opt to set up automatic payments at specific intervals, like weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annually.
When running a non-profit organization, your donors are the heart and soul of your cause. One-time contributions are great, but they might not give you the predictable funding source you need.
Recurring payments provide a reliable income stream so that you can better budget and allocate financial resources. For example, you can better plan where your marketing efforts will go or how you could use that money to help those in need.
Plus, it also adds convenience. Donors can make automatic payments without manually initiating each payment. Most contributors may forget to submit a donation, so a recurring form lets them opt-in, and the payment processor will charge their card automatically.
It’s a good way to gamify contributions as well. For example, you could create a membership site using a plugin like MemberPress. The more donors contribute, the better rewards they can earn. You could add a leaderboard, and the top contributors become your VIP guests at events and receive extra recognition or other perks.
With all that said, we’ll dive into three different ways to create a recurring donation form in WordPress. Feel free to use the links below to jump to each method.
Besides building your donation form, they offer a wide range of features. For example, they include addons like Newsletter Connect so you can keep donors up to date using your email marketing service.
You can also leverage peer-to-peer fundraising, which is great if you have multiple projects or causes to support. This will allow users to choose which opportunities they want to donate to.
Plus, they offer $0 in transaction fees, meaning all of your donor’s generous donations won’t be taxed by the software.
To get started, you’ll need to download the Charitable plugin. For more details, check out our tutorial on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Once activated, you’ll need to go to the Charitable » Addons page. Then go ahead and click on ‘Install’ or ‘Activate’ next to the ‘Charitable Recurring Donations Addon.’
In addition, you’ll need to go to the Charitable » Settings page.
Under the Payment Gateways tab, click on ‘Connect with Stripe.’
Here, you’ll be taken to a setup wizard. Simply follow the walkthrough process by entering the email that is connected to your Stripe Account.
If you don’t have one, you’ll need to create one to start accepting donations.
Once you’ve connected your Stripe account to Charitable, you’ll be redirected back to the settings page.
Under Connection Status, it should say that your Stripe is ‘Connect In live mode.’
Next, we can move on to creating your donation form. Go to Charitable » Add New.
Then, a pop-up will appear, asking you to name your campaign. Give it a name and then hit ‘Create Campaign.’
Next, you’ll be taken to a window that shows you all of the available templates you can use so that you don’t have to start from scratch.
That said, they also have blank, simple 1- or 2-column layouts you can use if you don’t see something that fits your use case.
For this example, we’ll use the ‘Club / Organization’ template. Hover over the template and click ‘Create Campaign.’
You’re now ready to start editing the look and feel of your form. You can add additional form fields, edit texts, add buttons, images, and videos, or tinker with the layout.
Everything is drag and drop, so to add a form field, just drag it from the left-side panel to the right-hand editor in the position you’d like it to be.
If you want to edit an existing field, just click on the element in the editor.
Then, you can make adjustments as to what appears on the form, like the text, colors, alignment, etc. All customizations will show up in the ‘Layout Options’ tab.
Next, you’ll head over to Settings » Donation Options. Here is where you can toggle all of the options when it comes to defining the donation parameters.
Scroll to ‘Recurring Donations.’ Then turn on the option ‘Allow Recurring Donations. In addition, it’s a good idea to turn on the ‘Allow Recurring Custom Donations’ as well. That way, donors can set a custom amount that they’re comfortable with.
You may want to choose the ‘Recurring Donation Amounts’ under the Default Tab to encourage repeat contributions. If you’d like to give donors complete freedom, you can allow donors to choose their donation period.
If you continue to scroll down the page, there are also options to customize the default period and select how often donors should be billed.
This will depend on your specific cause, but in many cases, it’s good to set donation periods to at least a month or longer.
If you’re happy with how the recurring donations form looks, you’re ready to publish. Just hit the ‘Save’ button first.
Then, select the dropdown menu under draft and click on ‘Publish.’
Once you’ve published your fundraising campaign, you can now embed the form onto any page or post.
Click the ‘Embed’ button at the top.
Then, choose ‘Select Existing Page’ to add it to a page on your website. Or if you don’t have one set up yet, hit ‘Create New Page.
From here, just choose the page to which you’d like to add the form.
Once you’ve landed on your WordPress page’s edit screen, click on the ‘+’ icon.
Then, find and add the ‘Charitable Campaign’ block to your page.
Select the campaign that you’ve just created.
Finally, hit the ‘Publish’ or ‘Update’ button to add the recurring donations form to your page.
Make sure to preview the form live to ensure that everything is working.
You might want to submit a test payment as well so that you can check that all donations go through to your Stripe account.
That’s all for creating a recurring donation form using Charitable!
Creating a Recurring Donation Form in WordPress with WP Simple Pay
WP Simple Pay is another good choice for accepting recurring payments. With over 13+ payment methods and 135+ currencies in 45+ countries, they offer the most flexibility.
That’s because you’re not just limited to credit card payments. For example, you can accept mobile payments such as Apple Pay, Google Pay, or even Venmo payments. In addition, they support ACH Direct Debits, Afterpay, Klarna, and others.
Step 1: Install the WP Simple Pay Plugin and Connect Your Stripe Account
To begin, you’ll need to download the WP Simple Pay plugin. Once activated, you’ll need to go through the WP Simple Pay Setup Wizard, which will walk you through the process step by step.
It’ll also lead you to connect WP Simple Pay with Stripe. All you’ll need to do is enter the email address that’s linked to your Stripe account.
But if you don’t have an existing Stripe account, then you can just set one up.
Now, you’re ready to create a donation form. Navigate to the WP Simple Pay» Add New page.
Step 2: Create Your Recurring Donations Form
You’ll be directed to select a template. Choose a template that fits your needs. For this tutorial, we’ll select the Mission Trip Fundraising Form. Simply hover over the option and select ‘Use Template.’
Once you’ve chosen the template, you’ll be sent to the form builder to configure the options inside.
You can feel free to customize the title and the description of the form. As for the ‘Type,’ you can leave it as an on-site payment form.
From here, you can navigate to the ‘Payment’ tab to ensure you charge recurring donations.
Under the ‘Price Options,’ expand the dropdown options for each donation amount. Or if there’s a different payment amount you’d like to add, click ‘Add Price.’
Once you’ve expanded the dropdown, feel free to give it a label if necessary or leave it blank. Then click on the ‘Subscription’ button instead of one-time, so that all donors will charged on a recurring basis.
In addition, make sure to check the box “Allow amount to be determined by user” if you want to give them the flexibility to choose their contribution amount.
Setting a minimum amount is a good idea, too, since that ensures you at least get a contribution that is meaningful to your cause while still allowing donors the freedom to pay an amount they’re comfortable with.
Then, scroll to the ‘Billing Period’ and select the frequency of each payment. You can choose to charge the donor daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly.
For the invoice limit, you can set a limit on how many times they will be charged. This is good if you’d like to send an end date for recurring payments. For instance, if a mission trip has a defined deadline, you can choose to charge donors monthly payments up to 12 times. You can also leave this option blank.
Additionally, you can give users a free trial option or add a setup fee.
At the bottom of the screen, you can also select the various payments you’d like to accept.
More payment options can improve your conversion rates and allow more contributors to choose their preferred payment method.
If you head over to the Form Fields tab, you can also customize the field options in your donation form. Just expand each field to make adjustments.
If you want to add a field to the existing form template, just select the dropdown menu next to the ‘Add Field’ button.
For instance, if you wanted to contact all donors via the phone, you could ask for their phone number. Or, if you want to send all donors a gift package for large contributions, you can ask for a shipping address.
It’s a good idea to also add a thank you message once donors have made their contribution. It gives them confidence that their funds have been received.
Just go to the Confirmation Page tab and type the message you want to appear after they’ve made their donation.
Step 3: Publish the Recurring Donation Form.
Once you’re happy with the recurring donations form, you’re ready to publish it.
On the right side of the screen, hit ‘Publish.’
Next, go to your donations page or any existing post or page to which you’d like to add this form.
Click on the ‘+’ icon and select the WP Simple Pay block.
From there, you can choose the form you’ve just created.
And then click on ‘Publish’ or ‘Update.’
Make sure to preview the form to see if everything looks right and that donation payments are going through to your Stripe account.
There you have it for this method!
Creating a Recurring Donation Form in WordPress with WPForms
You can also use WPForms to accept recurring donations. WPForms is the best WordPress form builder with 1,500+ templates, including a variety of donation forms.
It’s a good method if you need to also create other forms, such as contact forms, opt-in forms, multi-page forms, user registration forms, surveys and polls, etc.
Step 1: Connect WPForms to Stripe
To begin, download the WPForms plugin. Upon activation, go ahead and WPForms » Settings. Then, head over to the Payments tab.
The default currency is configured to US dollars; however, you can change it to any currency if you’d like. Then scroll down and click the ‘Connect with Stripe’ button. This allows you to connect WPForms to your Stripe account to collect credit card payments.
From here, you’ll need to enter your email address or create a new Stripe account.
Make sure to follow the instructions laid out in the Stripe Connect setup wizard to finish the process.
After you’ve gone through the process, you’ll be sent back to the WPForms setting page in your WordPress dashboard.
In the Payments tab, you’ll see a green checkmark indicating that Stripe is connected to WPForms.
Once connected, you’re ready to start building your recurring donations form.
Step 2: Create a Recurring Donations Form
Next, go to WPForms » Add New. This takes you over to the drag-and-drop editor to build your new form.
Go ahead and enter a name for your form so that you can keep track of it should you have to make edits in the future.
Then, search and select the Variable Donation Form template. There are other donation form templates you can also use, so you might want to experiment with them to see which is right for you.
Click on ‘Use Template.’
Now, you can customize the form and add any additional fields that make sense for your donations page.
You can edit any existing field by clicking on the element and then making the changes under the ‘Field Options’ tab.
Since you’re automatically charging donors credit cards, you probably want to make it crystal clear that you’ll be taking recurring payments.
You can make a note in the description tab as a disclaimer.
You can also go to the ‘Add Fields’ tab to add any additional fields that aren’t already on the form template.
For example, there’s a wide range of options you may want to consider, like adding a reCAPTCHA for security measures or a phone number if you plan on contacting your donors individually.
Simply drag the buttons to the editor to add the desired field option.
Step 3: Enable Recurring Payments
Next, head over to the Payments » Stripe tab. Then, turn on the option to ‘Enable recurring subscription payments.’
Once activated, you’ll have more options appear. You’ll be able to edit the Plan Name, which is a title that appears in your Stripe transactions.
Also, you can edit the Recurring Period. This is how often the credit card will be charged for recurring donations. In the dropdown menu, select the time periods available, such as daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, semi-annually, or annually.
Once that is done, all you have to do is add the form to any WordPress page. Click ‘Save’ at the top to save all the changes you’ve made.
Then, click on the ‘Embed’ button.
Assuming you already have a donations page, you can choose ‘Select Existing Page’ and pick the page you want to add the form to.
But if you don’t have one, hit the ‘Create New Page’ button.
Now that you’re on the page, click on the ‘+’ icon.
Then, add the WPForms block to the page.
From here, select the recurring donations form you’ve just created.
Then hit ‘Publish.’
Lastly, go ahead and preview the page to make sure that everything looks good.
Also, check that you can accept payments to your Stripe account.
On the WPForms Payments page, you’ll be able to see all of the total payments, sales, and subscriptions you’ve received.
That way, you can track the performance of your donation form.
Recently, one of our readers asked us how they can pass payment processing fees to customers in WordPress.
Most payment processors charge additional fees to facilitate a secure transaction process for the buyer and seller. Asking customers to pay the payment processing fees helps you increase your earning by around 3%.
In this article, we will show you how to easily pass payment processing fees to customers in WordPress, step by step.
Why Pass Payment Processing Fees to Customers in WordPress?
If you have an online store, then you may have noticed that most payment processors charge you additional per-transaction fees, percentage-based fees, and gateway fees.
For instance, if a user buys a chair from your furniture store for $50 and uses Stripe as a payment method, then you will only get $48.55 in your account. This is because Stripe collects 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction.
Passing this processing fee to customers allows you to receive the entire amount ($50) for your product/service without having to worry about absorbing this fee as a business expense.
Plus, it gives you more control over your product pricing strategy.
It also helps build transparency with customers by adding a separate line for the fees on the checkout page, which can act as a competitive advantage. It will allow you to set lower base prices for your products and attract more customers who are looking for the lowest total cost.
Having said that, let’s see how to easily pass the payment processing fees to customers in WordPress. In this tutorial, we will cover three methods, and you can use the links below to jump to the one of your choice:
Method 1: Pass Payment Processing Fees to Customers With WP Simple Pay
WP Simple Pay is the best WordPress Stripe plugin on the market that allows you to accept payments from customers without adding a shopping cart. It comes with premade templates, has a form builder, and lets you add payment processing fees directly to the customer’s bill.
Plus, WP Simple Pay is a great choice if you have a membership site, sell courses online, or sell a single product in your online store.
Now, you can start by visiting the WP Simple Pay » Add New page from the WordPress admin sidebar. This will direct you to the ‘Select a Template’ page where you can choose any template you like.
For this tutorial, we will be creating a simple payment form.
The form builder will now open up on your screen. Here, you have to provide a name and description for the form that you are about to create.
Then, select ‘On-site payment form’ as the form type and switch to the ‘Payment’ tab.
Once you are there, scroll down to the ‘Price Options’ section and simply add an amount for your product or service. You can also pick if you want it to be a one-time or recurring payment.
If you want to add multiple prices, then you can click the ‘Add Price’ button at the top.
After that, scroll down to the ‘Payment Method’ section and check the boxes next to the gateways that you want to add to your payment form.
With WP Simple Pay, you can add KIarna, Affirm, AliPay, debit card, credit card, SEPA Debit, and many more methods.
Once you do that, click the ‘Configure’ link next to the payment option of your choice.
This will open a prompt on the screen, where you have to check the ‘Add an additional fee to payments made with this payment method’ option. Once you do that, you can set a transaction fee percentage for the product that you are selling.
If you don’t configure this setting, then Stripe will automatically add 2.9% of the product price as the fee. Then, click the ‘Update’ button to store your settings.
Now, the payment processing fee will automatically be added to the customer’s bill on the checkout page.
However, if you think that adding a recovery fee without customer consent can damage your reputation, then you can also provide a choice to your customer.
To do this, switch to the ‘Form Fields’ tab. Here, you can add, rearrange, or delete fields in the form according to your liking. For more information, you can see our tutorial on how to accept payments with Stripe in WordPress.
Once you do that, open the ‘Form Fields’ dropdown menu and select the ‘Fee Recovery Toggle’ option. Then, click the ‘Add’ button.
Now, users on your site will have to toggle this switch if they want to pay the payment processing fee themselves.
Next, switch to the ‘Payment Page’ tab and check the ‘Enable a dedicated payment page’ option.
After that, you can now customize your payment form page by adding a permalink, color scheme, image, and footer text.
Once you are done, don’t forget to click the ‘Publish’ button at the top.
Now, simply visit your payment form page to view the fee recovery feature in action.
Method 2: Pass Payment Processing Fees to Customers With Easy Digital Downloads
If you sell digital products like eBooks, PDFs, music, or spreadsheets, then this method is for you.
Easy Digital Downloads is the best WordPress plugin for selling digital products that makes it super easy to pass processing fees to customers using an addon.
First, you will need to install and activate the Easy Digital Downloads plugin. For detailed instructions, see our beginner’s guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Note: EDD has a free plan. However, you need the pro version to unlock the ‘Gateway Fees’ extension.
Upon activation, head over to the Downloads » Settings page from the WordPress dashboard to enter your license key.
You can get this information from your account on the Easy Digital Downloads website.
After that, you must set up your store to start selling products. For detailed instructions, you can check out our beginner’s guide on how to sell digital downloads in WordPress.
Once you have done that, visit the Downloads » Extensions page from the WordPress admin sidebar and locate the ‘Gateway Fees’ extension.
Then, click the ‘Install’ button under it.
Upon addon activation, visit the Downloads » Settings » Payments page and switch to the ‘Gateway Fees’ tab.
Here, you can add the payment processing fee that you want to charge your customers next to the ‘Percent fee for Stripe’ or ‘Flat fee for Stripe’ options.
Once you do that, you can add a label that will be displayed on the checkout page to explain the additional fee being charged to the user.
You can configure the gateway for all the payment methods that you have added to your site from this page.
After that, don’t forget to click the ‘Save Changes’ button to store your settings.
You can now visit your WordPress site to view the additional payment processing fee on the checkout page.
Method 3: Pass Payment Processing Fees to Customers With WP Charitable
If you accept donations or do crowdfunding through your website, then this method is for you.
WP Charitable is a popular WordPress donation plugin that lets you create unlimited fundraising campaigns and comes with a Fee Relief extension to allow users to cover payment processing fees.
For this tutorial, you will need the WP Charitable Plus license to unlock this extension.
Next, visit the Charitable » Settings page from the WordPress dashboard to enter your pro plan’s license key and click the ‘Verify Key’ button.
You can find this information in your account on the WP Charitable website.
After that, head over to the Charitable » Addons page from the WordPress admin sidebar and find the ‘Charitable Fee Relief’ extension.
Then, click the ‘Install Addon’ button.
Upon addon activation, you need to go to the Charitable » Settings page and switch to the ‘Extensions’ tab.
Here, you can check the ‘Opt-in checkbox, checked by default’ option as a fee relief mode. This will add a checked box to the donation form for fee recovery. If the user does not want to pay the processing fee, then they will have to uncheck this box.
However, if you don’t want to provide users with an option and automatically add the recovery fee along with the donation amount, then you can check the ‘Automatic opt-in’ option.
After that, you must click the ‘Enable Fee Relief’ button next to the payment gateways to activate fee recovery for payment processing.
Once you do that, you can set a payment processing fee as a combination of a percentage and a fixed amount per donation.
For instance, if PayPal charges 2.9% and $0.30 per transaction, then these are the amounts that you will have to add in the fields.
Once you are done, don’t forget to click the ‘Save Changes’ button to store your settings.
Here, you will have to enter a campaign name, after which you will be taken to the ‘Select a Template’ page.
From here, click the ‘Create Campaign’ button under a template of your choice.
This will open the drag-and-drop builder, where you can drag, rearrange, and delete form fields according to your liking.
For example, you can add the ‘Donation Amount’ field and then add some custom amounts that users can choose from in the left column.
Once you do that, you can also add a progress bar, social links, a campaign title, and more from the left sidebar. You can also configure payment gateways by switching to the ‘Payment’ tab.
Once you are done, simply change the form status to ‘Publish’ from the dropdown menu in the top right corner of the screen. Then, click the ‘Save’ button at the top to store your settings.
Now, just visit your WordPress site to view the donation form with the fee recovery option.
Bonus: Accept ACH Payments in WordPress
If you do not want to pass payment processing fees to customers in WordPress, then you should consider accepting ACH payments on your website.
ACH is an electronic bank-to-bank payment made through the Automated Clearing House (ACH) network in the United States. Keep in mind that this method will only work if your business is based in the USA.
Accepting ACH payments can lower your transaction fees a lot as Stripe’s fee for ACH is just 0.8% per transaction compared to its usual 2.9%.
For example, if you have a WooCommerce store and a customer buys some products for $100, then the transaction fee with ACH payments will be only $0.80. On the other hand, payment processing fees using other methods will be $3.20.
You can easily start accepting ACH payments on your website using WP Simple Pay.
Simply install and activate the plugin and then visit the WP Simple Pay » Add New page from your WordPress dashboard. Here, you must choose the ‘ACH Direct Debit Form’ template and create a payment form in the builder.
Once you add the form to your website, you will have to pay a lower transaction fee for users choosing this option as a payment gateway.
Are you looking for the best inventory management plugins for WordPress?
If you have an online store, then using an inventory management plugin can streamline product tracking, automate tasks, and simplify order management. This can help boost conversions by improving customer experience in your store.
In this article, we will share with you our list of the best inventory management plugins for WordPress websites.
Why Use Inventory Management Plugins in WordPress?
Inventory management plugins can integrate with any eCommerce platform to enhance inventory control on your website.
Using an inventory management plugin on your online store can improve your workflow seamlessly and help in achieving more leads.
These plugins set reorder points, track inventory movement, and generate forecasts to maintain optimal stock levels. This reduces the risk of overstocking or overselling out-of-stock products.
They can also handle repetitive tasks like updating product availability, generating invoices, sending low-stock alerts, managing orders, tracking shipments, and processing returns.
Having said that, let’s take a look at our list of the best inventory management plugins for WordPress.
It comes with a user-friendly interface and an intuitive stock central dashboard where you can see the overall stock levels, stock value, and metrics like best-selling products and low-stock items.
The plugin can seamlessly integrate with WooCommerce and automatically updates availability and stock levels on product pages.
It allows real-time inventory tracking, stock adjustments, data editing, user role management, batch, and serial number tracking, and so much more.
Pros
ATUM comes with features like purchase order management, multiple inventory management for the same product, interactive filters, and product search.
It offers visual indicators to help you identify products that are in stock, low on stock, or out of stock.
It displays inventory movement using graphs and charts which helps you avoid stockouts.
ATUM also lets you scan the barcode and export generated data.
Cons
ATUM WooCommerce Inventory Management plugin has a free plan but some of the features can only be unlocked once you switch to the pro version.
Why we recommend ATUM WooCommerce Inventory Management: We recommend using it because it is the best WordPress inventory management plugin on the market.
ATUM WooCommerce Inventory Management comes with a powerhouse of features that makes it super easy to manage your online store. If you have a WooCommerce store, then this is the perfect choice for you.
The plugin comes with a Purchase Limit extension that lets you control the number of times a product can be downloaded before its status changes to ‘Out of Stock.’
It allows you to set different purchase limits for various pricing plans and even lets you set a default purchase limit for all the products on your online store.
Pros
EDD allows you to manage different versions of your digital products and offer updates to customers.
It lets customers compare different products, view customer history, and send automatic emails with download links to users.
The plugin tracks sales and downloads, comes with a campaign tracker, and complete fraud protection.
Cons
If you sell physical products, then Easy Digital Downloads won’t be able to help you manage inventory.
It has no direct shipping integration because the plugin is built for selling digital goods like spreadsheets, music, ebooks, PDFs, and more.
Its free plan does not offer the purchase restriction extension.
Why we recommend Easy Digital Downloads: It is the perfect inventory management plugin for you if you sell digital products.
EDD lets you set purchase limits, offers advanced analytics and reports, manages and offers different product versions, and so much more.
If you have a B2B online store, then Wholesale Suite is the ideal inventory management plugin for you.
The plugin offers real-time stock updates, set minimum quantity for specific products, allows wholesalers to reserve products beforehand, and tracks transfers.
The plugin easily integrates with WooCommerce and creates wholesale accounts with role-based access control.
It can control the visibility of wholesale products based on user roles.
Wholesale Suite lets you manage your inventory catalog for wholesale buyers by including bulk pricing, pack sizes, and minimum order quantities.
It also generates reports on wholesale sales, customer behavior, and stock movement.
Cons
Wholesale Suite has a bit of a learning curve for beginners.
It has a free plan but most of the features are only available in the pro version.
If you have complex inventory needs, then the plugin may cause limitations for you regarding scalability.
Why we recommend Wholesale Suite: If you have a B2B WooCommerce store, then Wholesale Suite is a great choice for you. It comes with real-time stock updates, lets you set a minimum order quantity and tracks transfers. For more details, see our Wholesale Suite review.
The plugin comes with a Purchase Restriction addon that makes it super easy to avoid overselling out-of-stock products, making it a great inventory management plugin.
All you have to do is create a payment form and check the ‘Hide the payment form after a set number of payments’ option. Once you do that, add the value after which your payment form will no longer be active on your site.
Pros
WP Simple Pay comes with a user-friendly builder and premade templates, allows you to track stock levels manually, and updates product availability.
It allows you to set different purchase restrictions based on different pricing plans.
It can add payment methods like SEPA, Affirm, Klarna, AliPay, and more.
It allows you to restrict payments based on user roles.
It lets you set up recurring subscriptions for memberships, services, or donations, with options for daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly billing cycles.
Cons
WP Simple Pay has a free plan but the Purchase Restriction addon can only be unlocked in the pro plan.
The plugin is not an ideal choice if you have a WooCommerce store.
It lacks advanced features like inventory tracking or stock adjustments.
Why we recommend WP Simple Pay: If you have a membership site that accepts subscription payments or if you host workshops like cooking lessons, then you won’t have to set up an online store.
You can easily sell your classes or subscriptions and set inventory restrictions with WP Simple Pay’s payment form. You can easily control the number of users to whom you plan to sell your subscriptions or courses.
Smart Manager is an amazing inventory management plugin that lets you manage the stock levels for digital and physical products.
The plugin sets a minimum stock level value, sends low-stock alerts, and allows you to bulk edit multiple products, orders, posts, and pages. Other than that, Smart Manager also offers inline editing, product duplication, stock history of each product, and more.
Smart Manager can easily integrate with WooCommerce, EDD, and WPForms and is a great choice for online stores of all sizes.
Pros
The plugin lets you view and manage orders, change order statuses, and add notes.
It comes with advanced search, imports/exports products as CSV files, custom fields, and multi-site support.
With Smart Manager, you can schedule tasks repetitively like updating stock levels or exporting data.
Cons
The plugin has a steep learning curve.
It has limited customer support.
The plugin can affect your site’s speed and performance.
Why we recommend using Smart Manager: If you have an online store that sells physical and digital products, then Smart Manager is a great choice because it comes with inventory management features for all kinds of items. It can also integrate with WooCommerce and EDD at the same time.
WP Inventory Manager is a free WordPress plugin that allows inventory item creation, tracking, and categorization.
It comes with a search feature and allows you to display your whole inventory as a spreadsheet on the front end of your WordPress site.
Additionally, you can use WP Inventory Manager to edit product details, descriptions, prices, or images and can add custom fields to collect more data.
Pros
It has a drag-and-drop functionality and an intuitive dashboard.
The plugin allows multiple image uploads for inventory items and adds support documents like PDFs for the products.
WP Inventory Manager can assign inventory permissions to specific users and generate item barcodes.
Cons
WP Inventory Manager can integrate with WooCommerce but cannot act as an eCommerce platform itself.
The plugin can have compatibility issues with other plugins on your site.
Why we recommend WP Inventory Manager: If you have just started your online store and are on a tight budget, then WP Inventory Manager can be a great solution for you because it’s free.
Which is the Best Inventory Management Plugin for WordPress?
In our expert opinion, ATUM Inventory Management is the best WordPress inventory management plugin for WooCommerce stores.
It offers an intuitive stock central dashboard, allows real-time inventory tracking, and helps you understand inventory movement with graphs and charts.
However, if you have a membership site with a simple payment form, then you can use WP Simple Pay to implement purchase restrictions.
Similarly, if you have a B2B store, then Wholesale Suite is the better choice because most of its features are specifically designed for wholesalers.
But if you sell digital products, then Easy Digital Downloads is the best solution for you.
Frequently Asked Questions
Here is a list of some questions frequently asked by our readers:
Can WordPress be used for inventory management?
By default, WordPress itself does not come with inventory management features. However, you can use any of the available inventory management plugins to add this functionality to your website.
What is the difference between Shopify and WooCommerce inventory management?
Shopify has inventory management features like purchase order functionality, automatic inventory updates, and barcode scanning support. But you will need to buy apps to add these features.
WooCommerce, on the other hand, can send low-stock alerts, and bulk edits, change a product’s status to ‘Out of Stock’ automatically, and set a purchase limit for a product without requiring any additional plugin.
Are you looking for a WordPress theme for crowdfunding?
Many WordPress themes are geared towards corporate or blogging websites and may not be a good fit to help you raise funds for your organization or cause.
In this article, we will share some of the best WordPress themes for crowdfunding and fundraising websites.
Building a Crowdfunding Website With WordPress
Crowdfunding helps startups, charities, and individuals raise money for their projects. It allows you to collect small contributions from individuals to reach your fundraising goals.
Many of these projects use crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter to run their campaign. However, you will also need your own website to better showcase your idea, mission, or cause.
This is where WordPress comes in. It’s the world’s most popular content management system, powering over 43% of all websites on the internet.
A self-hosted WordPress site gives you the flexibility and functionality to easily integrate with all popular third-party services you may be using for crowdfunding.
To get started, you will need a WordPress hosting account and a domain name. A domain name is your site’s address on the web, like wpbeginner.com or google.com. Web hosting is the storage for all your website files.
We recommend using Bluehost. They are one of the largest web hosting companies in the world and an officially recommended WordPress hosting provider.
Bluehost is offering WPBeginner readers a big discount on hosting, plus a free domain name and free SSL certificate.
Next, you will need to choose a theme for your website. You can select any theme from our expert pick below. If you need help installing the theme, then just check out our guide on how to install a WordPress theme.
Now, let’s take a look at some of the best WordPress themes for crowdfunding.
Astra is a fast and lightweight WordPress multipurpose theme that works well for crowdfunding sites. You can easily add a 1-click starter template and customize it to give details about your organization or project.
You can use Astra with any popular drag-and-drop page builder plugin, such as Elementor Pro or Visual Composer. It’s also fully compatible with the WordPress block editor.
Astra also works seamlessly with all popular WordPress plugins, including crowdfunding plugins. This helps you raise money and take donations easily.
SeedProd is the best WordPress website and theme builder. It comes with several ready-made website templates, including a fully functional layout for your crowdfunding site.
You can import any template in one click and customize it with SeedProd’s built-in drag-and-drop builder. It’s beginner-friendly and gives you easy access to all the tools you need to design your website.
Moreover, it integrates with your favorite tools and plugins. SeedProd is the best choice for making a crowdfunding website, and we fully recommend it.
Divi is a WordPress theme plus page builder plugin that gives you an easy front-end editor for your website. It uses a responsive design and is also created to be SEO-friendly.
You can use Divi’s thousands of templates to start your website quickly. They have a range of community and non-profit layout packs that could be perfect for your crowdfunding or charity site.
OceanWP is a free and flexible WordPress theme. You can also choose the Pro version, which comes with multiple website templates that you can use to start your site quickly.
Because OceanWP is a fully responsive theme, your website will look good on all devices. You can add a custom logo, social icons, and more.
Ultra is a dynamic and flexible theme that could be the perfect fit for your crowdfunding efforts. It ships with several ready-made websites that can be installed with one click. You can then replace the content with your own to create your site quickly.
Ultra also has an integrated drag and drop page builder, which allows you to create beautiful page layouts of your own. Inside, you will also find sections to add a portfolio, photo galleries, testimonials, events, and more.
You may also want to add a plugin such as Easy Digital Downloads if you are providing an exclusive download in return for a donation.
Hestia Pro is a beautiful multipurpose WordPress theme that could work perfectly for your crowdfunding website. It is fully compatible with all the best WordPress plugins, so you can easily extend your WordPress website with new features.
Plus, Hestia Pro is retina-ready. That means your website will look great on all devices, even the most recent smartphones.
Monochrome is a minimalist WordPress theme that is stylish and simple at the same time. It’s optimized for great performance and won’t slow your site down.
Monochrome features a widgetized homepage layout, which helps you set up your website easily. It also includes a customizable header, theme options panel, widget areas, and full WooCommerce plugin support.
Struct is another modern WordPress theme that is perfect for crowdfunding. Designed for businesses and startups, it features a drag-and-drop homepage layout with a large fullscreen header at the top.
It includes unlimited color choices, custom widgets, a portfolio, photo galleries, projects, testimonials, an FAQ section, and more. It also works with all popular page builder plugins, so you can create your own page layouts if needed.
Nayma is a multi-purpose WordPress theme that can be easily used for crowdfunding projects. It uses modules as building blocks to create page layouts and has all the commonly used web elements available as modules. You can drag and drop them anywhere on your pages.
Plus, Nayma includes several ready-made websites that you can use as a starting point. It has unlimited custom sidebars, sliders, icon fonts, Typekit font support, testimonials, pricing tables, a contact form, and more.
Sydney Pro is another powerful WordPress theme with flexible customization options. It can be used as a one-page or multi-page theme and comes with built-in sections for your portfolio, team members, testimonials, clients, and galleries.
The theme also includes several starter templates, page layouts, custom widgets, and social media integration. It’s also eCommerce-ready with full WooCommerce support. It can also be used with popular WordPress membership plugins.
Essence Pro is an elegant WordPress theme suitable for crowdfunding, landing pages, and sales page websites. The homepage features a large fullscreen header with prominent call-to-action buttons. It has a widgetized layout, allowing you to set up the homepage using drag-and-drop content widgets.
The theme uses beautiful parallax effects to create an engaging experience for your users. It’s WooCommerce-ready and comes with a simple theme options panel and WordPress live customizer support.
Charity Fundraiser is a free WordPress theme for charities and non-profits to create crowdfunding websites. It features an elegant layout designed to showcase your cause and encourage donations from your supporters and backers.
The theme customization options can all be accessed using the live theme customizer. You can change the header image, image slider, and background colors and add social media links.
Inspiro is another great choice for a WordPress crowdfunding theme. It comes with built-in support to easily add videos as a fullscreen background. It also includes a beautiful video lightbox popup for an engaging viewing experience.
Inspiro has a drag-and-drop homepage layout and offers integration with a free page builder plugin. Other notable features include page templates, a portfolio section, a hero banner, gallery templates, custom widgets, and full WooCommerce support.
Corner is one of the best WordPress themes for tech startups, small businesses, and non-profits. It comes with a sidebar homepage layout that lets you display your welcome message, navigation menu, and social media icons in the sidebar.
The theme integrates with several plugins to let you add a portfolio, testimonials, a contact form, Google Maps, and more. All the theme options are easy to set up, and a 1-click demo content installer is also available for a quick start.
Brizy is a multipurpose WordPress theme with lots of template options. Their Hope template is perfect for charities and non-profits engaging in crowdfunding and fundraising campaigns. The theme includes slider layouts, a 1-click demo content installer, and Brizy’s visual drag-and-drop page builder. It has support for popular WordPress plugins for non-profits.
Brizy’s features include multiple color schemes, event management, multiple layouts, and social media integration. It can also be used to create multilingual WordPress sites with WPML.
Balance is a great business theme designed to put your brand in the center. Perfect for a crowdfunding website, Balance is a great theme that comes with a modern and stylish homepage layout. This allows you to feature your projects and boost your conversions, supporters, and backers.
It’s eCommerce-ready and has beautiful templates for shop and product pages. Other features include multiple blog styles, color schemes with unlimited customizations, an Instagram widget, custom fonts, and a logo.
Spencer is a multipurpose WordPress theme in the minimalist design tradition. It has a sticky navigation menu with multiple sections on the homepage where you can add featured blog posts, social media icons, and an email subscription form.
The homepage can be set up by simply adding content widgets to create your page layout. It also includes social media integrations and content discovery features.
Advance Startup is a stylish and free WordPress theme for business websites. It’s easy to set up and features beautiful typography, an elegant design, and a simpler theme setup.
The theme supports a custom header, custom footer formats, and a custom background. It has different page templates and is multilingual-ready with RTL language support.
Presence is a sleek WordPress theme for mobile apps or any other product website. Its homepage features a prominent call-to-action button on top of a full-width header image.
The theme comes with a dual navigation menu, social media integration, icon fonts, and custom widgets. It can be used on multilingual sites using WPML.
Indigo is a stunningly beautiful and very easy-to-use WordPress theme. It’s designed to be a multipurpose theme, allowing you to choose your own layouts and styles without writing any code. It includes several ready-made websites that you can install with 1-click to import demo content.
If you don’t want to start with a ready-made website, then you can just drag and drop modules to create your own layout. Indigo features beautiful typography, stunning templates for galleries, portfolios, services, testimonials, and many more customization options.
Polity Lite is a stylish and modern campaign theme that could be a great crowdfunding option for a charity, NGO, or political organization.
It includes the options for a custom header and custom logo and is also translation-ready to create a site for a global audience. Polity Lite also includes a social media icon menu.
Crowdfunding With WordPress: Tips for Success
How you run your crowdfunding campaign in WordPress depends on what platform you are using to raise funds. Here are some brief instructions for Kickstarter and WPForms.
Adding Your Kickstarter Project in WordPress
If you are using Kickstarter, you will first need to visit your Kickstarter project page.
On your project page, click on the ‘Embed’ button.
This will bring up a popup.
You need to click the link to embed your project on an external site.
Then, simply copy the embed code.
You can copy it for either the project video or the widget.
Now, you need to edit the post or page where you want to display your Kickstarter project. You can also add it to a text widget in your sidebar.
You can add the code into an HTML block in the WordPress block editor. If you are using the Classic Editor, then don’t forget to switch to the text editor mode.
Simply paste the embed code and save your post, page, or widget. You can now visit your website to see it in action.
You can also collect recurring donations with WPForms. And the best part is that WPForms is easy to use with a drag-and-drop form builder to add fields, text, and donate buttons and integrate payment methods to your WordPress forms.
Alternate: You can also use WP Simple Pay to accept donations with other payment methods. WP Simple Pay is the best Stripe payment plugin for WordPress. It lets you accept Giropay payments and Affirm payments for donations.
Convert Website Visitors into Subscribers
Most people visiting your website will probably leave without donating to your project or cause, even if they support it. The best way to keep those users engaged is to start building your email list right away.
OptinMonster helps you convert abandoning visitors into subscribers. This allows you to keep those users engaged and eventually convert them into donors.
We hope this article helped you find the best WordPress themes for crowdfunding. You may also want to check out our other WordPress guides for crowdfunding, donations, and fundraising campaigns.
Are you looking for the best WooCommerce alternatives?
While WooCommerce is the most popular eCommerce plugin for WordPress sites, it may not be the perfect option for everyone. Depending on your needs, there are better alternatives to WooCommerce that can get the job done faster and easier.
In this article, we will share the best WooCommerce alternatives you can use to sell online.
Why Might You Need WooCommerce Alternatives?
WooCommerce is the most popular eCommerce platform because it allows anyone to launch an online store. And it’s an open-source solution, so you can download and use it for free.
Due to its ease of use and powerful customization options, it is hugely popular among online store owners. And WooCommerce powers over 23% of all eCommerce stores.
WooCommerce comes with hundreds of free and premium extensions to add powerful eCommerce features to your online store. It includes inventory management, point of sale (POS), and so on.
Now you may wonder, is there a better option than WooCommerce?
Well, there are some scenarios where WooCommerce may not be the right tool for the job.
It might not have the specific key features you need for your eCommerce business or require a learning curve. And this is where WooCommerce alternatives come in.
These user-friendly eCommerce platforms offer better solutions for specific needs and may be more suitable for your business plans.
Now, without delay, let’s look at the best WooCommerce alternatives and see when they are a better solution for your online business.
MemberPress is the best WordPress membership plugin on the market. It allows you to sell paid memberships with multi-level subscriptions, drip-content support, and eCommerce features.
It comes with support for multiple payment gateways, easy pricing tables, and other tools to help you sell and grow your membership community.
When Is MemberPress a Better Solution Than WooCommerce?
If you want to create a membership site that offers access to premium content with subscriptions, then MemberPress is made specifically for that purpose. It offers a better experience for you as well as your users.
You can do the same thing with WooCommerce, but it would soon become overly complicated. You will have to use several add-ons to get the same functionality that you get built-in with MemberPress.
More importantly, MemberPress works well with WooCommerce, and you can combine them to sell subscription-based products and physical products on the same website.
Cons Compared to WooCommerce
MemberPress does not have any of the traditional shopping cart or advanced checkout features. To sell physical products, you will need to use them alongside WooCommerce.
We recommend MemberPress as a WooCommerce alternative because it’s the best membership plugin for WordPress, and it’s PCI compliant by default, making it easy and secure to accept online recurring payments.
When it comes to top features, MemberPress lets you create multiple membership levels so you can show different content to different members on your WordPress site.
While WooCommerce is an ultimate eCommerce solution, it has fewer membership options and is not PCI compliant. You can use third-party payment plugins to ensure your online store’s compliance with payment cards and processors.
Plus, MemberPress offers advanced community building, timed content release with Drip, a powerful LMS platform, a subscription plugin, integrations with third-party tools, and more.
Easy Digital Downloads is the best WordPress digital downloads plugin made specifically for selling virtual goods. These include software, music, eBooks, movies, and more.
You can manage software licenses, accept payments, install addons to extend the platform further, and more.
When Is Easy Digital Downloads a Better Choice Than WooCommerce?
If you only want to sell digital downloads, then Easy Digital Downloads can replace WooCommerce easily. It simplifies the process and allows you to manage licenses, accept payments, manage users, and manage file downloads.
You can sell digital products with WooCommerce as well. However, it includes many key features to sell physical goods, cluttering the interface.
You’ll also need to use several addons to manage licenses, file permissions, and other virtual product features.
On the other hand, there’s a free version of the Easy Digital Downloads plugin. However, you need to use their professional business plan to get access to several features like shipping digital products.
Just like you can sell digital goods with WooCommerce, you can also sell physical goods with Easy Digital Downloads using addons.
However, if you plan on selling digital and physical goods, then WooCommerce will be a much better solution to manage your file downloads.
Why Do We Recommend Easy Digital Downloads?
We recommend Easy Digital Downloads because it is the best WordPress plugin to sell virtual products, digital goods, and software. We use it on several of our websites, including WPForms and MonsterInsights, and it works like a charm.
While WooCommerce lets you sell physical products and anything else you might want, it comes with a lot of features and options. This makes it confusing for business owners to set up their sites and sell digitally.
On the other hand, Easy Digital Downloads has a simple setup process. It comes with secure payment options, subscription plans for customers, hundreds of integrations, and more.
Easy Digital Downloads also offers addons to sell physical products. So, if you are using this plugin, then you can sell anything and everything with a few extra steps.
Unlike other WooCommerce alternatives on this list, Shopify is a fully hosted eCommerce platform that does not require using WordPress. You don’t have to manage software, install updates, or manage backups.
It allows anyone to start an online store and sell without technical skills easily.
When Is Shopify a Better Solution Than WooCommerce?
Normally, you need to manage your shopping cart software using a platform like WooCommerce.
You will need to register a domain name and buy a WooCommerce web hosting account to install software, manage updates, backups, and so on.
Shopify takes care of all that and offers you a fully hosted platform. You can use their drag-and-drop tools to build your online store within minutes.
Shopify offers a better user-friendly solution if you are looking for a completely hands-off platform. It also provides a mobile app to manage your products, process orders, and design campaigns using built-in marketing tools.
Cons Compared to WooCommerce
Shopify is a hosted platform, meaning you get less control over your website than with a hosted WooCommerce store. It also charges you transaction fees, which means your costs will increase as you start selling more.
For a side-by-side comparison, you can see our article on Shopify vs. WooCommerce with the pros and cons of both platforms.
Why Do We Recommend Shopify?
We recommend Shopify because it’s a popular hosted eCommerce solution. When we say hosted, this means that you don’t need to worry about a lot of things, including web hosting, security, and more.
Unlike WooCommerce, Shopify is a ready-made eCommerce platform for business owners to get started quickly. There’s no need to install or manage software, and you can use their drag-and-drop builder to set up your online store.
While WooCommerce gives you full control over customization and installing third-party tools to make a powerful eCommerce store, Shopify has limited options. You have to work around their provided tools and addons.
WPForms is the best WordPress form builder plugin in the market. Although it’s not a full-featured eCommerce plugin, it comes with payment options for Stripe, PayPal, Square, and Authorize.net, so you can easily create online payment forms in WordPress.
It also has a free plan, but you’ll need the WPForms Pro version to access payment options and other eCommerce functionality.
When Is WPForms a Better Solution Than WooCommerce?
If you are looking to create an order form to accept credit card payments on your WordPress website, then WPForms is the simplest option on the list.
You can use it for one-time or recurring services like consulting, lawn mowing, and more. It also offers hundreds of ready-made form templates for your ease.
WPForms is also a better solution for NGOs to create an online donation or fundraising form and automatically send email notifications to donors.
Moreover, WPForms has an excellent customer support team that can help with setting up your credit card and other payment options easily.
This is not an apples-to-apples comparison. WPForms is not an eCommerce plugin. So, you will need to install addons to handle advanced features like taxes, shipping, and more.
It’s a simple payment solution for people who want to sell online without setting up a complete online store.
WooCommerce, on the other hand, is a powerful, full-featured eCommerce plugin.
Why Do We Recommend WPForms?
We recommend WPForms because it’s the best WordPress form builder and a simple and secure payment solution. For people who don’t want to set up a complete eCommerce store and still sell from their site, WPForms is the ideal choice.
It supports all major payment options, including Stripe, PayPal, Google Pay, and more. WPForms is the most beginner-friendly WordPress plugin that lets you add a payment form with just a few clicks.
While WooCommerce is a complete WordPress eCommerce plugin to start an online store, sometimes it’s too much for small businesses with a few products. WPForms provides a way out and lets you install specific addons that get the work done without cluttering your WordPress website.
With WPForms, you can give choice to users to select one or multiple products within the online form and use their favorite payment method. Additionally, WPForms has conditional logic to accept one-time and recurring payments.
Bonus WooCommerce Alternatives
If you didn’t find the perfect WooCommerce alternative in the list above, then here are some other alternatives that may be more suited to your needs.
Magento, also known as Adobe Commerce, is a popular open-source platform that lets you easily build and manage an online store.
It allows you to accept payments from different gateways, is completely customizable, and has customer management tools, helping you create an online store of any shape and size.
When Is Magento (Adobe Commerce) a Better Solution Than WooCommerce?
If you are creating an online store on an enterprise level with a high traffic volume and a huge product range, then Magento is the ideal choice.
It comes with features for B2B businesses, including quote management, custom pricing, and credit terms, and has amazing marketing tools for targeted promotions, personalized product recommendations, and customer segmentation.
While Magento itself is open source, it does have two premium editions that add significant licensing fees.
Additionally, the platform is difficult to set up, and you may need to hire a team of developers to create an online store, which can add to your costs.
It also has a smaller community compared to WooCommerce and has a less user-friendly interface. For more details, you can see our comparison of Magento vs. WooCommerce: Which is better?
Why Do We Recommend Magento (Adobe Commerce)?
Magento is the perfect platform if you want to create a large product catalog and handle a huge traffic volume.
For example, if you have a B2B online store that sells products to other smaller stores, then Magento will be a great option with its product management, marketing tools, and extensive store customization settings.
The tool also offers 3,783+ extensions for further scalability and can easily integrate with payment gateways like Stripe, 2Checkout, Braintree, WePay, Google Checkout, Skrill, Venmo, and more.
BigCommerce is a fully hosted e-commerce platform that comes with a variety of features, including design, payment gateways, SEO, email marketing, and more to build an online store.
Plus, the platform also has a BigCommerce plugin that you can use on your WordPress site if you don’t want to move your entire store to the platform itself.
When Is BigCommerce a Better Solution Than WooCommerce?
BigCommerce can be a great solution if you are a beginner and looking for an all-in-one solution that manages everything for you, from site security to backups.
BigCommerce is super easy to set up and offers a very intuitive interface with its drag-and-drop builder, making it easier to create an online store.
Plus, the tool is also fully self-hosted, offers 24/7 customer support and unlimited bandwidth, and has fixed monthly pricing, which can make budgeting easier.
The solution is completely hassle-free, can handle large product catalogs, and has built-in SEO and marketing features, which WooCommerce does not offer.
Cons Compared to WooCommerce
As BigCommerce is a self-hosted solution, it gives you limited control and flexibility over your site design. It also offers fixed pricing plans, limited themes, and integration apps, which can stunt your store’s growth.
On the other hand, WooCommerce is completely free and offers full control over your website. However, you will have to face scalability challenges as your site grows.
We recommend BigCommerce if you are a beginner and want to easily start your online store on a self-hosted platform that manages all the security, scalability, and backups for your site.
BigCommerce has a drag-and-drop builder, reporting and analytics, social media integration, customer management, and premade templates that can help you launch an online store of any size in just a few minutes.
It lets you create an online payment form, has premade templates, comes with a discount coupon codes field, and lets you collect payments from gateways like Klarna, AliPay, Affirm, and more.
When Is WP Simple Pay a Better Solution Than WooCommerce?
If you want to add a simple payment form to your site and accept Stripe payments, then WP Simple Pay is your go-to solution.
The plugin can be used to accept consultation fees, organize fundraisers and donations, or for small businesses like cleaning service subscriptions, dance lessons, landscaping, martial arts lessons, laundry service payments, and more.
It can also work if you have a very small online store with a limited product catalog.
Additionally, WP Simple Pay can integrate with other tools like WooCommerce Shipping, FunnelKit Automations, EDD, or WPCode to create an automated workflow.
You can also schedule your payment forms, customize the payment page, and send email notifications as a payment receipt to customers.
Cons Compared to WooCommerce
WP Simple Pay is not a complete eCommerce plugin. It is a simple solution that accepts Stripe payments and is only recommended if you want to sell services instead of multiple products on your online store.
On the other hand, WooCommerce is a fleshed-out eCommerce platform that lets you manage your product inventory, add different payment gateways, and create a scalable online store.
We recommend WP Simple Pay because it is completely secure and makes it easy to sell online.
If you sell services, want to accept donations, or take registration fees from users, then WP Simple Pay is the best solution because it comes with premade templates, different payment methods, and recurring payments.
However, if you want to build an online store that sells physical products, then you should opt for WooCommerce or another alternative.
What Are the Best WooCommerce Alternatives?
Finding a better eCommerce solution than WooCommerce is not difficult if you know exactly what you need as an online business owner.
We recommend MemberPress for creating a fully functional membership site. It’s user-friendly and works with WordPress out of the box.
And if you want to sell digital products with better features and flexibility, then Easy Digital Downloads is the right provider.
There are many other WooCommerce alternatives that we didn’t mention in this list to avoid confusion. For example, you could use BigCommerce, Magento, Ecwid, Opencart, or Square.
These can be good eCommerce solutions, but we wanted to share only the best WooCommerce alternatives for beginners and small business owners.
We hope this article helped you learn about the best WooCommerce alternatives and when they can be a better solution. You may also want to see our other guides about WooCommerce, online businesses, and eCommerce sites.
Frequently Asked Questions
Here is a list of some questions frequently asked by our users about WooCommerce alternatives.
What is the cheapest way to sell on WordPress?
If you want to start an online store to sell physical products but have a shoestring budget, then you can use WooCommerce because it is completely free and easy to use.
Similarly, you can also accept payments for your services with WPForms Lite, which is free.
Can WooCommerce handle high traffic?
WooCommerce itself can handle a high amount of traffic on your website. However, several other factors can influence the store’s ability, including your hosting service, site optimization, themes or plugins, and custom code.
If you are still doubtful about WooCommerce’s ability to handle traffic, then you can opt for a self-hosted platform like Shopify or BigCommerce. These platforms will manage the hosting, site speed, and backups all by themselves, and you won’t have to worry about a thing.
Is there a better option than WooCommerce?
WooCommerce is the most popular eCommerce platform for WordPress because it is free, easy to use, and completely customizable.
However, considering the type of products or services that you want to sell, WooCommerce may not be the best option for you.
For example, if you want to sell ebooks, then Easy Digital Downloads is a better option than WooCommerce because it is specifically designed for selling digital downloads.
Similarly, if you want to start a wholesale store that sells products to other online stores, then Magento would be better to help you manage your large inventory and high traffic volume.
On the other hand, if you want to accept donations, host fundraisers, or accept fees for your services, then adding a simple payment form with WPForms or WP Simple Pay is the better choice.
Recently, one of our readers asked us how they can prevent overselling out of stock items in their online store.
When a customer purchases an item that isn’t available, it can lead to disappointment, loss of trust, and a negative user experience. However, you can reduce refunds and improve customer satisfaction by not allowing out of stock items to be sold.
In this article, we will show you how to easily prevent overselling out of stock items in WordPress, step by step.
Why Prevent Customers From Buying Out of Stock Items in WordPress?
If you have an online store, then overselling out of stock items can lead to customer disappointment and complicate order fulfillment.
For example, if you sell clothes and a customer places an order for a shirt that isn’t available, then you may have to manually adjust orders, track down a replacement, or contact the customer about product substitutions.
This can damage your brand reputation heavily and users may even leave negative customer reviews on your WordPress site.
By improving your inventory management, you can ensure that you always have the items customers want and can inform them if they go out of stock. Doing this will boost your sales, reduce complaints, and enhance your store’s credibility.
Having said that, let’s see how to easily prevent overselling out of stock items in WordPress with WooCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads, and WP Simple Pay.
You can use the links below to jump to the method of your choice:
You can easily prevent overselling products by visiting the WooCoomerce » Settings page from the WordPress dashboard and switching to the ‘Products’ tab.
Once you do that, click on the ‘Inventory’ link. This will open some new settings on your page where you must check the ‘Enable stock management’ option.
After that, scroll down to the ‘Notifications’ section and check the ‘Enable low stock notifications’ and ‘Enable out of stock notifications’ options.
You will now receive an email notification when a product has low stock or goes out of stock.
Now, you can add the email address where you want to receive these notifications next to the ‘Notification recipient(s)’ option. You can also add multiple email addresses by separating them with a comma.
Next, you can add the low stock threshold according to your liking. You will be sent an email when the product stock reaches this amount.
For instance, if you are selling a customized jewelry piece and have set the low stock threshold to 2, then you will get an email when your store has only 2 of the jewelry pieces left.
Next, you will see the ‘Out of stock threshold’ option, which you can leave as is. This setting will change a product’s status to ‘Out of Stock’ automatically once the stock reaches zero.
Additionally, you can check the ‘Hide out of stock items from the catalog’ option. This means that out of stock items won’t be displayed in your shop’s product catalog when users browse through your store.
Then, you can also configure the ‘Stock display format’ option from the dropdown menu.
For instance, if you want to show the stock quantity of each product to your users, then you can select that option.
You can choose the ‘Only show quantity remaining in stock when low’ option if you want the users to know when only 2 items for that product are left in the inventory. This option can create a sense of urgency among visitors and may encourage them to buy your products.
However, if you don’t want to display stock quantity at all, then you can pick the ‘Never show quantity remaining in stock’ option.
Finally, click the ‘Save changes’ button to store your settings.
Now you must visit the Products » All Products page from the WordPress dashboard to configure the stock quantity of individual items.
To do this, click the ‘Edit’ link under any product.
This will open a new screen, where you must scroll down to the ‘Product Data’ section and switch to the ‘Inventory’ tab.
Next, check the box next to the ‘Stock management’ option.
This will open some new settings and you can start by adding the quantity for the product you are editing. For instance, if you are selling a blue colored hoodie and have 10 items of it in stock, then you can add that value next to the ‘Quantity’ option.
Once you do that, you must select the ‘Do not allow’ option for the ‘Allow backorders?’ setting.
Backorders are like pre-orders for out of stock items. Now, customers won’t be able to place orders for unavailable items and there will be less chance of user dissatisfaction.
After that, you can add a low stock threshold for the product. If you don’t configure this setting, then the storewide low stock threshold that you configured earlier will be applied for the individual product.
Finally, click the ‘Update’ button at the top to store your settings. You have now successfully prevented overselling out of stock products in WooCommerce.
Prevent Overselling Out of Stock Items in Easy Digital Downloads
Easy Digital Downloads is the best WordPress plugin for selling digital products like music, eBooks, spreadsheets, software, and more.
Usually, vendors do not need to create a purchase limit for digital files. However, if you are selling items on your such as tickets to an event with a specific limit or an expiration date, then you will have to prevent overselling sold-out tickets.
You can easily do this using the plugin’s Purchase Limit extension.
Once you have done that, visit the Downloads » Extensions page from the WordPress dashboard.
Here, you must locate the ‘Purchase Limit’ extension and click the ‘Install’ button under it.
After that, go to the Downloads menu tab from the admin dashboard. Here, you will see a list of all the digital downloads you created for your site.
Simply click the ‘Edit’ link under the product where you want to set a purchase limit.
This will open the block editor, where you must scroll down to the ‘Download Details’ section.
Here, you can type the number of tickets or copies of the digital product that you are selling under the ‘Purchase Limit’ option.
For instance, if you have ten tickets to sell for an event, then you can add 10 as the value in the field. When your store sells these 10 tickets, your purchase button text will change to ‘Sold Out’ automatically.
This way, you won’t be able to oversell out-of-stock products to customers.
If you have added multiple price options for your digital product, then you can also set different purchase limits for various packages.
For example, if you have 10 normal tickets and 5 VIP ones to sell for an event, then you can set different purchase limits for them.
You can also check the ‘Disable product when any item sells out’ option. This feature is only available if you have multiple pricing plans for a product.
This means that your product will be removed from the catalog once it sells out.
Finally, go back to the top of the page and click the ‘Update’ or Publish’ button to store your settings.
You have now successfully prevented overselling your out of stock digital product.
If you want to set a default purchase limit for all the digital products on your website, then you can do that by visiting the Downloads » Settings page and switching to the ‘Misc’ tab.
Next, click on ‘File Downloads’ to open more settings on the page.
From here, set a default limit for all your products by typing a value next to the ‘File Download Limit’ option.
This will be the maximum number of times each file can be purchased and downloaded from your site. Once that limit is reached, the product status will then automatically change to ‘Sold Out’.
Once you are done, don’t forget to click the ‘Save Changes’ button to store your settings.
Prevent Overselling Out of Stock Items in WP Simple Pay
If you use WP Simple Pay on your website, then this method is for you.
WP Simple Pay is the best WordPress Stripe plugin on the market that makes it super easy to add a payment form to your website.
It is an ideal choice if you have a membership site that accepts subscription payments or if you host workshops like cooking lessons, dance classes, coding, and more.
You may have a limited number of subscriptions to offer or a limited number of openings for your class and do not want to oversell your services or subscriptions. In that case, you can easily avoid overselling using WP Simple Pay’s purchase restrictions feature.
Note: WP Simple Pay has a free plan but you will need the pro plan of the plugin to unlock the purchase restrictions feature.
Upon activation, a setup wizard will be launched on the screen where you must click the ‘Let’s Get Started’ button.
You will be guided to the first step, where you must add your license key and click the ‘Activate and Continue’ button.
You can find this information in your account on the WP Simple Pay website.
Next, you have to connect your Stripe account with the plugin.
To do this, click the ‘Connect with Stripe’ button.
After that, you must log in to your Stripe account to connect it with WP Simple Pay. Once you do that, you must configure the other setup wizard steps.
Next, visit the WP Simple Pay » Add New page from the WordPress admin sidebar. This will take you to the ‘Select a template’ page where you can click the ‘Use Template’ under any template.
For this tutorial, we will be creating a simple payment form.
This will launch the form builder, where you can start by adding a title and description for your form.
After that, you can select ‘On-site payment form’ as the type and then switch to the ‘Payment’ tab.
Here, you can scroll down to the ‘Price Options’ section and add an amount for your product or service.
You can also add multiple price options by clicking on the ‘Add Price’ button.
Then, you can scroll down to the ‘Payment Methods’ section and check the box next to the payment method you want to add to your site.
You can add AliPay, Klarna, AfterPay, and any other methods that you like.
Once you have done that, you can switch to the ‘Form Fields’ tab to add, rearrange, or delete fields in the form according to your liking.
Next, switch to the ‘Purchase Restrictions’ tab and check the ‘Hide the payment form after a set number of payments’ option.
Once you do that, type the number of subscriptions that you want to sell with your form.
For example, if you run a dance class and have room for 15 students only, then you can type the number 15 into the ‘All payments count towards a single limit’ field. This means that once 15 users fill out your form and pay the fees, the form will be hidden from other users, preventing overselling.
However, if you have multiple pricing plans in your form, then you can select the ‘Each price option has its own limit’ option and add the availability number for individual pricing packages.
Next, you can switch to the ‘Payment Page’ tab and check the ‘Enable a dedicated payment page’ option.
You can now create a custom page for your payment form by adding a permalink, color scheme, image, and footer text. Once you are done, don’t forget to click the ‘Publish’ button to store your settings.
You have now successfully prevented overselling your membership subscriptions or classes with WP Simple Pay.
Bonus! Inventory Management Tips for Your Online Store
Apart from preventing overselling out of stock products, here are some other inventory management tips that can help boost traffic to your online store and lead to more conversions.
For instance, you should regularly count your physical inventory to avoid any discrepancies between your online store record and actual products. You can also categorize your products based on popularity, value, and lead time for better management.
You must also analyze the past sales trends in your store to predict future demand and adjust your inventory levels accordingly. You can easily do this using MonsterInsights, which is the best analytics solution on the market.
The plugin can show you an overview report for metrics like total sales, revenue, average order value, and conversion rate. You can adjust the reports to analyze older data by setting a custom date range easily.
Some other tips for better inventory management include adding discount offers for less popular items and organizing your inventory according to product type.
Using all these tips will help you get ahead of your competitors and ultimately get more sales.
We hope this article helped you learn how to prevent overselling out of stock items in WordPress. You may also want to see our beginner’s guide on how to increase WooCommerce sales and our top picks for the best WooCommerce themes for your store.
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
By accepting SEPA payments on your website, you can reach customers within the SEPA region, which contains 36 European countries. This can help you get more sales as the region generates more than 20 billion transactions every year.
In this article, we will show you how to easily accept SEPA payments in WordPress.
Why Use SEPA Payments in WordPress?
The Single European Payments Area (SEPA) is a European Union initiative that aims to make it easy and convenient to make payments within and across the 36 member countries.
It creates a single Europe-wide market for Euro payments and uses the same set of rules and standards for domestic or cross-border money transfers.
This means that you can use your bank account to make Euro payments to anyone in the SEPA area, regardless of their bank or country.
By using SEPA payments on your WordPress website, you can directly accept payments from your customer’s bank account, making the process smooth and simple.
This payment method streamlines the transaction process and also charges lower fees than traditional cross-border payments.
Plus, if you have an online store or membership site, then integrating SEPA payments allows you to tap into a vast customer base across Europe, expanding your potential market reach.
Having said that, let’s see how to easily accept SEPA payments in WordPress, step by step. We will cover different methods, and you can use the quick links below to jump to the one you want to use:
Method 1: Accept SEPA Payments in WordPress Using WP Simple Pay (Recommended)
This method is recommended if you have a membership site or accept donations since you can receive money through a simple payment form. It is also a good option if you have a small online store.
For this method, we will be using WP Simple Pay. It is the best WordPress Stripe plugin on the market that allows you to accept online payments without needing to set up a shopping cart.
It comes with a payment form builder, premade templates, secure payment processing, and lets you accept SEPA payments.
Note: WP Simple Pay has a free plan. However, you will need the pro version of the plugin to unlock the SEPA payments template.
Upon activation, a setup wizard will be launched on your screen. Here, simply click the ‘Let’s Get Started’ button.
You will now be taken to the next step, where you must provide your license key and click the ‘Activate and Continue’ button.
You can find this information in your account on the WP Simple Pay website.
Once you do that, you will have to connect the plugin to your Stripe account. Stripe is one of the best payment gateways that lets you accept online payments easily.
To do this, click the ‘Connect with Stripe’ button.
After that, you must log in to your Stripe account to connect it with WP Simple Pay.
Once you connect your account with the plugin, the setup wizard will ask you to configure your emails.
You can toggle different switches to receive email notifications for payment receipts, upcoming invoices, and payment notifications. Next, type the email address where you want to receive these notifications.
You can now exit the setup wizard to create a payment form for SEPA payments.
For this, you must visit the WP Simple Pay » Add New page from the WordPress admin sidebar.
This will take you to the ‘Select a template’ screen, where you will see numerous premade templates that you can use on your website.
From here, locate the SEPA Direct Debit Form template and click the ‘Use Template’ button under it.
You will now be directed to the ‘Add New Payment Form’ page, where you can start by adding a title and description for your form.
After that, you must select your form payment type as ‘On-site payment form’.
Next, you have to switch to the ‘Payment’ tab from the left column. From here, select preferred tax collection rates from under the ‘Tax Collection’ option.
Once you do that, add the price for the product/service that you are creating the form for under the ‘Amount’ option.
Now scroll down to the ‘Payment Methods’ section, where you will notice that the ‘SEPA Direct Debit’ method has already been selected.
However, if you also want to add other payment gateways like Klarna, Alipay, Affirm, or iDeal, then you can check the boxes next to these options.
Next, switch to the ‘Form Fields’ tab from the sidebar on the left. Once you are there, you can add different form fields to your payment form and configure their settings by expanding the tab.
For example, you can add a coupon field to your payment form if you regularly offer discounts and coupons on your website.
You can also rearrange the order of the form fields by dragging and dropping them.
Once you do that, switch to the ‘Confirmation Page’ tab from the left column.
Here, you can type a message that will be displayed to the users once they successfully make a payment on your website.
If you also want to send an email to users upon successfully making a purchase, then switch to the ‘Email Notifications’ tab.
Here, type the custom email that will be sent to users upon making a purchase using the SEPA payment form.
Next, switch to the ‘Payment Page’ tab and check the ‘Enable a dedicated payment page’ option.
WP Simple Pay will now allow you to create a custom page for your SEPA payment form without making a new page on your website.
Some new settings will now appear on the page where you can add a permalink, color scheme, image, and footer text for your form.
Once you are done customizing, click the ‘Publish’ button on the right to store your settings.
Now, go ahead and visit your WordPress site to view the payment form page.
Alternatively, if you want to add the SEPA payment form to an existing page, then you must click the ‘Publish’ button once you add the form fields and configure confirmation messages.
After that, open a page of your liking in the WordPress block editor and click the add block ‘+’ button.
Next, you need to find and add the WP Simple Pay block to the page and select the SEPA payment form from the dropdown menu within the block.
Finally, click the ‘Update’ or ‘Publish’ button to store your settings.
Now, you can visit your WordPress site to view the SEPA payment form in action.
Method 2: Accept SEPA Payments in WooCommerce Using FunnelKit Stripe Payment Gateway Plugin (Free)
If you have a WooCommerce store and are looking for a free way to accept SEPA payments, then this method is for you.
It is a free plugin by FunnelKit that lets you easily add different payment gateways.
Upon activation, visit the WooCommerce » Settings page from the WordPress dashboard and switch to the ‘Payments’ tab.
Here, click the ‘Stripe Gateway’ option to open further settings.
On the new page, check the ‘Enable Stripe Gateway’ box. After that, you can also add a title and description for the payment gateway.
Next, click the ‘Save Changes’ button to store your settings and then click the ‘Stripe API Settings’ link at the top.
This will take you to a new page where you must click on the ‘Connect to Stripe’ button to connect the payment gateway with your online store.
You will then be taken to a new screen where you must enter your Stripe username and password. If you don’t have an account, then you can create one from here.
Once you connect your WooCommerce store with your account, click on the ‘SEPA’ link at the top. Here, check the ‘Enable Stripe SEPA Direct Debit’ option.
After that, you can also add a title, description, company name, and selling locations where this payment method can be displayed.
Finally, click the ‘Save Changes’ button to store your settings.
You have now successfully activated the SEPA payment method on your WooCommerce store. You can now see it on the checkout page of your store.
Bonus: Add PayPal in WordPress and WooCommerce
Apart from Stripe and SEPA, you can also use PayPal to accept payments all across Europe.
PayPal is one of the pioneers in the payment industry and offers a variety of services suitable for personal, business, and eCommerce. It also has a large user base in Europe, with over 400 million active accounts.
Plus, the payment gateway has a robust security system and seamless cross-border transactions, making PayPal an ideal choice.
You can easily add PayPal to your site using WPForms. It is the best WordPress PayPal plugin on the market that offers a drag-and-drop builder, premade form templates, and complete spam protection.
Are you wondering if WordPress is good for eCommerce and what the pros and cons are?
WordPress is the most popular website builder platform and is the most recommended platform to start an eCommerce business.
In this article, we’ll explore if WordPress is good for eCommerce and what the pros and cons of using it are.
Why Use WordPress for E-commerce?
WordPress is the world’s most popular website builder, powering more than 43.1% of all websites on the internet. A large number of these websites are eCommerce stores.
The massive popularity of WordPress makes it the most recommended eCommerce platform to start your business.
Some of the most compelling reasons for using WordPress for eCommerce are:
Freedom – You own your eCommerce store, and no third party controls how you run it.
Massive community – Using WordPress, you become part of a huge online community of business owners running their businesses on WordPress.
Wider Availability – WordPress supports more payment gateways than any other eCommerce platform. It also supports multilingual eCommerce stores in most currencies and locales.
Growth Hacking – Being the most popular solution, it has integrations for most marketing and growth hacking tools you may need. This makes it super easy for you to grow your eCommerce business over time.
For more details, look at our complete WordPress review for more in-depth coverage of its advantages and disadvantages.
What are The Pros and Cons of Using WordPress for E-commerce?
Like every business decision, you would want to consider the pros and cons of using WordPress as your eCommerce platform.
Let’s look at some of the most important pros and cons of using WordPress for your eCommerce business.
Pros of Using WordPress for Ecommerce:
1. WordPress is Free
WordPress software is available for free. You can download, customize, and use it anywhere you want.
You’ll still need to pay for eCommerce hosting, domain name, and add-ons. For more on this topic, see our explainer on why is WordPress free, what the costs are, and what’s the actual catch.
2. Zero Transaction Fees
Unlike most other eCommerce platforms, WordPress does not charge you for transactions. The only fees you pay for transactions are to your payment service provider (Stripe, PayPal, etc.) and your bank.
3. You Control The Costs
With WordPress, you control the costs. You can choose your hosting service, premium add-ons, and marketing tools.
With this freedom, you save a ton of start-up money, which you can then invest in growing your business and making more sales. For more details, see our article on the cost of building an eCommerce website.
4. Thousands of Plugins
WordPress has over 59,000 free plugins. Think of plugins as apps for your eCommerce website. You can install one when you need a certain feature, like adding a contact form or customizing the shopping cart experience, among others.
With so much choice, you can add almost any feature to your eCommerce store with just a few clicks. Look at our expert pick of the best eCommerce plugins for WordPress for some inspiration.
5. Countless Payment Gateways
WordPress supports all popular payment gateways like Stripe, PayPal, Authorize.net, and more. It also supports lesser-known payment services and countless regional payment service providers.
You can add as many products to your website as you want and make as many sales as you can. Unlike many other eCommerce platforms, WordPress doesn’t restrict you to a set number of products or sales.
8. You Own and Control Your Website
Many online eCommerce platforms have terms and conditions that allow them to shut down your eCommerce website at any time, with or without a reason. They can hold your data and any unprocessed transactions.
With WordPress, you own and control your website. Even if, in rare circumstances, a hosting company terminates your account, you can easily use a backup to transfer your website to a different hosting company. You own all your data, transactions, and payments.
Cons of Using WordPress for Ecommerce
Now, so far, we have covered the advantages of using WordPress and they are plentiful.
However, WordPress has its disadvantages as well, and it is best to keep them in mind.
1. Comes with a Slight Learning Curve
WordPress comes with a slight learning curve. Like any new software you use for your business, you’ll need to familiarize yourself with WordPress and how it works.
Luckily, WPBeginner got you covered. We have free step-by-step WordPress video tutorials made specifically for WordPress beginners. These courses will get you up to speed much more quickly.
Most beginners who start a WordPress business quickly graduate to advanced-level users with some hands-on practice.
2. You Manage The Software Updates and Backups
Like any software or app, WordPress regularly releases updates. As the website owner, you are responsible for installing these updates to keep your website secure and access the latest features.
It is just as easy to install updates in WordPress as on your phone or computer. You’ll get a notification about a new version, and then you just click a button to install it.
Similarly, you are also responsible for keeping backups of your website. This allows you to easily move your website, secure your data, or restore it in case of a hosting failure.
Luckily, there are excellent backup plugins for WordPress, like the Duplicator Pro. Once properly set up, it will automatically make regular backups and store them on the cloud.
It will also help you restore your website with just a few clicks or move it to a different hosting company if needed.
3. Scalability May Increase Costs
We recommend all new businesses start with a low-cost hosting plan from companies like Bluehost and Hostinger.
Unlike other eCommerce platforms, this flexibility helps you save a ton of money when starting your business.
However, as your business grows, your website will need more server resources. You’ll need to upgrade to a managed hosting service like SiteGround or WP Engine.
This will increase your costs. However, the upside is that your business will now be able to afford these extra costs, and it will still be cheaper than other eCommerce service providers.
4. You Are Responsible for Security
Like updates and backups, you are responsible for keeping your website secure.
Now, this may sound a bit tricky, but luckily, many WordPress hosting companies also take excellent measures to protect sites hosted on their servers from malicious attacks.
Both, Cloudflare and Sucuri provide a website firewall that blocks malicious traffic even before it reaches your website.
What Kind of Ecommerce Solutions Available in WordPress?
When comparing eCommerce platforms, you’ll notice some of them are good for selling specific types of products and not so great with others.
For instance, Shopify is great for selling physical products that require shipping but not for selling online courses.
In comparison, WordPress is the only eCommerce platform that is equally great for selling all types of products and services using its powerful add-ons.
Here are some of the top eCommerce solutions you can use with WordPress, depending on your business.
WooCommerce – Available as a free WordPress plugin, WooCommerce is the world’s #1 eCommerce platform. It allows you to create any type of online store and can be used to sell physical goods as well as digital products.
MemberPress – A powerful eCommerce solution that helps you sell subscription based products like online courses, premium content, pay-per-view website, memberships for communities, and more.
Easy Digital Downloads – Made specifically for selling digital products like software, ebooks, music, digital art, and more.
WP Simple Pay – Selling a handful of products or services? WP Simple Pay makes it easy to accept online payments without using a shopping cart plugin on your website.
WP Forms Payments – Allows you to accept online payments by creating your own custom payment forms. Perfect for selling individual products, services, online bookings, and more.
How Does WordPress Compare to Other Ecommerce Platforms?
WordPress compares neck and neck with all top eCommerce platforms and outperforms them in flexibility, cost-effectiveness, and broader availability.
What Does WordPress Do Better than Other Ecommerce Platforms?
WordPress is better at saving you costs when starting an eCommerce business. You can start with the bare minimum and only pay for tools/services you need.
WordPress doesn’t charge you for individual transactions. This makes it easy for you to create a sustainable business plan for growth in the long run.
It doesn’t limit the number of products or sales you can make. Many top eCommerce platforms will force you to upgrade your plan once you reach a certain threshold of products or sales.
You own all your website and its data and can move it to any other hosting platform or eCommerce solution when you need it.
For details, take a look at these comparisons with individual platforms.
How to Start an Ecommerce Business with WordPress?
To start your eCommerce business with WordPress, you’ll need to make a WordPress website.
There are two types of WordPress available.
First, there is WordPress.org, which is the WordPress software that we talked about in this article and what we recommend. Then, there is WordPress.com, which is a hosted website platform like Wix or Squarespace. For details, see our article on WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org.
To start with WordPress.org, you’ll need a hosting account and a domain name.
Normally, pricing for starter hosting plans starts at $7.99 per month (usually paid annually), and domain name costs around $16.99 per year.
Luckily, Bluehost has agreed to offer WPBeginner users a generous discount on hosting with a free domain name. Basically, you can get started for $2.75 per month.
If you sign up with Bluehost, they will automatically install WordPress for you. All other hosting companies also offer a 1-click WordPress installer, which you can find under your hosting account.
Do you want to easily accept Giropay payments on your WordPress site?
Giropay is a popular payment method, with over 40 million users in Germany and Austria. By offering this preferred payment method, you can build trust and increase conversions on your website in some European countries.
In this article, we will show you how to accept Giropay payments in WordPress.
Why Accept Giropay Payments in WordPress?
If you are selling products or services on your WordPress website or asking for donations, then it’s important to let your visitors pay using their preferred method.
Many customers will want to pay by credit card or PayPal. However, in Germany, 10% of checkouts are completed using Giropay.
That means if you have customers in Germany and Austria, then adding Giropay as a payment method in your online store is an easy way to boost sales.
Giropay is a German payment method that is based on online banking. You have the benefit of receiving the payment directly from the customer’s bank account as soon as they complete the checkout. Also, fees are lower than when using other payment methods.
Plus, German and Austrian banks have advanced fraud detection, protecting both you and your customers.
With that being said, let’s take a look at how to accept Giropay payments in WordPress.
WP Simple Pay is one of the best WordPress invoicing and payments plugins for small businesses and the easiest way to accept Giropay payments in WordPress. It can be used without setting up a complex shopping cart system and doesn’t charge any additional transaction fees.
Note: While there is a free version of the plugin, you will need the Pro plugin to create the on-site payment form needed in this guide.
Upon activation, the WP Simple Pay setup wizard will start automatically.
Simply click the ‘Let’s Get Started’ button.
In the first step, you will be asked to enter your license key.
You can find this information in the account area of the WP Simple Pay website.
Once you have entered the license key, you can click the ‘Activate and Continue’ button to move to the next step.
Now, you will need to connect WP Simple Pay to Stripe. Stripe is a popular payment gateway that supports Giropay along with all top credit and debit cards, Google Pay, Apple Pay, and more.
When you click the ‘Connect with Stripe’ button, you will need to log in to your Stripe account or create a new one. Anyone with a legitimate business can create a Stripe account and accept payments online.
Note: Stripe requires your site to be using SSL/HTTPS encryption. If you don’t already have an SSL certificate for your website, then please see our step-by-step guide on how to add SSL in WordPress.
After logging in to Stripe, you will be asked to configure your WP Simple Pay emails.
The three email options have already been enabled for you. These are for sending receipts and invoice reminders to your customers and payment notification emails to yourself.
All you need to do is enter the email address where the notifications should be sent and then click the ‘Save and Continue’ button.
This will bring you to the last step in the setup wizard, where you will create a payment form. Simply click on the ‘Create a Payment Form’ button to get started.
Creating a Payment Form in WordPress
You will now be taken to the Add New Payment Form screen. Here, you will be offered a number of payment form templates.
Tip: You can also create a payment form in WP Simple Pay by going to WP Simple Pay » Add New from your WordPress dashboard.
You need to hover over the ‘Payment Form’ template and then click the ‘Use Template’ button that appears.
This will take you to a screen where you can customize the new payment form.
For example, in the General tab, you will find options to customize the form’s title and description. You can leave the form’s type as ‘On-site payment form’.
Now you can click on the Payment tab and set the payment mode to either ‘Live Mode’ or ‘Test Mode’.
‘Test Mode’ will let you make payments that are not actually charged to Giropay. This lets you test your form to make sure it is working properly and that emails are being sent.
Don’t forget to change this to ‘Live Mode’ when you have finished testing, or you will not receive payments from your customers.
In the Price Options section, you can add multiple prices with different labels. You can specify the cost of the product or service, the currency, whether it is a one-time payment or a recurring subscription, and more.
Giropay is paid in Euros, so make sure you select ‘EUR’ from the currency drop-down menu under ‘Amount’.
Now, you can scroll down to the Payment Methods section and select all of the payment methods you wish to use on the payment form. To see the Giropay option, you need to change the list from ‘Popular’ to ‘All’ using the dropdown menu.
Once you find the ‘giropay’ option, simply check the box next to it. If you like, then you can also check the boxes of other payment methods you wish to use, such as Card, ACH, Alipay, and Klarna.
Next, you should switch to the Form Fields tab and select the fields you wish to display on the payment form.
The defaults will work well for many websites, but there are plenty of additional fields, including name, phone, coupon, and more.
Once you have added the fields you need, make sure you click the ‘Publish’ button. Now, you are ready to add the payment form to your WordPress website. There are two ways to do this.
Create a Dedicated Giropay Payment Page
The first method allows you to quickly create a dedicated payment page.
Simply go to the Payment Page tab and click the box labeled ‘Enable a dedicated payment page’.
This will display settings where you can select a permalink for the page, choose a color scheme, add a header image or logo, and add some text to the footer.
When you are done, simply click the ‘Publish’ button, and the page will be created.
This is how it looks on our test website.
You may wish to add this page to your navigation menu or link to it from a post, page, or widget.
Add the Giropay Payment Form to an Existing Post or Page
The second method lets you add the payment form you created to any post or page on your website.
Simply edit the post or page, and then drag the WP Simple Pay block in the WordPress block editor.
After that, select your order form from the dropdown menu in the WP Simple Pay block.
Once you are finished, you can update or publish the post or page and then click on the ‘Preview’ button to see your form in action.
Expert Guides for Accepting Payments in WordPress
Now that you know how to add Giropay payments to your website, you may like to see some guides on adding other payment methods in WordPress:
Do you want to accept Affirm payments on your WordPress website?
By accepting Affirm payments, you allow users to split their purchases into smaller payments over time. This can help improve the customer experience on your site as it is a more convenient and flexible purchase method than credit cards.
In this article, we will show you how to easily accept Affirm payments in WordPress, step by step.
Why Accept Affirm Payments in WordPress?
Affirm is a buy now pay later (BNPL) service that allows customers to buy your products/services in installments over time.
The platform offers two ways for the customers to make a purchase. A user can pay for their purchase in 4 equal, interest-free payments over 8 weeks, or they can pay in monthly installments over 36 months.
By accepting Affirm payments on your WordPress website, you can make it easier for customers to buy your more expensive products and services.
This can boost the customer experience and increase your average order value. Studies have shown that visitors who use Affirm spend more money on average than those who use other payment methods.
Plus, with Affirm payments, you will still receive the full payment for the product up front. Then, Affirm directly works with the customers to collect the remaining balance.
Having said that, let’s see how to easily accept Affirm payments in WordPress. We will cover 2 methods, and you can use the quick links below to jump to the one you want to use:
Method 1: Accept Affirm Payments in WordPress Using WP Simple Pay (Recommended)
This method is recommended if you want to add an Affirm payment form to your website.
This is a great option if you are not using WooCommerce. Plus, it allows you to accept donations and membership fees, charge for content access, or process payments for other businesses.
The easiest way to accept these Affirm payments is with the WP Simple Pay plugin.
It is the best WordPress Stripe plugin on the market that lets you easily accept online payments without needing to set up a shopping cart. It comes with a payment form builder, easy setup, secure payment processing, recurring payments, and the ability to accept Affirm payments.
Note: WP Simple Pay also has a free plan. However, you will need the Professional paid plan to unlock the Affirm payments feature.
Upon activation, a setup wizard will be launched on the screen. Here, you have to click the ‘Let’s Get Started’ button.
This will take you to the next step, where you have to provide the license key for the plugin.
You can find this information in your account on the WP Simple Pay website. Once that’s done, click the ‘Activate and Continue’ button.
Now, you will be asked to connect your Stripe account with WP Simple Pay. Stripe is a super popular payment gateway that allows you to easily accept online payments.
Go ahead and click the ‘Connect with Stripe’ button to continue.
Once you have done that, log in to your Stripe account to connect it to WP Simple Pay. If you don’t have an account yet, then you can create one by visiting the Stripe website.
Upon successfully connecting Stripe and the plugin, the setup wizard will then ask you to configure your emails.
Here, you can enable options to receive email notifications for payment receipts, upcoming invoices, and payment notifications and enter the email address to send them to.
Once you are satisfied, click the ‘Save and Continue’ button.
You can now exit the setup wizard because it’s time to create a payment form for your website.
To do this, visit the WP Simple Pay » Add New page from the WordPress admin sidebar.
This will open the ‘Select a template’ screen, where you can select any of the premade templates offered by the plugin by clicking the ‘Use Template’ button under it.
For the sake of this tutorial, we will be using the ‘Payment Form’ template.
This will direct you to the ‘Add New Payment Form’ page, where you can start by adding a title and description for your form.
After that, you can select your form type as ‘On-site payment form’.
Once you have done that, switch to the ‘Payment’ tab from the left column. Here, you can select your preferred tax collection rates from the dropdown menu under the ‘Tax Collection’ option.
After that, you can add the default price of the service or product that you are creating the payment form for.
Next, scroll down to the ‘Payment Methods’ section and select the ‘All’ option from the dropdown menu.
If you don’t choose this option, the Affirm payment method will not be displayed on your screen.
Once all the payment methods offered by WP Simple Pay are displayed as a list, just scroll down to the ‘Affirm’ option and check the box next to it.
You have now successfully added the Affirm payment gateway to your WordPress form.
You can now switch to the ‘Form Fields’ tab from the column on the left.
Here, you can add a form field from the dropdown menu and then configure its settings by expanding the tab. You can also change the order of existing fields by simply dragging and dropping them.
For instance, you can add and customize an email address field on your form. That way, customers will need to provide their emails when they make purchases using your form.
Adding the Affirm Payment Form to Your Website
Next, switch to the ‘Payment Page’ tab and check the ‘Enable a dedicated payment page’ box. WP Simple Pay will then let you create a custom page for your Affirm payment form without making a new page on your WordPress blog or website.
On checking this box, new settings will appear on the page where you can add a permalink, color scheme, image, and footer text for your form.
Once you are done, click the ‘Publish’ button to store your settings.
You can then visit your WordPress website to view the payment form page.
Alternatively, if you want to add the payment form to an existing page, then you can also do that by clicking the ‘Publish’ button after adding form fields.
Next, open the page/post of your liking from the WordPress dashboard. Then, click the ‘Add Block’ (+) button in the top left corner of the screen to open the block menu.
From here, find and add the WP Simple Pay block to the page, and then select the payment form that you created from the dropdown menu within the block.
Finally, click the ‘Publish’ or ‘Update’ button to store your settings.
Now, simply visit your WordPress site to view the Affirm payment form in action.
We recommend this method if you have a WooCommerce store and are looking for a free solution.
Affirm Payments is a great WooCommerce plugin for setting up installment payments. It allows you to easily add Affirm as a payment gateway on the checkout page for each product.
First, you need to install and activate the Affirm Payments plugin. For detailed instructions, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Note: This plugin won’t work if the WooCommerce plugin is not activated on your website. For more details, you can see our complete WooCommerce tutorial. You will also need to create an Affirm account.
Upon activation, you need to visit the WooCommerce » Settings page from the WordPress admin sidebar and switch to the ‘Payments’ tab.
Here, you will see a list of all the payment gateways offered by WooCommerce. You have to scroll down to the ‘Affirm’ option and click on the ‘Manage’ button.
This will direct you to a new screen where you must check the ‘Enable/Disable’ box to activate Affirm as a payment gateway in your online store.
Next, you can configure some customization options for the payment gateway, like the Affirm color, promotional messaging, and more.
You will also need to enter your public and private API keys for Affirm. You can get this information from your merchant dashboard on the Affirm website.
Once you are done, don’t forget to click the ‘Save Changes’ button to store your settings.
You can now visit your WooCommerce store and view the checkout page to see Affirm as a payment option.
Bonus Options for Setting Up Installment Payments in WordPress
If you sell any products or services on your WordPress site, then setting up installment payments can help you boost conversions.
This is because the buy now, pay later model offers more flexibility to your customers and immediately makes all your products and services look more affordable.
One of the main reasons for a high cart abandonment rate is that customers can’t afford the cost of their purchases. However, if you allow them to pay in installments, then you can reduce cart abandonment on your site.
Apart from Affirm, there are also other payment gateways like AfterPay and Klarna that you can use to easily add a buy now pay later method to your WordPress site.
Do you want to make a transportation and logistics WordPress website?
If you run a logistics and transportation business, then you will need an online presence to get your brand known and set yourself apart from the competition. WordPress is one of the easiest and most flexible platforms to build a website for that very purpose.
In this article, we will show you how to make a transportation and logistics website in WordPress.
What Features Should a Logistics & Transportation Site Have?
Like any other business, transportation and logistics companies need a professional website to reach customers online. Without a site, your business might miss out on opportunities and struggle to communicate effectively with potential clients.
But having a website isn’t just about showing your brand. Big companies like DHL use their websites to help customers track their shipments and answer questions quickly.
That’s why logistics and transportation companies usually have certain unique features on their sites, like shipment tracking.
This function allows customers to monitor where their shipment is located in real-time and identify any potential issues with the delivery.
Other than that, a logistics and transportation website should follow best practices, like responsive website design, fast loading speeds, and strong security to prevent unauthorized access.
With that in mind, let’s look at how you can make a transportation and logistics website using WordPress, the most popular website builder on the market. You can use the quick links below to navigate through the steps:
The first step is to sign up for a WordPress hosting service. If you are unfamiliar with web hosting, then it’s essentially a service that stores and displays your website files so that they are publicly accessible.
At WPBeginner, we recommend using Bluehost for your WordPress hosting. Besides offering great value for money, they are also fast and easy to use, even for beginners who are new to web hosting.
Bluehost also has a huge discount for WPBeginner readers, along with a free domain name and an SSL certificate. You can sign up by clicking on the button below:
Since you will be running a logistics website, we recommend going with the Bluehost Pro plan. It’s designed for high traffic, so your site will stay online at all times, even if multiple users are tracking their shipments.
Simply click on ‘Select’ beneath the plan you want to buy.
Once you have chosen a plan, you will now need to pick a domain name, which is the online address for your website.
In general, it’s best to use a domain that includes your brand name in it, like fedex.com or dhl.com. If you want, you may also add a transportation or logistics-related keyword after it, like murphylogistics.com.
Once you have chosen a domain name, just click ‘Next.’
After this, you will be asked to enter your account information, business email address, name, country, phone number, and more.
You will also see optional extras that you can buy. We generally don’t recommend buying them straight away, as you can always add them later if your business needs them.
At this stage, you can insert your payment information to complete the purchase.
Then, you will receive a confirmation email with the login credentials to your Bluehost dashboard, which is the control panel where you will manage your logistics site.
If you used our Bluehost link before, then Bluehost will automatically install WordPress on your hosting service by default, so you can skip this section.
That said, if you miss this step or want to set up another WordPress site on the same hosting plan, you can follow these instructions.
First, go to the ‘Websites’ tab in the Bluehost dashboard. Then, click the ‘Add Site’ button.
The Bluehost website setup wizard will now appear.
To begin, simply select ‘Install WordPress’ and click ‘Continue.’
You can now insert a title for your website.
After that, just click ‘Continue.’
At this stage, you can connect a domain name to your website.
You can add your existing domain or use a temporary subdomain until you are ready to purchase a new domain name.
Now, just wait a few moments for Bluehost to install WordPress.
Once the installation is successful, you will land on the ‘Websites’ tab in Bluehost again and find your new site there. To log in to the WordPress admin panel, just click ‘Edit Site.’
Alternatively, you can use your WordPress login URL (like example.com/wp-admin/) in your web browser. Make sure to replace the domain name with your own.
At this point, you can continue to the next steps to start creating the transportation and logistics WordPress website.
Step 3: Choose a Transportation and Logistics WordPress Theme
WordPress themes make it easy to create a good-looking website without web design skills. All you have to do is choose a theme you like, install it, and tweak some of the design elements.
When you first install WordPress, you will have one of the default themes installed, which may not be the most attractive. But don’t worry, there are many other logistics and transportation WordPress themes that you can use.
For guidance on theme setup and theme recommendations, you can check out the following articles:
How to Edit Your Logistics and Transportation WordPress Theme
The great thing about WordPress is it offers several options to customize your WordPress theme, so you can choose the one that suits your skills and needs best.
One is to use the WordPress Full Site Editor (FSE), which is what you will use with a WordPress block theme.
Another option is to use the Theme Customizer, which is the default option for classic WordPress themes. You can read more about how to edit a theme using the Theme Customizer in our article.
While WordPress’ built-in editing features are good, their customization options may be a bit basic. Since you are working on a professional website, you want to leave a memorable impression on visitors.
SeedProd offers a flexible drag-and-drop builder with various fonts, color options, widgets, and even animations to personalize your website design. Plus, you get access to 300+ theme templates that are optimized for conversions from the get-go.
To use a SeedProd theme, you will need to install the SeedProd plugin. While a free version of SeedProd is available, we recommend getting a Pro or Elite plan. Both come with the Theme Builder, which allows you to customize every part of the theme.
You will now see dozens of templates on the screen.
For a transportation and logistics website, you can use the Oceanic Cargo Shipping Agency theme. The theme template kit already has an attractive services page, so you can simply adjust the information and images there for your business.
Just hover your cursor over it and click the orange checkmark.
You will now be directed to the SeedProd page builder, where you can drag and drop blocks, add new sections, change the background, create animated effects, and so on.
Every area is customizable, so feel free to play around with the editor.
When editing your website design, one of the most important things you should pay attention to is the homepage.
As the first page that visitors will most likely see, the homepage has to create a strong impression and give users enough information about your logistics business.
Typically, new WordPress websites have a homepage that displays their latest blog posts.
Since you are running a business site, it’s a good idea to separate your blog page from your homepage and create a new custom static front page from scratch. Otherwise, people may think your website is mainly for blogging and not for business.
You also want to add a services section to your homepage to give users an overview of what kind of logistics and transportation services you offer. Here’s a great example by DHL:
We also recommend linking this section to your services page later on so that you can provide more details about each offer there.
Once you have set up your homepage, it’s time to create other pages on your transportation and logistics WordPress website.
We have an article that details the most important pages your WordPress site should have. But for this type of business, here are some pages that you should pay careful attention to:
Services page(s) –This is where you will detail the services you offer. You can include the types of shipping supplies and boxes, types of delivery, and their prices. Feel free to create a dedicated child page for all your services to provide more details.
Contact page –Here, potential customers can get in touch with you, or existing clients can reach out for help. We recommend adding a contact form using WPForms and including relevant contact information like your business address and phone number.
Service locations page –Highlight the areas where your transportation and logistics services are available. This will be helpful if you have multiple pickup and dropoff points that customers can go to.
Shipment tracking page –This page allows clients to monitor their shipments in real-time. You will want to create a blank page for this now, as we will show you how to add the tracking feature in the next step.
Booking page for pickups – This is for clients to schedule a pickup service for their packages. We will also show you how to add the booking form to this page later.
Customer portal – Create a secure and user-friendly portal for customers to access their shipment history, payments, invoices, and any other relevant data. Check out our article on how to make a client portal for step-by-step guidance.
FAQ page – Answer common questions clients may have so that they can better understand your services and feel confident about doing business with you. You can learn more about this topic in our article about adding an FAQ section in WordPress.
Step 6: Install a Cargo Tracking Plugin for Your Logistics Site
We mentioned earlier that you will need a shipment tracking page for customers to monitor their deliveries. After setting up the page for this, you will need to install a cargo tracking plugin to display the user’s shipping information.
WPCargo is one cargo tracking plugin you could use. The free plugin comes with the standard shipment tracking functionality, including auto-tracking IDs, shipment management tools, and tracking forms. This may be enough if your business is new and that’s all the features you need at the moment.
There is also a premium plugin that gives you access to a barcode scanner, custom field manager, and more.
To use WPCargo, you need to install and activate the plugin. Then, go to WPCargo» General Settings from your WordPress dashboard.
On this page, you can add information about your services, like the types of shipments, shipment modes, shipment locations, and shipment carriers.
All this information will be useful when you need to add a new shipment from the WordPress admin.
One of the things you want to do in this tab is scroll down to ‘Track Page Settings.’
Then, select a page to insert the [wpcargo_trackform] shortcode.
This tag will display a field that users can fill out with their shipment tracking number and get a real-time status on where their shipment is.
Here is what it looks like:
Other than that, you can go ahead and configure other settings, like customizing the shipment number format and assigning shipment emails.
Once you’ve done that, just scroll down to click ‘Save Changes.’
If you switch to the ‘Multiple Package Settings’ tab, then you can choose whether clients can ship multiple packages in one order.
If so, feel free to specify what dimension and weight units to use and what package types they can select.
Moving on to the Map Settings tab, you can choose to enable a map where users can view their shipment history.
We only recommend activating this setting if you know how to work with Google Maps APIs.
The Client Email Settings and Admin Email Settings tabs are basically similar. This is where you can customize the email notifications sent to website administrators and clients.
WPCargo comes with handy shortcode tags that you can include to display the shipment data. You can also choose which shipment statuses will make the plugin send an email notification to the client.
Whenever you configure the settings in a WPCargo tab, don’t forget to save your changes.
Expert Tip: At times, emails sent from WordPress don’t get successfully delivered due to your site’s hosting configuration. To prevent this from happening, we recommend using the WP Mail SMTP plugin. For more details, you can see our guide on how to fix the WordPress not sending emails issue.
Adding a New Shipment in WPCargo
If you want to add a new shipment in WPCargo, then you have to do it in the WordPress admin. Only WPCargo admin, employee, and agent user roles have this access, whereas clients on your website don’t.
To add a new shipment, go to WPCargo» Add Shipment. Then, fill out the shipper and receiver’s details.
Scrolling down, you will need to fill out more information about the shipment details.
All the things you configured in the General Settings will show up here as options you can choose.
After that, scroll back up to the ‘Assign shipment to’ section.
Make sure to assign the shipment to a Client, Agent, and Employee responsible for it.
Then, move down to the ‘Current Status:’ section and update the shipment’s date, time, location, status, and remarks, if any.
After that, just click ‘Publish.’ Depending on your email settings from earlier, the plugin will notify the client about the shipment’s status.
Step 7: Add a Shipping Calculator Form to Your WordPress Site
Besides a tracking plugin, logistics companies typically have a shipping calculator form on their websites. This feature helps potential customers see the estimated price of their shipments, which can be handy if they want to deliver multiple packages.
If you use WPCargo, they have a premium add-on to create a shipping calculator. It allows users to see the distance between the origin and destination and the resulting fees based on the distance.
Alternatively, you can use WPForms, which is the easiest WordPress form plugin on the market. It includes 1200+ templates for various forms, including a shipping cost calculator form.
All you need to do is install the plugin, choose this template, and customize the form fields to your liking.
The shipping cost calculator form already includes a calculations add-on that will automatically calculate the shipping price based on the user’s information.
For that last part, we recommend specifying the availability of your pickup schedule. This way, customers can’t insert a date and time that’s outside of your work hours.
You can display this booking form on a dedicated page for scheduling pickups and the account page of your customer portal.
If you are looking for a simpler solution, then we recommend using the WP Simple Pay plugin. It’s a Stripe payment plugin that lets you create a payment form without having to add an unnecessary shopping cart feature to your website.
Since WP Simple Pay uses Stripe, you will have multiple payment methods by default, including buy-now-pay-later payment options.
If you use WPForms, then you can also add a payment function to your forms by connecting the plugin with Stripe. Or, you can install payment add-ons like Square, PayPal Commerce, and Authorize.net.
Step 10: Create a Request a Quote Form for Your Business
If you offer transportation and logistics services to businesses, then you may use a custom pricing structure that varies by the company’s needs.
In this case, it may not be possible to display a set list of prices on your website. Instead, the client has to consult with you first to get more information about your pricing.
It’s best to create a quote request form. Then, users can insert information about their business, company size, and the kind of transportation and logistics services they need. With this information, you can offer them the right service and pricing structure.
WPForms has a ‘Request a Quote’ form template ready, so you can use that and simply change the form fields according to your needs.
For a transportation and logistics business, we recommend following these tips to create your form:
Make important form fields required to fill out – These include the type of goods, dimensions, weight, origin, and destination. This ensures that the potential client gives you enough information about the shipment so you can provide the right quote for them.
Mention how long you’ll take to respond – This way, the potential customer isn’t left wondering when to expect an email back. For example, you can say that you’ll get back to them within 24 hours.
Step 11: Add Live Chat to Your Company Website
Unfortunately, problems can happen during shipments and cause delays. When this occurs, customers will want to get answers quickly so that they aren’t wondering if their package has gotten lost or compromised.
To deal with this problem, we recommend using live chat support software. This allows users to talk to you or an agent directly on your website rather than having to email you and wait for a reply.
We recommend installing LiveChat, which is well-known in the customer support industry. With this tool, you can easily customize the live chat window in WordPress so that it doesn’t look out of place with your web design.
If you use WhatsApp, then you can also add a WhatsApp chatbox to communicate with users directly. We recommend doing this if this social media platform is popular among your region and target demographic.
In many cases, users use the live chat feature and ask questions that many other people also ask. To make answering these responses more efficient, you can try adding an automated chatbot to your website.
With this, instead of connecting the customer with a live agent, they will have to talk with a chatbot first. The chatbot will then show the user some pre-made responses based on what they’re asking.
Tools to Increase Sales for Your Transportation and Logistics Business
While you have now successfully created a transportation and logistics WordPress website, the journey doesn’t end here. To ensure the success of your business, you will need to continually optimize your site.
Here are some WordPress plugin and tool recommendations you can use to take your website to the next level:
MonsterInsights – If you want to use Google Analytics, then MonsterInsights can easily integrate your site with the platform. It has a user-friendly reporting dashboard that tells you where your customers are coming from and what they do on your site.
Reviews Feed Pro – Boost your social proof by displaying customer testimonials on your website. With Reviews Feed Pro, you can pull testimonials from third-party review sites like Google Reviews and Trustpilot.
Nextiva – At times, customers find it easier to get help through the phone than via live chat. Nextiva is an excellent choice for business phone services, and their cloud-based setup makes them perfect for remote teams.
We hope this article has helped you learn how to make a transportation and logistics website in WordPress. You may also want to check out our guides on dropshipping made simple and our expert picks for the best WooCommerce dropshipping plugins.
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
Are you wondering how to receive Alipay payments in WordPress?
Alipay is a digital wallet based in China with over 1 billion active users. Accepting Alipay payments on your WordPress site means you open the door to a broader audience, potentially increasing your sales.
In this article, we will explain how to accept Alipay payments in WordPress. That way, you can tap into a large market of users who prefer using this payment method.
Why Should You Accept Alipay Payments in WordPress?
Alipay is a payment app that allows users to send and receive money online. It is a dominant player in the Chinese market and is now gaining popularity in Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and across the world.
It’s also not just used by international users. Many domestic dropshipping stores that buy products wholesale use Alipay as well. That’s because Alipay is the primary payment method for Alibaba and AliExpress, which are two eCommerce giants.
Alipay is well on its way to serving over 2 billion customers worldwide, so adding it as a payment option will help you tap into a huge market and attract customers from regions where Alipay is popular.
That being said, let’s dive into the 2 ways you can accept Alipay payments. You can use our links to jump to skip ahead to the method you prefer:
For this method, we will use WP Simple Pay, which is the best Stripe payment plugin on the market. With this plugin, you can accept payments without needing to set up any complicated APIs on your site.
WP Simple Pay integrates into Stripe’s payment options, which allows businesses using Stripe to accept payments from customers who want to pay with Alipay.
The good news is you can use WP Simple Pay Lite since it can accept Alipay payments. Best of all, it’s 100% free.
Note: You will need WP Simple Pay Pro for access to the Alipay payments form. With the free version, you can only create an Alipay payment button to add to your pages. Also, you won’t be able to build on-site payment forms without the paid plan.
For most businesses, we recommend WP Simple Pay Pro. This paid version accepts 10+ payment methods and offers recurring payments, buy now, pay later plans, and an advanced form builder.
For this tutorial, we will be using the Pro plan so that we can build a payment form to accept Alipay payments. The process is the same with the free plan, but you will have access to fewer features.
Step 1: Install and Activate WP Simple Pay
To begin, you’ll need to install and activate the WP Simple Pay plugin. If you need help, read our tutorial on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, the plugin will automatically launch the WP Simple Pay setup wizard. You’ll need to click on the ‘Let’s Get Started’ button.
Step 2: Complete the Setup Wizard
You’ll be taken to the next step in the process. From there, you’ll have to create a new Stripe account or connect to an existing one. Click the ‘Connect with Stripe’ button to move to the next screen.
Assuming you already have a Stripe account, you can type in your email address and click the ‘Continue’ button.
It will integrate your Stripe data into your site. That way, all of the payments you receive will go to your Stripe account.
From here, you’ll be prompted to select your Stripe account.
Then hit ‘Connect.’ Or you can choose to create a new account instead.
Step 3: Create a Form to Accept Alipay Payments
Once you’ve connected your Stripe account, you will need to create a payment form.
Go ahead and click the ‘Create a Payment Form’ button.
You will land on a template library where you can pick one from the many pre-built templates for your form.
Next, look for the ‘Alipay Payment Form’ and click on ‘Use Template.’
As soon as you choose the template, you will be taken to an intuitive drag-and-drop builder.
You will also be prompted to configure the General settings. This is where you will customize the title, description, form type, and more.
There are also options to add a CAPTCHA and email verification button to prevent fake orders.
If you go to the ‘Confirmation Page’ tab, you can configure where you direct users when they complete the form.
By default, WP Simple Pay will show a custom success page when a customer makes a payment. But you can select ‘Custom Page’ if you’d like to show a different page hosted on your WordPress site. This is a great opportunity to send them to a thank you page and even upsell them on more products or services.
Or, if you prefer to redirect customers to an external page, you can select ‘External URL.’ You can also add a ‘Payment Success Message’ to thank customers and tell them what they can expect from you next.
After that, you need to go to the ‘Payment’ tab on the left.
This is where you will set the ‘Default Price.’
And under the ‘Payment Methods,’ be sure to check off the box next to Alipay to begin accepting Alipay payments on your site.
You can also choose other payment methods, such as a Card or ACH direct deposit. If you have WP Simple Pay Pro, you will have full access to 13 payment methods, including Apple Pay, Google Pay, Afterpay, Klarna, Cashapp, and more.
Then, go to the ‘Form Fields’ tab on the left. Here, you can add or change any existing form fields.
All you need to do is hit the dropdown menu under ‘Form Fields’ and click ‘Add Field.’
You have plenty of options to choose from, such as phone, address, coupon, and more.
Step 4: Publish Your Alipay Form
Once your form is ready to go, make sure to save your changes. Next up, you are ready to publish and embed your Alipay payments form on your site.
Go ahead and click the ‘Publish’ button on the right side.
Now, you will need to embed the form in your WordPress website. Just go to the post or page where you want to include your form. This could be a services page, a product page, or anywhere else.
On the top left corner, hit the ‘+’ button.
Search for the WP Simple Pay block to add it to your page.
If you run a WooCommerce store, then you may want to use a payment plugin instead. While you can add a WP Simple Pay button or form to your product pages, it may not embed into the form as seamlessly.
With a WooCommerce plugin, Alipay will integrate smoothly into the payment page as a checkbox that customers can tick off during the checkout process.
Step 1: Install the WooCommerce Stripe Plugin
To get started, you will need to download the free WooCommerce Stripe plugin. This plugin will redirect users to the Alipay payment page, where they can log in and authorize the payment.
Go to the WooCommerce Stripe plugin page and click on ‘Free Download.’
From here, you will be directed to the cart page.
Check that the order details are correct and hit ‘Proceed to Checkout.’
You’ll be taken to the checkout page. All you need to do is enter your name and email address.
After that, just click on the ‘Pay $0.00’ button.
You’ll be directed to the thank you page.
Just click the ‘Download’ button so you can download the plugin files to your computer.
From here, all you need to do is install the WooCommerce Stripe plugin by uploading it to WordPress. If you need help, you can follow our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Step 2: Enable Alipay in WooCommerce
Upon activation, you need to head over to WooCommerce » Settings in your WordPress dashboard. Then go ahead and navigate to the ‘Payments’ tab.
If you scroll down the page, you will find ‘Stripe Alipay’ as a payment method.
Simply toggle on the button to enable Alipay for your WooCommerce site. Click on ‘Save changes’ at the bottom.
Then go ahead and click ‘Finish set up’ next to the Alipay option.
Step 3: Add Your Stripe Account
You will now be asked to integrate your Stripe account.
Just hit the ‘Create or connect an account button’ to add your Stripe account to WooCommerce.
All you have to do is choose your Stripe account and click ‘Connect.’
If you don’t have a Stripe account yet, then you can select ‘Create a new account.’
Step 4: Activate Alipay
Now, your Stripe account is fully connected to your online store.
You will need to go back to the ‘Payments’ tab. Next to the ‘Stripe Alipay’ method, click on ‘Manage.’
This is where you will be able to configure the Alipay settings, such as the name and description that appear on your checkout page.
Go ahead and click on the ‘Activate in your Stripe Dashboard link.’
You will be directed to your Stripe account’s payment method tab in the settings.
Scroll down to find ‘Alipay,’ and next to it, click on ‘Request access.’
From here, a popup message will appear asking if you want to activate Alipay payments.
Simply hit the ‘Continue’ button to accept Alipay payments in your WooCommerce store.
After you’ve requested access, you need to wait for Stripe to approve your account. It should take about 1-2 business days before you can begin accepting Alipay payments.
When you are approved, you should receive an email from Stripe letting you know that Alipay has been activated for your Stripe account.
On top of that, you will want to go to your Stripe account’s payment methods and make sure that it doesn’t say ‘Pending’ next to Alipay.
Otherwise, you’ll have to wait until Stripe approves your request.
Now, all you need to do is check that the Alipay method appears at checkout for your customers.
Go to any product page and go through the checkout progress. Under the order summary, you should see an option for customers to pay with Alipay.
When the customer places an order, they should be sent directly to the Alipay login page. That is where they can log in to their Alipay account and finalize their payment.
Then, the money goes straight into your Stripe account through the integration.
There you have it! Now, you are ready to accept Alipay payments in your WooCommerce store.
Do you want to offer installment payments on your eCommerce store?
Offering an installment plan encourages customers to purchase more products or services. It makes it easier for them to buy expensive items and helps boost sales on your WooCommerce store.
In this article, we will show you how to set up installment payments in WooCommerce using different plugins.
Why Set Up Installment Payments in WooCommerce?
Installment payments allow customers to break up the total amount of a product or service into smaller portions. Instead of paying the price in full, users can pay a certain amount upfront and then pay the remaining amount over a period of time.
As a WooCommerce store owner, you can select the timeframe you’d like to offer to customers for repayments. Usually, this depends on the product and niche you’re in, but you can offer anything between 6 to 24 months.
Setting up installment payments in WooCommerce helps provide alternative payment methods to customers. It encourages your visitors to purchase more valuable and expensive items.
You can also reduce cart abandonment by offering an installment payment option. Customers might not purchase products if they don’t have sufficient funds and would exit your site without checking out. With an option to pay in installments, you can motivate them to buy the product and boost sales.
That said, let’s see which plugins are the best for WooCommerce installment payments.
Affirm Payments is a WooCommerce extension that lets you add tailored buy now pay later programs to your eCommerce store. Affirm is a payment service that helps customers pay at their own pace.
The plugin is beginner-friendly to use. Once you install it, you’ll see the Affirm payment option in WooCommerce. Customers can then select a payment plan that works for them.
Affirm offers 4 interest-free payment features, where customers can split the initial cost into 4 installments with no interest. This makes it easier to sell high-ticket items, and customers won’t have any impact on their credit scores.
Besides that, Affirm Payments also allows customers to choose their payment terms. The best part is that it shows the exact amount that needs to be paid every month with the annual percentage rate (APR).
Who Should Use It: Affirm Payments plugin is a great solution for anyone looking to add just a buy now pay later payment option in WooCommerce. The provider helps create installment plans for customers and also offers 4 interest-free installments every 2 weeks.
Pros:
Easily add Affirm as a payment option in WooCommerce
Offer ‘Pay in 4’ plans with no interest (0% APR)
Allow customers to choose their installment plan
Showcase all payment plans in a single view
Cons:
Limited customization options from within the WordPress dashboard
High-interest rate (up to 30%) for some items
Sometimes Affirm may require a credit check before transaction approval
Pricing: Affrim Payments is a free WooCommerce extension.
Klarna Payments for WooCommerce is a free WordPress plugin that adds Klarna payment options to your online store. Klarna is a Swedish fintech company that offers online payment solutions for website owners.
Using the plugin, you can offer customers to pay the full amount at checkout, first try the product and then pay later, or slice the total amount into installments.
It provides customers the flexibility of choosing when they want to pay in the installment plan. There is also an option to provide 4 interest-free payments, so customers can save costs and pay for a product in smaller portions.
The setup process is very easy. First, you’ll need to sign up for a Klarna account. Once that’s done, simply use the plugin to add Klarna as a payment option in WooCommerce. Klarna will then approve your store, and you can start offering installment plants to customers.
The best part about using Klarna is that it easily integrates with WP Simple Pay. You can use it to offer buy now, pay later payment plans in WordPress.
WP Simple Pay comes with a built-in Klarna (Buy Now, Pay Later) Form template. This way, you let customers choose the payback period for a product.
On the downside, Klarna will work with merchant accounts and is only available in selected countries. For instance, it’s available in Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, France, Italy, Poland, Spain, Portugal, Great Britain, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, the USA, and Australia.
Why Should You Use It: If you’re looking for a plugin that offers flexible installment plans for your online store, then Klarna Payments for WooCommerce is perfect. It’s easy to use and also integrates with WP Simple Pay, so you can create payment forms without editing code.
Pros:
A free plugin that lets you add installment plans
Beginner-friendly to use
Offer 4 interest-free installment plans
Let customers choose when they want to pay (up to 24 months)
Easily integrates with WP Simple Pay
Cons:
Only available in limited countries
Not many customization options
Pricing: Klarna Payments for WooCommerce is 100% free to use.
Jifiti Buy Now Pay Later is the next WooCommerce installment payments plugin on our list. It adds a Jifiti payment option to your online store and offers a white-labeled buy now pay later platform for WooCommerce.
Jifiti is a platform that connects lenders, merchants, and customers. With a white-label program, you can use your custom branding while offering installment plans. The service lets you add zero-interest split payments, pay in 3 or 4 installments, and more.
In the background, Jifiti will connect you with leading banks and lenders like MasterCard, Credit Agricole, and Citizens Pay. This way, customers can break large payments into smaller amounts and pay them over a period of time.
What makes this plugin different is that if financing is not approved by one of the lenders, it will automatically pass your customer’s financing application to the next lender in the network. As a result, you’ll see more financing and a boost in sales.
Who Should Use It: The Jifiti Buy Now Pay Later plugin is excellent for users who want to add a white-label installment payment program to their WooCommerce store. You can work with a lender or a bank to add a buy now pay later option on your site and then customize its appearance.
Pros:
Create branded installment payment plans for your store
Offer interest-free installment plans
Work with leading banks and lenders for financing options
Automatically pass the customer’s financing application to the next lender
Cons:
Setting up white labels can be time-consuming
Customers would have to wait for their financing to be approved
Pricing: Jifiti Buy Now Pay Later is a free WooCommerce plugin.
WooCommerce Deposits is a premium plugin that lets you set up installment plans on your online store. The plugin offers flexible payment options and allows you to offer custom schedules based on days, weeks, or months.
You can create multiple payment plans for your WooCommerce store. It also lets you choose variable percentages and intervals for each payment. For instance, you can decide what percentage a customer should pay initially and then over time.
The plugin is straightforward to use and offers a clean interface. You can easily create and manage all your installment payment schedules from the WordPress dashboard.
Who Should Use It: From our testing, WooCommerce Deposits is a user-friendly plugin that’s perfect for creating custom payment schedules. If you’re looking to set up multiple installment plans for your WooCommerce store, then this plugin is for you.
Pros:
Easily create custom payment schedules
Have full control over payment amount and intervals
Very easy to use and setup
Add a description to each payment schedule to guide customers
Cons:
Limited customization options for changing appearance
There is no free version
Pricing: WooCommerce Deposits is a paid extension and will cost you $18.25 per month.
Splitit is the next WooCommerce installment payments plugin on our list. It lets you add installment payments to your online store with ease.
In our experience, what’s different about this plugin is that it allows customers to use their existing debit or credit card to split the total amount into smaller portions. Customers don’t have to get a loan or wait for approval to purchase a product.
As long as a customer has available credit on their card that’s equal to the price of the purchase, they can easily use it to set up installments.
Splitit supports different card network providers, including Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover Global Network, and more. The plugin is also easy to use. Simply connect your merchant account and configure the settings in your WordPress dashboard.
Besides that, Splitit also offers a white label buy now pay later feature, supports high-value orders (up to $50,000), allows installment plans up to 24 months, lets you set up interest-free payment plans, and more.
Who Should Use It: If you’re looking for a way to allow customers to use their own credit cards for installment payments, then Splitit is the best solution. Plus, it works with popular payment network partners and also lets you create white-label buy now pay later plans.
Pros:
Allows customers to use debit or credit cards for installment plans
Offers customization options inside the WordPress dashboard
No application or credit checks are needed for customers
Create an interest or fee-free repayment schedule
Cons:
Works with limited payment providers
It doesn’t improve the user’s credit score
Pricing: Splitit is a free WordPress plugin that you can use.
The plugin lets your customers have the flexibility to reserve a product or service and break the total amount into 2 installments. The first installment is at the time of purchase and the second installment is the remaining balance, which customers can pay at a later time.
You can set the deposit amount for all the products in your store. There is an option to choose a fixed amount or a percentage value of the total amount.
The plugin also lets you set up rules and charge different deposit amounts based on the products a user adds to the cart.
Who Should Use It: The plugin is perfect for online stores that require an initial deposit or down payment to book or reserve a product or service. They can then collect the remaining payment on delivery or set it up for an even later time.
Pros:
Simple and clean plugin to use
Easily collect deposits for products and services
Create rules to define the deposit value
Easily manage remaining balances for your orders
Cons:
You can only set up 2 installments
Limited integration options
No free version
Pricing: YITH WooCommerce Deposits / Down Payments will cost you $129.99 per year.
The best part is that it works with all the payment methods that are supported by WooCommerce. You can simply choose the deposit amount or percentage customers will have to pay at the time of purchase.
Besides that, you’ll also see a history of all the partial payments on your WooCommerce store from the dashboard.
While the free plugin is great for collecting deposits, you can unlock more features in its premium version. For instance, you can select the payment term, offer a zero deposit option, set up payment reminders for customers, and more.
Who Should Use It: Deposit & Partial Payments for WooCommerce is a great plugin for anyone looking to set up down payments on their online store for free. You can also create a payment plan and set up installments in WooCommerce. It is also a great alternative to YITH WooCommerce Deposits / Down Payments.
Pros:
Add a deposit or down payment option for free
Get multilingual support
Easily integrate with WooCommerce-supported payment methods
Set up fixed or percentage deposits
Cons:
The free version of the plugin offers limited features
Pricing: Deposit & Partial Payments for WooCommerce is a free WordPress plugin. However, it also offers a premium version with prices starting from $29 per year.
The best part, WP Simple Pay supports buy now, pay later payment plans. You can select different methods, including installment payments. Simply choose the billing time period to accept installments.
It supports 13 payment methods in 135+ currencies from over 45 countries. You can easily add credit/debit cards, ACH debits, Klarna, Afterpay, Apply Pay, Google Pay, and other payment methods in WooCommerce.
WP Simple Pay comes with pre-built form templates. You can simply select the Installment Plan Form template and enter your details.
Next, you can customize the installment plan form according to your requirements.
WP Simple Pay lets you choose the billing period. For instance, there are options to break the actual amount into smaller portions, and you can select the billing period based on days, weeks, months, or years.
Besides that, you can also enable recurring payment options, create customized receipts, set up purchase restrictions, automatically calculate taxes, and more.
Why Should You Use It: WP Simple Pay is best for setting up installment plans and accepting credit card payments without setting up a shopping cart. It’s super easy to use, and you can add a purchase button anywhere on your online store without editing code.
Pros:
Very easy to set up and use
Add a Stripe purchase button without editing code
No need to set up a shopping cart to collect online payments
Offer pre-built payment form templates, including installment plan form
Supports 13 payment methods
Easily integrates with buy now, pay later providers like Klarna
Cons:
The free version offers the installment plan form but has limited features
3% credit card fee per transaction when using the free version
Pricing: WP Simple Pay offers premium plans starting from $44.55 per year. There is also a free version of WP Simple Pay you can use to get started and add installment plans to your WooCommerce store.
Which is the Best WooCommerce Installment Payments Plugin?
After reviewing different plugins, we believe that Affirm Payments is the best WooCommerce installment payments plugin.
It lets you create custom installment plans for customers and also offers a 4-interest-free installment plan feature. Customers can even choose their own repayment plan and break the total amount into smaller portions.
The best part is that you can use Affirm Payments for free.
On the other hand, if you’re looking for a free WooCommerce plugin that lets you add a buy now pay later option, then you can also check out Klarna Payments for WooCommerce.
FAQs about WooCommerce Installment Payments
Here are some common questions users have about setting up WooCommerce installment payments.
1. What is the WooCommerce plugin to pay in installments?
Affirm Payments is the best WooCommerce plugin for setting up pay in installments. It offers multiple payment methods, allows you to add a buy now pay later option, built-in templates, and more.
2. What are the payment options in WooCommerce?
WooCommerce offers multiple payment options. You can allow customers to pay through their credit cards, Stripe, PayPal, Klarna, Apply Pay, and more.
3. How do I add pay later to WooCommerce?
You can use a plugin like WP Simple Pay to add an installment plan and pay later in WooCommerce. Other plugins like Affirm and Klarna Payments in WooCommerce are also great for setting up split payments.
John Turner – Co-Founder of SeedProd
