Taking your business online can come with plenty of highs and lows, but properly positioning yourself right from the start sets you up for success. One of the most significant steps on your journey is deciding which eCommerce platform you’ll use.
Is this an easy choice to make, though?
The simple answer is no. Like any fundamental part of your business, there are various things to consider, the first of which is whether WooCommerce or WordPress is the right option for you.
Here’s the thing – they are not the same thing and not even on the same spectrum. That said, what is the difference between WordPress and WooCommerce? What sets them apart? Do they have similarities? When should you use which? Are there alternatives to WooCommerce ?
The questions might seem endless, but you’re in the right place for all the answers. Let’s get to it.
A quick breakdown of WordPress and WooCommerce
If you’re in a rush, we’ve put together this side-by-side breakdown of both for quick reference.
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WooCommerce |
WordPress |
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Has a free trial |
Has a free trial |
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WooCommerce hosting starts at R2,200 p/y, domain registration starts at R74 p/m |
WordPress Business starts at R460 p/m |
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Can’t be used without WordPress |
Standalone content management system |
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Has extensive customisation |
Has extensive customisation |
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Has reasonable scalability |
Has reasonable scalability |
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Excellent mobile responsiveness |
Basic mobile responsiveness |
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Basic SEO features with inherited SEO features from WordPress |
Excellent SEO features out of the box |
Taking a closer look at WooCommerce
Okay, first things first: What is WooCommerce? It’s a free, open-source eCommerce plugin for WordPress that extends the latter’s capabilities. Originally a simple plugin in 2011, it is today the backbone of nearly 28% of all eCommerce stores worldwide.
In fact, as of January 2025, South Africa has a staggering 56,308 live WooCommerce stores, with big names that include Writers Write and the African Snakebite Institute. This is thanks to WooCommerce’s user-friendly platform, incredible customisation, effortless flexibility, and intuitive control.
Pricing
Although WooCommerce is free to download and use with WordPress, you should keep in mind some extra costs. First up is the price for your domain name and registration, which starts at R99 per year and scales up depending on your chosen extension. This is charged annually as a renewal fee.
Next, you’ll need hosting, with costs varying by traffic volume and server specs. Fees can climb to R90,000 monthly. Shared hosting ranges from R56 to R188 monthly. Generally, expect around R2,260 yearly.
Consider your online business's appearance. In today’s eCommerce world, being unique and engaging is essential, but long gone are the days when premium themes were your only solution. While free themes are available, paid WooCommerce themes cost around R370 to R1,800 annually. Given these costs, the better option is to opt for integrations like Elementor Pro, which features unlimited design options and templates.
Shipping impacts pricing, and WooCommerce has an effective shipping extension for local couriers. The plugin is free, but courier fees apply. Integrating a payment gateway is essential for local payment options, with standard card processing fees depending on your provider.
Average annual cost: Between R5,600 and R7,500 (additional hosting costs excluded)
Note: All pricing is subject to exchange rate fluctuation.
Features
- Provides free shipping through the WooCommerce Shipping extension
- Offers complimentary themes for your online store
- Delivers a wide range of global and local payment gateways
- Automates tax calculations
- Gives live shipping rates from major carriers
- Enables sellers to offer subscriptions
- The Woo Marketplace in South Africa features hundreds of free and paid extensions for enhanced functionalities
- Integrates with social media platforms and online marketplaces
- Includes a dedicated support team and developers for customisation assistance
- Facilitates email marketing with Mailchimp
- Tracks analytics and reporting through Google Analytics
- Supports multilingual content and various currencies for a global audience
- Allows selling via multiple channels and point-of-sale
- The WooCommerce Mobile app allows you to add products, monitor sales, create orders, and receive sale notifications
SEO and mobile responsiveness
The plugin offers basic SEO features like meta descriptions and category pages, but you’ll need additional extensions for enhanced SEO. WooCommerce enables SEO-friendly URLs and provides various plugins for better features like meta tags and sitemaps. Here are some top WooCommerce SEO plugins:
Customisation capability
WooCommerce offers extensive customisation options. However, you might need technical expertise, basic coding abilities, or assistance from a developer for some customisations.
Personalising product pages with Elementor is a great way to enhance your store's individuality. It offers a user-friendly drag-and-drop interface and features like AI-assisted design tools, real-time editing, and customisable templates.
The integrated store designer lets you personalise your store’s design by selecting your preferred fonts, colours, layouts, and additional options. You can also integrate plugins and extensions to introduce new features and capabilities, improving the user experience.
Integration capability
WooCommerce integrates with WordPress and plugins to enhance features and streamline operations. It simplifies order processing, tracks sales, manages inventory, and promotes upselling.
Integrating third-party plugins can create vulnerabilities and slow down your site. To avoid these issues, choose a reliable host, research plugins and themes, and consider security plugins. Ensure WooCommerce plugins meet your store's needs. Many free options exist, such as WooCommerce Shipping, Google for WooCommerce, and various payment gateways.
Scalability
WooCommerce scales well, handling more transactions and a wide range of products, but has limitations. A well-customised WooCommerce site can manage high traffic, with some stores hosting tens of thousands of products while maintaining performance.
Its open-source design lets developers adapt stores for various businesses. However, it is mainly optimised for small—to medium-sized enterprises. Small businesses struggling with customisation or multiple integrations encounter scalability issues, while larger companies typically prefer platforms like Magento and BigCommerce.
The pros and cons of WooCommerce
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Pros |
Cons |
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WooCommerce Mobile app is free to use on iOS and Android |
WooCommerce stores aren't secure by default and require additional security measures |
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As an open-source platform, you can customise your store to your specific needs |
Initial setup can be challenging for beginners |
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Offers seamless WordPress integration |
Ongoing maintenance can be complicated |
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It has thousands of free and paid themes and plugins for extensive customisation |
Updates can cause performance issues |
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It has built-in analytics and SEO tools to help your business grow |
Has limited scalability |
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Generally has lower hosting and maintenance costs than other eCommerce platforms |
WooCommerce, without plugins and extensions, has limited customisation options |
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Supports a wide range of payment methods |
It shares the same security risks as WordPress |
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Integrates with POS (Point of Sale) |
You need to pay extra for plugins and extensions with better features and tools |
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Integrates with a variety of third-party services and tools, such as marketing tools and advanced CRM systems |
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Average user reviews
Bluehost reports that WooCommerce has a 4.4/5 rating from 1,162 reviews. Users find WooCommerce flexible and effective for search visibility. However, non-technical users may struggle with setup and maintenance.
- Ease of use:3/5
- Customer service: 4/5
- Features: 5/5
- Value for money:6/5
- Likelihood to recommend:3/5
Taking a closer look at WordPress
Now, let’s talk about WordPress. In contrast to WooCommerce, WordPress isn’t an eCommerce plugin. Instead, it’s a content management system (or CMS). Starting out as a basic blogging tool, it now powers more than 45% of all websites worldwide, thanks to its user-friendly interface and extensive customisation.
Locally, there are a staggering 276,620 WordPress users in South Africa, of which 66,427 are eCommerce-related. Clearly, the platform does what it does best, with heavy hitters such as Takealot, MTN, and Ackermans entrusting WordPress with their online presence.
Pricing
WordPress does have a free-to-use option, but its functionalities are pretty limited. This necessitates upgrading your plan to their Business tier, which starts at R461 per month, billed annually at R5,530.
Note: The pricing below is based on WordPress Business (wordpress.com) and not their individual WooCommerce offering.
Other costs that you’ll need to consider include your domain and hosting. WordPress.com offers managed hosting services that allow you to build a site with pre-installed WordPress software. That said, there isn’t really a fixed cost that you can use to plan, considering that pricing will depend on your unique requirements. However, for your domain alone, plan to spend about R99 per year.
When it comes to functionality integration, most WordPress plans include several built-in features that eliminate the need to install multiple plugins. Plugins are available, though, with premium options ranging from R90 to R1,700. Moving onto themes, WordPress.com does provide a wide range of included themes with customisation options. If you want access to premium themes you’ll need to upgrade your plan.
As for shipping, you can use any of the many plugins available on WordPress, with several easily integrated with local courier partners. Finally, you’ll need to utilise a local payment gateway to process payments, with pricing based on your chosen provider.
Features
- Has optimised managed hosting, ensuring a smooth hosting experience
- It has over 28 data centres across six continents, enhancing local site loading times
- Among the fastest and most secure DNS features worldwide
- Security features include DDoS and WAF Protection, malware scanning and removal, and built-in two-factor authentication for user accounts.
- Provides stats and insights through Jetpack Stats and Google Analytics
- Easily monetise your site, collect payments, run WordAds, and use paid content blocks exclusive to paying subscribers.
- Extensive design tools that include hundreds of pre-made themes, an intuitive block editor, VideoPress, pre-built block patterns, and more.
- It offers various marketing features such as social media, email marketing, and the WordPress.com newsletter.
- Delivers spam protection through Akismet
- It has more than 50,000 different plugins to choose from
- Allows you to stage your site to test functionality, features, and content before launch and for maintenance.
SEO and mobile responsiveness
Regarding SEO-friendliness, WordPress is already inherently focused on best practices as a content management system. With this foundation, it offers clean code, responsive design, and, of course, easy content management. That said, it also includes and supports numerous SEO plugins that can benefit your search engine ranking; these include:
Customisation capability
Considering that WooCommerce and WordPress stack up quite well when pitted against each other, one defining area is their customisation capabilities. Given WordPress’s functionality and purpose, it comes with a vast array of themes and plugins that can help you set yourself apart.
Beyond simple changes, WordPress extends its customisation to aesthetic changes, such as layouts and colours, and functional modifications, like adding a form or enhancing SEO. WordPress themes also range from basic blog designs to complex layouts for business websites.
Integration capability
WordPress integrates with many plugins and extensions that can diversify your site. The best part? Integrating elements into your website is easy and unlocks various benefits, including enhanced functionality, streamlined workflow, and effortless data synchronisation.
Being able to add a wealth of features to your site, several necessary WordPress integrations to know are:
- WooCommerce
- Social Media Feeds
- Mailchimp
- Google Analytics
Read more: WooCommerce Plugins
Note to client: Internal link available to post when live.
Scalability
Another big win for WordPress (thanks to its CMS background) is its exceptional scalability, which makes it perfect for growing businesses. It can handle large amounts of traffic and users and easily adapts to unique business needs.
Scaling with WordPress is very easy, and there are numerous ways to do so, including using a scalable hosting provider, caching plugins, database optimisation via WP-Optimise, and more. Other options include using a CDN (content delivery network) like Cloudflare and PageSpeed Insights.
The pros and cons of WordPress
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Pros |
Cons |
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User-friendly free-to-use content management system |
Due to its open-source nature, there are potential security concerns |
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Nearly 60,000 plugins to choose from |
The more plugins you use, the more updates you’ll face |
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Utilises robust SEO techniques and best practices |
Customisation can be very costly |
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Excellent mobile responsiveness |
Larger themes can take time to load, causing page speed issues |
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Open-source platform to study, change, and redistribute source code |
You’ll need to use plugins and can’t operate a site without them |
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Easy to create and publish content |
Advanced customisation is only possible with a developer or coding knowledge, |
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Undergoes regular maintenance |
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Extensive social media integration |
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Allows for custom integration with payment gateways and other code-based selling tools. |
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Average user reviews
Capterra reports that WordPress has an 8.6 out of 10 from 15,018 reviews. Users find it easy to use, with customisation options, and exceptionally integratable. However, non-technical users may struggle with maintenance and theme designs.
- Ease of use:2/5
- Customer service:1/5
- Features: 5/5
- Value for money:6/5
- Likelihood to recommend: 8½
FAQs: WooCommerce vs. WordPress
If you’re still stuck with lingering questions, here are some answers to the most commonly asked ones.
The final verdict: WordPress vs. WooCommerce
When all is said and done, it’s clear that both platforms have unique strengths and weaknesses. Considering the purpose of each, WordPress is more suited to entrepreneurs looking to evolve and grow their business by putting in the time and work. WooCommerce is an excellent alternative if you want to put your business online and get going immediately.
Read Next: WooCommerce vs Shopify
Note to client: Internal link available to this post when live.
