Hostinger is a fast-growing website that recently landed on the official list of WordPress.org recommended hosts. I’d spent a little bit of time fiddling with Hostinger tools before, and I wanted to build a deeper understanding of how — and how well — they work.

To accomplish this, I purchased a Hostinger plan and tested the site creation tools for ease of use. I then hosted a test site for one week, using uptime monitoring and speed tests to determine server performance. Finally, I tested the customer service by reading the knowledge base and reaching out via live chat. You can learn more about the full process of how we test web hosting services.

Overall, I was impressed by Hostinger’s offerings. Despite providing low prices, both for the introductory term and for renewal pricing, Hostinger packs a lot of value. It delivers excellent site creation and management tools, exceptional server performance and impressive security features. The only drawback is the mediocre customer service. This makes Hostinger a great choice for simple sites, especially for-fun hobby sites and blogs but can make it a poor choice for business sites.

Hostinger plans and pricing

Hostinger offers several types of web hosting:

• Shared hosting
• Managed WordPress hosting
• Managed WooCommerce hosting
• Website builder hosting (regular)
• Website builder hosting (e-commerce)
• Cloud hosting
• VPS hosting

Here’s a quick breakdown of the Hostinger plans for each of these hosting types:

Next, let’s take a closer look at Hostinger’s plans.

Shared hosting

Shared hosting divides the bandwidth, processing power and storage of a web server — a specialized computer built for hosting websites — between many websites. Each website gets a predetermined percentage of these resources, limiting the number of pages your site can store and the monthly visitors it can accommodate. Shared hosting is typically good for small-to-medium websites with 1,000 to 2,000 pages and 10,000 to 400,000 monthly visitors.

Shared hosting is also great for first-time website owners with a low budget, as the server’s configured for you and the cost is quite low, often $3 to $5 a month to start and $10 to $20 per month on renewal.

Hostinger’s shared hosting plans are particularly generous, including:

• Hosting for at least 100 websites
• Free domain for the first year
• Free site migration for all of your sites
• Secure socket layer — SSL — for all of your sites
• Email hosting
• Weekly backups
• WordPress auto-updates
• WordPress vulnerabilities scanner
• LiteSpeed-enhanced servers
• Hostinger website builder with 150 site templates
• Comprehensive security: firewall, distributed denial of service — DDoS — protection, malware scanning and domain privacy

There are also some key differences, primarily in storage and the number of monthly visitors each plan can accommodate:

All prices are based on a four-year term. Your per-month price will increase if you choose a shorter contract length.

Managed WordPress hosting

WordPress is a popular content management system, or CMS, for creating, organizing and maintaining blog posts and web pages without needing code. According to W3Techs, 43.4% of all websites use WordPress, and developers have created almost 60,000 plugins that make it possible to accomplish almost anything you can imagine with WordPress. This has led many web hosts to create WordPress-specific plans that include things like auto-updates to the CMS.

Hostinger offers three managed WordPress plans with the same prices and many of the same features as the shared hosting plans. In fact, the biggest differences are things you’ll get less of: managed WordPress plans start with just 25GB of storage — enough for at least 250 pages — and a limit of 10 websites. The highest-tier managed WordPress plan offers 200GB — enough for at least 2,000 pages — and lets you host up to 200 websites. Due to these limitations, I recommend that most WordPress users choose the shared hosting plans instead.

Managed WooCommerce hosting

WooCommerce is a popular e-commerce plugin for WordPress that makes it easy to build an online store, with dozens of extensions for things like subscription services and paid communities. Hostinger offers three managed WooCommerce plugins with one-click WooCommerce setup and a variety of third-party integrations.

The lowest-tier managed WooCommerce hosting plan, Business, starts at $4 a month (renewing at $14 a month) with a four-year contract. The Business plan includes one-click WooCommerce setup, free store migration, limited third-party WooCommerce integrations, a free Amazon affiliate plugin and all of the WordPress features included in the Premium shared hosting plan. You’ll also get enough bandwidth for 100,000 monthly visitors and enough storage for at least 2,000 pages.

The highest-tier managed WooCommerce hosting plan, Cloud Professional, starts at $15 a month (renews at $40 a month) with a four-year contract. Cloud Professional includes everything from the Business plan, plus expert e-commerce tech support, AI tools, hosting for up to 300 websites and enough storage for at least 2,500 pages. Cloud Professional sites can accommodate 300,000 monthly visits.

Website builder hosting

A website builder is a visual tool for building a website without code. Website builders are typically proprietary, meaning they’re owned by individual hosting companies, so the company handles things like software updates and maintenance, leaving you to focus on the more creative side of things. Hostinger offers a particularly robust website builder tool, complete with an AI site builder that creates a site for you in seconds based on basic information about the purpose of your site and its brand.

Most Hostinger plans include access to the Hostinger website builder but you can access a more tailored hosting experience with the website builder plans. There are two of these plans, with starting costs ranging from $3 to $4 a month ($12 to $14 a month on renewal) with a four-year contract. The main difference between these plans is that the higher-tier option includes more AI content generation tools and some e-commerce functionality. There are no storage or bandwidth limits listed for these plans.

E-commerce website builder hosting

Hostinger also offers a specialized plan for users who want to build an e-commerce store with the Hostinger website builder. This plan starts at $4 a month ($14 a month on renewal) with a four-year contract for the website builder and all related AI content generation tools. You’ll also get e-commerce features like the ability to build an online store with product pages, payment processing with no transaction fees and basic inventory management tools for 500 digital or physical products. There are no storage or bandwidth limits listed for this plan.

VPS hosting

Virtual private server, or VPS, hosting divides one physical server into several isolated virtual servers. Each server has dedicated resources, like processing power and bandwidth, typically allowing VPS sites to host more web pages and accommodate more visitors than sites on shared hosting. A VPS also gives you more server customization options, like the ability to choose security software for your VPS.

Hostinger offers unmanaged VPS hosting, which means that you’ll be responsible for configuring and maintaining all digital aspects of your server. This includes installing software, making sure it’s up to date and monitoring/managing the security of your VPS.

The most affordable VPS plan from Hostinger starts at $5 a month ($8 a month on renewal) with a two-year contract. This plan includes enough storage for at least 500 web pages and enough bandwidth to accommodate up to 4 million visitors, making it ideal for static business websites and blogs that are just starting out. E-commerce sites, with their numerous product pages and large image files, may require more storage. Long-running blogs with thousands of blog posts will also need more storage.

The most expensive Hostinger VPS plan starts at $20 a month (renewing at $45 a month) with a two-year contract. This plan includes enough storage for at least 4,000 pages and enough bandwidth for 32 million monthly visitors.

Hostinger ease of use: Website creation has never been simpler

I started the hands-on portion of my Hostinger review by testing three key functions for ease of use: the purchase process, account management and website/server management.

Purchase process

The Hostinger purchase process is pretty simple. Selecting a plan takes you to a page where you can view the details of the purchase and change your contract length from the four-year default. Renewal pricing is listed under the contract selection process, a nice change from sites like HostGator — which lists renewal prices in tiny font — or A2 Hosting — which hides renewal prices entirely. Prices update automatically if you change the contract length.

Next, you’ll be asked to create an account. You can either create a unique account with your email address and a new password or log in with your Google account, then move on to the billing area.

Hostinger accepts several payment methods including credit cards, PayPal and cryptocurrency. Most web hosts accept only credit cards, making this a notable feature.

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The other notable thing about Hostinger’s purchase process is the complete lack of upsells. Where most hosts encourage you to buy add-ons — and some, like HostGator, even pre-select add-ons for you — Hostinger doesn’t even display other services for sale. For context, A2 Hosting is the only other host I’ve worked with that didn’t have any upsells whatsoever.

Account management

Hostinger’s account management area is also easy to navigate. Your hosting package and domain are clearly listed in the center of the page, along with a box encouraging you to use Hostinger’s AI tools. The sidebar includes links to areas for essential tasks like website, domain and email management. You can even access billing management (a feature hidden in a drop-down menu by companies like HostGator) from this sidebar.

Website and server management

Hostinger offers a few options for website creation, including AI-powered tools that build a website for you — using either WordPress or the Hostinger website builder — based on information like your site’s name and purpose.

I decided to build my site from scratch, clicking the Manage button next to my hosting package. This leads to a page with links to essential hosting features, like email setup, and an Auto-Install button for installing WordPress (or your preferred CMS) on your site.

The installation process takes only a few clicks and a couple of minutes for your server to set up your CMS. WordPress users are then greeted by a Hostinger onboarding process that guides you through basic site-building tasks like adding a new page. There’s also a Learn tab with WordPress tutorials and a Tools tab where you can see things like the version of WordPress you’re running. This makes it much easier for first-time website owners and is outmatched only by the A2 Hosting site assistant, which features direct links to more actions like editing your homepage.

WordPress installs from Hostinger feature a Tools plugin that monitors your site health and the LiteSpeed caching plugin for improved site loading times.

Server management is conducted through the hPanel, a proprietary system for managing your website(s), email, files and databases. The website management page I shared earlier is also part of the hPanel, so you can find everything in one place. 

The hPanel offers a clean, visually optimized interface that’s easy to navigate for even the most tech-averse beginners. hPanel tools are also comprehensive, letting you do everything from basic site monitoring to complex tasks like managing the DNS — domain name system — records that let you connect your site to Google Search Console.

I found hPanel to be more user-friendly than the industry-standard cPanel or alternative proprietary tools like the Ionos server management system. There is a downside, however: most free website migration services can only move cPanel sites to a new host, so if you decide to switch hosts, you’ll need to transfer the site yourself. Figuring out how to do this may also be difficult, as most tutorials for manually transferring a site to a new host focus on using cPanel. You may also dislike hPanel if you’re used to cPanel and don’t want to learn a new system.

Overall

Creating a site with Hostinger is incredibly easy, from purchasing a plan to managing your server resources. In fact, it’s the most intuitive site creation process I’ve encountered with any web host, with no upsells during checkout, a simple yet comprehensive account dashboard and the equally uncomplicated Panel. This earns Hostinger a 10/10 ease of use ranking — the highest ease of use ranking I’ve given any hosting company so far. Only A2 Hosting has even come close, earning a 9/10 with its comprehensive guided WordPress install and site assistant.

Hostinger performance: Reliable and fast

There are two key metrics to consider when determining a web hosting company’s performance:

• Uptime: The percentage of time your site spends online and accessible to visitors. Uptime matters because there are thousands of sites competing in every niche, so users who can’t load one site will often leave for another site, resulting in lost traffic and possibly even lost money.
• Site speed: The number of seconds it takes your site to load. Browsers are used to instant connections and there’s a good chance they’ll leave your site if they can’t get one, making site speed one of the most important factors in a website’s success.

I spent one week testing my Hostinger site to see how well it performed on both of these metrics. I also examined Hostinger’s performance tools to understand how the company helps its users optimize site speed.

Performance tools

Hostinger primarily improves site speed through caching, a protocol that stores static information, like a website’s layout. With caching, information is housed in a data storage layer programmed to run at the speed of either your web server’s CPU — central processing unit — or a visitor’s CPU. Data stored this way can be accessed much faster than data stored using the typical RAM, or random access memory.

WordPress sites built with Hostinger come with the LiteSpeed caching plugin pre-installed. LiteSpeed offers multiple types of caching, image optimization and code minification, which is a protocol for reducing the size of JavaScript and HTML files to improve site speed. Users on higher-tier plans can access additional object caching tools for WordPress to further improve loading times.

There’s also a Cache Manager in the Advanced area of hPanel. You can use this tool to enable automatic caching with a refresh rate of every 30 minutes, regardless of the CMS you’re using.

Higher-tier users can also access a content delivery network, or CDN, that stores data in several networked servers around the globe. This ensures faster site speeds for international users, as pulling data from a server close to you is faster than pulling data from a server on the other side of the world.

Uptime

Hostinger offers the industry-standard 99.9% uptime guarantee, promising that server issues won’t cause your site to go down for more than 10 minutes per week. I hooked my site up to BetterStack monitoring for one week to see how Hostinger lives up to this promise.

My test site experienced no downtime during this week, suggesting that Hostinger manages its servers well enough to generally exceed its 99.9% uptime guarantee, earning Hostinger a 10/10 uptime ranking. This is similar to my experience with other top web hosts like GoDaddy and A2 Hosting, which both had 100% uptime during my test week. It’s also better than HostGator — which just barely lived up to its 99.9% uptime guarantee — and InMotion Hosting — which had multiple hours of downtime during my test week.

Site speed

Many experts recommend that your site should load in under 3 seconds, as bounce rate, or the percentage of users who leave your site after viewing only one page, increases by 32% when loading time goes from 1 to 3 seconds.

I spent five days testing my Hostinger site speed using WebPageTest, taking a few measures to maximize my tests’ resemblance of the average user experience:

• Testing at different times of day to see if Hostinger’s servers perform well both during and outside of standard business hours.
• Testing from different locations to estimate how international users would experience Hostinger site’s loading speed.
• Testing on both mobile and desktop to estimate how users on different devices experience sites on Hostinger servers.
• Using the built-in performance tools without modifying the built-in settings or adding extra performance tools.

I came up with the following average site speeds based on these tests:

I then further condensed these numbers into the following averages:

• Average mobile site speed of 2.97 seconds
• Average desktop site speed of 1.74 seconds
• Overall site speed of 2.34 seconds

This makes Hostinger the second fastest host of all the companies I’ve tested so far, falling only slightly behind GoDaddy’s 2.29 second average and earning Hostinger a speed ranking of 8/10. I was pleased with this result, especially since I only used the LiteSpeed settings that were automatically enabled on installation. You may be able to improve site speed by turning on additional LiteSpeed features, such as object cache and image compression.

Overall performance

Hostinger earns a performance ranking of 9/10 thanks to its spectacular uptime and good site speed. This is on par with GoDaddy’s 9/10 (the highest performance ranking of any host I’ve tested so far) and slightly above the 8.4/10 earned by Ionos (the web host with the second-highest overall ranking of the companies I’ve tested so far).

Hostinger security

Hostinger offers users a few layers of security:

• Secure socket layer — SSL — certification: An encryption protocol that protects data sent to and from your site, such as contact information submitted through a form. SSL certification also signals that your site is safe. Some browsers and VPNs won’t even open a site without SSL certification. Google also penalizes sites without SSL certification, making it difficult for these sites to rank well.
• Firewall: Software that filters out malicious data attempting to infiltrate your site or its server, similar to how a Brita filter removes harmful particles from your water. Firewalls can’t protect against every threat, but they can keep most malicious software at bay.
• Distributed denial of service — DDoS — protection: Software that prevents malicious traffic from overwhelming your site/server and shutting it down.
• Malware scanner: Software that scans your site for any malware that gets through the firewall.
• Automated backups: Copies of your site stored on a different server, letting you quickly restore your site if it goes down. The lowest-tier plan includes weekly backups and higher-tier plans include daily backups.
• Secure Access Manager: Software that lets you add collaborators to your hosting plan and control what they can access within your hPanel.

These security measures are similar to the security suites offered by top hosts like Ionos and A2 Hosting. They’re also more than you’ll get with HostGator or DreamHost, which offer only malware scanning through advanced hosting plans or add-ons.

Hostinger customer service: Mediocrity in action

Your web host’s customer service should be available 24/7, with both a knowledge base (an area where you can find tutorials on how to set up and fix things yourself) and direct communication options through live chat, email and phone. I explored Hostinger’s self-serve resources, then reached out to customer service to test the speed and helpfulness of its support team.

Hostinger knowledge base and tutorials

Instead of the usual knowledge base page with links to information in specific categories, like domain and website setup, the question mark in the top right corner of the hPanel takes you to a help page with three options:

• Search the knowledge base for specific assistance
• Access Hostinger’s tutorials
• Start a live chat

I love how this minimalistic approach provides users with the tools they need to seek help without being overwhelming like the InMotion Hosting knowledge base. However, I personally would prefer to have two or three buttons leading to the most commonly requested topics, like domains and WordPress setup — especially since you can access an area just like this by clicking the Knowledge Base link at the bottom of the public-facing Hostinger site.

Searching for a topic opens a new tab with links to relevant articles. I would prefer having the search results show up in the same tab, particularly since I’ve always got too many tabs open to begin with. But the search results themselves are clear and well-organized.

The articles themselves are clearly laid out, with step-by-step instructions accompanied by images to show you how to complete basic tasks. My one disappointment is the lack of video tutorials in this area, which could complicate things for users who prefer to learn through video. Most of these articles also focus on granular tasks, like installing WordPress, rather than the whole process of building a website.

The Hostinger Tutorials area offers more complete walk-throughs for understanding things like how to build a WordPress site. You can either search these tutorials for something specific or scroll the Tutorials page if you want to establish a general understanding of website creation.

This area also includes several video tutorials on topics like how to create a blog with WordPress and how to build an e-commerce store. Hostinger offering these in-depth tutorials in both text and video provides great accessibility for anyone interested in learning about these topics.

Overall, I had a couple of minor quibbles with the functionality of Hostinger’s self-serve help tools, but the comprehensive coverage of hosting-related topics and the availability of in-depth tutorials earn Hostinger a knowledge base ranking of 10/10.

Direct communication

Hostinger offers customer support only via live chat, a stark difference from the combination of live chat, email and phone support offered by other web hosts I’ve tested. While some of those hosts, like InMotion Hosting, limit phone service to higher-tier plans, Hostinger is the first company I’ve tested with no phone service at all. 

I tested Hostinger’s live chat by asking how to do a manual site backup and received step-by-step instructions within 5 minutes. However, the answers seemed like canned AI responses. 

AI responses aren’t inherently bad — especially since the answers I received were helpful and comprehensive — but I wanted to see if I could communicate with a real person. I typed “Speak to a real person” and was connected to an agent within 2 minutes.

Unfortunately, that’s where my positive experience ended. I spent over half an hour waiting for the customer service representative to respond to my questions. This is the longest I’ve waited for any live chat service other than InMotion Hosting. In fact, I was about to close the conversation when a new customer service agent stepped in, sending step-by-step instructions for fixing the issue I mentioned.

Overall, I have mixed feelings about Hostinger’s live chat. The AI is fast and trained to answer a wide range of questions. Speaking to a person took a while, but the customer service rep also provided helpful answers, including links to more comprehensive tutorials. This led me to give Hostinger a live chat ranking of 6/10.

Overall customer service

Ranking Hostinger’s customer service is complicated. The knowledge base and tutorials provide comprehensive, step-by-step guidance for dealing with many simple web tasks. The live chat bot is trained well, providing instant answers to most simple questions — often by sending links to the knowledge base or tutorials. However, even the best-trained bot can’t answer every question or fix every solution, and connecting with a human to answer my questions took longer than it should have.

Averaging out the knowledge base and live chat rankings gives Hostinger’s customer service a 7.5/10 customer service ranking, but there’s another catch: the lack of phone or email support. While this isn’t a huge issue for many users — a lot of us prefer live chat — it is enough to drop Hostinger’s customer service ranking to 6.5/10.

Unfortunately, poor customer service is common among web hosts. DreamHost earned a 3/10 due to its inaccessible live chat and phone service. HostGator earned 6/10 by failing to respond to email requests or follow through on scheduled calls. Even A2 Hosting, a company I otherwise loved working with, only netted a 7.5/10 customer support ranking due to its slow phone support. The only web hosts I’ve received consistently good support from were GoDaddy — ranked at 8/10 — and Ionos — ranked at 9.5/10 — thanks to their prompt live chat and phone support.

Reputation

My experience with Hostinger is only one experience, so I read numerous other Hostinger reviews to get a more well-rounded view of the Hostinger experience. I found over 32,000 Trustpilot reviews for Hostinger with an overall rating of 4.6 out of five stars. However, there are over 2,000 one-star reviews, many of them citing a lack of customer service. Some Trustpilot reviews also cite more serious issues, such as users being charged after they turned off auto-renew and websites being suspended with no warning or explanation. We’ve canceled our plan, so will update this section with our own experience about whether auto-renewal successfully shuts off.

Overall, it seems like the majority of Hostinger customers have a positive experience, but I’m far from the only one who’s experienced poor customer support. And some folks have experienced far worse issues.

Hostinger value: Ideal for low-budget projects

The next thing to consider is how Hostinger’s offerings compare with what you can get from other popular web hosts.

Here’s a quick look at what three of those hosts offer on their basic shared hosting plans:

There are a few conclusions we can draw based on this information:

• Hostinger offers average introductory prices. The $3 a month introductory rate for Hostinger’s lowest-tier plan is higher than the $2 a month for A2 Hosting, but lower than the $3.75 a month for HostGator or the $6 per month from GoDaddy.
• Introductory contracts at Hostinger are longer than normal. Hostinger requires a four-year contract to get the best prices for its shared and WordPress hosting plan, a full year longer than the three years expected from the other companies discussed here.
• Hostinger’s renewal prices are low. At $8 a month on renewal, Hostinger’s basic plan is more affordable than the $10 charged by HostGator and GoDaddy or the $13 a month charged by A2 Hosting.
• Hostinger offers great storage. The 100GB — enough for at least 1,000 pages — of storage on the lowest-tier Hostinger plan is higher than the base storage offered by HostGator, GoDaddy or A2 Hosting. This is an especially important consideration for e-commerce sites, as product pages and pictures require extensive storage.
• Hostinger offers great WordPress features. Hostinger goes beyond the auto-updates offered in A2 Hosting’s basic shared hosting plan, including a specialized WordPress vulnerabilities scanner and LiteSpeed-enhanced servers. This also puts it miles ahead of GoDaddy and HostGator, which don’t even offer auto-updates on the lowest-tier plan.
• Hostinger offers great security tools. Hostinger offers both the standard protections (SSL certification, firewall protection and DDoS protection) and additional tools like malware scanning and weekly backups. Of the three hosts discussed here, only the A2 Hosting security suite comes close to matching Hostinger’s security standards.

Based on all of this, I give Hostinger a 9/10 for value. The only drawback is that you’ll have to sign up for a full four years to get the best discount, resulting in a higher initial fee. However, the long-term savings — including those netted from the lower renewal pricing — more than makes

Hostinger: Is it worth it?

Let’s take a look at how well Hostinger performed so that you can decide if this is the right web hosting company for your needs and budget:

• Ease of use: 10/10
• Performance: 9/10
• Customer service: 6.5/10
• Value: 9/10

Averaging out these scores gives Hostinger an overall ranking of 8.62/10. This puts Hostinger slightly above our next-highest-ranking web host, Ionos (with its 8.45/10 ranking) and the third-highest, A2 Hosting (8.25/10). Based on this ranking, I can confidently recommend Hostinger if you’re looking for shared or WordPress hosting and you’re comfortable using live chat for all of your customer service needs.

If you prefer receiving customer support via phone or you just want to ensure you’re getting the fastest, most reliable customer service on the market, I recommend buying hosting from Ionos instead.

Lots of users think that WordPress experts rely heavily on custom code for their sites. In our experience, that’s not the case.

Professional WordPress developers prefer to use existing tools rather than reinvent the wheel. Most have a WordPress toolkit — a collection of software and plugins — that they use to build a solid foundation for their websites.

At WPBeginner and across our partner brands, we use a tried-and-tested set of tools on all our websites. These tools help us quickly lay the groundwork for successful sites, both for clients and for testing and researching. They also allow us to constantly improve and create pages on our own blog and product sites.

For starters, we use Duplicator for our backups, Cloudflare for security, and SeedProd to build landing pages. We also use MonsterInsights for our analytics needs and All in One SEO to help us boost our rankings in search results. But there are so many other fantastic tools we consistently rely on!

In this article, we will share our WordPress toolkit with you. It consists of 59+ essential tools that will help you build and run WordPress websites like a pro.

How We Test and Review Tools for Our WordPress Toolkit

When selecting the tools for our ultimate WordPress toolkit, we kept the following factors in mind:

• We use these tools on our websites: We’ve only included tools we have tested and used ourselves. Additionally, we reviewed user feedback to ensure other users highly recommend these tools.
• Ease of use: We prioritized user-friendly tools, especially for beginners. A straightforward interface, comprehensive documentation, and easy onboarding processes were key factors in our selection.
• Different use cases: Not all tools are perfect for every situation. That’s why we included tools that cater to various needs, such as backups, security, SEO, and performance optimization.

With that said, let’s dive into the ultimate toolkit of essential WordPress tools to help you build and manage your WordPress websites like a pro.

In this article, we share tons of useful tools for WordPress pros in various categories. If you’d rather have a list of the must-haves, then check out our top picks. We’ve selected the best WordPress toolkit plugin for different categories.

The list is organized into categories to help you find the tools you need quickly. Each category covers a specific aspect of WordPress site management, such as backups, security, SEO, and more.

For featured tools, you’ll find detailed reviews explaining why they stand out. For other tools, we’ve provided concise descriptions to give you an overview of their benefits and offer alternate options.

Here is a quick list of categories we have used to organize all the tools. You can jump to a specific category if you would like:

Backups

Backups are essential for any WordPress site. They ensure you can quickly restore your website in case of data loss, hacking, or other emergencies.

Regular backups give you peace of mind, knowing that your content, settings, and customizations are safe and can be recovered with minimal downtime.

1. Duplicator

In our opinion, Duplicator is the best WordPress backup and migration plugin. We use it on the WPBeginner blog and have had a very positive experience with it. Over 1.5 million website owners use it, too.

For more details, check out our full Duplicator review.

We love Duplicator because it is a super user-friendly backup solution. With it, users can easily create on-demand backups or set up scheduled automatic backups.

Duplicator also works with all top remote storage services and lets you store your backups in the cloud. That way, you can rest assured that they will be safe and available when you need them.

In our experience, a backup solution is useless if you can’t restore your backup website files. With its one-click restore feature, Duplicator has proven to be the easiest way to recover a website from a backup.

We have extensively used Duplicator for website backups and migrations. Overall, it works like a charm, allowing you to quickly clone a WordPress website and then move it to a different host.

Why we recommend Duplicator: Duplicator has always worked reliably for us, even for complex migrations. It offers plenty of cloud backup options for additional peace of mind. Plus, its one-click restore feature puts it way ahead of other WordPress backup solutions.

Pricing: Starting from $49.50/year, and there is also a free version.

Alternative Backup Tools:

2. UpdraftPlus: A reliable and easy-to-use backup plugin that allows you to schedule regular backups and store them in multiple remote locations. For more details, check out our UpdraftPlus review.
3. BlogVault: A comprehensive backup solution that offers real-time backups, site migrations, and security features to keep your site safe. For more information, see our BlogVault review.

Security

With the growing number of cyber threats, it’s important to protect your site from hackers, malware, and other malicious activities. Using effective security tools helps safeguard your data, prevent breaches, and create a safe browsing experience for your visitors.

4. Cloudflare

Cloudflare is one of the biggest internet security and performance companies in the world. It helps protect and speed up websites and online services.

We use Cloudflare on WPBeginner and several other websites. It has provided us with superior DDoS protection, better website performance, and a user-friendly interface.

After switching to Cloudflare, we noticed that its powerful CDN and caching features significantly improved our site speed, which enhanced the overall user experience.

Overall, you can think of Cloudflare as a protection shield for your website. It works by simply routing your site traffic through its network. These network servers filter out spam and malicious traffic and only send genuine users to your website.

It even protects against advanced threats like DDoS attacks, malicious bots, and other intrusions. That way, your website remains safe from common internet vulnerabilities.

In terms of performance, Cloudflare uses a massive global network of data centers to cache content close to users, significantly improving load times. It also offers features like a Content Delivery Network (CDN), caching, and image optimization, which further help speed up websites.

Why we recommend Cloudflare: Cloudflare combines powerful security with highly effective performance improvements. Its firewall protects WordPress websites from common threats, while its CDN gives them a significant speed boost. Overall, we have found Cloudflare to be a reliable security platform that’s easy to set up and use.

Pricing: It offers a comprehensive free plan that would work for most small businesses and new blogs. Paid plans start from $25 per month.

Alternative Options:

5. Sucuri: This is an effective security plugin that offers a cloud-based website firewall. We used Sucuri before switching to Cloudflare for more comprehensive coverage. That said, Sucuri can be a good option for smaller websites. Just keep in mind that the firewall is only available with paid plans. For more information, check out our Sucuri vs. Cloudflare comparison and our full Sucuri review.
6. Wordfence: A powerful WordPress security plugin. The downside is that it runs on your website instead of the cloud, which makes it less effective for performance.

Other Security Tools:

7. WP-2FA: A plugin that adds two-factor authentication (2FA) to your WordPress login page for enhanced security. We use 2FA on all our websites, and we recommend that all WordPress users set up two-factor authentication as well.
8. WP Activity Log: A comprehensive activity log plugin that helps you monitor and keep track of all changes on your WordPress site.

Marketing

Marketing tools are designed to help you promote your site, attract new visitors, and convert users into loyal customers. Our recommendations in this next section can help you with email marketing, social media integrations, lead generation, and more. They are essential for building your brand, increasing visibility, and driving sustainable growth.

9. All in One SEO for WordPress

Looking for a tool to optimize your site for search engines? We use All in One SEO (AIOSEO) on all our websites, including WPBeginner, so it’s our top recommendation.

We’ve found AIOSEO to be much more powerful than any other WordPress SEO tool. The great thing about it is that it lets you optimize your site just like the pros, but you don’t need any special skills to use it.

For more information, you can see our full All in One SEO review.

The plugin includes an easy setup wizard that automatically configures the best SEO settings for your online business. It also features TruSEO on-page analysis with a checklist to help optimize your posts and pages. Plus, it supports WooCommerce SEO out of the box and works with other top eCommerce platforms.

One standout feature of All in One SEO that we love is Author SEO. It enables you to expand author bios to showcase experience, expertise, and authority, aligning with Google’s E-E-A-T guidelines. This helps search engines trust your content more easily.

The plugin includes rich snippet schema markup, smart XML sitemaps, SEO health checks, and more, all aimed at boosting your search engine visibility. It also has a powerful schema generator that helps you get star ratings and other rich snippets in Google search results.

For advanced users, AIOSEO offers full control over RSS feeds, a robots.txt editor, local SEO, breadcrumbs, AI SEO tools, Google News sitemaps, video SEO, an advanced redirect manager, 404 tracking, IndexNow integration, and more.

Features like Link Assistant and on-page SEO tools are incredibly helpful in our overall SEO strategy. To learn more, take a look at our case study, where we explained the reasons why we switched to All in One SEO.

Why we recommend AIOSEO: We have found All in One SEO to be the most comprehensive SEO toolkit for WordPress websites. It includes all the features you can expect, makes them incredibly easy to use, and is continuously improving to keep up with the latest SEO changes.

Pricing: Starting from $49.50 per year. There is a limited free version of All in One SEO available. However, we recommend upgrading to a paid plan to unlock its full potential.

10. WPForms

Forms are incredibly powerful marketing tools. They let users communicate with you directly, which helps you generate leads, gather feedback, and segment your audience for personalized marketing.

We recommend WPForms for all your form needs. It is one of the most popular WordPress form builder plugins, and we use it for all our contact forms and surveys.

We’ve also covered it extensively in our complete WPForms review.

We love WPForms because its drag-and-drop builder is designed to be user-friendly. It allows you to create contact forms, payment forms, surveys, and more without writing a single line of code. It also includes over 2000 pre-built form templates so that you can get started even faster.

Another thing that we really like about WPForms is that it offers tons of seamless integrations to make your life easier. For instance, you can connect it with popular email marketing services, payment gateways, and other tools. This way, you can use forms to grow your email list, collect payments, and much more.

WPForms also includes advanced features like conditional logic, multi-page forms, file uploads, and spam protection, making it suitable for more complex form needs.

Additionally, the plugin offers powerful entry management features. This allows you to view, manage, and analyze form submissions directly from your WordPress dashboard.

Whether we need a simple contact form or a more complex solution, WPForms is our go-to tool.

Why we recommend WPForms: Unlike many other contact form plugins, WPForms is easy to use. Users can choose a template or use the drag-and-drop form builder to make any type of form. Its integrations with payment services, email marketing providers, and other growth tools make it even more powerful.

Pricing: It has a limited free version called WPForms Lite, and paid plans start at $49.50. If you just need a few contact forms, then the free version will work well. However, we recommend upgrading to a paid plan to unlock more features.

11. SeedProd

We often need to create a landing page for a marketing campaign or product launch. Whenever that happens, we always turn to SeedProd.

For more information about our experience with the plugin, check out our full SeedProd review.

SeedProd is the best no-code page builder for WordPress, trusted by over 1 million websites. It helps you create high-converting landing pages quickly without any coding.

Whether you’re building a sales page, coming soon page, maintenance mode page, or any other type of landing page, SeedProd has you covered.

The best thing about SeedProd? Its drag-and-drop builder makes it incredibly easy to design professional-looking pages.

You can edit any item on the screen by pointing to and clicking it. You can also add new design elements by dragging and dropping them to your page.

We’ve used SeedProd to create landing pages for several websites and find its pre-built templates highly useful. We also have experience with its custom theme feature, which has helped us design entire product sites. Using SeedProd reduced development time, resulting in highly polished websites.

If you run an online store, you will love SeedProd’s built-in WooCommerce support. It includes useful blocks that you can add to create custom checkout pages, product pages, or storefront pages.

SeedProd offers integrations with popular email marketing services, CRM platforms, and other tools, allowing you to grow your email list and boost conversions.

Why we recommend SeedProd: We love SeedProd because it is beginner-friendly and offers an intuitive drag-and-drop design tool. It includes dozens of pre-built templates, and seamless integrations make it versatile for various marketing needs.

Pricing: Paid plans start from $39.50 / year. There is also a free version of SeedProd available.

Alternative Option:

12. Thrive Architect: A visual page builder for WordPress that allows you to create beautiful, engaging content. For more details, see our full Thrive Architect review.

13. OptinMonster

Driving traffic to your website is great, but this doesn’t mean anything unless you can convert those visitors into subscribers or customers.

In our experience, OptinMonster is the best conversion optimization software for this purpose. Designed to help you grow your email list, increase page views, and boost sales, it offers a wide range of features that make it easy to create high-converting opt-in forms.

At WPBeginner, we’ve used OptinMonster across our websites to grow our email list. We’ve taken advantage of its exit-intent technology to capture visitors about to leave our site and convert them into subscribers.

For more information, check out our complete MonsterInsights review.

We’ve also found its MonsterLinks feature highly useful. This allows users to click on an offer to view a popup. In our A/B tests, these popups performed well among our users.

Case Study: Proven methods we use at WPBeginner to grow our email list.

One of OptinMonster’s key strengths is its drag-and-drop campaign builder, which allows you to create visually appealing pop-ups, floating bars, slide-ins, and other types of opt-in forms.

You can choose from a variety of pre-built templates, making it easy to get started. The software integrates seamlessly with popular email marketing services, CRM platforms, and other tools, enabling you to manage your leads effectively.

What sets OptinMonster apart is its advanced targeting and segmentation features. You can display personalized messages to different segments of your audience based on their behavior, location, device, and more. This makes sure that the right message reaches the right person at the right time, significantly improving conversion rates.

Why we recommend OptinMonster: This tool is user-friendly yet incredibly powerful. It allows you to easily create professional opt-in forms without any coding. The advanced targeting options ensure that your forms reach the most relevant audience, maximizing your conversion rates.

Pricing: Starts at $8/month, billed annually. There is no free version. Instead, OptinMonster lets you get started with a risk-free, 100% 14-day money-back guarantee.

14. MonsterInsights

We believe that understanding how visitors interact with our websites is the key to making informed decisions that drive growth. To do that, we track and monitor website traffic and user behavior with MonsterInsights, which uses the power of Google Analytics.

We always recommend MonsterInsights to our readers because it keeps delivering excellent results. For more information on how we’ve used and tested this plugin, see our full MonsterInsights review.

The nice thing about MonsterInsights is that it connects your WordPress website to Google Analytics with just a few clicks. Then, you can immediately start tracking visitor interactions, understanding user behavior, and making data-driven decisions to optimize your site.

We enjoy its user-friendly stats dashboard, which directly connects all the essential metrics to the WordPress admin panel. You can get quick reports without visiting the Google Analytics website separately.

We particularly appreciate MonsterInsights’s real-time analytics feature. It provides you with live data about who is on your site, what they are doing, and which content performs best. This feature is particularly useful for monitoring the success of marketing campaigns as they happen.

MonsterInsights also offers advanced features, such as eCommerce tracking, which helps you measure your online store’s sales, revenue, and conversion rates.

You can also track affiliate links, banner ads, outbound links, and more, giving you a complete view of how visitors interact with your content.

Recommended Reading: Step-by-step WordPress conversion tracking guide.

As we mentioned, we use MonsterInsights across all our websites to track user engagement and optimize our content strategy.

The plugin’s detailed reports on user behavior, traffic sources, and conversion tracking have been invaluable. It allows us to make data-driven decisions that enhance the user experience and drive growth.

Why we recommend MonsterInsights: This plugin is incredibly easy to use, making Google Analytics accessible to everyone, even beginners. Even better, you can do it all without leaving WordPress. Its advanced tracking features provide in-depth insights that help you better understand your audience and optimize your site for higher engagement and conversions. The real-time analytics and eCommerce tracking are particularly powerful tools for monitoring and improving performance.

Pricing: Starts at $99.60/year. A free version of MonsterInsights is also available with fewer features.

Additional Marketing and SEO Tools:

15. PushEngage: A push notification service that helps you send targeted messages to your subscribers on mobile as well as desktop. We use PushEngage on all our websites and have found it incredibly useful in driving conversions and sales. For more information, see our full PushEngage review.
16. Thrive Leads: This helps you capture more leads and convert users into email subscribers and customers. We love its ease of use and performance. This tool is part of the company’s marketing suite, which we have covered in depth in our Thrive Themes Suite review.
17. Thrive Quiz Builder: A WordPress quiz builder plugin that allows you to create engaging quizzes to increase user engagement and collect leads. For details, check out our Thrive Quiz Builder review.
18. SEOBoost: A powerful SEO content optimizer software that utilizes AI to help you write content for higher rankings. We use it to optimize content on our websites. This tool integrates seamlessly with All in One SEO.
19. Thrive Optimize: It allows you to easily run A/B tests in WordPress, which helps you optimize your landing pages for conversions. You can also get it as part of a larger Thrive Themes package.
20. WP Mail SMTP: Fix email deliverability in WordPress emails using an SMTP service. We use WP Mail SMTP on our own websites to ensure that our users don’t miss any emails. See our WP Mail SMTP review for more details.
21. SendLayer: A reliable email delivery service for WordPress. We use SendLayer for some of our websites, and we love its ease of use and reliability. For more information, see our complete SendLayer review.
22. LowFruits: An SEO tool that helps you find low-competition keywords to target for your content. Our teams use it to optimize content and do keyword research.
23. Thrive Ultimatum: A scarcity marketing tool that helps you create and manage marketing campaigns with countdown timers. We use countdown timers for marketing campaigns on our websites, and we can tell you that they are highly effective. This tool is also available as part of the Thrive Themes Suite.
24. Pretty Links: The best WordPress plugin to manage and track your affiliate links. We like Pretty Links because of its simplicity and ease of use. For details, check out our full Pretty Links review.
25. RafflePress: A giveaway plugin that helps you grow your email list, website traffic, and social media followers with viral contests and giveaways. We use RafflePress to run giveaway campaigns on WPBeginner. See our full RafflePress review for more details.
26. Beacon: A lead generation plugin that allows you to create and manage lead magnets. We use lead magnets on WPBeginner to grow our email lists.

eCommerce

eCommerce tools are essential for businesses selling products or services online. They provide the functionality you need to manage products, process payments, handle shipping, and more. These tools help create a smooth and secure shopping experience, driving sales and customer satisfaction.

27. WooCommerce

When building an online store with WordPress, WooCommerce is the go-to solution for millions of users worldwide. As the most popular eCommerce platform in the world, it powers over 6 million online stores.

The great thing about WooCommerce is that both small businesses and large enterprises can use it. The plugin is highly customizable and scalable to meet your business’s specific needs.

We don’t personally use WooCommerce on our websites. But that’s simply because we only sell digital products on our partner sites, so most of the plugin’s features would be unnecessary for us.

That said, we have tons of experience testing the tool and even using it to help our clients build their own online stores. For more details, see our full WooCommerce review.

WooCommerce allows you to easily manage your products, payments, and shipping. It also works with many payment gateways, such as PayPal and Stripe, making it simple for customers to buy your products.

The best part is that it also supports countless regional payment services. This means users in countries where PayPal and Stripe are unavailable can use other payment services. WooCommerce makes eCommerce possible for everyone.

What’s more, we have compared WooCommerce and Shopify as well as other selling platforms. During our research, we found that WooCommerce is way ahead of the competition when it comes to customizations.

It supports thousands of add-ons (many of which are free). These WooCommerce add-ons are like apps for your eCommerce store and enable you to add features like advanced shipping options, memberships, and bookings.

This extensibility makes WooCommerce suitable for any eCommerce business, no matter how complex your needs are.

Why we recommend WooCommerce: This plugin is the most flexible and powerful eCommerce solution for WordPress. It’s easy for beginners but also offers advanced features for more complex stores. It has a massive library of add-ons. It also supports more payment services and third-party software than other eCommerce platforms.

Pricing: WooCommerce itself is free to use, but there are additional costs for premium extensions and payment gateway fees. For more details, see our explainer on eCommerce website costs.

28. MemberPress

MemberPress is a full-featured WordPress membership plugin, that allows you to control who can access your content. We like it so much that we even use it to offer our free WordPress courses.

You can take a look at our full MemberPress review for more details about our experience.

With MemberPress, you can offer digital products and subscription services, sell online courses, and build a community around your content.

One of the best things about MemberPress is how easy it is to use. You don’t need any coding skills to set up a membership site.

The plugin’s simple interface makes it easy to create different membership levels, set up payment options, and protect your content. You can also offer free trials, discount coupons, and various pricing options to attract new members.

Plus, MemberPress comes with powerful access control features. Based on the membership level, you can restrict access to specific posts, pages, videos, categories, tags, and even files. This ensures that only paying members can view your premium content.

MemberPress also makes it easy to create courses and lessons, upload media, and restrict access to members only.

We particularly like the membership management features and how easy they are. The plugin even lets you automate billing, send reminders, and pause or cancel memberships. This makes it easier to manage your members and ensure consistent revenue.

The plugin integrates seamlessly with popular email marketing services. This allows you to send targeted emails to your members. It also works well with payment gateways like PayPal and Stripe, making it easy to collect payments.

Why we recommend MemberPress: MemberPress is easy to set up, even if you’re new to WordPress. It offers powerful tools for managing memberships, including access control and subscription management. The plugin integrates well with other tools, making it a complete solution for building and managing a membership site.

Pricing: Starts at $179.50/year.

29. Easy Digital Downloads

We use Easy Digital Downloads (EDD) to sell products on several partner websites. It is the best plugin for selling digital downloads using WordPress, and thousands of website owners use it to sell things like eBooks, software, music, and more.

For more information, see our full Easy Digital Downloads review.

One of the best things about EDD is how easy it is to use. You don’t need technical skills to get started. The plugin has a simple setup wizard that helps you add products, set prices, and connect payment options. EDD supports payments through PayPal, Stripe, and credit cards.

It comes with a powerful download management area where you can upload digital products. Using built-in access control features, you can ensure that customers have access only to the products they have paid for.

We love the flexibility of Easy Digital Downloads. With extensions, you can add extra features to your store.

For example, you can set up recurring payments, offer discounts, or manage software licenses. This flexibility is the biggest reason we use EDD to sell digital products for our other businesses.

We also appreciate that EDD always performs optimally with our site. Thanks to its lightweight design, it doesn’t slow down your website. This is important because customers expect fast downloads.

EDD also works well with other WordPress plugins, which means you can easily add more features like email marketing or analytics.

Why we recommend Easy Digital Downloads: Easy Digital Downloads is simple and flexible. It’s great for selling digital products and supports many payment options. The plugin is light on resources, so your website stays fast. Plus, it works well with other tools, making it easy to add more features as your business grows.

Pricing: The core plugin is free, but you can buy premium features. Paid plans start at $99.50/year, depending on what you need.

30. WP Simple Pay

WP Simple Pay is a user-friendly Stripe payment plugin for WordPress. It’s ideal if you want to accept payments online without setting up a full eCommerce store.

We have tested the tool in-depth on our demo sites because our readers have often asked us about it. For more details, check out our complete WP Simple Pay review.

In our opinion, WP Simple Pay is perfect for businesses, nonprofits, and anyone looking to collect payments quickly without additional shopping cart functionality. We have used it on websites where we don’t need the cart functionality but need an easy way to accept payments.

We like WP Simple Pay’s simplicity and ease of use. You don’t need to deal with complex eCommerce setups. Instead, you can create customizable payment forms directly in WordPress.

What’s more, WP Simple Pay comes with a drag-and-drop form builder, which makes designing custom forms super easy, even for total beginners. The plugin also includes several templates to quickly create payment forms for different use cases.

The plugin allows you to accept payments, calculate taxes, and transfer Stripe processing fees to customers. You can also customize the payment confirmation and receipt messages to reflect your branding.

We were also impressed by the payment landing pages. The plugin makes it easy to create a landing page with a highly optimized payment form for conversions.

WP Simple Pay also integrates seamlessly with Stripe, enabling you to accept credit card payments, ACH bank transfers, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and more.

You can create one-time or recurring payments and even offer subscriptions or installment plans. The plugin also supports coupon codes, allowing you to offer discounts and promotions to your customers.

Why we recommend WP Simple Pay: We found WP Simple Pay very easy to use, so it’s accessible even if you don’t have technical experience. Overall, its simplicity makes it perfect if you need to accept payments but don’t want more advanced cart and checkout features. That said, its integration with Stripe lets you securely accept a wide range of payment methods. It also gives you plenty of payment options, including one-time purchases, subscriptions, and installment plans.

Pricing: It starts at $49.50/year. A free version with basic features is also available, called WP Simple Pay Lite.

Additional eCommerce Tools:

31. AffiliateWP: An affiliate marketing plugin that helps you manage and grow your affiliate program. For details, check our AffiliateWP review.
32. Charitable: A fundraising plugin for WordPress that helps you create and manage donation campaigns. We use Charitable to collect donations on the Balkhi Foundation (non-profit organization) website. Check out our Charitable review for more details.
33. Thrive Apprentice: A learning management system (LMS) plugin that helps you create and sell online courses. For details, see our Thrive Apprentice review.
34. FunnelKit: A plugin that helps you create sales funnels to increase conversions. We use FunnelKit for a number of businesses. See our detailed FunnelKit review to learn more.
35. Advanced Coupons: A plugin that enhances the default WooCommerce coupons with additional features. To learn more, check our Advanced Coupons review.
36. WC Vendors: A marketplace plugin that allows you to create a multi-vendor store with WooCommerce. See our WC Vendors review for more information.
37. AdTribes: A plugin that helps you manage and optimize your product feeds for marketing channels.
38. Sugar Calendar: A simple event management plugin for WordPress. We love Sugar Calendar’s easy Stripe integration, simple ticketing, and Zapier integrations. See our full Sugar Calendar review for more details.
39. Business Directory Plugin: A plugin that helps you create and manage a business directory on your WordPress site. See our full Business Directory Plugin review for details.

Socials

Social media integration tools allow you to connect your site with various social media platforms. This integration helps you share content effortlessly, engage with your audience, and boost your online presence. Overall, social media tools are important for increasing traffic, building community, and enhancing your marketing efforts.

40. BuddyBoss

Popular social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Reddit are easy to use, but we don’t like how they limit your reach. Wouldn’t it be nice if you controlled and owned your online community without depending on big tech companies?

BuddyBoss is the best platform for building online communities, membership sites, and social networks using WordPress.

We recommend it to anyone wanting to create an online community platform like Facebook but with full control over the content and audience.

When testing out this tool on real websites for our full BuddyBoss review, we had a great experience with it.

We like that BuddyBoss lets you create custom member profiles, social groups, and online forums. Members can send private messages, join group discussions, and share photos or videos. The platform supports gamification, allowing you to add points, badges, and ranks to increase engagement.

We found its mobile app integration very exciting. You can create a branded mobile app for your community that works on iOS and Android.

This means your members can stay connected on the go. The mobile app is built using React Native, the same technology used by major platforms like Facebook and Airbnb, ensuring a smooth user experience.

The platform’s integration with WooCommerce and LearnDash makes it perfect for selling courses or memberships while keeping the community engaged through forums and social groups.

Why we recommend BuddyBoss: We love this plugin because it gives you full control over your content and the community you build. It doesn’t require any special skills and works with existing WordPress sites. Overall, it’s ideal for anyone wanting to create a social network or online community but without the limitations of a giant corporation.

Pricing: Starts at $299/year. There are premium packages available with additional features.

41. Smash Balloon

Smash Balloon is a suite of social media feed plugins for WordPress. It’s perfect if you want to display content from your social accounts directly on your website.

We have thoroughly tested this suite of tools for our complete Smash Balloon review, and we loved all of them. All of the Smash Balloon plugins are beginner-friendly and highly versatile.

Whether you want to show off your Instagram photos, display Facebook posts, showcase customer reviews, share your Twitter feed, or highlight your YouTube and TikTok videos, Smash Balloon makes it simple and customizable.

It allows you to customize your social media feeds to match your website’s design, with options to change colors, fonts, and layouts without writing any code.

You can also use its Social Wall plugin to combine different platforms and create one feed for all your social content.

One thing we like about this plugin is that all of its layouts are fully mobile responsive. So they look equally good regardless of screen size.

Now, when you embed media from third-party sites, speed should be your first concern. We were delighted with Smash Balloon’s page speed performance.

Each plugin in the Smash Balloon suite loads social media feeds quickly without slowing down your website. Additionally, it supports advanced features like filtering content by hashtags, combining feeds from multiple accounts, and even showing likes, comments, and shares directly on your site.

The Reviews Feed plugin even lets you display customer reviews from Trustpilot, Google, Yelp, Facebook, Tripadvisor, and more. This way, you can easily add social proof to your site and trigger FOMO for higher conversions.

Why we recommend Smash Balloon: All of Smash Balloon’s plugins are super-fast and user-friendly. They make it easy to display social media content on your WordPress site. Plus, for every type of social feed, you get multiple layouts, beautiful designs, and extensive customization options. This way, you can match the look and feel of your site. Whether you’re a blogger, a business owner, or a social media influencer, Smash Balloon can help keep your audience connected and engaged across platforms.

Pricing: Each plugin (Instagram Feed, Facebook Feed, Twitter Feed, TikTok Feed, Reviews Feed, and YouTube Feed) costs $49/year. The all-access plan with the complete suite costs $299/year.

42. Thrive Comments: A commenting plugin that enhances the default WordPress commenting system with additional features. You can also get it as part of Thrive Suite.
43. Thrive Ovation: A plugin that helps you collect and display testimonials on your website. Check out our Thrive Ovation review for more information. You can buy the individual plugin or get it with Thrive Suite.

Database Management

Database management software is important for maintaining the integrity, performance, and security of your WordPress database. It helps you optimize, clean, and back up your database, ensuring that your site runs smoothly and efficiently.

In the next section, we will share some of our favorite tools for improving database management.

44. Search & Replace Everything by WPCode

When it comes to building and managing sites with WordPress, we love no-code solutions. That’s why we use Search & Replace Everything by WPCode. This powerful WordPress plugin makes bulk editing tasks quick and easy.

Instead of writing complex SQL queries, you can use a simple interface to search and replace anything in your database.

It can help you update old URLs, correct typos across multiple posts, or make site-wide changes. It is designed to streamline the process and allow you to make large-scale edits with precision and efficiency.

What’s more, Search & Replace Everything is built to handle various types of content across your WordPress site. You can use it to search for and replace text in posts, pages, custom post types, widgets, and even database fields.

The plugin also supports easy image replacement. To do so, simply locate the image you need to change and then click ‘Replace’ to upload the new image.

One of the plugin’s standout features is its “Preview” mode, which allows you to see the changes before applying them. This ensures that you can check your edits and avoid any unintended changes.

Additionally, the plugin provides detailed logs of all search and replace operations, giving you a clear view of what was changed and where.

We have used Search & Replace Everything by WPCode for various tasks, such as updating links after a site migration, correcting errors, or updating bulk content.

Overall, this plugin lets you perform bulk tasks quickly and safely. This can have a huge impact on your workflows, especially when managing large websites with extensive content.

Why we recommend Search & Replace Everything by WPCode: This is an essential tool for any WordPress user who needs to perform bulk edits. Its ease of use and powerful features make it a reliable solution for both beginners and advanced users. Whether you’re managing a large site or just need to make quick edits, this plugin saves time and reduces the risk of errors.

Pricing: Starts at $29/year. A free version is also available with limited features. While you can use Search & Replace Everything as a standalone tool, it also comes with the WPCode Bundle.

45. WPCode

WPCode allows you to easily add custom code snippets in WordPress without editing your theme’s functions.php file. We use it to manage custom code across all of our websites and have only had great experiences working with it.

Whether we need to add tracking codes, customize WordPress functionality, or implement custom styling, WPCode allows us to do so without risking site stability. See our full WPCode review for more details.

In our opinion, WPCode is a must-have tool for developers and non-developers who want to customize their site’s functionality while keeping everything organized and safe.

WPCode offers an intuitive interface for adding and managing custom code snippets, such as PHP, JavaScript, CSS, HTML, and more.

The plugin also comes with a built-in library of pre-made snippets, making it easy to add commonly used code to your site with just a few clicks.

One of WPCode’s standout features is its smart conditional logic. We find this feature highly useful because it lets users control where and when each snippet runs on their site. You can target specific pages, posts, or user roles, giving you precise control over your custom code.

Don’t know how to write code? WPCode comes with a built-in AI code generator. Simply describe what you want to do, and it will generate code using artificial intelligence.

Why we recommend WPCode: This plugin is incredibly user-friendly, making it accessible to both developers and non-developers. It offers powerful features like conditional logic, error handling, and code versioning that ensure your custom code is safe and effective.

Pricing: WPCode offers a free version with essential features, while the premium version starts at $49.50/year and provides access to advanced features like conditional logic and premium support.

46. WP Optimize: A plugin that helps you clean and optimize your WordPress database. Learn more in our WP Optimize review.
47. Transients Manager: A free plugin that helps you manage and clean up transients in your WordPress database.
48. SearchWP: A plugin that enhances the default WordPress search functionality. For details, see our SearchWP review.

Photos & Media

Photo and media plugins help you manage and optimize the visual content on your WordPress site. These tools make sure your images and videos load quickly and look great, enhancing the overall user experience.

49. Envira Gallery

Envira Gallery is designed to help you create beautiful, responsive image galleries with ease. Whether you’re a photographer, blogger, or business owner, Envira Gallery offers a powerful yet user-friendly solution to showcase your images in an attractive and organized way.

We like Envira Gallery for its simplicity and performance, and have tested it in-depth for our full Envira Gallery review.

The plugin allows you to create stunning photo galleries with a drag-and-drop builder, making it accessible even for beginners.

You can choose from various pre-built templates to customize the look of your galleries, ensuring they fit seamlessly with your website’s design.

One of Envira Gallery’s strongest points is its speed and responsiveness. The galleries are optimized to load quickly, which is crucial for maintaining a good user experience and improving your site’s SEO.

The plugin also ensures that your galleries look great on all devices, from desktops to mobile phones.

Plus, Envira Gallery offers advanced features like social media integration, allowing visitors to share images directly from the gallery. It also supports watermarking and image protection, helping you safeguard your work.

For those who need more functionality, the plugin includes add-ons for features like video galleries, image tagging, pagination, and WooCommerce integration for selling your photos online.

Why we recommend Envira Gallery: This powerful tool is the best WordPress gallery plugin on the market. It enables you to create fast, responsive, and visually appealing photo galleries on WordPress. Plus, it’s easy to use yet powerful enough to meet the needs of professionals. Overall, the plugin’s flexibility, performance, and extensive range of add-ons make it a valuable addition to any WordPress site.

Pricing: The basic Envira Gallery plan starts at $39.50/year, with more advanced plans available for additional features. A free version with limited features is also available.

50. Soliloquy: A responsive slider plugin for WordPress that lets you easily create engaging slideshows. See our Soliloquy review for more details.
51. Smash Balloon: A plugin that helps you display social media feeds on your WordPress site. (We love this tool so much that we’ve included it on this list twice.)
52. WP Tasty: A suite of plugins designed for food bloggers. Read our WP Tasty review for more details.
53. Nutrifox: A nutrition label generator for WordPress. To learn more, see our Nutrifox review.

Customer Satisfaction

Great communication and customer support tools are essential for engaging with your audience and meeting their needs. These tools include live chat, ticketing systems, contact forms, and more. They help you provide timely assistance, improve customer satisfaction, and build strong relationships with your users.

54. UserFeedback

User feedback is important if you want to improve your products and build a loyal customer base. The UserFeedback plugin can help you gather insights directly from your website visitors.

We have tested and tried out this tool extensively. We found that it is beginner-friendly and packed with useful features. For more information, check out our full UserFeedback review.

It allows you to easily create and manage custom feedback forms, surveys, and polls, making it a valuable tool for improving user experience and customer satisfaction. You can then place these forms anywhere on your site.

To get specific feedback, you can choose from various question types, including multiple-choice, open-ended, and rating scales.

One of UserFeedback’s notable features is its real-time reports. You can view responses as they come in, helping you quickly identify trends, issues, or areas of improvement.

The plugin also integrates with popular email marketing services and CRM tools, enabling you to follow up with users based on their feedback or segment your audience for targeted campaigns.

Another useful feature is its conditional logic, which allows you to show or hide questions based on previous answers. This ensures that you gather the most relevant information from your users without overwhelming them with unnecessary questions.

Due to its flexibility, UserFeedback can help you collect valuable insights from customers. That way, you can make informed decisions about your strategies.

Why we recommend UserFeedback: If you want to understand your audience better, UserFeedback is an essential tool. It’s easy to set up and does not affect user experience. The plugin’s advanced features, like real-time reporting and conditional logic, provide deep insights that can help you improve your site and increase user satisfaction.

Pricing: UserFeedback plans start at $49.50/year. There is also a free plugin available.

55. TrustPulse: A social proof plugin that helps you increase conversions by displaying recent customer activity on your website. Check out our TrustPulse review for details.
56. HeroThemes: A plugin suite designed to help you create and manage a knowledge base on your WordPress site. Read our HeroThemes review for details.

Forms & Automation

Forms and automation tools make it easier to collect information and automate tasks on your site. These tools help you create and manage forms, automate workflows, and boost user interaction, making your site more efficient and user-friendly.

57. Formidable Forms

Formidable Forms is one of the most advanced WordPress form builder plugins available today. We like how it simplifies the creation of complex forms, making it ideal for developers, businesses, and anyone who needs more than basic contact forms.

We’ve used this plugin many times in the past and have covered it in detail in our full Formidable Forms review.

Formidable Forms offers a drag-and-drop form builder that allows you to create everything from simple contact forms to complex multi-page forms, surveys, and quizzes.

The plugin stands out for its advanced features, such as conditional logic, which allows you to show or hide form fields based on user input. This makes your forms more dynamic and tailored to the individual user’s responses.

One of Formidable Forms’ most powerful features is its ability to create data-driven web applications. The plugin can collect data through forms and then display that data in charts, graphs, and directories.

This is particularly useful for businesses that need to manage and display large amounts of data, such as directories, listings, or even job boards.

Another feature that we found incredibly helpful is the templates. It comes with tons of templates for different types of online calculators, payments, and WooCommerce forms, allowing you to customize them quickly for your own requirements.

Formidable Forms also integrates seamlessly with popular email marketing services, payment gateways, and other tools, allowing you to extend the functionality of your forms.

Why we recommend Formidable Forms: This form plugin is perfect for users who need more than just a simple form builder. Its advanced features, such as conditional logic, data management, dynamic fields, and calculations, make it a versatile tool for creating complex forms and applications.

Pricing: Formidable Forms starts at $39.50/year for the Basic plan. Higher-tier plans with additional features are also available.

58. Uncanny Automator

Whenever possible, we try to automate manual website tasks to save time and boost productivity. Uncanny Automator is a powerful automation plugin for WordPress websites that helps us do that.

Take a look at our Uncanny Automator review for more details.

This powerful tool lets you create automated workflows across different plugins, apps, and services without writing a single line of code. It can be a game changer for larger businesses and online stores.

That’s because lots of regular WordPress website management tasks are repetitive and don’t require user input. Automating those tasks can save you tons of time and also reduce instances of human error.

Uncanny Automator works by connecting different WordPress plugins and third-party apps to create automated workflows known as ‘Recipes.’

For example, you can set up a recipe that automatically adds a user to a specific email list when they purchase in your WooCommerce store or one that sends a Slack notification when a new form submission is received.

We love its recipe builder, which has a simple, user-friendly interface where you select triggers (the events that start the workflow) and actions (what happens when the trigger is activated).

Uncanny Automator offers an impressive amount of integrations. It supports over 80 plugins and apps, including WooCommerce, WPForms, MemberPress, BuddyBoss, Slack, Google Sheets, and many more.

With Uncanny Automator, you can automate almost any process on your WordPress site, from eCommerce to eLearning, without needing to switch between multiple tools or hire a developer.

We have found it highly helpful for day-to-day tasks on many of our websites. It saves time, reduces the chances of errors, and reduces workload.

The plugin also offers advanced options, such as conditional logic, which lets you add conditions to your recipes. This means you can create highly targeted and customized workflows based on specific criteria. Overal, this makes sure that your automation is as efficient and effective as possible.

Why we recommend Uncanny Automator: This tool brings the power of automation to WordPress. Its wide range of integrations and ability to create complex workflows without coding make it a valuable tool for any website owner.

Pricing: Starting from $149/year for a single site. There is also a free version of the plugin.

59. WordPress Services

WordPress comes with a slight learning curve, and website owners have to continually manage the software. If you are a small business with a limited budget, then you can spend time doing that by yourself. However, if you manage multiple websites or need extra help, these services can help you.

WPBeginner Pro Services

One of the requests we always get in our annual WPBeginner reader survey is to offer affordable WordPress development and website management services. WPBeginner Pro Services aims to bridge the gap between DIY solutions and professional, tailored support.

It is ideal for small businesses, bloggers, and entrepreneurs who may not have the time or technical expertise to manage all parts of their WordPress sites. It’s also perfect for those who want to take their site to the next level without the steep learning curve.

When you hire WPBeginner Pro Services, you’re working with a team that has been deeply involved in the WordPress community for years. Our experts understand the platform inside and out, and we’ve helped millions of users through our tutorials and tools.

Services Offered:

WPBeginner Pro Services includes a range of offerings designed to meet the specific needs of WordPress users:

Each service is delivered with the same attention to detail and quality that WPBeginner is known for. Whether you need a one-time fix or ongoing support, our team is here to help.

Why we recommend WPBeginner Pro Services: Hiring professionals to help with behind-the-scenes and technical tasks allows you to focus on growing your business. WPBeginner offers affordable options, as you only pay for the services you need.

Pricing: WPBeginner Pro Services offers customized pricing based on your specific needs. This ensures that you get the right level of support without paying extra.

Training & Resources

Software will likely make up the majority of your WordPress toolkit. However, having access to training and resources is just as important!

In this next section, we’ll share some extra resources, including tutorials, documentation, and courses. These will help you stay up-to-date with the latest WordPress developments and best practices:

Frequently Asked Questions About WordPress Toolkit

Here are answers to some of the questions our readers often ask about WordPress toolkits.

Managing a WordPress website can be difficult if you don’t know the right tools to use. We hope this article helped you find the best WordPress toolkit plugin in every category.

You may also want to look at our pick of the most popular WordPress themes and see our article on the cost of building a WordPress site for practical tips on controlling your site’s budget.

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.

Over the last few years, we have tried out several different eCommerce solutions for our online projects. While we like using Easy Digital Downloads to sell our plugins and other software, we also know that there are plenty of other options for online stores.

That’s why we have done the research and investigated all the popular eCommerce solutions for everything from selling a single product online to full-blown online stores and membership websites.

During our testing process, we paid special attention to how easy each platform is to use, along with the features it offers for different kinds of online stores.

And in this article, we will share some of the best and most popular eCommerce solutions we have explored.

Top 3 eCommerce Platforms in 2024

🥇First place

WooCommerce

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Price: Free plugin with free/paid extensions

Best for: Selling physical and digital products

Highly scalable & customizable, free to set up

Read more »

🥈Second place

EDD

Price: Free and paid plans (start at $99.50/yr)

Best for: Selling digital downloads

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Easy setup, sell unlimited products

Read more »

🥉Third place

MemberPress

Price: Paid plans (start at $179.50/yr)

Best for: Paid memberships & online courses

Powerful membership features, course creation

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Read more »

How We Tested and Reviewed the Best eCommerce Solutions

While this article will talk about the best eCommerce solutions, we know there’s more to consider than just how many stores use a particular platform.

We want to introduce you to some popular eCommerce platforms that perfectly balance ease of use and affordability for your business needs.

Here’s how we approached testing and reviewing these platforms:

• Value for money: Budget is a big concern for businesses, especially small startups. We looked at each platform’s pricing structure, including which features are in the starting plan, what upgrades unlock, and any additional fees that might add up.
• Ease of use: Many online store owners are self-made entrepreneurs who might be new to the technical side of things. So, we prioritized platforms that make it easy to sign up, build your online store, publish it, and manage day-to-day operations.
• Real-world experience: Some of the platforms we will discuss are the ones we use here at WPBeginner. This means we can confidently recommend them based on our own experience. For others, we invested our time and resources to test them.
• Customer reviews: We don’t just take a platform’s word for it. We delve into user reviews to see what actual customers are experiencing. We then compare these reviews to our own testing results to ensure the platform delivers on its promises.
• Market popularity: While we don’t solely rely on popularity, it does hold some weight. We used BuiltWith, a website technology tracker. It helped us get a sense of each platform’s current market share by analyzing the number of active websites built on it.

1. WooCommerce (Best Overall eCommerce Solution)

We’ve experimented with many self-hosted eCommerce solutions over the years, but WooCommerce remains our favorite for selling physical products through a WordPress website.

There are several reasons why WooCommerce is a great fit for small businesses. First and foremost, it’s completely free to set up and use. A handy setup wizard guides you through the process, making it easy to launch your WooCommerce store quickly.

But what truly sets WooCommerce apart is its incredible extensibility. Unlike hosted eCommerce platforms that bundle everything in, WooCommerce allows you to choose the features you need.

However, the extensive plugin selection can also be a double-edged sword. Finding the right plugins to achieve your desired functionality can be time-consuming.

Get to know more about this eCommerce plugin in our WooCommerce review.

Live website usage stats: 6 million+

Pros of WooCommerce:

• Free to set up and use
• Highly scalable with tons of WooCommerce extensions available
• Sample products and pre-installed themes for easy exploration
• Built-in analytics to track your store’s performance

Cons of WooCommerce:

• The sheer number of extensions can feel overwhelming for complete beginners.

Pricing: WooCommerce itself is a free plugin. Depending on the features, paid themes and extensions range from $1 to hundreds of dollars. WooCommerce hosting services typically start around $4 per month.

We recommend SiteGround, starting at $3.99 per month, and Bluehost, starting at $9.95 per month.

Why we chose WooCommerce: WooCommerce is the best overall eCommerce solution due to its affordability, ease of use, and unmatched scalability.

2. Easy Digital Downloads (Best for Digital Downloads)

Easy Digital Downloads (EDD) is the best eCommerce solution for selling digital products like ebooks, PDFs, software, audio files, and more. In fact, it’s the same platform we use across our companies to sell our WordPress plugins and manage customer orders.

Feel free to learn more about EDD in our Easy Digital Downloads review.

Like WooCommerce, EDD boasts an easy-to-use setup wizard that streamlines the launch process for your online store. You can quickly configure your business details, payment gateways, receipts, and product listings – all within a user-friendly interface.

EDD comes in both free and paid versions. The free plan is great if you’re just starting out with a few products. It includes all the essentials, like a shopping cart, built-in integration with popular payment gateways like PayPal and Stripe, order history, and customer invoicing.

However, the free version lacks features like recurring payments, discount code generators, and software licensing. These features can be crucial for businesses offering subscription models or downloadable software.

Live website usage stats: 50,000+

Pros of Easy Digital Downloads:

• Easy setup with a user-friendly interface
• Sell unlimited products with no transaction fees
• Free trial feature available for customers to try the products
• Mobile app to manage your store on the go

Cons of Easy Digital Downloads:

• It is limited to selling digital products only. If you plan to expand to physical products in the future, you’ll need to consider a different eCommerce platform or upgrade to EDD’s paid plans.

Pricing: Free version available. Paid plans start at $99.50 per year and go up to $499.50 per year. The starting paid plan allows use on 1 website, integrates with email marketing tools, and offers reporting features, custom discount codes, and support for additional payment gateways.

We recommend using SiteGround’s managed EDD Hosting, which starts at $3.99 per month.

Why we chose Easy Digital Downloads: EDD’s free version offers a fantastic starting point for beginners, while the paid plans provide powerful features for growing businesses.

3. MemberPress (Best for Paid Memberships)

MemberPress is the perfect eCommerce solution if you are running a membership-based business model. This includes online courses, coaching services, or educational websites where you offer premium content in exchange for a membership fee.

We use MemberPress ourselves to power the free WPBeginner video membership site, which helps us grow our email list.

While our membership site is free, MemberPress is highly capable of building monetized membership sites. It provides a range of features to support your business, including pay-per-view content, membership level upgrades, discount coupons, and more.

One thing to consider is that MemberPress offers limited payment gateways, integrating only with Stripe, PayPal, and Authorize.net. This might be a drawback if your business requires a wider range of payment processing options.

Read more about the membership plugin in our MemberPress review.

Live website usage stats: 24,575+

Pros of MemberPress:

• Unlimited memberships, members, access rules, and restricted content
• Easy-to-use member dashboard for your customers
• Extensive library of add-ons to tailor the membership site to your needs
• No transaction fees on top of your chosen payment gateway’s fees

Cons of MemberPress:

• Limited payment gateway options

Pricing: Starts at $179.50 per year and goes up to $499.50 per year. The basic plan allows use on 1 website with unlimited members and courses.

Also, feel free to use our MemberPress coupon code to save up to 50% off your first purchase.

Why we chose MemberPress: MemberPress’ ease of use, powerful course creation, and focus on membership site features make it a great option for businesses that want to offer exclusive content and subscriptions.

4. WP Simple Pay (Best for Selling Single Products/Services)

If you’re looking to sell a single product or service through your website, then a full-blown eCommerce software with all its features might be overkill. In fact, a complex platform could slow down your website and ruin the customer experience.

For situations like these, a payment processing plugin like WP Simple Pay is a great alternative. WP Simple Pay integrates seamlessly with Stripe, allowing you to create secure payment forms directly on your WordPress website without needing a separate shopping cart.

Despite its focus on simplicity, WP Simple Pay offers some powerful features. We’ve written extensively about the plugin’s capabilities, like one-click checkout (perfect for impulse purchases) and even buy-now-pay-later payment plans to attract a wider audience.

Learn more about the plugin in our WP Simple Pay review.

However, it’s important to remember that WP Simple Pay isn’t ideal for businesses with plans to grow a large product catalog. Order management can soon be tiring if you only rely on this plugin.

Live website usage stats: 14,000+

Pros of WP Simple Pay:

• Accepts various payment methods through Stripe, including credit cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay, QR codes, and Alipay
• Option to pass on payment processing fees to customers, increasing your profitability
• Drag-and-drop form builder with customization options for your payment forms
• Secure payments with built-in PCI compliance (no additional setup needed)

Cons of WP Simple Pay:

• Not suitable for managing large online stores with a vast product inventory

Pricing: Free plan available. Paid plans start at $49.50 per year and go up to $299.50 per year. All plans include unlimited payment forms, unlimited transactions, and no monthly fees on top of Stripe’s processing fees.

You can also use our WP Simple Pay coupon code to get 50% off.

Why we chose WP Simple Pay: It provides a user-friendly and secure way to accept payments without the complexity of a full eCommerce platform, making it great for small online stores.

5. Shopify (All-in-One Hosted eCommerce Platform)

Shopify is the most popular cloud-based eCommerce website builder, and for good reason. From our testing, we believe it is a user-friendly, all-in-one solution that streamlines the process of launching and managing your eCommerce store.

Firstly, Shopify eliminates the hassle of finding separate web hosting and domain name providers. It provides everything you need to get your store up and running, including built-in hosting.

We were also impressed by the fact that it offers abandoned cart recovery in all plans, a valuable tool often missing in starter plans from other platforms.

One thing we’re not a fan of is that transaction fees apply across all plans for third-party payment providers besides Shopify Payments (which isn’t available in all countries). They range from 0.2% to 2% per transaction, with lower fees associated with higher-tier plans.

Live website usage stats: 5,300,000+

Pros of Shopify:

• Simple setup with a drag-and-drop eCommerce website builder, a vast theme collection, and an easy-to-use backend
• Large app store with over 8,000 third-party apps
• 24/7 live chat customer support ensures you have help whenever you need it
• Localized selling features allow you to customize product pricing by market and translate your storefront into different languages

Cons of Shopify:

• Transaction fees can add up quickly, especially if you don’t use Shopify Payments or exceed the free listing limit for displaying products on third-party marketplaces

Pricing: Plans range from $19 per month for basic stores to $2,300 per month for enterprise-level solutions. A $5 starter plan is also available for simple online stores or for selling on social media platforms.

Shopify offers a free 3-day trial and $1 for the rest of your first month.

Why we chose Shopify: Shopify is a fantastic option for beginners and growing eCommerce businesses due to its ease of use, comprehensive features, and all-in-one approach.

6. WPForms (Best for Services/Quote-Based Businesses)

WPForms is a powerful form builder plugin for WordPress and the best option for creating eCommerce forms for your website. It allows you to manage many parts of your online store, including collecting service inquiries and accepting payments for those services.

Here at WPBeginner, we use WPForms to build all sorts of forms for our projects, including our contact forms and survey forms. To learn more, see our full WPForms review.

What makes WPForms so user-friendly is its extensive library of over 2000 pre-made form templates. These templates cater to a wide range of businesses, including real estate agents, t-shirt designers, and hotel bookings.

One of the highlights of WPForms’ is its built-in reporting tool. This tool provides valuable insights into your sales performance, allowing you to track total payments, sales, refunds, and even new subscriptions (if applicable).

Plus, WPForms integrates with popular payment gateways like PayPal Commerce, Stripe, Square, and Authorize.net for secure transactions. While these are some of the most common options, WPForms offers fewer payment integrations compared to other solutions.

Live website usage stats: 6,000,000+

Pros of WPForms:

• Extensive library of pre-made form templates for various business types
• User-friendly drag-and-drop form builder for easy customization
• Built-in payment reporting tool to track sales performance

Cons of WPForms:

• Limited payment options compared to some other solutions
• Not ideal for managing large product inventories due to its limited eCommerce features

Pricing: Free plan available. Plans start at $49.50 per year and go up to $299.50 per year. The most affordable plan allows use on 1 website with unlimited forms, submissions, and users.

You can also use our WPForms coupon code to get up to 50% off.

Why we chose WPForms: Overall, this form plugin is great for service-based businesses and those that require quote requests or upfront payments.

7. Squarespace (For Creative Businesses)

Squarespace isn’t just a website builder – it also offers built-in eCommerce functionality. It’s renowned for its stunning, minimalist website design templates, which cater to a wide range of industries.

Based on our experience, we believe Squarespace is a perfect fit for creative and design businesses looking to establish a beautiful online presence and sell their products.

As an eCommerce platform, Squarespace lets you sell digital and physical products. It also integrates with various tools to run an eCommerce website. For instance, you can connect with FedEx for reliable shipping and TaxJar to automate sales tax calculations.

However, its pricing structure is a bit confusing. Features like subscription products and product reviews are only available on higher-tier plans, while other platforms might offer these features as standard or through extensions.

Live website usage stats: 5,200,000+

Pros of Squarespace:

• Eye-catching, pre-designed website templates and a user-friendly drag-and-drop website builder
• Integrates with various tools for online selling, including payment processors, shipping solutions, and dropshipping options
• Sell unlimited products through your online store

Cons of Squarespace:

• Essential eCommerce features are limited on lower-tier plans, requiring upgrades to access them (unlike some competitors)
• A 3% transaction fee applies to the most affordable plan for selling online

Pricing: Plans start at $16 per month and go up to $52 per month. The Business plan, which allows online selling, costs $23 per month and includes features like selling content memberships, products, services, and accepting payments.

Why we chose Squarespace: Creatives can go with Squarespace to easily build a beautiful eCommerce site with stunning templates, a smooth website builder, and integrations with popular sales tools.

8. Wix (For Niche Businesses With Specific Needs)

Wix is a website builder that offers built-in eCommerce functionalities similar to other hosted eCommerce platforms. However, Wix goes a step further by providing industry-specific features that can cater to unique business needs.

For instance, if you manage a hotel, then Wix offers features specifically designed to showcase your property and manage online bookings. These features include tools to display rental listings with customizable rules and availability settings.

While Wix boasts a comprehensive set of features, there’s a potential drawback to be aware of. In our experience, the platform itself can be a bit slow, which could impact the user experience. Some Wix users have also reported poor website loading times.

Live website usage stats: 8,600,000+

Pros of Wix:

• Industry-specific features catering to niche businesses (e.g., vacation rentals, event ticketing, digital art)
• Ability to sell up to 50,000 products
• Supports pre-orders and sales channels like social media and marketplaces
• Flexible drag-and-drop website builder with a wide variety of industry-specific templates

Cons of Wix:

Pricing: Plans range from $17 per month to $159 per month. There’s also a free plan available, but it has limited functionality.

Why we chose Wix: Overall, we recommend Wix for niche businesses that require specific functionalities beyond what basic eCommerce platforms offer.

9. BigCommerce (Premium Solution for Enterprises)

BigCommerce caters to businesses of all sizes, but it truly shines for enterprises with high-volume sales and complex needs.

First, BigCommerce offers unlimited product listings, file storage, bandwidth, and staff accounts across all plans. This lets you create a massive online store with extensive product catalogs, add high-quality product images, and manage teams without worrying about limitations.

Additionally, BigCommerce supports multi-storefronts. This enables you to manage separate brands or regional stores under one platform.

That being said, BigCommerce has sales limits associated with each plan. If your online sales exceed the limit for your current plan, you’ll need to upgrade to a higher tier.

Live website usage stats: 42,600+

Pros of BigCommerce:

• Unlimited products, file storage, bandwidth, and staff accounts in all plans
• Multi-currency support for international selling
• Real-time shipping quotes for customer convenience
• Multi-channel selling capabilities (Amazon, eBay, Walmart, Facebook, Instagram, POS systems)

Cons of BigCommerce:

• Online sales limits on each plan (upgrade required if exceeded)
• The drag-and-drop eCommerce website builder is not the easiest to use

Pricing: Plans range from $29 per month to $299 per month, with no additional transaction fees. The lowest plan is capped at $50,000 in annual sales. A free 15-day trial is available.

Why we chose BigCommerce: Scalability, unlimited resources, and multi-channel selling features make BigCommerce an excellent choice for businesses looking to scale fast.

10. Weebly (Freemium eCommerce Platform)

Weebly stands out as the best free eCommerce platform if you are just starting out and budget is a major concern. The free plan offers a surprising amount of functionality, including selling unlimited products, managing inventory, and even calculating sales tax automatically.

One interesting feature we found is the Quick Shop function. This allows you to create a streamlined checkout process in your online shopping experience. This is perfect for situations where you only have a single product or service to sell.

However, it’s important to understand the limitations of Weebly’s free plan. For instance, you cannot connect your online store to a custom domain name, meaning your website address won’t be as professional-looking.

Additionally, selling digital products is not allowed on the free plan.

Live website usage stats: 770,000+

Pros of Weebly:

• Generous free plan with unlimited products, shopping cart, inventory management, and basic eCommerce marketing tools.
• Free SSL certificate for secure online transactions.
• Affordable paid plans compared to other hosted eCommerce platforms.

Cons of Weebly:

• Free plan limitations (no custom domain name and restricted to selling digital products)
• May feel less scalable for complex online stores

Pricing: Free plan available. Paid plans start at $10 per month and go up to $26 per month. All plans include a free SSL certificate, the ability to add custom code, Quick Shop functionality, and unlimited products.

Why we chose Weebly: If you want to start a simple online store on a budget, then Weebly is a great place to do it.

11. Magento (Open-Source Solution for Enterprises)

Magento is a powerful open-source eCommerce platform owned by Adobe Commerce. Unlike hosted solutions, Magento offers extensive customization capabilities for tailoring your online store to your exact needs.

Similar to WordPress plugins, Magento extensions offer a wide range of features, from customer support and security enhancements to advanced shipping options and marketing tools. These extensions can add significant value to your store but often come with additional costs.

With all this in mind, Magento requires significant technical expertise to set up and maintain. Additionally, it demands robust hosting resources, typically on a VPS (Virtual Private Server). For business owners looking for a managed solution, it’s better to look elsewhere.

Live website usage stats: 120,000+

Pros of Magento:

• Open-source software, free to download and use
• A large and active community forum for support
• Extensive library of extensions to enhance store functionality

Cons of Magento:

• Requires significant technical expertise for setup, maintenance, and security

Why we chose Magento: With all things considered, we recommend Magento for established businesses with the technical resources and development expertise to manage a complex platform.

Must-Use Tools to Optimize Your Online Store

Now that you are familiar with the most popular eCommerce platforms, here are some must-use tools to help you optimize your store and increase conversions.

1. FunnelKit

FunnelKit is a sales funnel builder specifically designed to improve your eCommerce website’s conversion rate. By creating targeted sales funnels, you can guide your website visitors through a specific journey, leading them toward making a purchase.

We have tested out FunnelKit extensively to evaluate its features for eCommerce stores. Feel free to read our FunnelKit review to learn more about it.

Besides the sales funnel builder, you can also use FunnelKit Automations. This tool lets you set up automated marketing campaigns triggered by your visitors’ behavior. For instance, you can automatically send emails to follow up with customers after they make a purchase or promote new products.

While FunneKit offers a free version, it’s very limited. For example, it’s not possible to set up order bumps to offer users additional products to increase average order value. That’s why we recommend investing in a paid version.

Pros of FunnelKit:

• Pre-made design templates for essential funnel elements
• Dynamic offers can personalize upsell recommendations based on customer shopping carts
• Split testing functionality to optimize your funnels for better conversions

Cons of FunnelKit:

• Free plan has limitations

Pricing: Plans range from $99.5 per year to $399 per year. The most affordable plan allows use on 1 website and includes over 20 checkout templates, 9 checkout optimization features, and an abandoned cart recovery tool.

Why we chose FunnelKit: With its pre-made templates, automation features, and split testing capabilities, FunnelKit makes it easy to optimize your conversion rate and increase your sales.

2. OptinMonster

OptinMonster is a powerful lead-generation plugin designed to help you capture visitor email addresses and grow your email list. We use it on all our websites to capture leads, and it helped us increase email subscribers by 600% on WPBeginner alone.

With this tool, you can create targeted popups, opt-in forms, and notification banners to encourage users to subscribe and stay engaged with your brand. This allows you to nurture leads, promote new products and special offers, and ultimately drive more sales.

One of OptinMonster’s standout features is its advanced targeting capabilities. For instance, you can target visitors based on their exit intent (showing a popup as they try to leave your website) or tailor product recommendations based on their past purchases.

The one downside to OptinMonster is there is no free plan, though you can use our coupon code to get 10% off.

Pros of OptinMonster:

• Extensive library of pre-made templates for various campaigns and seasons
• User-friendly drag-and-drop builder for easy customization
• A/B testing functionality to identify your most effective marketing strategies

Cons of OptinMonster:

Pricing: Plans range from $5.97 per month to $39.97 per month. Even the most affordable plan offers unlimited campaigns and unlimited subscribers, making it a cost-effective solution for growing your email list.

Why we chose OptinMonster: The vast template library, drag-and-drop builder, and advanced targeting features make OptinMonster a valuable tool for boosting conversions.

3. Advanced Coupons

If you use WooCommerce as your eCommerce platform, then it already offers a built-in discount feature. However, for businesses seeking more advanced coupon features, Advanced Coupons is a powerful plugin worth considering.

This plugin lets you create various coupon types, including ‘Buy One Get One’ (BOGO) offers, coupon codes that can be shared through unique URLs, scheduled coupons that activate or deactivate at specific times, and even automatically applied coupons at checkout.

That being said, Advanced Coupons is best if you plan on offering various types of discounts. Otherwise, the plugin can feel like overkill.

You can read our Advanced Coupons review for more details.

Pros of Advanced Coupons:

• Wide variety of coupon options: one-time discounts, BOGO deals, percentage or fixed-amount discounts, free shipping coupons, and more
• Set usage restrictions and cart conditions to control how coupons are applied
• Schedule coupons in advance for strategic promotions and sales events

Cons of Advanced Coupons:

• May be excessive if you only require basic discount functionalities

Pricing: Advanced Coupons offers tiered plans starting from $59.50 per year to $149.50 per year.

However, we recommend considering the all-access bundle priced at $249.50 per year. This bundle includes Advanced Coupons, the Loyalty Program plugin, and the Advanced Gift Cards plugin. This is a complete kit to incentivize repeat business and increase customer loyalty.

You can also use our coupon code to get up to 50% off of your first purchase.

Why we chose Advanced Coupons: The plugin offers various coupon types, the ability to set rules for coupons, and coupon scheduling features. All these features let you run your promotional campaigns much more effectively.

What Is the Best eCommerce Platform?

Overall, the best eCommerce solution growing in popularity is WooCommerce. It has a user-friendly interface for managing products, inventory, and orders, making it perfect for first-time business owners.

Plus, it integrates with the extensive WordPress plugin ecosystem. This gives you countless options for marketing, payments, shipping, and more for your online store.

Alternatively, if you specialize in selling digital products like ebooks, software, or courses, then Easy Digital Downloads is the perfect solution. This eCommerce tool streamlines the process of managing digital downloads, protecting your files, and delivering them securely to customers.

If you offer exclusive content, courses, or communities, then MemberPress allows you to create paid memberships with tiered access levels. This gives you the flexibility to create premium content subscriptions and generate recurring revenue.

eCommerce Solutions: FAQs

Now that we’ve explored some popular eCommerce platforms and tools, let’s answer some frequently asked questions.

Ultimate Guides to Boost Your Online Store Sales

We hope this article has helped you find the best eCommerce solution that’s growing in popularity. You may also want to check out our article on proven affiliate marketing tips and our expert picks of the best referral program software for small businesses.

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