I have built many eCommerce websites with WooCommerce for my clients. WooCommerce is a good plugin, but I didn’t always have a pleasant experience.
I had to install many extra plugins to get some common eCommerce features. These plugins caused errors sometimes, which was frustrating. There wasn’t an alternative until SureCart arrived.
When I first used SureCart, I was impressed by the thought put into it. However, choosing an eCommerce solution involves many considerations.
Does SureCart meet the mark? Should you choose SureCart over WooCommerce? Let’s find out together.
WooCommerce vs SureCart: A Detailed Comparison
Ease of Use
Ecommerce plugins often focus on the front-end design of a website. But, the backend dashboard is also important for easy store management.
WooCommerce uses the default WordPress interface. This interface is not as appealing as current design standards. Additionally, there are many settings here and there. This makes it hard for non-technical users to find what they need.
When you install SureCart, you immediately notice the modern user interface. The interface is cleaner with fewer settings cluttering the screen. This makes important settings easier to find.
The interface is designed with non-technical users in mind.
SureCart wins in this aspect.
Design Customization
I care about design a lot. These two plugins have different approaches to customization.
WooCommerce doesn’t provide design options out of the box. It relies on the theme or page builder you are using.
Most free eCommerce themes offer limited design flexibility for pages like Shop, Account, Checkout, and Cart. For total design freedom, you often need to buy paid themes like WoodMart or Flatsome.
If you use page builders like Elementor to build a website from scratch, you’ll need to pay for WooCommerce widgets too.
But, there are free third-party add-on plugins for Elementor that provide these widgets.
SureCart is different. It has built-in options to customize pages like Shop, Account, Checkout, and Cart. It doesn’t rely on your theme.
The shopping experience is customizable without extra plugins. It uses the default WordPress editor and custom widgets.
SureCart has done a good job with widget availability. Yet, it has design limitations since it uses the default WordPress editor.
You can only customize as much as the WordPress editor supports. There are no paid versions to extend these options. The default design is good, so you might not need many changes.
When you need more customization, WooCommerce offers greater design flexibility through its paid solutions. With WooCommerce, you can pay to extend design options, which isn’t possible with SureCart.
Even though SureCart offers a unique design customization solution. WooCommerce gets the point for its extendable design options.
Features
Both plugins share many common features. But, there are a few that SureCart offers out of the box that WooCommerce doesn’t. Here, I will compare the free features.
Common Features
- Product Types – Support for various product types, including physical and digital products.
- Inventory Management – Tools to manage stock levels, backorders, and product availability.
- Multiple Payment Options – Integration with popular payment gateways like PayPal and Stripe.
- Flexible Payment Methods – Supports various payment methods, including credit cards, bank transfers, and digital wallets.
- Shipping Rates – Options to set flat rates, offer free shipping, or calculate shipping costs based on carrier services.
- Shipping Zones – Ability to configure shipping zones and rules to manage where products can be shipped and at what cost.
- User Accounts – Features for customers to create and manage accounts, view order history, and save payment details.
- Guest Checkout – This option is for customers to check out as guests without creating an account.
- Discounts and Coupons – Tools to create and manage discount codes, sales, and promotional offers.
- Email Notifications – Automated email notifications for order confirmations, shipping updates, and customer follow-ups.
- Sales Reports – Detailed sales and revenue reports to track business performance.
- Customer Insights – Analytics to understand customer behavior and product performance.
Unique Features of SureCart
- Built-in Form Builder – SureCart includes an integrated form builder. It allows users to create custom checkout forms, product pages, and customer interaction forms. This eliminates the need for extra plugins. The form builder simplifies capturing customer information and customizing the checkout experience.
- Subscription and Membership Management – SureCart has built-in support for managing subscriptions and memberships. It provides most of the necessary features for subscription or membership businesses free. This functionality is included in the core platform.
- Powerful Payment Options – SureCart supports a variety of payment methods. These include one-time payments, subscriptions, subscriptions with free trials, setup fees, payment plans (installments), pay-what-you-want, and donations. All these options are included for free.
- Order Bumps & Upsell Funnels – It also offers revenue optimization features such as one-click order bumps, post-purchase one-click upsells, and cart abandonment recovery to increase profitability.
- Affiliate Platform – SureCart has an in-built affiliate system. This allows users to launch and customize an affiliate program without extra plugins easily. Options include lifetime commissions, custom affiliate rates, and affiliate coupons.
- Real-time VAT & Sales Tax Calculations – SureCart is Integrated with TaxJar. It provides real-time VAT and sales tax calculations at no additional cost, simplifying tax compliance and setup.
Unique Features of WooCommerce
- Advanced Product Types – WooCommerce supports various advanced product types and external/affiliate products. This flexibility allows for complex product offerings and bundling strategies.
- Multi-Vendor Marketplace Support – With the help of plugins like Dokan and WC Vendors, WooCommerce can turn a site into a multi-vendor marketplace. This allows multiple sellers to manage their products and sales independently within a single store.
- Advanced Reporting and Analytics – WooCommerce provides detailed reporting and analytics tools out of the box. These tools offer insights into sales, customers, and product performance.
Speed
Speed is crucial for any eCommerce website, and part of it depends on the plugins you use.
The fewer plugins you install, the better it is for speed. SureCart offers a one-plugin eCommerce solution that is fast and easy to use.
With SureCart, you are less likely to need extra plugins for eCommerce features. It helps to keep the website fast.
In contrast, WooCommerce often requires add-on plugins to get certain features. It adds extra load to your website.
WooCommerce is a self-hosted plugin. It means it performs all backend operations on your website server. This can impact speed, especially if you don’t have a good server.
SureCart is a platform-based plugin. It performs backend operations on the SureCart platform server, not your server.
The SureCart plugin connects with the platform in real-time. It reduces the load on your website server and helps to operate faster.
SureCart takes this point.
Scalability
WooCommerce is built for a wide range of users. It allows you to create any type of e-commerce solution with a lot of features and flexibility.
However, these features are not included by default. You need use extension plugins to get more features. There are hundreds of official extensions available to extend features.
WooCommerce is open source. It has thousands of third-party add-on plugins along with official ones.
Sometimes, you can get pro features for free through third-party plugins. This may sound complex. But scaling an eCommerce website involves a developer to handle these aspects. Developers are used to these things.
On the other hand, SureCart cuts the hassle of installing many eCommerce plugins. It aims to keep things simple. It has built-in features for physical product stores, digital products, or subscription businesses.
SureCart is a private product. So, you are limited to what the officials have developed.
There are no extra extensions available, only paid plans to upgrade some features.
This is fine for SureCart. SureCart is built to be like this. SureCart doesn’t claim you can use it to scale at a high level. It is built for a specific set of users.
For example, If you want to
- Sell your small business products
- Offer subscription services
- Sell digital assets
- Collect donations
SureCart provides all the necessary features for these use cases out of the box.
So, for users needing extensive scalability and customization, WooCommerce is the better option.
Pricing
When thinking about value, SureCart is better out of the box. Getting the same features with WooCommerce would cost $2,849 per year for each store!
The cost of WooCommerce can be hard to figure out because it depends on which add-ons you need. Some add-ons are free, while others require payment. The cost depends on what you choose.
SureCart has two paid plans—Grow and Scale. These start at $29 per month if you pay monthly, or $19 per month if you pay yearly.
The free plan is enough for most users. It has everything you need for digital, physical, or subscription stores.
SureCart deserves this point.
Support
WooCommerce has been around for a long time and is open-source, so it has a lot of resources and support.
There are official and community support options. There are also many videos and blogs to help with common problems.
SureCart mainly relies on its official support. It also has official knowledge bases and tutorials.
Overall, WooCommerce has the advantage of supporting resources.
The Winner
SureCart has won 4 out of 7 criteria, while WooCommerce has won 3. SureCart seems the winner here, but does that mean you should start using SureCart? Actually, no.
SureCart isn’t meant to replace WooCommerce; it offers a new way to sell on WordPress. Both plugins are good for different purposes.
SureCart is a good choice for selling digital products, subscriptions, or simple physical products
But for large and complex online stores, multi-vendor marketplaces, and highly customizable stores, WooCommerce is still the best option.
For a long time, WooCommerce was the only reliable eCommerce plugin. But, now SureCart is an alternative.
Are you interested in selling digital products? Read our article on 3 Best WordPress Plugins for Selling Digital Products (Free)
