Free vs Pro: what each version does
Free is not a trial. Everything the free plugin has done since 2013 stays free, on every store, with no time limit and nothing switched off. Pro adds the rules for stores where one fee per payment method is not enough.
What both versions do
The free plugin sets one fee on each payment method, using the same fee engine Pro uses. That engine has run on more than 10,000 stores for over a decade. Nothing here is held back, reduced or time-limited.
- Fixed amount, percentage, or both
- Minimum and maximum caps on any fee that has a percentage
- Negative amounts — a discount instead of a fee
- Fee label with placeholders for the amount, percentage, cart total and caps
- No fee when shipping is free, per payment method
- Tax class, tax-inclusive amounts, VAT-exempt customers
- Classic checkout, block checkout, HPOS
- WPML, five multi-currency plugins, eight translations
- Every developer filter from 2.x still fires, with its v2 name and arguments
What Pro adds
Seven additions. Each one is for a store where a single flat fee per payment method is no longer enough.
Several fee tiers per method, first match wins
Stack more than one rule on a single payment method. They are checked top to bottom and the first whose conditions match is the one charged — so cash on delivery can take 2% on baskets under $1,000 and a flat amount above that.
Conditions — nine things a rule can check before it charges
A rule only applies when the order matches it. It can check cart total, coupon, product, category, country or state, customer role, shipping method, shipping zone and shipping class, combined with AND. Coupon and shipping-method values take * wildcards.
Fee as a product line, for invoicing exports that skip fees
Some invoicing and accounting plugins ignore WooCommerce fee lines entirely, so the fee never reaches the invoice. Pro can write it as a product line instead, which they all read.
Fees on the order-pay page and orders you create by hand
WooCommerce never runs cart fees outside a checkout, so an order raised in the admin or paid through a pay-for-order link carries no fee at all. Pro writes the fee onto those orders itself. On the order-pay page the customer sees each method’s fee and the new total before paying. A failed card payment retried by bank transfer ends up with the bank-transfer fee, not the card one.
Hide the fee on the cart, or show it beside every payment method
The cart previews a fee before anyone has chosen how to pay, which confuses shoppers. Pro can hide it there. At checkout it puts each method’s fee beside that method’s name, so the shopper compares the prices before choosing instead of finding the charge afterwards.
Fee watchdog — flags orders that should carry a fee and don’t
A daily check over recent checkout orders. If one used a gateway you charge for and came through without a fee, you hear about it in days — not when the quarter’s numbers look wrong.
Support direct from the developer
Email that carries your licence with it, so I can see what you are running before I answer. Free support is the public WordPress.org forum, which is slower but visible to the next person with the same problem.
What happens when a licence ends
Three things change, and none of your settings is deleted.
The first fee on each payment method keeps being charged. Your store does not quietly stop charging fees the day a licence lapses.
Every Pro-only behaviour stops. The extra fee tiers, conditions, the fee written as a product line — that goes back to a standard WooCommerce fee line — fees on order-pay and manually created orders, the display controls, and the watchdog.
Nothing is deleted. The whole configuration stays in the database, so renewing brings it back exactly as it was. There is no reconfiguration step, and no export to take before the end of the term.
The same is true in the other direction: Pro installs over the free version in place, reads the same settings, and every fee you had set up is still set up. The licence doc has the detail.
Which version you need
One question decides it: whether a single fee on each payment method is the whole rule your store needs.
One fee per payment method, on every order
A flat amount, a percentage or both, with caps and tax handled — charged the same whoever is buying. Free covers that completely, with no term on it and nothing switched off later.
Outgrow it later and Pro installs over the top, reading the settings you already have.
Download the free version on WordPress.org (opens in a new tab)The fee depends on the order — or the order never passes a checkout
Different amounts by basket size, country, coupon, role or shipping method; fees on order-pay links and orders you raise by hand; and a say in where the fee is shown.
See pricing — from $39 / yearWorth reading before you buy anything
- The comparison as a tableThe same facts as this page, feature by feature, on the homepage.
- PricesOne plan with every Pro feature in it; what changes between tiers is how many stores it runs on.
- CompatibilityCheckout types, HPOS, gateways, WPML and the multi-currency plugins, with the version each needs.
- LimitationsEverything the plugin cannot do, said before you pay rather than after.