8 Woocommerce Subscription Plugins for Recurring Earning
In the 1990s, when we had just begun to use software, things were completely different. The Internet had just begun with dial-up connections being the order of the day.
Some magazines used to distribute tons of trial versions of different software in CDS. It was a medium for software companies to market their software product, this way.
As time went by, when people started relying more on the internet, many things started changing. People stopped using CDs to install any software.
Users of the internet could easily download trial versions of software and start using them. Once they felt comfortable using the trial version, they could buy the full version.
In recent times even this changed with software giants like Microsoft, and Adobe started offering a subscription-based model.
In this model, instead of buying the software, customers pay a recurring monthly fee as a subscription fee. They can keep updating the software and stop the subscription when they don’t see any value addition.
This model continued to grow as more and more software started to flood the market. After the series of lockdowns, more of the digital world got enabled to see a raise in the subscription-based model.
A lot of individuals have come up with small software that helps people in different ways. Wanting to follow this model on their website, let us see in this article the different types of subscription-based plugins available in WordPress.
To sell products on WordPress, we always suggest the best plugin out there for WordPress, which is WooCommerce. If you want to just sell a digital or physical product, you don’t need anything extra.
You can start using WooCommerce just by installing the free plugin out of the box.
Can you Sell Subscriptions on WordPress?
You can sell subscriptions on WordPress using WooCommerce, a free plugin available in the WordPress repository installing which you will be enabling the capabilities of eCommerce, in the sense that you will be able to sell both digital and physical products.
There are many premium plugins that you can later install that will help you with selling your subscriptions out of the box. These plugins are not even expensive. You can check them out in our coming sections.
How do I set up Subscriptions on WordPress?
The first thing you should do is to Install the WooCommerce plugin that is available for free on the WordPress repository. Go to the plugins from the left sidebar and select “Add Plugins“.
Search for the plugin WooCommerce from the search bar.
Once you are done you will have to install one of the plugins that we will be talking about in the further sections. You will be able to sell subscriptions
How do I set up Subscriptions in WooCommerce?
As told earlier after installing WooCommerce, you will have to install the following plugin that best suits you. The installation of any plugin is the same as what we have shown in the previous section.
What is the Difference Between WooCommerce Memberships and Subscriptions?
A subscription is an agreement that happens to be a financial one, between a seller who offers a product to a customer, who pays in regular intervals until deciding against using it.
Eg. Microsoft Office subscription for a monthly price
Membership comes with a benefit in the form of actively participating in a group or community for the benefit of the growth of all the members together or individually, by paying or for free.
Eg. Becoming a member of Wikipedia for free and volunteering in editing or write articles.
8 WooCommerce Subscription Plugins
Knowing the difference, let us check out the subscription plugins in WooCommerce, along with membership plugins.
1. WooCommerce Subscriptions by WooCommerce
This is a plugin developed by WooCommerce themselves.
Using this you can create and manage recurring payments both for virtual and physical products. You can, with this plugin track and count the residual revenue.
The only thing that you will have to take care of is to ship the physical orders, sit back and relax. The rest of the things are taken care of by this WooCommerce plugin by WooCommerce themselves.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Customizable multiple billing schedules | Feature development stalled |
| Over 25 payment gateway integrations for auto-recurring payments | Not documented well |
| Can even be renewed manually with invoices automatically sent | Required addons for additional features |
| Detailed reports on subscribers and revenue | Bad customer service |
| Prior renewal notification to customers | Overpriced |
| Customers can upgrade or downgrade plans based on their needs | Delay in fixing issues |
| When a payment fails, it is automatically billed | Many bad reviews |
2. Subscriptions for WooCommerce by WebToffee
Developed by WebToffee, using this plugin, you can create and manage recurring payments like a child’s play. As opposed to the previous plugin, this one has got very good reviews.
You can create simple subscriptions using this plugin that includes subscription price, interval, and subscription period.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Both simple and variable subscriptions | Very less popular |
| You can even set free trials | Fewer reviews |
| Manage renewal interval | Not listed in other portals |
| Recurring subscription discounts can be offered | Customers cannot upgrade or change products |
| Major payment gateways supported | |
| Multilingual support | |
| Convenient subscription management |
3. Subscriptio – WooCommerce Subscriptions
Developed by RightPress, which is a payment capability for the popular plugin WooCommerce, using which you can sell products like:
- Magazine Subscription
- Online Memberships
- e-learning Packages
- Other tangible or intangible products
It is listed in CodeCanyon from where you can download it. It has got about 158 reviews which are more are less on the positive side.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Admin subscription management area that is both powerful and easy to use | Version conflicts |
| Paypal and Stripe are supported for automatic subscriptions | Poor support at times |
| Billing cycle length and max subscription length can be set | 2Checkout integration is not available |
| A one-off signup fee too can be charged | |
| Major payment gateways supported | |
| You can pause, resume and cancel subscriptions | |
| Convenient subscription management |
4. Yith Woocommerce Subscription
The developers of a lot of other plugins only related to WooCommerce YITH are the #1 independent sellers of WooCommerce plugins.
You cannot take away your eye off them in search engines if you are trying to find more details about WooComerce.
With about 83 reviews from their own website, most of them are positive. Let us find out the pros and cons of this plugin.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Can be completely integrated with YITH WooCommerce Membership | Small features need to be added |
| Trial Mode lets the clients access for a brief period | Many bugs need to be fixed |
| A built-in reminder system will prompt customers to activate or renew the subscriptions | Expensive compared to the others |
| Users can switch, pause or cancel the subscription plans | |
| We can decide on how to handle the failed payments | |
| Email notifications from within the plugin both to the admins and subscribers | |
| Additional coupon types to apply discounts on the sign-up fee |
5. SUMO Subscriptions
From the developers who have already sold this plugin to 3478 customers. By far this is the plugin with maximum positive reviews.
There are tons of other plugins that the developers of this plugin have developed. This plugin is a complete Subscription System, which is always compatible with the latest WordPress.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| A very comprehensive plugin covering many features | Paypal does not Reference Transactions |
| Comes with a complete subscription system | Doesn’t Integrate with essential subscription plugins like LearnDash |
| Works with any WooCommerce-supported themes | The response to most of the queries is to take a refund by opening a refund request |
| Always compatible with the latest version of WooCommerce | |
| We can decide on how to handle the failed payments | |
| Built-in automatic subscription renewal | |
| Set Overdue and Suspend Period | |
| WPML compatible | |
| Recurring Donations with SUMO Donations Plugin |
6. Subscriptions For WooCommerce Pro
A pretty new plugin from WPSwings has a separate set of features for admin and customers. It has a lot of compatibilities and gets integrated with a lot of plugins. The following is a list of plugins that this plugin is compatible with:
- Membership For WooCommerce
- Wallet System For WooCommerce
- Ultimate Gift Cards For WooCommerce
- WooCommerce Payment Gateway
Let us look at some of the pros and cons of this plugin.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Accepts Manual Payment for Subscription | It is a very new plugin tested by very few people |
| Allows Multiple Quantities on Subscription Products | |
| Notifications and Reminders | |
| Provides APIs of course for details | |
| Subscription Plans Details | |
| Exclusive Coupon Types | |
| Handle WooCommerce Subscriptions Proration | |
| Active WooCommerce Subscription Export Function |
7. WP Simple Pay (Built for Stripe)
A plugin that is optimized for mobile comes with a payment form builder which makes it easy to collect payments. It works only with the stripe payment gateway.
Apart from that, there are tons of unique features that you won’t find in most of the plugins.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Payment collection in a simple way | It is a very new plugin tested by very few people |
| Payment is processed in a secure way | |
| Responsive | |
| Coupon codes in ever | |
| Subscription Plans Details | |
| Drag and Drop functions | |
| Active WooCommerce Subscription Export Function |
8. Paid Memberships Pro
A plugin that has a portal dedicated just for this. You can literally connect with lots of plugins out of the box. There are more than 100,000 active installs and has a pretty good review.
They have three different plans with the difference in no. of sites and addons. They are:
- Standard – 1 Site License with 20 standard add-ons
- Plus – 2 Site Licenses with 30 standard add-ons
- Builder – 5 Site Licenses with 30 standard add-ons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Restrict content for certain user types | Too many features for basic functionality |
| Restrict even custom post types | No scope for selection of add-ons |
| Content dripping | Highly-priced |
| Customized content | |
| Create directories and profiles | |
| Use with WordPress Multisite (an advanced WordPress website) | |
| Unlimited levels | |
| Multi-tiered membership | |
| Member notifications and communication | |
| Flexible Membership Level Pricing | |
| Customizable Membership Trial Periods | |
| Variable Pricing and Donations |
