PayWhirl vs WooCommerce
PayWhirl
paywhirl.com
WooCommerce
woocommerce.comSide by side
| Figure | PayWhirl | WooCommerce |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $9/mo | $2.42/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | — |
| Open source | — | Yes |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | — | Yes |
| Linux | — | Yes |
| iOS | — | Yes |
| Android | — | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 11 | 4 |
| Spec score · Subscription Ecommerce Software | 8.8 (#5) | 8.6 (#8) |
| Analytics | Reporting includes MRR, ARR, customer lifetime value, churn, payment calendars, geographic data and growth forecasts. | WooCommerce connects with Google Analytics and provides reporting intended to support data-driven decisions. |
| Company facts | LinkedIn lists PayWhirl Inc. as privately held, founded in 2013, headquartered in Ventura, California, with 2–10 employees. | Automattic Inc. is WooCommerce's parent company; Automattic was founded in August 2005, is headquartered in San Francisco and reports 1,447 employees. |
| Licence | PayWhirl’s terms state that PayWhirl and its licensors own the service, software, documentation and interfaces, indicating proprietary software rather than an open-source licence. | WooCommerce core is released under the GNU General Public License version 3 or later. |
| Rating on Capterra | 4.3 out of 5 from 16 reviews | 4.5 out of 5 from 1,054 reviews. |
| Rating on G2 | 4.2 out of 5 from 12 reviews | 4.4 out of 5 from 1,283 reviews. |
| Rating on GetApp | 4.3 out of 5 from 16 reviews | 4.5 out of 5 from 1,054 verified reviews. |
| What it does | PayWhirl provides subscription management and recurring-billing software for ecommerce merchants and custom websites. | WooCommerce is an open-source ecommerce platform and WordPress plugin for selling physical products, digital goods and services. |
Plans
PayWhirl
- FreeFree
- FreeFree
- StarterFree
- StarterFree
- Pro$9 a month
- Traction$29 a month
- Business Pro$49 a month
- Business Plus$149 a month
- Scale$149 a month
- Business Ultimate$249 a month
WooCommerce
- WooCommerce coreFree
- WooCommerce mobile appFree
- Typical hosting$25 a month
- Extensions$29 a year
In their own words
PayWhirl
PayWhirl provides subscription billing software for memberships, payment plans, recurring invoices, and recurring subscriptions. It also supports installments, retainers, pre-orders, donations, manual subscriptions, and one-time payments. For recurring billing, it automates scheduled charges, invoices, emails, retries, and dunning. Customers can manage payment methods, billing details, and subscription changes in a self-service portal, subject to merchant settings. Reporting covers MRR and ARR, customer lifetime value, churn, payment calendars, geographic reporting, and growth forecasting. Merchants can connect through embeddable widgets, hosted payment links, API access, webhooks, or custom scripts. Listed integrations include Shopify, BigCommerce, Squarespace, Wix, Stripe, Square, PayPal, Authorize.Net, Braintree, ShipStation, Mailchimp, Google Analytics, and Zapier. PayWhirl says it supports over 10 gateways and major cards in more than 100 currencies, depending on gateway capabilities. Plans include free options and paid plans from $9 a month; a 14-day free trial is available for paid plans. Transaction fees are additional to payment gateway or processor fees.
WooCommerce
WooCommerce is free, self-hosted software for running an online store with omnichannel sales channels. Its core plan costs nothing, billed free with no monthly subscription. The plan lists unlimited products, unlimited orders, and unlimited APIs, allowing catalog and order volume without those stated caps. WooCommerce supports digital products as well as general online-store sales, includes abandoned-cart recovery, and provides an app marketplace. The listed transaction fee is payment-only. Because the hosting model is self-hosted, the store runs on hosting managed by the user rather than a hosted WooCommerce environment. WooCommerce is made by WooCommerce, founded in 2005 and headquartered in San Francisco, California, USA. The combination of omnichannel selling, digital-product support, recovery tools, and extensible apps gives store operators a broad core setup without a subscription charge. Hosting management remains part of choosing this model.