Which version does your store actually need?
Free takes card payments properly. Pro exists for stores with repeat customers, bank transfers or recurring revenue. Here is the honest split.
Stay on Free if
- You sell one off products and most buyers order once
- Card is the only payment method you need
- Order values are low enough that card fees are not the argument
- You are testing whether the gateway works before spending anything
- A single store, no client sites to manage
Move to Pro if
- Customers come back and abandon when asked to retype a card
- Average order is high enough that ACH beats card interchange
- You bill on a schedule, which means Enterprise for subscriptions
- You sell to businesses and want Level III rates
- You need a reply from support the next working day
Line by line
Pro means the $49 plan. Rows marked Enterprise need the $79 plan or above.
All four plans| Feature | Free | Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Taking a card payment | ||
| Hosted card fieldsCard inputs served by the gateway, never posted to your server | Yes | Yes |
| Sale at checkout | Yes | Yes |
| Authorize now, capture on dispatch | Yes | Yes |
| Partial capture and partial refund | Yes | Yes |
| Void an unsettled transaction | Yes | Yes |
| Auth code and transaction ID on the order | Yes | Yes |
| Apple Pay and Google PayWallet buttons on cart and checkout | Not included | Yes |
| 3D Secure 2Liability shift on eligible transactions | Not included | Yes |
| Repeat customers | ||
| Saved cards through the Customer Vault | Not included | Yes |
| One click reorder | Not included | Yes |
| Customers manage their own cardsAdd, remove and set a default from My Account | Not included | Yes |
| Bank payments | ||
| ACH and eCheck at checkout | Not included | Yes |
| Account and routing validation | Not included | Yes |
| Recurring billing | ||
| WooCommerce Subscriptions renewalsEnterprise plan and above | Not included | Enterprise |
| Customer led card change on a subscription | Not included | Enterprise |
| Retry schedule on soft declines | Not included | Enterprise |
| B2B and multi entity | ||
| Level II and Level III data | Not included | Enterprise |
| Multiple merchant IDs | Not included | Enterprise |
| Platform and support | ||
| Blocks checkout and HPOS | Yes | Yes |
| Sandbox mode and redacted logging | Yes | Yes |
| Multisite credentials | Not included | Yes |
| Support channel | Forum | Priority queue |
| Price | $0 | From $49 a year |
The three upgrades that pay for themselves
Most upgrades happen for one of these reasons, in this order.
Saved cards
ProRetyping a card is where returning buyers drop out. Storing a token in the vault turns the second order into two clicks, and it is the cheapest conversion work available to a repeat purchase store.
ACH
ProOn a four hundred dollar order, card fees are real money. Bank debit costs a flat fee instead of a percentage. One high ticket order a week usually covers the licence.
Subscription renewals
EnterpriseWithout this, renewals have to be charged by hand in the gateway. With it, WooCommerce Subscriptions bills the stored token on schedule and retries the declines.
Level III data
EnterpriseIf you take commercial cards from business buyers, sending line item detail can drop the interchange category. The saving scales with volume and costs nothing per transaction.
Upgrading, in practice
Nothing to migrate, nothing to reconfigure.
Do I install a different plugin?
Can I try Pro before paying?
What if I only need one Pro feature?
Does upgrading change anything for existing customers?
If I stop paying, do I lose access?
Start free, upgrade when the store needs it.
Install from WordPress.org, connect your gateway, take a real order today.