Getting Started on the Woo Marketplace

Merchants and builders come to the official WooCommerce Marketplace for trusted products that enable them to create exactly the store they want. We’re looking to grow our offering with extensions, integrations and themes that add real value for anyone building a business with WooCommerce.

The following guidelines will give you insight into the products we’re currently looking for, how to best position your products for Marketplace consideration, and the submission process.

WooCommerce transforms a WordPress website into a powerful eCommerce store. From theme designs to complex functionality, customers can purchase what they need from WooCommerce.com. On average, stores running WooCommerce have 15 products.  (Data from WooCommerce Tracker)

Customers purchasing from WooCommerce.com are fans of WordPress and the open-source ethos.

Marketplace customers are:

• Both merchants and builders.  67% are buying extensions for their own stores, while 33% are developing sites on behalf of store owners.
• Spread across many verticals.  The top verticals by store volume include: Fashion and Apparel, Health and Beauty, Education, Food and Drink, and Home and Garden.
• Selling physical products and multiple types of products. 70% sell physical products; 24% of stores that sell a physical product, also sell another type of product like digital goods, services, memberships, or tickets.
• Selling many, many products. 40% sell 11-100 products, while 1 in 4 sell 100-500 products.
• Operating all over the world: The strongest representation is currently in the US and Europe, while faster growth is in APAC and LATAM.

The most successful products sold in the Marketplace fill a clear business need for a large portion of store builders and developers. Get to know what customers want firsthand:

• Keep up with the Develop WooCommerce blog.
• Join the WooCommerce Community Slack.
• Talk to store owners or developers within your network.

We’re looking for products that help store owners create successful businesses. Before submitting a product for review, please consider the following:

• Focus on best-in-class extensions and integrations. The Woo Marketplace is ideal for proven products that will benefit from expanded visibility in a premium environment. We prioritize products with an existing customer base and positive feedback (e.g. with above-average ratings).
• Submit solutions in categories that are currently underrepresented. Browse the Woo Marketplace, see what’s already listed and what’s not. For guidance, we are prioritizing solutions in the following categories:
  • Accounting
  • AI Assistance
  • Analytics & reporting 
  • B2B / B2C product sourcing
  • Block-based themes (see below bullet for additional conditions)
  • CRM tools / platform 
  • Customer support tools /platform
  • Freemium
  • Inventory management
  • Localization / Multilingual / International pricing
  • Payments (see below bullet for additional conditions)
  • Personalization
  • Point of Sale (POS)
  • SaaS
  • Scalability support
  • SEO
  • Store automations
  • Tax 
• For block themes, know our current vertical focus areas. These include Clothing and Fashion, Health and Beauty, Electronics/Gadgets, Bookings/Accommodation, Restaurants (Booking a table), Subscription-based services.
• Think carefully before submitting products in payments.
  • For new payment plugin submissions we will prioritize products that support new regions, verticals, methods not listed today. We are particularly interested in B2B, Crypto, and Omni-channel solutions.
  • The payment service provider (processor or acquirer) is required to be involved in the submission process. We can help facilitate bringing the provider into the discussion but will prioritize submissions where this relationship is already in place.
  • Payment extensions will only be listed with an accompanying partnership agreement (custom or standardized) and cannot be submitted into the paid extension monetization/listing model.
• Be original. WooCommerce is committed to open-source and promoting best practices within the community. We, therefore, expect our partners to support the intent of GPL and submit products with evidence of meaningful development work. Do not submit forked product. Forked products will be rejected or removed from the Marketplace.

• Products must adhere to foundational guidelines featured in the Developer Hub.
• Extensions must adhere to extension best practices and user experience guidelines.
• Themes must adhere to theme development and theme design and user experience guidelines.
• SaaS products must integrate with the billing API.  API keys and sandbox access are granted manually after products are submitted for Marketplace consideration.
• Products must support the latest two major releases of WooCommerce and WordPress.
• Products must support PHP 7.4+ (PHP 8+ strongly recommended).
• Products must follow generally accepted security best practices.
• Products must exclude spam links, affiliate links, or links to upsell products outside the Woo Marketplace.
• Product must be able to pass the following Quality Insights Toolkit(QIT) tests:
  • API
  • E2E
  • Activation
  • Security
  • PHPCompatibility
  • Malware

The Woo Marketplace offers the following monetization options:

• Paid extension or theme with an annual subscription.
• Freemium extension or theme, a free version, and a paid version with an annual subscription.
• Free extension that requires a separate monthly or annual subscription to a connected service that integrates the Billing API (for example, this is a common model for SaaS products).

For free products that cannot use our Billing API, please reach out to discuss partnership opportunities via our Partners page.

Except for those partners who sign a custom agreement with us, all vendors listing on WooCommerce.com must agree to our Marketplace Vendor Agreement. If you require additional or custom terms, we can address this separately.

Vendors selling on the Woo Marketplace agree to:

• Maintain and update products to keep up with developments in both WordPress and WooCommerce, and to continually add new features for customers.
• Provide support for their products. Support is submitted via WooCommerce.com and then routed directly to partners.
• Manage their own product pages, hosted on WooCommerce.com.
• Manage their own Partner page, hosted on WooCommerce.com.
• Manage their own documentation, hosted on WooCommerce.com.

Vendors earn 70% of net revenue for the sale of their non-exclusive products, meaning the products can be sold on our Marketplace as well as off-platform. “Net revenue” applies to products sold in our Marketplace and means all revenues received by us in connection with a customer’s subscription for the product, less any amounts for discounts, refunds, reversals, affiliate fees, payment processing fees, and taxes. Payments are sent with 30 days of the end of the month.  

Vendors also enjoy:

• Promotion on the Marketplace screen within WooCommerce.
• Discovery on the official Marketplace, including search benefits from being listed on WooCommerce.com and WooCommerce.com/documentation.
• Participation in WooCommerce.com sales and promotions, as determined by the WooCommerce team.
• Customer feedback through ratings, reviews, and support tickets.
• Recurring revenue through automatic renewals, high renewal rates, and renewal pricing that is not discounted.