TrustRadius Insights for WooCommerce Subscriptions are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, third party data sources.
Pros
Efficient Integration: Users have found the seamless integration with existing WooCommerce setups to be a time-saving convenience, simplifying the plugin setup process. This streamlined integration not only saves time but also reduces the complexity of setting up and managing subscriptions.
Time-efficient Automation: Reviewers have praised the automated subscription creation feature in the admin dashboard for streamlining tasks and enhancing productivity effectively. By automating the subscription process, users can focus more on other aspects of their business while ensuring a smooth customer experience.
Secure Payment Handling: Customers appreciate the secure payment processing through Stripe integration, ensuring reliable authorization and processing of subscription payments. The trust instilled by secure transactions enhances customer confidence and contributes to a positive overall shopping experience.
We use WooCommerce Subscriptions to manage sign ups for our website maintenance system.
Pros
easy integration into WooCommerce
easy for the user to manage their subscription
Cons
haven't really noticed anything yet
Likelihood to Recommend
In a simpler scenario where customers don't need to manage their own subscriptions, you could easily set up something via Stripe. WooCommerce Subscriptions however is good when you do need customers to be able to manage their own subscriptions and make changes without contacting the business.
We have a low price subscription service supplying digital content for subscribers. WooCommerce Subscriptions handles charging them automatically every month, dunning/retrying failed payments, and giving or removing access to the products based on payment status. And because it's part of WooCommerce it uses the payment methods, digital file options and other features of that ecosystem.
Pros
Recurring payments
Dunning / retrying of payments if it fails the first time
Automatically removing access if payments fail
Keeping records of who is on which subscription
Users can manage their own subscription
Cons
WooCommerce Subscriptions in general can be a beast with lots of moving parts
Adding new content for existing subscribers requires using a workaround
Likelihood to Recommend
If you're already using WooCommerce Subscriptions or Wordpress for your online payments then it makes sense to add Subscriptions for charging monthly (or any recurring timeframe). If you know how to customise Wordpress template files and emails it gets even better because you can truly customise the user experience and deliver almost any type of membership you are thinking, of using Subscriptions as the basis for payment.
With Woocommerce subscriptions we are able to automate reoccurring orders for our customers without the need for an external subscription management system. The software seamlessly integrated with out existing woocommerce store and payment gateway. The setup was very straightforward and since launching on our store it has become one of the primary online revenue streams.
Pros
Quickly integrate with an existing woocommerce installation
Automate the process of creating customer subscriptions in our admin dashboard
Integrate with stripe to authorize and process subscription payments
Cons
Subscription management interface for customers
Ability to create subscription bundles
Customising subscription emails sent to customers
Likelihood to Recommend
Works very well for products with a pre-determined subscription frequency that will continue indefinitely until the customer decides to cancel or edit their subscription. If a product could have a flexible subscription frequency this can be a more complex process to setup and put the ui controls in place on the frontend.
I use WooCommerce Subscriptions for my own business and I help clients set up subscription products on their websites as well. Examples of subscriptions my clients and I use are monthly website maintenance and security, subscription-based membership programs, auto-ship products, coaching, retainers, directories, etc.
Pros
Payment plans on higher-end products
Monthly subscriptions or retainers
Works well with WooCommerce members
Perfect of group coaching and masterminds
Cons
Better syncing to ActiveCampaign for renewal reminders
Make it easier for clients to update their credit cards and have it automatically apply to all subscriptions
Likelihood to Recommend
WooCommerce Subscriptions is great for people wanting to offer payment plans on higher-ticket products and services. It's excellent for recurring revenue from products such as masterminds, coaching, memberships, retainer offers, etc. I miss that we could buy bundles of licenses at one time to use with clients.
We use WooCommerce Subscriptions to manage and track our long term subscription orders for both retail and wholesale customers. It's an integral piece that we have slotted in specifically to manage some of our Wordpress tailored micro-websites where we offer a subscription model for our products. The plugin is easy to use by our sales staff, and pretty easy to work on in our IT department. We limit ourselves on how 'crazy' we get with customizing the plugin, though, due to complicating matters (updating code) when core updates come through on the plugin.
Pros
Ease of ability for customers to purchase a product and choose their re-occurring timelines.
Well laid out admin UI to manage orders
Fair amount of customizable options within the plugin to suit varying needs
Updating the plugin is quick and painless
Cons
The front end display on how subscriptions are shown is ok - and a bit tough to really modify the look (from a coding perspective - there's a lot of hooks)
Customizing the plugin beyond it's core features becomes challenging (especially when it's time to update)
It's a paid model, so you have to fork over money every year to continue to get updates
Likelihood to Recommend
WooCommerce Subscription solves most companies need to simply sell subscription models for products (tangible and virtual). It's easy to implement on top of WooCommerce itself, easy to manage the subscription models of how the products are sold, and easy to customize some basics around the front end UI. Overall, it's really a good plug-and-play model that doesn't require hassle.
WooCommerce Subscriptions powers a paid learning site for photographers. I needed a platform for processing regular subscription payments through my WordPress website that supported various subscription levels, renewal terms, coupons, etc. WooCommerce Subscriptions met these needs and helped launch our subscription website. It handles the registration, billing, and management of users and their subscriptions within our eCommerce store.
Pros
Create and manage subscriptions on your WordPress website
Connect with learning management systems for online courses
Integrates with the rest of the WooCommerce suite
Cons
The subscription pricing model is expensive, and may not work for low budget projects
Integrations are good, but sometimes buggy or difficult to customize
Creating a good user experience throughout the entire subscription workflow takes some time and energy
Likelihood to Recommend
WooCommerce Subscriptions is a solid option for WordPress based eCommerce sites, particularly if you are already using WooCommerce as your eCommerce platform. It works for simple subscriptions, allows for customization in terms of email notifications, pricing, coupons, etc. It obviously would not be a good fit for non-WordPress websites, and it may be too much if all you need are very simple subscription plans.
We started using WooCommerce Subscriptions as a way to enhance our store offerings and better manage data month to month. We are a subscription box company and of the different options out there, this one seemed like the most cost-effective way to do what we wanted without giving up a significant portion of sales to an outside party. The learning curve is reasonable and there is a lot of documentation about how to set things up properly. There are some quirks in functionality and if you want to get very serious about a WooCommerce site, you can hire a developer, but I've found we can accomplish about 90% of what we are hoping for with this service.
Pros
Recurring billing
Connecting to external platforms
Access to data through API
Reasonable variety of options
Cons
Better subscription changing functionality
Better tracking of subscription details and reporting
More control over data with subscriptions, especially metadata
Likelihood to Recommend
Of the options out there for offering subscriptions, this one is one of the best. Setting up a store is relatively straightforward, if a little time-consuming, and you can always expand it over time. Theoretically, you can accomplish a lot of very complicated things with WooCommerce Subscriptions itself and there are many ways to enhance it like plugins or custom code. The times where it falls short though are in handling metadata for orders and subscriptions. It has taken a long time just to understand how the process works and now that I do, I have developed a unique system outside of WooCommerce to handle the data I need. In reality, it would be very simple for WooCommerce to offer this data in reports within the Admin system already. Compiling reports on active subscriptions and tallying products and metadata from orders and subscriptions is simple when you are doing it inside the platform. Overall the system works well and comparing it to other options it still holds up as one of the best at the moment. Why pay selling fees when you can just have your own store?
We sell a print subscription and a digital subscription to our magazine. WooCommerce Subscriptions allowed us to ditch an antiquated fulfillment house (Palm Coast Data) that used to capture the transaction for our users and manage entitlements but didn't allow us the flexibility of design, tweaks, or split test landing pages or prices, install tracking code, or perform customer service in house. WooCommerce Subscriptions allowed us to properly monetize our WordPress based site without any overhead beyond the nominal yearly price of the plugin. It integrates with all sorts of WordPress plugins and actions, allowing for customizations that have allowed us to really control and optimize the user journey from first interaction all the way to checkout and service.
Pros
Perfect native integration with the WordPress ecosystem.
Zapier integration to support external integrations.
Excellent support of coupons, free trials, reduced price trial periods, etc.
Failed payment retries.
Multiple payment gateway support.
Cons
Analytics aren't as detailed and user friendly as they could be.
Free trials are easy to implement but reduced price trials aren't.
Gift subscriptions are only supported through a third party extension, leaving functionality to be desired.
Likelihood to Recommend
In a nutshell, anyone who has a subscription business and a wordpress / WooCommerce based shop should use WooCommerce Subscriptions to handle the business. If you don't have WooCommerce / Wordpress, then you're out of luck. We have really pushed the customization of WC Subscriptions functionality to the limit and believe me, a LOT is possible with it. Having sold both physical and digital subscriptions, I really can't think of any scenario where it might fall short.
WooCommerce Subscriptions is being used by our organization to offer and manage subscriptions we have implemented this for the first time last year and has helped generate new revenue that we did not get before. It is used by sales and operations - sales sells and operations manages it. This is a great tool for organizations looking for additional revenue streams.
Pros
Charging customers on a set time frame
Ease of use
Reports
Cons
More options to charge customers over custom time frames
Allow for more customization
Integration with other tools
Likelihood to Recommend
WooCommerce is best suited for organizations that need to charge customers on a recurring basis. It does not work if this is not a tool your business needs. It is a great tool for us as we offer care packages and plans to pay off your device. It really helps bring in more revenue.