Frequently Asked Questions

This page contains answers to Frequently Asked Questions related to WooCommerce, products sold on WooCommerce.com, and account management on WooCommerce.com.

WordPress is a Content Management System (CMS). It’s software that helps you create, manage, and share your content on the web. Currently, WordPress has two flavors, WordPress.com (hosted) and WordPress.org (self-hosted). Products purchased on WooCommerce.com can be used on self-hosted sites, or the Business and eCommerce plans on WordPress.com.

The best way to get help with WooCommerce.com products is to search for answers in our Documentation. We’re creating and maintaining resources that help you to help yourself.

If you need additional assistance, you can go to the support page to start a live chat or submit a ticket directly related to the product you need help with.

Product support via phone is unavailable at this time, brief initial support is available via Facebook and Twitter – the team will usually direct you to submit a ticket for full support. Please read our Support Policy for further information.

We don’t — as mentioned above — all support is text-based, this way you can refer back to it later if needed. If you have pre-sales or support questions, contact us here!

Find the product you wish to purchase, and click the Buy Now button. You’ll then be taken to our checkout page where you can log into your existing WooCommerce.com account to use saved information or register a new account. The checkout process is below the register area.

Taxpayer Codes can be added to your WooCommerce.com account from the Profile section of the WooCommerce.com dashboard. Once added, the taxpayer identification numbers will be used on the checkout page by default.

The tax number on file will be used for all future renewal payments, upon being added to the account.

If you have noticed this within the 30-day refund period, you can refund the existing order from the Orders section of your WooCommerce.com dashboard, add your Taxpayer Codes from the Profile section, and purchase the product again. If it is past 30 days, we are unable to make an adjustment.

The e-mail is sent the moment your payment is approved, and that should be almost immediately. If you don’t receive an email receipt or login information soon after, contact us and we’ll check on your payment and account.

WooCommerce.com uses a WordPress.com account to log in. Please check that you are logging in with your WordPress.com email. Please contact us if you are having trouble logging into your account, and we’ll sort it out.

If you don’t see your purchased products on the My Account page, check the email address on your account. Log out to switch accounts if needed to access the correct account. Please contact us if you still need help, and provide information about the order number or other email you are trying to access.

Ensure that you are logged into the correct account before going to the checkout page. If you aren’t logged in, or you’re logged into the wrong account, it’s necessary to log into the correct account before starting the purchase.

We accept all major credit and debit cards, including American Express, Discover, Diners Club, Japan Credit Bureau (JCB), Mastercard, and Visa. We also offer the option to pay with PayPal, Apple Pay, and Google Pay, depending on your device. Payments are processed via Stripe.

We offer the ability to pay in US Dollars (USD), Australian Dollars (AUD), Canadian Dollars (CAD), Euro (EUR), and British Pounds (GBP). You can set your default currency from your profile. Purchases made with a bank account in another currency will be exchanged to your local currency by your bank or card issuer.

To change the currency used on renewals of existing subscriptions, please select the “Renew existing subscriptions in default currency” box when updating your account currency. Future renewals will use the updated currency automatically.

Please contact us, and we’ll be happy to find out what happened.

Once your order is complete, a download link is shown on the Order Received page, and you will also receive an email notification with a download link. You may also visit our site at any time to download your purchase(s). Go to your account page and visit My Subscriptions to download each extension from the three-dot menu.

You can also click your profile icon at the top right, then the Downloads link to find all available products. Viewing downloads on our site is also a great way to see other info, such as the current version of your product, when that version was released, and the Changelog for each update.

You can download a PDF invoice for your orders from the Orders section of the WooCommerce.com dashboard.

WooCommerce.com uses a WordPress.com account for login purposes. In order to update the email address associated with your WooCommerce.com account, you should update and verify the email address associated with your WordPress.com account. Once updated, please create a ticket to let us know and we’ll sync the change of address.

Closing your WordPress.com account will close the linked WooCommerce.com account. If you are unable to access your account, please contact us for help.

Each WooCommerce.com account is linked to a WordPress.com account. In order to access a different WooCommerce.com account, log out of WooCommerce.com to see an option to select a different WordPress.com account the next time you log in.

Select the My Stores tab on the WooCommerce.com dashboard to view sites you have connected to any particular WooCommerce.com account. Use the three-dot menu to manage the store.

You can:

• Connect a new store by entering the URL and getting a quick link to WooCommerce > Extensions > My Subscriptions in your WP Admin.
• Get a quick link to the WP Admin by clicking the store name or preview image
• Shop the marketplace for extensions to add to the store
• Access the products, orders, or front page of the store
• Disconnect the store from WooCommerce.com

If the store is available, disconnecting will link to WooCommerce > Extensions > My Subscriptions in your WP Admin. If the store is not live, selecting to disconnect the store will offer a force disconnect dialogue. Please contact us if you need help disconnecting a store from your WooCommerce.com account.

If your store URL changes, WooCommerce.com may still show the old one from when the connection was first made. This will not affect the way the subscription license is activated on your site. If you would like to update the URL, disconnect and reconnect your site to WooCommerce.com at WooCommerce > Extensions > My Subscriptions in your WP Admin.

WooCommerce.com Subscription Questions

A WooCommerce.com subscription is an annual purchase of an extension on WooCommerce.com that gives access to support and updates for that extension for 1 connected store per subscription. More specific answers to subscription questions can be found below.

Renewals are billed at 100% of the current price, you can review this on the product listing on WooCommerce.com. Auto-renewals are turned on by default and can be switched off on the My Subscriptions page. More details on auto-renewals can be found here.

All products from WooCommerce.com need active subscriptions to access product updates and our support team.

One active and valid subscription key can be used on an active site and a staging/test/development site. This allows you to test your extensions in a live and development environment simultaneously, without the need to swap or activate, deactivate and reactivate.

In the past, we offered 5- and 25-site subscriptions. As of February 2020, all purchases are for single-site subscriptions. If you have a legacy 5-site subscription, then it can be used on 5 active sites and 5 test/development sites. If you have a legacy 25-site subscription, then 25 active sites and 25 test/development sites can use the product. We classify each “site” as an activation URL.

What is classified as an activation URL?

• Subdomains are separate sites – a key activated for https://woocommerce.com does not cover https://subdomain.woocommerce.com
• Sub-directory sites are separate sites – a key activated for https://woocommerce.com/site1 does not cover https://woocommerce.com/site2
• Protocols – Due to how we handle activation URLs, the http “version” is not the same as https – this could count as a new site, or one would be classified as the dev/staging/test site and one would be classified as live.

Example scenario: One Development site:dev.woocommerce.com / + One Live site: woocommerce.com  = One (1) full subscription key used.

To activate a subscription, you will need to connect your store to WooCommerce.com. This key can be activated/deactivated as many times as necessary.

No, each key is valid from the date of purchase and for as long as your subscription(s) is/are in effect.

If auto-renew is enabled, your subscription renews on the due date and your card is charged. Email notification and receipt are sent to confirm you paid for another year. If auto-renew is disabled, a renewal order is created to allow you to renew manually.

You are sent a renewal reminder email 60, 45, 20, 7, and 2 days prior to the subscription renewal date when auto-renew is disabled, or 30 days and 1 day when auto-renew is enabled. These emails are sent if auto-renew is disabled to allow you to add a card and keep your subscription.

You can also find renewal information on the My Subscriptions page.

Subscriptions are billed annually at 100% of the current price. Coupon codes or other promotional discounts do not apply to renewals.

All WooCommerce.com extension subscriptions are billed annually. We do not offer monthly renewals at this time.

It’s not possible to apply a coupon code to renewals. Coupon codes can only be applied to new purchases.

At this time we do not support early renewals. You can enable auto-renewal for a subscription to ensure it renews on schedule.

Renewing your subscription entitles you to support and updates to your product. This ensures compatibility with newer versions of WordPress and WooCommerce, as well as bug fixes and new features and enhancements to the product.

If your subscription has expired or did not auto-renew, you will lose access to updates and support. You may renew the subscription manually in order to have an active license. You can still use the product on your site for as long as you like but you can no longer access the file for download or receive support or updates for the product.

Many of our store owners download their product(s) before the expiration of their subscription to keep a copy on file, if they know they cannot or will not renew. Our support team will not offer the download files if your subscription is expired.

If you are having trouble with the product, go to the product page and check the Changelog to see if an update may help address the issue. When a product is not working, updating should always be the first step when troubleshooting.

On a WordPress Multisite, all plugins are stored in one location. It means that all updates to plugins must be managed at the network level. Still, you need to activate the plugin on a subsite level and add one subscription for each subsite where the plugin/extension is activated for having full support coverage.

To deactivate your subscription and reactivate on another site, disconnect from the WooCommerce Account Dashboard – My Subscriptions page by selecting the three dots, then Disconnect from store. The subscription can then be activated on the new site to start receiving support and updates for that URL. You can also disconnect from within a site at WP Admin → WooCommerce → Extensions → My Subscriptions.

Can I transfer a subscription to a client, co-worker or friend?

A subscription can be transferred. If you and the recipient both have a WooCommerce.com account, follow the instructions at Transferring WooCommerce.com Subscriptions. The recipient must have a WooCommerce.com account and can sign up for one at Create an Account.

Multisite subscriptions (no longer available). You can request that all 5 or all 25 subscriptions be transferred to a single account. It’s not possible to transfer one key from a multisite license, however, you can share it.

No. Free products are automatically renewed to ensure your key continues to work and that you have access to support, updates and the downloadable product. If you only have free products, you need not store a payment method for renewals.

If you purchased a product before August 1, 2013, which included lifetime support and updates, you had the option to grandfather your purchase under these terms before August 1, 2015. Everyone who qualified was sent five notices — one at 90 days, 60 days, 30 days, 2 weeks and on August 1, 2015. A link to auto-grandfather was also available on qualifying accounts until August 1, 2015. The deadline has long passed.

“Lifetime” referred to the lifetime of a product, not a purchaser/buyer’s lifetime.

Licenses were purchased manually each year, while subscriptions are automatically renewed until you choose to cancel. Other than that, subscriptions work much the same as licenses.

We made this language change in February 2016 to better reflect what we want to provide our customers. Rather than a one-time purchase, we wish to create an ongoing relationship with our customers and felt that the term “subscription” better captured our intentions.

Existing licenses are now active subscriptions, but we did not turn on auto-renew for these. To ensure your subscriptions stay active, please add a payment method and enable auto-renew on your existing subscriptions.

Auto-renew is enabled by default for all new purchases. You can review and change the renewal settings by visiting the My Subscriptions page in your account.

To disable automatic renewals for a product, visit the My Subscriptions page and click on the three-dot icon to bring up the disable auto-renewal option from the right side of the listing. This will also cancel your subscription when it expires.

Disabling auto-renew is also a way to pay “manually.” Enter a credit card to enable auto-renew, allow payment to be taken on the due date, and then disable auto-renew. 

Auto-renewals can be enabled by visiting My Subscriptions. Click on the three-dot icon next to the product name to bring up the disable auto-renewal option from the right side of the listing.

Follow the prompts on this page to add a stored payment method for automatic billing. Once your payment information has been added, you can toggle auto-renewal on from the right side of each product listing.

You can save a credit card for your subscriptions on the payment card page of your WooCommerce.com account.

Please fill out your credit card info and then click on Save.

You can edit/update the credit card info at any time — always remember to click on Save to ensure that any new info has been saved.

Visa, MasterCard, JCB, Discover, Diner’s Club, and American Express. More information at Cards and Payment Types accepted by Stripe.

You can also store a PayPal account while checking out, independent of the credit card saved on your account.

You can only store one credit card and one PayPal email per account. For developers building sites for clients, we recommend that the client owns the subscriptions on their own account.

Yes, you can toggle this on and off per product, regardless of whether products were purchased as part of the same order.

An extension is a WordPress plugin that requires a base plugin to work and function. In this case, you must have the WooCommerce plugin installed to use WooCommerce extensions.

We practice a lean product development approach at WooCommerce.com, which means we avoid adding unnecessary features. This would cause product bloat and potentially slow down a site. This is why we build WooCommerce extensions separately. This allows you to customize your site to only include features you need to run your online shop.

When purchasing a WooCommerce.com product, you are purchasing a subscription to receive updates and support. Subscriptions are billed annually. Please see the WooCommerce.com Subscription Questions section for more info.

Yes, it is our duty to keep our products updated and working with the latest version of WordPress.

Yes. All of our themes and extensions are localized using GNU gettext functionality. That means each of our themes and extensions includes a (.po) file with all of the English terms we used, enabling users to only edit one file to translate our themes to any language in the world. For more detail, read our tutorial on Translating WooCommerce Extensions.

We offer a free trial only for specific plugins/extensions.

For all other plugins/extensions, we offer a 30-day money-back guarantee. If you find the product does not work the way you want, we can issue a refund. See our Refund Policy for more details.

Can WooCommerce handle thousands of products? Yes! This is dependent on both WooCommerce and your web host. WooCommerce by nature needs more memory than a basic WordPress install, and this isn’t typically an issue with a decent host. We have optimized WooCommerce, and continue doing so to make it better. WooCommerce can handle a big site with lots of orders, and our own site is proof of that.

No. The only fee you pay at WooCommerce.com is your yearly subscription fee for the extension. It’s normally only the payment gateway you use that charges a fee per transaction, and fees vary by the payment gateway. You can find rates on their sites to make the best choice for your shop.

At WooCommerce.com, we follow the WordPress.org core guidelines for browser version support which you can find in the WordPress.org Handbook, in general, this means we support the current versions of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Microsoft Edge, and Opera. Internet Explorer 11 is supported but we recommend updating to Microsoft Edge if available.

Please consider upgrading to the latest version for optimal performance and experience or switch to a different browser. More information about browser updates on the Browse Happy website.

At WooCommerce.com, we offer support when your site is using the latest release of the core WooCommerce plugin (and the main WordPress software), and the previous two before that. This is often called L-2 or “Latest minus two versions”, where the version number is in the format of x.y.z – we focus on the second then first number. You can see the full release history of WooCommerce on the Releases developer page.

For example, if the current version of WooCommerce is 5.5.z then the oldest WooCommerce version we support is 5.3.z. At 6.0., support would be down to 5.8.z. 

For our extensions and themes, we support the latest released version of those only.

As part of the support and troubleshooting process, updating the to latest version often resolves any problems so we do recommend this initially. For more information about how to do this, please see our documentation – How To Update WooCommerce.

A theme, synonymous with template or skin, is a ready-to-use layout and design that you can activate on your WordPress site. WordPress handles all of the content for you (posts, pages, comments), while the theme transforms that content into a beautiful and clean layout for visitors to enjoy. Many themes come with configurable options via the WordPress Customizer.

Once you have installed WordPress on your site, it’s straightforward. Follow the instructions outlined in Installing A Woo Theme.

You receive updates and support for as long as your subscription is in effect. Refer to our Subscriptions section.

You stop receiving product updates and support when your Subscription has expired. You can still use your theme; it will still work. Refer to our Subscriptions section.

Yes, you can review theme demos or access each from its product page. If you have questions on how our themes work, you can read our Theme Documentation for more information. We also have a 30-day money-back guarantee that allows you to try the theme. If you aren’t satisfied with your purchase, we are happy to issue a refund.

This is a question that depends on what you want to achieve with your theme. Things like the ability to upload your own custom logo and add a background to your theme, etc. are built into WordPress and controlled by the Customizer.

Outside of our theme settings, you need a basic understanding of HTML and CSS to tweak the layout and style of your theme. To dig deeper, PHP knowledge specific to WordPress is also helpful. The WordPress Codex is a great place to start learning.

Finally, when you are ready to customize one of our themes, a child theme is the best approach. A child theme is a place to house customizations and modifications to its parent theme. Be amazed by what you can do with a child theme, a basic style.css, and a functions.php file. Here’s our tutorial on child themes. There are many resources out there for creating child themes; it only takes a quick search!

The themes you get from WooCommerce.com work on self-hosted WordPress installations made possible by WordPress.org. If you have a WordPress.com Business Plan, you can also upload your own themes to your site by going to My Site > Themes, then use the Upload Theme button.

For themes purchased on WordPress.com, you need to log into WordPress.com and go to the premium themes support forum.

Our website is using a child theme based on Storefront, all powered by WooCommerce and some custom code.

We update our themes any time we discover a bug or there is a new feature we feel should be added. View the Changelog on your Downloads page to check the latest version.

You can find the full list of retired themes at Retired WooThemes

If you are running a WooCommerce.com Storefront Child Theme then ensure your site is connected to the WooCommerce.com account which purchased it, then activate the purchase. When your site is connected, any theme updates will be available on the Themes page or via the WordPress Updates page.

In every theme package, we include a changelog.txt that includes all changes for each version. This Changelog is also available via your Downloads page and the documentation for each theme. It’s worth reading to understand if the changes are valuable to you and your site. Of course, we recommend staying updated.

If you haven’t made modifications to theme files, then you can overwrite your existing theme files. If you have made modifications to your theme, you need to study the Changelog to see which files need updating.

You can also compare your old modified file against the updated file with a good HTML Editor or use an online tool. We have details about how to fix outdated theme templates in the documentation. We suggest using child themes to save and preserve modifications as this saves you the headache of comparing files and worrying about overwriting customizations. More at Best Practices when Customizing a Theme.

Yes, most plugins should work with our themes. However, we can’t guarantee they all will. There are some plugins that conflict with the code used in themes and cause them to function improperly. There are thousands of plugins available, and it would be impossible to test every single one with our themes. If the plugin has been coded to WordPress standards, it’ll work 99% of the time.

Yes. You’re welcome to use themes this way without violating our terms. We have two options for handling access to the themes. View more in our Collaborator documentation or help with Sharing a WooCommerce.com subscription.

If you have questions about licensing, you can check the GNU site that explains how our GPL v2 license works and in-depth conditions related to redistributing our themes: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html

Yes, our themes work with WPMS! Take a look at our demo sites – they run on WPMS.

Yes, we highly encourage it! The logo is a PNG file used only as an example. You can upload your own image logo in our options panel, or instead set a text title.

Yes! You can remove any credit link in the footer, which doesn’t violate our Terms & Conditions. See documentation at: “Remove ‘Designed by WooThemes’ from the footer.

Probably. Our themes aren’t specifically developed to include BuddyPress integration. But as of the release of BuddyPress 1.7, they’ve made BuddyPress work better with all themes. We’ve not tested our themes with BuddyPress, though you should now have better integration.

Yes, of course. WooCommerce has its own set of download, set up, and test with your theme. Go to our Importing WooCommerce Sample Data page now! (The WooCommerce sample data was previously called dummy data)

Do you still have questions and need assistance? 

• If you’re looking to extend the core functionality shown here, we recommend reviewing available extensions in the WooCommerce Marketplace.
• Need ongoing advanced support or a customization built for WooCommerce? Hire a Woo Agency Partner.
• Are you a developer building your own WooCommerce integration or extension? Check our Developer Resources.

If you weren’t able to find the information you need, please use the feedback thumbs below to let us know.