PublishPress Cart – eCommerce for Digital Products

Description

PublishPress Cart turns your WordPress site into a complete checkout for digital products, online courses, coaching, memberships, events, and services.

Most eCommerce plugins are built for physical stores, with shipping fields, product catalogs, and long checkouts that get in the way when you are selling a course or a coaching package. PublishPress Cart is built for creators, coaches, and small businesses who sell their knowledge and time. Create a product, add a checkout form to any page, and start taking payments with Stripe and PayPal.

Everything stays inside WordPress: your products, checkout pages, orders, subscriptions, customers, and reports. There is no separate storefront to manage, no hosted cart platform, and no monthly fee to PublishPress for selling.

What you can sell

• Digital downloads such as ebooks, templates, workbooks, software, and audio files.
• Online courses and programs, with customers sent to your course platform automatically.
• Coaching and consulting packages, paid in full, in installments, or as a monthly retainer.
• Memberships and subscriptions with free trials, sign-up fees, and recurring billing.
• Events, workshops, and services, with sales limits for capped seats.

Checkout pages that match your site

A PublishPress Cart checkout is a regular part of your WordPress site, so it uses your theme, your fonts, and your design.

• Checkout block. Add the Checkout block to any page or post. Choose the product, pick the payment plan that is selected by default, rename the form’s headings and labels, and set wide or full-width alignment.
• Product page template. Every product gets its own checkout page. On block themes, edit the product template once in the Site Editor and the change applies to every product.
• Shortcode and page builders. Use a shortcode anywhere, or build checkouts with Elementor, Divi, or Oxygen.
• Two Stripe checkout styles. Keep buyers on your site with Stripe’s embedded payment form, or send them to Stripe-hosted checkout to offer methods such as Klarna and Cash App Pay.
• Marketing consent. Add an optional or required opt-in checkbox with your own wording.
• Spam protection. Protect every checkout form with Google reCAPTCHA.

Flexible pricing and payment plans

Give each product as many payment plans as you need, and let buyers choose the option that works for them.

• One-time payments for straightforward purchases.
• Installment plans that charge a set number of payments and then stop.
• Recurring subscriptions billed daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly until canceled.
• Free trials in days before the first subscription payment.
• Sign-up fees charged up front on recurring plans.
• Pay what you want pricing that lets buyers set their own amount.
• Free products for lead magnets and opt-in offers.
• Sales. Put a product on sale now, or schedule a sale with start and end dates, and show the original price next to the sale price.
• Hidden plans. Keep a plan off your checkout forms without deleting it.

Product launches and limited offers

• Scheduled cart opening. Open and close a checkout on set dates, or switch it on and off by hand.
• Sales limits. Close a product automatically after a set number of sales, and limit how many times each customer can buy.
• Closed-cart redirects. Send visitors to a waitlist or sales page when the cart is closed.
• Stock alerts. Get an email when a limited product is running low or sold out.

Delivery after purchase

• Thank you pages. Send buyers to a custom thank you page or to any URL.
• Secure file delivery. Attach files to a product, limit the number of downloads, restrict files to specific payment plans, and choose whether to force a download or redirect to the file.
• Customer account area. Build a “My Account” page with blocks for orders, subscriptions, payment plans, downloads, profile, and login.
• Customizable emails. Edit the order received, purchase confirmation, welcome, renewal, and cancellation emails, using personalization tags for names, order details, and links. Add extra notifications per product, for example to alert a coach when a new client books.

Orders, subscriptions, and customers

• Orders. See every order with its customer, products, amount, and status. Open an order to edit billing details, resend the confirmation email, or download an invoice or receipt as a PDF.
• Refunds. Issue full or partial refunds from the order screen.
• Subscriptions. Pause, resume, or cancel any subscription, either immediately or at the end of the billing period, with or without a refund.
• Customers. View each buyer’s order history and lifetime value, and export your customer list.
• Reports. Track revenue and sales in WordPress, and have sales reports emailed to you on a schedule.

Automations and integrations

Each product can run its own automations. Choose what triggers them, such as a purchase, a refund, a new subscription, a renewal, a failed payment, a pause, or a cancellation, and limit them to specific payment plans.

• Email marketing. Add or tag buyers in ActiveCampaign, Mailchimp, or SendFox.
• Courses. Give buyers access to MemberVault products.
• WordPress user accounts. Create a WordPress user with the role you choose when someone buys.
• WooCommerce. Keep PublishPress Cart’s checkout and copy each order into WooCommerce, matched to your WooCommerce products and set to the order status you choose.
• Order actions. Automatically refund another order or cancel another subscription, which is useful for upgrades and replacements.
• Webhooks. Send order details to any URL with a GET or POST request, so you can connect almost any other service.
• Tracking. Send purchase and lead events to Google Analytics and Facebook Ads, and add your own tracking code to each product.

Read how integrations work.

PublishPress Cart Pro

PublishPress Cart Pro adds the tools that increase the value of each sale:

• Order bumps. Offer a related product at checkout that buyers add with one click.
• One-click upsells and downsells. Build post-purchase funnels of up to five offers that charge the saved card with a single click.
• Coupons. Create percentage or fixed discounts, coupon links, expiry dates, redemption limits, and bulk CSV imports.
• Collections. Sell several products together as one bundle.
• Upgrade paths. Let subscribers switch plans from their account page.
• Shipping, tax, and VAT settings.
• Affiliate sales.
• More payment gateways, including Mollie, Razorpay, and Square.
• More integrations, including Kit, Drip, MailerLite, MailPoet, FluentCRM, Encharge, LearnDash, Tutor LMS, WP Courseware, MasterStudy LMS, Academy LMS, Kajabi, Teachable, MemberPress, WishList Member, Restrict Content Pro, Ultimate Member, ARMember, and Groups.
• Trial ending and upcoming renewal reminder emails.
• Invoice customization and white labeling.
• Priority support.

See the full Free vs Pro comparison.

Documentation and support

• Getting started with PublishPress Cart
• Creating a product
• Product configuration
• Customizing the checkout form
• PublishPress support

PublishPress Cart is based on Studiocart 2.9.0 and is maintained by PublishPress.

External services

PublishPress Cart connects to the services below only when you enable and configure the related feature.

Stripe

Processes card payments when Stripe is enabled. At checkout the plugin sends the order, customer, amount, currency, and payment metadata needed to create and confirm payments. Stripe may return payment, charge, refund, subscription, and webhook event data. When a publishable key is saved, checkout and product pages load Stripe.js from https://js.stripe.com/v3/.

• Provider: Stripe, Inc.
• Terms | Privacy

Stripe Connect (via PublishPress)

The optional Connect Stripe button uses a PublishPress service at publishpress.com to complete Stripe OAuth. The plugin sends the site URL, return URL, connection state, and an encrypted site credential, and receives the Stripe account identifiers used to process payments. This only happens when you click Connect Stripe. Without PublishPress Cart Pro, Stripe applies a 2% application fee to payments made through Connect.

• Provider: PublishPress LLC
• Terms | Privacy

PayPal

Processes PayPal payments and subscriptions when PayPal is enabled. The plugin sends the order, customer, amount, currency, subscription, and transaction data needed to create, verify, refund, pause, resume, or cancel transactions.

• Provider: PayPal, Inc.
• Terms | Privacy

Google reCAPTCHA

Validates checkout form submissions when reCAPTCHA is enabled. The plugin sends the reCAPTCHA response token and the visitor’s IP address to Google. When a site key is saved, checkout forms load https://www.google.com/recaptcha/api.js.

• Provider: Google LLC
• Terms | Privacy

SendFox

Adds buyers to configured lists. Sends email address, name, and selected list.

• Provider: Sumo Group, Inc.
• Terms | Privacy

ActiveCampaign

Syncs buyers to configured lists and tags. Sends email address, name, and selected list or tag.

• Provider: ActiveCampaign, LLC
• Terms | Privacy

Mailchimp

Syncs buyers to configured audiences, groups, or tags. Sends email address, name, audience, group, and tag.

• Provider: The Rocket Science Group LLC d/b/a Mailchimp
• Terms | Privacy

Kit

Syncs buyers to configured forms and tags. Sends email address, name, selected form and tag, and mapped custom fields.

• Provider: ConvertKit LLC d/b/a Kit
• Terms | Privacy

MemberVault

Grants buyers access to configured products. Sends email address, name, and selected MemberVault product.

• Provider: MemberVault
• Terms | Privacy

Google Analytics and Facebook Ads

When tracking is configured, the plugin outputs purchase and lead event data such as order amount, currency, product, and transaction ID.

• Google: Terms | Privacy
• Meta: Terms | Privacy

Third-party libraries

• Montserrat, SIL OFL 1.1. License: public/fonts/OFL.txt
• balloon.css 1.2.0, MIT. License: admin/assets/libs/balloon.LICENSE.txt
• flatpickr 4.6.13, MIT. License: admin/assets/libs/flatpickr.js
• DataTables 3.0.4, MIT. License: admin/js/jquery.dataTables.js, admin/css/jquery.dataTables.css
• jquery.daterangepicker, MIT. License: admin/js/ppcart-daterangepicker.js, admin/css/ppcart-daterangepicker.css
• Selectize 0.15.2, Apache 2.0. Files: admin/js/selectize.js, public/js/selectize.js, admin/css/selectize.default.css, public/css/selectize.default.css
• Font Awesome Free 7.3.1. Icons CC BY 4.0, fonts SIL OFL 1.1, code MIT. Files: includes/assets/font-awesome-all.js, includes/assets/font-awesome-all.min.js, includes/assets/font-awesome-svg-with-js.css, includes/assets/font-awesome-svg-with-js.min.css
• Stripe PHP SDK 20.3.1, MIT. License: lib/vendor/publishpress/stripe-php/lib/stripe/stripe-php/LICENSE
• Dompdf 3.1.6 (publishpress/dompdf-dompdf 3.1.6.2), LGPL-2.1-or-later. License: lib/vendor/publishpress/dompdf-dompdf/lib/dompdf/dompdf/LICENSE.LGPL
• php-font-lib, LGPL-2.1-or-later. License: lib/vendor/publishpress/dompdf-dompdf/lib/dompdf/php-font-lib/LICENSE
• php-svg-lib, LGPL-3.0-or-later. License: lib/vendor/publishpress/dompdf-dompdf/lib/dompdf/php-svg-lib/LICENSE
• Masterminds HTML5, MIT. License: lib/vendor/publishpress/dompdf-dompdf/lib/masterminds/html5/LICENSE.txt
• PHP-CSS-Parser, MIT. License: lib/vendor/publishpress/dompdf-dompdf/lib/sabberworm/php-css-parser/LICENSE
• Pimple 3.5.0 (publishpress/pimple-pimple 3.5.0.11), MIT. License: lib/vendor/publishpress/pimple-pimple/lib/pimple/pimple/LICENSE
• psr/container 2.0.2 (publishpress/psr-container 2.0.2.1), MIT. License: lib/vendor/publishpress/psr-container/LICENSE
• PublishPress Bundled Translations 1.0.3, GPL-3.0-or-later. License: lib/vendor/publishpress/bundled-translations/LICENSE
• PublishPress Instance Protection 2.1.0, GPL-3.0-or-later. License: lib/vendor/publishpress/instance-protection/LICENSE
• PublishPress WordPress Reviews 1.2.2, GPL-3.0-or-later. License: lib/vendor/publishpress/wordpress-reviews/LICENSE
• PublishPress WordPress Version Notices 2.2.1, GPL-3.0-or-later. License: lib/vendor/publishpress/wordpress-version-notices/LICENSE
• Composer autoloader, MIT. License: lib/vendor/composer/LICENSE