WP Simple Pay is a good plugin for accepting Stripe payments on your WordPress site. But, they’re just one of a number of tools you can use. There are many WP Simple Pay alternatives that offer the same core functionality and, in some cases, are easier to use and offer greater flexibility.
Let’s look at the top 5 WP Simple Pay alternatives and see how their features compare.
The 5 WP Simple Pay alternatives are:
WooCommerce
WooCommerce is perhaps one of the best know alternatives to WP SimplePay. It’s a full e-commerce solution that enables you to sell physical goods, digital downloads, memberships and courses.
There’s very little that you can’t do with WooCommerce. The integrations page alone lists 75 payment processing integrations – everything from Stripe and PayPal to Authorize.net and many other obscure ones you may have not even heard of.
For recurring payments specifically, WooCommerce has what they call “WooCommerce Subscriptions,” which allows you to create a variety of subscriptions for physical or e-products and services.
But as with many platforms that offer a lot of options, WooCommerce Subscriptions can be a bit tricky to navigate and set up. At some point, you’ll likely need some help from a developer.
And if you run into any issue, don’t expect customer service to be helpful. The complaints you most often read online have to do with a poor customer service experience. Like this review from a customer looking for help with a bug:
“It’s been a nightmare ever since to try to get someone to help fix this. The customer service is terrible. We got some responses via e-mail. . . we literally exchanged over 50 e-mails and couldn’t get anyone to even remotely get close to fixing it.”
What does it cost?
The basic WooCommerce Subscriptions license costs $199/year for a single website. 5 websites are $249/year and up to 25 are $399/year.
ChargeKeep
ChargeKeep is a super simple way to integrate recurring payments into your WordPress site. Connect your Stripe account, drop a script into your website, and you’ll be up and running in five minutes.
You can integrate a payment form by embedding it or linking to an overlay (a pop-up checkout form). You can even send a link via email, text message, Facebook, etc. to a hosted payment page where your customer can go to make his or her payment.
And as opposed to WP Simple Pay, ChargeKeep is not a WordPress plugin, so you don’t have to worry about updating it. And if you have a business that’s not built on WordPress (or choose to switch to Squarespace, Wix, etc. in the future), you’ll have the flexibility of integrating your payment form into those content management systems.
Want to skip ahead and give ChargeKeep a try?
You can have a payment form integrated into WordPress in 5 minutes.
What does it cost?
ChargeKeep is a monthly subscription and starts at $15/month.
MoonClerk
MoonClerk, like ChargeKeep, is not a WordPress plugin, but is nonetheless still popular with folks who need to integrate Stripe payments into their WordPress site. It offers the same core functionality that ChargeKeep offers.
As an older company and product, however, the design of the payment forms is a bit dated and there is no support for multiple currencies. So if you’re a Stripe user outside the US, you’ll unfortunately not be able to use MoonClerk.
What does it cost?
MoonClerk charges a fixed monthly fee that is based on your monthly transaction volume. For $15/month, you’ll be able to accept up to $2000 payments per month. After that, the price rises to $30 and month and goes up from there. Larger companies can expect to pay up to $500 per month.
WP Forms
WP Forms, the developer of many top WordPress plugins such as OptinMonster, is a more full-featured alternative to WP Simple Pay. Like WP Simple Pay, it features a drag and drop form building with an available Stripe integration. It also offers many marketing automation integrations that WP Simple Pay does not have, such as Drip or MailChimp.
So if you’re looking for a lot more features aside from just an easy way to create a payment form using your Stripe account, WP Forms may be the better option.
What does it cost?
If you want to use Stripe with WP Forms, you’ll have to purchase their Pro or Elite plans. The Pro plan is often discounted to $199.50/year and the Elite plan to $299.50/year. You cannot use Stripe (or any payment feature) with any of the cheaper plans.
One of the big disadvantages of buying a WordPress plugin like WP Forms is that you can only buy it as a one-time or annual purchase. There is no option to try it out on a monthly basis. So right off the bat, you’re required to shell out almost $200 dollars. That’s a tough proposition for businesses that are still figuring things out and just want to get started quickly, cheaply, and iterate from there.
Would you rather not have to pay a year up front?
Give ChargeKeep a try; plans start at $15/month.
Easy Digital Downloads
Easy Digital Downloads, as the name implies is a good alternative to WP Simple Pay if you’re looking to sell digital products specifically. The tool is actually run by the same company that now runs WP Simple Pay, so you’d be essentially paying the same folks no matter which tool you chose.
One cool feature of Easy Digital Downloads is that they offer “themes” that 3rd party developers have put together that can be easily integrated into the plugin. That makes going from download to a full-featured site that can sell digital downloads a lot easier.
What does it cost?
As with WP Simple Pay and a lot of other WordPress plugins, you’re paying a year up front. You can request a refund within 30 days, but even that has stipulations. You cannot request a refund on the top-tier “All Access Pass.”
The pricing starts at $99/year and goes up to $499/year for the All Access Pass.
Here’s the catch though. You cannot sell subscriptions on the $99/year pass. You have to step up to the $199/year “Extended Pass” if you want to set up recurring payments. Heck, you can’t even connect your Stripe account on the $99/year pass. For that you have to purchase an additional $199/year “extension” that allows you to connect Stripe. We’re not done yet… There’s also an additional $89/year extension you have to purchase to accept recurring payments.
Confused yet? Yeah, we are too. Why not just pay $15/month for a tool like ChargeKeep or MoonClerk and get all these benefits without all the hassle?
Looking for just a simple way to integrate Stripe?
Give ChargeKeep a try; plans start at $15/month.