Last updated - October 1, 2018
There are plenty of options available when it comes to WordPress based shipping plugins. These plugins provide extensive functionalities which satisfy almost all the needs of online vendors. But there are many WooCommerce store owners, who still don’t feel comfortable with the pre-defined shipping rates that these plugins provide. As a result, the concept Table Rate Shipping comes into the picture.
Table rate shipping allows WooCommerce store owners to personalize their shipping rates based on various factors, such as:
- Product Weight
- Total Price
- Product Quantity
- Shipping Zones
- Shipping Classes
- Per unit additional Weight/Price/Quantity
- Country/State/CityZIP or Postal Code
Using table rate shipping, WooCommerce store owners can modify the shipping rules based on any of these factors.
In this article, we will cover extensively two WooCommerce Table Rate Shipping plugins and try to compare both of them, so that WooCommerce store owners can choose the better plugin. The plugins that we will compare are,
- WooCommerce Table Rate Shipping Pro plugin by PluginHive
- Table Rate Shipping plugin by WooCommerce
Let’s take a look at both the plugins in detail.
WooCommerce Table Rate Shipping Pro, developed by PluginHive, is one of the best table rate shipping plugins so far. There are both Free and Premium versions of the plugin. This plugin allows WooCommerce store owners to set up shipping rates based on all the conditions that we have discussed in the above section.
List of Features:
Regarding the Basic Version of WooCommerce Table Rate Shipping Pro, here are some of the features that it provides :
- Weight/Per Unit Weight based shipping
The plugin allows store owners to create shipping rules based on the total weight of the products in the cart or per unit additional weight after a certain amount. - Country-based shipping
It also lets store owners create shipping rules based on destination country. - Shipping Zone based shipping
Not only one country but using this plugin you can configure shipping rules based on shipping zones (multiple groups of countries). - Tax inclusion
Using this plugin, store owners can apply or remove shipping taxes on the packages. - Rounding Off for Weight and Price
It also allows to round off the weight and price values. - Conditional Shipping for Free and Flat Rate Shipping
This plugin allows store owners to create multiple Free and Flat Rate shipping options based on conditions.
But that is not all. The Premium Version of WooCommerce Table Rate Shipping Pro plugin takes things to another level by providing the following features to the store owners:
- State/City/ZIP Code based shipping
The premium version also supports setting up shipping rates based on State or City. The store owner can also configure the shipping method for a particular ZIP code or a range of zip codes. - Quantity (Items in cart) based shipping
The premium version allows store owners to create shipping rules based on the product quantity. Store owners can set up shipping rules for particular items in the cart or for per unit additional item in the cart. - Shipping Class based shipping
It also supports shipping rules based on the product category in the form of Shipping class. - Handling Fee
Using the premium version store owners can add extra handling charges to their shipping rates. - Import/Export Shipping Rules via CSV
The premium version allows the store owners to export and import shipping rules directly to the plugin in the form of a CSV file. This helps create a backup of all the shipping rules. - Rule-to-Text translation
For easy understanding, the premium version converts the shipping rules to plain text, so that it becomes easy to set up the shipping rules. - Wildcards for ZIP Ranges
The premium version supports the use of Wildcards. Using wildcards, the store owners can accommodate the ZIP Code ranges by using just the ‘*’ symbol, i.e it can take 403* for the ZIP Range of 40300 to 40399. - Multi-language Translations
The premium version includes English and German translation of the plugin as an inbuilt option. - Fast and accurate support
The developing company, XAdapter, provides the best in class support for its products.
Cost :
As discussed earlier, WooCommerce Table Rate Shipping Pro plugin has both a Free and Premium Version of the plugin. The premium version has the following subscriptions :
- $69 for a single website license
- $99 for 5 website license
- $199 for 25 website license
Table Rate Shipping plugin
Table Rate Shipping plugin, developed by WooCommerce, is aimed at extending the default functionalities provided by WooCommerce. But unlike the WooCommerce Table Rate Shipping Pro, WooCommerce only provides the Premium version of the plugin. This may affect a large portion of WooCommerce store owners, as this eliminates the use of a free plugin to give it a try and see whether it will work with the store owner’s shipping scenario or not.
Feature List:
The Premium version, however, works great and provides store owners with these features.
- Destination-based shipping
Table Rate Shipping plugin allows store owners to set up shipping rates based on the destination of the package. But unlike WooCommerce Table Rate Shipping Pro it doesn’t provide the option to set up shipping to the extent of selecting country, state, city, etc. - Weight-based shipping
Just like WooCommerce Table Rate Shipping Pro, this plugin also supports weight based shipping. It allows store owners to set up shipping rates based on weight and per unit additional weight in the cart. - Quantity (Items in cart) based shipping
This plugin provides the ability to create shipping rules based on the quantity of the products or the per unit additional items in the cart. - Shipping Zone based shipping
Table Rate Shipping plugin supports setting up shipping rates based on shipping zones. Similar to WooCommerce Table Rate Shipping plugin, this plugin also supports shipping rates based on different shipping regions or group of countries - Shipping Class based shipping
Using this plugin WooCommerce store owners can set up shipping rates based on the shipping classes, which will contain the products that belong to the same category. - Price based shipping
It also supports setting up shipping rates based on the total cart value (price) or per unit additional price added in the cart.
Cost:
Since there is no free or basic version of this plugin, the only option is to go for the premium plugin, which has the following subscriptions,
- $99 for a single website license.
- $149 for 5 website license.
- $299 for 25 website license.
Comparison:
- The biggest drawback of the WooCommerce Table Rate Shipping is the fact that they don’t have any demo website or even a free plugin. As discussed, having a free or basic version allows store owners to have a hands-on with the plugin before purchasing. Especially for the small business owners, where they don’t require all the bells and whistles but just the basic functionality, having a free version, similar to WooCommerce Table Rate Shipping Pro plugin proves to be ideal. This way the store owner can be sure whether he needs to upgrade or not.
- While some of the features in both the plugins are similar, but one feature that stands out is the ability of XAdapter Table Rate Shipping Pro plugin to automatically translate the shipping rule into a simple text. This helps the business owner understand the shipping rule much better while setting up and while changing the rules too.
- Now another factor which acts as an important factor in deciding which plugin to choose is the cost of the plugin. Table Rate Shipping plugin provides all its features for a single website in $99. Whereas, you can get way more features, for 5 websites in the same amount by using the 5 site license of WooCommerce Table Rate Shipping Pro plugin.
Conclusion:
All the factors that we discussed in the above segment play a very important role when it comes to a store owner’s decision. And all these factors are self-explanatory to conclude that the WooCommerce Table Rate Shipping Pro plugin provides a great value for money at the same cost.
Additionally, the other factors, whether it is a basic version of the plugin or the extra features that it provides, gives it a huge advantage over Table Rate Shipping.
We hope this article will help WooCommerce store owners in understanding the functionalities of the plugins in a better way. This way you can have a clear idea of what the plugin offers and whether it matches your business needs.
Do let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.
