Users rate SureCart 4.8 out of 5 across 289 WordPress.org ratings and 4.6 on Trustpilot across 65 reviews, with most of the praise aimed at its support team. On that evidence, it is a strong WordPress checkout for products, subscriptions and upsells, as long as you accept that your orders sit on SureCart’s servers.
SureCart’s free Launch plan takes 2.9% of each sale, and Pro costs $199 a year or $699 once for 1 store, with the same features on every plan. Across SureCart reviews, the 1-star ratings cluster in 2 places: lifetime-plan buyers who feel left behind, and WordPress users who object to a store that depends on SureCart’s account and servers.
About to build a store on SureCart? The reviews you find first are mostly feature tours. 3 of the 4 written reviews ranking for this search quote retired prices, and the only current one comes from the company that makes SureCart.
This review also covers what happens to your subscribers if you switch, whether a lifetime license pays off, and who holds your order history.
So this review leans on the public record: all 65 Trustpilot reviews, every low WordPress.org rating, and SureCart’s own pricing page and help docs. You’ll see what buyers praise, where the complaints cluster, and the 4 situations that decide whether SureCart fits you.
Key Takeaways
- Support is the headline. 34 of the 53 Trustpilot reviews giving 5 stars mention support, and WordPress.org users rate SureCart 4.8 from 289 ratings.
- Ranking reviews quote old prices. 3 of the 4 written reviews ranking for this search list retired prices like $179 Pro. Today it is $199.
- Your store data lives with SureCart. SureCart’s own help docs say orders, customers and products sit on its platform, not in your WordPress database.
- Lifetime buyers lead Trustpilot’s complaints. 3 of the 5 Trustpilot reviews at 1 star come from people on older lifetime or legacy plans who feel left behind.
- Subscriptions stay with SureCart if you leave. Easy Digital Downloads and CartMango, the checkout I run, keep subscriptions on your own Stripe or PayPal account instead.
What SureCart is, and where it keeps your store
SureCart is a checkout and store plugin for WordPress made by Brainstorm Force, the company behind the Astra theme. It has been listed on WordPress.org since July 2022 and shows 80,000+ active installs. You can sell downloads, physical products, subscriptions and services from your own WordPress pages.
Still comparing checkouts? Fix the setup mistakes that cost sales on any of them. The Online Selling Mistakes Challenge covers 5 by email, free.
SureCart’s WordPress plugin is only the storefront side. SureCart’s help doc on syncing users says “customer information and all other SureCart data aren’t stored within WordPress, but rather in the SureCart platform.” Its install guide calls the platform “a storage unit that stores all data, customer orders, products, and store configurations instead of your WordPress site.” SureCart sells this as a plus: your pages stay light, and in the sync doc’s words, “You don’t need to worry about backups of your e-commerce data.”
SureCart reviews: what 392 ratings say
SureCart has 289 ratings on its WordPress.org plugin page, averaging 4.8 out of 5. It also has 65 reviews on Trustpilot with a TrustScore of 4.6, and 38 reviews on G2 averaging 4.7. On WordPress.org, 267 of the 289 ratings are 5 stars and 10 are 1 star, about 3.5%.
Trustpilot’s own star counts (53, 5, 1, 1 and 5, from 5 stars down) give a plain average of 4.54. The TrustScore is Trustpilot’s own formula, so the 2 differ.
What the 5-star reviews praise
Support comes up more than anything else. 34 of the 53 Trustpilot reviews giving 5 stars mention it, several naming the staff member who fixed their problem. One from September 2026 opens with a plain verdict: “Their support is terrific.”
WordPress.org review titles run the same way, from “Excellent Platform with Outstanding Support” to “Outstanding products and genuinely exceptional support.”
The second theme is WooCommerce. 12 of the 53 reviews giving 5 stars mention it, often as the plugin the reviewer moved away from.
A 4-star reviewer from August 2026 put it simply: “I switched over from WooCommerce to SureCart, and I’m so happy that I did.” The same reviewer had to redo Stripe’s business checks during setup.
All 22 Trustpilot reviews posted in 2026 give 4 or 5 stars, while all 6 of the 1 and 2 star reviews date from November 2024 to October 2025. SureCart has replied to 62 of the 65.
Where the complaints cluster
SureCart’s 1-star ratings cluster in 2 places: lifetime or legacy-plan buyers (3 of 5 on Trustpilot) and a store that needs a SureCart account and its servers (3 of 10 on WordPress.org).
| Complaint | Where | Count | Latest |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lifetime or legacy buyers feel left behind | Trustpilot, 1 star | 3 of 5 | Sep 2025 |
| Store needs a SureCart account and servers | WordPress.org, 1 star | 3 of 10 | Jul 2026 |
| Few payment gateways outside the US | WordPress.org, 1 star | 2 of 10 | Apr 2024 |
| Support slow to fix a problem | Trustpilot, 1 star | 2 of 5 | Sep 2025 |
| Bugs with variations, images or updates | WordPress.org, 3 stars | 3 of 7 | Jun 2025 |
A single review can sit in 2 rows. The newest data complaint, a July 2026 WordPress.org review, says “your store order data is not held on your website but in SureCarts cloud service” and calls that “a big NO THANKS.” A 2023 reviewer saw the same design the other way, praising that it “stores the customer data off site making it easier to handle site updates and maintenance without losing order data”, before giving 1 star over a duplicate subscription charge.
The gateway complaints are older. An April 2024 reviewer wrote, “This plugin is useless if you are outside the USA or want to use Manual payment options for Subscriptions,” and SureCart’s reply on the thread says version 2.26 added manual payments for subscriptions. SureCart’s pricing page now lists 100+ payment methods and 135+ currencies, so check the current list for your country rather than trusting a 2024 review.
A 3-star review from August 2025 still called it “not ready for Europe or Germany”, over translations and tax.
Why most ranking SureCart reviews quote old prices
Only 1 of the 4 written SureCart reviews ranking for this search shows today’s $199 and $699 prices, and it is written by a co-founder of Brainstorm Force, the company that makes SureCart.
| Review page | Free plan fee | Pro yearly, 1 store | Lifetime, 1 store |
|---|---|---|---|
| ecomm.design | 1.9% | $179 | $499 |
| EcommerceGold | 1.9% | $179, renews at $199 | $599 |
| NewPulse Labs | Not listed | $99, $199 or $399 tiers | Not listed |
| wpastra.com (Brainstorm Force) | 2.9% | $199 | $699 |
| SureCart’s pricing page | 2.9% | $199 | $699 |
The ecomm.design review dates from March 2025 and also lists extra fees from the old price list, including 0.5% on subscription payments and 1.9% on “revenue boosters”. NewPulse Labs was last updated in February 2024 and still describes Startup, Business and Pro tiers that SureCart has since replaced. Both NewPulse Labs and EcommerceGold say they may earn a commission through their links.
The wpastra.com review is signed by Abhijeet Kaldate, whose bio calls him “the co-founder and CRO of Brainstorm Force.” Its intro says so too: “SureCart is made by Brainstorm Force, the same team behind Astra.” So it is open about who wrote it, and its prices are right. A vendor-written review also ranks for another Brainstorm Force plugin: in our CartFlows review, 3 of the 5 top reviews came from CartFlows’ own people.
One more reason prices drift: SureCart runs first-year sale prices on Pro, and its fine print says “all renewals are at full price.” A review written during a sale can show a number you will only pay once. Our SureCart pricing breakdown has every plan, the 5-store and unlimited prices, and the break-even math.
What splits SureCart buyers
With high ratings everywhere, 4 questions decide fit: sales volume, the lifetime deal, where your data lives, and how much of your income renews.
If you want every feature before paying anything
SureCart’s free Launch plan includes every SureCart feature for no upfront cost, and it is the cheaper plan for a seller making under about $572 a month. The pricing page says “Same Powerful Features in All Plans”, and the list covers order bumps, one-click upsells, cart abandonment, subscriptions and installment plans, and the page adds that there are “no feature restrictions” from the free plan up.
The cost is 2.9% of each sale to SureCart, on top of your card processor’s fee. On a $30 sale with a US card, that is $0.87 to SureCart and $1.17 to Stripe, whose standard US card fee is 2.9% plus 30 cents, so you keep $27.96. At $6,862 a year in one-time sales, the 2.9% equals the $199 Pro license, and past that point Pro is cheaper. A seller doing $2,000 a month pays SureCart about $696 a year on Launch, more than 3 times the Pro price.
The trade-off is that cut on every sale until you upgrade. A checkout with no per-sale cut costs differently: CartMango, which I run, takes 0% of each sale plus Stripe’s card fee, and is free right now, then from $10 a year once paid plans start in November. CartMango’s upsells and cart abandonment sit on its $20 Gold plan.
If a lifetime deal is part of the appeal
SureCart Pro: Pay Once costs $699 for 1 store, the same as 3.5 years of the $199 yearly plan, so it only comes out ahead if you keep using SureCart into a 4th year. These are list prices. Black Friday sales can cut the lifetime price harder than the yearly one, so redo the math if you buy during a sale.
Most of SureCart’s 1-star Trustpilot reviews come from this group, buyers of older lifetime or legacy plans.
The longest one, from September 2025, says “I paid around $4,000 for 5 lifetime licenses during the 2023 Black Friday deal,” and that the regular 5-store lifetime price in 2025 was $999. SureCart’s public reply calls it a billing matter: “a request for a refund nearly two years after purchase.” Today the 5-store lifetime license is listed at $1,199.
Those older Scale licenses did keep 1 perk. The same reviewer admits “I’m saving on subscription fees,” and when SureCart folded Stripe’s 0.7% subscription fee into Pro, a SureCart developer told an r/Wordpress thread that “Your Scale Plan continues to offer tremendous value by not passing on this fee, which remains unique to your plan.” That perk only helps if you sell subscriptions.
The safer order is yearly first. SureCart offers a 14-day money-back guarantee, which is long enough to test setup but short for judging a multi-year purchase. Pay yearly for a year and buy lifetime once you know SureCart fits, if the lifetime plan is still on offer. Waiting only costs you savings if you were always going to stay 4+ years.
If you would rather keep orders in your own WordPress database
SureCart is the wrong pick for a seller who wants orders, customers and products stored on their own site, because its help docs say that data lives on the SureCart platform. This is the biggest single theme in the 1-star WordPress.org ratings: 3 of the 10 object to a store that depends on a SureCart account and its servers, going back to a July 2022 review that could not get started without an account.
For that seller, 2 WordPress plugins keep the data at home. WooCommerce is a free plugin from Automattic with 7,000,000+ active installs on WordPress.org, though SureCart’s own comparison table prices its subscriptions add-on at $279 a year per store. Easy Digital Downloads costs $199 a year for its Personal plan ($99.50 for the first year), and its pricing page says customers, orders and products are stored locally, never on its servers.
You lose what SureCart sells as a plus: lighter pages and no store backups to manage. You also take on more plugin updates yourself. CartMango is hosted too, so it does not solve this one.
If subscribers bring in most of your money
SureCart runs subscriptions in its own system rather than in Stripe’s, so they do not keep billing on their own if you move to another cart. Its help doc on the SureCart Application Fee says “SureCart provides its own subscription management system” and “SureCart manages subscriptions directly”, and lists what that buys you, such as letting a customer “move from a credit card on Stripe to PayPal.”
That same doc explains the Application Fee on subscription payments through Stripe. It says the fee “replaces the subscription fee you would otherwise pay directly to Stripe” and that “your total fees are the same, but the label is different.” The doc gives no rate, so the SureCart developer filled it in on Reddit: “Going forward, SureCart will pass on the same 0.7% subscription fee that Stripe charges for subscription billing.” That matches Stripe Billing’s 0.7%.
On $2,000 a month of renewals that is $168 a year, the same as Stripe Billing would take. One-time sales on Pro pay nothing extra.
The pick for a subscription-heavy seller is a cart that bills on your own Stripe or PayPal account.
Easy Digital Downloads includes subscriptions and free trials on its Personal plan, and those subscriptions stay on your Stripe or PayPal account if you leave. CartMango takes subscriptions on every plan and 0% of each sale, and if you leave CartMango, every subscription you created keeps paying you. CartMango needs no WordPress site either, since Mini Pages hosts the sales page.
In exchange, you lose SureCart’s subscription tools inside WordPress, and with CartMango, a checkout inside your own theme.
The 4 SureCart situations side by side
SureCart is the pick in 2 of the 4 situations, the free plan and the yearly plan, while local-data sellers do better with WooCommerce or Easy Digital Downloads and subscription sellers with Easy Digital Downloads or CartMango.
| Situation | Pick | What it costs | The catch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Want every feature before paying | SureCart Launch | $0 plus 2.9% a sale | Costs more than Pro above $6,862 a year in sales |
| Tempted by the lifetime deal | SureCart Pro, yearly first | $199 a year, or $699 once | At list price, lifetime only wins from year 4 |
| Want orders in your own database | WooCommerce or Easy Digital Downloads | WooCommerce core free, EDD $199 a year | More plugins and backups to manage |
| Subscriptions are most of your income | Easy Digital Downloads or CartMango | EDD $199 a year, CartMango from $10 a year | CartMango’s checkout is a hosted page, not inside your theme |
FAQ
What is SureCart in WordPress?
SureCart is a WordPress plugin that adds a checkout, product pages, subscriptions and a customer portal to your site. The plugin connects to SureCart’s own platform, which stores your products, orders and customers. It comes from Brainstorm Force, the company behind the Astra theme, and has 80,000+ active installs.
What fees does SureCart charge?
SureCart’s free Launch plan charges 2.9% of each sale. Pro costs $199 a year or $699 once for 1 store and has no transaction fee on one-time sales.
Subscription payments through Stripe carry a SureCart Application Fee, which SureCart’s help doc says replaces Stripe’s own subscription fee, so the total stays the same. A SureCart developer put it at 0.7% on Pro. Your card processor’s fee comes on top of all plans.
Is SureCart better than WooCommerce?
SureCart is the better fit for a seller who wants subscriptions, order bumps and upsells included on every plan, and 17 of its 53 Trustpilot reviews giving 5 stars use words like easy, simple or intuitive. WooCommerce is the better fit for a seller who wants orders stored in their own database, though SureCart’s comparison table prices WooCommerce’s subscriptions add-on at $279 a year per store.
Is WooCommerce a legitimate platform?
Yes. WooCommerce is a free, open-source plugin from Automattic with 7,000,000+ active installs, rated 4.5 out of 5 across 4,833 WordPress.org ratings.
Before you hand SureCart your subscribers
SureCart’s ratings hold up across 3 sites, support is named in most of its 5-star Trustpilot reviews, and the free plan gives you every feature for 2.9% a sale. The trade-off is that your orders and subscriptions live with SureCart, on its servers.
If this SureCart review left you wanting subscriptions on your own Stripe or PayPal account and no WordPress site to run, CartMango is built that way. Mini Pages hosts your sales page, CartMango takes 0% of each sale, and if you ever leave, your subscriptions keep paying you.
About the Author
👋 I’m Welly, founder of CartMango (the site you’re on), a checkout platform for digital product sellers. We’ve previously processed $179M+. I also run BirdSend (email marketing tool, 3.1B+ emails sent). On the side I show other non-techie digital sellers how I use AI workflows to automate 50%+ of my operations. Find me on LinkedIn.
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