Free vs Pro

Free is a complete marketplace, not a trial.

47 of the 53 capabilities on this site are in the free plugin, including the entire commission, withdrawal, dispute and review systems. Pro lifts limits and adds integrations. Here is the honest split.

What free actually runs

You can launch, take money and pay vendors without buying anything. Nothing below is time-limited or feature-crippled.

  • Listing and selling

    • Six-step service wizard
    • Three-tier packages
    • Add-ons and extras
    • Gallery and media
    • Requirements and FAQs
    • Edit, pause and delete

  • Finding and buying

    • Catalog with search and filters
    • Buyer requests
    • Proposals
    • Fixed or milestone contracts
    • Favorites
    • Buyer dashboard and order tracking

  • The order workflow

    • Eleven order statuses
    • Order timeline
    • Requirements collection
    • Order messaging and files
    • Deliveries and revisions
    • Paid extensions and deadline changes
    • Tipping
    • Offline payment proof
    • Printable receipts

  • Trust and reputation

    • Reviews and star ratings
    • Four seller levels
    • Vendor profile and portfolio
    • Disputes
    • Review moderation
    • Vacation mode

  • Money and payouts

    • Commission system
    • Earnings dashboard
    • Withdrawals
    • Earnings ledger and CSV

  • Running the marketplace

    • Setup wizard
    • Service moderation queue
    • Vendor management
    • Withdrawal approvals
    • Manual order creation
    • Checkout billing fields

  • Building on it

    • Six Gutenberg blocks
    • Nineteen shortcodes
    • Template overrides
    • REST API
    • Hooks and filters
    • WP-CLI commands

  • Presentation and SEO

    • SEO and schema markup
    • In-app notifications
    • 23 switchable emails
    • Real-time updates

What Pro adds

Two kinds of thing: integrations the free plugin does not ship, and higher ceilings on what a vendor can put in one listing.

  • Stripe Connect payouts

    Split payments straight to vendor accounts, so the money never queues on your balance.

    Docs →

  • Tiered commission rules

    Rates that vary by category, volume or seller level rather than one flat number.

    Docs →

  • Analytics and export

    Revenue and performance dashboards for admins and vendors, exportable to CSV or PDF.

    Docs →

  • Push notifications to phones

    The events a member already gets in the app can reach their phone, on Android and iOS, using your own Firebase credentials. Off by default.

    Docs →

  • White-label branding

    Rebrand the marketplace as yours and remove every mention of ours.

    Docs →

  • Display currency

    An approximate price in the shopper currency appears beside the real one, detected from their timezone, while you still settle in yours.

    Docs →

The limits Pro lifts

These are the only hard caps in the free plugin. If your vendors do not hit them, free is genuinely enough.

Per serviceFreePro
Pricing packages per service 3 3
Gallery images 4 Unlimited
Video embeds 1 1
Add-ons and extras 3 Unlimited
FAQs 5 Unlimited
Buyer requirements 5 Unlimited
Active services per vendor Configurable, default 20 Configurable, default 20

What Pro does not do yet

So nobody buys Pro expecting these. Each links to the doc that explains the state.

  • Recurring services / subscription billing

    Still behind a default-off kill switch as of 1.7.0, re-verified in Pro source: RecurringSettingsRenderer returns apply_filters( 'wpss_pro_recurring_feature_available', false ). A recurring order creates a Stripe subscription with no saved payment method, so renewals never charge. The docs say plainly: do not buy Pro for recurring billing yet.

    Docs →

  • SureCart as a checkout platform

    Removed in 1.6.0 and still absent in 1.7.0; must not come back. SureCart hosts its catalogue on its own service rather than in the site, so it cannot tell the marketplace what was bought and could take a payment without reliably starting an order. It had been advertised in Settings and on the Upgrade page while Pro did not really support it, which is exactly the kind of claim this file exists to stop.

    Docs →

  • AI title suggestions, service templates, bulk image upload, direct video upload, custom package fields, scheduled publishing

    Listed on an earlier version of the free-vs-pro page but never shipped as of 1.7.0. Deferred to a future release.

    Docs →