# Inkwharf vs WooCommerce
Canonical page: https://www.inkwharf.com/vs/woocommerce
Figures verified against WooCommerce's published pricing on 2026-09-01.
WooCommerce is a self-hosted store plugin for WordPress.
## Verdict
WooCommerce is free software attached to a real bill: no licence fee and no cut, then hosting, updates, backups and your own hours. It sells downloadable products natively, so it will deliver an EPUB — as a file in a folder, with no spec check, no chapter sample, no reader, no send-to-Kindle and no watermark. Inkwharf is $0 to $19 a month with nothing to maintain. If you already run WordPress and like running it, Woo is cheaper and you should stay.
## Cost
- WooCommerce charges nothing for the software and 0% of a sale — free to install, with the bill arriving as hosting.
- The plugin is free and that figure is honest: WooCommerce costs nothing to install and takes nothing from a sale. The bill is hosting, and the rest of the cost is not money — updates, backups, a checkout you are responsible for keeping patched, and the evening it goes down. $19 a month here buys the absence of all of that, plus the EPUB half of the job Woo has no opinion about. An author who already runs a WordPress site they enjoy running is genuinely better off on Woo, and this page is not going to pretend otherwise.
- Inkwharf charges $19 a month and 0% of any sale, with a free tier to $500 of sales a month.
| Monthly sales | WooCommerce per year | Inkwharf per year | Difference |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| $500/mo | $0 | $0 | — |
| $2,000/mo | $0 | $228 | — |
| $5,000/mo | $0 | $228 | — |
## Where WooCommerce is the better choice
- **You own the whole stack** — The code runs on your server, the database is yours, and no plan, cap or change of terms can reach it. That is a stronger ownership claim than this product makes — a shop here lives on infrastructure you do not control, and a custom domain is the most that can be said about it.
- **There is no ceiling of any kind** — Plans here are capped on monthly sales, and at some volume the cap is a conversation. Woo does not have one: fifty thousand dollars a month costs exactly what five hundred does, which is the hosting bill.
- **It will do anything you can code** — Memberships, serials, bundles, subscriptions, a licence key per download, a bookshop and a blog and a mailing list on one install. The plugin ecosystem is the largest in ecommerce, and nothing here is extensible at all.
## Where Inkwharf is
- **There is nothing to run** — A self-hosted store is a WordPress install, a PHP version, a plugin set that updates on its own schedule, backups you have to test, and a checkout whose security is your problem. None of that is billed and all of it is paid. The failure mode is a shop that is down at two in the morning while its owner is asleep.
- **It knows what an EPUB is** — Woo's downloadable product is format-blind by design — the same field takes a zip, a PSD or a novel. Here the upload is checked against the EPUB spec before it can be sold, the sample is real first chapters cut into a working EPUB, and the buyer gets an in-browser reader and send-to-Kindle without installing anything.
- **Delivery that outlives the shop's uptime** — A Woo download link is served by your host, which is fine until the host is not. Every sale here lands on a permanent download page the buyer can recover themselves by email, three years later, without writing to you.
- **Watermarking on every plan, including free** — Woo's usual answer to a file being reposted is a download limit and an expiring link, both of which inconvenience the buyer and do nothing to the leak. Every copy sold here carries the buyer's name and a licence code, and never expires.
## Side by side
| | Inkwharf | WooCommerce |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Cut of each sale | Nothing, on every plan including free | None. It is your server |
| What you pay | $0 up to $500 of sales a month, then $19 | $0 for the plugin, plus hosting, plus your hours |
| Who holds the money | Your own Stripe account. We never hold a cent | Your own gateway — WooPayments is 2.9% + $0.30 on US cards |
| Who patches the checkout | We do | You do |
| Sales ceiling | $500/mo free, $2,500 on Plus, none on Pro | None, ever |
| EPUB validation | Spec-checked uploads, real chapter samples | None. A downloadable file is a downloadable file |
| Free sample | First chapters cut into a real EPUB the buyer can read | A second product you cut and upload yourself |
| Reading experience | In-browser reader and send-to-Kindle on every book | A download link, usually expiring |
| Piracy answer | DRM-free EPUB, watermarked to the buyer | Download limits and link expiry |
| Bitcoin | Your own wallet, 1% and no fixed fee | A plugin, and there are several |
| Extensibility | None | The largest plugin ecosystem in ecommerce |
| Data ownership | Export anything; the host is still ours | Your server, your database, no intermediary |
| Setup | Upload an EPUB, paste a Stripe key, publish | Hosting, WordPress, a theme, the plugin, a gateway |
## Questions
### Is WooCommerce actually cheaper?
If you already pay for WordPress hosting and enjoy administering it, yes — the plugin is free and there is no cut, so the marginal cost of adding a bookshop is close to zero. The comparison changes if the hosting exists only for the shop, or if the hours count for anything. It is a trade of money for maintenance, and either answer is defensible.
### Can Woo deliver an EPUB properly?
It can deliver the file. What it cannot do is tell you the file is valid before a reader complains, cut a real sample from it, open it in a browser, send it to a Kindle, or mark it with the buyer's name. Those are five separate plugins if they exist at all, and each one is another thing to keep updated.
### I run a WordPress site already. Can I use both?
Yes, and it is the usual answer. Keep the site, the blog and the list where they are, and link the books to a shop here — on your own domain on Plus, so the reader never sees a change of brand.
## Sources
Every claim above about WooCommerce's pricing, checked 2026-09-01:
- core plugin is free; 7+ million active installs —
- WooPayments is 2.9% + $0.30 on US domestic cards, with no monthly fee —