Amazon generates 35% of its revenue through product recommendations. If your WooCommerce store is close to 0% revenue from product recommendations right now, you’re in the right place.
Stores with proper recommendation systems see 4.5x higher conversion rates and up to 31% increases in average order value.
This guide shows you exactly how to implement product recommendations for maximum revenue impact and 6 WooCommerce plugins that would help you set them up.
- What Are WooCommerce Product Recommendations?
- How Product Recommendations Help
- The 6 Essential Woocommerce Recommendation Plugins You Need to Know
- Our Final Recommendations for Choosing the Best Plugin
- Set Up Product Recommendations With CartFlows (3 Simple Steps)
- Strategic Product Recommendation Locations That Actually Convert
- Common Implementation Mistakes to Avoid
- Recommend the Best Products With CartFlows + Modern Cart
What Are WooCommerce Product Recommendations?
Product recommendation is a feature designed to show relevant, personalized product suggestions to store visitors.
Suggestions can boost sales, increase average order value (AOV), and enhance customer experience by helping shoppers discover items they’re likely to purchase.
By default, WooCommerce offers basic recommendations:
- Cross-sells: Shown only at the bottom of the cart page
- Upsells: Appear under the product description
- Related products: Automatically generated, with little control or targeting
The default feature is limited in terms of customization, targeting, placement, and performance tracking, which is why we look for alternatives.
Let’s look at the difference between the native product recommendations vs advanced plugin-based recommendations.
| Feature | Basic (Native WooCommerce) | Advanced (Plugin-based) |
|---|---|---|
| Targeting | None or generic | Behavior-based, cart-aware |
| Control | Random or manual | Rules-based, AI-powered |
| Placements | Limited (cart/product only) | Multiple touchpoints across the funnel |
| Analytics | None | Trackable performance, A/B testing |
| Types | Static related products | Dynamic, seasonal, complete-the-look. |
High-converting plugins allow you to place product suggestions on key pages:
- Product pages with “Frequently Bought Together” or “You May Also Like” sections
- Cart page showing dynamic cart-based cross-sells
- Checkout page as last-minute order bumps
- Thank you page and post-purchase upsells
- Purchase completion emails and cart abandonment reminders
Placement is strategically important. The right suggestion at the right time can double or triple engagement!
How Product Recommendations Help
While there isn’t much public data on large companies, we found this McKinsey 2013 report which has some useful information on recommendations.
It states that Amazon generates 35% of revenue through their recommendation engine and Netflix attributes 75% of viewer engagement to personalized suggestions.
For WooCommerce stores specifically, properly implemented recommendations typically see:
- 4.5x higher conversion rates compared to stores without recommendations
- 31% increase in average order value when customers engage with recommendations
- 288% higher engagement from prospects who interact with recommendations
The science and psychology behind product recommendations is also fascinating.
Google’s research on the “Messy Middle” of customer decision-making identified six cognitive biases that recommendations leverage.
They are:
- Social proof (customers who bought this also bought)
- Authority bias (expert recommendations)
- Scarcity (limited stock alerts)
- Anchoring effect (price comparisons)
- Bandwagon effect (popular products)
- Loss aversion (fear of missing out)
Essentially, if you’re not using recommendation plugins, you’re leaving serious money on the table.
The 6 Essential Woocommerce Recommendation Plugins You Need to Know
After testing dozens of options, these six plugins consistently deliver results.
We’ll break down exactly what makes each one special, their real-world performance, and who should use them.
| Plugin | Price | Best for | Strengths |
|---|---|---|---|
| CartFlows | Free / $189–$299/year | eCommerce businesses that need to implement funnels | Full funnel builder, 1-click upsells, proven CRO impact. |
| Modern Cart | $69–$199 (lifetime available) | Complete shopping cart overhaul for a more modern setup than WooCommerce | Lightweight, floating cart UX, free shipping progress bar |
| WooCommerce Product Recommendations (Official) | $99/year | Basic rule-based recommendations | 20+ placement options. |
| UpsellWP | Free / $55/year | AOV-focused stores | Post-purchase upsells, timers, A/B testing, superb support |
| WebToffee Advanced Recommendations | Free / $89/year | Flexible mid-sized stores | Smart filters, great support, unlimited recommendation types |
| YITH Frequently Bought Together | Free (premium pricing unclear) | Budget users only | Budget users only |
1. CartFlows – The Complete Sales Funnel Solution
Price: $189-$299/year.
Best for: Serious eCommerce businesses looking for comprehensive funnel optimization.
We can practically hear your eyes rolling, “Of course, they put their own product first.” But we’ll only share what could solve your struggle with increasing average order value.
You see, for product recommendations to work, you need a conversion-optimized WooCommerce checkout flow.
CartFlows gives you end-to-end optimization to make the most of WooCommerce product recommendations.
With 223,242+ active users and 4.8/5 stars, We had to add it as the #1 WooCommerce product recommendations plugin.
“Cartflows helps us with lifting our conversion rates. We’re able to test different customer journeys with ease. We highly recommend CartFlows to anyone looking to improve their conversion rates, sales, and overall visitor experiences” – ShopStyled on TrustPilot
Why CartFlows:
- Complete solution: Handles the entire customer journey from landing to thank you
- Cost advantage: Starts free. Upgrades cost $189 to $299/year or $999 one time cost
- WordPress ownership: Funnels hosted on your domain, not an external platform
- Integration ecosystem: 1,010+ app integrations via SureTriggers
- Proven results: Users consistently report 10-30% revenue increases
Important note: CartFlows works alongside recommendation plugins rather than replacing them.
Many stores combine CartFlows for checkout optimization with dedicated recommendation plugins for product suggestions.
2. Modern Cart – The Cart Experience Specialist
Price: $69-199 (lifetime option available).
Best for: Stores with cart abandonment and low customer engagement who need a modern shopping cart solution.
Modern Cart comes from the same team as CartFlows (Us – Brainstorm Force) but focuses specifically on cart optimization.
The floating cart interface creates a modern, distraction-free experience that reduces abandonment.
The free shipping progress bar is brilliant for encouraging higher order values. Customers see exactly how much more they need to spend for free shipping, often leading to additional purchases.
Product recommendations within the cart capture cross-sell opportunities at the perfect moment.
Key advantages:
- Lightweight performance (less than 0.1 seconds load time)
- Mobile-optimized for modern shopping behavior
- Easy one-click setup and configuration
- Works with any WordPress theme
- Part of the trusted CartFlows ecosystem
For the price ($69/year), it’s exceptional value for cart-specific improvements.
3. Woocommerce Product Recommendations (Official) – The Premium Powerhouse
Price: $99/year.
Best for: Perfect for store owners who want to use only WooCommerce official apps.
This is WooCommerce’s official recommendation solution, and it shows.
The machine learning algorithms analyze customer behavior patterns to automatically suggest relevant products with near-zero setup time.
What impressed us most is the 20+ strategic placement locations throughout your store – product pages, cart, checkout, thank you pages, even category pages.
The “Smart Amplifiers” feature lets you boost recommendations based on popularity, rating, conversion rate, and other advanced criteria.
For stores with large catalogs, the bulk recommendation creation using category and attribute filters saves hours of manual work.
Key features that matter:
- Automated “Frequently Bought Together” with lightweight algorithms
- “Complete the Look” feature for fashion/lifestyle stores
- Revenue analytics with filterable reports
- Seasonal pattern adaptation (algorithm learns holiday trends)
- No external API calls (everything processed locally for speed)
Users report significant AOV increases, though WooCommerce doesn’t publish specific numbers. Machine learning improves over time so you can expect better results after 2-3 months of data collection.
The catch: At $99/year, it’s the most expensive option.
Plus, it’s not optimized for block themes yet (support coming soon). If you’re on a tight budget or using a block theme, consider alternatives.
4. UpsellWP – The Conversion Optimization Specialist
Price: Free version available, Pro at $55/year.
Best for: Stores that want a plugin that just does upsells and nothing else.
UpsellWP has very comprehensive campaign types.
While many plugins focus on cross-sells, UpsellWP offers post-purchase upsells with countdown timers, “Double the Order” campaigns, next-order coupons, and thank you page recommendations.
Users consistently report up to 41% increases in AOV. The 10+ pre-built campaigns get you started immediately.
The “Frequently Bought Together” suggestions appear on product pages, while checkout order bumps capture last-minute purchases.
What sets it apart is the time-sensitive offers with urgency timers that create genuine purchasing pressure.
Standout features:
- Post-purchase upsells (customers already committed to buying)
- Smart product recommendations engine
- A/B testing for campaign optimization
- WPML compatibility for multilingual stores
- Works with WooCommerce Cart and Checkout blocks
User feedback highlights: “Great Plugin. Great Service” and “Fantastic Plugin & Outstanding Support!” appear repeatedly. Users praise the quick support response times and comprehensive feature set.
Pricing advantage: At $55/year, it delivers great functionality.
5. Advanced WooCommerce Product Recommendations (WebToffee)
Price: Free version available, Pro at $89/year.
Best for: Stores wanting customizable UI for their product recommendations.
WebToffee strikes an excellent balance between features and affordability.
The pre-built templates (related products, bestsellers, frequently bought together) get you started quickly.
Custom recommendations with advanced filtering let you create sophisticated rules.
Notable features:
- Unlimited custom recommendation types
- Smart targeting (recommend sale items to customers with qualifying cart values)
- Visual customization controls for colors and layout
- WPML compatible for international stores
- Works with block themes and Gutenberg
Performance data: Users in the WebToffee ecosystem (1.5+ million total) report strong satisfaction.
The company’s reputation for excellent support makes this a safe choice for stores needing reliable, well-supported recommendations.
6. YITH WooCommerce Frequently Bought Together – The Budget Option With Caveats
Price: Free version, premium pricing not disclosed.
Best for: Budget-conscious stores willing to accept limitations.
We used YITH because it seemed to come up a lot when we were looking for plugins to try.
From our testing, we noticed that it doesn’t give you the bells and whistles you’d need for recommending the best products.
But it works and if all you need is a way to recommend a few specific products, this product recommendation plugin might just work.
The free version is limited, and the recurring theme in a lot of the customer reviews was that YITH was “practically impossible to use” without upgrading. The 3.1/5 star rating on WordPress.org also tells the story.
With the free version you can only:
- Configure specific products to show up for each product in your store
- Change the title of the product recommendation section
- Customize the text and colors of the “Add to Cart” for these recommended products.
It does offer some good features like auto-recommending products based on tags and categories, add automatic discounts, and more in the premium versions.
If those features get the job done for you, this is going to be a great low-cost option for you to consider.
Our recommendation: Only consider YITH if budget is your primary concern and you thoroughly test on a staging site first.
Our Final Recommendations for Choosing the Best Plugin
WooCommerce Product Recommendations ($99/year) provides official WooCommerce support and future-proof development which could be a great add-on for most stores.
But most don’t include all.
If your store needs deeper funnel optimization, better upsell and cross sell flows, you need CartFlows.
It’s currently the most comprehensive solution and provides everything you need to optimize carts for more sales.
If you’re tired of layering solutions on top of the WooCommerce shopping cart experience, you need Modern Cart ($69/year).
It completely changes the look and feel of your WooCommerce store with smart product recommendations.
You get a modern-looking cart experience that’s fast, snappy, and built for conversion.
For WooCommerce stores on a budget, go with UpsellWP ($55/year).
It offers the best balance of features, price, and proven results. The comprehensive campaign types and excellent support make it ideal for stores wanting immediate revenue improvement.
Set Up Product Recommendations With CartFlows (3 Simple Steps)
After you’ve installed CartFlows Pro on your WooCommerce store, setting up product recommendations can increase average order value by 20-30%.
Step 1: Create Your Funnel and Configure Checkout
Let’s use a funnel template to build as it’s faster and easier while you’re learning how CartFlows works.
Navigate to CartFlows → Funnels → Create Funnel.
Choose one of the product sales funnel templates depending and then Import Flow.
Configure your checkout page by going to Checkout settings → Product and select your products.
Step 2: Add Revenue-Boosting Recommendation Features
Set up order bumps by adding a new step to your funnel.
Configure post-purchase upsells by adding an upsell step after your checkout page.
Select an upsell product that’s 1.5-3x the cart product price and enable one-click purchasing.
You can also choose to set up conditional redirects so “Yes” leads to a specific page and “No” leads to another page depending on how you’ve designed the funnel.
Step 3: Optimize and Scale Your Recommendations
You can also create category-specific upsell strategies for a little extra profit.
For example:
- Electronics stores could focus on warranties and accessories
- Fashion stores on complete-the-look recommendations
- Digital product stores on related courses or upgraded plans
Use CartFlows’ A/B testing to test different funnel variations and track conversion rates by funnel step, average order value increase, and abandonment rates.
Ensure mobile optimization by testing all steps on mobile devices, using Instant Checkout layout for mobile, and minimizing form fields.
Start simple with basic order bumps, then add complexity as you learn what works.
Limit recommendations to 3-5 options maximum to avoid overwhelming customers, and continuously optimize based on performance data rather than assumptions.
Strategic Product Recommendation Locations That Actually Convert
Here are the highest-converting locations based on performance data and user testing:
- Product pages (above the add to cart button): Most effective for cross-sells because customers are actively making decisions. Users report 2-3x higher engagement compared to sidebar placements.
- Cart page (header section): Better visibility than WooCommerce’s default bottom placement. Focus on complementary items based on cart contents, avoiding irrelevant suggestions that create noise.
- Checkout page: Order bumps and last-minute additions. Test placement timing carefully. Too early and it’s ignored, too late and it feels pushy.
- Thank you page: Post-purchase upsells work because customers have already made a purchase decision so it’s easier to make another. This is where CartFlows excels.
- Email campaigns: Personalized product recommendations in emails often show higher conversion than onsite recommendations. Amazon’s email recommendations have very high conversion rates according to their published data.
Common Implementation Mistakes to Avoid
Theme compatibility issues are the biggest source of problems.
Always test on a staging site first, and consider switching to the Storefront theme temporarily to verify plugin functionality.
- Caching conflicts cause recommendations to appear stale or identical for all users. Configure exclusions for dynamic recommendation areas, or use AJAX loading for personalized suggestions.
- Over-aggressive recommendations hurt more than help. Avoid recommending completely unrelated products or showing too many options (analysis paralysis).
- Ignoring mobile optimization is costly when 60%+ of traffic comes from mobile. Ensure recommendations display properly on small screens and load quickly.
Recommend the Best Products With CartFlows + Modern Cart
If you’re not using product recommendations, you’re already losing money. While you’re reading this, stores using product recommendations are seeing 20-35% more revenue.
Our suggestion?
Start with the WooCommerce official plugin or with CartFlows + Modern Cart if you want the full conversion optimization experience.
Both will pay for themselves in no time (depending on your store’s revenue potential) when set up correctly.
Your customers expect smart recommendations like Amazon has trained them for.
The only difference between your current revenue and significantly higher revenue is clicking “install” and spending an afternoon setting up your first order bump. So what are you waiting for?
