The business in one offer
Who it serves
Owners of small WooCommerce stores, often run by one or two people, who need one specific feature their theme does not provide, such as delivery date selection at checkout. They pay because a developer would charge far more for custom work, and they want a tool that keeps working after updates.
What to sell first
A premium delivery-date plugin for WooCommerce sold as a one-site annual license that includes updates and email support with a stated response window. A free version in the directory covers basic date picking. Excluded: custom code for individual stores, setup on the customer's site, and support for heavily modified checkout pages.
One feature for one platform keeps the test matrix small and the documentation short. Store owners understand what they are buying from a screenshot, and you can price per site without writing custom quotes or managing client projects.
What could it cost to start?
This is an original example budget for the limited pilot described above. It is not a researched market average or a complete quote for every location.
| Item to price | Example allowance |
|---|---|
| Licensing and payment platform fees allowance, first quarter | $150.00 |
| Staging hosting for compatibility testing, three months | $90.00 |
| Help desk and documentation tool, three months | $75.00 |
| Product website, domain and theme | $180.00 |
| Paid plugins needed to test common conflicts | $250.00 |
| Business registration and bank account allowance | $150.00 |
| Example total | $895.00 |
What this assumes—and excludes
Assumes you already write PHP and JavaScript, know the WordPress hooks system, and own a capable computer. Excludes owner pay, paid advertising, legal review of your license terms, and any sales tax registration, which depends on where your buyers are. Get current quotes from licensing platforms before you commit.
Collect actual supplier, insurance and local-authority information. Add a reserve for delays and unexpected costs; the example total is not a funding recommendation.
How the unit economics work
At an assumed $79.00 per annual license and $6.00 in direct costs, contribution is $73.00 before monthly fixed costs, owner pay and taxes. With 1.2 all-in working hours per unit, that is $60.83 per delivery hour before those deductions. These inputs illustrate the arithmetic; they do not establish a market price or expected earnings.
The example also allows $110.00 in monthly fixed costs. Include unpaid acquisition and administrative time when deciding whether the offer is worthwhile.
Try your own numbers
These are editable planning assumptions, not prices we have verified. Calculations stay in your browser.
Operating result = (price − direct cost) × units − monthly fixed costs. Before owner pay, taxes, financing and startup recovery. At these inputs, delivery requires 12 hours per month, plus any work not included in your per-unit estimate. Sales volume is a scenario, not a forecast.
How to find the first customers
Test a small offer before scaling traffic. Record the source of each enquiry, whether it fits the offer, and whether the buyer pays.
- Publish the free version in the WordPress plugin directory with clear screenshots, a short setup video and an honest list of what the premium version adds. Track how many free installs lead to a visit to your pricing page.
- Answer questions in WooCommerce community forums about delivery scheduling when your plugin genuinely solves them, and say plainly that you built it. Do not post the same reply in many threads.
- Offer three small store owners a free year in exchange for a recorded screen-share of their setup process. Fix what confused them and note which steps took longest.
- Contact two freelance WooCommerce developers and offer them a discounted agency license for client sites. Ask what they need in documentation before they will recommend a plugin.
What to validate before spending more
- Read the plugin directory guidelines on upselling and trial limits before you design the free version, and confirm your licensing approach does not break them.
- Install your plugin next to the ten most common WooCommerce extensions on a staging site and run a full checkout with each. Record every conflict before you sell a single license.
- Test a price by sending a pre-launch page to opted-in free users with two plan options. Count clicks on each plan rather than asking people what they would pay.
- Time a week of support for the free version. If tickets already take more than three hours a week, tighten the documentation before you add paying sites.
The operational catch
Renewal rates drive the business, and many buyers turn off auto-renewal once the plugin works. If you stop shipping visible updates, they keep the old version running for years. Plan a steady release schedule, show a changelog inside the admin screen, and decide in advance what an expired license loses, such as updates but not core function.
A practical way to fund the first step
Start with the free version and a short presale of lifetime or discounted first-year licenses to people who already use it. Keep hosting on monthly plans and buy test plugins only when a real customer reports a conflict with them.
Separate cash already available from money still to earn. Count only proceeds after direct expenses, and do not spend customer funds needed to fulfill their existing orders.
Questions before you start
Do I need to license my plugin under the GPL?
Plugins that run inside WordPress are generally expected to be GPL-compatible, and the directory requires it. That means you sell updates, support and convenience rather than secrecy. Ask a lawyer if you plan to bundle code with a different license.
Should I offer lifetime licenses?
They bring early cash but no renewal revenue, and they keep support obligations open forever. If you use them, cap the number, price them several times the annual rate, and stop offering them once you know your support cost per site.
How many sites should one license cover?
Single-site, five-site and larger agency tiers are common structures. Start with one and five, and watch whether agencies ask for more before you design a bigger tier.
Source-backed checks
These references support the specific checks below. They do not endorse this business idea or substantiate the example prices, costs or demand.
Stripe publishes its per-transaction card processing fees on its pricing page, which affects the margin on low-priced licenses. Stripe: Pricing & Fees.
SBA advises small businesses to protect their systems and customer data with cybersecurity practices such as strong passwords and software updates. U.S. Small Business Administration: Strengthen your cybersecurity.
The U.S. Copyright Office explains that copyright protects original works of authorship fixed in a tangible form. U.S. Copyright Office: What is Copyright?.
- Pricing & FeesStripe · Reference checked September 8, 2026
- Strengthen your cybersecurityU.S. Small Business Administration · Reference checked September 8, 2026
- What is Copyright?U.S. Copyright Office · Reference checked September 8, 2026
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