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Table rate shipping is how you stop losing money on every order. Flat-rate shipping averages out costs in a way that overcharges nearby customers and undercharges heavy-order customers, and both groups notice. Table rate shipping lets you set the right price for every scenario: charge by weight, cart total, item count, shipping class, destination, or any combination of these. This guide compares the four most capable WooCommerce table rate shipping plugins so you can choose the right one for your store.
Table rate shipping lets you define multiple shipping costs based on conditions like weight, cart total, item count, destination, or shipping class – so every order gets an accurate, fair rate rather than a single flat price applied to everything.
WooCommerce’s built-in shipping options are intentionally simple: flat rate, free shipping, or local pickup. That works for stores with a narrow, uniform product range. It breaks down quickly when you sell products of different weights, ship to multiple regions with different carrier costs, or want to offer free shipping only above a specific order value.
Table rate shipping solves this with rules. You define a table of conditions and costs “if cart weight is between 1–5 kg, charge £4.99; if weight is 5–15 kg, charge £8.99; if weight exceeds 15 kg, charge £14.99” and the correct rate applies automatically at checkout. For a deeper explanation of how the concept works and when to use it, see our complete guide to what table rate shipping is.
According to research by the Baymard Institute, unexpected shipping costs are the number one reason for cart abandonment, cited by 48% of shoppers who abandoned a checkout. Accurate, predictable shipping rates directly address the single biggest checkout conversion problem.
WooCommerce doesn’t include a native table rate shipping feature. The default flat rate shipping method supports a single cost and basic conditional logic (cost per item and a minimum order amount for free shipping), but it can’t create tiered pricing rules by weight ranges, shipping class, or item count.
For anything beyond a single flat rate or a simple free-shipping threshold, you need a plugin. The good news is that a capable free option, Flexible Shipping by Octolize, exists and handles the two most common scenarios (weight-based and cart-total-based rules) without any cost.
Flexible Shipping is the most widely-used table rate shipping plugin for WooCommerce, with over 100,000 active installations and a 4.9★ rating across 702 reviews on WordPress.org. It’s the only plugin in this comparison with a genuinely capable free version, and the PRO upgrade adds conditions that cover the most complex real-world shipping scenarios.
The free version handles the two most common table rate scenarios without any payment:
Free version active installations: 100,000+
Free version rating: 4.9★ (702 reviews, WordPress.org)
For a side-by-side breakdown of every feature available in the free version versus PRO, Octolize maintains a detailed free vs. PRO features comparison.
The PRO version ($99/year for a single site) extends the condition library substantially and adds operational features that serious stores need:
AI Shipping Assistant:
A unique feature in Flexible Shipping PRO. It allows you to describe your shipping scenario in plain text, and the AI assistant generates the complete rule configuration for you. “Charge £5 for orders up to 5kg, £8 for 5–15kg, free over £50” becomes a configured method in seconds. This is a meaningful time-saver for complex multi-condition setups.
PRO price: $99/year (single site)
The best Table Rate Shipping for WooCommerce. Period. Create shipping rules based on weight, order totals, or item count.
View DetailsorAdd to cartTable Rate Shipping by WooCommerce is the official plugin from the WooCommerce team, priced at $119/year with no free version. It’s reliable and well-integrated with the WooCommerce ecosystem, but reviewers have consistently noted that it hasn’t added meaningful new features in several years.
Price: $119/year
WooCommerce Advanced Shipping is a CodeCanyon plugin priced at $23 (one-time payment, 6 months support included) with 17,000+ sales and a 4.89★ rating. Its strength is a highly flexible condition builder that lets you combine multiple conditions with AND/OR logic, and it’s genuinely the most affordable paid option in this comparison.
The plugin uses a condition-based approach rather than a traditional rules table:
Price: $23 one-time (6 months support); extend to 12 months for ~$6.75 extra
17,000+ sales on CodeCanyon | 4.89★ (517 reviews)
YITH Product Shipping (formerly sold as “Product Shipping” and recommended by Barn2 for wholesale and large-catalogue scenarios) is a table rate plugin focused on zone-based, weight-based, and item-count-based pricing. It’s particularly well-suited for stores with large product catalogues where different items or categories need different rate tables assigned to specific zones.
Price: ~$79/year (single site, YITH Club membership)
The table below compares the four paid versions head to head.
| Feature | Flexible Shipping PRO | Table Rate Shipping (Woo) | Advanced Shipping | YITH Product Shipping |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $99/year | $119/year | $23 one-time | ~$79/year |
| Free version available | ✅ (100,000+ installs, 4.9★) | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Cart total condition | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Weight condition | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Item count condition | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Shipping class condition | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ (extension) | ✅ |
| Product / category / tag | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ |
| User role condition | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ |
| Time / day of week | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Volumetric weight | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ |
| Volume | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ |
| Dimensions (L/W/H) | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ |
| AND/OR condition logic | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ |
| Maximum cost cap | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Free shipping coupons | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Hidden methods (rules) | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| AI Shipping Assistant | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Free shipping bar | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Debug mode | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| WPML / multilingual | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Modular add-ons | ✅ | ❌ | Partial | ❌ |
| Support model | Priority email | 6 months included | YITH Club |
The right plugin depends on your store’s complexity, budget, and whether you need to test before committing.
Choose Flexible Shipping (free) if: your store needs weight-based or cart-total-based rates and you want to test before spending anything. The free version handles these two most common scenarios with unlimited rules and no time limit. 100,000+ stores are running it right now in production.
Choose Flexible Shipping PRO if: you need shipping class conditions, per-product or per-category rules, user-role-based rates, volumetric weight, or any of the more advanced conditions. At $99/year, it’s cheaper than the WooCommerce official plugin while offering a substantially wider condition set and the AI assistant. It’s also the most future-proof choice: the modular add-on ecosystem (Distance Based Shipping, Box Packing, Import/Export) means you can extend it without switching plugins as your store grows.
Choose WooCommerce Advanced Shipping if: you need maximum flexibility in condition logic, particularly AND/OR combinations across multiple condition groups, and you’re comfortable with a CodeCanyon purchase. At $23 it’s the cheapest paid entry point. Be aware that extensions for advanced pricing and zone management cost extra, and support has a time limit.
Choose the official WooCommerce Table Rate Shipping if: your store runs a tightly controlled WooCommerce setup, you want official first-party support, and you don’t mind the $119/year price for the reliability of a plugin maintained by the WooCommerce team. If you’re already paying for WooCommerce extensions elsewhere, bundling support may simplify things. Just go in with realistic expectations about feature development pace.
Choose YITH Product Shipping if: you run a large wholesale or B2B catalogue where different product groups need separate rate tables assigned to specific shipping zones, and you’re already in the YITH ecosystem. It’s not the right tool for complex conditional logic, but for its specific use case, zone-based rate table management at scale, it does the job cleanly.
Table rate shipping allows store owners to define multiple shipping costs based on conditions such as cart weight, cart total, item count, shipping class, or destination. Instead of one flat rate for all orders, each order gets a dynamically calculated rate that matches the actual cost to fulfil it.
No. WooCommerce’s built-in shipping options include flat rate, free shipping, and local pickup. None of these support conditional rate tables. A third-party plugin is required.
Yes, Flexible Shipping by Octolize has a free version with over 100,000 active installations and a 4.9★ rating on WordPres repository. The free version supports weight-based and cart-total-based rules with unlimited methods and rules. It is the only plugin in this comparison with a genuinely functional free tier.
Flexible Shipping PRO supports over 15 conditions including cart weight, cart total, item count, cart line item count, shipping class, specific products, product categories, product tags, user role, order dimensions (length/width/height), volumetric weight, volume, time of day, and day of week.
The free version handles weight and cart total conditions, which are enough for most straightforward stores. The PRO version adds shipping class support, product-specific rules, user role conditions, volumetric weight, dimensional conditions, a maximum cost cap, free shipping coupon support, hidden methods, rule-stopping logic, and the AI Shipping Assistant. A full feature breakdown is in the comparison table above.
Flexible Shipping PRO, the official WooCommerce Table Rate Shipping plugin, and WooCommerce Advanced Shipping (with the Advanced Pricing extension) all support shipping class conditions. Flexible Shipping PRO is generally the most flexible option: it supports shipping class as a condition within a broader rule that can also incorporate weight, cart total, and other factors simultaneously.
WooCommerce table rate shipping is one of those features that seems optional until your margins start suffering from a poorly calibrated flat rate. The plugins in this comparison all solve the core problem, but they differ meaningfully in what they can do, what they cost, and how much risk they carry.
Flexible Shipping stands out for one reason that matters before any feature comparison: you can start with the free version today, build real shipping rules for your actual store, and only pay if and when you need the PRO features. That zero-risk entry point, combined with the largest active install base in this category and a consistent 4.9★ rating, makes it the natural starting point for most WooCommerce stores evaluating table rate shipping plugins.
Pricing and feature data sourced from the plugins’ official websites, last verified August 2026.
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Content Writer at Octolize
Bartosz Gajewski is a content and marketing specialist with a solid background in SEO, WordPress content strategy, and technical documentation for digital products. With years of hands-on experience in both in-house and freelance roles, he supports tech companies – especially in the SaaS and e-commerce space – by creating content that informs, engages, and drives results.
His approach blends storytelling with data-driven SEO, and he’s been involved in projects ranging from rebranding and product marketing to growth experiments and copywriting for complex software tools. On the blog, he shares actionable insights from his work across marketing teams, product documentation, and online store optimization.
Learn how Octolize helped Kurzgesagt, the online shop behind one of YouTube’s most popular science channels, set up conditional courier rules using the Shopify Shipping Rates Rules & Zones app.
Learn how Octolize solutions helped WooCommerce store based in the United Kingdom set up shipping scenarios.
Learn how Octolize helped Shopify store based in the USA set up distance based rates with a usage of Octolize Distance Based Rates.
Pickup Points
@Bartosz Gajewski
Your table rate shipping pro plugin is build to setup different prices per rule.
The problem and massive limitation of this plugin is:
If you have different prices you can not give them different names.
For example you setup a simple rule for a shipping method:
if product A -> price 10.
If product B -> price 19.
Now your customer need to understand why the price is different and you can not give every rule a seperated name / each price a seperated name.
Your plugin only can handle pricing name per shipping method (default shipping name) and not per price. Based on this limitation you can not create nested rules and need to split every new price into one dedicated/extra shipping method. All other free and paid table rate shipping plugins can handle basics like this.
If someone build 5 shipping methods with in total 20 pricing rules they have to create 100 seperated shipping methods just to show individual name per shipping price/shipping rule.
We purchased this plugin for some projects and all webmaster told us: wow, i can not setup a name per rule and i need to use the general shipping name? Or: why we can setup individual prices but can not setup individual shipping name for each price? if you have a nested rule and different price for it you also need to describe why… nobody of the developer think about this simple case of shipping pricing?
Hi Thomas,
Thank you for all the details.
From what I have seen, our team is already taking care of your issue.
If not, please reply to this message.
Kind regards,
Mateusz