What is TitanCart?

Updated Oct 17, 2026 Getting Started

TitanCart is a complete eCommerce plugin for WordPress. It ships everything an online store needs — products, categories, cart, checkout, orders, payments, shipping, tax, customer accounts, reviews, promotions, reports and import/export — in one plugin with its own database tables, its own admin and its own REST API. It comes in two editions: TitanCart Lite, free on WordPress.org, and TitanCart Pro, an annual subscription that unlocks the full feature set and bundles nine extensions.

What makes it different

TitanCart does not store your catalogue in WordPress posts, taxonomies or custom fields. Everything lives in purpose-built tables with the tc_ prefix, queried through TitanCart’s own database layer. Your wp_posts table stays clean, and catalogue operations stay fast as the store grows. The admin is TitanCart’s own React application rather than a set of screens inside the WordPress editor, and the storefront, cart, checkout and account pages are rendered by TitanCart’s own templates.

The engine is built to be portable: the cart, checkout, order and pricing logic contain no WordPress function calls. WordPress is a thin hosting layer over a self-contained store engine, which is what keeps the query count low and the upgrade path open.

And there is no ecosystem of required add-ons. Payment gateways, product options and variations, tiered pricing, tax rules, shipping zones, promotions, customer groups, reviews, loyalty points, gift cards, returns and reporting are all part of the core plugin.

What is in the core plugin

Catalogue — simple and variable products, product variations, categories, attributes and product filters, product options, bundles, quantity-tiered Bulk Buys pricing, digital downloads, product tabs, brands and product reviews.
Selling — a real cart session, guest checkout, coupons and promotions, gift cards, Loyalty Rewards points, wishlists, and returns (RMA).
Payments — Stripe, PayPal, Venmo, Square and Authorize.net, plus cash on delivery, bank transfer and cheque.
Shipping — flat rate, free shipping, table-based rates with zones and conditions, live USPS, UPS and FedEx rates, and a Fulfillment queue with shipment tracking.
Tax — tax classes, zones and rate rules, in every edition.
Customers — accounts, address book, order history, customer groups, and social sign-in with Google or Facebook.
Growth — Email Campaigns, promotions, gift cards and Loyalty Rewards.
Storefront — store pages, testimonials, an FAQ page and product ribbons.
Operations — Revenue Reports, CSV import and export with a WooCommerce migration tool, Site Backup, a REST API for integrations, SEO output, sitemap, GDPR tools, age verification and reCAPTCHA.

Everything in that list is included with TitanCart Pro. The section on Lite below says which parts the free edition includes.

The storefront theme

TitanCart renders its own storefront pages, and they look best with Prism, the free companion theme built for it. Prism ships eight presets — Default, Marketplace, Apparel, Electronics, Firearms, Handmade & Crafts, Print on Demand and TitanArcade — configured from TitanCart’s own Theme Options page rather than the WordPress Customizer. See Connecting the TitanCart theme.

Extensions

The TitanCart Marketplace adds the features that matter to some stores but not all. Nine extensions are included with TitanCart Pro with no separate purchase and no extra license key: Subscriptions & Recurring, Multi-Vendor Marketplace, Abandoned Cart Recovery, Affiliate Marketing, Product Data Feeds, SMS Notifications, Wishlist Sharing & Alerts, Tips & Donations and Printful. Two are sold separately as one-time purchases and work on Lite as well as Pro: TitanCart Lottery and Software Licensing. Prism and TitanCart Essentials are free. The full picture is in Extensions overview.

When TitanCart is a good fit

You want one annual subscription instead of stitching together a dozen WooCommerce add-ons, each with its own renewal.
Your catalogue is large enough that WordPress post-type overhead is slowing you down.
You want a dedicated commerce dashboard rather than a tab inside the WordPress editor.
You are moving from WooCommerce — the importer reads a WooCommerce export, and TitanCart can coexist with WooCommerce on the same site during the move. See Migrating from WooCommerce.

When TitanCart is not a good fit

You depend on a specific WooCommerce-only extension that has no TitanCart equivalent.
You need the Pro-only pieces — PayPal, Venmo, Square and Authorize.net, live carrier rates, product options and bundles, promotions and coupons, gift cards, Loyalty Rewards, Email Campaigns, returns, Revenue Reports, the REST API, social sign-in or the bundled extensions — but do not want a subscription. TitanCart Pro is an annual subscription, priced per store, with a multi-store plan (see pricing), and the nine bundled extensions come with it rather than being sold separately. TitanCart Lite stays free, but those features are not in it.

Try it first — TitanCart Lite is free

TitanCart Lite is the free edition, published on WordPress.org. It is the same engine with the same database tables and the same admin — not a crippled demo. It is free and GPL, needs no license key, and makes no outbound connections of its own; the few features that talk to a third party (Stripe, reCAPTCHA, address autocomplete, video embeds) do so only after you configure them with your own credentials.

Lite runs a real, sellable store: simple and variable products with variations, categories, attributes and product filters, image galleries, digital downloads, product reviews and wishlists; a cart with guest checkout; Stripe, cash on delivery, bank transfer and cheque for payment; flat, free and table-based shipping with zones; full tax rules; order management with statuses, invoices, fulfilment and shipment tracking; customer accounts and customer groups; SEO output, sitemap, GDPR tools, age verification and reCAPTCHA; and CSV import and export including the WooCommerce migration tool.

What Lite leaves to Pro: the other payment gateways, live carrier rates, product options and bundles, Bulk Buys tiers, promotions and coupon codes, gift cards, Loyalty Rewards, Email Campaigns, returns, Revenue Reports, Site Backup, the REST API, social sign-in, catalog mode and access restrictions, saved import presets, and the nine bundled extensions. One thing to know: Lite’s cart still shows a coupon box, but Lite has no way to create a coupon, so a code entered there is declined.

When you outgrow Lite, Pro is the same plugin with those pieces switched on — your catalogue, orders and customers stay exactly where they are. The reverse holds too: if a Pro subscription lapses, the store keeps selling as TitanCart Lite and nothing is deleted.

Next step: install the plugin and work through the setup checklist. See Installing TitanCart and Store setup checklist.