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Installing TitanCart

Updated Oct 17, 2026 Getting Started

TitanCart installs like any other WordPress plugin and creates its own database tables when you activate it — there is no separate database to configure. This article covers the requirements, the two editions’ install routes, what activation sets up, and how to move a TitanCart Lite store up to TitanCart Pro.

1. Requirements

  • WordPress 6.0 or later.
  • PHP 8.0 or later.
  • A current MySQL or MariaDB — whatever your WordPress install already runs on.
  • Pretty permalinks (any setting other than Plain under Settings → Permalinks). TitanCart’s storefront URLs such as /cart/ and /checkout/ are rewrite rules.

TitanCart checks the WordPress and PHP versions when you activate it; on an older version it refuses to activate and tells you which one is short. Most managed WordPress hosts meet both out of the box.

2. Installing TitanCart Lite (free)

TitanCart Lite is on WordPress.org, so it installs from inside your site:

  1. Go to Plugins → Add New Plugin and search for TitanCart Lite.
  2. Click Install Now, then Activate.

No account, license key or sign-up is needed, and updates arrive through WordPress.org like any other plugin. You can also download the ZIP from wordpress.org/plugins/titancart-lite/ and upload it as described in the next section. See TitanCart Lite for what the free edition includes.

3. Installing TitanCart Pro

  1. Buy TitanCart Pro at market.titancart.io, then open My Account → Licenses. Your license key and the plugin download are both on that page.
  2. In WordPress go to Plugins → Add New Plugin → Upload Plugin, choose the ZIP, click Install Now, then Activate.
  3. Open TitanCart → Settings → Account & License, paste the key into License key and click Activate license.

Until the key is activated the plugin runs as TitanCart Lite and shows a notice saying so — your store is open and selling in the meantime, only the Pro-only features and the bundled extensions are switched off.

Installing by copying files

If you deploy by file transfer instead, unzip the package and upload its folder into wp-content/plugins/ — titancart/ for Pro, titancart-lite/ for Lite — then activate from the WordPress Plugins screen.

wp-content/
└── plugins/
    └── titancart/
        ├── titancart.php
        ├── admin/
        ├── assets/
        ├── src/
        └── templates/

4. What happens on activation

On first activation TitanCart runs its installer. It creates well over a hundred tables under the tc_ prefix, seeds the defaults a store needs (US dollar as the currency, English, the order and fulfillment statuses, customer groups, a default tax class, the country and state list, e-mail templates, customer profile fields, the standard product tabs and the plugin settings), creates the storefront pages — Shop, Cart, Checkout, My Account, Wishlist, Search and Order Received, plus a Homepage, Blog, FAQ, Testimonials and Gift Cards page — sets the Homepage as your site’s front page, and refreshes the permalink rules.

There is no welcome screen: after activation you are back on the Plugins list, and TitanCart is in the WordPress sidebar. Activation is safe to repeat — deactivating and reactivating only applies any database changes that shipped since the last run, and never deletes data.

5. Moving from Lite to Pro

Lite and Pro use the same tables and the same settings, so a Lite store becomes a Pro store in place: your catalogue, orders and customers stay exactly where they are. The one rule is that the two plugins must not be active at the same time, because they contain the same code.

  1. On Plugins, Deactivate TitanCart Lite. Do not delete it yet.
  2. Upload and activate the TitanCart Pro ZIP, then activate your license key, as in §3.
  3. Check the store, then Delete TitanCart Lite. Deleting Lite leaves your tc_ tables and settings in place.

6. Next steps

  • TitanCart → Settings → General Settings → Company — your store name, address and contact e-mail. Settings → Currencies if you do not sell in US dollars.
  • Settings → Payment Gateways — enable at least one. Stripe is the fastest to get working; cash on delivery, bank transfer and cheque need no account at all.
  • Settings → Shipping Methods and Settings → Tax Rules — see Shipping zones and Tax rules.
  • Install the free Prism storefront theme — see Connecting the TitanCart theme.
  • Create your first product — see Adding your first product — then work through the Store setup checklist.

Note: TitanCart does not require WooCommerce and does not replace it automatically. If WooCommerce is active, the two coexist but share no products, orders or customers — use the importer to bring your WooCommerce catalogue across (Migrating from WooCommerce), then retire WooCommerce.

Troubleshooting

  • “Plugin could not be activated because it triggered a fatal error.” Either PHP or WordPress is below the minimum (the message says which), or TitanCart Lite is still active while you are activating Pro — deactivate Lite first.
  • The storefront pages give a 404. Go to Settings → Permalinks and click Save Changes once; make sure the structure is not Plain.
  • Pro features are missing after installing Pro. The license key is not activated yet — Settings → Account & License.

See also

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What is TitanCart? Next
TitanCart Lite