Hire a WooCommerce developer who will take care of the whole store, not just its design. WooCommerce itself is free, but a store built on it depends on WordPress, a theme, a set of plugins and the hosting under them, and each of those needs updating and testing for as long as you trade. Before you sign, ask to see the staging copy, the full plugin list with what each one costs a year, and the update plan. For an Irish store, add EU VAT and your accounts package to that list. This guide covers what the job includes, the checks we would make, the red flags and the costs.
What a WooCommerce developer is responsible for
WooCommerce is a free, open-source plugin that turns a WordPress site into a shop, with no monthly subscription (WooCommerce pricing, checked November 2026). It runs on your own WordPress install and hosting, so you control the checkout and the order data, and no platform decides what the store may do. The price of that control is that somebody has to look after it.
A developer you can rely on takes on five things:
- The build. Product, category, cart and checkout templates designed for a phone, with the theme kept apart from the store’s logic.
- The plugin list. As few plugins as the store needs, each from a maintained source, with its licence and renewal date written down.
- Payments and tax. The payment gateway, VAT by destination for EU customers, and invoices your accountant accepts.
- Integrations. Orders, refunds and payouts reaching Xero or Sage, and stock or courier links where you need them.
- Hosting and updates. A server that meets WooCommerce’s requirements, backups that have been restored at least once, and a tested update routine.
Custom code comes last, written only where no maintained plugin does the job.
Is WooCommerce the right platform for your store?
Settle this before you hire, because a WooCommerce developer will rarely tell you to buy Shopify. WooCommerce suits a store inside a content-led WordPress site, a catalogue with unusual pricing rules, or bookings and memberships sold beside products. Shopify suits a standard retail store that your team wants to run without a developer. We weigh the two, and a custom build, with Irish prices in Shopify vs WooCommerce vs a custom build.
Seven checks before you hire
1. Do they work on a staging copy?
Every change, from a plugin update to a new checkout field, should be made and tested on a private copy of the store before it reaches the live one. Ask how a change moves from staging to live, and who places a test order afterwards.
2. Will they show you the plugin list and what it costs?
WooCommerce’s own extensions are sold one by one, at $29 to $299 a year each on its pricing page in November 2026, and WooCommerce Subscriptions alone was €252 for a one-year plan that month. Ask for every paid plugin, its yearly price, whose account holds the licence and what stops working if it lapses. A developer who reaches for a plugin at every request is adding a renewal and a possible conflict each time.
3. What is the update plan?
WooCommerce releases typically ship on a five-week cycle (WooCommerce release calendar, November 2026), and WordPress, the theme and each plugin update on their own timetables. Since WordPress 5.5 you can switch on automatic updates plugin by plugin (WordPress documentation), but on a shop an untested update can stop the checkout. Ask how often they update, what they test afterwards, and how they roll back.
4. Do they know how WooCommerce stores orders now?
High-Performance Order Storage gives orders a database structure of their own, and it is on by default for new stores from WooCommerce 8.2 (WooCommerce documentation, checked November 2026). An extension that is not compatible blocks the switch on an older store. Ask which of your current plugins would hold the store back. A developer who works on WooCommerce every week will know how to find out.
5. Is the hosting matched to a store?
WooCommerce lists PHP 8.3 or greater, WordPress 6.9 or greater, MySQL 8.0 or MariaDB 10.6 or greater, a WordPress memory limit of at least 256 MB, and HTTPS (WooCommerce server requirements, November 2026). Those are the floor. A store also needs page caching that leaves the cart, checkout and account pages alone, and room for a busy weekend. The cheapest shared plan is rarely enough for a site that takes payments.
6. Can they set up payments, VAT and your accounts?
Stripe, Global Payments and Elavon all connect to WooCommerce, as our comparison of payment gateways in Ireland sets out, and WooCommerce’s own WooPayments is open to Irish businesses (WooCommerce, November 2026). Once your sales to consumers in other EU countries pass €10,000 in a calendar year, the store must charge each customer their own country’s VAT rate (Revenue’s guidance on distance sales). Ask the developer to place test orders that show the VAT line, the invoice and the entry your accountant expects in Xero or Sage. When a connector cannot post refunds and payouts the way your books need them, the gap is accounting automation work, and it is better priced before launch than found after it.
7. Who holds the accounts when the work ends?
Ask who will hold the hosting, the domain, the payment account and the plugin licences, and whether each one transfers to you on request. Any custom code written for your store should come with its source and documentation, so another developer could pick it up.
Red flags
- Changes made straight on the live store. Editing theme files or updating plugins with no staging copy is how a checkout breaks on a busy day.
- Premium plugins without a licence. A paid plugin installed without one gets no updates, and copies from unofficial sources can carry malicious code.
- A quote with no running costs. A build price with nothing about hosting, licences and updates is half a quote.
- Promised rankings. No one can promise rankings. Ask instead how they will handle redirects, speed and structured data.
- Hosting you cannot leave. Hosting that only works while you stay with the developer is a rental, not a store you control.
What a WooCommerce store costs in Ireland
The plugin is free, so the cost is everything around it: the design and build, paid extensions, hosting, and the hours that keep the store updated. Ecommerce projects at Loco start from €10,000 ex VAT, and every project starts with a short consult that ends in a costed plan with a price and a timeline. After launch, an optional retainer from €2,000 a month covers hosting, monitoring, fixes and new features. The wider Irish price bands, and how to compare quotes line by line, are in what a website costs in Ireland.
The Grow Digital Voucher does not pay for a custom store build. It can part-fund new off-the-shelf software subscriptions if you qualify, as our voucher guide explains.
When no plugin fits: the ERP HEADtoHEAD booking engine
Sometimes the right WooCommerce developer writes the plugin. Lumenia Consulting’s ERP HEADtoHEAD events in Dublin and Birmingham are run by separate companies, each with its own currency, VAT regime and Stripe account. Ticketing platforms take a cut of every seat, and the standard booking plugins expect one payment account per site.
In 2026 Loco Digital rebuilt the event site on WordPress and wrote a booking and payments plugin on WooCommerce and Stripe:
- Dublin bookings are invoiced by the Irish company in euro, with Irish VAT calculated on the net price, and the plugin is set up to bill Birmingham bookings from the UK company when they open.
- Every booking lands as a WooCommerce order that Lumenia can refund and report on, in an admin its team already knew.
- Each delegate gets their own record and day selection, and group rates apply automatically.
- Ticket prices are managed net of VAT from a settings screen of their own, separate from WooCommerce products.
The lesson for a buyer: a developer who builds on WooCommerce’s own order system, not beside it, leaves you with orders your team can refund and report on like any other. Read the ERP HEADtoHEAD case study.
Taking over a store someone else built
Many WooCommerce jobs begin with a store that already trades. Before quoting, a developer should audit it: the WordPress and WooCommerce versions, every plugin and whether it is still maintained, any theme files that override WooCommerce’s own templates (they fall behind when WooCommerce changes), the checkout, the integrations and the speed on a phone. If the store is sound, it can be upgraded in stages. If fixing it would cost more than rebuilding, you should see both figures before you choose. That is how we approach WooCommerce and ecommerce development in Dublin.
The next step
Tell us what the store sells, what it runs on now and what it has to connect to, through the contact form or at hello@loco.ie. The Loco team will reply within one working day.
