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wp.org search vs our merit ranking: “easy payments”

wp.org orders by popularity, so a plugin a host bundled onto millions of sites, or a big-brand one that's slow and mediocre, can sit at the top. Our ranking is built to answer a different question: which of these is actually worth installing. How this works →

For “easy payments”, we agree with wp.org on the top plugin, and our order differs from theirs on 10 of the top 20. 6 plugins are pushed down for signals wp.org ignores: errors, a host-installed base, or removal risk.

wp.org search ranks on

Install count (uncapped), the raw star average, freshness, and support. Popularity dominates, so the biggest install base usually wins regardless of how it got there.

We add

A cap on the install boost, volume-weighted ratings, and signals wp.org can't see: whether it throws errors on current PHP, whether the install base is organic or host-pushed, and its risk of being pulled.

Ranked above its merit

Payment Gateway for Authorize.net for WooCommerce shows at wp.org #10 but places #21 on merit, a gap of 11 places. Its 800+ installs carry it up the search order; its 5.0★ average from 3 reviews, plus freshness and upkeep, place it lower on our volume-weighted scale.

Buried gem

Anti-Spam, Spam FireWall by CleanTalk places #11 on merit, 4.8★ from 3220 reviews, but shows at wp.org #23. A smaller install base keeps it further down the default search order than its quality signals alone would.

merit plugin wp.org
1 Easy Digital Downloads – eCommerce Payments and Subscriptions made easy 40K+ · 4.7★ (591) wp.org #1 ↑1 2 Forminator Forms – Contact Form, Payment Form & Custom Form Builder 600K+ · 4.8★ (2143) wp.org #2 ↓1 3 WPForms – AI Form Builder for WordPress – Contact Forms, Payment Forms, Survey Form, Quiz & More 5M+ · 4.8★ (14387) wp.org #3 4 Easy MCP AI – Connect Claude to WordPress: MCP Server for ChatGPT & AI Agents 30K+ · 4.9★ (16) wp.org #4 ↑1 5 Paid Membership Subscriptions – Effortless Memberships, Recurring Payments & Content Restriction 10K+ · 4.7★ (270) wp.org #11 ↑3 6 too low 6 Easy Appointments 10K+ · 4.3★ (131) wp.org #5 ↓1 1 too high 7 Smash Balloon Social Photo Feed – Easy Social Feeds Plugin 1M+ · 4.9★ (4358) wp.org #14 ↓4 7 too low 8 Accept Stripe Payments 20K+ · 4.1★ (114) wp.org #8 ↓2 9 Events Made Easy 1K+ · 4.6★ (111) wp.org #9 10 Payment Gateway for PayPal on WooCommerce 10K+ · 4.4★ (73) wp.org #6 ↑2 4 too high 11 Anti-Spam, Spam FireWall by CleanTalk 200K+ · 4.8★ (3220) wp.org #23 ↑1 12 too low 12 Elementor Website Builder – more than just a page builder 10M+ · 4.5★ (7323) wp.org #17 5 too low 13 Easy Modal 7K+ · 4.4★ (124) wp.org #15 ↑2 2 too low 14 Easy Accept Payments via PayPal 6K+ · 4.5★ (34) wp.org #12 2 too high 15 Mollie Payments for WooCommerce 100K+ · 3.6★ (69) wp.org #7 8 too high 16 Conditional Payments for WooCommerce 10K+ · 4.6★ (28) wp.org #13 3 too high 17 FluentSnippets – High-Performance Code Snippets, Header & Footer Code, Custom CSS & PHP Code Manager 50K+ · 4.7★ (78) wp.org #20 ↓1 3 too low 18 Pricing Table WordPress Plugin – Easy Pricing Tables 10K+ · 4.3★ (133) wp.org #22 4 too low 19 Bitcoin Payments – Blockonomics 2K+ · 4.5★ (35) wp.org #16 3 too high 20 Easy Invoice – Invoice Generator, PDF Quotes & Payments 600+ · 4.4★ (7) wp.org #19 ↑3 1 too high 21 Payment Gateway for Authorize.net for WooCommerce 800+ · 5.0★ (3) wp.org #10 ↑5 11 too high 22 GoDaddy Payments for WooCommerce 2K+ · 4.3★ (6) wp.org #21 1 too high 23 GetPaid Stripe Payments 2K+ · 5.0★ (3) wp.org #18 5 too high 24 Conditional Payment Methods for WooCommerce 1K+ · 5.0★ (3) wp.org #24

Merit ranking caps the install boost at 1M (wp.org leaves it uncapped), replaces the raw star average with a volume-weighted Bayesian score and a Wilson lower bound, and keeps wp.org's own freshness and compatibility decays. Method from the plugin-directory source; see Meta Trac #8298. Positions are tracked daily from the first visit to a keyword, so the small arrows show movement since tracking began.