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wp.org search vs our merit ranking: “hosted payment”

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 “hosted payment”, we and wp.org disagree on the top plugin, and our order differs from theirs on 11 of the top 20. 10 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

PayU GPO Payment for WooCommerce shows at wp.org #4 but places #15 on merit, a gap of 11 places. Its 10K+ installs carry it up the search order; its 3.7★ average from 6 reviews, plus freshness and upkeep, place it lower on our volume-weighted scale.

Buried gem

SureCart – Ecommerce Made Easy For Selling Physical Products, Digital Downloads, Subscriptions, Donations, & Payments places #11 on merit, 4.8★ from 288 reviews, but shows at wp.org #21. A smaller install base keeps it further down the default search order than its quality signals alone would.

merit plugin wp.org
1 WPForms – AI Form Builder for WordPress – Contact Forms, Payment Forms, Survey Form, Quiz & More 5M+ · 4.8★ (14387) wp.org #2 1 too low 2 WooCommerce Stripe Payment Gateway 700K+ · 3.1★ (237) wp.org #1 1 too high 3 Easy Digital Downloads – eCommerce Payments and Subscriptions made easy 40K+ · 4.7★ (591) wp.org #5 2 too low 4 WooCommerce 7M+ · 4.5★ (4833) wp.org #3 1 too high 5 MainWP Dashboard: Self-hosted WordPress Management for Agencies 20K+ · 4.9★ (2354) wp.org #7 ↑4 2 too low 6 Fluent Forms – Customizable Contact Forms, Survey, Quiz, & Conversational Form Builder 800K+ · 4.8★ (807) wp.org #14 ↓4 8 too low 7 Elementor Website Builder – more than just a page builder 10M+ · 4.5★ (7323) wp.org #12 ↑1 5 too low 8 Masteriyo LMS – LMS Course Builder, Quizzes & Certificates 6K+ · 4.8★ (184) wp.org #8 9 Payment Gateway of Stripe for WooCommerce 7K+ · 4.4★ (66) wp.org #6 3 too high 10 Paymattic – Secure, Simple Payment & Donation with Subscription Payments, Recurring Donations, Customer Management 3K+ · 4.8★ (44) wp.org #10 11 SureCart – Ecommerce Made Easy For Selling Physical Products, Digital Downloads, Subscriptions, Donations, & Payments 80K+ · 4.8★ (288) wp.org #21 ↓1 10 too low 12 Jetpack – AI Agents & MCP, Security, Backup & Analytics 3M+ · 3.7★ (2408) wp.org #19 ↓1 7 too low 13 Stripe Payment Forms by WP Simple Pay – Accept Credit Card Payments + Subscriptions with Stripe 8K+ · 4.4★ (117) wp.org #17 ↓1 4 too low 14 Mollie Payments for WooCommerce 100K+ · 3.6★ (69) wp.org #13 ↑3 1 too high 15 PayU GPO Payment for WooCommerce 10K+ · 3.7★ (6) wp.org #4 11 too high 16 BTCPay Server – Accept Bitcoin payments in WooCommerce 1K+ · 5.0★ (21) wp.org #22 ↑2 6 too low 17 WC Moneris Payment Gateway 900+ · 4.2★ (5) wp.org #11 6 too high 18 Xendit Payment 3K+ · 4.7★ (9) wp.org #24 ↑1 6 too low 19 PayPal Payment Buttons 500+ · 5.0★ (3) wp.org #18 1 too high 20 Crypto Payment Gateway with Instant Payouts 1K+ · 5.0★ (2) wp.org #9 ↓1 11 too high 21 P Paystation (3 Party Hosted) for Gravity forms 30+ · 5.0★ (3) wp.org #23 2 too low 22 Instant Approval Payment Gateway with Instant Payouts 2K+ · 5.0★ (3) wp.org #16 ↓1 6 too high 23 Payment Gateway for WooCommerce with Stripe – by Pay Addons 70+ · 5.0★ (3) wp.org #20 3 too high 24 PhonePe Payment Solutions 10K+ · 2.6★ (11) wp.org #15 ↓1 9 too high

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.