wp.org search vs our merit ranking: “woocommerce and paid membership”
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 “woocommerce and paid membership”, we agree with wp.org on the top plugin, and our order differs from theirs on 5 of the top 20.
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 the install base is organic or host-pushed, and its risk of being pulled.
Ranked above its merit
Membership For WooCommerce shows at wp.org #11 but places #22 on merit, a gap of 11 places. Its 700+ installs carry it up the search order; its 4.4★ average from 28 reviews, plus freshness and upkeep, place it lower on our volume-weighted scale.
Buried gem
Anti-Spam, Spam FireWall by CleanTalk places #8 on merit, 4.8★ from 3,224 reviews, but shows at wp.org #14. A smaller install base keeps it further down the default search order than its quality signals alone would.
How this rank is calculated
Each plugin's merit score multiplies these inputs together: how recently it was updated, how current its "tested up to" WordPress version is, its install base (log scale, capped at 10 million), its support thread resolution rate, and a rating score. The rating score weights the star average by review volume against a sitewide prior, then scales it by the lower bound of the share of 4 and 5 star reviews. A plugin with 3.7 stars from tens of thousands of reviews can still outscore a 4.9 with a few dozen, because the small sample carries less certainty.
A health factor between 0.4 and 1.15 then adjusts that score for what wp.org's search can't see: PHP fatals or failed activations on a test install, PHP and WordPress compatibility, memory and page-speed footprint, suspicious review patterns, closure risk, and a large install base with very few reviews. Clean, adopted plugins earn a small lift.
A keyword ranking starts from wp.org's search order for the term, weighting each position by 1 divided by its place, then applies the merit correction and health factor above. Relevance to the keyword stays in the result, so the order can differ from the all-categories list on /best, which scores plugins with no search term.
Hover a row to see the main reason for its position.
WooCommerce 7M+ · 4.5★ (4,834)
wp.org #1 2 
Paid Membership Subscriptions – Effortless Memberships, Recurring Payments & Content Restriction 10K+ · 4.7★ (270)
wp.org #2 3 
Simple Membership 40K+ · 4.6★ (476)
wp.org #3 4 
MailPoet – Newsletters, Email Marketing, and Automation 500K+ · 4.4★ (1,435)
wp.org #4 5 
Ultimate Member – User Profile, Registration, Login, Member Directory, Content Restriction & Membership Plugin 200K+ · 4.4★ (1,445)
wp.org #5 ↑1 6 
Members – Membership & User Role Editor Plugin 300K+ · 4.9★ (1,281)
wp.org #6 ↓1 7 
User Registration & Membership – Free & Paid Memberships, Subscriptions, Content Restriction, User Profile, Custom User Registration & Login Builder 50K+ · 4.8★ (832)
wp.org #9 wp.org ranks it 2 places below merit 8 Anti-Spam, Spam FireWall by CleanTalk 200K+ · 4.8★ (3,224)
wp.org #14 ↓2 wp.org ranks it 6 places below merit 9 
Jetpack – AI Agents & MCP, Security, Backup & Analytics 3M+ · 3.7★ (2,409)
wp.org #8 ↑8 wp.org ranks it 1 place above merit 10 
MultiVendorX – WooCommerce Multivendor Marketplace AI Powered Solutions 2K+ · 4.8★ (432)
wp.org #12 ↑2 wp.org ranks it 2 places below merit 11 
BrikPanel: WooCommerce Dashboard & Analytics, Abandoned Cart Recovery, Order Export, Inventory Management & Bulk Editor 1K+ · 5.0★ (55)
wp.org #10 wp.org ranks it 1 place above merit 12 
Subscriptions for WooCommerce 10K+ · 4.5★ (180)
wp.org #13 ↓2 wp.org ranks it 1 place below merit 13 
Import and export users and customers 70K+ · 4.7★ (259)
wp.org #15 ↑2 wp.org ranks it 2 places below merit 14 
Simple CAPTCHA with Cloudflare Turnstile 200K+ · 4.7★ (263)
wp.org #16 ↓3 wp.org ranks it 2 places below merit 15 
User Profile Builder – Beautiful User Registration Forms, User Profiles & User Role Editor 40K+ · 4.7★ (738)
wp.org #22 ↑1 wp.org ranks it 7 places below merit 16 
WCFM Membership – WooCommerce Memberships for Multivendor Marketplace 10K+ · 4.0★ (25)
wp.org #7 wp.org ranks it 9 places above merit 17 
Masteriyo LMS – LMS Course Builder, Quizzes & Certificates 6K+ · 4.8★ (185)
wp.org #19 ↑3 wp.org ranks it 2 places below merit 18 
User Frontend – Membership, User Registration, User Profile, User Directory & Content Restriction with Frontend Post Submission 20K+ · 4.1★ (537)
wp.org #23 wp.org ranks it 5 places below merit 19 
Kit (formerly ConvertKit) – Email Subscribers, Email Newsletter, Email Marketing, Landing Pages and Membership 40K+ · 4.8★ (90)
wp.org #20 wp.org ranks it 1 place below merit 20 
ProfilePress – Paid Membership, Online Courses (LMS), Ecommerce, User Registration & Login Form, User Profile & Restrict Content 100K+ · 3.1★ (938)
wp.org #17 ↓2 wp.org ranks it 3 places above merit 21 
hCaptcha for WP 70K+ · 4.6★ (88)
wp.org #18 ↑1 wp.org ranks it 3 places above merit 22 Membership For WooCommerce 700+ · 4.4★ (28)
wp.org #11 ↓3 wp.org ranks it 11 places above merit 23 
Points and Rewards for WooCommerce – Create Loyalty Programs, Reward Customer Purchases, Referral Points, User Badges, and Gamification 6K+ · 4.5★ (181)
wp.org #24 wp.org ranks it 1 place below merit 24 
Membership Plugin – Kadence Memberships 8K+ · 3.1★ (100)
wp.org #21 ↓3 wp.org ranks it 3 places above merit Merit ranking caps the install boost at 10M (wp.org leaves it uncapped), replaces the raw star average with a volume-weighted 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.