Every time someone asks me which plugins to install for a WordPress store, I want to hand them a printed card instead of a list. The list isn’t long. The problem is that most people install fifteen plugins because a blog post from 2019 told them to, and then they wonder why checkout takes four seconds to load.
Here’s the stack I actually use. It’s seven plugins, one theme, and a payment gateway. That’s it. I’ve launched stores selling digital downloads, physical jewelry, and one weird store that sold consulting hours, and this same stack handled all three.
**The non-negotiables.** WooCommerce is the engine. Yes, it’s heavier than a hosted platform, and yes, you own your data — that’s the trade. Pair it with a lightweight theme like Blocksy or Kadence, not a bloated multipurpose theme. The theme is where most people lose 80% of their speed budget before they’ve even added a product.
For payments, Stripe and PayPal cover 95% of solo stores. Stripe handles cards and Apple Pay; PayPal handles the people who don’t trust entering a card on a new site. Don’t add a third gateway until someone actually asks for it.
**The plugins that earn their keep.** First, a caching plugin — WP Rocket if you’ll pay, LiteSpeed Cache if your host runs LiteSpeed, or W3 Total Cache if you’re stubborn and broke. Second, an SEO plugin, and I don’t care whether it’s Rank Math or Yoast; pick one and stop reading comparison posts. Third, a backup plugin that runs off-site, like UpdraftPlus or BlogVault. Fourth, a security plugin, and honestly Wordfence free tier is enough for a new store.
That’s five. The sixth is a forms plugin only if you need custom inquiries — Fluent Forms is fast and doesn’t nag. The seventh is whatever specific thing your store actually does: a digital downloads plugin, a booking plugin, a subscriptions plugin. One. Not three.
**What I refuse to install.** Page builder plugins that ship their own copy of jQuery and a font icon library. Slider plugins — nobody has ever bought something because of a carousel. “All-in-one” security suites that bundle a firewall, a CDN, and a backup tool and do all three badly. And any plugin that hasn’t been updated in eight months, no matter how many five-star reviews it has.
I also skip most “WooCommerce add-on” bundles. They’re designed to make you feel like you’re getting a deal, but you end up with eleven plugins where two would do, each one adding a database query to every page load.
**The settings you’ll forget.** After you install this stack, do these three things before you touch a product page. One: set your permalinks to “Post name” under Settings > Permalinks, then save. Two: turn off WooCommerce’s default “coming soon” mode if you’re on a newer version — it silently hides your store from everyone. Three: configure your Stripe webhook, because without it, orders can show as pending even after payment succeeds.
That third one trips up almost everybody. You’ll test with a real card, the payment goes through, and the order sits in “pending” forever. It’s the webhook. Stripe’s dashboard has a section for it, and WooCommerce’s docs walk you through copying the endpoint URL. Do it on day one, not after your first angry customer email.
**A note on plugin count.** There’s no magic number, but every plugin is code running on your server. If you can’t explain what a plugin does in one sentence, you probably don’t need it. I’ve seen stores with 40 plugins that load in 1.2 seconds and stores with 8 that load in 6 seconds — the difference is quality, not quantity. But quality is easier to maintain when the list is short.
Start with the seven. Add an eighth only when a real customer problem demands it. Your checkout conversion rate will thank you, and so will your future self the first time you have to debug something at 11pm.