What are the differences between Dokan Free and Pro? What additional features you get in the Pro version that are missing in free? See Dokan free vs Pro here.
Dokan is a WordPress multivendor plugin based on WooCommerce. If you want to create a multivendor marketplace on WordPress then Dokan is a plugin that you can use. The plugin has a free version and by only using the free version you create a pretty good marketplace. In fact, you can have unlimited vendors and a frontend dashboard for your vendors in the free version.
However, with Dokan Pro, you can take your online marketplace to a new level. In order to grow your marketplace, you need certain features that come with the Pro version of the plugin. But what are the differences between Dokan Free and Pro? What additional features will you get in the Pro version that are missing in the free? We will find that out in our Dokan Free vs Pro post today.
What is a multivendor website?
A multivendor website is an eCommerce website where multiple vendors can open up shop and sell items on that website. As a site owner, you will receive commissions from every sale. Dokan allows you to setup your multivendor site and provides you with the tools to manage it. Dokan is based on WooCommerce. You can find out more about the plugin in our comprehensive Dokan review post.
Although WooCommerce is impressive, it doesn’t have the multivendor features by default. That’s where Dokan comes in. Combining WooCommerce with Dokan, you can create a multivendor marketplace of any kind. There are some extensions and other plugins that you can use with WooCommerce to turn your site into a multivendor marketplace.
What makes Dokan special?
A multi-vendor website might seem like a great business idea, but when you try to build it practically, you’ll see it’s much more complex. By definition, a multi-vendor marketplace is an online platform where multiple vendors can sell their products or services to customers. Some of the general features of multi-vendor marketplace software include:
- Communication between vendor-customer-owner
- Extensive analytics
- Defined payments and different commission rates
- Support for distributed sales and logistics (e.g. breaking one basket into many orders)
- Reviews – the client can check the vendor, and the most prospering ones are displayed higher
There are other features that can be added depending on the specific needs of the marketplace. So when you’re building your site, you need to first understand what kind of site you want to make and what features to include. The plugin that you’re using should be able to provide you with those features.
What makes Dokan special is that it has almost all the multi-vendor features that you might need. It also comes with 20+ additional modules to add different features to your website. It introduces a sleek dashboard for vendors and customers, report management, coupon management, and much more.
Before looking at it from a Dokan Free vs Pro perspective, first, let’s take a look at what are some of the interesting features of Dokan. As Dokan is a multi-vendor plugin, you can expect some that allow different vendors to register on your site.
- Vendor management
- Multiple commission types
- Make announcements
- Product advertisement
- Reverse withdrawal
- Admin report
- Email notification
- Follow store
- Geolocation
- Product Inquiry
- Product bulk edit
- Independent store
- Frontend variable product
- Social login and registration
- Order management from vendors
These are just some of the features that come to mind when we’re discussing Dokan. The plugin was designed by considering the needs of the admin, vendor, and customers. Even speaking from a technical point of view, the plugin is optimized in such a way that it doesn’t put too much pressure on your website.
The free version gives you the opportunity to test the various features of the plugin. However, if you want to take your eCommerce site to the next level, Dokan Pro is needed.
Dokan Free vs Pro
When using the free version of Dokan, you will be surprised to see how many features you receive. Using these features you can create a pretty standard multi-vendor website. Let’s first take a look at Dokan free.
Dokan free features
Dokan lite or Dokan free gives you a sneak-peak into what the full version holds. Some of the advanced and premium features are only available in the Pro version. But the free version still has some features that you can use to build a small multivendor site. Although you won’t have access to features like seller management, shipping management, seller reports, and some other important features that are required to build a premium-level multi-vendor website.
Let’s first take a look at what you get with the free version of Dokan:
- Plugin updates: This feature enables automatic plugin updates to ensure that you get the best features as soon as possible. The automatic plugin update feature might seem minuscule, but it’s very important for the security of your WordPress website. WordPress is the most popular CMS in the world which also makes it a huge target for hackers. A good way to defend your site is having updated plugins and themes.
- Support (through wordpress.org forum): When working with such a big plugin, you might normally face problems. You can get support from wordpress.org forum. But to get ticket-based support, you need Dokan Pro.
- Frontend dashboard for vendors: Every vendor will have their own dashboard to manage their stores. Vendors can also get earning reports and statements right on their dashboards. They can also create variations of their products from their dashboard.
- Frontend simple product management: Simple product management is also available from the frontend
- Order management: Dokan allows vendors to manage their own orders from their own accounts. Dokan categorizes the order status as delivered, or pending. Apart from adding general data, they can add order notes and so on.
- Withdrawal system for vendors: The sellers can withdraw earnings through different payment methods in Dokan such as PayPal, Bank Transfer, Wirecard, and Skrill.
- Individual vendor stores: Vendors can open up their shops on your website. They can also sell and manage items from this store.
- Order email notifications: When purchases are made, the admin(s) and vendors will be notified through emails.
- Storefront widgets: Dokan has storefront widgets that can be used to customize the storefront. Using a widget that features the all-time best-selling products (inside your marketplace) can subconsciously make buyers buy those from your store.
As you can see, the base features of a multi-vendor plugin are present in Dokan Lite. You can have multiple vendors set up their shops in your marketplace. All vendors will have their own dashboard through which they can manage their shops and orders. But with Dokan Pro, you will have access to tons of premium features that will help you take your multivendor marketplace to the next level.
Dokan Pro features
Dokan Pro consists of advanced multi-vendor features that allow you to push your eCommerce site to the next level. It already has all the features from the free version plus much more. Let’s take a look at some Dokan Pro features.
- Support (ticket based): With Dokan Pro you can get support from the dedicated Dokan support team.
- Frontend variable product management: Admins and vendors can create variable products from the front end. Variable product management is also available from the frontend.
- Seller Management UI: Admins can access important information and manage vendor rights and capabilities on the marketplace through seller management UI.
- Seller Reports: Dokan has an in-built detailed reporting system that allows vendors to see their store sales reports in detail. It gives a complete overview of the store’s performance.
- Shipping Management: Dokan has an inclusive shipping management system that allows each vendor to manage and set their shipping options. It even offers zone-wise shipping so that the vendors can select different shipping zones.
- Tax options: Dokan gives you a couple of tax options for your marketplace. First, you need to enable it from WooCommerce > Settings. This will open up a new tab called Tax. Here you can set up various tax options such as should the prices be entered with tax, calculate tax based on what, shipping tax class, additional tax class, price display suffix, and much more.
- Product Bulk Edit: Vendors can bulk edit products from their vendor dashboard. Multiple products can be edited at the same time with this feature, be it product status, allocating discounts, and more.
- Social Login: Dokan has a Social Login/Registration API that allows users to register/login to your multi-vendor marketplace using their social profiles like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. You get this feature in the Dokan Starter plan and above.
- Stripe Express: The Stripe Express payment module is available on the Professional plan and above. Dokan Stripe Express is a payment module that helps marketplace owners make the transaction process smooth. This module will help accept debit and credit cards in different ways such as iDEAL, and wallets like Google Pay or Apple Pay with one-touch checkout.
- Product Advertising: This is a feature that allows the vendors to advertise their products on your marketplace. Product Advertising is a module that becomes available in the Dokan Business plan and above. In order to use it you need to activate it from WP admin dashboard > Dokan > Modules.
- Request for Quotation: Dokan Request for Quotation is a feature that allows customers to request a quote for a product from the vendor. The vendor can then send a custom price for the product.
- Coupon Creation: Dokan has a coupon creation feature that allows you to create coupons for vendors. You can create a coupon for vendors by following these steps: Navigate to WP Admin > Marketing > Coupons. Select the Vendor Limits option. But first, you need to set up the default WooCommerce Coupon Settings.
- Announcements: Dokan Pro has an announcement feature that allows you to create announcements for your vendors. You can always schedule a post in the same way as you do with regular posts. Just click on the top right widget “Publishing” while creating the announcement. You will see an option named Published which should be set to “Immediately”.
Dokan Pro contains much more interesting features but the ones we mentioned caught our eye. If you want, you can explore the demo version of Dokan. This will give you access to the backend of Dokan Pro where you can explore all the modules and pro features of the plugin.
Dokan pricing
The main part of our Dokan Free vs Pro comparison is complete. Let’s now talk about the price plans. Dokan has two types of licenses, Annual and Lifetime. The annual licenses have 4 plans. These are as follows:
- Starter: $149/year
- Professional: $249/year
- Business: $499/year
- Enterprise: $999/year
Now let’s take a look at the Lifetime plans:
- Starter: $596
- Professional: $934
- Business: $1747
- Enterprise: $3249
In each of these pro plans, you will get an advanced frontend dashboard for vendors, admin reports, shipping management, product bulk editing, admin coupon support, and much more advanced multivendor features for your marketplace.
Dokan also has a 14-day money-back guarantee. After purchasing and using the plugin, if you feel that Dokan isn’t for you, you can get a 100% refund within 14 days of your purchase.
Conclusion
Multivendor eCommerce marketplace is a great business idea. In the eCommerce industry, the multi-vendor marketplace is one of the most reliable and efficient business models. They assist businesses in expanding their reach and connecting with customers all over the world. As a result, there is a significant demand for multi-vendor eCommerce app development in today’s world.
Dokan is a superb multivendor plugin that you can use to start your multivendor marketplace. As it gives you the free version you can use it to start. If you already have a business running and thinking of switching to Dokan, that’s also a good idea. It has a total of 2.25+ million downloads with 70,000+ active installations. That means there are over 70,000 online multi-vendor marketplaces in operation that use Dokan. According to WeDevs (the creators of Dokan), Dokan has a 99% customer satisfaction rate.
At the end of the day, we will say it’s up to you which plugin you want to use. There are several WooCommerce multivendor plugins that you can try. But Dokan is one of the most popular, so it’s a good option.
That brings our Dokan Free vs Pro post to an end. We hope you found it helpful. If you have any questions regarding this post, feel free to ask us in the comments below.
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