Easy Digital Downloads vs WP Simple Pay
Compare WordPress plugins and tools side by side. Pick products with “Compare” in the software directory.
| Feature | Easy Digital Downloads v3.7.2 · checked 23 Oct 2026 Free + paid · ★ 4.7/5 Visit Details | WP Simple Pay v4.17.5 · checked 23 Oct 2026 Free + paid · ★ 4.4/5 Visit Details |
|---|---|---|
| At a glance | ||
| Active installs | 40,000+ | 8,000+ |
| Last updated | October 14, 2026 | October 19, 2026 |
| Editions | Easy Digital Downloads · Easy Digital Downloads Pro ($) | WP Simple Pay Lite · WP Simple Pay Pro ($) |
| Pros | Built for selling digital downloads, with checkout and customer downloads; Stripe, PayPal and Square payment gateways; Discounts, reports and blocks for checkout pages | Payment form block and shortcode for Stripe card payments; Subscriptions available in the free version; Optional hCaptcha or Cloudflare Turnstile on payment forms |
| Cons | Subscriptions, recurring payments and recurring revenue reports need Pro; Pro requires a licence key from the vendor | Lite adds a 3% application fee to each transaction; Custom fields, coupons and on-site overlay forms need Pro; Sends usage data only if the site opts in, and loads Stripe and captcha scripts |
| Mentioned in our posts | 2 | 2 |
| More features | ||
| Other features | Digital product downloads, Checkout and purchase blocks, Discount codes and claims, Stripe payments, PayPal Standard payments, Square payments, Sales and download reports, Email summary of sales, Pro licence connection from the Lite edition ($) | Payment form block for the block editor, Payment form shortcode, Stripe.js loaded on payment pages, hCaptcha or Cloudflare Turnstile on payment forms, Recurring subscriptions in Lite, 3% application fee on Lite transactions, Custom fields on payment forms ($), No application fee ($) |
| Integrations | ||
| Payment | Stripe, PayPal, Square | Stripe |
| Amazon SES, SendGrid, Mailgun | — | |
| Analytics | MonsterInsights (Google Analytics for WordPress) | — |
| Plugins | Elementor | — |
| Other | Google reCAPTCHA, Cloudflare Turnstile | hCaptcha, Cloudflare Turnstile |
| Requires WordPress | 6.7 | 5.9 |
| Requires PHP | 8.0 | 7.4 |
| Tested up to | 7.0 | 7.1 |
| Phones home | Only if you agree | Only if you agree |
| External services | services.easydigitaldownloads.com, easydigitaldownloads.com, downloads.wordpress.org, challenges.cloudflare.com, www.google.com, api.stripe.com, connect.squareup.com, opencollective.com, ipinfo.io, plugin.easydigitaldownloads.com, static-eu.payments-amazon.com, static-na.payments-amazon.com, sellercentral.amazon.com, payments.amazon.co.uk, payments.amazon.de, www.paypal.com | wpsimplepay.com, api.stripe.com, translations.wpsimplepay.com, connect.wpsimplepay.com, telemetry.wpsimplepay.com, www.google.com, hcaptcha.com, challenges.cloudflare.com, requests.wpsimplepay.com, plugins.svn.wordpress.org, js.stripe.com, js.hcaptcha.com |
| Blocks | 16 | 2 |
| Shortcodes | 14 | 5 |