Webito vs WooCommerce
WooCommerce is genuinely flexible, and that flexibility is paid for in plugins you have to choose, pay for, update and trust. For a European seller, the plugins in question are the ones handling your tax position.
Your tax logic should not be a plugin you evaluated once
Compliant EU selling on WooCommerce typically means separate extensions for VAT determination, OSS threshold reporting and invoice generation, each from a different vendor with its own update cycle. That is three dependencies sitting in the path of a legal obligation. Webito determines VAT per order line, tracks the €10,000 threshold per destination country and generates EN 16931 structured invoices as core platform behaviour, so there is no vendor in the chain between your order and your tax treatment.
Managed, not self-managed
WooCommerce is software you host. Someone owns the PHP version, the WordPress core updates, the database, the backups, the TLS certificates and the security patching: and if that someone is you, it competes with selling. Webito is fully managed: infrastructure, upgrades, certificates and scheduled backups are our responsibility, and there is no maintenance window you have to schedule around a campaign.
B2B on the same data model
Wholesale on WooCommerce is usually a B2B plugin layered over a storefront designed for consumers, which is why company accounts, tier pricing and quotes so often feel adjacent to the store rather than part of it. Webito holds company accounts, buyer hierarchies, price lists, quantity breaks, quote requests and net terms in the core model, on the same catalogue and inventory as retail.
What WooCommerce still does better
If you need arbitrary customisation, have PHP capability in-house and want to own every layer, WooCommerce's ecosystem is unmatched in breadth and there is a plugin for nearly anything. Webito trades some of that breadth for a defined platform with the compliance-critical parts held internally. If your requirement is a genuinely unusual front end, note that Webito's storefront API supports that too: the difference is which layer you take on.
Capability | Webito | WooCommerce |
|---|---|---|
EU VAT determination | Core, destination-based per order line | Separate tax plugin required |
OSS threshold tracking | Running total per destination country | Plugin or spreadsheet |
EN 16931 e-invoicing | Generated from the order | Separate invoicing plugin |
VIES VAT number validation | Live check, result stored on order | Plugin dependent |
B2B accounts, tiers and quotes | Core data model | Separate B2B plugin |
Hosting and maintenance | Fully managed | Yours: updates, backups, security |
Extension risk | Isolated plugins with declared contracts | Plugin conflicts can break the store |
AI agent operation | MCP tools over the admin surface | Not available |
Moving from WooCommerce
What changes, what carries over, and what to check before you switch.
Yes. Destination-based VAT determination, intra-community reverse charge, live VIES validation and OSS threshold tracking are core platform behaviour. There is no tax extension to install, configure or keep updated.
Webito generates invoices and credit notes as structured documents following EN 16931 and Peppol BIS Billing 3.0, directly from the order data. Direct transmission over the Peppol network is on the roadmap; today you generate and download compliant documents, which is more than a PDF-styling plugin produces.
No. Company accounts, buyer hierarchies, tiered price lists, quantity breaks, quote requests and net payment terms are part of the platform and share the retail catalogue and inventory.
Products, variants, customers and order history are imported through the API, and URL structures can be preserved so existing search rankings are not thrown away. Talk to us before you start: migration order matters, particularly for historical invoices and tax records.
You lose PHP-level access to the storefront internals, and you gain not maintaining them. Theming is done through design tokens and the page composer, and if you need a genuinely bespoke front end you build it against the storefront API while the commerce logic stays on the platform.