Description
Product Category Shipping lets WooCommerce store owners define shipping rules per product category instead of per order or per product. Two rule types are available:
- Flat Rate — a base charge for the first item, plus an optional per-additional-item charge.
- Tiered Quantity — unlimited min/max quantity brackets, each with its own price or a “free” flag.
The plugin splits the cart into one WooCommerce shipping package per managed category, so charges are additive and customers see one shipping line per category.
Selected roles (e.g. distributors, wholesale accounts) can additionally be offered a cart-wide choice between Free Local Pickup and the configured shipping charge. When this mode is active the cart is not split — the customer sees a single combined shipping total alongside the free pickup option.
Features
- Per-category shipping rules (flat rate or tiered quantity)
- Tiered rules support free-shipping thresholds (e.g. “free when quantity ≥ 6”)
- Split-cart mode: one shipping line per category, additive charges
- Combined-cart mode for selected roles: Shipping + Free Local Pickup as two cart-wide choices
- Role diagnostics table in wp-admin showing exact role keys and user counts
- Rate guard prevents third-party “hide other methods when free shipping applies” filters from accidentally removing the Local Pickup option
- No server round-trips; all calculations run locally on checkout
Requirements
- WordPress 6.4+
- PHP 7.4+
- WooCommerce 8.0+ (plugin must be active)
Screenshots
Installation
- Upload the
product-category-shippingfolder to/wp-content/plugins/or install via the WordPress Plugins screen. - Activate the plugin through the Plugins menu in WordPress.
- Go to WooCommerce Settings Shipping Product Category Shipping and add rules for each category you manage.
- Optionally, go to WooCommerce Category Shipping to configure Local Pickup roles and labels.
FAQ
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Can I use different rule types for different categories?
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Yes. Each category is configured independently and may use Flat Rate or Tiered Quantity rules.
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How does the tiered quantity mode work?
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You define quantity brackets such as 1–5 = $8, 6–11 = $5, 12+ = free. Quantities are counted per category, not per order. Exact-match tiers (e.g. “exactly 6”) take priority over range tiers.
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What happens if a customer’s cart quantity falls outside all defined tiers?
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Split mode (default): that category package will have no applicable rate and checkout will be blocked until the customer adjusts quantity or the admin extends the top tier. Combined mode: that category contributes $0 to the total.
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How do I enable Free Local Pickup for specific roles?
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Go to WooCommerce Category Shipping Local Pickup & User Roles and add the desired role keys to the Pickup Roles field. Role keys are case-sensitive (e.g.
Distributor, notdistributor). -
Does the plugin work with WPML / Polylang?
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The plugin loads its own text domain. Translation files (.po/.mo) can be placed in
wp-content/languages/plugins/product-category-shipping-for-woocommerce-{locale}.mo.
Reviews
There are no reviews for this plugin.
Contributors & Developers
“Product Category Shipping for WooCommerce” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.
Contributors
Translate “Product Category Shipping for WooCommerce” into your language.
Interested in development?
Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.
Changelog
1.4.2
- Fixed: duplicate “Category Shipping” submenu entry appearing under WooCommerce.
Root cause: the admin class was instantiated onplugins_loaded, which fires on every
request and could run twice during WooCommerce’s own boot sequence. Changed to
add_action(‘admin_menu’) at priority 20 so it registers exactly once. - Fixed: admin settings page rendering raw HTML markup as plain text. Root cause:
render_page() passed its buffered output throughesc_html()before echoing it,
converting</>to</>. Removed the strayesc_html()call.
1.4.1
- Post-review fixes: changed text domain to product-category-shipping-for-woocommerce;
replaced inline CSS/JS with wp_enqueue_style/script + external admin.css/admin.js;
removed Tested up to from PHP header; added Requires Plugins header;
removed WordPress.org assets from plugin zip
1.4.0
-
Rebranded: changed text domain to product-category-shipping-for-woocommerce;
replaced inline CSS/JS with wp_enqueue_style/script + external admin.css/admin.js;
removed Tested up to from PHP header; added Requires Plugins header;
removed WordPress.org assets from plugin zip -
Rebranded to “Product Category Shipping for WooCommerce”
- Updated header fields for WordPress.org compatibility (Tested up to 7.1, WC 9.3)
- Added
Requires at least,Requires PHP,WC requires at least,WC tested up toheader fields - Added translation infrastructure (
load_plugin_textdomain, languages directory) - Internal: renamed main plugin file; no functional changes
1.3.0
- Added Selected-Role Override Rules — a second, independent rule set that fully replaces the default rules for a category when the customer’s role is in
pickup_roles.
1.2.1
- Fixed role keys being lowercased by
sanitize_key(), which silently dropped custom roles on every save. - Added role diagnostics table to the admin screen.
- Added rate guard at priority 99999 to re-insert both combined-mode rates so a third-party “hide other methods when free shipping exists” filter cannot remove one.
1.2.0
- Role-gated free Local Pickup with combined cart-wide rate for selected roles.
- Fixed double-counting for products assigned to two managed categories.
- Made shipping rate IDs unique across all categories.
1.0.4
- Per-category rules, cart split, admin settings page.