Kaizen or WooCommerce? Built for how Europe sells.
Kaizen is an online store platform made for selling in the EU. The legal parts, the extra ways to sell and the numbers you steer by are part of the product, not a list of add-ons to find and pay for one by one.
Why store owners choose Kaizen
Eight reasons, each one something you can look for in the admin. Where a comparison with WooCommerce is fair, it says what WooCommerce offers itself and what comes from an extension.
The legal side of EU selling is built in
VAT follows the buyer's country, with OSS and IOSS figures ready for your accountant. Legal invoices and credit notes come in a gap-free series. You also get the 14-day withdrawal function, the 30-day lowest-price indication, product safety information, and customer-data export and erasure. On WooCommerce, these come from extensions, some free and some paid.
Sell more than parcels
Appointments, stays, rentals, subscription boxes and downloads share one catalogue, one cart and one checkout with ordinary products. Let outside hosts list their own stays and rentals for a commission, with the DAC7 report included. On WooCommerce, bookings and multi-vendor marketplaces are extensions.
An AI manager that works from your own data
Ask about orders, stock or sales and it answers from your store's numbers, with the arithmetic done in code. It drafts product texts, translates the whole store and builds pages from a short interview. Anything that changes your shop, emails customers or spends money waits for your yes. Use Kaizen's AI or bring your own provider.
Know why your numbers move
Profit by order and product, customer lifetime value, cohorts and a monthly forecast, with alerts and a plain-words account of what changed. Send reports to your accountant on a schedule.
Made for Nordic shops
Book and print labels with Bring, Porterbuddy and Helthjem, offer pickup points from Bring, PostNord and Helthjem, and let customers pay with Vipps and MobilePay. Look up a Norwegian company in Brønnøysundregistrene and send your books to Tripletex. Shopper-facing texts are written by hand in Norwegian, Swedish, Danish and English. On WooCommerce, free Vipps MobilePay and Posten Bring plugins exist.
Your data stays in Europe
Your store's database and servers are in Dublin, and every service we add is chosen to keep customer data in the EU. Staff sign in with two steps, roles limit who sees what, and an activity log records who changed what. On WooCommerce you choose and run the host yourself.
Grow without an app bill
Wishlists, refer-a-friend rewards, loyalty credits, product reviews, back-in-stock emails, pre-orders and tiered or volume discounts are part of the product. On WooCommerce, loyalty, back-in-stock emails, pre-orders and tiered pricing are extensions, each priced per year. Reviews are built in.
Run several stores, and move in easily
See every store you own in one control center, copy a store with its content, and show your products inside a WordPress site while checkout stays in Kaizen. Bring your products over from a CSV file and keep old links working with redirects. WooCommerce's way to run several stores is WordPress Multisite, with the caveats its own guide lists.
Kaizen and WooCommerce, line by line
Where WooCommerce needs an extension or a higher plan, the right-hand side says so. What we say about WooCommerce comes from WooCommerce's own help pages, documentation and listings. A line is left out where we could not verify what WooCommerce does.
Selling in the EU
Legal invoices and credit notes
Kaizen. Issued for every paid order and refund, in a gap-free series, as PDF and on a page the customer can open.
WooCommerce. Needs an extension. A free PDF invoice plugin has sequential numbering; credit notes are in its paid Professional extension. WooCommerce's own PDF Invoices extension is listed at 79 USD a year.
30-day lowest-price indication
Kaizen. Kept for every price and shown only on a real reduction.
WooCommerce. Needs an extension. A free price-history plugin exists. We found no built-in feature in WooCommerce itself.
Right of withdrawal
Kaizen. A two-step function for customers, the 14-day clock from the recorded delivery, exclusions and a digital-content waiver, with refunds and returns in one queue.
WooCommerce. Needs an extension. A free plugin adds a withdrawal button with a two-step confirmation and exclusions by product type, category or product. Automatic refunds are in its premium version.
Product safety information (GPSR)
Kaizen. Fields on the product, shown on the product page.
WooCommerce. Needs an extension. A free plugin adds manufacturer and importer details to products.
VAT across the EU, reverse charge, OSS and IOSS
Kaizen. VAT follows the buyer's country. A business buyer's VAT number is checked before VAT is left off, and OSS and IOSS figures are ready for your accountant.
WooCommerce. Tax rates are set by hand per country, state or postcode; automatic tax is the WooCommerce Tax extension. Checking a VAT number and leaving VAT off is the EU VAT Number extension at 39 USD a year, and IOSS reports are a separate extension at 49 USD a year.
Selling more than goods
Appointments, stays and rentals
Kaizen. Part of the catalogue, with opening hours, capacity, seasons, deposits and calendars.
WooCommerce. The WooCommerce Bookings extension, listed at 249 USD a year, with a free add-on for stays.
A marketplace with outside hosts
Kaizen. Hosts list stays and rentals, get paid through their own Stripe account, and you take a commission.
WooCommerce. An extension. Dokan has a free version and a paid Pro.
Several stores under one owner
Kaizen. One control center for every store you own.
WooCommerce. WordPress Multisite. WooCommerce's guide says not every plugin works there and that a vulnerability in one store can affect the others.
Growing the shop
Loyalty and rewards
Kaizen. Credits that customers earn and spend, with expiry reminders.
WooCommerce. The Points and Rewards extension, listed at 179 USD a year.
Product reviews
Kaizen. Verified-purchase reviews with moderation and structured data.
WooCommerce. Built in, with ratings and moderation.
Back-in-stock emails and pre-orders
Kaizen. A notify-me list on sold-out products, and pre-orders with a release date.
WooCommerce. Both are extensions: Back In Stock Notifications at 59 USD a year and Pre-Orders at 179 USD a year.
Tiered and volume discounts
Kaizen. Part of the discount rules.
WooCommerce. An extension: Dynamic Pricing, listed at 129 USD a year.
Nordic shops, AI and your data
Vipps and MobilePay
Kaizen. Offered at checkout.
WooCommerce. A free official plugin offers Vipps and MobilePay in Norway, Denmark and Finland, and Vipps in Sweden.
Nordic carriers and pickup points
Kaizen. Bring, Porterbuddy and Helthjem labels, and pickup points from Bring, PostNord and Helthjem, chosen at checkout.
WooCommerce. A free Posten Bring Checkout plugin offers pickup points, lockers and home delivery in Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland.
An assistant that runs the shop with you
Kaizen. An AI manager in the admin that answers from your store's own data and asks for your yes before it changes anything.
WooCommerce. WooCommerce AI is in private beta, for stores in the United States in English, according to its page on the day we read it.
Where your data is kept
Kaizen. The database and the servers are in Dublin.
WooCommerce. You pick and run your own host. WooCommerce says merchants keep complete ownership of their store's content and data.
What it costs
WooCommerce is free and open source, with no revenue share. You pay for hosting (WooCommerce says 25 to 350 USD a month for most stores) and for extensions, which it lists at 29 to 299 USD a year each. Card fees come from your payment provider.
Kaizen has no extension bills for what this page describes. The plans and the fee per sale are on the pricing page.
Where WooCommerce is the better fit
Kaizen is not the right choice for everyone. Choose WooCommerce if:
- You want to own and host everything yourself and keep full access to the code, with a REST API, hooks and a command line.
- You already run a large WordPress site and want the shop inside it. WooCommerce has more than seven million active installs.
- You need an extension from WooCommerce's marketplace of more than a thousand, or a custom one built for you.
- You want no revenue share on sales and the freedom to pick any host and from over a hundred payment gateways.
If your customers are in Europe and you want the legal parts, the extra ways to sell and the numbers in one product, Kaizen is built for you.
Who Kaizen is for
Shops selling in the EU
You sell to consumers in more than one EU country, you carry the VAT, invoices and withdrawal rights yourself, and you would rather have them handled in the product than in several add-ons.
Businesses that sell time, space and subscriptions too
Salons and studios with a booking calendar, a cabin or a bike rental, a farm with weekly boxes, a shop that also sells downloads: one store, one checkout, one set of figures.
Agencies and owners of several stores
One control center, copies of a store, roles with per-section permissions, two-step sign-in, an activity log, and collaborator access that ends on a date you set.
Moving over from WooCommerce
- Import your products from a CSV file, with a dry run that shows what will be created and what is wrong before anything is saved. Kaizen reads Shopify's product layout and its own.
- WooCommerce exports products as CSV. A direct importer for WooCommerce is not built yet, so arrange the export in Kaizen's layout first.
- Keep your WordPress site if you like it. Kaizen's WordPress plugin shows your products and a cart inside the site while checkout stays in Kaizen.
- Bring your old addresses over as redirects from a CSV file, so links and search rankings keep working.
- Use your own domain when you are ready. Nothing you export from Kaizen is locked in: orders, customers and reports download as files.
Questions
Can I keep my WordPress site and use Kaizen?
Yes. Install Kaizen's WordPress plugin, connect your store from the Kaizen admin, and show products and a cart on your WordPress pages. Checkout, tax, invoices and orders stay in Kaizen.
Can I move my WooCommerce store to Kaizen?
Your products and your old addresses, yes, through CSV files and a dry run. A direct WooCommerce importer is not built yet, so you arrange your product export in Kaizen's file layout first. Your theme does not move, because Kaizen's pages are built in its own page builder.
Do I need extensions?
Kaizen has no extension store. What this page describes is built in, and Kaizen connects to Slack, Zapier, Make, Tripletex and the carriers named above.
Where is my data kept?
The database and the servers are in Ireland, and every service we add is chosen to keep customer data in the EU.
Does Kaizen give legal advice?
No. Kaizen provides the tools, and starting texts for terms, privacy, returns and shipping pages in Norwegian, Swedish, Danish and English, each marked for review. Have a lawyer read them before you publish: you are responsible for what your shop says.
What does it cost?
The plans and the fee per sale are on the pricing page. There are no separate subscriptions for what this page describes.
Try Kaizen with your own products
WooCommerce's features, plans and prices change. What this page says about WooCommerce comes from WooCommerce's own help pages, documentation and listings, last read on 6 October 2026. Prices are list prices on that day, in the currency shown, and prices of extensions and apps are the listing partners' own. Check WooCommerce's pages for today's.