WooCommerce Simple Auctions is a powerful, most affordable, and easy-to-set-up auction solution for WordPress and WooCommerce.
WooCommerce Simple Auctions plugin lets you run professional auctions alongside your regular products. Choose from standard, proxy, sealed bid, or reverse auction formats.
Integrate with multi-vendor plugins to create a full auction marketplace where sellers manage their own auctions while you earn commission from each sale.
First released on Feb 13, 2014, it is the original WooCommerce auction plugin, actively supported and developed for 12 years.
The plugin is used by 8152 customers and holds a 4.66/5 rating from verified purchasers.
WooCommerce Simple Auction
Overview
Online auctions are one of the most effective ways for WooCommerce store owners to increase sales, clear inventory, and boost customer engagement. Auctions create urgency, drive repeat traffic, and offer a dynamic pricing model that fixed prices can’t match.
WooCommerce Simple Auctions makes it easy to create a professional auction website or an eBay-style WooCommerce store. The plugin integrates seamlessly with WooCommerce and requires no coding or technical skills. With a payment gateway in place, you can start running online auctions on your WooCommerce site in under 30 minutes.
WooCommerce Simple Auctions also supports multi-vendor auction marketplaces. When combined with a multi-vendor plugin, vendors can submit and manage auction products directly from their frontend dashboard, while you earn a commission on every successful sale. We recommend using Simple Auctions with Dokan Starter and the Dokan Auction Integration to build a scalable WooCommerce auction marketplace.
With WooCommerce Simple Auctions you can:
✔ Run different auction types (standard, reverse, sealed/silent, or proxy)
✔ Create an eBay-style website where users set up their own auctions
✔ Control auction pricing and timing
✔ Offer buy-it-now pricing
✔ Enable proxy bidding
✔ Prevent last-second sniping
✔ Verify payment before bidding
✔ Automatically charge auction winners
Features
✔ Seamless integration into WooCommerce via its hooks
✔ You get new type of WooCommerce product type – auction
✔ Make auction from any type of WooCommerce product: simple, virtual or downloadable products
✔ Define start price, price increment, reserve price, buy-it-now price
✔ Set start and end date and time for auction
✔ Set maximum bid amount
✔ Easily control how you want to display auctions: along with other items or on a separate page
✔ Auction product has auction icon (label) on thumbnail
✔ Compact or extended countdown format
✔ Option to allow Buy It Now after bidding has started
✔ Anti Snipping tool: if a bid is placed during the final moments of an auction, then the auction can be extended
✔ Option to configure tax settings the same as for regular products
✔ Normal auction: the highest bidder wins
✔ Reverse auction: the lowest bidder wins
✔ Sealed auction: bids are hidden; highest bidder wins (or lowest for reverse sealed)
✔ Manual bidding: users bid manually, and receives notification when outbid
✔ Proxy auction (auto bidding): system bids automatically up to user-set maximum
✔ Role based bidding (via extension): enable specific user role (for example “customer” role) to bid
✔ Seated auction (via extension): only users who purchased seat for auctions can place bid
✔ Auction with bid credits (via extension): only users with enough bid credits can place a bid
✔ Users can add auctions to their Watchlist
✔ Auction product single page has new tab “Auction History”
✔ User has “My Auctions” option where auctions in which user placed a bid are listed (for both active and won auctions)
✔ Sort auctions by: current bid, date, buy now price, activity, ending date (ending soonest), start date (recently started)
✔ If user is logged in and winning in auction, auction item has winning badge on thumbnail
✔ Widgets with ending soon, future, recent / latest, featured, recently viewed auctions, my auctions, random auctions, auction search, my auction watchlist
✔ Auction activity (shortcode), auction watchlist feature (shortcode and widget)
✔ Multiple shortcodes available, including one to show “My Auctions” for logged-in users
✔ Ajax live current bid and auction history updating (the page updates automatically when someone bids; no need to refresh the page)
✔ Ajax bidding on single auction page or product loop (users can bid from the individual product page or the shop page; no page refresh needed)
✔ WooCommerce product has new tab in Product data block called Auction
✔ Product list filter has auction filtering
✔ Auction product in product list has icon which describes different auction status: active, finished, finished and paid, failed (requires Product Type Column plugin)
✔ Single product page in wp-admin has new block named “Auction” where you can see auction history and number of different email notifications sent
✔ Option to manually delete any bid
✔ Option to manually relist auctions
✔ Automatic relist option: automatically relist expired / finished / failed auctions (no bids, reserve price not met, or the winner has not paid for won auction)
✔ Option to allow relist of paid auctions
✔ Option to overview complete auction activity: Auctions Activity report tool in wp-admin – with CSV export
✔ Auctions Winners report tool in wp-admin – with CSV export
✔ Auction History in wp-admin edit auction page – with CSV and Excel export for single auction history with sortable columns
✔ Auction fail: sent to admin when auction ends with no bids or reserve price not met
✔ Auction finish: send to admin when auction ends successfully with a winner
✔ Administrator bid notification (Bid note): sent to admin when user places a bid
✔ Auction relist admin notice: sent to admin when auction is relisted
✔ Outbid notification: user’s bid has been outbid
✔ Auction win: user wins the auction
✔ Payment reminder: reminder to pay for won auction
✔ Reserve fail: sent to user when auction ends but reserve price wasn’t reached
✔ Auction buy now: sent to highest bidder when someone else buys the item using buy-it-now
✔ Auction relist user notice: sent to highest bidder when auction is relisted
✔ User bid notification: sent when user places a bid (confirmation email)
✔ Auctions ending soon notification (two timers available): sent to remind users that auction is ending soon
SMS notification for bidding updates and payment reminders (via 3rd party plugin, view tutorial )
✔ Allow bids if user has stored card number (works only with Stripe payment gateway) – from v3.0
✔ Auto charge for won auctions if user has stored card number (works only with Stripe payment gateway) – from v3.0
✔ Ability to verify credit card / payment details before user can place a bid (via extension) works with any payment gateway
✔ Allow only users who purchased bid credits to be able to place bid for an auction. Can be used for example in building penny bidding website or for user payment method verification. (via extension)
✔Option to charge commission fee for auction winner on checkout (with code snippet)
✔ Elementor support (from version 2.0) – view tutorial
✔ WPML compatible
✔ Supports and works fine with WooCommerce API – read tutorial
✔ Dokan integration available
You can also check detailed plugin documentation for any additional information concerning installation, auction setup, plugin options and updating, custom templating, available shortcodes and widgets.
Screenshots
Reviews
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Simply perfect auction plugin! I’ve tried many and this on is just the best – all needed features, stable work, Elementor widgets, and absolutely incredible helpful support. Fully recommend.Evag54 @ CodeCanyon.net
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Firstly the plugin is awesome. Works great.
But the big thing with this plugin is the support is superb.
They reply very quickly and answer your question each time. Would highly recommend this plugin.
Dragonartdesign27 @ CodeCanyon.net
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
WSA is an easy plugin to configure for inexperienced users, and can be extended in its capabilities with free code shared on pastebin (experienced users)
Its documentation is extensive and detailed, and is updated with each new version.
But, what really surprised me is their technical support. When you pay for licenses for digital products, you expect to have solutions from your programmers when problems appear, or simply when extensions are needed. And wpgenie does. Provide support with real solutions.
In the last 8 months I have sent about 20 tickets, ALL solved. Not all of them were problems, others were doubts, but they took the time to tell us how to solve them.
Among those problems we had one of incompatibility with another known plugin, they looked for solutions and over a few days we finally have the problem resolved. Support is worth gold in the computer world.
Thanks wpgenie!
Boomerangzz @ CodeCanyon.net
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Excellent plugin and very helpful support. Speaks the same code language 🙂 Thanks a lot!
Uniqu3app @ CodeCanyon.net
Add-ons for WooCommerce Simple Auctions
Role Based Bidding
WooCommerce Simple Auctions addon providing role-based bidding access and verified payment control for reliable auction management.
Add a credit-based bidding system to WooCommerce Simple Auctions. Sell bid credits, control participation, and manage paid-per-bid auctions easily.
Buy Bid Credits
Seated Auctions
Add seat-based bidding to WooCommerce Simple Auctions. Sell seats as products and control who can bid with limited, per-auction access.
FAQ
No, users must create an account and be logged in to place bids.
WooCommerce Simple Auction supports standard auctions, reverse auctions, sealed bid (silent) auctions, and proxy auctions.
Yes, WooCommerce Simple Auctions is compatible with Elementor.
Yes, you can easily control how auctions are displayed: either mixed with other products or on a separate dedicated page.
Yes, countdown timers appear by default on individual product pages. You can also add countdown timers to your shop page using our code snippet.
Yes, you can add buy-it-now pricing to any auction. You can choose to keep it available after bidding starts or have it automatically disappear after the first bid.
Yes, with proxy bidding enabled, users can set their maximum bid amount and the system will automatically bid on their behalf up to that limit.
Yes, there’s an option called “Allow highest bidder to outbid himself” that permits this.
Yes, if a bid is placed during the final moments of an auction, the auction time can automatically extend. This is our anti-sniping protection feature.
Users have a “My Auctions” page that lists all auctions where they’ve placed bids, including both active auctions and auctions they’ve won.
If a logged-in user is the current highest bidder, a “winning” badge appears on the auction item thumbnail.
Yes, users receive email notifications when they’re outbid, when they win an auction, and at other key moments in the auction process.
Yes, with Stripe integration, you can store users’ payment methods and automatically charge them when they win an auction.
Yes, you can require users to verify their payment method before placing bids (works only with Stripe payment gateway or via extension).
You can charge bidding fee via extension. This is commonly used for penny auction sites or to verify payment methods.
You have several options: manually relist the auction, contact the second-highest bidder, or use the automatic payment feature to charge stored credit cards immediately when the auction ends.
Yes, you can manually relist auctions. There’s also an option to allow relisting of paid auctions if needed.
The Auctions Activity report tool in wp-admin shows complete auction activity for all products, with CSV export capability for your records.
Yes, when combined with a multi-vendor plugin like Dokan, users can submit and manage their own auction products from a frontend dashboard while you earn commission on sales.
Yes, the Role-Based Bidding extension allows you to restrict bidding to users with specific WordPress roles. Users can purchase memberships that grant them the required role to place bids.
Yes, the Seated Auctions extension allows you to require users to purchase a seat or ticket before they can bid on specific auctions, perfect for special or limited-access events.
Yes, the Buy Bid Credits extension allows users to purchase bid credits. Each bid they place costs a certain number of credits, similar to popular penny auction sites. This monetizes the bidding process itself.
Yes, the current bid and auction history update automatically via Ajax.
Users can place bids from both the individual product page and the shop/category pages using Ajax bidding.
