The problem it solves
Selling a combination of products in WooCommerce normally means creating a new product for it. That product needs a title, an image, a description, a price and a place in your catalogue. It shows up in search and in category listings. If you want ten combinations, that’s ten products to maintain. The combination is also locked in. To change what’s inside you have to edit the product, and every customer sees the same set. A preset is an instruction: put these items in the cart at this price. It adds nothing to your catalogue and doesn’t appear in search. The link is the only way in.What a preset is made of
Items
Store products and specific variations, each with its own quantity and rules
Pricing
A discount on each item: a percentage, a fixed amount off, or a price of your own
A link
A pretty permalink and a query-string form, both resolving to the same preset
Rules
What happens to the cart the link finds, and where the customer lands afterwards
A worked example
Say you sell coffee equipment and want a starter kit: a grinder, a kettle, and a bag of beans, for 15% off. You create a preset, add the three products, give each one a 15% discount, and save. You get back a link likehttps://yourstore.com/preset/starter-kit.
Share that link in a newsletter. A customer clicks it and their cart already holds the grinder, the kettle and the beans, priced at 15% off the total. They go straight to checkout.
Your catalogue still has three products in it, not four.
Free and Pro
CartPresets comes in two versions that share the same database tables, settings and hooks. The Pro features aren’t in the free version’s code at all, so there’s nothing to switch on.
A badge marks Pro features throughout these docs: in the sidebar, in page headings and in the tier column of reference tables.
On the free version you can still see the Pro controls in the listing, the editor and Settings. They’re locked and tagged Pro, with a short note saying what they do. Nothing is hidden, so you can see what you’d be buying before you buy it.
What it doesn’t do
- It’s not a product bundle plugin. A preset has no product page, no add-to-cart button on your store and no presence in your catalogue. If customers need to find a combination by browsing, you want a bundle product, not a preset.
- It doesn’t let the customer configure anything. A preset is fixed when you save it. Customers follow the link and get what you chose.
- It runs no analytics of its own. No scripts or styles on your storefront, and no data leaving your site. One thing is recorded: when an order reaches a status you count, the plugin stores who claimed which preset. That’s what makes purchase limits countable. See Privacy and personal data.
Where to go next
Installation
Requirements and setup for both versions
Quickstart
Build and share your first preset in about five minutes
Hooks reference
Every action and filter, for developers