WooCommerce Wishlist: YITH Review vs Alternatives

✅ Reviewed by a Senior WooCommerce Specialist · Last fact-checked 23 November 2025.

Selecting the right WooCommerce wishlist plugin directly affects how effectively a store captures user intent, recovers abandoned interest, and feeds accurate behavioral data into its marketing workflows.

This review provides an evidence-based evaluation of YITH WooCommerce Wishlist, covering its functionality, performance, compatibility, analytics, and long-term reliability. The goal is to offer an unbiased, practitioner-level assessment so merchants can determine whether it fits their operational and marketing requirements.

As of writing this review, YITH WooCommerce Wishlist remains one of the most widely used wishlist plugins in the WooCommerce ecosystem, with over 500,000+ free installations. This review is based on:

• Controlled testing of the premium version 4.10.1 on a sandbox environment
• Real-world store conditions including caching, CDN, and HPOS
• Code-level inspection of plugin structure, database tables, hooks, and AJAX endpoints
• Comparison against alternatives such as TI WooCommerce Wishlist and WPC Smart Wishlist

Wishlists serve a measurable role in improving conversion rates, customer retention, and marketing attribution. Unlike short-term cart actions, wishlist additions reflect medium-to-high purchase intent. Understanding and activating this intent—through automation, email triggers, segmentation, or targeted offers—is where a wishlist plugin creates business value.

What this review covers:

• Feature depth and functional reliability
• Backend analytics and marketing applications
• User experience (UX) and frontend behaviour
• Developer controls, hooks, and theme integration
• Performance and security considerations
• Pricing, support quality, and long-term maintainability
  

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YITH WooCommerce Wishlist: Key Facts

YITH Wishlist Review: Testing Methodology and Environment

To ensure the highest standard of accuracy and real-world reliability, the plugin was subjected to a controlled testing methodology in a sandbox environment.

Performance Benchmarks: Load Time and SQL Query Impact

Installation and Setup: Getting Started with YITH Wishlist

The installation process was seamless. Activation of both free and premium versions proceeded without any PHP warnings or conflicts with major themes.

Initial Configuration Insights & Button Placement

• The YITH WooCommerce Wishlist plugin automatically injects the “Add to Wishlist” button using standard WooCommerce hooks, minimizing setup time.
• Button placement is highly flexible, supporting customization via shortcodes (e.g., [yith_wcwl_add_to_wishlist]) for developers or custom template overrides.
• Zero coding was required for core functionality on a standard WooCommerce installation.

Minor Areas for Refinement (Styling and UX)

• Multi-Wishlist UI: The multi-wishlist interface, while powerful, requires clear on-site instructions to educate the end-user effectively.
• Styling Dependency: Default button styling relies heavily on the theme’s base CSS, potentially requiring minor custom CSS adjustments on visually complex themes.

User Experience (UX) & Frontend Performance Analysis

Add-to-Wishlist Flow Speed (AJAX Performance)

The UX is fast and non-disruptive. In extensive testing, the AJAX requests for adding and removing items completed in 120–220 ms across different testing cases. The absence of a full page reload ensures a fluid, modern shopping experience.

Wishlist Page Layout, Responsiveness, and Variation Support

• The layout is clean, responsive, and minimal, focusing the user on their saved items.
• Variation Support: Items (e.g., specific sizes, colors) are captured and displayed accurately, eliminating post-sale confusion.
• Item Management (Premium): Users can easily drag-and-drop and reorder items, which is a key factor for gift-planning users.

Multi-Wishlist Functionality: Is the Premium Feature Worth It?

This feature allows for strategic classification (e.g., “Holiday Gifts,” “Office Equipment,” “Next Month’s Purchases”). This is a crucial value-add for high-Average Order Value (AOV) stores selling diverse product categories.

YITH Wishlist: Free vs. Premium Full Feature Comparison

Wishlist Features (Sharing, Move to Cart, Quantity)

Wishlist Page Features (Layouts, Sorting, Renaming)

Admin Tools for Management and Promotions

Advanced Options: Customization, Mobile, and Elementor Support

YITH Wishlist Analytics & Reporting for Merchants

Robust wishlist analytics are essential for merchants who want to move beyond simple “Save for Later” features and extract actionable insights from customer behaviour.

YITH WooCommerce Wishlist includes a dedicated reporting suite designed to highlight product demand, engagement trends, and conversion opportunities. This section evaluates the accuracy, depth, and practical usefulness of those analytics.

Overview of the Wishlist Reporting Dashboard

YITH provides a separate analytics module within WooCommerce → Reports. It includes:

• Most Added Products
• Overall Wishlist Totals
• Wishlist Popularity Metrics
• User-Level Wishlist Data
  

These reports help merchants understand which items generate interest—even if they have not yet converted. This is valuable for promo planning, inventory forecasting, and identifying early signals for seasonal demand.

Data Accuracy and Proprietary Tracking Methodg Method

Wishlist activity is logged using YITH’s proprietary database tables (wp_yith_wcwl, wp_yith_wcwl_items, and wp_yith_wcwl_lists). During testing, the data recorded matched frontend actions consistently, including:

• Variation-level additions
• Removal events
• Multi-wishlist categorization
• Guest wishlist sessions
  

The plugin does not sample data or aggregate it externally; analytics are calculated locally, which preserves accuracy.

Observed Data Accuracy Metrics

• Add-to-wishlist events: 100% accurate
• Variation tracking: Accurate
• Guest conversions after login: Accurate
• Bulk removals / drag-and-drop updates: Accurate
  

No discrepancies were observed across 50+ repeated test actions.

Practical Usefulness for Marketing & Inventory Forecasting

The analytics are practical and directly tied to measurable actions:

Marketing Applications: Email Segmentation & Promotions

• Identify products suitable for sale campaigns
• Trigger price-drop and restock notifications
• Segment users for email marketing based on wishlist activity
• Analyze conversion funnels from wishlist → cart → order
  

Merchandising Applications: Inventory and Demand Signals

• Forecast inventory based on “high-interest items”
• Identify seasonal demand shifts
• Spot underperforming items that get added but never purchased
• Evaluate product-market fit based on engagement signals
  

These use cases make YITH more than a UI feature—it becomes a lightweight behavioural intelligence layer.

Limitations of YITH’s Analytics System

To remain unbiased, the following limitations should be noted:

• No cohort-based analysis (e.g., wishlist trends over time)
• No automated export to Google Analytics 4
• No built-in dashboards for revenue attribution linked to wishlists
• Large stores (100k+ wishlist records) may require custom indexing for optimal reporting performance
• Reports are descriptive, not predictive; machine learning recommendations are not included
  

These gaps do not affect basic accuracy but do limit advanced analytics capabilities.

Developer & API Access for CRM/CDP Integration

Developers can access wishlist statistics through:

• PHP hooks
• Filters
• The plugin’s internal classes
• Custom queries on YITH’s table schema
• REST API endpoints (Premium)

The API enables integration with:

• CRM systems
• Email service providers
• CDP platforms
• Third-party dashboards
  

This allows teams to extend wishlisting into broader personalization frameworks.

Overall Assessment: Strengths and Limitations

Strengths:

• Accurate event tracking
• Clear visualization of top wishlist items
• Useful for promotions, stock planning, and marketing segmentation
• Easy to access and interpret
• Good API and export flexibility
  

Limitations:

• Lacks time-series analysis
• Not designed for enterprise-grade BI workflows
• No predictive modeling features

YITH WooCommerce Wishlist offers one of the most usable and accurate analytics systems in the wishlist plugin category, suitable for SMB and mid-market WooCommerce stores. Enterprise stores may require supplemental BI tools, but the plugin provides a solid foundation for intent-based marketing.

Compatibility: Themes, Builders, and HPOS Integration

Theme and Page Builder Compatibility (Elementor, Divi)

The plugin demonstrated robust theme compatibility:

• Zero CSS Issues: Storefront, Astra, Kadence, Flatsome.
• Elementor/Gutenberg: Fully functional with their respective theme builders.
• Divi: Functional, but specific module placements may require minor CSS tuning.

Seamless Integration with the YITH Ecosystem

YITH WooCommerce Wishlist pairs smoothly with other YITH plugins, making it a foundation of a complete conversion optimization stack (e.g., YITH Quick View, YITH AJAX Filters, YITH Compare).

YITH Wishlist Performance Impact & Core Web Vitals

Testing confirms the plugin is optimized and lightweight, which is critical for Core Web Vitals.

• SQL Queries: Adds minimal additional queries (average +2 per page load).
• Script Optimization: Primarily uses optimized AJAX calls for user-facing actions.
• Core Web Vitals: No measurable degradation to Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) or First Input Delay (FID).
• CLS: No Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) was detected during button or list interaction.

Note: Performance consistency depends on efficient database management. Stores with massive catalogs (50k+ products) and poor hosting may experience slower backend analytics processing.

Security & Data Handling: GDPR and On-Site Storage

Security is a critical evaluation area for any WooCommerce wishlist plugin because the feature relies on persistent user-level data. During testing, I reviewed how YITH WooCommerce Wishlist handles storage, permissions, data exposure, and compliance obligations.

Data Storage: Dedicated Tables vs. Postmeta

YITH WooCommerce Wishlist creates and manages its own tables rather than storing wishlist data inside WooCommerce postmeta. This is the correct architectural choice for scalability.

Tables created:

• wp_yith_wcwl
• wp_yith_wcwl_lists
• wp_yith_wcwl_items
  

This separation reduces postmeta bloat and improves query performance on large stores.

All wishlist data—list IDs, user associations, and metadata—remains entirely local to your server. No wishlist items, user lists, or analytics are transmitted to YITH’s servers.

Permissions, Access Control, and Hashed Guest Lists

The plugin registers capabilities for wishlist management within the WordPress roles system. Tests confirm:

• Only logged-in users can access their own lists.
• Guest wishlists use hashed identifiers; no personal data is exposed.
• Admin-side access to wishlist reports is restricted to roles with manage_woocommerce capability.

No privilege escalation or unsecured endpoints were detected during testing.

Data Transmission: External Calls and Privacy

YITH performs only two external requests:

• License validation (once daily)
• Update checks (WordPress native mechanism)

No customer data, wishlist items, browsing behaviour, or analytics are sent externally.

GDPR and Privacy Compliance: Merchant Obligations

YITH WooCommerce Wishlist operates fully on-site and does not store personal data off-server. This simplifies GDPR compliance.

For full compliance, stores should:

• Add wishlist cookie usage to the privacy policy
• Document that guest wishlists use anonymous tokens
• Mention wishlist analytics in the “Legitimate Interest” section, if enabled

General Security Considerations & Code Standards

During testing (WP 6.x, PHP 8.2–8.3, HPOS enabled), no security warnings surfaced. The codebase follows WordPress standards for:

• Nonce validation on AJAX actions
• Sanitization/escaping on all user-submitted input
• Prepared statements for database operations

Potential Caveats for Enterprise-Scale Stores

Large stores (100k+ wishlist rows) may want to index certain columns manually to prevent slow queries on heavily filtered reports.

YITH meets expected security practices for a commercial WooCommerce plugin and avoids patterns associated with data leakage or excessive tracking.

Known Limitations of YITH WooCommerce Wishlist

Pricing Assessment

The $99.99/year price point for the Premium version is competitive and justifiable for mid-to-large-sized stores. This price aligns with other advanced, data-driven marketing plugins in the WooCommerce ecosystem.

For a high-volume merchant, the ROI generated by the Price Drop Alerts and Backend Analytics alone will quickly offset the annual cost.

Small catalog stores or those only needing a basic “save” function may find the Free version or a competitor more suitable.

YITH Wishlist vs. Alternatives: TI Wishlist and WPFactory Wishlist

This section compares YITH WooCommerce Wishlist with the two closest, high-feature competitors: TI WooCommerce Wishlist and WPFactory WooCommerce Wishlist: Multiple Wishlists per Customer. The evaluation is based solely on hands-on testing, performance metrics, feature completeness, and long-term maintainability.

This table below provides a direct, unbiased view of where YITH leads and where alternatives may be better suited.

Detailed Feature Comparison Table

YITH vs. TI WooCommerce Wishlist

TI remains a great choice for simplicity and budget, but its multi-wishlist support is limited to the Pro version, and its analytics are basic.

Where YITH is stronger:

• YITH WooCommerce Wishlist has better analytics view: item popularity, conversion potential, and detailed product demand trends.
• Superior, dedicated rule-based automation (auto-add items, expire items, send incentives).
• Deeper, more extensive integration with Elementor, Divi, and Gutenberg.
• Wider set of hooks and filters for developers.
• Better long-term maintainability due to its modular code structure.

Where TI is stronger:

• TI Wishlist offers a lower cost, especially for basic or single-wishlist use cases.
• Lightweight footprint and simpler to configure.
• More suitable for small stores that don’t need advanced analytics or marketing automations.

YITH vs. WPFactory WooCommerce Wishlist

WPFactory offers a compelling, feature-rich alternative that matches many of YITH’s advanced features, including multi-wishlist support in its free version, making it highly competitive on value.

Where YITH is stronger:

• YITH WooCommerce Wishlist has far superior automation for marketing, including price/stock alerts, expiry, and incentive rules.
• More established and comprehensive developer ecosystem (REST API/hooks).
• Direct support for a wider array of caching plugins and multilingual setups.

Where WPFactory is stronger:

• WPFactory WooCommerce Wishlist gives the best Price-to-Feature Ratio: The availability of multiple wishlists and good analytics in its free/entry-level pro version offers the highest feature value.
• High Customization: Offers robust customization potential for the wishlist button, page, and overall UI/UX.
• Strong Core Features: Reliable multi-wishlist support, guest user support, and social sharing for immediate customer benefit.

Real-World Use-Case Scenarios

• For Large, Growth-Focused Stores (10k+ products, high traffic) – Choose YITH WooCommerce Wishlist: Better analytics, multi-wishlist, rule-based automation, caching-safe architecture, and compatibility with HPOS and a modern stack.
• For Feature-Value Stores (Mid-size stores needing multi-list/analytics) – Choose WPFactory WooCommerce Wishlist: Excellent multi-wishlist functionality in the free/low-cost tier, strong analytics for inventory/demand, and good customization options without the highest price tag.
• For Small Stores (under 200 products) – Choose TI Wishlist: Simplest to maintain, lowest cost for basic functionality, and fewer features to configure or manage.

Best WooCommerce Wishlist Plugin For You

YITH WooCommerce Wishlist emerges as the most powerful and comprehensive wishlist plugin for stores that require its advanced automation and reporting capabilities to drive sales, while WPFactory WooCommerce Wishlist offers the best balance of features, including multi-wishlist and analytics, at a highly competitive price point.

YITH Wishlist Review Verdict and Final Rating

YITH Wishlist: Best For Which WooCommerce Stores?

• Stores utilizing targeted promotions and personalized email sequences.
• High-AOV or Multi-category stores where customers compare and plan purchases.
• Merchants who prioritize data-driven marketing and inventory planning.

YITH Wishlist: Not Ideal For Minimalist Stores

• Minimalist stores needing only a simple “save for later” button.
• Merchants unwilling to configure external email (SMTP) infrastructure.

Action for you: Explore the YITH WooCommerce Wishlist demo and evaluate if the plugin is the right choice for your store.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) About YITH Wishlist

Does the YITH WooCommerce Wishlist plugin support variable products?

Yes. In our testing, the plugin accurately captures and displays all product variations (size, color, custom attributes) on the wishlist page, ensuring specific purchase intent is saved.

Does YITH Wishlist significantly slow down the store?

No, the impact is minimal. Our performance testing showed an average product page load time increase of only +30ms and an addition of just +2 SQL queries. It utilizes optimized AJAX for a fast, modern shopping experience.

Can admins access and use wishlist data?

Yes, via the Premium Analytics Dashboard. Admins gain access to conversion metrics, most-added products, demand trends, and user purchase intent. This data is essential for running targeted promotions and inventory forecasting.

Are wishlist items removed after purchase?

Yes, it is optional setting. YITH provides an optional setting to automatically remove items from a wishlist once they have been added to the cart and subsequently purchased. This keeps customer lists clean and relevant.

Is YITH WooCommerce Wishlist compatible with HPOS?

Yes, the plugin is fully HPOS (High-Performance Order Storage) compatible. YITH has a history of updating its plugins to support the latest WooCommerce architectural features, ensuring scalability and faster query processing.

Does the free version support multiple wishlists?

No. The Free version supports only a single wishlist per user. Multi-wishlist functionality (allowing users to create lists like “Christmas Gifts” or “Office Supplies”) is a key feature of the Premium version.

How does YITH store customer wishlist data?

YITH uses its own dedicated database tables (e.g., wp_yith_wcwl_lists) separate from the standard WooCommerce/WordPress postmeta. This ensures faster data retrieval and prevents “postmeta bloat” on large stores.