Smart Product Sort
Change the default WooCommerce product sorting per category. Sort by price, stock, sales, rating, sale price or any custom field — no code.
4.5
(2 ratings)Will this break my store?
What the WordPress.org registry says about keeping Smart Product Sort running.
Tested to 7.1
Tested against the WordPress branch in use today.1 month ago
7.4
Your host must be running at least this version.6.5
woocommerce
These must be installed and active first.2
Maintenance & trust
Scored on how Smart Product Sort is looked after — not on how many stores run it.
Maintenance
35 / 35WordPress compatibility
20 / 20Support responsiveness
Not enough dataMerchant satisfaction
10 / 15Listing transparency
7 / 10Ratings
4.5
2 ratingsSmart Product Sort is a free WooCommerce plugin that changes the default order products appear in on your shop page and product category pages. You create sorting rules in the WordPress admin — sort by price, name, date, popularity, rating, stock status, review count, sale price, menu order or random — and apply each rule to your whole shop or to one product category. No theme edits and no code are required.
WooCommerce only lets you set one default catalog order for the entire store. Smart Product Sort replaces that single setting with per-category rules, so your Sale category can lead with discounts while your New In category leads with the newest arrivals.
The Problem
WooCommerce’s built-in sorting is limited. Store owners often need to:
- Show newest products first in one category
- Show best sellers first in another
- Prioritize higher-priced items in premium collections
- Apply a consistent default sort across the entire shop
- Change sorting quickly without editing theme files
Smart Product Sort solves all of this through a straightforward admin interface.
Features
- 10 sort criteria — Name, price, popularity, rating, date, random, menu order, stock status, review count, and sale price.
- Up to 3 sort rules — Create up to three rules on the free plan. Pro removes the limit.
- Global or per-category — Apply a rule to the whole shop or assign it to a specific product category. Category rules override global ones automatically.
- Priority system — Lower number means higher importance. When multiple rules exist, the priority system determines which one wins — no conflicts.
- On/off toggle — Activate or deactivate any rule instantly. Test changes or handle seasonal sorting without deleting anything.
- Customer choice preserved — When a customer manually selects a sort option from the WooCommerce dropdown, their choice always takes priority.
- Lightweight — Runs a single database query per page load. No heavy operations, no performance impact.
- HPOS compatible — Fully compatible with WooCommerce High-Performance Order Storage.
How It Works
- Navigate to WooCommerce > Smart Product Sort in your admin dashboard.
- Click Add Sort Rule.
- Choose the sort criteria (price, name, date, popularity, rating, random, menu order, stock status, review count, or sale price).
- Optionally assign the rule to a specific product category.
- Set a priority number and activate the rule.
Sorting applies automatically on the frontend from that point on. Category-specific rules take precedence over global rules. When a customer visits a category with its own rule, that rule applies. Otherwise, the global rule is used as a fallback.
Pro Features
- Unlimited sort rules — No cap on how many rules you create.
- Scheduled rules — Give a rule a start time, an end time, or both. Ideal for sales and seasonal merchandising.
- Auto-expiring rules — Rules deactivate themselves once their end time passes.
- Custom field / ACF sorting — Sort by any product meta key, with text or numeric ordering.
- Tiebreaker sorting — Add a secondary criterion that decides order when products tie on the primary sort.
- Rule duplication — Clone an existing rule as a starting point.
- Import / export — Move rules between sites as JSON.
Free vs Pro at a glance
The free version includes 3 sort rules, all 10 sort criteria, per-category rules, the priority system and the on/off toggle. Pro adds unlimited rules, scheduled and auto-expiring rules, custom field and ACF sorting, tiebreaker sorting, rule duplication, and rule import/export. Nothing in the free version is time limited, and your rules stay in your own database either way.
Use Cases
- Sort out-of-stock products to the bottom of every category page
- Show discounted products first in a Sale category during a promotion
- Lead a New In category with the newest arrivals while the rest of the shop sorts by popularity
- Rank products by a custom field such as a margin, badge or ACF priority value
- Schedule a Black Friday or seasonal sort order that turns itself off afterwards
- Give a large catalog a different sort order in each of its categories
WooCommerce sets one default catalog order for the whole store under WooCommerce > Settings > Products. Smart Product Sort replaces that with rules: go to WooCommerce > Smart Product Sort, click Add Sort Rule, pick a sort criterion, and either leave the rule global or assign it to a single product category. The new order applies to your shop and category pages immediately.
Yes. Each rule can target one product category, and a category rule always overrides the global rule. Categories without their own rule fall back to the global one. The free version includes up to 3 rules; Pro removes that limit.
The free version allows 3 sort rules. Existing rules keep working if you have more than 3 from an earlier version — you simply cannot add new ones until you remove one or upgrade to Pro, which has no limit.
The free version sorts by 10 criteria: date, price, name, popularity, rating, random, menu order, stock status, review count and sale price. Pro adds sorting by any custom field, including Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) values.
Yes, and this is free. Create a rule with Stock Status as the sort criterion. Products are reordered so in-stock items lead — out-of-stock products are moved down the page, never hidden or removed from the catalog.
Yes, with Pro. Choose “Custom Field / ACF” as the sort criterion and enter the field key. ACF stores its values as ordinary post meta, so any ACF field works. Pick “Number” as the field type for numeric fields so that 100 sorts above 20 rather than below it. Products that do not have the field are placed last and are never hidden.
Yes, with Pro. Any rule can be given a start time, an end time, or both. The rule begins sorting at its start time and stops at its end time on its own, so a Black Friday order can go live and retire itself without anyone changing a setting. Expired rules are automatically marked inactive.
The customer’s choice always wins. Smart Product Sort only controls the default order shown before a shopper picks anything from the WooCommerce sorting dropdown.
No. Smart Product Sort only changes the order of products, never which products appear. Every product that WooCommerce would normally show is still shown, including products missing the field a rule sorts by — those are placed last rather than removed.
Yes. Variable products are sorted by their price range, using the lowest price when sorting ascending and the highest when sorting descending, and each product appears exactly once.
Each rule has a priority number, and a lower number means higher importance. When more than one rule could apply, the rule with the lowest priority number wins. This keeps sorting predictable instead of leaving conflicting rules to chance.
No. Smart Product Sort runs one lightweight query to find the active rule, caches the result, and then modifies the ordering of the query WooCommerce already runs. It does not add extra product queries to the page.
Yes. Smart Product Sort extends WooCommerce catalog sorting and requires WooCommerce to be installed and active. It does nothing on a site without WooCommerce.
Yes. The plugin declares full compatibility with High-Performance Order Storage (custom order tables).
Yes. All strings use the smart-product-sort text domain and a .pot file is included in the languages folder.
No. Rules are stored in your own database and are untouched by licence changes. If you downgrade, rules that use Pro-only criteria simply stop applying until you upgrade again.
Plugin details
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