WooCommerce Advanced Product Variations Alternative

You may have heard about the WooCommerce Advanced Product Variations plugin by WP Swings. It helps you showcase your product variations more user-friendly way to increase the conversion rate and user experience. 

But is there an excellent alternative to it that also has a free version to get you started?

Yes, In today’s article, I’ll compare the WooCommerce Advanced Variations plugin with its alternative, which is WooCommerce Variation Swatches

It is one of the best plugins that can give you better results than WooCommerce Advanced Product Variations, and this is why I am mentioning it as its alternative. 

So let’s first take an overview of both the plugins. Then we’ll dive into the comparison to show you how WooCommerce Variation Swatches is the best alternative to WooCommerce Advanced Product Variations. 

Without any further ado, let’s jump into it. 

Advanced Product Variations Alternative

Here, I’ll compare a few features of both plugins to give you a better understanding of the alternative. 

1. Ease of Use

First, I’ll compare both plugins in terms of their ease of use. 

WooCommerce Variation Swatches

This plugin was built by keeping in mind that absolute beginners will also be using this plugin to improve the product variations display and add more to their customer’s experience. 

Even if you don’t have any experience with technical stuff, you can easily and quickly understand the plugin and its settings. 

Once you install and activate the plugin, a new tab is created in the left sidebar of the WordPress dashboard. It will help you quickly access the plugin’s dashboard, and you won’t have to look for a way to access the plugin’s settings.

You can navigate to Woosuite Variation Swatches from your WordPress dashboard. You’ll notice that its dashboard is straightforward and user-friendly to use. 

You’ll find all the options on a single page but in a very organized way with proper headings to identify the feature. You’ll see an explanation of each feature to help you guide about it. 

Some of the features are only available if you have the premium version. Still, all the features are mentioned clearly in an organized way so a non-techy user can also use them to increase conversion rates.

Advanced Product Variations

Regarding ease of use, this plugin is behind the WooCommerce Variation Swatches plugin. It is because after installing and activating the plugin, a new tab is added under the WooCommerce tab. 

As the tab is hidden and neither a new parent tab was created upon activating the plugin, you may need to spend a few minutes to find the tab to access the plugin’s settings if you are a beginner or a non-techy person.

Moreover, on the plugin’s dashboard, you’ll get a bunch of horizontal tabs, each with different settings. 

Compared with the WooCommerce Variation Swatches dashboard, it has more tabs, which makes it hard for you to find a particular feature and will take you some time to get used to its dashboard.  

But if you visit its dashboard, you’ll also find a one-line explanation of all the features, which is a good thing to let users know what this feature or setting will do. 

Winner: WooCommerce Variation Swatches

2. Types of Swatches

Now, I’ll compare the different types of swatches these plugins offer to give you more customization options to improve product variations. 

WooCommerce Variation Swatches

It allows you to display product variations in different types of swatches like images, labels, radio buttons, etc. 

You can create six different types of swatches using this plugin. Besides these swatches, you can control the position of the image swatches, which gives you complete control over them. 

You can quickly convert the default WooCommerce variation dropdowns into any swatches you want. For example, if your product variation has color and size, you can display the color swatches for the color attribute and the label for the size attribute. 

Similarly, you can also display product attributes in the form of images, radio buttons, dual-color attributes, and more. 

You can also create a variations tooltip to help users quickly find the product they want by showcasing your product variation on your shop page.


This plugin also allows you to show the variations on the shop page, which adds to the user experience. It s because they won’t have to navigate to the product page to find the variations. 

Advanced Product Variations

It also gives you several excellent features. It allows you to show the product variations in three types of swatches image, text, and color. 

You cannot display the variations as radio buttons or dual colors. But there are other good features, like creating a button to show and hide the variations on the shop page. 

It also allows you to use the attribute image as the variation image in just a single click. 

Winner: WooCommerce Variation Swatches

3. Swatch Styling Shapes

The next thing I’ll compare is the swatch styling options and shapes. 

WooCommerce Variation Swatches

It gives you an extensive range of customizing options for swatches. You can control the size and shape of the swatches. 

You can control the image position and alignment if you display the image variations. It also has the option to choose the image ratio, which is an excellent thing to make things look as you want. 

It also allows you to control the swatch shapes as square, circle, and rounded square. Moreover, it allows you to enable or disable the variation availability based on selection. 

It means if a user has selected a color, it will automatically display the size variations available in that color. This helps you to let users know that the other variations that’s out of stock. 

Besides this, you can also control the out-of-stock product variations behavior in three different types. You can choose whatever suits you the best. 

One of the best things about this plugin is you can control the swatch styling like the margin, padding, hover color, and much more. This gives you absolute freedom to customize the swatches as you want. 

Whether you are displaying the swatches on the shop or product page, you can customize them. You can also control the swatch width and height. 

Advanced Product Variations

This plugin also gives you customization options, but they are constrained. For example, you cannot control the swatch’s width and height or add padding and margins. 

With this plugin, there are several features for which you may need to use the custom code or install another plugin, but WooCommerce Variation Swatches comes with built-in features that give you absolute flexibility. 

For example, If you are using the Advanced Product Variations and displaying the variation swatches of each product on the shop page. Suppose one of the products has 6 or 7 variations. 

It will disturb the complete shop page’s design, affecting the user experience. You will need to use the custom code to fix this issue. 

But with WooCommerce Variation Swatches, you’ll get it as a built-in feature. 

Winner: WooCommerce Variation Swatches

4. Product Gallery

The next thing to compare is the product gallery. Product gallery means the product images displayed on the product page. 

Both plugins give you the freedom to change the positioning of the images but let’s dig a bit deeper to find out more about this feature. 

WooCommerce Variation Swatches

It is a very diversified and flexible plugin, but it displays product variations in different styles to enhance the user experience. 

But suppose you want to customize the product gallery. In that case, you’ll need to purchase the Professional or All Access plan of the plugin, which will give you access to several other plugins to increase the WooCommerce functionality and your store’s conversion rates. 

One such extension is the Additional Variation Images Pro plugin which allows you to customize the product gallery in different styles. 

For example, you can change the variation image position and display them on the left side of the image in a vertical manner. Many successful stores use these display features to enhance the product page design and user experience. 

With this extension, you can also add videos to your product gallery, which is a great thing to get the user’s attention and trust. 

Although to get this and several more extensions, you’ll need to purchase a higher plan which will cost you a few extra pennies, but it is worth it. 

Advanced Product Variations

This is an excellent thing about this plugin. You’ll not need to install any other plugin to customize the product gallery. 

Although customization options are minimal if you do not want to install any other plugin, it is excellent. 

You can only change the slider spaces and the variation image position. 

But if you want to extend these features, unfortunately, you won’t be able to do so. That is why WooCommerce Variation Swatches has kept other extensions in the higher plan, as the team doesn’t want to confuse the users by putting everything in a single plugin. 

Winner: Advanced Product Variations

I have mentioned the winner because it gives you a built-in feature, but if you want to go higher in customizations, I recommend WooCommerce Variation Swatches

5. Compatibility

Both plugins are very compatible with WooCommerce plugins and popular themes. A professional team of developers develops them by keeping high coding standards. 

Moreover, their regular updates will help you avoid conflicts or errors. Both plugins have a very active and supportive team to help you with compatibility issues. 

Advanced Product Variations is available on the WooCommerce store, which is highly compatible with WooCommerce. 

On the other side, more than 80k stores are using the WooCommerce Variation Swatches plugin worldwide with excellent user reviews, which shows its compatibility with WooCommerce and popular themes. This number is growing continuously. 

Winner: Tie

6. User Experience

Next, we’ll discuss the user experience each plugin helps you to give your customers. 

WooCommerce Variation Swatches

This plugin gives you several features and customization options to enhance the user experience and allow them to shop the product variations easily. 

You’ll get extra extensions that you can install and allow the customers to shop directly from the shop without navigating to the product page, which is an excellent idea. 

It works very smoothly, giving the new users a feeling that they are not on a new site or store. 

Moreover, it gives you several customizable features, which is excellent because what works for one store may not work for another. So, you can completely customize the swatches, colors, margins, paddings, and shapes as you want. 

On the other hand, its enhancement plan gives you extra plugins that add more to the product user experience. 

Advanced Product Variations

It is also a great plugin to increase the user experience. It gives you all the features you need to display the product variations in a more noticeable form. 

It is a simple plugin that allows you to display the variation swatches on the shop and the product pages. You can also customize a few things to add more to the user experience. 

Winner: WooCommerce Variation Swatches

7. Pricing

Now let’s compare the pricing of both plugins. 

WooCommerce Variation Swatches

The best thing about this plugin is it has a free version that you can install on your site. This will give you an idea of its pro features as well. 

Those will be greyed out, and you won’t be able to use any pro feature until you purchase and install it. It gives you three different packages. 

  • Basic
  • Professional
  • All Access

The basic package will give you access to the pro plugin and all its features with complete support and training courses for one site. It is billed annually, but if you want, you can also get it for a lifetime. 

The professional package will have everything in the basic package plus three more plugins to help you improve the WooCommerce product pages and user experience. 

The third and final package will give you access to all 14 WordPress plugins that you can use to improve the checkout cart and offer discounts and more. Learn More about it. 

You can also get lifetime access to any package you want. It also gives you a 14-day money-back guarantee. 

You can also request a demo to see the pro features in action. It has a higher price plan than Advanced Product Variations, but it is worth it as it gives you some extra plugins and support to add advanced features to the WooCommerce store. 

Advanced Product Variations

Its pricing is $49 per year, and it doesn’t offer you any free version. You’ll have to buy the complete plugin to use it on your site. 

It gives you a 30-day money-back guarantee if you are unhappy with the plugin. It provides a live demo to try the plugin before purchasing it, which is a good alternative to providing a free version of the plugin. 

Winner: WooCmmerce Variation Swatches

Note: I have mentioned the winner in terms of features you’ll be getting in the price, which makes the WooCommerce Variation Swatches plugin a clear winner. 

Final Verdict

That’s it for today’s article. 

Advanced Product Variations gives you a simple but elegant variation swatch, but the options are significantly less. In comparison, the WooCommerce Variation Swatches allow you to create different types of variation swatches. 

You can use the Advanced Product Variations if you only want to display a basic variation swatch on the shop and the product pages with a little or fewer customization options. 

This will be best for you if you don’t want to mess around with different options. 

You can use the WooCommerce Variation Swatches plugin if you want complete control over the appearance and design of the variation swatches with advanced options. 
Overall, whether you are a beginner or an expert, I recommend using the WooCommerce Variation Swatches plugin to increase the user experience and get more customization options. But in the end, the choice depends on what your goals are.

Brian
Brian

Welcome to the AovUp blog, where we discuss all things WooCommerce. I hope we can help you achieve something today...

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