WooCommerce Frequently Bought Together: Best Plugins and Setup Guide

Amazon's "Frequently Bought Together" section is responsible for a massive chunk of their cross-sell revenue. It's simple, intuitive, and removes friction — customers see three products that go together, a combined price, and can add all of them in one click.

WooCommerce doesn't include this feature natively. But several plugins replicate it effectively, and the revenue impact is worth the investment. This guide covers how FBT works, the two main approaches (Amazon-style vs. rule-based), the top plugins, and how to set it up for maximum impact.

How Frequently Bought Together Works

The concept is straightforward: on a product page, display a section showing "This item + Item B + Item C" with a total price and an "Add all to cart" button. The customer sees a curated bundle of products that make sense together, often with a small discount as incentive.

There are two fundamental approaches to generating these recommendations:

Amazon-Style: Data-Driven Recommendations

Amazon's system is algorithmic. It analyzes millions of purchase histories to identify products that are statistically bought together. If 40% of customers who buy Product A also buy Product B, the algorithm surfaces that pairing.

For WooCommerce stores, this approach requires:

• Sufficient order history (typically 500+ orders minimum for reliable patterns)
• A plugin that analyzes past orders to identify co-purchase patterns
• Ongoing learning — the recommendations improve as more orders come in

Pros: Recommendations improve automatically. Requires less manual curation. Can surface non-obvious pairings that humans wouldn't think of.

Cons: Needs volume to work. New stores or new products have no data. Can recommend products that happen to be bought together but aren't logically related.

Rule-Based: Manual Curation

The store owner manually defines which products appear in the FBT bundle. For a DSLR camera, you'd manually assign a memory card, camera bag, and lens cleaning kit.

Pros: Works immediately, no order history needed. Complete control over what's recommended. Can align with inventory strategy (push slow-moving stock by bundling with bestsellers).

Cons: Requires manual setup per product. Doesn't scale well beyond a few hundred products. Needs regular maintenance as inventory changes.

Top Frequently Bought Together Plugins

YITH Frequently Bought Together ($79/year)

YITH is one of the most established WooCommerce plugin developers, and their FBT plugin is the market leader. It provides both manual assignment and automatic suggestions based on order history.

Key features:

• Manual product linking via the product editor (Linked Products tab gets an FBT section)
• Automatic suggestions based on past order data
• Customizable discount — fixed amount or percentage off when buying the bundle
• Display customization — choose how many products to show, image sizes, layout
• Works with variable products (customers can select variations within the FBT widget)
• Responsive design that works on mobile
• Shortcode support for custom placement

Setup walkthrough:

1. Install and activate the plugin
2. Go to YITH → Frequently Bought Together → General Settings
3. Configure display options: number of products (recommend 2-3), show/hide discount, layout style
4. For each product, go to Edit Product → Linked Products → Frequently Bought Together
5. Search and add 2-3 complementary products
6. Optionally set a bundle discount (e.g., 5% off when all items are added together)
7. Save and check the product page — the FBT section appears below the add-to-cart button or in the configured position

Limitations: The automatic recommendation engine needs a decent order history to be useful. UI customization is limited without CSS overrides. Annual renewal at $79/year is on the higher side for a single-purpose plugin.

WPC Frequently Bought Together (Free + Pro)

WPClever's FBT plugin offers a solid free version with premium upgrades. It's the best option for stores that want FBT without an annual subscription.

Free version includes:

• Manual product association (set FBT products per product)
• Customizable position on product page (above/below add-to-cart, in a tab, via shortcode)
• Price display (individual + combined total)
• Responsive layout
• "Add all to cart" and individual product checkboxes

Pro version adds ($29 one-time or included in WPC bundle):

• Automatic product suggestions based on order data
• Variable product support within FBT widget
• Custom discount per FBT group
• Category-based automatic associations
• Advanced display customization

Why consider WPC over YITH: The free version is genuinely usable — not a crippled teaser. If you have under 50 products and can manually manage associations, you might never need to upgrade. The one-time pricing option for Pro is also friendlier than YITH's annual renewal.

WooCommerce Product Recommendations ($79/year)

This is WooCommerce's own recommendation engine (developed by the WooCommerce team). It's broader than just FBT — it handles upsells, cross-sells, recently viewed, top-rated, and "bought together" recommendations across multiple page locations.

Key features relevant to FBT:

• Algorithmic "Bought Together" recommendations based on order history
• Can display on product pages, cart, checkout, order-received, and via shortcodes
• Filters — exclude out-of-stock, limit by category, set minimum order count threshold
• Performance optimized with caching and background processing
• Combines FBT with other recommendation types in one plugin

When to choose this over YITH or WPC: If you want a comprehensive recommendation system — not just FBT but also "customers also viewed," "top rated in this category," and personalized suggestions — Product Recommendations is the all-in-one choice. It's overkill if you only want FBT, but perfect if you're building a full recommendation strategy.

Limitations: Requires WooCommerce.com subscription. The algorithmic engine needs 500+ orders to generate meaningful FBT suggestions. No manual override for FBT — it's entirely data-driven, so you can't curate specific bundles.

Setting Up FBT for Maximum Revenue Impact

Product Selection Rules

Not every product benefits equally from FBT. Focus your setup efforts on:

1. Your top 20% of products by traffic — these pages get the most eyeballs, so FBT there has the highest potential reach
2. Products with natural accessories — electronics, fashion, sports equipment, home improvement
3. High-margin products as the "extras" — put your highest-margin items as the suggested additions in the FBT bundle
4. Products with consumption cycles — suggest refills, replacements, or maintenance items alongside the primary purchase

Pricing and Discount Strategy

The FBT discount is a lever, not a requirement. Some strategies:

• No discount: Let the convenience be the value. Works when the FBT items are obviously useful (camera + memory card)
• 5-10% bundle discount: Small enough to preserve margin, large enough to feel like a deal. Best for most stores
• Fixed amount off: "Save $15 when you buy all three" — works better for higher-priced items where percentages seem small
• Free shipping threshold: Set your free shipping minimum just above the single product price. The FBT bundle naturally pushes customers over the threshold, and "free shipping" is a more powerful motivator than a percentage discount

Measuring Revenue Impact

Track these metrics to understand if your FBT implementation is working:

• FBT click-through rate: What percentage of product page visitors interact with the FBT section? Below 5% suggests poor product pairing or placement.
• FBT conversion rate: Of those who click, how many add the bundle to cart? Below 15% suggests the pricing or discount isn't compelling.
• AOV before vs. after FBT: The clearest measure. Compare your average order value for a 30-day period before and after implementing FBT. A 10-15% increase is typical; below 5% means your product pairings need work.
• Items per order: Should increase. If AOV rises but items per order stays flat, customers are substituting (upsell effect) rather than adding (cross-sell effect).

FBT vs. Native WooCommerce Cross-Sells

WooCommerce's built-in cross-sells (set in the Linked Products tab) and FBT plugins serve similar goals but differ in execution:

FBT plugins don't replace native cross-sells — they complement them. Use FBT on the product page for focused bundles, and native cross-sells on the cart page for broader suggestions. Together, they cover two key decision points in the purchase journey.

Getting Started: Recommendation

For most WooCommerce stores, start here:

1. Install WPC Frequently Bought Together (free) to test the concept with your top 20 products
2. Monitor AOV for 30 days — if you see a measurable increase, the concept works for your catalog
3. Upgrade to YITH FBT ($79/yr) or WPC Pro when you need variable product support, automatic suggestions, or bundle discounts
4. Consider WooCommerce Product Recommendations ($79/yr) when you want a full recommendation engine beyond just FBT

Don't overthink the initial setup. Pick your 10-20 best-selling products, assign 2 complementary items to each, and let the data tell you what's working. Refine from there.