Kampe vs WooCommerce: what it really costs to sell online in Uganda

WooCommerce is the free option everyone mentions. It runs on WordPress and the plugin itself costs nothing. If you're planning to build your shop on WooCommerce, I get why. Free is hard to argue with.

But it's free the way a plot of land is free. The plot costs nothing, and the house you build on it is where your money and your weekends go. This page goes through what that means in shillings and in hours, next to what Kampe costs. I checked every WooCommerce fact on WooCommerce's and WordPress.org's own pages on 17 October 2026. Kampe's numbers are on our pricing page.

The short answer

If you're comfortable running a WordPress site, or you already have one with traffic, WooCommerce gives you full control and no revenue share. If you want to sell this week from your phone, with MTN and Airtel mobile money already working at checkout, I think Kampe is the easier start, and on Launch it's UGX 5,000 once.

What WooCommerce actually costs

WooCommerce's pricing page is honest about this. The core plugin is free with a 0% revenue share. Hosting is where the money starts, and WooCommerce lists hosting at $25 to $350 a month depending on the host. Paid extensions run $29 to $299 a year each. You'll also need a domain and an SSL certificate, though many hosts include the certificate.

There are cheaper hosts in Uganda than $25 a month, and plenty of small WordPress sites run on them. I'd just be careful putting checkout on the cheapest plan you can find. A slow store that goes down on a Friday evening costs more in lost orders than the hosting saved.

Kampe has none of those line items. Launch is UGX 5,000 once, with no monthly fee until you reach UGX 1,000,000 in completed sales. We take 6% on mobile money sales, and that includes the mobile money provider's charge. Cash on delivery has no fee. After the first million, Pro is UGX 35,000 a month (UGX 28,000 a month billed yearly) at 5%, and Max is UGX 70,000 a month (UGX 56,000 billed yearly) at 4%. We handle the hosting and the updates.

Getting mobile money working

This is the part that takes the longest on WooCommerce. WooPayments, WooCommerce's own payment option, works in 38 countries, and Uganda isn't one of them. So you pick a gateway plugin and open an account with that provider.

The main options I found: Flutterwave's official WooCommerce plugin supports mobile money and added UGX in its 2.0.0 release. Pesapal's official plugin covers currencies from Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. DPO Pay has an official plugin too, though its page doesn't mention Uganda or mobile money. I couldn't find a WooCommerce plugin from MTN itself. The one third-party MTN MoMo plugin on WordPress.org was last updated in December 2022.

Each provider has its own sign-up and its own fees, and you test the checkout yourself before you trust it with a real customer.

On Kampe, MTN and Airtel mobile money are part of checkout when your store goes live. The customer enters their number, approves on their phone, and the order shows as paid. Your money sits in your Kampe balance and you pay it out to MTN or Airtel mobile money, from UGX 10,000, with a UGX 1,500 charge on each withdrawal. I wrote more about why getting paid is only part of selling in this post on mobile money.

Kampe doesn't take card payments, so if you need Visa or Mastercard, a WooCommerce gateway that supports cards is a real advantage.

Cash on delivery and delivery

WooCommerce has cash on delivery built in as an offline payment method, and it works well. Shipping uses zones, and the built-in methods are flat rate, free shipping and local pickup. Anything more detailed usually means an extension.

Kampe has cash on delivery with a 0% fee on every plan. Delivery zones are named the way you'd say them, like "Central Kampala", each with its own fee and delivery time, and you can add pickup locations (1 on Launch, 2 on Pro, 5 on Max). Neither platform sends a rider for you. You still arrange your boda or courier, which I think is where a lot of customer trust is decided, as I wrote in delivery is where trust gets won or lost.

Running the shop day to day

With WooCommerce, someone has to keep WordPress and every plugin updated, and make sure an update to one doesn't break another. That someone can be you, and if you enjoy it, WooCommerce is a great tool. If it's a person you pay, add their fee to the monthly cost.

Kampe is built so a seller can run everything from a phone. You add products and handle orders in one dashboard, and your store lives on its own kampestore.com link from day one. Pro adds your own domain and a blog on your store. In Uganda most buyers shop on their phones first, which I covered in Uganda's ecommerce is still phone-first.

Kampe vs WooCommerce side by side

When WooCommerce is the better choice

If you already have a WordPress site that ranks on Google and brings in readers, adding WooCommerce keeps all of that in one place. Moving to any new platform means starting your search traffic again, and I wouldn't throw that away.

WooCommerce also wins when you want to change anything you like. You can edit the code and host it wherever you want. If your business needs something unusual, like a custom booking flow, that freedom matters more than convenience.

At a large scale the maths can also favour WooCommerce. It takes no revenue share, so once your sales are big and steady, a flat hosting bill plus your gateway's fee can cost less than a percentage on every sale. I'd run your own numbers once you're selling a lot every month.

What I'd do

If you're starting out and your customers pay with mobile money or cash, start on Kampe Launch, get your first sales, and see what your business actually needs. You can always build a custom WooCommerce site later, when you know exactly what you'd build. Plans and fees are on the pricing page.

Sources

• WooCommerce on WordPress.org, checked 17 October 2026
• WooCommerce pricing, checked 17 October 2026
• WooPayments supported countries, checked 17 October 2026
• Flutterwave for WooCommerce, checked 17 October 2026
• Pesapal official extensions, checked 17 October 2026
• DPO Pay for WooCommerce, checked 17 October 2026
• Pay with MTN MoMo in WooCommerce (third party, not affiliated with MTN), checked 17 October 2026
• WooCommerce cash on delivery, shipping zones and local pickup, checked 17 October 2026
• Kampe pricing, checked 17 October 2026