A 'Related Categories' section on every product page.
WooCommerce ships with 'Related products'. It doesn't ship with related categories. This plugin adds one, auto-relates by siblings, parents, or children, and lets you override per product, tag, or custom taxonomy. $39.99/yr or $119 once.
Out of the box, WooCommerce only shows related products, never related categories. The moment a shopper wants to step up a level (other shoe categories, the parent department, sibling collections), the trail ends at the product page and the cart abandons.
Native 'Related products' shows 4 more items from the same category. There is no way for the shopper to jump sideways into Hiking Boots or up into Footwear without using the menu, which most don't.
The default WooCommerce 'Product categories' widget dumps the entire tree into the sidebar. Shoppers viewing a trail shoe don't care about Hydration or Lighting; they want the 3 categories near the one they're looking at.
Pasting category links into every product description means slug changes turn into 404s. A real 'Related Categories' section follows the live taxonomy, so renames and merges don't break shopper navigation.
The plugin does four jobs: relate by siblings, parents, or children (or manual override), place the section at the right spot on product or archive pages, style via columns, sort, images, and custom templates, and cache the output so it costs nothing on the frontend.
Pick globally, or stack multiple modes (e.g. siblings + grandchildren) for deeper trees. Modes apply per relationship type.
Each override beats the global rule for that single item. No code, no shortcodes - just a picker on the edit screen.
Override the default card markup with your own HTML + a glue string. %is_active% adds a class to the current category on archives.
'Always show first' pins the current category to slot 1 on archives, so shoppers always see where they are before what's near it.
Upload the .zip from Plugins → Add New, then activate. Free version available on WordPress.org.
WooCommerce → Settings → Related Categories. Default 'siblings' covers most stores. Stack 'parents' or 'children' for deeper category trees.
Choose one of the 5 product-page slots (after summary is most common). On archive pages, pick from 4 slots or use the widget.
For featured products or seasonal collections, open the product / category / tag edit screen and pick a custom set of related categories. Overrides beat the global rule.
WooCommerce native · free |
WPC Custom Related Products from $49 · related products only |
Booster for WooCommerce from $99/yr · suite |
WPFactory $39.99/yr · $119 once |
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|---|---|---|---|---|
| core: related categories on the page | ||||
| Dedicated 'Related Categories' section | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✓ |
| Auto-relate by siblings | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✓ |
| Auto-relate by parents / children | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✓ |
| Grandparents / top-level / grandchildren modes | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✓ |
| override scope | ||||
| Manual override per product | ✕ | ✓ | not specified | ✓ |
| Manual override per category | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✓ |
| Manual override per tag | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✓ |
| Manual override per custom taxonomy | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✓ |
| placement | ||||
| Position presets on product page | ✕ | 1 slot | not specified | ✓ 5 slots |
| Position presets on shop / archive | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✓ 4 slots |
| Sidebar widget | cat list only | ✕ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Shortcode for page builders | ✕ | ✕ | ✓ | ✓ |
| layout & styling | ||||
| Columns, count, sort order | ✕ | limited | ✓ | ✓ |
| Custom HTML template with placeholders | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✓ incl. %is_active% |
| Image size + placeholder image | ✕ | ✕ | ✓ | ✓ |
| 'Always show current category first' | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✓ |
| extras | ||||
| Hide native 'Related products' toggle | - | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Transient caching (per-product / per-archive) | - | not specified | not specified | ✓ |
| WPML & Polylang ready | - | not specified | ✓ | ✓ |
| HPOS-ready | - | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| pricing & ownership | ||||
| Free version on .org | - | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Lifetime tier | - | ✕ | ✕ | ✓ $119 unlimited sites |
| Multi-store licensing | - | 1 site | 5 sites | ✓ unlimited sites |
| 10-year cost | $0 | ~$490 | ~$990 | $119 |
| 50+ plugins (All Access) | - | ✕ | ✕ | ✓ $499 |
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Ready to add a 'Related Categories' section? ↓
Jump to pricing
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A trail-running store has 6 footwear categories: Trail, Road, Hiking, Trail Accessories, Casual, Recovery. The plugin auto-relates by siblings, so a shopper viewing a Trail shoe sees the 5 sibling categories under the product summary instead of just 4 more trail shoes.
Pages-per-session up 22%. Bounce-from-PDP down ~14 points after the section went live.
Watercolour pad? Show 'Watercolour Brushes' and 'Watercolour Paints'. Acrylic pad? Show 'Acrylic Brushes' and 'Mediums'. The owner uses per-product override on the 40 best-sellers and lets the global sibling rule cover the rest. Two layers of curation, zero theme code.
Cross-category add-to-carts up 31%. The 40 curated PDPs convert 1.4x the auto-related ones.
A clothing store turns on 'Always show current category first' on archive pages. The shopper landing on /summer-dresses/ sees Summer Dresses pinned to slot 1, then sibling categories (Maxi, Midi, Mini) in the same row. Built-in shop nav, zero theme work.
Category-to-category navigation up 2.1x in GA. The 'all categories' sidebar widget could finally be retired.
Using the plugin? Leave a review on WordPress.org.
"Very useful plugin. It helps manage the display of categories on archives and product pages. Highly recommend this plugin and Tom's seriousness."see review →
"Simple and useful. Great assistance for both plugin improvements and help."see review →
"Great plugin, easy setup. Categories now show alongside related products and shoppers actually explore them."see review →
Every WPFactory plugin ships with the same eight guarantees. Here's what running this one looks like in practice.
Output cached via WordPress transients, scoped per product or per archive. Invalidates only when categories or per-item overrides change. No extra database tables, no AJAX on page load.
Every filter is documented (alg_wc_related_categories_single, alg_wc_related_categories_loop, plus per-output filters). Shortcode attribute reference and custom-template placeholders listed.
See Didier and Sergio's reviews. Tom and the team handle every ticket directly, no bots, no outsourced help desks. Real bug reports become releases within days.
14-day refund on yearly and lifetime, 30 days on All Access, no questions asked. If the auto-relate logic doesn't fit your tree, support helps you tune it; if it still doesn't, you walk away whole.
All Access is $499 once for all 50+ plugins, lifetime, unlimited sites, and it includes every plugin we release later. Three lifetime licenses at $199 already cost $597, so the bundle usually wins by your third plugin.
v2.0.2 shipped recently. Tested against the latest WooCommerce within days of every release. HPOS-ready, PHP 8.3 compatible. Tracks the WC product taxonomy changes so category trees keep rendering correctly.
Compatible with WPML, Polylang, TranslatePress, and every major page builder (Elementor, Bricks, Divi, Gutenberg). Filters exposed at every render step so custom integrations slot in cleanly.
You don't need to know what a custom taxonomy or transient is. Tick a box for 'siblings', pick a position, save. Override one product at a time when you spot a winner.
This is what you see inside WordPress once the plugin is activated.
14-day refund on yearly and lifetime, 30 days on All Access. Lifetime pays for itself by year 3. All Access pays for itself with any 2nd plugin you'd ever use. Yearly auto-renew can be turned off in your account.
Buy once. Owns itself by year 3. Use on every site you own.
This plugin + 49 others, lifetime updates, unlimited sites - for $380 more than Lifetime alone.
%is_active% to highlight the current category on archive pages.[alg_wc_related_categories_single] inside a product page (Elementor, Bricks, Divi, Gutenberg). Use [alg_wc_related_categories_loop] on shop / archive layouts. Both accept attributes for limit, columns, order, and template overrides.Auto-relate by siblings, parents, or children. Override per product, category, tag, or custom taxonomy. 5 product slots + 4 archive slots. Widget + shortcode. Custom HTML templates. Transient cached. WPML/Polylang ready. 200+ stores already running it. 14-day refund if it's not for you.
200+ stores · 5.0★ across 7 reviews · WordPress.org plugin · 14-day refund