---
title: "Automate WooCommerce Order Statuses: Install and Get Started"
description: "Automate WooCommerce order statuses: install the plugin and create a rule that moves orders from one status to another."
url: "https://wpfactory.com/docs/automate-order-status/"
updated: "2026-09-27"
category: Getting Started
tags:
  - Automated Order Status Controller for WooCommerce
---

# Automate WooCommerce Order Statuses: Install and Get Started

To automate WooCommerce order statuses, install [Scheduled & Automatic Order Status Controller for WooCommerce](https://wpfactory.com/item/order-status-rules-for-woocommerce/) and create a rule that moves an order from one status to another after a set amount of time or when your conditions are met. A typical example: automatically change an order to **Cancelled** when 24 hours have passed since it was set to **Pending payment**.

### What Order Status Rules does

- **Time based triggers:** change a status a set number of seconds, minutes, hours, days or weeks after the order entered its current status. Set the value to 0 for an immediate change.
- **Conditional logic:** restrict a rule by order amount, quantity, payment gateway, shipping method, country, products, categories, tags, stock status, coupons, users, roles, billing emails, order meta and dates.
- **Hands-off processing:** rules run automatically on order status changes and on a schedule (WP Cron or Action Scheduler), so orders progress without manual work.

### Requirements

- WooCommerce, active.
- WordPress 4.4 or newer.

### Install from the WordPress plugin directory (free version)

1. In your WordPress dashboard, go to **Plugins > Add New**.
2. Search for **Order Status Rules for WooCommerce** (published by **WPFactory**).
3. Click **Install Now**, then **Activate**.

### Install the Pro version (manual upload)

1. Buy and download the Pro ZIP from the [Order Status Rules product page](https://wpfactory.com/item/order-status-rules-for-woocommerce/).
2. Go to **Plugins > Add New** and click **Upload Plugin**.
3. Select the ZIP, click **Install Now**, then **Activate**. If the free version is already active, the Pro version takes over automatically.

The free and Pro versions share the same feature set for a single rule. Pro removes the one-rule limit so you can run as many rules as you need. See the difference between the free and Pro versions for the exact boundary.

### Open the settings

After activation, go to **WPFactory > Order Status Rules** (also reachable at **WooCommerce > Settings > Order Status Rules**). The plugin is enabled by default. Start on the **Rule #1** section to build your first rule.

![WPFactory / Order Status Rules settings, General section (no valid hosted screenshot of this plugin is available; the su](https://wpfactory.com/wp-content/uploads/automate-order-status-1.png)

### Ready to automate more than one rule?

Running a single rule is free. [Scheduled & Automatic Order Status Controller for WooCommerce](https://wpfactory.com/item/order-status-rules-for-woocommerce/) Pro lets you create unlimited rules, so you can automate cancellations, completions and every other transition side by side. [See what Pro unlocks](https://wpfactory.com/item/order-status-rules-for-woocommerce/).

Related articles

- [Set the Default and Payment-Gateway Order Statuses](https://wpfactory.com/docs/extra-functionality-overview/)
- [How to Automatically Complete WooCommerce Orders](https://wpfactory.com/docs/woocommerce-auto-complete-orders/)
- [How to Automatically Cancel Unpaid WooCommerce Orders](https://wpfactory.com/docs/woocommerce-auto-cancel-unpaid-orders/)
- [How to Schedule Order Status Changes with Time Triggers](https://wpfactory.com/docs/schedule-order-status-changes-time-triggers/)
- [How to Copy and Reset Order Status Rule Settings](https://wpfactory.com/docs/copy-and-reset-order-status-rule-settings/)

 

[![Automated Order Status Controller for WooCommerce](https://wpfactory.com/wp-content/uploads/Order-Status-Rules-for-WooCommerce.webp)](https://wpfactory.com/item/order-status-rules-for-woocommerce/)