If your WooCommerce store feels boxed in by its built-in frontend, going headless is worth a look. It’s possible to separate the backend and frontend of your WooCommerce site, rather than keeping them locked into the same CMS. This way, you can connect your WooCommerce backend to one or more custom frontends.
There are many reasons why eCommerce store owners opt to build headless WooCommerce sites. Some popular reasons include improving their site performance, increasing security, adding more customizability, and getting a shop that can scale with the business.
This article will explain what a headless WooCommerce site is, its main benefits, and ways to build one. We’ll also weigh the pros and cons, compare your two API options, and answer the questions buyers ask most.
What is a Headless WooCommerce Site?
A headless website is one in which the user interface (or the frontend, what users see when they visit your website) is separate from the database (or the backend, the place where you manage your pages and products).
A headless site would allow you to use a custom UI (one that is built using React or any other frontend technologies you prefer) and connect it to your WooCommerce database. Separating your WooCommerce backend and frontend might have many benefits, such as:
- Complete frontend control: A headless WooCommerce setup allows you to keep your entire backend (product catalog, inventory, shopping cart, payment gateways, etc.) while deploying this data on any frontend. This gives you total control over your site’s appearance and performance. Many popular sites do this. For example, Amazon has an online store and a dedicated mobile app. Both these channels display the same information; in this case, products available from a database.
- Improved performance: Standard WooCommerce sites rely on prebuilt themes, plugins, and extensions, which can slow down load times. With a custom frontend, you reduce the need for multiple plugins, enhancing site speed and performance.
- Greater customizability: Standard WooCommerce can be challenging to customize due to reliance on various plugins and themes. A headless approach allows for more flexible design features tailored to your business needs and better customization while avoiding unnecessary resource loading.
- Unified backend for multiple channels: Headless WooCommerce enables connecting a single backend to multiple frontends. This is useful for running multiple eCommerce stores or connecting your backend to mobile or smartwatch apps, providing consistent platform functionality.
- Enhanced security: Separating the frontend from the backend makes it harder for attackers to breach your site, as the admin panel is more difficult to locate.
Before you build, it helps to know whether headless is the right call and which tools fit your store. Building a headless WooCommerce site involves separating the frontend from the backend and allowing them to communicate via an API. Then, you need to fetch data from the WooCommerce backend and display it in your UI components.
You can do this with the REST API or GraphQL, which we compare below.
Is headless WooCommerce right for you?
Headless WooCommerce suits stores that want a custom, high-speed frontend and have the budget and developer support to run two systems. It’s a strong fit for some shops and overkill for others, so weigh both sides first.
It’s usually a good fit when:
- You want full control over design and speed, beyond what themes and page builders allow.
- You’re publishing to more than one frontend, like a website plus a mobile app.
- Your store is growing, and you want a setup that keeps up with more traffic and products.
- You have a developer, in-house or hired, to build and maintain it.
It’s probably not worth it when:
- You’re happy with a standard WooCommerce theme and want to keep costs low.
- You don’t have developer support for two connected systems.
- You rely on page builders or plugins that only work on a normal WooCommerce frontend.
- You’d rather not take on the extra SEO and checkout setup a custom frontend needs.
The trade-off is simple. You gain speed and design freedom, but you take on more complexity, higher upfront cost, and ongoing upkeep of a decoupled build.
REST API or GraphQL: which should you use?
Use the REST API for simpler, straightforward stores, and GraphQL when you need flexible queries for complex, app-like frontends. Both decouple WooCommerce, but they pull data differently.
The REST API is built into WooCommerce and WordPress, so there’s nothing extra to install. It’s a solid choice for standard stores, and it returns fixed sets of data from each endpoint. The downside is over-fetching: you often get more fields than you need, which adds up on data-heavy pages.
GraphQL, added through the WPGraphQL plugin and its WooGraphQL extension, lets the frontend ask for exactly the fields it wants in one request. That trims over-fetching and suits interactive storefronts, though it takes more setup and a GraphQL client on the frontend.
Short version: pick REST to keep things simple, and GraphQL when your frontend is complex and query-heavy.
Both methods pair with a modern frontend framework. Popular options include Next.js, Nuxt.js, Astro, and Gatsby, plus ready-made headless starters like WooNuxt, Faust.js, and Blaze Commerce.
Note: All platforms are suggested on merit, and Codeable has no affiliation with them.
How do you build a headless WooCommerce site with the REST API and Next.js?
One way to create a headless CMS (or Content Management System) site (for instance, one built on WooCommerce) is by using the WooCommerce REST API or WordPress REST API. APIs are tools that assist applications in exchanging data; in this case, making your WooCommerce database endlessly reusable and allowing you to connect your store backend with a customized frontend.
WooCommerce provides a REST API that allows you to send information to and from the backend, allowing you to decouple it from the frontend to create a headless digital store. Here’s how you can create a headless WooCommerce site using the REST API:
Step 1: Set up WooCommerce and generate API keys:
- Install and configure WooCommerce on your WordPress site. Make sure permalinks are set to something other than “Plain”.
- Go to WooCommerce > Settings > Advanced > REST API. Click “Add key” and give it a description. Select the user and choose “Read/Write” access. Click “Generate API Key” to create the consumer key and consumer secret.
Step 2: Create the frontend:
- Using Next.js, create a new project using the following command:
npx create-next-app@latest woocommerce-frontendInstall Axios for making API requests:npm install axios
- Create components for products, cart, checkout, etc. Use React hooks like useState and useEffect to work with them.
Step 3: Make API requests:
- Use the WooCommerce REST API endpoints to fetch data. For example, to get a list of products:
import axios from 'axios';const WooCommerce = axios.create({baseURL: 'https://example.com/wp-json/wc/v3',auth: {username: 'consumer_key',password: 'consumer_secret'}});// Fetch productsWooCommerce.get('/products').then(response => {console.log(response.data);}).catch(error => {console.log(error);});
- Display the retrieved data in the respective React components. Use the map function to render lists.
Step 4: User authentication and session management
- Implement user registration and login using the WooCommerce REST API’s authentication endpoints.
- Store user tokens securely on the frontend, such as in localStorage or cookies.
- Include the user token in the headers of authenticated requests:
WooCommerce.get('/orders', {headers: {'Authorization': `Bearer ${userToken}`}})
- Implement logout functionality by removing the stored token.
💡 These REST API implementations require solid technical knowledge to execute properly. If you’re not comfortable handling API development and authentication yourself, hiring an experienced API developer can ensure your headless setup works flawlessly.
How do you build a headless WooCommerce site with GraphQL?
GraphQL provides a more flexible approach to working with APIs. WordPress currently doesn’t support it natively, but you can use the WPGraphQL plugin and its WooGraphQL extension to decouple the frontend from the backend. Follow these steps to create a headless WooCommerce site using GraphQL:
Step 1: Install necessary tools
Install and activate the WPGraphQL and WooGraphQL plugins on your WordPress site with WooCommerce.
Step 2: Configure plugins
Configure the WooGraphQL settings under GraphQL > Settings in the WordPress admin:
- Enable “Public Introspection” for development
- Check “Cart URL”, “Checkout URL”, and “Account URL” under “Enable User Session transferring URLs”
Step 3: Set up the frontend
Set up your frontend project using a framework like React, Vue, or Angular. Install a GraphQL client like Apollo for the frontend to communicate with the backend.
Step 4: Query the API
Query WooCommerce data using GraphQL. For example, run the following query to retrieve the details of the first 10 products:
query {products(first: 10) {nodes {idnamepricedescription}}}
Step 5: Customize your request
- To add items to cart, update quantities, and checkout, use GraphQL mutations like ‘addToCart’, ‘updateItemQuantities’, and the ‘checkout’ mutation.
- For authenticated requests, include the user’s JWT token in the request headers:
const client = new ApolloClient({uri: 'https://example.com/graphql',request: operation => {operation.setContext({headers: {authorization: `Bearer ${token}`}});}
How do cart and checkout work in headless WooCommerce?
In a headless setup, you either manage the cart on your custom frontend through the API, or hand shoppers off to WooCommerce’s native checkout for payment. This is one of the most important calls in the whole build.
With the frontend approach, your app handles the cart and checkout using REST API calls or GraphQL mutations like [addToCart] and [checkout]. You get full control over the buying flow, but you’re responsible for wiring up payment and keeping it secure.
With the redirect approach, your custom frontend handles browsing and the cart, then sends shoppers to the standard WooCommerce checkout to pay. It’s less work and leans on WooCommerce’s tested payment handling, at the cost of a small break in your custom experience.
For most stores, redirecting to the native checkout is the safer starting point. Full frontend checkout makes sense when a smooth, single-page purchase is worth the extra build and security work.
Where should you host a headless WooCommerce site?
A headless WooCommerce site usually needs two hosts: managed WordPress hosting for the WooCommerce backend, and a Node or edge host for the JavaScript frontend. So yes, you generally need separate hosting for each part.
Your WooCommerce backend runs best on managed WordPress hosting, which handles PHP, the database, updates, and security for you. Kinsta and WP Engine are common picks here. Your frontend, built with a framework like Next.js or Nuxt.js, runs on a host made for JavaScript apps, such as Vercel, Netlify, or Kinsta’s application hosting.
The two talk to each other over the API. Keeping them on hosts suited to each job gives you better speed and simpler maintenance than forcing both onto one server.
Note: These hosts are suggested on merit, regardless of any affiliations Codeable may have.
Build a Headless WooCommerce Site with Codeable
A headless WooCommerce build takes solid frontend and API skills, so many store owners bring in a vetted developer instead of going it alone. That’s a good fit for a platform like Codeable.
Codeable is a WordPress developer hiring platform with a pool of 500+ coders who specialize in different areas of the popular CMS and WooCommerce.
Several of Codeable’s fixed-scope WooCommerce services cover the individual pieces that support the success of your headless project:
- Plugin Configuration: A headless setup starts with the right plugins wired up correctly. This service installs and configures them, integrates them with your existing store, and tests the result – so if you’re going the GraphQL route, your developer gets WPGraphQL and the WooGraphQL extension set up and talking to your backend properly. Priced per site.
- Technical Performance Audit: Speed is one of the main reasons to go headless, and it only pays off if the WooCommerce backend feeding your frontend is fast too. This audit covers page speed, Core Web Vitals, caching, server performance, and your WooCommerce configuration. Flexible pricing.
- WordPress Maintenance: Decoupling the frontend doesn’t remove the WordPress backend – it still needs updates, backups, and security. Plans start at $240/mo and include staged plugin updates, regression testing, daily offsite backups, and dedicated dev time each month.
- Full Store Migration: If you’re moving off Shopify, Wix, Squarespace, or Magento first, this service gets your catalog and data onto a self-owned WooCommerce store – the backend your headless frontend will then plug into.
Not sure which pieces you need? A 1-hour consultation ($69) is the cheapest way to talk it through with an experienced developer and shape your brief before you commit to anything.
For the build itself – a custom frontend wired to your WooCommerce backend – those packages won’t cover the end-to-end work. That’s the project route, and it’s the other way to get a headless site done with Codeable.
They’ll build a custom frontend and wire it to your WooCommerce backend, so you get a fast store without piecing the setup together yourself.
The process is straightforward:
- Submit your project brief
- Within hours, receive interest from 1-5 qualified professionals
- Chat with developers to assess fit and review their previous work
- Choose your ideal match based on expertise, not price
Codeable’s single-estimate model lets you focus on finding the best talent for your project without worrying about price comparisons. Your entire project can be scoped within 24 hours, getting you on the fast track to a cutting-edge headless WooCommerce site. Every project also comes with a 28-day bug-fixing warranty, so you’re covered after launch.
Ready to revolutionize your online store? Submit your project to Codeable now and unlock the full potential of headless WooCommerce without worrying about details!
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that is perfect fit for your WordPress or WooCommerce needs.
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Frequently Asked Questions
How do you handle SEO on a headless WooCommerce site?
A JavaScript frontend can be hard for search engines to read unless you render pages on the server. Frameworks like Next.js and Nuxt.js support server-side rendering and static generation, which send search engines fully built HTML. From there, standard SEO still applies: clean URLs, meta tags, structured data, and fast load times.
Can you integrate payment gateways like Stripe with WooCommerce?
Yes. You can keep using WooCommerce’s payment gateways, including Stripe and PayPal, by sending shoppers to the native WooCommerce checkout. If you build checkout on your own frontend instead, you integrate the gateway’s API directly, which gives more control but adds security responsibilities.
Which frontend framework is best for WooCommerce?
There’s no single best framework, but Next.js is the most common choice for headless WooCommerce. It’s popular because it handles server-side rendering, routing, and performance out of the box, which helps with both speed and SEO. Nuxt.js (for Vue), Astro, and Gatsby are strong alternatives depending on your team’s skills.
Are there ready-made platforms for headless WooCommerce?
Yes. Open-source starters like WooNuxt (Nuxt-based), Faust.js (for WordPress frontends), and Blaze Commerce give you a head start instead of building from scratch. They handle much of the API wiring, so your developer can focus on your store’s look and features.
Note: These tools are suggested on merit, irrespective of Codeable’s affiliations.
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