WooCommerce composite products: how to build your own product [+video]

WooCommerce composite products allow your users to assemble a single configurable product from multiple individual parts. Each part has its own SKU and inventory, so when a customer buys the composite item, stock is automatically deducted for every component they’ve selected.

Typical examples of composite products include build-your-own products like configurable bikes or PCs.

WooCommerce doesn’t allow you to create composite products by default – so in this article we’ll look at how to create composite products using the WooCommerce Product Add-Ons Ultimate plugin.

Tutorial: How to create WooCommerce composite products

In this step by step guide, we’ll look at how to create a composite product where users can configure their own bicycle. Users will be able to select different components like handlebars and wheels – plus the layout will be organized into steps to help guide them through the process.

Out of the box, WooCommerce doesn’t allow you to create a product like this so you’ll need an extra plugin. The WooCommerce Product Add-Ons Ultimate plugin provides all the extra functionality you need – allowing you to create all kinds of configurable products where you can track each components’ inventory, dynamically update the overall product price, and accurately set shipping costs.

Here’s a screenshot of our demo product.

You can see the working demo product here.

Let’s take a look at how to build a composite product like this.

Step #1: Install WooCommerce Product Add-Ons Ultimate

After you have purchased your copy of Product Add-Ons Ultimate, you can install and activate it by following the simple steps below:

• Download the zip file using the link in your welcome email or direct from your Account page
• Go to Plugins > Add New in your WordPress dashboard
• Click on the ‘Upload Plugin’ button
• Drag and drop the zip file into the ‘Choose File’ area and click ‘Install Now’
• When the plugin has uploaded, just click on the ‘Activate’ button

Once the plugin is activated you can start to create your composite product.

Step #2: Create each component as a product

In our example, the user can select different components for their bike including frame, handlebars, wheels.

First, we create these components as standalone products:

• Go to Products > Add New
• Enter a product name, price, thumbnail image, etc
• Publish the product
• Repeat for each component product – so in our example, we will create products for each bike frame, wheel, handlebar, etc

There’s a fuller guide to adding products in WooCommerce here.

Step #3: Create the build a bike product

Once all your component products are created, it’s time to make the main composite build-a-bike product. Create a new product and give it a title.

In the ‘Product Data’ section, click the ‘Product Add-Ons’ tab and create a new group. Each group will be a different step in the process of building a bike.

Give your group a name. In our example, this group will be for the user to make some selections for the bike frame. You can also add some description to help guide the user.

Now we can add some fields:

1. Click ‘Add Field’
2. Give your field a label, e.g. ‘Frame’
3. Choose ‘Products’ as the field type then click the ‘Products’ tab
4. Enter the products that you previously created in the ‘Child Products’ fields. In this case, you’d be entering the frame products
5. Choose ‘Radio’ in ‘Products Layout’ – this means that the user will only be able to choose one of the frames, not multiple frames
6. Choose ‘One Only’ in ‘Products Quantities’ – this means that the user will only be able to choose a single frame for their bike

Now you can create new groups for each step in the process. In the example product there are steps for Frame, Wheels, Handlebars, Seat and Extra Options.

Step #4: Choose your layout

We’re going for a stepped process in this example. So in the ‘Groups Layout’ field, choose ‘Steps’.

This will give us a layout on the front end like this:

The user can click through the tabs at the top or use ‘Next’ and ‘Previous’ buttons.

Step #5: The finished composite product

When you’ve added all your groups and fields, you’ll end up with a finished product like this:

You can check the demo product out here.

That was a simple tutorial on creating a composite product in WooCommerce. You just need the WooCommerce Product Add-Ons Ultimate plugin.

Now let’s look at some aspects of composite products.

What are some examples of WooCommerce composite products?

WooCommerce composite products are a way of assembling a customized product out of several other products. For example, a gift hamper in which the customer chooses which products are included or a computer in which the user configures all the components – from motherboard to keyboard. Allowing users to configure their own product means they can control costs and pick elements that work best for them.

Composite products are sometimes referred to as kit-builders, kit-building products, or custom product builders. The user builds up the composite product out of multiple sub-products.

As well as the build-a-bike example above, there are many different ways you could introduce composite products in your WooCommerce store. Some examples include:

• Build your own computer
• A gift hamper product
• Meal subscription services
• Food boxes
• Sports equipment like skateboards or surfboards
• Music equipment like drum kits or build your own guitar
• Mix and match products in WooCommerce or Mix and match wine cases
• Create your own cereal product in WooCommerce

When should you use composite products?

Using composite products is ideal if you want to:

• Offer customizable, multi-component products
• Maintain precise inventory control – each component can have its own SKU and you need to avoid overselling
• Access detailed reporting on each element within the main product
• Provide an enhanced and flexible shopping experience to your customers

If your store sells complex products or services that require customer input, or if you want to provide flexible pricing options, where the total price adjusts based on the components chosen by the customers, creating composite products is how you will achieve this.

Composite products also help when you have a more advanced shipping system that requires accurate calculations based on the individual components selected, as each part may have different weights and dimensions.

Composite products are slightly different from customizable products. For example, a custom teeshirt product will allow users to configure options – like entering text and uploading images – but these options don’t need to have trackable stock levels. They’re not parts of the product that could be sold separately – they’re integral and only make sense as part of the main product.

What are the main advantages of composite products? 

Using composite products in WooCommerce provides several key benefits for store owners and customers. 

• It allows store owners to create complex product kits by combining multiple individual items, offering a customizable product experience to the customers. 
• Customers can build their own product packages, choosing the specific items they want, which can enhance the shopping experience and increase satisfaction.
• It makes inventory management easier as each component in the composite product is tracked separately. This feature also allows for more accurate pricing and shipping calculations since the cost and shipping of each individual item are considered.

How are composite products different from grouped products or product bundles?

To fully understand composite products, it’s important to distinguish them from other, similar product types – i.e. grouped products and product bundles.

• Composite products: A single product built from multiple components
• Grouped products: This is a collection of individual products that can be purchased as a group – such as a set of wine glasses.
• Product bundles: These are individual products that are categorically connected and are often purchased together – such as a shampoo and conditioner bundle.

What are the best WooCommerce composite products plugins?

Let’s take a look at the best options for a WooCommerce composite products plugin.

#1: WooCommerce Product Add-Ons Ultimate

As we’ve shown in the tutorial above, WooCommerce Product Add-Ons Ultimate is the perfect choice for creating composite products.

Not only can you use products from your store as components for your composite produdts, you can also add text fields, file uploads, date pickers, and many more types of custom field for greater personalization.

Conditional logic means you can show or hide components based on earlier choices, creating a guided, intuitive experience. And flexible pricing – flat fees, percentages, or formulas – ensures every combination is priced accurately.

Use products as components

A key feature of Product Add-Ons Ultimate is the ‘Products’ field, which lets you use existing WooCommerce products as the components (‘child products‘) of a composite product.

Take the example of a custom PC product that allows the user to choose their own processor, graphics card, and RAM. The customer can build their own PC from one page – the ‘Build Your Own PC’ product page. On this page, they have options to pick the processor they want, the graphics card, the RAM, and so on.

This means you can:

• Track stock levels of component parts
  Using products as your add-ons means that you can track your stock levels. If you only have a limited number of each processor available, having these set up as products means you can track their inventory level. When they’re out of stock, they won’t be available to the customer.
• Assign SKUs to component parts
  Because the add-ons are standard WooCommerce products, you can assign them SKUs.
• Set dynamic weight and dimensions for composite products
  You can also assign weight and dimensions – like length and width – to your components. This means that your composite product will correctly affect shipping costs.
• Hide your child products
  If your components are not available to be purchased separately and can only be bought as part of the composite product, you can choose to hide them. This will prevent those products from appearing in shop archives. But you still get all the benefits above of using real products as add-ons.
• Product categories
  If you like, you can populate each components field using product categories rather than individual products. So if you have multiple products in the ‘Handlebars’ category, you can just specify that category to populate the ‘Handlebars’ field in your composite product with all items in the category. This makes it really quick to add the components to the product and easy to edit or remove them.

You can use either simple or variable products as your child products.

Composite product pricing

Add-Ons Ultimate gives you great flexibility in how you price composite products and how you display that pricing to your customers.

You can price your composite products in several ways:

• Set a single fixed price for the composite product whatever components the user selects
• Create a price based on the combined cost of each element
• Create a price based on the combined cost of each element – but apply fixed or percentage discounts for some or all parts. This means you can apply discounts to products when bought as part of a kit but sell the same item at full price when purchased separately

Composite product price totals and summary panel

Product Add-Ons Ultimate will update the product price dynamically according to the options selected by the user.

You can also display a price summary on the product page, showing the base cost of the product, the combined cost of any selected components, and the combined total. You can edit the labels if you wish, or hide the table and just display the combined total.

Alternatively, you can provide the user with a summary of their selected options in a single panel, where each chosen component is listed clearly alongside its cost.

Conditional logic

Conditional logic is an essential feature of any advanced composite product. Certain components might only be available depending on the customer’s choices. For example, a gift box might be limited to particular products depending on the box size. Conditional logic makes this possible.

Find out more about conditional logic here.

Layout and design

Product Add-Ons Ultimate gives you a huge range of options for how to display your composite products.

Components can be organized into different fields and groups to help customer understand the purchasing process.

Groups can be displayed in a single column, as tabs, in an accordion layout so that users can toggle visibility on and off, or in a stepped layout as in the screenshot below.

You can also choose between different layout options for each component.

You can choose whether to show thumbnail images and/or text, allow the user to select quantity independently of the main product quantity if required, or select one or more components within the same field.

The images below show a couple of examples.

In the layout below, the user can only select one item from the field and the quantity is linked to the main product quantity.

In the layout below, the user can only select multiple components from the same field and choose how many of each item they want.

See this article for more examples of layout.

Further, Add-Ons Ultimate gives you several options for specifying quantities for your components. You can:

• Link the quantity to the main product – so the number of components ordered will always be the same as the quantity of the main item
• Ensure that the component can only be ordered in a quantity of one
• Allow the customer to choose how many of each component they want to add to their composite product
• Allow the customer to choose the component’s quantity – but set minimum and/or maximum quantities

Required fields

Do you need to ensure that some or all components are selected? Add-Ons Ultimate allows you to specify which fields are required.

View composite products in the cart and order

By default, all component products are listed as separate line items in the cart.

However, when you have a lot of components in your composite product, this can make the cart look too cluttered. By checking a couple of options in the settings, you can remove the child products as line items and display them as metadata within the main product – like this:

To achieve this, just go to WooCommerce > Settings > Product Add-Ons > Products and check the following options:

• Hide child products in the cart
• Display child products as metadata

It’s also easy to allow your customers to edit composite products, even after they’ve already added them to the cart.

When a customer purchases a composite product, you’ll receive a standard WooCommerce email itemizing every component.

And in the order screen, you’ll also be able to see each component.

Because the components are products in their own right, stock and inventory levels are adjusted, and the correct weight is calculated for shipping purposes.

#2: Composite Products for WooCommerce by Woo

Composite Products for WooCommerce is the official kit-builder extension from Woo, designed for stores that need to let customers assemble products from a set of existing catalog items. Think custom computers, skateboards, or gift boxes – each with selectable components drawn from your products or categories.

The plugin supports flexible pricing and shipping options, customizable layouts and flows, and conditional logic to control the visibility of components. It also handles advanced inventory management, tracking stock across each individual component.

At $149/year, it’s aimed at complex kit-building scenarios and integrates with several other Woo extensions. However, it doesn’t support custom input fields – there’s no way for customers to enter text, upload files, or provide personalized details. For that kind of flexibility, you’d need an additional plugin.

#3: WPC Composite Products by WPClever

WPC Composite Products is a free plugin from WPClever that takes a similar approach to kit-building, letting you create composite products made up of component parts. It supports AJAX product search, drag-and-drop component ordering, required or optional components, and per-component quantity controls with min/max limits.

A premium upgrade unlocks the ability to use product categories or tags as the source for component options – a feature included as standard in competing plugins. The free version is reasonably capable for basic use cases – though, at the time of writing, there were 0 from 7 support tickets resolved on the plugin’s page on the WordPress repository.

Like Composite Products by Woo, WPC Composite Products is focused purely on component selection. It doesn’t offer custom input fields, conditional logic for fields, or pricing formulas – limiting its usefulness for stores that need true product personalization beyond choosing from a list.

WooCommerce composite products plugins quick comparison

Feature	Product Add-Ons Ultimate	Composite Products (Woo)	WPC Composite Products
Price	From $79/year	$149/year	Free (premium add-ons extra)
Custom input fields	✅ 20+ field types	❌	❌
Use products as options	✅	✅	✅
Conditional logic	✅	✅ Component-level	❌
Price adjustments	✅ Flat, %, formula	✅	✅ Discount % only
File uploads	✅	❌	❌
Text / personalization fields	✅	❌	❌
Calculation / formula pricing	✅	❌	❌
Global (store-wide) field groups	✅	❌	❌

Product Add-Ons Ultimate goes further than either of its main competitors: it combines the ability to use products as selectable options with a full suite of custom input fields, conditional logic, and flexible pricing – all in one plugin.

WooCommerce composite products video

You can check out this video for an overview of many features covered in this article.

WooCommerce composite products – recap

In this article we looked at how to create your own composite product in WooCommerce. We also looked at possible use cases for composite products and the top three composite product plugins.

In order to create your own composite products for your WooCommerce store, all you need is WooCommerce Product Add-Ons Ultimate.

All our plugins are backed by a 14-day money back guarantee so you can try risk-free. They’re compatible with all themes and page-builders – and backed by our world-class support team who can help you with setting up your composite products.