How to Hide WooCommerce Prices and Add to Cart Until a Customer Logs in (4 Plugins Compared)

If you run a wholesale, B2B, or members-only WooCommerce store, showing a price to every anonymous visitor is not always the right call. This post compares four real plugins that hide WooCommerce prices and the Add to Cart button from guests while still showing them to logged-in or approved customers, the setup most people mean when they search for “WooCommerce catalog mode.” The short version: YITH WooCommerce Catalog Mode is the easiest free way to turn off buying entirely, ELEX WooCommerce Catalog Mode is the simplest free option that also hides the price itself, and CatalogX or Price & Cart Hider for WooCommerce are the two that let you split guests from logged-in customers without paying for an upgrade.

Worth separating two different problems up front. A plain “catalog mode” plugin usually means an on/off switch: either the whole store stops selling, or it does not. A role-based price hider is a different, narrower tool: it keeps selling to some visitors while hiding prices and the Add to Cart button from others, based on whether they are logged in, what role they hold, or which products or categories you pick. Only two of the four plugins below do the second thing for free. The table and sections that follow spell out exactly which.

YITH WooCommerce Catalog Mode

This is the most installed plugin in the comparison, with over 60,000 active installs, and the one worth trying first if all you need is to stop selling. It is built by YITH and listed at wordpress.org/plugins/yith-woocommerce-catalog-mode.

• Price: Free, Premium $79.99/year (single site)
• Requires: WordPress 6.9+, PHP 8.0+
• Last updated: September 30, 2026

The free version does exactly one job well: it removes the Add to Cart button from every product page, shop page, category page, and tag archive, and it hides the Cart and Checkout pages along with any link pointing to them. Turning it on is genuinely two clicks, which is why it has the biggest install base of anything here. It is the right tool for a store going on a stock-taking break, a seasonal closure, or a pre-launch catalog where nobody should be buying yet.

Setup matches the simplicity: activate the plugin, then open the new “Catalog Mode” tab under the YITH menu in your dashboard and switch it on. There is no per-category or per-role configuration screen in the free version because there is no rule system at all, it is store-wide or nothing.

The real limitation, and it catches people searching for exactly this topic, is that the free version does not hide the price. A visitor still sees the number, just without a way to buy. Guest-only or role-based targeting, hiding the price itself, and an inquiry form are all locked behind the $79.99/year Premium tier. If “hide the price” is the actual requirement and not just “disable buying,” the free YITH plugin will not do it on its own.

ELEX WooCommerce Catalog Mode

This is the plugin to reach for if hiding the price itself matters and you do not need role-based rules. It is built by ELEXtensions and listed at wordpress.org/plugins/elex-woocommerce-catalog-mode.

• Price: Free, Premium (Wholesale & Role Based Pricing) from $79/year (single site)
• Requires: WordPress 3.0.1+, PHP 5.6+
• Last updated: September 22, 2026

Where YITH’s free tier leaves the price visible, ELEX’s free tier hides both the price and the Add to Cart button, store-wide, as soon as you activate it. It also lets you replace the Add to Cart button with a custom button of your own, including a link out to a third-party or affiliate page instead of a WooCommerce checkout, which none of the other three plugins here offer for free.

Setup is a plain install-activate-configure flow: upload or install the plugin, activate it from the Plugins menu, then set the options it adds. There is a short setup video on its WordPress.org listing if the settings screen is not self-explanatory.

The honest tradeoff is that the free version has no concept of user roles or guest-versus-logged-in targeting. It is store-wide, the same as YITH’s free tier, just applied to price as well as the buy button. If you need wholesale customers to see real prices while guests see nothing, that specifically requires ELEX’s premium Wholesale & Role Based Pricing version, starting at $79/year for a single site. Its stated minimum requirements (WordPress 3.0.1, PHP 5.6) are unusually old for a plugin that was still updated in September 2026, which suggests a conservative compatibility floor rather than neglect, but it is worth testing on staging regardless.

CatalogX

This is the only plugin in the comparison that handles guest-versus-login gating and ships a request-a-quote form, both for free. It is built by the MultiVendorX team and listed at wordpress.org/plugins/woocommerce-catalog-enquiry under the name CatalogX.

• Price: Free, Pro from $129/year (Individual plan, single site)
• Requires: WordPress 6.4.0+, PHP 8.0+
• Last updated: October 23, 2026

CatalogX’s free tier includes a genuine role-based catalog mode: its own description describes creating “a private store by hiding prices and the add-to-cart button until users log in,” which is the specific behavior most people searching for this topic actually want, at no cost. On top of that, it adds a customizable product enquiry and request-a-quote button, which turns a hidden price into a lead instead of a dead end, and it supports per-variation enquiries on variable products, something none of the other three plugins here do.

Setup happens across two areas in the dashboard: CatalogX > Settings for the overall catalog behavior, and CatalogX > Modules to turn on the Catalog and Enquiry modules separately, since they are built as independent pieces rather than one combined toggle. Each module then has its own settings screen for the specifics (which roles see prices, what the enquiry form asks for, and so on).

The tradeoff is scope. CatalogX is the most feature-dense plugin in this comparison, with multivendor compatibility, bulk order enquiries, and shortcodes built in on top of the core catalog behavior, and that means more settings screens to learn even if you only need the basic guest-versus-login split. It is also the newest-feeling product of the established three, despite being actively maintained, since its focus has visibly broadened from a simple catalog switch toward a fuller B2B toolkit.

Price & Cart Hider for WooCommerce

This is the smallest and newest-to-the-market plugin in the comparison, and the lightest option if you want guest-versus-wholesale rules without anything else attached. It is built by VerseSofts and listed at wordpress.org/plugins/price-cart-hider-for-woocommerce.

• Price: Free, PRO from $29/year
• Requires: WordPress 5.6+, PHP 7.4+
• Last updated: April 19, 2026

Its free tier is built around rules rather than a single on/off switch: you can hide prices and the Add to Cart button by product, category, or tag, and its own description specifically calls out hiding standard retail prices from guest users while still showing them to logged-in wholesale customers, with custom replacement text like “Login to View Price” in place of the number. That is role-based gating in the free version, the same core behavior CatalogX offers, just without an enquiry form bundled in.

Setup is a short, direct path: install and activate it from the Plugins screen, then go to WooCommerce > Price & Cart Hider to build your visibility rules by product, category, or tag. There is no separate module system to configure first, which is part of why it stays lightweight.

The plugin is genuinely newer and smaller than the other three here, with around 200 active installs and a single public rating at the time of writing, against YITH’s 60,000-plus. Its WordPress.org listing also has not been updated since April 2026, a few months longer between updates than the others in this comparison. The rule logic is the right shape for the job, but there is a much shorter track record behind it, so test it on staging before putting it in front of real wholesale customers.

How to Pick

1. If you just need to stop selling temporarily (stock-taking, a seasonal break, pre-launch) and do not care whether the price is still visible, use YITH WooCommerce Catalog Mode for free.
2. If you want the price itself gone along with the buy button, store-wide, with no role logic required, use ELEX WooCommerce Catalog Mode for free.
3. If you need guests to see nothing while logged-in or wholesale customers see real prices, and you also want a built-in request-a-quote form, use CatalogX.
4. If you need that same guest-versus-wholesale split but want the lightest possible plugin with no extra modules, use Price & Cart Hider for WooCommerce, keeping in mind its smaller track record.
5. If what you actually need is different prices for different roles rather than hidden prices, that is a separate problem; see our comparison of WooCommerce role-based pricing plugins instead.

FAQ

Does hiding WooCommerce prices hurt my SEO or Google Shopping feed?
It can. Google’s product rich results expect a price in your schema.org markup, and a Google Shopping feed needs a real price for every listed product. If you hide prices for guests but keep selling to logged-in or wholesale customers, check what your SEO plugin and product feed actually output, since showing “no price” to Googlebot (which crawls as a guest) can pull products out of rich results entirely.

Can I hide prices from guests but show them to logged-in wholesale customers, for free?
Yes, with CatalogX or Price & Cart Hider for WooCommerce. Both have this role-based split in their free tiers. YITH and ELEX’s free tiers are store-wide only; the guest-versus-role split on either of those requires their paid upgrades.

Will hiding the Add to Cart button also hide the Cart and Checkout pages?
Only YITH explicitly hides the Cart and Checkout pages and any links to them in its free tier. The other three focus on the product page and shop listings; if a customer already has a direct link to your checkout page, test that it behaves the way you expect before relying on any of these four alone to fully lock down purchasing.

Can I apply catalog mode to just one category instead of the whole store, for free?
Not with YITH or ELEX’s free tiers, both are store-wide switches. CatalogX and Price & Cart Hider for WooCommerce both support targeting specific categories, tags, or products in their free versions.

Do any of these include a request-a-quote or contact form built in?
Only CatalogX does, for free, with per-variation enquiry support on variable products. The other three just hide the price and button; if you need a quote workflow with any of them, pair it with a dedicated plugin like the ones in our WooCommerce request-a-quote comparison.

None of ConicPlex’s own plugins touch pricing visibility or catalog mode, so this comparison does not include one. If your store needs role-based gating tied to a custom CRM, a specific wholesale pricing engine, or an approval workflow before an account can see prices at all, that goes beyond what any of these four plugins are built for, and our WooCommerce development team builds that directly. Our plugin development service covers it too if you would rather own a custom plugin outright.

If replacing the price with a simple “Call for Price” message is closer to what you need than full guest-versus-login gating, we covered that narrower case in How to Show Call for Price Instead of Add to Cart in WooCommerce.

Sources

• YITH WooCommerce Catalog Mode (WordPress.org)
• YITH WooCommerce Catalog Mode Premium pricing (YITH)
• ELEX WooCommerce Catalog Mode (WordPress.org)
• ELEX WooCommerce Catalog Mode, Wholesale & Role Based Pricing (ELEXtensions)
• CatalogX (WordPress.org)
• CatalogX Pro pricing (CatalogX)
• Price & Cart Hider for WooCommerce (WordPress.org)
• Price & Cart Hider PRO pricing (WooCommerce.com)