15 years of WordPress stores taught me everything that's broken. EmDash gave me a reason to fix it. TypeScript. Sandboxed. Zero bloat. Sub-second pages.
Every WP store owner knows these numbers. They just accepted them as normal. They're not.
Your store is only as secure as the least-maintained plugin in your stack. One exploit = your customers' data.
Subscriptions, memberships, advanced shipping, product bundles — each one a separate paid plugin. Every year.
40 HTTP requests to show a product grid. jQuery, cart fragments, 15 plugin scripts fighting for the DOM.
Meta tables querying meta tables. The "slow query" is a feature, not a bug. It's architectural debt from 2011.
$10K/month in sales = $190/month in fees. They solved the bloat by taking a cut of every sale.
Every WordPress ecommerce plugin — WooCommerce, SureCart, FluentCart, EDD — runs on PHP. It's 2026.
Every competitor is still building on WordPress. We started fresh.
| —Emcommerce | WooCommerce | SureCart | FluentCart | Shopify | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Foundation | EmDash + Astro | WordPress + PHP | WordPress + PHP | WordPress + PHP | Proprietary SaaS |
| Transaction fees | 0% | 0% (gateway only) | 1.9% free tier | 0% | 0.5–2% |
| Annual cost | Free core | $500–$1,500+ | $179–$499 | $199+ | $468–$4,788 |
| JavaScript shipped | 0 KB default | 300+ KB | External scripts | ~60 KB | 200+ KB |
| Plugin security | Sandboxed isolates | Full DB access | Cloud-hosted | Full DB access | App review |
| Subscriptions | Built in | $239/yr extension | Built in | Built in | Built in |
| Digital delivery | Built in | Basic / use EDD | Built in | Built in | Via app |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes | Cloud dependency | Yes | No |
| AI-native | MCP + CLI | No | No | No | Sidekick (limited) |
| Language | TypeScript | PHP | PHP | PHP | Ruby / Liquid |
Built on EmDash and Astro. Every decision informed by 15 years of building WordPress stores.
Product pages are static HTML. The cart hydrates as an island only when a customer interacts. Sub-second loads on every page, every time.
Each plugin runs in its own isolated Worker. A capability manifest declares exactly what it can access. No more "one plugin compromises everything."
Products, orders, customers — all stored as typed EmDash collections. No 50-table nightmare. Clean data, fast queries, exportable.
Subscriptions, digital delivery, coupons, inventory, variants, tax calculation — built in. Not paywalled behind $200/year extensions.
Built-in MCP server means Claude, Cursor, or any agent can create products, manage orders, and configure your store programmatically.
Runs on Cloudflare's global network. Scales to zero when idle, scales to millions when you launch. No more "will my hosting handle the sale?"
export default () => definePlugin({
id: "emcommerce",
version: "0.1.0",
capabilities: [
"read:content", // Access product data
"write:content", // Create orders
"admin:ui", // Dashboard widgets
"email:send", // Order confirmations
"network:fetch", // Stripe API
"cron:schedule", // Abandoned cart recovery
],
// That's it. No database access. No filesystem.
// No way to compromise your site.
});
Transparent milestones. Real deliverables. No vaporware.
Products, cart, Stripe checkout, order management, admin dashboard. A real, working store you can install on EmDash and start selling with.
Kickstarter deliverableProduct variants, categories, coupons, tax calculation, shipping zones, email notifications, Mautic CRM integration.
Q3 2026Secure digital product delivery (ebooks, software), AI-native features via MCP, analytics dashboard, deep marketing automation.
Q4 2026Payment gateway API, theme component system, hook system for third-party extensions, documentation site, EmDash marketplace listing.
2027Lock in founder pricing, beta access, and launch-day rewards — before we go live on Kickstarter.
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