WooCommerce Product Designer Plugin Comparison 2026

Applies to Cmsmart Product Designer (NBDesigner) 2.17.x · Updated October 2026. Facts last checked: October 20, 2026.

In short

  • Fancy Product Designer is a one-time WordPress/WooCommerce plugin purchase that is now in maintenance-only mode on CodeCanyon; Cmsmart Product Designer is an actively updated WooCommerce plugin sold as an annual plan, with a cloud-rendered print-ready PDF and built-in AI tools.
  • Both let a shopper design a product in the browser and add it to a WooCommerce cart. Cmsmart adds a price matrix, an artwork-approval workflow and a cloud renderer that turns every approved design into a print-ready file automatically.
  • Switching is a product-and-template rebuild, not a database import. Budget a short migration project, and use the free migration assessment before you commit either way.

Who should use Cmsmart Product Designer as a Fancy Product Designer alternative?

Cmsmart Product Designer is built for WooCommerce stores that need print-ready output, price-matrix pricing or an approval step before a job goes to press. Fancy Product Designer still works for a simple, one-time-purchase design tool on a store that isn't growing past a single niche.

Both tools serve the same buyer moment: a customer personalizing a product before they pay. Where they differ is what happens after "Add to cart" — pricing logic, proofing, and whether the file your team downloads is actually ready for the press. See the Cmsmart Product Designer plugin page for the full feature list before you compare the two in detail below.

Fancy Product DesignerCmsmart Product Designer
Best forA single WordPress/WooCommerce or Shopify store that wants a one-time purchase and basic layer-based designA WooCommerce store that needs price-matrix pricing, an approval workflow and an automatic print-ready file
Pricing modelOne-time license: $19 regular / $999 extended1Annual plan, billed yearly4
Hosting modelSelf-hosted WordPress plugin2Self-hosted WooCommerce plugin with optional cloud rendering
Standout strengthLow upfront cost, works without WooCommerce via shortcode2Print-ready PDF that matches the order, plus an approved-artwork lock
Main limitationMaintenance-only: no further feature updates; support from the developer has ended1WooCommerce only; no Shopify or standalone option
  • Choose Fancy Product Designer if you want a one-time purchase, don't need price-matrix pricing or an approval workflow, and are comfortable with a plugin that no longer receives feature updates.
  • Choose Cmsmart Product Designer if you want an actively updated plugin with price-matrix pricing, an automatic print-ready PDF and an artwork-approval lock built in.
  • Choose neither if you need a platform other than WordPress/WooCommerce as your primary store — look at a platform-native tool instead.

What does it cost you to keep running an unsupported product design plugin?

Every order a print shop quotes by hand, every proof emailed back and forth, and every file a plugin's vendor won't patch is a cost Cmsmart Product Designer is built to remove. Fancy Product Designer's own listing now says ongoing support from the developer has ended.

The familiar pains of a growing web-to-print store are rarely about the design canvas itself: manual price quoting for every custom size, proofs that go back and forth by email before a job is approved, reprints caused by a low-resolution upload that nobody caught, and an order queue where nobody is sure which file is actually print-ready. Those costs compound as order volume grows, even when the plugin that started the store still "works." See Cmsmart's web-to-print solutions hub for how the pieces — storefront, designer, pricing and production — fit together.

Fancy Product Designer adds a specific version of that risk. Its CodeCanyon listing states the item is in maintenance-only status, with no further feature updates and no vendor support1. Security researchers reported two critical, unauthenticated vulnerabilities in the plugin — an arbitrary file upload (CVE-2024-51919) and a SQL injection (CVE-2024-51818) — disclosed in March 2024 and still unpatched as of a January 2025 report, after the vendor did not respond to the disclosure3. That doesn't mean every install is actively exploited, but it is a real, documented cost of staying on a plugin that is no longer patched.

What would a modern, supported design-to-production flow look like?

Cmsmart Product Designer pipes every order through designer, approval, render and delivery, so the file your production team downloads is the same one the cloud renderer already certified — no separate export step, no guessing.

Example scenario: A buyer opens your store at 10pm, picks a template, adds their own photo and text, and checks out. By the time your team logs in the next morning, the order already shows a print-ready PDF, and the only decision left is Accept or Decline on the artwork.

That flow depends on three things working together: a price that updates live as the buyer changes size or material, a render pipeline that produces the same file for the automatic export and the manual "Create PDF" button, and an approval step that locks the file once your team signs off on it.

WooCommerce product page running Cmsmart Product Designer with a Start and upload design button
A WooCommerce product page with Cmsmart Product Designer's "Start and upload design" entry point, captured on the live demo store.

How we scored this WooCommerce product designer plugin comparison

We scored both products on nine weighted criteria using only evidence we could cite: each vendor's own listing or product pages, the Cmsmart 2.17.0 changelog, and screenshots from the live Cmsmart demo store, tested October 2026.

We weight each criterion out of 100 points: design editor and product types 20 points, print-ready output quality 15 points, pricing and quote flexibility 10 points, B2B/ordering features 10 points, AI features 10 points, performance and hosting model 10 points, integrations/API 10 points, total cost 10 points, support and documentation 5 points. Where evidence was missing for either product, we marked it "not verified" in the table below rather than guess. Test environment: WooCommerce 10.x on the Cmsmart demo store (nbdesigner.cmsmart.net), Cmsmart Product Designer 2.17.x; Fancy Product Designer evaluated from its official CodeCanyon and product pages, since it is not installed on our demo store.

How does Cmsmart Product Designer's architecture compare, feature by feature?

Cmsmart Product Designer adds a price-matrix pricing engine, a print-ready render pipeline and an artwork-approval step on top of the same kind of layer-based editor Fancy Product Designer offers, so the comparison below focuses on what happens before and after the design step.

Cmsmart Product Designer online editor with templates, text and layer tools open on a WooCommerce product
The Cmsmart Product Designer online editor: templates, text, cliparts and a layer panel, captured on the live demo store.
CapabilityFancy Product DesignerCmsmart Product Designer
Design editorLayer-based canvas: text, clip art, image upload, curved text, QR codes2Layer-based canvas: templates, text, photos, cliparts, QR codes, per-product bleed and safe zone
Hosting & platformSelf-hosted WordPress plugin; separate Shopify app2Self-hosted WooCommerce plugin, optional Cmsmart Cloud rendering
Product typesApparel, paper products, merchandise, phone cases, neon signs, engraving2Any WooCommerce product defined as one or more print areas: business cards, flyers, posters, stickers, apparel, mugs, phone cases, bags and more
Templates & clipartBuilt-in designs plus unlimited customer uploads2Per-product templates and a global template store, with brand layers that can be locked from editing or deletion
Pricing optionsDynamic pricing by layer, material or colour2; no documented price-matrix or quantity-break builderPrice matrix, quantity breaks, area and turnaround pricing, recalculated live on the product page
Product/component builderNot part of the core pluginComponent, text and image fields let a buyer configure a multi-part product with a live total
File upload controlsCustomer upload supported; a watermark can be applied to unpaid downloads2Per-product upload with allowed file types, file count, size limits and a minimum DPI
Print-ready outputNot documented as an automatic print-ready export; relies on the store's own file handlingAutomatic print-ready PDF on Process, matching the order's own size since version 2.17.0; PNG, SVG and CMYK JPG with an ICC profile also available
Artwork approvalNot part of the core pluginCustomer Design box on the order to accept or decline artwork; approved artwork is locked on the server since 2.17.0
AI toolsNot in the core plugin; add-on AI tools are sold separately by the developerAI Preflight, AI Background Remover and AI Image Upscale, with an admin switch for who may use them
IntegrationsWooCommerce, a separate Shopify app, Gravity Forms, WPML2WooCommerce, HPOS-aware order screens, Cmsmart Cloud rendering and storage
Support & update cadenceMaintenance-only: no further feature updates; support from the developer has ended1Active changelog; version 2.17.0 shipped October 2026
Licensing / pricing modelOne-time license, $19 regular / $999 extended1Annual plan billed yearly, tiered by store size4
Marketplace reputation23,480+ sales, rated 4.46 from 819 reviews on CodeCanyon16,300+ client projects since 2012 across the Cmsmart/Netbase portfolio, 4.2 on Trustpilot from 404 reviews6

Cmsmart insight: the feature that print shops ask us about most isn't the editor — it's whether the PDF that lands on the order is actually the file that goes to press. Before 2.17.0, a custom-size product's automatic export could use the template's size instead of the buyer's own dimensions; check that your renderer and your "Create PDF" button produce the same page geometry before you trust either one.

Cmsmart order screen showing a Ready print-ready PDF rendered by the cloud renderer
An order's Create PDF tab: the print-ready PDF status, rendered by Cmsmart Cloud, with a Regenerate button.
Cmsmart Printing Options admin list, the pricing engine in this WooCommerce product designer plugin comparison
Cmsmart's Printing Options admin list, where price-matrix and quantity-break rules are built per product.

Where Fancy Product Designer Wins

Fancy Product Designer's one-time license costs less upfront than any Cmsmart plan, and the same editor can be dropped into a page without WooCommerce at all — a real advantage for a simple, single-purpose store.

To be fair to the product being compared: a $19-$99 one-time license is cheaper up front than an annual plan for a store that only needs a handful of customizable products1. The shortcode-based editor works outside WooCommerce entirely, and a separate Shopify app exists if a merchant runs both platforms2. With 23,480+ sales and 819 reviews averaging 4.46 out of 5, it is a mature, widely used tool with a large base of existing installs1.

Where Cmsmart Product Designer Wins

Cmsmart Product Designer wins on production control: a price matrix that replaces manual quoting, a print-ready PDF that matches the order, an approved-artwork lock, and AI tools built into the same plugin instead of sold as a separate add-on.

Three named capabilities carry most of this advantage. The print-ready PDF that matches the order means the automatic export, the cloud renderer and the manual Create PDF button all read the same page geometry, including a buyer's own custom width and height since version 2.17.0 — see the full print-ready PDF walkthrough for the settings involved. The approved-artwork lock means that once your team accepts a design on the order, saving over it is refused — a reopened design can no longer silently change the file that goes to the press. And Cmsmart Cloud brings AI Preflight, Background Remover and Image Upscale into the same admin screen where you already manage orders, instead of a separate subscription with a separate login.

Cmsmart Customer Design box on a WooCommerce order with Accept, Decline and Download all options
The Customer Design box on an order: accept or decline artwork, then notify the customer with a reason.

On the admin side, AI Preflight scans a saved design for resolution, colour mode, bleed, fonts and transparency issues, with an auto-fix available per issue. In the storefront design tool itself, the only automatic nudge a buyer sees is a suggestion to upscale a low-resolution image they uploaded — the deeper bleed and colour checks stay on the production side, where your team controls them.

Cmsmart Cloud AI Tools settings with Preflight, Background Remover and Image Upscale toggles
Cmsmart Cloud → AI Tools: Preflight, Background Remover and Image Upscale, each with its own on/off switch.

Fancy Product Designer vs Cmsmart Product Designer: pricing, TCO and ROI

Fancy Product Designer costs a one-time $19-$999 license1 plus whatever your team spends rebuilding the pricing and approval logic it doesn't have; Cmsmart Product Designer costs an annual plan with that logic already built in.

Fancy Product Designer's CodeCanyon listing prices a Regular License at $19 and an Extended License (for products end users are charged for) at $9991; Envato quality-checks the listing and includes future updates, though ongoing support from the developer has ended1. Cmsmart Product Designer's current plans are billed annually: Premium, Fullstore, B2B and Marketplace, each with no separate per-order fee, with the annual total varying by plan and store size, per the official pricing page4. Plans may change; both prices above were accessed October 20, 2026, so re-check the official page before you budget. If your pricing logic is more complex than either plugin's built-in rules, Cmsmart's pricing engine development service scopes a custom rule set instead.

Rough total cost of ownership (TCO)

Total cost ≈ licence or plan fee + (hours spent rebuilding option sets, templates and approval steps × your team's hourly rate) + (manual proofing minutes per order × orders per month, every month). Fancy Product Designer's cost sits mostly in the licence fee and the time your team spends building what the plugin doesn't do out of the box; Cmsmart Product Designer's cost sits in the annual plan fee plus any custom development you add on top4.

Example inputs (illustrative, not a quote): 40 orders a month, 10 minutes of manual proofing saved per order, and a staff cost of 25 dollars an hour. At those inputs, an automatic print-ready file saves roughly 40 orders × 10 minutes = 400 minutes, or about 6.7 hours of staff time a month — run your own order volume and hourly rate through the same formula before you compare it to either plan's price.

How do you migrate from Fancy Product Designer to Cmsmart Product Designer?

Migrating means rebuilding your product, pricing and template setup inside Cmsmart Product Designer — WooCommerce products and past orders stay where they are, but the designer configuration itself doesn't transfer automatically.

What moves and what doesn't:

  • WooCommerce products, categories and past orders stay exactly where they are; only the designer configuration needs rebuilding.
  • Price rules, option sets and quantity breaks must be recreated in Cmsmart's Printing Options — they don't import automatically from another plugin.
  • Templates and clipart are plugin-specific, so they need to be rebuilt or re-uploaded into the new editor.
  • Past orders and any files customers already uploaded stay wherever WooCommerce stored them; only new orders run through the new designer and approval flow.
  • Plan a short overlap where you test the new flow end to end — a design, an order, an approval and a print-ready PDF — before you retire the old plugin.

Cmsmart runs a free written migration assessment before any commitment, scoping exactly what needs rebuilding for your specific catalogue; see the Fancy Product Designer migration service for details.

How do you set up Cmsmart Product Designer on your WooCommerce store?

Setting up Cmsmart Product Designer means installing the plugin, turning on the designer per product, building your price rules, and switching on cloud rendering so every approved design produces a print-ready file automatically.

  1. Install the Cmsmart Product Designer plugin on WooCommerce and activate your licence key from Cmsmart → License.
  2. Import starter products from Cmsmart → Import Products, or turn on the designer for your own existing WooCommerce products.
  3. Set each product's print areas, bleed and safe zone in the online designer settings.
  4. Build your price rules under Cmsmart → Printing Options: a price matrix, quantity breaks, or area and turnaround pricing.
  5. Add templates per product, or pick from the global template store, and lock the brand layers customers shouldn't edit.
  6. In Settings → Output, turn on "Render print PDFs in the cloud" so approved designs produce a print-ready PDF automatically.
  7. Open Cmsmart Cloud → AI Tools and choose who may use AI in the design tool, if anyone — Everyone, Members only, or customers who have already ordered.
  8. Place a test order, then use the order's Customer Design box to accept or decline the artwork and confirm the print-ready PDF downloads correctly.

Cmsmart insight: in migration projects, the slowest step is almost never installing the plugin — it's recreating price rules so the price matrix matches what customers saw on the old store. Export your current product list and pricing logic before you start, so nothing gets rebuilt from memory.

Which store profile fits which tool?

A store's size, pricing complexity and need for an approval step point to one tool or the other far more reliably than feature lists alone — here are three common profiles and which one we'd recommend for each.

Example scenario: A print shop with roughly 200 SKUs and a part-time developer currently calculates custom sizes by hand. Best for: Cmsmart Product Designer, because the price matrix and quantity breaks remove the manual quoting step entirely.

Example scenario: A small hobby store with five products has no plans to grow past a single niche and just needs a cart-connected editor. Best for: Fancy Product Designer's one-time licence, as long as the unpatched security reports are an acceptable risk for that store's size.

Example scenario: A B2B printer wants nothing sent to press without a sign-off step, and wants that sign-off visible on the order itself. Best for: Cmsmart Product Designer, because the Customer Design box and the approved-artwork lock are built into the core plugin.

What can Cmsmart build beyond both plugins' core features?

Neither plugin ships a 3D configurator, ERP price sync or a multi-step B2B approval chain out of the box — Cmsmart builds these as custom development on top of Cmsmart Product Designer when a store's workflow needs more than either core plugin offers.

A handful of requests come up often enough in our project queue to name specifically:

  • 3D product configurators. Neither core plugin renders a live 3D preview; Cmsmart builds 3D configurators as custom development when a product line calls for it.
  • ERP and customer-group pricing. Price lists per company or per customer group, and syncing prices from an ERP, are scoped and quoted as custom development on top of the Printing Options engine.
  • Multi-step B2B approval chains. The built-in Customer Design box handles a single accept/decline step; approval chains, reviewer comments and full B2B portals are custom development.
  • Production system integrations. Pushing print-ready files straight to a hot folder, an MIS or a RIP is custom development, scoped after a short discovery call.
  • Private, login-only B2B storefronts. A company-specific catalogue with its own products, prices and branding is built as custom development, using Cmsmart Product Designer for the design, pricing and approval layer underneath.

Cmsmart's delivery model runs discovery, solution design, sprints, QA and launch, with ongoing support after — see how Cmsmart runs ecommerce projects for the full process.

Get a custom pricing and approval-flow quote

Why work with Cmsmart for this migration?

Cmsmart has operated as a Netbase JSC division since 2012, delivering 6,300+ client projects and running 1,800+ live stores today, with a 4.2 rating from 404 reviews on Trustpilot.

Cmsmart Product Designer is built and supported by the same team that runs Cmsmart's broader ecommerce and web-to-print projects — 6,300+ client projects and 4,600+ projects delivered since 2012, with 500+ of those being custom development work rather than off-the-shelf installs. One verified Trustpilot reviewer, a web developer in the UK, wrote: "We have had the NB Designer plugin installed for three years and have experienced absolutely no problems during that time. It is wonderful to see their commitment to continuous development" (full review on Trustpilot).

Talk to the Cmsmart Product Designer team

Frequently asked questions

Is Cmsmart Product Designer a true Fancy Product Designer alternative for WooCommerce?

Yes, for WooCommerce stores specifically. Both let a customer design a product in the browser and check out through WooCommerce; Cmsmart adds price-matrix pricing, an artwork-approval step and an automatic print-ready PDF that Fancy Product Designer's core plugin doesn't document. If you're weighing a non-WooCommerce-only option too, our Zakeke vs Cmsmart Product Designer comparison covers a multi-platform subscription tool on the same criteria.

Does Fancy Product Designer still receive updates?

Its CodeCanyon listing states the item is in maintenance-only status: it remains functional, but no further feature updates or new versions are planned, and ongoing support from the developer has ended (source, accessed October 20, 2026).

What does Cmsmart Product Designer cost compared with Fancy Product Designer?

Fancy Product Designer is a one-time licence (Regular or Extended); Cmsmart Product Designer is an annual plan with several tiers. See the pricing and TCO section above for both, with sources and an access date.

Can I keep my Fancy Product Designer templates when I switch?

Not automatically. Templates, clipart and price rules are specific to each plugin, so they need to be rebuilt in Cmsmart Product Designer — see the migration path above for what moves and what doesn't.

Does Cmsmart Product Designer include AI tools?

Yes. AI Preflight, Background Remover and Image Upscale are built into the Cmsmart Cloud admin screen, with a master switch and an audience setting for who may use them in the storefront.

Who owns the data and files in each plugin?

Both are self-hosted plugins on your own WordPress/WooCommerce install, so your product, order and design data stays on your own server and database in either case.

Sources and revision log

Every price, rating and status claim about Fancy Product Designer or Cmsmart Product Designer in this guide links to its official source, so you — or an AI assistant citing this page — can check the number yourself.

  1. CodeCanyon — "Fancy Product Designer | WooCommerce WordPress" item listing (pricing, sales, rating, maintenance status, last update): codecanyon.net, accessed October 20, 2026.
  2. Radykal — Fancy Product Designer official WordPress product page (product types, integrations, hosting model): fancyproductdesigner.com, accessed October 20, 2026.
  3. BleepingComputer — report on two unpatched critical vulnerabilities in Fancy Product Designer: bleepingcomputer.com, accessed October 20, 2026.
  4. Cmsmart — official pricing page (plan names, prices, billing terms): cmsmart.net/pricing, accessed October 20, 2026.
  5. Mordor Intelligence — Web-to-Print Market report (market size and growth forecast): mordorintelligence.com, accessed October 20, 2026.
  6. Trustpilot — Cmsmart company review profile: trustpilot.com, accessed October 20, 2026.

Revision log: published October 2026 as a full rewrite under 29-STANDARD and 35-STANDARD, replacing a 2017 multi-tool roundup that previously lived at this URL. The web-to-print software market is forecast to grow from $27.92 billion in 2026 to $36.38 billion by 2031, a 5.43% CAGR, according to Mordor Intelligence5 (accessed October 20, 2026) — one reason more print shops are comparing tools like these two in the first place. Plans may change after this date; re-check the official pages above before you budget.

Fancy Product Designer is a trademark of its respective owner and is not affiliated with Cmsmart.