If you’re building an affiliate site or WooCommerce (affiliate) store, keeping product prices up to date is one of the biggest challenges.
Datafeedr has been popular for years — but it may not be the best fit if you’re only looking for real-time pricing on your products.
We’ll break down how PriceFetchWP compares to Datafeedr, and why it may be a better solution depending on your needs.
What Is Datafeedr?
Datafeedr is a WordPress plugin that allows you to display products from affiliate networks using data feeds.
These feeds typically include:
- product titles
- descriptions
- images
- pricing
- affiliate links
Datafeedr works by syncing datasets from affiliate networks, and updating them periodically. It sits in the middle and handles the data. It’s reliant on affiliate data feeds.
The Problem With Data Feeds From Affiliates
While affiliate data feeds can be useful, they do come with limitations:
- Many affiliates don’t have data feeds available
- Many affiliates don’t update their data feeds often
- Most data feeds are incomplete, or require additions
- They don’t always have all of their products listed in feeds
- Data feeds from affiliates can be a disaster, and frankly unusable
Most of the time, the affiliate advertisers don’t know how to manage data feeds, or don’t care to. When it comes down to it, their business is more important than their affiliates (you). They typically aren’t providing the proper material for their affiliates to use.
Most serious affiliates are scraping data and uploading it manually to their site. They want full control over what data is displayed.
What Makes PriceFetchWP Different?
PriceFetchWP takes a completely different approach.
Instead of constantly needing to update feeds, it:
Fetches prices directly from the source pages in real time
Let’s be real here. You only ever need to import product data once. Titles, descriptions, images.. they almost always stay the same. The only thing that ever constantly changes is the price.
If you are scraping and importing your own product data, PriceFetchWP can be a great addition to your site.
🔄 No Data Feeds Here
With PriceFetchWP:
- You’re not using data feeds to update prices
- You’re not dependent on affiliate data feeds
- You’re not using a man-in-the-middle service
- You’re keeping your WordPress site light and fast
You simply:
- Lock onto an external domain
- Define how to find the price
- Add custom fields where you need
- Set how often to update the price
⚡ Real-Time Price Fetching
PriceFetchWP retrieves prices:
- Upon first page load of your post, page, or product
- From cache (for performance) after the first fetch
This means – Accurate prices directly from the source.
🎯 Works With Almost Any Website
Unlike feed-based tools, PriceFetchWP is not limited to specific networks.
You can fetch prices from any site page with a price displayed:
- Affiliate sites
- Any e-commerce store
If you can access the page, you can fetch the price 99% of the time.
🧠 Smart Selector System
PriceFetchWP gives you full control over how prices are detected:
- XPath selectors
- ID selectors
- Class selectors
- Fetch both regular and sale price
- Secondary selectors for inconsistent layouts
- Reverse logic output (special cases)
This makes it far more flexible than structured data feeds, and keeps those dynamic prices up-to-date.
⚙️ Lightweight & Efficient
- PriceFetchWP only fetches the price you need, when you need it
- A lightweight, powerful plugin – no heavy processes
- Price caching available
Result:
👉 Faster site performance
👉 Lower server load
When Datafeedr Might Still Make Sense
To be fair, Datafeedr is still very useful in certain cases:
- large-scale catalog sites
- sites needing full product imports
- users who prefer feed-based automation
When PriceFetchWP Is the Better Choice
PriceFetchWP is ideal if you want:
Low Cost
A low monthly fee affordable for anyone.
Simplicity
No feed updates, no import updates — just connect and fetch.
Real-Time Pricing
More accurate than scheduled feed updates. Custom cache duration.
✅ Full Flexibility
Works with almost all external e-commerce websites.
✅ Better Performance
Lightweight plugin. No processing or waiting.
✅ Control
Fine-tune selectors, caching, and behavior per domain.
Summary
Both tools are effective, but they take very different approaches.
- Datafeedr → feed-based, structured, heavy
- PriceFetchWP → direct, flexible, lightweight
If you want real-time pricing, PriceFetchWP offers a modern alternative to traditional data feed plugins.
Ready to Try PriceFetchWP?
Start automating your pricing today and eliminate the need for bulky data feeds or services.
Get started with PriceFetchWP and simplify your price updates.