Directorist
Pros
- Free version available
- Many extensions available
- You also get themes
- Packed with features
- Integrates with popular plugins
- You can create private directory
- Advanced form builder
Cons
- Free version can be somewhat limiting
Directorist, developed by team wpWax, is a business directory WordPress plugin that allows you to easily create and manage business listings. You can add new listings, edit and delete listings, and view detailed information about each listing.
The plugin has added a host of sparkling features to its repository, allowing you to create a directory website that will truly stand out of the box.
You can easily manage your site’s content, users, and contacts with the right plugin. In this comprehensive Directorist review, we’ll take a look at the details that have made us convinced to call it one of the best directory plugins in the directory niche. So, without further ado, let’s jump straight to the juicy part.
Table of Contents
Directorist Review
Directorist is the most well-rounded yet fully optimized WordPress business directory solution to create any modern directory website, whether a restaurant or a medical directory website with millions of listings.
A full-fledged platform where admin or listing owners can list their businesses and orchestrate on the frontend with the utmost possible ease.
Directorist features advanced functionalities that help your business hike up to the next level and make room to bag more users, expanding the ramifications of your business. What’s more, it allows the admin and business owners to mint more and more revenue with minimal effort ensuring the smoothest experience.
How Is Directorist Different From Other Similar Plugins?
Features of a quality directory plugin make it unique and better than its competitors. With that in mind, the team Directorist has poured several exclusive features that have made it create noise out of the box.
Multidirectory Facility
Directorist allows its users to scale up their directory with the structured multi-directory feature and organize it in the best way possible.
Users can create new directory type precisely the same as they want. Also, there will be a handy multi-directory management system.
Unlimited Custom Fields
Directorist allows users to add unlimited custom fields to accommodate custom requirements on the listing form. Additionally, it lets users add custom fields as search filters to get the best results.
You, as a user, can create custom fields by choosing from 9 different field types. Moreover, you can search using custom fields for accurate search results.
Advanced Form Builder
Directorist comes up with the most intuitive custom form builder that allows users to boost their directory listing experiences.
The Drag & drop-based custom form builder lets the users organize their directory websites through Single Page Layout and Listings Card Layout with an advanced search system customizability.
Powerful Search & Advanced Filters
The Directorist advanced filter allows your users to search listings based on a large number of criteria like custom fields, tags, price range, etc., along with default text field, category, and location fields to bring the search experience to an incredible height.
WooCommerce Multivendor Plugin Compatibility
The cool thing is that Directorist is compatible with popular multi-vendor plugins like Dokan, WC Vendors, WC Marketplace, WCFM, YITH WooCommerce Multivendor, etc. Using Directorist, you can have the breeze of WooCommerce with greater ease.
Mobile App
A mobile app is a downloadable application that can be used on a mobile phone or tablet. The directory app allows users to access the features and services of a directory website from anywhere.
Directory websites that offer mobile apps are often very user-friendly and easy to use. They also provide a variety of features that make using the app a great way to get information and find businesses.
With no surprise, team Directorist has recently launched a mobile app version of Directorist, which is fully compatible with both android & iOS. With this app, you can run your directory business beyond your website.
Moreover, you can reach millions of users from distant parts of the world. And, this number figure is going up and up day by day due to the massive number of engagements in mobile phones.
Private Directory
A private directory is an online directory not made available to the public. Businesses typically use private directories to promote their products and services to a targeted audience.
A private directory is another fantastic feature Directorist can boast of. With this feature, the users can display selected items and sections of the theme for their special visitors only. Thus, they can run a circle around the necks of their competitors or rivals.
Frontend Listing Submission & Management
Directorist allows your users to submit and manage listings from the frontend of the directory website even without logging in to the admin panel. Plus, Directorist allows you to renew or change the plan from the frontend. Moreover, the intuitive user dashboard will help you manage the listings more conveniently.
Pricing
The core version of Directorist is free, and you can use it to build any directory website. In this case, you need zero investment to move on. However, if you want to expand your business arena through the revenue-making tunnel, then you can use the premium features of Directorist. Usually, the price starts at $55.
Payment Gateways
A payment gateway is a service that lets your website accept payments from customers. This can be done through a debit or credit card, PayPal, or several other payment processors.
When a customer purchases on your website, the payment gateway will process the payment and then send the proceeds to you. This will usually happen within minutes, and you will usually be able to see the payment processed in your account settings.
More fortunately, Directorist comes up with a built-in checkout system that includes offline and online payment systems. The admin can offer different payment options like PayPal, Stripe, Bank Transfer, etc.
Using Directorist, you can allow the listing owners to accept payments from their users with multiple payment options.
Integrations With Popular Plugins
Directorist has come under the umbrella of integrations with your favorite WordPress plugins, like WPML, Gaamipress, Oxygen Builder, MailChimp, BuddyPress, BuddyBoss, Elementor Page Builder, Bertha.ai, and WooCommerce Subscriptions.
Extensions
Directorist is packed with 28 integrations, including a free one. These premium and free extensions will help you to build your dreamy directory website with different windows. A piece of good news is that the team of Directorist has claimed on its roadmap that the team members are working on more extensions to release in the very near days to come.
Rank Featured Listings
A rank featured listing is a listing on a directory website that has a higher position, typically at the top of the page, than other listings in the same category. This higher position generally is achieved by submitting more information about the listing, such as a description, photos, and keywords.
In this case, Rank Featured Listings is the premium feature of Directorist and can be used to rank your featured listing items on your directory website.
Announcement Feature
An announcement feature allows website users to easily share information with others, such as blog posts, product updates, events, awards, and many other associated items.
When used correctly, announcement features can help to increase website traffic and engagement. Moreover, this feature in a directory website makes room for your to insert and manage all all-types business-related announcements that a user intends to publish on his/her directory website.
Other Features
Apart from the features mentioned above, Directorist ships with a host of valuable features, which include CSV bulk importer, multiple mapping sources, modern, customizable, and trending design, straightforward translation, RTL, built-in SEO solution, rating & reviews, guest submission, custom badges, GDPR ready, renew listings, email notification, schedule task, save and bookmark.
Free & Premium Themes
It’s no wonder that directory websites are a great way to showcase company and products. They are also a great way to connect with customers and generate leads. So, what makes them even more interesting and lucrative? The quick answer is: using themes.
Directorist ships with various free and premium themes that you can use for making different types of directory websites.
Can You Make a Classified Website Using Directorist?
Classified ads websites provide a valuable platform for businesses of all sizes to reach a larger audience. They allow you to post a wide range of products and services for sale and precisely target your audience. Classified ads websites also offer several features that make them an ideal marketing tool, such as email notifications and automatic submissions of your ads.
This directory plugin has been mapped out to allow users to create both a directory website and a classified ads website.
Directorist Review Verdict
Directorist is a must-have plugin on your deck when you want a directory website with modern and user-friendly features at minimal investment. Directorist is a plugin with more features in its free version than its competitors.
Also, to make your directory website more lucrative, you can head over to the tremendously cost-effective premium extensions. Plus, they are easy to use and made with clean code, and you will get amazing customer support from the Directorist team.
As alternative options to Directorist, you can check HivePress review or ListingHive review.
| AUTHOR BIO:
Sazzadul Bari is the CMO at Directorist, DashboardMarket, & wpWax. He is also the founder of WPFame and BlogCD. He loves to play with words and write on various topics ranging from B2B to B2C. |
DISCLOSURE: Posts may contain affiliate links. If you buy something through one of those links, I might get a small commission, without any extra cost to you. Read more about it here.
Unfortunately, we completely agree with the negative comments expressed by the 2 other users who have also had a frustrating experience with Directorist.
Our tech support experience with Directorist, has been highly disappointing. Their response time is incredibly slow, leaving us hanging for extended periods without any assistance. It appears that they lack a sense of urgency or concern for the negative impact their plugin’s performance issues can have on our business.
Considering their unresponsive support, we strongly advise against using this plugin for anyone serious about starting an online directory on WordPress. Furthermore, in comparison to their competitors, with whom we hold premium licenses for various WordPress directory plugins and themes, Directorist’s tech support falls far behind.
Before I give the review i want to say i am a very experienced wordpress user. I have a dozen sites and have tried all major themes and plugins at one point or another. I am a software engineer not a website developer but I do all my own wordpress websites for many years.
Directorist!!! Where do i start?!
I tried the plugin available on the wordpress repository. After the plugin ws installed and all supporting plugins I found that it was completely necessary to buy a license package as it is not fully functional without it.
Broke my wordpress site almost immediately after installing Directorist. Ok so at this point I dont want to blame them. could be that i had a plugin that was conflicting.
Installed fresh new site with just Directorist and its dependencies and the demo data would not import and not only that, it broke again. Just froze up the interface and admin.
I followed their documentation but it still failed. I purchased the ultimate plan then had and for 2 days tried to get it to work on bluehost and siteground and it said all serverver settings were good but 30 minutes after siteground install with Directorist only plugins failures toasted the site completely.
They have a 14 day refund policy and i wanted a refund. No way im going to use a package that fails over and over and wont even import demo data sometimes for the themes. They offered to help instead of giving me my no questions asked refund and I setup a fresh wordpress site, gave them access and nothing. I asked for several hours what the status was on email and their support site and nothing.
i said i want a full refund as it had only been a couple of days and no response.
I would not trust this theme and plugins on a production environment to same my life and I was willing to pay 850 dollars if it just worked.
Emails were signed by MD. RASHEDUL ISLAM and the support staff was various other individuals.
850 dollars and what a pile of junk this directory theme and plugins are. I use quality pro versions of other plugins but even a vanila wordpress site was having trouble. On bluehost its a blank screen when failing but on siteground it says what the problem is and it was a caching issue. On a freshly installed site? I went through the settings and checked that all options the theme needs were in the green and there were no failures in the theme settings area.
So about my refund. I never got a single response about that. I have emails and support logs to prove it. Their no questions asked policy is trash. Read the refund policy. they suggest they help resolve the issues but nothing to prevent me from them just saying ok we will refund you.
I got no response so i called my credit card company and i disputed the 14 day no questions asked refund and now my credit card company will handle it.
So there is always a lot of the bad but what will i do. I decided to go with ListingPro – WordPress Directory & Listing Theme, its actually quite nice and no failures and works well with all my plugins and it can pretty much do anything and you dont have to buy a bunch of additional things to make it work.
When a customer is treated like this its only right to come tell my story on any review site I can find because they did not do right by me. I have all emails and support messages to prove every single statement here!
Hi Damien,
Thank you for sharing your experience with the plugin. I am sorry to hear it was bad one.
Customer support is non existent. No one is ever on the chat and the support tickets don’t get responded to.
I wouldn’t recommend directorist to anyone!
Hello David,
Thank you for sharing your experience and feedback regarding the customer support for Directorist. This is Rashed from team Directorist. I apologize for the inconvenience you have faced, and I understand your frustration with the lack of response on the chat and support tickets. It should not happen. Your feedback is valuable to us, as it helps us identify areas for improvement.
If you have any specific issues or concerns that require immediate attention, please feel free to reach out to me directly by email. I will personally ensure that your concerns are addressed promptly.
Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention, and we appreciate your patience and understanding.
Regards,