How to Display a Product View Counter in WooCommerce Without a Plugin

A woocommerce product view counter without a plugin is two small hooks: one to increment a post-meta counter on every product-page render, one to display the current count on the product summary. Works with stock WooCommerce, persists through requests, and gives you a meta_value_num column to sort product listings by popularity. This guide covers the basic setup, cache-plugin compatibility via AJAX, and the filter-out-admin pattern.

Last verified: 2026-04-23 on WooCommerce 9.x with WordPress 6.5. Originally published 2023-05-02, rewritten and updated 2026-04-23.

TL;DR

// Increment on product page render
add_action( 'woocommerce_before_single_product', 'how7o_increment_product_view' );
function how7o_increment_product_view() {
    if ( current_user_can( 'edit_posts' ) ) {
        return;  // skip editors/admins
    }

    $product_id = get_the_ID();
    $count      = (int) get_post_meta( $product_id, '_product_view_count', true );
    update_post_meta( $product_id, '_product_view_count', $count + 1 );
}

// Display on the product summary
add_action( 'woocommerce_single_product_summary', 'how7o_display_product_view', 25 );
function how7o_display_product_view() {
    $count = (int) get_post_meta( get_the_ID(), '_product_view_count', true );
    if ( $count > 0 ) {
        printf(
            '<p class="product-view-count">%s</p>',
            esc_html( sprintf( _n( '%d view', '%d views', $count, 'how7o' ), $count ) )
        );
    }
}

The increment

add_action( 'woocommerce_before_single_product', 'how7o_increment_product_view' );

function how7o_increment_product_view() {
    if ( current_user_can( 'edit_posts' ) ) {
        return;
    }

    $product_id = get_the_ID();
    $count      = (int) get_post_meta( $product_id, '_product_view_count', true );
    update_post_meta( $product_id, '_product_view_count', $count + 1 );
}

woocommerce_before_single_product fires once per product-page render. The current_user_can('edit_posts') check skips editors, authors, and admins — their views would inflate counts when they’re editing products. (int) casts the meta value so + 1 works whether the row exists (returns a numeric string) or not (returns '').

The display

add_action( 'woocommerce_single_product_summary', 'how7o_display_product_view', 25 );

function how7o_display_product_view() {
    $count = (int) get_post_meta( get_the_ID(), '_product_view_count', true );

    if ( $count > 0 ) {
        printf(
            '<p class="product-view-count">%s</p>',
            esc_html( sprintf( _n( '%d view', '%d views', $count, 'how7o' ), $count ) )
        );
    }
}

Priority 25 slots the counter between the price (priority 20) and the excerpt (priority 30). Common WooCommerce summary priorities: 5 title, 10 rating, 20 price, 30 excerpt, 40 add-to-cart, 50 meta — pick the slot that matches your layout.

The _n() helper picks the singular/plural form — “1 view” vs “42 views” — using WordPress’s translation-aware pluralization.

Ordering products by popularity

$args = array(
    'post_type'      => 'product',
    'posts_per_page' => 12,
    'meta_key'       => '_product_view_count',
    'orderby'        => 'meta_value_num',
    'order'          => 'DESC',
);

$popular = new WP_Query( $args );

Once you’re collecting view counts, you can surface a “Most Viewed” section on shop pages. See ordering posts by meta value for the full WP_Query pattern (including the EXISTS / NOT EXISTS trick for products that haven’t been viewed yet).

Page caching — switch to AJAX

// Register an AJAX endpoint
add_action( 'wp_ajax_how7o_view_product',        'how7o_ajax_product_view' );
add_action( 'wp_ajax_nopriv_how7o_view_product', 'how7o_ajax_product_view' );

function how7o_ajax_product_view() {
    if ( empty( $_POST['id'] ) ) {
        wp_send_json_error();
    }

    $product_id = absint( $_POST['id'] );
    $count      = (int) get_post_meta( $product_id, '_product_view_count', true );
    update_post_meta( $product_id, '_product_view_count', $count + 1 );

    wp_send_json_success();
}

// Inline JS on the product page
add_action( 'woocommerce_before_single_product', function () {
    $product_id = get_the_ID();
    ?>
    <script>
    (function() {
        fetch('<?php echo esc_url( admin_url( 'admin-ajax.php' ) ); ?>', {
            method:  'POST',
            headers: { 'Content-Type': 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded' },
            body:    'action=how7o_view_product&id=<?php echo (int) $product_id; ?>'
        });
    })();
    </script>
    <?php
} );

Page-cache plugins serve pre-rendered HTML, so woocommerce_before_single_product never fires for cached visitors. The AJAX variant loads the cached page, then the browser fires a POST to admin-ajax.php which increments the counter. The fetch is fire-and-forget — no UI updates needed for the increment itself.

Frequently asked questions

Related guides

• How to Order Posts by Meta Value in WordPress — the sort pattern for a “most viewed” listing.
• How to Include SKU in WooCommerce Search — another filter-driven product customization.
• How to Automatically Add a Product to Cart on Visit in WooCommerce — another template_redirect style of product-flow tweak.
• How to Deregister or Remove a CSS File in WordPress — hook-priority discipline, same family of tweak.

References

WooCommerce single-product hooks reference: woocommerce.com/document/woocommerce-action-hook-reference.