Directorist is now the most used WordPress directory plugin with active installations over 20 thousand, thanks to our user bases for this incredible achievement. We are growing faster and has become one of the most popular WordPress plugins. You can no longer call it just another wordpress directory plugin, but a entire system for efficiently managing a multi-directory website with unlimited listings.

So what makes Directorist what it is? We will find out in the below article.

The Rise of Directorist

A vast number of advanced Directorist features combined together under one package helped us win the Monster award back in 2022 when they recognized it as the most dynamic WordPress plugin. Back then, Directorist was feature-rich but right now, it is stronger than ever.

By the mid-2025, we have equipped with the power of AI for directory building and growing at unimaginable pace with 30+ extensions and 14 compatible themes. Plus, our plugin was downloaded more than 874K times (as of August 2025) in lifetime as we are edging close to a million downloads. We are very proud of our achievements and grateful to our users for helping us reach these milestones.

So What Makes Directorist unbeatable in the category? What values does it offer that many other tools cannot? The answer lies in a number of advanced Directorist features that enhances the directory building experience of our users and making their website feature-rich. In this article, we have compiled 10+ incredible and advanced features of Directorist for your quick learning.

So without further technical jargon, let’s cut to the chase and give you a brief Directorist review.

10 incredible Directorist Features to enhance your website

According to most of our users’ review, they love Directorist because of the customer support they receive. Some expressed their joy due to the fact that, the Directorist team considered their need and even developed functionalities based on their personal need. We would like to clarify that, we also prioritize user’s need and maintain our product roadmap based on their demand.

Our biggest flex is that we can add unlimited features to Directorist plugin to help our users feel comfortable while serving their visitors. We even accept custom development requirements and develop their sites based on requirements in various ways. However, the Directorist Core that comes with many free features and various extensions already made it a ocean of functionalities to explore.

Here are some of the top Directorist features handpicked for you to look at.

1. Multi-Directory with Unlimited Listings

The most useful and widely available feature of Directorist is it’s support for multi-directory on a single site with capabilities to create unlimited listings. This is available for all users from Basic to Pro who wants to create a classified ads consisting various directories or local business directory combining different niches.

What truly makes it special is the AI-powered directory building which makes it easy for businesses to create a tailored business directory with suitable form fields within minutes just with a prompt. Not only it saves time but also the hassle of going through hundreds of websites to understand which field is more appropriate for which types of directories.

This is one of the best Directorist features making it the leading business directory plugin. The benefits of creating multi-directory website are as follows:

• Attract more business owners with segmented listings
• Attract more visitors with precise information entertaining their necessasity
• Create a greater value on search engines with authoritative and high quality submissions.

Note: Directorist supports unlimited listing creation but you must ensure having a powerful hosting subscription to get hold of so many listing data.

2. Bulk Import Listings using CSV

Gone are those days when you have to copy one listing data and paste it on your website. The Bulk upload feature was introduced long time ago and even Free users can utilize it to upload their listings at scale. You can find the bulk import feature on your Directorist Core Setting or tool option.

The bulk import feature works on a fixed template. You can download the template from your WordPress backend and then fill it up with your information in CSV format and save it. Then upload your CSV on Directorist using the bulk importer tool. Upon uploading, you will require mapping your CSV columns with Directorist blocks or fields.

Although this is a highly useful Directorist features, you have to look out for the images. As image uploading in bulk is a tricky task on WordPress, make sure to put all the right images in your bulk file. Otherwise, many images may fail to display or display in wrong order, resulting in you editing each listing again manually.

Here are some use cases of bulk import tool:

• Add high volume of listings at once to your website
• Keep your listing quality updated with latest information
• Onboard new businesses by using scrapped data at scale.

You can check out our documentation on bulk import/export feature to learn more.

3. Powerful Search and Advanced Filters

Directorist is equipped with powerful search and advanced filter options that any business directory and classified listing website need. Business directories are known for having thousands to millions listing submissions. Users do not prefer to go through all these data, rather they prefer filtering out their preference.

The Directorist core already comes with advanced filter that can narrow down results based on category and other various parameters. Additionally, Directorist has launched the Universal Search Extension that is capable of working across multiple directories to find the most suitable options. These features are available on Directorist to elevate your visitors user experience.

Whether you are building a Niche specific directory or common local business directory that combines all the businesses in a particular area, Directorist filters and search features will allow your visitors to find that they need instantly. You may encounter short session times due to quicker result display but be sure that once you ensure the customer satisfaction, you will be able to retain them for long.

4. Pricing Plan including VAT/Tax options

Monetizing your business directory is now easier than ever, thanks to the dynamic Pricing Plan extension of Directorist. Typically business directories can be used in various ways to make money and one of the most popular option is offering membership plan to listing owners.

Now you can create unlimited tiered membership plans for various businesses and service provides so that they can pick their suitable plan based on number of listings and other factors. You can offer multiple packages consisting variable benefits and create a pay per listing plan for small businesses to give them breathing space.

The pricing plan extension also enables Free Trial option where users can use your directory to gain tractions during a trial period and then convert to a premium plan upon completion of trial. An interesting feature is the option to include VAT/Tax in membership plans to maintain legal obligations and ensure transparency.

5. Display Dynamic Business Hours

If you are working with a wide range of businesses and they need to display dynamic business hours from various timezone, your website will require customization. However, with Directorist, you do not need that. The latest update of Business Hour extension is capable of handling such operation simply by configuring from the backend.

One of the standout use cases of this feature is healthcare and medical centers. As they run on rosters and typically open most hours of the day, they need to use such dynamic fields to display their working hours precisely. Otherwise, an accident may arise due to displaying wrong hour on your directory.

Not only this is a disastrous moment, but also it can result in legal procedure. Better safe than sorry, get the extension as early as possible.

6. Compatible Across Popular Builders

Various WordPress users prefer various builders to build their site. A good WordPress directory plugin should support at least the most popular ones to make sure that users are comfortable using it in different environment. Although Directorist is build on WordPress’s native builders, it works seamlessly with other popular builders such as Elementor, Bricks, and Oxygen.

If you are using the native Gutenberg builder or Elementor, the most popular WordPress builder plugin then on Directorist free plan, you can efficiently build your site. For support of Bricks or Oxygen builder, you will require paid extensions. Either way, you will be able to put out your listings in the most efficient way without much plugin conflict or theme breaking.

7. Seamless Integration with Popular Payment Methods

Directory owners operate with various payment activities on their website including receiving subscription fees or order-based fee collections. This is why they require payment gateways integrated to their directory. With Directorist business directory plugin, you can seamlessly integrate gateways like Stripe, PayPal and Authorize.net to your website.

Although it sounds overwhelming to think that site owners have to manage so many payment methods for their site but in reality it is much simpler. All the payment gateways come in separate extensions meaning you are not bound to purchase that you do not need. Rather activate the one you need or if you are using the bundle, just deactivate the one you do not need.

8. Manage Subscriptions on WooCommerce

Directorist has it’s own pricing plan that we discussed above but for more comfortable and convenient order management and payment collections, users can integrate WooCommerce, the most popular e-commerce order management solution on WordPress using the WooCommerce Pricing Plans extension.

So what does this extension do and how this feature is beneficial to users?

• Create unlimited packages or pricing plans for users based on their requirements.
• Manage all your orders on WooCommerce product management.
• Use as many WooCommerce payment gateways as you need to collect various payments.
• Simplify receiving recurring payments, subscription expiration and free plan.
• Comfortable WooCommerce interface for users to configure plans.

This is also a premium extensions that users can get separately or get the bundle subscription where all the 30+ extensions are included.

9. Frontend Listing Submission

WordPress website backend can look scary, especially when your site is powered by a large number of plugins. This is why who are not capable of handing such infrastructure or are naive to technology may want to handle every task from a polished front end. Keeping the necessity in mind, Directorist has enabled front end submission feature for listing owners that will be directly published on their site.

Although many major WordPress directory plugin has frontend submission feature and it is not unique but it is a very essential feature. You may have not known this if you are only adding listings from the backend. We suppose moving forward, you can guide your listing owners to utilize the frontend submission form to avoid mistakes.

Benefits of using frontend submission:

• Accurate listing data submission at scale.
• Saves time and fastens directory building.
• Intuitive user dashboard for managing the listings.
• Edit or change listing information from frontend.
• Restrict users from getting access to backend tools, ensuring site security.

10. Manage Booking and Reservation on your Directory

Business directories are known for displaying information and navigating visitors to reach call to action buttons. However, some advanced directory also enable online appointment, booking and even buying services. Directorist also allows its’ users to configure online booking and appointment scheduling on their website to give their users such advanced facilities.

The feature can be availed using the Booking (Reservation & Appointment) extension that can be used for booking online shows, consultations, seminars, wedding invitations, training classes; the online reservations for restaurant, saloon; the appointment for doctors, lawyers, and so on. It gives the directory owners more control over the businesses and listing owners.

Key features of the Booking extensions are:

• Display and manage dynamic slots.
• Restrict numbers of slot for individual users.
• Email notifications on booking.
• Add unlimited date and time slot.
• Listing owner’s approval or rejection option.
• Refund option, setting criteria and accept requests.

11. Translate your Directory with WPML

World-class business directories require native language support. With Directorist, you can turn your business directory into a multi-lingual website for global users using the WPML integration. For this, you will require the paid extension which will enable your Directorist listings to be translated into other native languages.

WPML integrated with WordPress directory plugin allows you to translate the strings of the directory type exactly the way you want. It also enables listing authors to write their listing description in multiple language. All of these can be done with one click. You can check the below article to learn about Directorist and WPML integrations:

• How To Use WPML With Directorist (The Complete Guide)

12. Spam Protection with Google reCAPTCHA

When a directory website accepts front end submission, it also gets exposed to security of bot attack or spam submission. To prevent such incident, Directorist has made Google reCAPTCHA available for integrating with your directory. This requires the Google reCAPTCHA extension to activate the feature.

Whether your form fields accept front end submissions from listing owners, booking and appointment scheduling from visitors or review collection from end users, you will need spam protection to make sure that the submissions are created by human and not any bot. Google reCAPTCHA extension makes it easy. You can also show or hide it based on user role from the backend.

Other mention worthy Directorist Features

Apart from these incredible Directorist features, there are many other features that standout among most WordPress directory plugin solutions. Here are few of them that we simply could not overlook.

Learn More about Directorist Features

Directorist is a massive feature-rich solution with tons of features for beginners to advanced that cannot be learned in a short period. The above discussed features are what users typically seek in a business directory plugin.

If you are interested to learn more, we encourage you to check Directorist Features page and go through our Documentations section for step by step guides.

Summing Up

That concludes our rundown of 12 incredible Directorist features plus bonuses. As we keep improving our plugin regularly and version by version, we bring new and improved features, we will keep writing them here. If you are using our plugin to enhance your business directory, be sure to subscribe to our newsletter to get all the updates sent in your email inbox.

Plus, you can join our Official Facebook Community where we keep our latest updates posted.

Frequently Asked Questions