How to Retrieve the Total Amount Spent by a User in WooCommerce

When developing loyalty programs or membership systems in WooCommerce, you often need to know how much a specific customer has spent on your site. Fortunately, WooCommerce provides a convenient built-in function to retrieve this information: wc_get_customer_total_spent( $user_id ). Let’s delve into how this function works and how you can use it in your projects.

Using the Built-in WooCommerce Function

The simplest way to get a customer’s total spending is by using the wc_get_customer_total_spent function. This function creates a WC_Customer object and calls its get_total_spent method.

/**
 * Get total spent by customer.
 *
 * @param  int $user_id User ID.
 * @return string
 */
function wc_get_customer_total_spent( $user_id ) {
        $customer = new WC_Customer( $user_id );
        return $customer->get_total_spent();
}

As shown in the source code above, this core function simplifies the process by handling the heavy lifting for you. It retrieves the total spending as a decimal string, which can then be used for logic checks or display.

How WooCommerce Calculates Total Spending

Under the hood, the get_total_spent method implements an efficient caching mechanism. It first checks for a user meta field named _money_spent. If this field exists, it returns the value immediately. If not, it executes a database query to sum the totals of all successful orders placed by the user, saves the result in _money_spent for future use, and then returns the value. This caching significantly improves performance, especially for sites with many orders.

/**
 * Return how much money this customer has spent.
 *
 * @since 3.0.0
 * @param WC_Customer $customer Customer object.
 * @return float
 */
public function get_total_spent( &$customer ) {
        $spent = apply_filters(
                'woocommerce_customer_get_total_spent',
                get_user_meta( $customer->get_id(), '_money_spent', true ),
                $customer
        );
        if ( '' === $spent ) {
                global $wpdb;
                $statuses = array_map( 'esc_sql', wc_get_is_paid_statuses() );
                $spent    = $wpdb->get_var(
                        apply_filters(
                                'woocommerce_customer_get_total_spent_query',
                                "SELECT SUM(meta2.meta_value)
                                FROM $wpdb->posts as posts
                                LEFT JOIN {$wpdb->postmeta} AS meta ON posts.ID = meta.post_id
                                LEFT JOIN {$wpdb->postmeta} AS meta2 ON posts.ID = meta2.post_id
                                WHERE   meta.meta_key       = '_customer_user'
                                AND     meta.meta_value     = '" . esc_sql( $customer->get_id() ) . "'
                                AND     posts.post_type     = 'shop_order'
                                AND     posts.post_status   IN ( 'wc-" . implode( "','wc-", $statuses ) . "' )
                                AND     meta2.meta_key      = '_order_total'",
                                $customer
                        )
                );
                if ( ! $spent ) {
                        $spent = 0;
                }
                update_user_meta( $customer->get_id(), '_money_spent', $spent );
        }
        return wc_format_decimal( $spent, 2 );
}

Which Order Statuses Are Included?

By default, WooCommerce only includes orders with “paid” statuses—typically “processing” and “completed”—in the total spending calculation. If you need to include other statuses (like “on-hold”), you can modify the applicable statuses using the woocommerce_order_is_paid_statuses filter.

Practical Application: VIP Messaging

One common use for this function is to identify and reward loyal customers. For example, if a user’s total spending exceeds $500, you can display a special VIP message on their account dashboard and offer them exclusive access to certain products.

add_action('woocommerce_account_dashboard', function ()
{
    $user_id = get_current_user_id();
    if (wc_get_customer_total_spent($user_id) > 500) {
        echo '<div class="woocommerce-message"><a class="button" href="/shop/vip">View VIP Exclusive Products</a>Congratulations! You are one of our valued VIP members.</div>';
    }
});

For high-traffic websites, querying the database for spending can be resource-intensive. In such cases, consider using the spending data to periodically adjust user roles (e.g., to a “VIP” role) and then perform logic checks based on the role instead of recalculating the total spending on every page load. This further optimizes your site’s performance while maintaining complex loyalty logic.