WooCommerce vs Shopify — An Honest Comparison

If you are launching an online shop, you will almost certainly end up comparing WooCommerce and Shopify. They are the two dominant platforms, and both have passionate advocates. We build on both, so we do not have a stake in which one you choose — only in helping you choose the right one. ## What Shopify is Shopify is a hosted eCommerce platform. You pay a monthly subscription, and Shopify handles the hosting, security, and platform updates. Your store lives on Shopify's infrastructure, and you manage everything through their dashboard. The appeal is simplicity. You can launch a basic shop without any technical knowledge, and for straightforward retail businesses, it works extremely well. ## What WooCommerce is WooCommerce is a free, open-source plugin for WordPress. Unlike Shopify, it does not come with hosting — you need to arrange that separately. It is far more flexible than Shopify but requires more technical knowledge to set up and maintain properly. The appeal is ownership and control. Your store runs on your own hosting, you own the code, and you can customise virtually anything. ## Where Shopify wins **Ease of use.** Shopify is genuinely easier for non-technical users to manage day-to-day. Adding products, managing orders and running promotions are all straightforward. **Reliability.** Because Shopify manages the infrastructure, you do not have to worry about server configuration, plugin conflicts, or platform updates breaking your checkout. **Built-in features.** Abandoned cart recovery, multichannel selling, and a solid app ecosystem are all either included or easy to add. **Support.** Shopify's 24/7 support is genuinely good compared to the WordPress ecosystem. ## Where WooCommerce wins **Cost at scale.** Shopify charges a percentage of every transaction (unless you use Shopify Payments, which is not available for all business types). On high-volume stores, this adds up significantly. WooCommerce has no such fee. **Flexibility.** WooCommerce can be made to do almost anything. Custom product types, complex pricing rules, bespoke checkout flows, integrations with legacy systems — all of this is possible in a way that simply is not feasible in Shopify. **Ownership.** Your data, your code, your hosting. You are not locked into a platform that can change its pricing, deprecate features, or in a worst case, shut down. **SEO control.** WordPress and WooCommerce give you finer-grained control over your SEO setup than Shopify does. For businesses where organic search is a major acquisition channel, this matters. ## The cost question Shopify pricing starts at £25/month (Basic) and goes up to £344/month (Advanced) plus transaction fees. For a genuinely capable store, most businesses end up on the mid-tier plan at around £65/month. WooCommerce itself is free, but you will pay for hosting (typically £15-40/month for quality managed hosting), premium plugins (anywhere from £0 to several hundred pounds depending on what you need), and development time. For a simple store with standard products, the total cost of ownership over three years is often similar. For complex stores or high-volume businesses, WooCommerce is almost always cheaper. ## So which should you choose? **Choose Shopify if:** - You want to manage everything yourself without any technical knowledge - You are launching quickly and simplicity is the priority - You are selling a relatively standard range of products - You are in the early stages and want low upfront cost and risk **Choose WooCommerce if:** - You need significant customisation or bespoke functionality - You are expecting high transaction volumes - You want full ownership and portability of your data - You are already on WordPress and want to keep everything in one place - Long-term cost is a priority We build both. If you are not sure which is right for your specific situation, [get in touch](/contact) and we will give you a straight recommendation based on your requirements — not on which platform earns us more.