I build stores on both, and I have moved businesses in both directions. The honest Shopify vs WooCommerce summary: Shopify is the better store platform, and WooCommerce is the better platform for a business that also does other things on its website. Which is cheaper depends entirely on what you count. Everything below is the detail behind that, ending with the three questions that decide it for most small stores.
If you are still deciding whether you need a store platform at all versus a general website platform, start with the WordPress vs Shopify vs Webflow vs Wix comparison and come back.
The side-by-side
| Shopify | WooCommerce | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Hosted, all-in-one store platform | Free plugin that turns WordPress into a store |
| Setup | Hours; guided; theme + products + payments | A day or more; hosting, theme, plugins, configuration |
| Maintenance | None on your side | Updates, backups, security, compatibility — yours or a maintenance plan |
| Speed and uptime | Handled; consistently good | Depends on hosting and build; can be excellent or poor |
| Payments | Shopify Payments (fees) + extra fee for third-party gateways on most plans | Any gateway; only the gateway’s fees |
| Design | Themes, good but bounded; Liquid for customisation | Anything — Elementor, block themes, custom code |
| Content and blog | Basic | Best in class (it is WordPress) |
| SEO control | Good product SEO; fixed URL structure; limited technical control | Full control |
| Apps / extensions | Large app store; most cost monthly | Huge plugin ecosystem; many one-off or free |
| Ownership | You rent the platform | You own everything |
| Scaling | Seamless to high volume | Needs proper hosting and tuning at volume |
Cost, counted honestly
Shopify: a monthly plan, plus apps (a typical small store runs three to eight, each a monthly fee), plus a premium theme, plus payment processing fees, plus an additional transaction fee if you do not use Shopify Payments. Predictable, and it rises with ambition.
WooCommerce: hosting (do not skimp — a store needs a good host), a builder or theme licence, premium extensions where the free ones fall short (subscriptions, bookings, advanced shipping), and maintenance time or a maintenance plan. Less predictable, usually lower for a small catalogue, and it does not scale with revenue.
Rule of thumb from the stores I run: below a modest catalogue and order volume with no technical person involved, Shopify’s all-in cost is close to WooCommerce’s and the convenience wins. Above that, or where the WordPress site already exists, WooCommerce is cheaper and more capable — as long as someone maintains it.
Where Shopify wins
- You never think about infrastructure. Hosting, checkout, PCI, fraud, backups, updates — gone.
- Checkout conversion. Shopify’s checkout is fast, trusted and constantly optimised; Shop Pay is a real advantage.
- Multichannel selling. Instagram, Facebook, TikTok Shop, marketplaces and point-of-sale integrate cleanly from one catalogue.
- Time to launch. A competent person can be selling in a day.
Where WooCommerce wins
- Content and SEO. Blog, guides, landing pages, schema, URL control — the machinery that drives organic traffic, which Shopify’s tools only gesture at.
- Customisation without limits. Unusual product types, quote-based pricing, bookings, memberships, B2B rules — someone has built it, or it can be built.
- Integrations. Any CRM, any automation. Orders can flow to GoHighLevel via a webhook the same way form submissions do; a dedicated WooCommerce-to-GoHighLevel guide is in this series.
- No platform fees. Your margin is your margin.
- Ownership. Move hosts, export everything, nobody changes your terms.
Where each one hurts
Shopify hurts when you want the site to be more than a store, when app fees stack up, when you need a URL structure it does not allow, or when a feature you depend on changes price. WooCommerce hurts when nobody maintains it: a store running old plugins on cheap hosting is slow, insecure and eventually breaks at the worst moment. The speed checklist and a maintenance routine are not optional for a WooCommerce store.
A worked example: a small store’s monthly cost
Take a store with 80 products, a few hundred orders a month, no technical person, and a need for subscriptions and a decent email tool.
| Line | Shopify | WooCommerce |
|---|---|---|
| Platform / hosting | Mid-tier plan | Good managed WordPress hosting |
| Theme / builder | Premium theme, one-off | Elementor Pro or a WooCommerce theme, yearly |
| Subscriptions feature | App, monthly | Extension, yearly |
| Email marketing | App, monthly, scales with contacts | Plugin or CRM, often already paid for |
| Payment fees | Shopify Payments, or gateway + platform fee | Gateway only |
| Maintenance | Included | Maintenance plan or your time |
Add the lines up honestly and the two columns land surprisingly close for a store this size — Shopify’s apps and payment fees roughly equal WooCommerce’s hosting and maintenance. The gap opens as revenue grows (Shopify’s transaction fees scale; WooCommerce’s do not) or as the site does more than sell (WooCommerce wins). I run the numbers with each client rather than assume.
Speed and reliability
Shopify is fast and stays fast; you never think about it. WooCommerce is as fast as its hosting and build — excellent on a good host with caching and right-sized images, poor on a cheap plan with an unoptimised theme. If you go WooCommerce, budget for proper hosting from day one and treat the speed checklist as part of the launch, not a later fix. A slow checkout costs more than any hosting plan.
The three questions
- Is the store the whole business, or part of a larger website? Whole business → Shopify. Part of a content or services site → WooCommerce.
- Who will maintain it? Nobody technical, no maintenance budget → Shopify. A developer or a maintenance plan → WooCommerce is open to you.
- How much does organic search matter? Ads and social drive sales → either. Content and search drive sales → WooCommerce.
Two out of three points one way for almost every store I have looked at.
Migrating between them
Both directions are done routinely. Products, customers and order history move with migration tools or a developer; the design is rebuilt; and — the step that protects revenue — every old URL is redirected to its new equivalent so rankings survive. Plan it for a quiet period, run both in parallel for a week, and switch DNS once orders test cleanly. Budget days to weeks depending on catalogue size.
The tie-breaker most people forget: where does the rest of your marketing live? If you are about to invest in content, email and a CRM, WooCommerce keeps it all in one system. If your growth is ads and marketplaces, Shopify’s channel integrations are worth more than any plugin.
Further reading: Shopify pricing · WooCommerce documentation.
FAQ
Is WooCommerce really free?
The plugin is free; the store is not. You pay for hosting, a theme or builder, premium extensions you need, and someone’s time to maintain it. For a small store the total is usually below Shopify’s plan plus apps, but it is not zero.
Which is better for SEO, Shopify or WooCommerce?
WooCommerce, because it runs on WordPress: full control of URLs, content, schema and the blog. Shopify is fine for product pages and has improved, but its fixed URL structure and weaker content tools cap what you can do.
Can I move from Shopify to WooCommerce later, or the other way?
Yes — products, customers and orders can be migrated with tools or a developer, and URLs must be redirected to keep rankings. It is a project of days to weeks depending on catalogue size, not a click.
Which should a brand new store choose?
If the store is the whole business and nobody technical is involved, Shopify. If the store sits inside a content or services website, or you already run WordPress, WooCommerce. If you are unsure, the platform comparison covers the wider question.
Launching or moving a store and want a straight answer for your situation? Book a call — I build on both, so the recommendation is about your business, not my preference.
