The short answer
Shopify gets you selling fastest and handles the technical side for you — in exchange for a subscription forever, a cut of card sales unless you use their payment system, and their rules about what your store can be. WooCommerce (WordPress's store engine) costs more to set up, then it's yours: no per-sale platform cut, any feature you can imagine, hosted wherever you like. Simple catalog and no technical help — lean Shopify. Custom needs, local pickup quirks, or a store you'll grow for years — WooCommerce usually wins the long game.
What Shopify does well
It's a store in a box, genuinely. Hosting, security, checkout, and updates are Shopify's problem, not yours. The checkout is polished and trusted. If your products are straightforward and nobody on your team wants to think about websites, that box is worth its rent — and plenty of good businesses happily pay it.
What WooCommerce does well
Everything custom. Products with complicated options, local delivery zones, deposits, quote requests, wholesale pricing for some customers and retail for others — things that fight Shopify's box are a normal build in WooCommerce. Your store also lives inside WordPress, so the content that earns Google rankings lives right next to the products it sells.
We've built local stores with full catalogs and carts on it — a toy store, a golf shop with enough products to need real filtering — precisely because their needs didn't fit a template.
The cost shapes are different animals
Shopify is rent: a monthly subscription, apps that each add their own monthly fee, and transaction fees on top of card processing unless you use Shopify's own payments. Cheap to start, and the meter never stops.
WooCommerce is ownership: the software is free, so the cost is building it properly up front, plus hosting and upkeep. Our own store builds typically start at $2,200 before the catalog goes in — and if you already sell online, we can often automate the catalog import instead of billing hours for data entry. After that, costs stay flat while sales grow — no platform percentage scaling with your success.
The questions that decide it
- Do your products need options a template can't express? WooCommerce.
- Does nobody on your team want anything to do with maintenance? Shopify — or WooCommerce with a care plan.
- Is content and local SEO how you'll win customers? WooCommerce keeps it all in one site.
- Are margins thin enough that a percentage of every sale stings? Own, don't rent.
- Selling this month with a simple catalog? Shopify's speed is real.
Already on one and wondering about the other?
Stores move both directions, and moving is routine when it's planned: products, customers and order history come across, and every old page address redirects to its new home so Google rankings survive. The wrong move is staying on a platform that fights your business because the move sounds scary. It's a project, not a leap.
Common questions
Can you move my store from Shopify to WooCommerce — or the other way?
Yes, both directions. Products, customers and orders migrate, and redirects preserve your Google standing. We'll also tell you honestly if you're better off staying put.
Which is cheaper?
Shopify to start, WooCommerce over the years — the subscription and per-sale fees never end, while a built store's costs flatten out. For calibration: our WooCommerce builds typically start at $2,200 before catalog population. Where the lines cross depends on your sales volume; we can sketch it for your numbers on a free call.
Which is better for SEO?
WooCommerce, moderately — full control over the technical details and your content living beside your products. A well-run Shopify store still ranks; a neglected WooCommerce store doesn't.