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Platform comparison

WooCommerce vs Shopify:
what you actually trade.

Quick answer

WooCommerce is a free plugin that turns a WordPress site into a store you host, patch and secure yourself. Shopify is a store you rent: hosting, platform security, card compliance and checkout uptime are its job, for a monthly fee. You give up owning the checkout's code; you stop running a shop on a plugin stack. WooCommerce still wins when your checkout has to do something Shopify reserves for its most expensive plan.

· LastPatch · 9min

WooCommerceShopify

WooCommerce

  • $0for the plugin - hosting, security and extensions cost extra
  • 91%of 2025's 11,334 WordPress vulnerabilities were in plugins

Shopify

  • $39a month for the Basic plan in the US, hosting included
  • $2,300a month and up for Plus, needed to change checkout steps

Shopify prices are US list prices. Every figure is sourced

At a glance

What you'd notice as the store owner.

WooCommerce vs Shopify
What it costs to run

WooCommerce

The plugin is free; the store isn't. Hosting that can take checkout traffic, security, backups and paid extensions - Subscriptions alone is $279 a year - plus someone's time to keep it all updated.

Shopify

A plan: $39, $105 or $399 a month in the US, or $29, $79 and $299 paid yearly, plus any apps you add. Hosting and platform security are part of the plan.
Card fees

WooCommerce

WooCommerce takes no cut of your sales. WooPayments charges 2.9% + 30¢ on US cards, or you plug in another payment provider at its own rates.

Shopify

Shopify Payments charges 2.9% + 30¢ on Basic, down to 2.5% + 30¢ on Advanced. Use a different provider and Shopify adds 2%, 1% or 0.6% of each order on top.
Keeping it secure

WooCommerce

Your store is a WordPress site: the login, every plugin and extension, and the database of customers and orders, patched on your schedule. 91% of 2025's 11,334 WordPress vulnerabilities were in plugins.

Shopify

Shopify runs and patches the platform. What stays yours is who can log in to the admin, and which apps you let read your store's data.
Card compliance (PCI)

WooCommerce

On you. WooCommerce's own documentation says PCI compliance is ultimately the store owner's responsibility; a hosted payment form narrows the scope, it doesn't remove it.

Shopify

Shopify is certified PCI DSS Level 1, and that certification covers every store's checkout and hosting by default.
Changing the checkout

WooCommerce

Completely yours: fields, steps, rules and upsells, in code or with plugins - as long as someone retests them after every update.

Shopify

Branding on every plan, and apps on the thank-you and order-status pages. Changing the information, shipping and payment steps needs Shopify Plus, from $2,300 a month.
Adding a feature

WooCommerce

Install a plugin or extension - there is one for almost anything. Each is more code to update, and often another yearly license.

Shopify

Install an app. Most bill monthly on top of the plan, and their developers keep them updated, not you.
Your team

WooCommerce

As many user accounts as you need, with WordPress and WooCommerce roles.

Shopify

Staff accounts start on Grow: 5 there, 15 on Advanced, unlimited on Plus. Basic has the owner's login only.
Owning it, and leaving

WooCommerce

Everything is on your server and in your database. Change host whenever you like; nobody else sets your price.

Shopify

Products, customers and orders export as CSV files. The theme, apps and checkout setup only run on Shopify, and the plan price is Shopify's to change.
Finding help

WooCommerce

WooCommerce runs 47.8% of the sites whose e-commerce system W3Techs can identify, so developers are everywhere - of very mixed quality.

Shopify

Shopify runs 32.1%. A smaller pool, but every Shopify developer works on the same platform rather than a different plugin stack.

Want the WooCommerce side of the cost row with your own numbers? Run the WordPress tax calculator

Under the hood

For whoever signs off on the stack.

Compare the platforms, row by row
Compare the platforms, row by row
Architecture

WooCommerce

A PHP plugin inside WordPress. Storefront, checkout, blog and admin are one application on one server, extended through hooks.

Shopify

A hosted, multi-tenant platform. Themes are written in Liquid; apps connect through Shopify's APIs and app extensions.
Order storage

WooCommerce

Dedicated order tables with High-Performance Order Storage, on by default for new stores since WooCommerce 8.2 (October 2023). Older stores may still keep orders in the posts tables until they migrate.

Shopify

Shopify's own data model, read and written through its GraphQL Admin API. Custom data goes in metafields and metaobjects.
Products and variants

WooCommerce

Variable products built from any number of attributes, each variation stored as its own record.

Shopify

Up to 2,048 variants and three options per product. WooCommerce products with more than three attributes have to be restructured on the way in.
Checkout

WooCommerce

Rendered by your own site, so any field, step or rule can be changed in PHP or JavaScript - and has to be retested when WooCommerce or an extension updates.

Shopify

checkout.liquid is retired. Customisation goes through Checkout Extensibility: branding and thank-you and order-status apps on every plan, apps on the information, shipping and payment steps on Plus only.
Payment providers

WooCommerce

Any gateway with a WooCommerce integration, WooPayments included, with no platform fee on top.

Shopify

Shopify Payments, or another provider plus Shopify's fee: 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow, 0.6% on Advanced, 0.2% on Plus. Stores created since 12 May 2025 can also be charged it on the part of an order paid by gift card or store credit.
URLs and redirects

WooCommerce

Any permalink structure WordPress allows.

Shopify

Products live under /products/ and collections under /collections/ - fixed paths that can't themselves be redirected - so most WooCommerce URLs change. Up to 100,000 redirects (20 million on Plus), importable from CSV.
Subscriptions

WooCommerce

WooCommerce Subscriptions, $279 a year, with a payment gateway that supports recurring charges.

Shopify

The free Shopify Subscriptions app, or a paid subscriptions app when you need more.
B2B and wholesale

WooCommerce

Extensions or custom code for price lists, company accounts and invoice terms.

Shopify

B2B on every plan from Basic, with up to three active catalogs below Plus. Deposits and partial payments are Plus-only.
Selling internationally

WooCommerce

Currencies and translations come from extensions or services you add.

Shopify

Markets on every plan, with no limit on countries. Local-currency prices need Shopify Payments, which charges a 1.5% currency conversion fee in the US.
Hosting requirements

WooCommerce

Yours to provide. WooCommerce recommends PHP 8.3+, MySQL 8.0+ or MariaDB 10.6+, HTTPS and a 256 MB memory limit.

Shopify

None. Storefront, admin and checkout all run on Shopify's infrastructure.
License

WooCommerce

GPLv3, developed by Automattic.

Shopify

Proprietary, available only as a subscription.

The honest part

When WooCommerce is still the right call.

  • Your checkout is the product.

    Quote requests, conditional steps, unusual shipping or pricing logic. If Shopify only allows it on Plus, $2,300 a month buys a lot of WooCommerce upkeep.

  • Thin margins and your own payment deal.

    A high-volume store with a better rate from another provider pays Shopify's extra 0.6%-2% on every order, on top of that rate.

  • The shop is a corner of a content site.

    If most of the site is articles or courses and the shop is a few products, a store platform is the wrong shape for the rest of it.

  • It's small, stable and actually patched.

    A handful of extensions, a good managed host and someone who really applies the updates can run for years. Harden it and keep the plan fee.

And when we wouldn't pick Shopify either

  • A few dozen products or fewer.

    A small catalog with a simple checkout often does better as a custom storefront with Stripe: no monthly platform fee, just card processing and hosting.

    Better fitA custom Stripe storefront

  • You sell appointments, not products.

    Booking and scheduling tools fit a service business better than a retail-shaped store, on either platform.

    Better fitA booking tool

  • Paid content is the business.

    Memberships, courses and newsletters belong on a platform built for members, not a product catalog.

    Better fitA membership platform

Shopify or a lean custom storefront, with the trade-offs in one table: Shopify vs. custom Stripe storefront

FAQ

WooCommerce vs Shopify, straight answers.

  • Not on the invoice: WooCommerce is free, and Shopify's US plans are $39, $105 or $399 a month. Over a year the gap narrows, because a WooCommerce store pays for hosting, security, backups, extension licenses and the hours to keep them updated. Card fees start at the same 2.9% + 30¢ on WooPayments and on Shopify's Basic plan.

  • Yes. Shopify's migration app brings products and customers; order history goes through a separate import, which we run against a test store first. Shopify's tools don't carry product reviews over, so they get their own import. Every old product and category URL gets a redirect.

  • Not if every URL is redirected. Shopify keeps products under /products/ and collections under /collections/, so nearly every WooCommerce product and category address changes. We map each one to a 301 redirect before cutover and watch Search Console after it.

  • It moves the work off you. Shopify patches the platform and is PCI DSS Level 1 certified for every store; on WooCommerce, the plugins, the server and PCI compliance are yours. It doesn't make a store untouchable: admin logins and the apps you approve still need looking after.

  • No, but any other provider costs an extra 2% of each order on Basic, 1% on Grow, 0.6% on Advanced and 0.2% on Plus, and selling in local currencies needs Shopify Payments. For most stores that makes Shopify Payments the cheaper choice.

  • Moving live subscriptions means moving customers' saved payment methods too, and whether that's possible depends on your current payment gateway. It's one of the first things we check in the audit, before anything is quoted.

  • Your products, customers and orders export as CSV files from the admin. The theme, apps and checkout setup only run on Shopify, so leaving means rebuilding the storefront - not re-entering the catalog.

Sources (24)

Facts checked 11 September 2026. Shopify prices are its US list prices and differ by country.

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