Shopify vs WooCommerce vs Custom Store: Which to Choose

For most small businesses selling standard products, Shopify is the fastest way to open an online store, WooCommerce is the most flexible way to own it, and a custom-built store only pays off when your pricing, catalog or integrations don’t fit either. The real difference is not the monthly price on the pricing page but the fees, add-ons and maintenance that come after it, and whether your country supports the payment options you need. Here is how the three compare on cost, effort and control.

Key takeaway

Choose Shopify if you want to launch quickly with little technical work and Shopify Payments is available in your country. Choose WooCommerce if you already use WordPress, want full control of your data and are ready to manage hosting and updates. Choose a custom-built store only when B2B pricing, a complex catalog or deep ERP integration would otherwise force constant workarounds. Compare the total yearly cost, not the plan price.

Which should you choose: the short answer

The best choice depends on your budget, your team’s skills and how standard your way of selling is:

• Launching fast, small team, standard products, Shopify Payments available in your country: Shopify.
• Already on WordPress, content-heavy site, want to own the code and data, someone can maintain it: WooCommerce.
• Wholesale or B2B pricing, very large or configurable catalog, or the store must work as part of your ERP: a custom-built store.
• Not sure yet and want to test demand cheaply: start on Shopify or a marketplace, and plan the move once sales prove the model. Our comparison of an online store vs a marketplace covers that first step.

Shopify vs WooCommerce vs custom store at a glance

The three options differ mainly in who runs the technology and how you pay for it. Each is described with the same five points.

Shopify

• Best for: small and mid-sized shops that want to sell quickly without managing servers.
• What you pay: a monthly plan, card processing fees per order, an extra fee per order if you use a third-party payment provider, plus paid apps and themes.
• Hosting and security: handled by Shopify; it is certified PCI DSS Level 1, which covers all stores by default.
• Strengths: fast setup, reliable hosting, a large app store, little maintenance.
• Weaknesses: fees grow with sales, many features come from paid apps, and changing how checkout or pricing works is limited by the platform.

WooCommerce

• Best for: businesses with a WordPress site that want control over design, data and features.
• What you pay: nothing for the plugin itself, but you pay for hosting, a domain, paid extensions or themes, payment processing and someone to maintain it.
• Hosting and security: your responsibility: you choose the host, apply updates and keep the site secure.
• Strengths: open source, no platform fee per order, full ownership of content and data, almost unlimited customization.
• Weaknesses: updates and security take ongoing work, quality depends on hosting and plugins, and a badly maintained store slows down or breaks.

Custom-built store

• Best for: companies whose prices, catalog or processes don’t fit standard platforms, often B2B or multi-market sellers.
• What you pay: a larger upfront development cost, then hosting, payment processing and ongoing maintenance.
• Hosting and security: your responsibility or your developer’s, under a clear maintenance agreement.
• Strengths: checkout, pricing and integrations work exactly as your business needs, with no platform limits or per-order platform fees.
• Weaknesses: the highest upfront cost and longest launch time, and every new feature needs development.

What Shopify really costs

Shopify’s cost is the plan price plus fees per order, so a busy store pays more than the plan suggests. On Shopify’s pricing page for the euro area (viewed 3 October 2026), the Basic plan costs €32 a month billed monthly or €24 a month billed yearly, with online card rates from 2.1% + €0.30 per order on Basic. If you use a payment provider other than Shopify Payments, Shopify adds a third-party transaction fee of 2% on Basic, falling to 0.2% on Plus. Prices vary by country and currency and change over time, so check the page for your market.

On top of that come paid apps for features such as reviews, subscriptions or advanced filters, and sometimes a paid theme. When you compare options, add these to the plan price for a full year.

Is Shopify Payments available in your country?

Whether Shopify Payments works in your country changes the real cost of Shopify. Shopify’s list of supported countries includes the US, Canada, the UK, most of the EU, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, Mexico and the United Arab Emirates, among others. If your country isn’t listed, Shopify says you need a third-party payment provider, which means paying Shopify’s third-party transaction fee on every order on top of the provider’s own fees. On 3 October 2026 the list did not include, for example, mainland China, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, South Korea or Taiwan, so sellers registered there should factor that fee into their comparison.

What WooCommerce really costs

WooCommerce itself is free: the WooCommerce plugin is open source and distributed under the GPL, and it runs on WordPress. What you pay for is everything around it:

• Hosting: a server that meets WooCommerce’s server requirements, such as a recent version of PHP and MySQL or MariaDB, and HTTPS. Cheap shared hosting is the most common cause of a slow store.
• Extensions and themes: many essential features, such as advanced shipping rules or subscriptions, are paid extensions.
• Payments: the fees of whichever payment provider you connect.
• Maintenance: updates to WordPress, WooCommerce and plugins, backups and security monitoring, done by you or paid for.

WooCommerce is cheaper than Shopify when sales are high and someone on your team can maintain it; it becomes expensive when every problem needs an outside developer. If you don’t have a WordPress site yet, our comparison of Wix vs WordPress vs a custom website covers that choice.

When a custom-built store makes sense

A custom-built store makes sense when the cost of working around a platform is higher than the cost of building exactly what you need. Typical cases:

• B2B and wholesale: prices per customer group, minimum order quantities, quotes before ordering or payment on account.
• Complex catalogs: products configured from many options, or catalogs with tens of thousands of items and frequent updates.
• Deep integration: stock, prices and orders that must stay in sync with your ERP in real time; our guide to custom ERP vs off-the-shelf software covers that side.
• Several markets with different rules: separate prices, taxes, languages and payment methods per country.

For a small shop selling standard products, a custom build is usually the wrong first step: launch on a platform, learn what customers want, and build custom parts later.

Questions to answer before you decide

Answering these questions usually makes the choice obvious:

1. How many products do you sell, and do prices differ by customer?
2. Which countries do you sell to, and which payment methods do customers there expect?
3. Is Shopify Payments available where your business is registered?
4. Who will update, secure and fix the store, and how many hours a month can they give it?
5. Which systems must the store connect to: ERP, accounting, warehouse, marketplaces?
6. What is your realistic total budget for the first year, including fees, apps and maintenance?
7. How important is it that you own the code and can move the store elsewhere later?

FAQ

Is Shopify or WooCommerce cheaper?

WooCommerce has no plugin or platform fee, so it is often cheaper for stores with high sales and someone to maintain it; Shopify is often cheaper for small stores, because hosting, security and updates are included in the plan. The answer depends on your sales volume, whether Shopify Payments is available in your country, the paid apps or extensions you need, and who maintains the store.

Can I move from Shopify to WooCommerce or a custom store later?

Yes, but plan it as a project. Shopify lets you export products to a CSV file, which helps a move, but designs, apps, URLs and redirects have to be rebuilt or mapped on the new platform so you don’t lose search rankings.

Is a custom online store worth it for a small business?

Usually not at the start. A small business selling standard products gets more value from launching on Shopify or WooCommerce and investing in products and marketing, such as Google or Meta ads. A custom store becomes worth it when B2B pricing, a complex catalog or ERP integration would otherwise require constant workarounds.

UsualMatrix builds online stores on Shopify, WooCommerce or fully custom code, and helps you choose based on your products, countries, payment methods and budget. We work with businesses worldwide in Chinese, Spanish and English. See our website and ecommerce service or contact us to talk about your store.