Pick Shopify if you sell a straightforward catalog, have nobody technical on the team, and want hosting, security and updates to be somebody else's problem. Pick WooCommerce if you need to control the checkout, price things differently for different customers, own your data outright, or run the store as part of a larger WordPress site. Most of the arguments about this online are about cost. Cost is rarely what decides it. Control is.
Who should pick Shopify
Shopify is the right choice for a merchant with a simple catalog and no developer. One price per product, standard shipping, a handful of countries, marketing that lives in email and ads rather than in a content site. If that describes you, Shopify will get you selling faster than WooCommerce will, and it will keep working without anyone patching it. We build on WooCommerce for a living and we still say this to people who call us.
It is also the right choice if you cannot name the person who will look after the store. WooCommerce needs someone. Shopify does not, until you want something it does not do.
Who should pick WooCommerce
WooCommerce is the right choice when the store has rules. Trade pricing for account customers. Minimum quantities. Products configured from options that change the price. A checkout that has to ask an unusual question or talk to a warehouse before it confirms. A catalog that needs to sit next to a serious content site with its own SEO. WooCommerce handles all of that because it is code you own running on a server you control. Shopify handles some of it, on its top tier, through apps you rent.
It is also the right choice if you already have a WordPress site with traffic. Bolting a Shopify store onto a WordPress site means two systems, two logins, two sets of customer records, and a split between domains that nobody doing SEO wants.
Cost of ownership, honestly
WooCommerce is free to install and not free to run. You pay for hosting that can handle uncached pages, for a developer or a maintenance plan to keep plugins and PHP current, and for any premium extensions. Those costs are visible and they are yours to choose. A store on cheap shared hosting with nobody maintaining it will be slow and eventually broken, and that is the origin of most "WooCommerce is unreliable" stories.
Shopify charges a monthly subscription, then a transaction fee on every order unless you use its own payment processor, then a monthly fee for most of the apps that add what the base platform lacks. Each fee looks small. Together they scale with revenue in a way hosting does not. A WooCommerce store's running costs stay roughly flat as sales grow. A Shopify store's costs grow with sales. Which is better depends on whether you would rather pay a predictable fixed amount or a percentage.
The honest summary: at low volume with no customization, Shopify is cheaper and simpler. At higher volume, or with custom requirements, WooCommerce costs less over a few years even after you pay for proper hosting and ongoing maintenance.
Checkout control
On WooCommerce the checkout is yours. Fields, order, validation, what happens after the order is placed, which payment methods appear for which customers: all of it can be changed, and the change is code you keep. On Shopify the checkout is theirs. You can adjust branding and add approved extension points. The deeper changes are reserved for the top plan and some are not available at any price. For many merchants that limitation is a feature, because they cannot break what they cannot touch. For anyone whose checkout is where the business logic lives, it is a wall. The WooCommerce checkout customization page lists what is possible on the open side of that wall.
Data ownership
A WooCommerce store is a database you can export, back up, query and move. Customers, orders, products, everything. A Shopify store is an account. You can export most of it through the admin and the API, but the store itself lives on their infrastructure on their terms, and some data never leaves. Customer passwords cannot be exported from Shopify. Saved card tokens belong to the payment processor and do not transfer between platforms in either direction. If owning the customer relationship outright matters to you, that settles it.
B2B and complex pricing
This is where the gap is widest. Per-customer pricing, tiered quantity breaks, quote requests, net payment terms, catalogs that only some accounts can see, orders approved by a manager before they ship. WooCommerce does none of this in core either, but the plugin ecosystem and custom development cover all of it, and the result is under your control. Shopify's B2B features sit on its enterprise tier and work the way Shopify decided they should. If your buyers are businesses, WooCommerce is the default answer.
Developer availability
WordPress developers are the largest pool of web developers there is, and WooCommerce developers are a large subset. That is a real advantage: you will always find someone. It is also the source of WooCommerce's reputation problem, because the pool includes a lot of people who install plugins until something works. The fix is to hire on evidence, not on price. Shopify has a smaller, more uniform developer pool, and the platform limits how much damage a weak developer can do. If you go the WooCommerce route, hire a WooCommerce developer who can show you code, not just stores.
Migration reality
Moving from Shopify to WooCommerce is routine work with two hard edges. Products, categories, customers and order history all move. Passwords do not, so every customer gets a reset email or sets a new password on first login. Card tokens do not, so subscribers must re-enter payment details. URLs change structure, so redirects are part of the job, not an afterthought. Plan for a staging build, a data rehearsal, and a cut-over window. The full process is on the Shopify to WooCommerce migration page. Going the other way is the same work with one more loss: any custom logic you built on WooCommerce has to be rebuilt as Shopify apps or dropped.
Side by side
| Question | WooCommerce | Shopify |
|---|---|---|
| Hosting | You choose and pay for it | Included, not negotiable |
| Cost pattern | Fixed costs, flat as sales grow | Subscription plus fees that grow with sales |
| Checkout | Fully yours to change | Branding and approved extensions; deeper changes on top plan only |
| Data | Your database, exportable in full | Exportable in part; passwords never leave |
| B2B and complex pricing | Plugins plus custom code, any rule you can specify | Enterprise tier, Shopify's rules |
| Maintenance | Your responsibility, monthly | Done for you |
| Developers | Huge pool, uneven quality | Smaller pool, narrower scope of work |
| Content and SEO | WordPress, full control | Adequate blog, fixed URL structure |
| Best for | Stores with rules, B2B, content-led brands | Simple catalogs, no technical staff |
Common questions
Is WooCommerce cheaper than Shopify?
Not at the start, and not if nobody maintains it. WooCommerce becomes cheaper as volume and customization grow, because its costs are fixed while Shopify's fees track revenue. If you plan to stay small and simple, the difference is not worth switching for.
Is Shopify faster than WooCommerce?
Out of the box, yes, because Shopify controls the hosting and the theme. A WooCommerce store on suitable hosting with a sane plugin set is just as fast on the pages that matter. The difference is that Shopify's speed is guaranteed and WooCommerce's speed is earned.
Can a small store run WooCommerce without a developer?
Yes, if it uses a well-maintained theme, few plugins, and a host that handles updates and backups. The moment it needs a custom rule or an integration, it needs a developer, and that is also the moment it stops being a fit for Shopify.
Which is better for SEO?
WooCommerce, on balance, because it gives full control over URLs, markup, schema and content, and it lives inside WordPress. Shopify's SEO is adequate and fixed. Neither ranks anything by itself.
How long does a Shopify to WooCommerce migration take?
It depends on catalog size, how much custom logic and how many integrations the store has, and how many URLs need redirecting. Moving the data is the smaller part. Rebuilding the theme, the apps and the integrations is where the time goes.
Next step
If you are weighing the two for a specific store, tell us about it and we will say which we would pick and why, including when the answer is Shopify.
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