Shopify or WooCommerce for a small online shop.

The short answer

For most small shops the choice turns on one question: do you want to look after software, or pay a platform to do it for you?

• Shopify suits a shop that wants to start selling without thinking about hosting, security or updates. You pay a monthly plan, add apps for anything extra and accept that the shop lives on Shopify.
• WooCommerce suits a business that already runs WordPress, wants the shop inside the same site, wants to choose its own host and plugins, and has someone to run updates and test the checkout afterwards.

Both handle the usual needs of a small shop: products in sizes and colours, a cart, card payments, shipping rates, discount codes and order emails. Custom work starts where your shop differs, such as bundles, made-to-order products, trade prices or stock that has to match a till.

If you sell services rather than products, this is the wrong comparison: Wix, Squarespace or WordPress covers site builders for service businesses.

Two kinds of platform

Shopify is a hosted platform. Shopify runs the software, the servers and the security, and you rent the whole thing by plan. You never install or update anything, and you can only do what Shopify and its apps allow.

WooCommerce is a free plugin that turns a WordPress site into a shop. You install it on hosting you choose and pay for. In return you can change almost anything, add any plugin and move the shop to any host that runs WordPress, and you, or someone you hire, look after updates, backups and security.

So the real comparison is between renting a shop and owning one you maintain. Neither is better in general. Renting suits an owner who wants to spend their time on products and customers. Owning suits a business that wants control and has, or pays for, the skills to keep it running.

Price a year for a fifty-product shop

The plan price is one line of several. Write down a whole year for a shop of about fifty products, some with sizes or colours, shipping at home and to a few neighbouring countries. On Shopify:

• The plan, paid monthly or yearly. Shopify's pricing page says paying yearly lowers the monthly price.
• A theme: a free one, or a paid theme bought once.
• Apps for anything the plan does not do, such as product reviews, extra product options or subscriptions, each with its own fee.
• Card fees on every sale. With Shopify Payments they depend on your plan, and with another provider Shopify adds its own transaction fee.
• The domain, and email on your domain.

On WooCommerce:

• Hosting good enough for a shop, with backups and a security certificate.
• A theme, free or with a yearly licence.
• Extensions and plugins for anything the core does not do, many on yearly licences.
• Card fees on every sale, charged by your payment provider.
• The domain, and email on your domain.
• The hours of whoever runs updates, tests the checkout and fixes what breaks, or a care plan that covers it.

Only once both lists are complete does comparing totals mean anything. WooCommerce often looks cheaper until the last line is priced, and Shopify often looks cheaper until the apps are added. Website maintenance, line by line explains what the care of a WooCommerce shop involves.

Payments and card fees

Check payments first, because they decide a lot:

• Shopify Payments, Shopify's own card processing, is available in the countries listed on Shopify's help pages, including the US, the UK and much of the EU, such as Germany, France, Spain and Poland. Where it is not available, you use another provider, and Shopify's pricing page says a third-party transaction fee then applies, at a rate that depends on your plan.
• Card rates with Shopify Payments also depend on the plan, with lower online rates on the higher plans.
• WooPayments, Woo's own payment service, is available in the countries listed on Woo's site, which include the US, the UK and every EU country. WooCommerce also works with other providers through extensions.

Whichever you choose, the payment provider charges a fee on every card payment. Compare the rates for your own mix of sales, such as how many are by card, by wallet or from abroad, and check how quickly payouts reach your bank.

Tax, and EU VAT on sales to other countries

Selling across borders brings tax decisions the platform will not make for you.

In the EU, the VAT rules for selling goods to consumers in other EU countries changed on 1 July 2021. For a seller based in one EU country, once cross-border sales to consumers pass an EU-wide yearly threshold, you charge the VAT of each customer's country. The One-Stop Shop, which the European Commission describes on its OSS pages, lets you register in one country and file one return covering all of them, instead of registering in each.

What each platform does with that:

• Shopify can manage tax rates automatically and charge VAT based on the customer's location, and its help page says it does not file or remit your taxes for you.
• WooCommerce uses tax rates you enter or import yourself, or an extension that calculates them. Its documentation says tax extensions do not determine your legal obligations, and recommends a tax professional.

In the US, sales tax depends on the states where you have to collect it, and that is a question for your accountant. On either platform, the software does the arithmetic and your accountant decides what it should charge. Set it up together before the first order from abroad.

Who fixes WooCommerce when an update breaks it

A WooCommerce shop is several pieces of software from different makers: WordPress, WooCommerce, the theme and each extension, each updated on its own schedule. Updates fix bugs and security holes, and now and then one breaks something, such as a payment button that stops loading or order emails that stop sending.

WooCommerce's own guide to updating says to back up first, test the updates on a staging copy of the site rather than the live shop, and check the product pages, cart, checkout, payments, shipping, taxes and order emails before updating the live site. That is real work every month, and someone has to own it:

• You or someone on your team, if they are comfortable with WordPress and have the time.
• The developer who built the shop, on a care plan with a stated response time.
• A host that sells managed WooCommerce hosting. Check exactly what it covers, because keeping the server running and testing your checkout are different jobs.

On Shopify, the platform updates itself. Your theme and apps are still separate pieces from separate developers, and when one changes, a page or a checkout step can still misbehave. Then you contact the app's developer or Shopify's support, rather than fixing code yourself.

Whichever you choose, someone must notice within hours when checkout stops working. Place a test order after every update or app change, and once a week anyway.

Apps, plugins and extensions

Most shops end up adding features: reviews, subscriptions, bundles, extra shipping rules, gift cards, a loyalty scheme. On Shopify each one is an app, and on WooCommerce an extension or plugin, usually with its own fee.

Woo's own extensions are sold as yearly subscriptions. Its documentation says that if you do not renew, the extension keeps working, but you lose updates, including security fixes, and support. An extension left without updates can stop working with a newer version of WooCommerce, so a lapsed licence is a problem waiting for the next update.

Count the apps you need before you choose. A Shopify shop that needs five paid apps costs more than its plan suggests, and a WooCommerce shop with ten extensions has ten more things to update and test. If gift cards are on your list, how to sell gift cards on your website covers the rules that come with them.

Products, variants and stock

Both platforms handle products with variants, stock levels, photos, categories or collections, and discount codes. Look at what your products need beyond that:

• Many variants, such as a T-shirt in eight sizes and twelve colours.
• Personalised or made-to-order items, with options customers type in.
• Trade prices for business customers.
• Subscriptions, such as coffee delivered every month.
• Stock shared with a shop till or a warehouse.

For each one, check whether the platform does it out of the box, which app or extension adds it and what that costs each year. If you also sell in person, check how your till connects. Shopify sells its own point of sale. For WooCommerce, ask your till supplier whether and how it connects, and test that stock moves both ways before you rely on it.

Getting the products in is a job of its own. Shopify imports and exports products as CSV files, and WooCommerce includes a built-in CSV tool for importing, exporting and bulk-updating products. Someone still has to write the descriptions and take the photos. Copying the supplier's descriptions gives you the same text as every other shop selling the same product.

What you can take with you

Ask this before you build:

• Shopify: you can export products as a CSV file, though Shopify's help page says the product images are not included in it, and you can export customers and orders. The shop itself cannot move to another host, so the design and the apps are rebuilt elsewhere.
• WooCommerce: the whole site, files and database, moves to any host that runs WordPress, and the built-in CSV tool exports products.

Either way, register the domain in your business's name, in an account you control, so you can point it at a new shop. And plan a redirect from every old product address to its new one, so searches and links that found the old pages still land somewhere. A website redesign plans those redirects before anything moves.

Staff accounts and editing

Shopify's pricing page lists how many staff accounts each plan includes: Basic has no additional staff accounts, Grow allows up to five and Advanced up to fifteen. If two people pack orders and a third edits products, check the plan before you sign up.

WooCommerce runs on WordPress user accounts and roles, so you can add as many people as you need, each with their own login and only the access their job needs.

Whichever you choose, give each person their own login. With a shared password, nobody knows who changed a price, and you cannot remove someone who leaves without locking everyone else out.

Four shops, four choices

• A potter selling around fifty pieces online and at weekend markets: Shopify, with its point of sale for the markets, a free theme and as few apps as possible.
• A bakery with a WordPress site it likes and a developer on a care plan, adding cake orders for collection: WooCommerce inside the existing site, an extension for collection dates, and a test order after every update.
• A clothing brand with many sizes and colours, selling across the EU: either platform, with the tax set up with an accountant first. Shopify if nobody in-house maintains software, WooCommerce if the team has a developer.
• A trade supplier with account customers, a price list per customer and invoices: check both carefully. Trade pricing needs apps or extensions on either, and this is where custom work starts.

For the questions shoppers ask before they buy, and what a chatbot can answer from your store data, see online stores.

Mistakes to avoid

• Comparing plan prices without the apps, extensions and card fees.
• Choosing WooCommerce with nobody to run updates and test the checkout.
• Choosing Shopify for a shop that needs heavy custom features, then paying for app after app.
• Leaving tax settings at their defaults when you sell to other countries.
• Letting a developer register the domain or the store account in their own name.
• Never placing a test order after launch.
• Importing hundreds of products with the supplier's own descriptions.

How we choose for a client

We build online stores on Shopify or WooCommerce, with payments and stock connected where the platform allows it. Stores often suit Shopify, for the reasons above, though not every store. We recommend one after the free consultation and explain why, and the domain, hosting and accounts are set up in your name or handed over at launch.

See websites for how a build runs, and the prices page, where an online store is listed among the things that change a project's price.