Shopify vs WordPress (2026): Which Is Better for Your Store?
The shop page of our WooCommerce test store on the default Twenty Twenty-Five theme, WooCommerce 11.1.2, October 2026.
Our verdict: Pick Shopify if you want to start selling fast, never touch a server, and are fine paying a monthly fee plus apps. It is the better choice for dropshipping beginners and for teams that want one company to handle hosting, security and checkout. Pick WordPress with WooCommerce if content drives your sales, you already run a WordPress site, or you want to own your store and choose your own hosting and payment provider. WooCommerce takes more setup and upkeep, but there is no platform fee and no lock-in. For large catalogs, both work; the deciding factor is whether you would rather pay Shopify or manage your own stack.
How we compared them: both sides are hands-on. For WordPress, we installed WooCommerce 11.1.2 on a fresh WordPress 7.1.2 test install, ran the setup wizard, added five products, set up shipping and an offline payment method, and placed a test order. For Shopify, we built a store on the 3-day free trial: we added a free theme, two products with variants and photos, and a shipping rate, then went through the tax, payment, checkout, blog and SEO settings and the App Store. Shopify does not take orders until you pick a paid plan, so there is no Shopify test order, and we did not connect a payment provider. All prices are in US dollars and checked as of October 2026.
Shopify vs WordPress at a Glance
| Shopify | WordPress + WooCommerce | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Hosted store builder you pay for monthly | Free, open source software you install on your own hosting, plus the free WooCommerce plugin |
| Starting cost | $29/mo (Basic, billed yearly) or $39/mo monthly | Hosting from $2.99/mo intro (about $11 to $18/mo at renewal on budget hosts), WooCommerce is free |
| Card fees (US) | 2.9% + 30¢ on Basic with Shopify Payments | 2.9% + $0.30 with WooPayments or Stripe |
| Extra fee for other payment providers | 2% on Basic, 1% Grow, 0.6% Advanced, 0.2% Plus | None |
| Free trial | 3 days free, then $1/month for 3 months | Software is free; hosts offer refund windows |
| Themes | 1,299 in the Theme Store, 24 free | Thousands of free and paid WooCommerce themes |
| Add-ons | 16,000+ apps, usually billed monthly | Free plugins on WordPress.org, paid extensions usually billed yearly |
| Blogging and SEO | Built-in blog, some fixed URL paths | Best-in-class blogging, full control of URLs and SEO |
| Maintenance | Shopify handles hosting, updates and security | You (or your host) handle updates, backups and security |
| Ownership | You rent the platform; data exports as CSV | You own the code, files and database |
| Best for | Beginners, dropshipping, teams that want no tech work | Content-led brands, existing WordPress sites, owners who want control |
The Basic Difference: Hosted Platform vs Your Own Software
Shopify is a hosted service. You pay a monthly plan, and Shopify runs the hosting, store software, checkout and updates. You customize within what Shopify and its apps allow.
WordPress is free, open source software you install on hosting you choose. The free WooCommerce plugin turns it into a store, so for selling online the real comparison is WooCommerce vs Shopify.
Both are huge. According to W3Techs, WordPress runs 40.2% of all websites and Shopify runs 5.4%. WooCommerce shows 7 million+ active installs on WordPress.org.
Total Cost: Plans, Payment Fees and Add-ons
What Shopify costs
| Shopify plan | Billed yearly | Billed monthly | US online card rate (Shopify Payments) | Fee if you use another payment provider |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | $29/mo | $39/mo | 2.9% + 30¢ | 2% |
| Grow | $79/mo | $105/mo | 2.7% + 30¢ | 1% |
| Advanced | $299/mo | $399/mo | 2.5% + 30¢ | 0.6% |
| Plus | From $2,300/mo on a 3-year term, $2,500/mo on a 1-year term | n/a | 2.25% + 30¢ | 0.2% |
Prices and fees as shown on the plan page inside our trial store’s admin, October 2026. The Plus term prices are from Shopify’s Plus pricing page; the admin only says “Starts at $2,300 USD/mo.”
The “Plans starting at $1” page in our Shopify trial store’s admin, October 2026. We looked, but did not pick a plan.
A few details matter more than the headline price:
- The trial. 3 days free, then $1/month for 3 months. Our trial store’s plan page showed that $1 offer on Basic, Grow and Advanced; Plus was $399 for one month instead.
- The third-party payment fee. If you use a payment provider other than Shopify Payments, Shopify adds its own fee on top of that provider’s fee: 2% of each order on Basic. The admin’s plan table lists the same 2%, 1%, 0.6% and 0.2% as the public pricing page. Shopify’s help center says manual methods like cash on delivery and bank transfer are exempt.
- Sales tax calculation. Shopify Tax was switched on by default in our trial store. Its settings page says it charges 0.35% in transaction fees after your first $100,000 in global sales.
- The old Starter plan is gone for new stores. Shopify’s help center says the cheap Starter plan “isn’t available to new stores.”
- Paid themes and apps. Paid themes are a one-time purchase; the ones featured in the Theme Store mostly cost $300 to $400. Apps usually bill monthly and are where Shopify bills tend to grow.
What WordPress and WooCommerce cost
WooCommerce itself is free. You pay for:
- Hosting. As of October 2026, Hostinger Premium is $2.99/mo on a 48-month term and renews at $10.99/mo (see our Hostinger review for the full renewal math). SiteGround’s WooCommerce StartUp plan is $2.99/mo for the first 12 months, then $17.99/mo. Managed hosting such as Kinsta starts at $30/mo for one site, or $350/year; our Kinsta review explains what that plan includes.
- A domain. Usually $10 to $20 a year, sometimes free for the first year with hosting.
- A theme. Free themes work fine; our test store used the default Twenty Twenty-Five theme. Paid WooCommerce themes such as Flatsome or WoodMart are a one-time purchase.
- Payment fees. WooPayments charges 2.9% + $0.30 per US card payment, plus 1.5% for international cards. Stripe’s standard rate is also 2.9% + 30¢. WooCommerce adds no platform fee on top.
- Paid extensions, if you need them. For example, the official WooCommerce Subscriptions extension is $279 a year.
A worked example
Take a small store selling $5,000 a month in 100 orders of $50, all US cards:
| Setup | Platform or hosting | Payment fees | Monthly total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shopify Basic (yearly) + Shopify Payments | $29 | $175 | $204 |
| Shopify Basic (yearly) + a third-party provider at 2.9% + 30¢ | $29 | $175 + $100 Shopify fee | $304 |
| WooCommerce on Hostinger Premium at renewal + WooPayments | $10.99 | $175 | about $186 |
| WooCommerce on Kinsta + WooPayments | $30 | $175 | $205 |
Card processing is the biggest cost on both platforms, and it is about the same. With Shopify Payments, Shopify is not much more expensive at this size. The gap opens up with Shopify’s extra fee for other payment providers, monthly app bills, and moving up to Grow, Advanced or Plus. WooCommerce costs grow in other ways: better hosting as traffic rises, paid extensions, and developer time.
WooCommerce vs Shopify: Setting Up a Store
What our WooCommerce test install showed
The “Get a boost with our free features” step of the WooCommerce 11.1.2 setup wizard on our test install, October 2026. All ten boxes come ticked.
We installed WooCommerce from the WordPress.org plugin directory and opened its setup wizard. It is four screens:
- Welcome. A box agreeing to share usage data with WooCommerce comes ticked. We unticked it.
- “Which one of these best describes you?” We picked “I’m just starting my business.”
- Store details. Store name, industry, country, and your email, with a newsletter opt-in that is unticked.
- Free features. Ten extensions, all pre-ticked: WooPayments, WooCommerce Shipping, PayPal, Jetpack, Pinterest, MailPoet, Google for WooCommerce, WooCommerce Tax, Snapchat Ads and Reddit. The small print says installing four of them means agreeing to Woo’s terms of service. We clicked “Skip this step” in the top corner, which installs none of them.
Next comes a five-step checklist: add products, set up payments, customize your store, collect sales tax, and launch. New stores start in “Coming soon” mode, hidden from visitors until you launch, which is a sensible default.
Adding products. We added five products: three simple ones (a tote bag, a beanie, a wallet on sale) and two variable ones (a shirt in three sizes and two colors, and a hoodie in four sizes). The product editor has fields for price, sale price, SKU, stock and weight. For the shirt, we added Size and Color attributes, and “Generate variations” created all six combinations in one click. WooCommerce then warned that “6 variations do not have prices,” which means they stay hidden from shoppers; the “Set regular prices” bulk action fixed that in one step.
The Variations tab for a shirt with Size and Color attributes on our test install, WooCommerce 11.1.2, October 2026.
Shipping. The wizard had already created a United States shipping zone with a free shipping method. We added a $6 flat rate and set free shipping to start at $75.
Payments. This is where WooCommerce pushes hardest. The Payments page opens with a banner offering 10% off WooPayments fees for three months, then lists WooPayments and PayPal with Install buttons. Offline methods (bank transfer, check, cash on delivery) sit one click deeper. We enabled check payments and cash on delivery, with no real gateway.
WooCommerce’s Payments settings on our test install, October 2026. Offline payment methods are under “Take offline payments” at the bottom.
The test order. As a logged-out shopper, we bought the shirt (M, Sand) and the tote through the one-page guest checkout: $72 of products plus the $6 flat rate, $78 in total, paid by cash on delivery. The order arrived in the admin as “Processing,” and the tote’s stock dropped from 40 to 39.
Test order #37 in the WooCommerce admin, with variation details, SKU and the flat rate shipping line, October 2026.
Three things we would have missed on a real store:
- No sales tax was charged. Tax is a separate checklist step, and WooCommerce does not calculate it until you set it up (manually or with the WooCommerce Tax extension).
- The check payment instructions said “Store Name, Store Street…” The wizard never asks for a store address, so the default text uses placeholders until you fill in the address under Settings.
- Upsells are everywhere. Besides the wizard and Payments page, we saw prompts on the WooCommerce home screen (Jetpack stats, a Tap to Pay note, “Enhance your store with extensions”), a badge on the Payments menu, recommended shipping extensions, and a “Get more options” tab in the product editor. None blocks you, but beginners could easily install things they do not need.
From installing the plugin to a finished test order took about 20 minutes on our test install, with three of the five products added in bulk rather than typed into the editor. That does not include buying hosting and installing WordPress, which most hosts now do in one click.
What our Shopify trial store showed
There is nothing to install. The trial store came with the free Horizon theme live and a US shipping zone with two rates already set: Standard at $8 (free from $70) and Express at $15.
Adding products. We added two products for a made-up pottery studio, Juniper Ceramics: a $32 mug in three colors and a bud vase in two sizes and two glazes. Shopify did much of the typing. Once the photos uploaded, it picked each product’s category on its own (“Mugs in Drinkware,” “Bud Vases in Vases”), and for the mug it read the colors from the photos, so adding a Color option created the green, blue and beige variants in one step. For the vase, we typed in Size and Glaze options, which made four variants grouped by size, each with its own price, stock and photo.
The Variants section for our test bud vase in the Shopify admin: two options, four variants, prices set per size and stock per variant, October 2026.
Shopify’s help center says a product can have up to three options and 2,048 variants. One surprise: typing while no field had focus opened a “Barcode not found” dialog, because the product page listens for a barcode scanner.
Shipping. We added a $6.50 flat rate for 5 to 8 business days. Rates can be flat, based on order amount or weight, or calculated by a carrier; Shopify’s plan table says live carrier rates need Advanced, or a paid add-on on Grow.
Taxes. Shopify Tax was already on, but it was collecting in no states. As on WooCommerce, nothing is charged until you register with each state and add it; after that, Shopify calculates the rates and says it will warn you as you near each state’s threshold.
Payments. The Payments page leads with a “Complete setup” button for Shopify Payments and card rates “starting at 2.5% + $0.30” (the Advanced plan’s rate). Third-party gateways such as authorize.net sit under “See all other providers.” We set up none of them.
Winner for setup: Shopify. Shopify filled in shipping rates, product categories and even variant values for us. WooCommerce’s wizard is short, but you make more decisions and turn down more offers.
Design and Themes
The free Tinker theme in the Shopify theme editor on our trial store, with Sidekick’s suggestions on the right, October 2026.
The Shopify Theme Store listed 1,299 themes when we checked, 24 of them free. Each has a live demo store, and paid themes are a one-time purchase with free updates. Developers can edit theme code, written in Shopify’s own Liquid language, which only works on Shopify.
On our trial store, adding the free Tinker theme from the admin took one click and installed it as a draft beside the live Horizon theme, so you can try a theme without switching. In the editor, you edit text right on the preview; changing the hero heading took seconds. Sidekick, the AI assistant Shopify’s plan page lists on every plan, opened by itself, looked at our products and suggested a logo, a banner with “a hero shot of your ceramics” and a featured collection for “your mugs and vases,” without changing anything.
WordPress gives you far more choice: any WooCommerce-compatible theme, from the free default theme our test store used to paid themes like Flatsome, plus page builders and the site editor. The trade-off is quality control. WordPress themes range from excellent to abandoned, so check when one was last updated before you buy.
Winner for design: WordPress for flexibility, Shopify for a consistent, curated starting point.
Product and Inventory Features
Shopify’s selling features are strong on every plan: unlimited products, inventory across up to 10 locations (200 on Plus), discount codes, gift cards, abandoned checkout recovery, email campaigns, discounted shipping labels, and selling on social channels and marketplaces. Basic has no extra staff accounts (Grow allows 5).
WooCommerce covers the same basics in its free core. Our test install offered simple, variable, grouped and external (affiliate) product types, stock tracking, sale prices, categories, tags, brands, reviews and coupons. The external product type is handy if you link out to products on other sites; our guide to the best Amazon WordPress plugins covers tools that build on it. Subscriptions, bookings and memberships usually need a paid extension, just as they need an app on Shopify. For subscriptions, Shopify has the edge on price: its own Shopify Subscriptions app is free in the App Store, while WooCommerce Subscriptions is $279 a year.
Winner: tie. Shopify bundles more marketing tools into the plan; WooCommerce lets you add exactly what you need.
Payments and Checkout
Shopify’s checkout is its strongest feature; Shopify says it converts 15% better on average than other platforms. Shop Pay and PayPal are built in, and fraud analysis comes with Shopify Payments, which the help center lists in 40 countries. The downsides: checkout customization is limited below Plus, and other payment providers trigger the extra fee.
We could not try Shopify’s checkout during the trial. Both the checkout editor’s preview and a real checkout started from the storefront preview said: “This store isn’t set up to receive orders yet.” Visitors only see an “Opening soon” password page, and the setting to remove the password says to select a plan first. So on Shopify you pay before you see a working checkout; on WooCommerce, we placed a test order before spending anything.
The checkout editor on our Shopify trial store, October 2026. Checkout stays closed until you pick a plan.
WooCommerce lets you use any payment gateway with no platform fee. Woo says its own WooPayments works in 38 countries, and Stripe, PayPal and many others have plugins. On our test install, the default checkout was a single page with guest checkout switched on, and you can edit its layout in the WordPress site editor.
Winner: Shopify for a polished checkout out of the box, WooCommerce for payment choice and no extra fees.
SEO, Content and Blogging
This is WordPress’s biggest advantage. It was built for publishing, so blog posts, category pages, landing pages and buying guides are first-class content, and SEO plugins give you full control of titles, schema and sitemaps. If you are choosing an SEO plugin, see our Rank Math vs Yoast comparison. You also control every URL.
Shopify has a built-in blog and handles the SEO basics: editable titles and descriptions, automatic sitemaps, and an editable robots.txt file through the theme code. Its URL structure is partly fixed, though. Product and collection URLs always include /products/ and /collections/, and Shopify’s help center says you can’t redirect those fixed paths.
Our trial store showed both sides. Each product has a “Search engine listing” box with a page title, meta description and URL handle, filled in from the product name and description, but the handle starts with a fixed products/ you cannot edit. Our test blog post landed at /blogs/news/how-we-glaze-our-stoneware-mugs, inside the default “News” blog. The blog editor is basic: title, rich text, excerpt, featured image, tags (no categories), the same search fields and a visible or hidden switch. Fine for a few posts a month, but nothing like WordPress’s block editor and SEO plugins.
The search engine listing fields for a test product on our Shopify trial store, October 2026. The products/ part of the URL handle is fixed. We blurred the store’s address.
Winner: WordPress, clearly, for any store that plans to win traffic with content.
Speed
With Shopify, speed is mostly Shopify’s job, since hosting is included. What you control is your theme and the apps you add.
With WooCommerce, speed depends on your host, theme and plugins. We ran Google Lighthouse on our test store’s shop page on the local test machine. With five products, the default theme and no other plugins, it scored 93 for performance on mobile and 100 on desktop, with a simulated mobile Largest Contentful Paint of 2.8 seconds and a page weight of about 230 KB. Treat that as a best case with no real traffic, a tiny catalog and no tracking scripts. A live store with a heavy theme and many plugins will score lower.
Winner: Shopify for consistent speed with no effort. A well-built WooCommerce store on good hosting can be just as fast, but that is on you.
Scaling and Large Catalogs
Shopify scales without you thinking about servers. As you grow you move up plans for more staff, lower card rates and, on Plus, a fully customizable checkout and higher API limits. Plus starts at $2,300 a month.
WooCommerce scales as far as your hosting and setup allow. Our test install used WooCommerce’s newer dedicated order tables by default, rather than storing orders as ordinary WordPress posts. For a big catalog or lots of traffic, plan on managed hosting; our managed WordPress hosting guide and Kinsta vs SiteGround comparison are good starting points.
Ownership and Lock-in
On Shopify you rent your store. You can export products, customers and orders as CSV files, but your theme (written in Liquid) and your apps do not move with you, and your fixed URLs will change if you leave.
WooCommerce is open source. You own the files and the database and can move to another host whenever you like with a tool such as All-in-One WP Migration. No company can raise your platform fee or change your plan’s features.
Winner: WordPress.
Maintenance and Security
Shopify handles updates, hosting, SSL and checkout security. Your job is mostly to keep apps and staff access under control.
With WooCommerce, you or your host are responsible for updates to WordPress, WooCommerce, your theme and plugins, plus backups and security. WooCommerce updates often (version 11.1.2 arrived on September 22, 2026), so test updates on a copy of your store first; our WordPress staging plugin roundup shows how. Managed hosts take much of this work off your hands for a higher price.
Winner: Shopify.
Which Should You Choose?
- Dropshipping beginner: Shopify. A working store in an afternoon, dropshipping apps from the App Store, and no server to manage. The App Store says it has over 16,000 apps; DSers, a dropshipping app with more than 6,000 reviews, has a free plan and paid plans from $19.90 a month. Use Shopify Payments to avoid the extra fee.
- Content-led brand: WordPress + WooCommerce. If blog posts, guides and SEO bring your customers, WordPress’s content tools and URL control are worth the extra setup.
- Existing WordPress blog adding a store: WooCommerce. You keep one site, one login and your existing traffic. If you only want to sell a few items, Shopify’s Buy Button can embed products in WordPress pages instead. It is a free app made by Shopify, the Buy Button channel, and Shopify says it works on all plans.
- Large catalog: it depends on your team. Choose Shopify (Advanced or Plus) if you want predictable operations and no server work. Choose WooCommerce on managed hosting if you need custom catalog logic, have developer help, or want to avoid Plus pricing.
Still comparing platforms? Our WordPress vs Wix vs Squarespace overview compares all three, and our Wix vs WordPress and WordPress vs Squarespace comparisons go deeper on each.
FAQ
Is Shopify better than WordPress for ecommerce?
Shopify is easier and needs less upkeep, so it is better for beginners and for stores that just want to sell. WordPress with WooCommerce is better for content-heavy stores, existing WordPress sites, and owners who want control over hosting, payments and data.
Is WooCommerce cheaper than Shopify?
Usually a little, but not by as much as many people think. Card fees are about the same on both (2.9% + 30¢ for US cards on Shopify Basic and on WooPayments). WooCommerce saves you the monthly plan fee and Shopify’s extra fee for third-party payment providers, but you pay for hosting, and possibly paid extensions and developer time.
Does Shopify charge transaction fees?
Not if you use Shopify Payments; you only pay the card rate. If you use another payment provider, Shopify charges 2% per order on Basic, 1% on Grow, 0.6% on Advanced and 0.2% on Plus, on top of the provider’s own fees. Manual methods like cash on delivery are exempt. Separately, Shopify Tax, which was on by default in our trial store, charges 0.35% once you pass $100,000 in sales.
Can I use Shopify with WordPress?
Yes. Shopify’s Buy Button lets you embed products and a cart in WordPress pages. It comes from the free Buy Button channel app, made by Shopify. It suits a blog selling a handful of items; for a full store on WordPress, WooCommerce fits better.
Can I move from Shopify to WooCommerce later?
Yes, but plan for work. Products, customers and orders export from Shopify as CSV files and can be imported into WooCommerce. Your Shopify theme and apps do not transfer, and your product and collection URLs will change, so set up redirects to keep your search traffic.
Is WooCommerce hard for beginners?
Not very. On our test install the wizard was four screens, and products, shipping, payments and a test order took about 20 minutes. The harder parts are choosing hosting, keeping plugins updated, and ignoring add-on offers you do not need.