WooCommerce vs Shopify (2026): Which Should You Actually Build On?

The usual framing is that WooCommerce is free and Shopify costs money. That is true of the software and false of the bill. WooCommerce core is genuinely free and open source, with no platform fee and no revenue share — but WooCommerce’s own pricing page puts hosting at $25 to $350 a month for most stores and extensions at $29 to $299 a year each. Shopify Basic is $29 a month with hosting, security and updates included.

So the real question is not which is cheaper. It is which kind of cost you would rather carry: a predictable subscription, or a lower floor plus the work of running your own infrastructure.

The short answer

Pick WooCommerce if you already run WordPress, you have development capability in-house or on retainer, and you want to own the stack outright — no platform fee, no vendor deciding what your checkout can do, no limits on variants or markets.

Pick Shopify if you would rather pay a subscription than employ a stack. Hosting, security patching, PCI compliance and uptime become someone else’s job, and you spend your time on the store instead of on the server.

The honest test is not technical. It is: when the site goes down at 11pm on Black Friday, whose problem is it? On Shopify it is Shopify’s. On WooCommerce it is yours, or your developer’s, and you are paying for that either way.

What each one actually is

WooCommerce is a plugin. It turns a WordPress site into a store, which means everything true of WordPress is true of your store — the hosting, the theme, the plugin conflicts, the update cycle, and the flexibility that comes with running software you control. There is no company between you and your own site.

Shopify is hosted software. You rent a store that already works. The trade is that you accept the platform’s boundaries in exchange for never patching a server, and those boundaries are real: a variant ceiling, a fixed checkout unless you are on Plus, and a fee if you process payments through anyone but Shopify Payments.

These are different products for different appetites, not a good option and a bad one.

What each one actually costs in 2026

Figures below come from each vendor’s own pricing page as of September 2026.

WooCommerce

• Core platform: $0. Free, open source, no monthly subscription, no revenue share, unlimited products and orders.
• Hosting: $25–$350/month for most stores, by WooCommerce’s own estimate, scaling with traffic and performance needs.
• Extensions: $29–$299/year each. Most real stores need several.
• Payments: roughly 2.50–2.90% + 30¢ with WooPayments, and no penalty for using a different processor — you can run several, and negotiate your own rates as volume grows.

Shopify

• Basic: $29/month annually, $39 month-to-month. 2.9% + 30¢ card rate. 2% extra if you use a gateway other than Shopify Payments.
• Grow: $79/month annually, $105 month-to-month. 2.7% + 30¢, 1% third-party fee.
• Advanced: $299/month annually, $399 month-to-month. 2.5% + 30¢, 0.6% third-party fee.
• Plus: from $2,300/month. 0.2% third-party fee, negotiated card rates.

Hosting, SSL, security patching and PCI compliance are included at every tier.

Where the money actually lands

At the bottom of the range WooCommerce genuinely is cheaper. Budget shared hosting at $25 a month with two or three extensions will run under Shopify Basic, and if your store is small and you are comfortable maintaining WordPress, that gap is real money.

At the middle it inverts. Managed WooCommerce hosting that can take real traffic, plus the five to eight extensions a working store tends to accumulate — subscriptions, bookings, shipping, tax, a decent search — lands well above $29 a month. Add a developer on call for the times a plugin update breaks checkout, and the comparison stops being close.

Two costs that don’t appear on either pricing page decide more of this than the subscription does:

• Payment processing at volume. WooCommerce charges nothing extra for using your own processor. Shopify charges 2% on Basic for the same choice. On $50,000 a month that is $1,000 — far more than the plan. Merchants who can negotiate their own rates find this is the number that matters, and it is the strongest financial argument for WooCommerce.
• Maintenance. Someone updates the plugins, tests that nothing broke, renews the certificate, and answers the pager. On Shopify that is included. On WooCommerce it is your time or your developer’s invoice, and it is the cost most comparisons quietly leave out.

Where WooCommerce wins

• Ownership. The code is yours. Nobody can change your checkout, reprice your plan, or deprecate a feature you depend on.
• Payment freedom. Any gateway, several at once, no platform penalty, and your own negotiated rates as you scale.
• Content-heavy stores. If publishing is central to how you sell, WordPress is still the better editorial system and the store lives inside it rather than beside it.
• No structural limits. Unlimited variants and unlimited markets, where Shopify has ceilings on both.
• You already run WordPress. One stack, one login, one set of skills you already have.

Where Shopify wins

• You are not the sysadmin. Hosting, uptime, patching, PCI compliance and scaling are handled. For most merchants this is the entire argument.
• Nothing breaks on update day. The most common WooCommerce failure is a plugin update that quietly breaks something in checkout. A hosted platform tests its own upgrades.
• Retail and multichannel. Shopify POS shares inventory and customers with the online store, and selling across marketplaces and social runs off one catalog.
• Speed to launch. A working store in days rather than a build.
• Support with a phone number. WooCommerce support is documentation, forums, and whoever you hired. That is fine until it isn’t.

The question worth asking instead

Most people arrive at this comparison already on one platform, and the real decision is whether to move. That reframes it usefully.

If you are on WooCommerce and the store works, stay. Migrating a functioning store costs money and risks rankings, and “Shopify would be tidier” is not a business case. If you are on WooCommerce and you are spending more time on plugin conflicts, hosting tickets and update anxiety than on selling, that time has a price, and it is usually higher than a subscription. That is the point at which moving from WooCommerce to Shopify starts paying for itself.

Going the other way is rarer and usually driven by one of two things: payment processing costs at volume, or a requirement Shopify structurally cannot meet. Both are legitimate. Neither is about the monthly plan.

How to decide

• Who maintains the site? No one, or you in spare hours: Shopify. A developer you already pay: either.
• Are you on WordPress already? Yes tilts to WooCommerce. No removes most of its advantage.
• What are you processing monthly? Past roughly $50,000, Shopify’s third-party gateway fee becomes the largest line in the comparison.
• Do you need something specific Shopify limits? Unlimited variants, an unusual checkout, many markets — that is a real reason to choose WooCommerce.
• How much downtime can you absorb? If the answer is none and nobody is on call, rent the platform.

Frequently asked questions

What are the disadvantages of WooCommerce?

You own the maintenance. Hosting, security patching, backups, PCI compliance and plugin updates are your responsibility, and plugin conflicts after an update are the most common way a WooCommerce store breaks. Costs are also less predictable than a subscription — hosting scales with traffic and each extension is a separate annual fee. Support is documentation and forums rather than a company you can call. None of this is disqualifying if you have development capability; all of it matters if you don’t.

How much does Shopify take from a $100 sale?

On a Basic plan using Shopify Payments, 2.9% + 30¢ — so $3.20, leaving $96.80 before your subscription. Grow is 2.7% + 30¢ and Advanced 2.5% + 30¢. Using a different payment provider adds a platform fee on top: 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow, 0.6% on Advanced. WooCommerce takes nothing itself; you pay only your processor, roughly 2.50–2.90% + 30¢ with WooPayments.

Is Shopify still worth it in 2026?

For merchants who want to sell rather than administer software, yes — the subscription buys hosting, security, compliance and uptime that would otherwise cost time or a retainer. It is worth less if you already have development capability, process enough volume that the third-party gateway fee bites, or need something the platform structurally limits.

What is better than WooCommerce?

It depends what you want fixed. Shopify and BigCommerce trade some control for not maintaining infrastructure. Adobe Commerce (Magento) suits very large, complex catalogs. Squarespace is better if design matters more than commerce depth. If what you like about WooCommerce is ownership and payment freedom, nothing hosted replaces it — the honest answer is that you would be trading those away deliberately.

Can I move from WooCommerce to Shopify without losing rankings?

Yes, if the redirects are mapped before launch rather than after. Products, customers and order history all transfer; the design is rebuilt rather than moved. The part that goes wrong is URL mapping — every changed address needs a 301 to its new equivalent, and that work is done during the build, not discovered afterwards.

The bottom line

WooCommerce is free software with real costs attached; Shopify is paid software with the costs disclosed up front. Which is cheaper depends entirely on whether you value your own maintenance time at zero.

If you have development capability and want to own your stack — especially if payment processing at volume is a meaningful line in your P&L — WooCommerce is a serious choice and the freedom is worth something. If you would rather run a store than a server, Shopify’s subscription is buying you the thing WooCommerce makes you supply yourself. Decide that first, and the pricing pages stop being confusing.