Shopify vs WooCommerce (2026)

Pick Shopify if you want a store running this week with hosting, checkout, security and 24/7 support handled for one monthly fee, from $29 a month billed yearly. Pick WooCommerce if you already run WordPress, want to own the code and data, or need to keep your own payment processor, since Woo adds no fee for that and Shopify adds up to 2% of each sale. WooCommerce itself is free, but hosting ($25 to $350 a month on Woo's estimate) and paid extensions ($29 to $299 a year each) mean a first-time seller who has to pay a developer can easily spend more than on Shopify. For most new stores Shopify is the easier and safer buy; WooCommerce wins on control and on cost once you have the skills or the help to run it. Prices checked November 4, 2026.

Pricing compared

The two charge in different places. Shopify sells a monthly plan with hosting included. WooCommerce gives away the software, and you pay a web host, any paid extensions and a payment processor instead. These are US prices checked November 4, 2026.

Cost	Shopify	WooCommerce
Software or plan	Basic $29, Grow $79, Advanced $299 a month billed yearly; Plus from $2,300 a month on a 3-year term	Free, no revenue share
Hosting	Included	$25 to $350 a month for most stores (Woo's estimate)
Add-ons	Free and paid apps; paid themes from $100 to $500	Extensions from $29 to $299 a year each; many are free
US online card rate with the platform's own payments	From 2.9% + $0.30 on Basic	2.9% + $0.30
Extra fee for another processor	2% Basic, 1% Grow, 0.6% Advanced, 0.2% Plus	None

At the bottom of each range the two land close together: Shopify Basic is $29 a month on yearly billing, and Woo's lowest hosting estimate is $25 a month before you add a paid extension. Extensions are where a Woo budget grows. Woo's own comparison page lists WooCommerce Subscriptions at $23.25 a month and Bookings at $20.75 a month, billed yearly, so a store that needs both pays more for those two than for entry-level hosting. Shopify stores face the same creep from paid apps, which bill monthly on top of the plan.

The bigger difference for many sellers is the payment fee. If you keep a processor other than Shopify Payments, Shopify adds 2% of every sale on Basic. On $20,000 of sales a month that comes to $400 a month before the processor's own charges, which would cover the top of Woo's hosting range. WooCommerce adds nothing, whichever gateway you choose. If you are happy with Shopify Payments, the fee disappears and the US online card rates start level at 2.9% plus $0.30 on both platforms.

Shopify's 3-day trial needs no credit card and leads into a discounted first 3 months on Basic, Grow and Advanced. Shopify's pricing page showed us euros from Europe, so we could not confirm the US price of that offer or of month-to-month billing, which costs more than yearly. WooCommerce has nothing to trial, and paid extensions from WooCommerce.com come with a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Setup and ease of use

Shopify gets a store selling fastest. You create an account, pick one of more than 200 pre-built themes, add products and connect Shopify Payments. Hosting, the SSL certificate and the checkout are already in place, and Shopify handles PCI DSS Level 1 compliance for card data. Every plan also includes Sidekick, an AI assistant in the admin, with millions of AI tokens to use. The catch is the staff limit on the cheapest plan: Basic includes no extra staff accounts, Grow has 5 and Advanced 15.

WooCommerce asks more of you before the first sale. You need a WordPress site on a host you choose, then you install the plugin, pick a theme, set up a payment gateway and tax rules, and add any extensions. After launch you keep WordPress, WooCommerce, your theme and every extension updated. Woo's support policy covers only the latest core release and the one before it, so falling behind on updates also takes you out of support.

If you already run a WordPress site, most of that work is done and Woo feels familiar, because the shop uses the same dashboard as your pages and posts. If you have never set up hosting, budget for a developer or agency, and that bill can outweigh what you save on the software.

Features head to head

Every Shopify plan uses Shopify's own checkout, and Shopify Payments takes cards without a separate merchant account. You can only fully customize the checkout on Plus. WooCommerce lets you edit the checkout like any other part of the site and use any gateway or buy-now-pay-later provider, several at once if you like. WooPayments, Woo's own processor, works in 38 countries, accepts more than 135 currencies and supports Apple Pay and Google Pay.

The Shopify App Store lists more than 16,000 apps for reviews, subscriptions, loyalty, shipping and more. The WooCommerce Marketplace has more than 1,000 extensions, and you can also install general WordPress plugins, which vary in quality and need testing before you trust them with orders.

Shopify's iOS and Android app takes payments in person and keeps one stock count across the shop counter and the website. POS Pro, an add-on priced per location, adds staff roles and in-store stock tools; Shopify showed us its price only in euros. WooCommerce's free mobile app now includes a built-in POS and Tap to Pay, but Tap to Pay on iPhone works only in the US and UK, and Woo sells card readers in ten countries. US in-person payments cost 2.7% plus $0.10 through WooPayments, plus $5 a month for each active card reader.

Woo adds recurring billing through the paid Subscriptions extension, which charges weekly, monthly or yearly for physical, virtual or downloadable products. On Shopify, subscriptions come from apps. For wholesale, Shopify includes up to 3 B2B catalogs on Basic, Grow and Advanced and unlimited catalogs on Plus, while Woo supports wholesale pricing and account-based selling. Shopify also gives every store 10,000 free email sends a month for campaigns, then charges $1 per 1,000; Woo stores add email through an extension or a separate tool such as Klaviyo. On either platform, Platformly connects through its Shopify app or WooCommerce plugin, imports each order as a sale and shows which email, link or source brought it in.

WooCommerce lives inside WordPress, so your blog, landing pages and products share one editor and you can use WordPress SEO plugins across the whole site. That suits content-led brands that win customers through articles and guides.

Hosting, control and upkeep

With Shopify you rent the platform. Shopify runs the servers, applies updates, includes the SSL certificate and carries the card-security compliance work. You can't edit Shopify's own code or move the store to another host, and some changes, such as a fully custom checkout, need the Plus plan. Shopify's Store Migration app can import a WooCommerce product CSV, which helps if you are moving over.

With WooCommerce you own the whole thing. Woo says you fully own your site, code and data, and you can switch hosts whenever you like. You also take on what Shopify would have handled: choosing a host that copes with your traffic, keeping backups, applying security updates and checking that each extension still works after an update. Speed depends mostly on your host, caching and how many extensions you run, so a cheap host can make a large Woo store slow.

That trade decides most buyers. If you would rather pay someone else to worry about servers, Shopify is the better fit. If you have a developer, or you are one, Woo's freedom is worth the extra care.

Support

Shopify includes 24/7 live chat on every plan. Advanced adds enhanced 24/7 chat, and Plus adds priority 24/7 phone support. Because Shopify runs the hosting, checkout and payments, one team can look at most problems from end to end.

WooCommerce support depends on what you bought. Woo's helpdesk takes tickets for products sold on WooCommerce.com, with live chat for some of them. It doesn't give general WordPress help, it may ask you to turn off third-party plugins before it helps, and its policy names no response time. Your host deals with server problems, and the community forums, which Woo says are unmoderated, cover the rest. For a seller without a developer, that split is the strongest reason to choose Shopify.

Who each one suits

Shopify suits first-time sellers, brands selling both online and in person, and anyone who wants a predictable monthly bill with hosting, checkout and support from one company. It works best if you are happy to take payments through Shopify Payments, since the third-party fee makes other processors expensive on the lower plans.

WooCommerce suits businesses that already run WordPress, content-led brands that want their shop and blog on one site, and stores with unusual products or a preferred payment processor. It rewards sellers who have a developer or the skills to manage hosting and updates, and it works out cheaper at higher sales if you would otherwise pay Shopify's third-party fee on a processor you want to keep. If neither fits, BigCommerce is a hosted option with more features built in, and Wix suits a small shop on a site that is mostly pages.