Shopify vs WooCommerce: 2026 Pricing, Fees, Shopify Plus and Which to Pick

Shopify is a hosted store from $29 a month (billed yearly), with hosting, security and updates included. WooCommerce (often written Woo Commerce, or just Woo) is a free WordPress plugin: you pay separately for hosting, extensions and upkeep, and get full control in return. An online sale on a U.S. card costs 2.9% + 30¢ on both Shopify Basic and WooPayments, WooCommerce’s own payment service. WordPress.org lists WooCommerce at more than 7 million active installations.

Which is cheaper and easier depends on things the sales pages don’t stress: payment fees, renewal prices, who does the updates and how much control you want. Every price here comes from the official Shopify, WooCommerce, WordPress.com and SiteGround pages, checked on October 30, 2026 and listed under Sources; the totals are our arithmetic from those prices. You’ll find 5-year totals, a fee calculator, Shopify Plus, the WordPress question and a plain recommendation for who should pick which.

Shopify vs WooCommerce: which is better for a small business?

Short answer: Pick Shopify if you want to start selling quickly, keep technical upkeep close to zero and can live within Shopify’s rules and monthly fees. Pick WooCommerce if you already run WordPress, want full control of the code, URLs and hosting, and have someone to maintain it.

Neither is better across the board. Shopify trades flexibility for convenience: hosting, security, checkout and updates are handled for you. WooCommerce trades convenience for control: you can change almost anything, but every plugin, theme and server setting is yours to keep working.

On cost, the two land close for a typical small store. At $10,000 a month in online sales on U.S. cards, a year of platform and card fees comes to about $4,548 on Shopify Basic and about $4,560 on WooCommerce with SiteGround’s GrowBig hosting after its first year, so the decider is who maintains the store, not the price.

Shopify vs WooCommerce at a glance (U.S. rates, October 2026)

The pros and cons in short:

• Shopify pros: hosting, security, checkout and updates are included; 76% of Shopify sites had good Core Web Vitals on mobile in 2025 data; Plus is there to grow into.
• Shopify cons: monthly plan fees; a 2% fee on Basic if you use another payment provider; fixed /products/ and /collections/ paths; apps often bill monthly.
• WooCommerce pros: the plugin is free; you control the code, URLs and hosting; WooCommerce charges no fee for other payment providers; it adds a store to an existing WordPress site.
• WooCommerce cons: you or a developer handle updates, backups and testing; speed depends on your host and plugins (35% of WooCommerce sites had good Core Web Vitals on mobile); paid extensions often renew yearly.

How much does Shopify cost?

Short answer: As of October 2026, Shopify’s main plans are Basic at $29 a month, Grow at $79 and Advanced at $299 when billed yearly, or $39, $105 and $399 billed monthly. Card processing and any paid apps come on top.

The details on Shopify’s pricing page that change the real cost:

• Card rates with Shopify Payments: online, 2.9% + 30¢ on Basic, 2.7% + 30¢ on Grow and 2.5% + 30¢ on Advanced. Premium cards cost more (3.5%, 3.3% and 3.1%, each plus 30¢), and international cards add 1% on every plan.
• Third-party payment fee: if you use a payment provider other than Shopify Payments, Shopify adds 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow and 0.6% on Advanced, on top of that provider’s own fees.
• Staff accounts: Basic doesn’t include additional staff accounts; Grow includes up to 5 and Advanced up to 15.
• Marketplace orders: orders synced from marketplaces are free for the first 50 a month, then cost 1%, up to $99 a month.
• Plus: starts at $2,300 a month on a 1- or 3-year term, with lower card rates and unlimited staff accounts. It gets its own section below.
• Agentic plan: $0 a month, made for selling in AI channels. You add products to Shopify’s Catalog, choose the AI channels and pay only when you make a sale, with online card rates from 2.9% + 30¢.
• Getting started: a 3-day free trial, then $1 a month for 3 months on most plans, and no setup fees.

The costs that aren’t on that page are themes and apps. The Shopify Theme Store lists 24 free themes and more than 1,200 paid ones. Paid apps for things like reviews, subscriptions, bundles or advanced shipping add their own charges, usually recurring, so list the ones you need and add them up before you commit.

How much does WooCommerce cost?

Short answer: The WooCommerce plugin is free. You pay for hosting, a domain, any premium extensions or theme, payment processing, and the time or help needed to keep it updated. As of October 2026, hosting runs $45 a month on WordPress.com’s Commerce plan billed yearly, or $29.99 a month on SiteGround GrowBig after a $4.99 first year, and WooPayments charges 2.9% + $0.30 per U.S. card payment.

WordPress.org describes WooCommerce’s core as free, with paid extensions and support optional. The bills that replace a Shopify subscription:

1. Hosting. WordPress.com’s Commerce plan, which includes WooCommerce tools, is $45 a month billed yearly or $70 month to month. On a general web host, read the renewal price: SiteGround’s GrowBig plan, for example, is $4.99 a month for the first prepaid year and $29.99 a month after that.
2. Payments. WooPayments has no setup or monthly fee. For U.S. merchants it charges 2.9% + $0.30 per card payment, plus 1.5% for international cards, 1% for currency conversion and $15 per dispute, refunded if you win. An order that includes a subscription payment billed through Stripe Billing pays another 1% on the whole order.
3. Extensions. Many features cost extra and renew yearly. WooCommerce Subscriptions, for example, is $279 a year with a 30-day money-back guarantee.
4. Maintenance. WordPress, WooCommerce, the theme and each plugin all update. The WooCommerce plugin itself was last updated on October 9, 2026 (version 11.2.1), and each update is something to apply and test.

Your host matters more with WooCommerce because the store’s speed and security depend on it. WooCommerce publishes server recommendations, including HTTPS, current PHP and database versions and at least 256 MB of memory, and warns that older, end-of-life versions may expose the site to security risks.

Shopify vs WooCommerce cost: 5-year totals and a worked example

Short answer: At October 2026 prices, a store selling $10,000 a month on U.S. cards pays about $4,548 a year on Shopify Basic ($348 for the plan plus $4,200 in card fees), about $4,560 on WooCommerce with SiteGround GrowBig after its first year, or $4,740 on WordPress.com’s Commerce plan, before apps, extensions and upkeep.

Here’s the platform cost before apps, extensions and payment fees, using the prices above and ignoring Shopify’s $1-a-month starter offer:

Platform cost before apps and payment fees (October 2026 prices)

The 5-year column assumes today’s prices hold, including SiteGround’s $29.99-a-month renewal price. Each paid extension adds its own line: WooCommerce Subscriptions at $279 a year comes to $1,395 over 5 years.

On platform fees alone, the plans sit closer together than the “free versus paid” framing suggests. The bigger numbers are payment fees and the paid add-ons you choose.

Example: Picture a candle maker selling $10,000 a month online in 200 orders of $50, all on U.S. cards. On Shopify Basic with Shopify Payments, card fees are $290 plus $60 in per-order fees, or $350 a month. WooPayments’ domestic rate is the same, so the fees are also $350. If that Shopify store used a different payment provider instead, Shopify’s 2% fee would add $200 a month, or $2,400 a year, before the provider’s own charges.

That holds for standard U.S. cards. Premium cards cost 3.5% + 30¢ on Shopify Basic, and international cards add 1% on Shopify or 1.5% with WooPayments, so a store with many overseas buyers should run its own card mix.

Two lessons from that example. First, on Shopify, use Shopify Payments unless you have a strong reason not to, because the third-party fee is the costliest line most small stores can avoid. Second, on WooCommerce, the hidden cost is maintenance: if a developer spends a few hours a month on updates and fixes, that time can outweigh the hosting difference.

To try your own numbers, enter your monthly online sales, average order, share of international cards and hosting price in the calculator below.

Shopify vs WooCommerce fee calculator: one year

Online sales a month ($)Average order ($)International cards (% of sales)WooCommerce hosting a month ($)

• Shopify Basic: $4,548
• Shopify Grow: $4,908
• Shopify Advanced: $7,308
• Shopify Plus (from): $31,020
• WooCommerce with WooPayments: $4,560

A year of platform and online card fees at October 2026 U.S. rates: Shopify plans billed yearly with Shopify Payments, WooCommerce with WooPayments and the hosting price you enter ($29.99 is SiteGround GrowBig’s renewal price). Not included: apps, extensions, themes, premium cards (3.5% + 30¢ on Basic), currency conversion, sales tax and developer time. The example is $10,000 a month in 200 orders of $50, all on U.S. cards.

Shopify Plus vs WooCommerce: when does Plus pay off?

Short answer: Shopify Plus starts at $2,300 a month on a 1- or 3-year term, with online card rates of 2.25% + 30¢ and a 0.2% fee on third-party payment providers (October 2026). Against Advanced at $299 a month billed yearly, the lower card rate covers the extra $2,001 a month only at about $800,000 a month in online card sales. WooCommerce has no paid tier to move up to: the plugin stays free, and a bigger store pays for bigger hosting and more development instead.

Shopify Advanced vs Shopify Plus vs WooCommerce (October 2026)

The break-even, worked from those rates: Plus costs at least $2,001 a month more than Advanced. Its card rate is 0.25 points lower, and 0.25% of $800,000 is $2,000, so the rate alone pays for Plus only at about $800,000 a month in online card sales. If you use another payment provider, Shopify’s fee drops from 0.6% to 0.2%, and 0.4% of $500,000 is $2,000, so that break-even is about $500,000 a month.

Below those levels, Plus is worth it for what it adds, not for its rates. Shopify’s Plus pricing page lists full checkout customization, unlimited B2B catalogs, 200 inventory locations, up to 9 expansion stores, 25 headless storefronts and 20 POS Pro locations included (up to 200 with Shopify Payments).

A WooCommerce store at that size still pays nothing for the plugin, and WooPayments’ 2.9% + $0.30 unless it uses another payment provider. The costs that grow are hosting and development, and they depend on your traffic and catalog: WooCommerce publishes server recommendations, not hosting prices, so get a quote for each build before you compare.

Already on WordPress? WooCommerce vs Shopify

Short answer: If your business already runs on WordPress, WooCommerce adds the store to the same site, with the same domain, admin, theme and content. Shopify means moving the site to Shopify, or keeping WordPress and selling through Shopify’s Buy Button or a separate Shopify store.

The four ways to do it:

1. WooCommerce on your WordPress site. Install the free plugin and your products sit next to the pages and posts you already have. Your host now carries a checkout too, so check your plan against WooCommerce’s server recommendations.
2. Shopify’s Buy Button on WordPress. The Buy Button sales channel, included in all Shopify plans, places products on a non-Shopify website or blog, and customers complete their order without leaving the page. It suits a few products next to your content; you still pay for a Shopify plan.
3. A Shopify store on a subdomain such as shop.yourdomain.com, with WordPress staying on the main domain. You get Shopify’s checkout and admin, but two systems, two themes and two logins to keep consistent.
4. Moving everything to Shopify. Pages and blog posts move into Shopify’s online store and blog, and every changed address needs a redirect, as the section on switching below explains.

If your WordPress content already brings in search traffic, the first two keep it where it ranks.

Which is easier to run day to day?

Short answer: Shopify. Hosting, security patches, checkout and platform updates are Shopify’s job, so your time goes on products and orders. With WooCommerce, someone has to update WordPress, WooCommerce, the theme and the plugins, check the store still works, and keep backups.

Day-to-day work is similar on both: adding products, processing orders, issuing refunds and running discounts all happen in a dashboard. The difference shows up when something breaks. On Shopify, a checkout outage is Shopify’s problem to fix. On WooCommerce, a plugin conflict after an update is yours, which is why a staging copy of the site and a tested backup matter.

Watch out: Don’t let updates pile up on a WooCommerce store. A site that hasn’t been updated in months is harder to update safely, and old PHP versions are a security risk WooCommerce itself warns about. Put a monthly update window in the calendar and test the checkout after every round.

Is Shopify or WooCommerce better for SEO?

Short answer: Both can rank well, and neither will rank you on its own; product content, site structure, speed and links matter more than the platform. The real difference is control: WooCommerce lets you shape URLs and every technical detail, while Shopify handles the basics automatically but fixes some of the structure. On speed, 76% of Shopify sites had good Core Web Vitals on mobile in the HTTP Archive’s 2025 data, against 35% of WooCommerce sites.

What Shopify does for you: every store generates a sitemap.xml that updates as you add products and pages, and you can customize robots.txt through a robots.txt.liquid template. The limit is URLs: product and collection addresses use fixed paths, and Shopify’s help center says you can’t redirect URLs that use the fixed /products and /collections paths.

What WooCommerce gives you: control over the product and category base in WordPress under Settings > Permalinks, as WooCommerce’s permalink docs describe, along with WordPress’s choice of SEO plugins. The same docs warn that changing the structure breaks existing product links unless you set up redirects.

Those speed figures come from the HTTP Archive’s 2025 Web Almanac, published in January 2026. Shopify’s image CDN picks the best format each browser supports, as long as the theme uses its image filters. A WooCommerce store’s speed depends on the host, the theme and how many plugins load on each page. Either can be fast; our write-up on how we got our site to 100 in Lighthouse shows which fixes carry over to both. If you’ve chosen Shopify, our Shopify SEO checklist walks through every setting, from product titles to robots.txt.

Who owns your store on each platform?

Short answer: With WooCommerce, you hold the code, the database and the hosting account, and you can move to another host whenever you like. With Shopify, you can export products and customers as CSV files, but the platform, its pricing and its rules are Shopify’s.

That’s the trade in one line. If Shopify changes a price or a policy, your options are to accept it or migrate. If your WooCommerce host disappoints you, you copy the site to another host. In exchange, Shopify spares you everything that comes with owning the software, including security.

Can you switch from WooCommerce to Shopify, or back?

Short answer: Yes. Products and customers move by CSV file or a migration app, and past orders by app or API. The hard part is keeping your search traffic, because the URLs change and need redirects.

Shopify’s migration guide recommends importing products first, then customers, then historical orders, so the orders link up properly. It also warns that staff who get new-order notifications receive an email for every imported order, so switch those off first. Old page addresses won’t match Shopify’s structure, and Shopify suggests setting up redirects, which you can import from a CSV file, before you move the domain.

Going the other way, from Shopify to WooCommerce, works on the same principles: export, import, redirect and test. Either way, plan a few days where both stores exist and a checklist that ends with a real test order.

How to choose: our rules of thumb

This is how we’d decide for a small business:

Choose Shopify if:

• You want to start selling within days and don’t want to manage hosting or updates.
• No one on your team is comfortable with WordPress, or you’d rather not pay someone monthly to maintain it.
• You’ll use Shopify Payments, so the third-party fee doesn’t apply.

Choose WooCommerce if:

• Your business already runs on a WordPress site with content that ranks.
• You need custom product logic, unusual pricing or deep changes to checkout.
• You want to own the code and hosting, and you have a developer or host to keep it updated.

Consider neither if you sell a handful of products or take deposits for services. A website builder’s simpler store or payment links on your existing site may be enough; our guide to what a small business website costs compares those routes.

Our take: For most small businesses starting from zero, Shopify Basic or Grow with Shopify Payments is the safer first store. WooCommerce is the better long-term fit when you already live in WordPress or need control Shopify won’t give you.

What to do this week

1. Write down your monthly sales estimate, average order value and the features you can’t do without, such as subscriptions, bundles or local pickup.
2. Price both platforms for year two, not just year one: plan, hosting at its renewal price, apps or extensions, and payment fees.
3. Decide who will maintain the store, and get it in writing if it’s not you.
4. Check that your checkout passes our website accessibility checklist, since checkout is where barriers cost sales.
5. If you’re moving platforms, export your URLs now and plan the redirects before anything else.

We build Shopify and WooCommerce stores and quote each one per project; our ecommerce solutions page explains what’s included.