Quick take: Shopify wins on predictability and time saved — you pay a fixed monthly fee and stop thinking about hosting. WooCommerce can be genuinely cheaper in year one, but only if you're comfortable owning the technical side yourself. Neither is a wrong choice; the real question is which cost you'd rather carry — dollars or hours.
Who This Is For
This comparison is for someone choosing a platform for a new or growing online store, not an enterprise team already committed to one. I've built custom e-commerce and white-label commerce platforms from scratch, so I'm looking at this less as a marketing comparison and more as: what does it actually take to keep one of these running for a year?
Pricing Breakdown
Pricing changes over time — always confirm current numbers on each platform's official pricing page before deciding.
What Works Well
Shopify bundles hosting, SSL, PCI compliance, and security patching into the subscription — you're not just buying software, you're buying not having to manage infrastructure. On the Basic plan, that's roughly $39/month plus a standard transaction fee (2.9% + $0.30 per sale with Shopify Payments) with no separate hosting bill to track. WooCommerce's real strength is the opposite: full ownership of your URL structure, schema markup, and server configuration, which matters if SEO control is a priority — something Shopify still restricts (product URLs are permanently locked to a /products/ prefix).
Where It Falls Short
Shopify's clean monthly number hides an "app tax" — mid-market stores commonly spend several hundred dollars a month stacking apps for reviews, subscriptions, and email flows that aren't included in any plan. WooCommerce's free price tag hides the opposite problem: hosting, premium plugins, and eventually developer time for maintenance can push a "free" store to $500–1,000/month once it's handling real traffic — and unlike Shopify, nobody is watching your security for you by default.
Alternatives Worth Considering
BigCommerce sits between the two — more built-in features than Shopify out of the box, without WooCommerce's full DIY burden — worth a look for mid-market stores that don't want an app-stacking habit. If your catalog and traffic are still small and unproven, it's also worth asking whether you need a dedicated platform at all yet, versus validating the product first.
Final Verdict
If you want to be selling within days and don't want infrastructure decisions distracting you from actually validating your product, Shopify Basic is worth the $39/month. If you're comfortable with WordPress, have specific customization needs, or SEO control matters more to you than convenience, WooCommerce can be the cheaper and more flexible long-term choice — but budget real time (or a developer retainer) for keeping it running.
Weighing a different pair of tools? Suggest it on the Contact page.