Shopify vs WooCommerce, priced at 100 orders a month

Shopify's pricing page says $39 a month. WooCommerce's says free.

Both numbers are true and neither is useful, because a store is not a plan — it is a plan plus payment processing plus the three apps that turn out to be mandatory plus, on the WooCommerce side, the hosting and the maintenance that Shopify quietly absorbs.

Here is what each one costs at 100 orders a month, $80 average order value — $8,000 in monthly revenue. That is a real small store: past the hobby stage, not yet a business with staff.

What Shopify actually costs

The plan fee is the part everyone quotes. It is not the part that moves.

The plan is 11% of the bill. Payment processing is 76% of it, and no platform choice removes that — you would pay Stripe roughly the same on WooCommerce. It is worth separating, because it is the number that makes the platform comparison look closer than the headline prices suggest.

The one Shopify-specific cost worth knowing: if you use an external payment gateway instead of Shopify Payments, Shopify adds 2% on Basic on top of whatever the gateway charges. At $8,000 a month that is $160 for the privilege. Use Shopify Payments where it is available.

What WooCommerce actually costs

WooCommerce is free. WordPress is free. Neither statement includes a server.

$12 a month apart. That is the entire cost difference at this volume, and it is well inside the margin of error on any of these estimates.

Where they actually differ

Where it wins

• +Nothing to patch, ever. Security and PCI compliance are not your problem.
• +Checkout is the most tested in e-commerce, and it converts accordingly.
• +Support answers, and reaches someone who can act.

Where it does not

• −The 2% external-gateway fee on Basic is punitive if Shopify Payments is not available in your country.
• −App costs compound quietly — three at $10 is another plan fee.
• −You are renting. Leaving means rebuilding, not moving.

Where it wins

• +You own the database and the store. Nobody can change your terms.
• +No transaction fee beyond what the payment processor charges.
• +Anything can be modified, because all of it is yours.

Where it does not

• −You are the sysadmin. A broken update at 2am is yours to fix.
• −Cheap hosting will not hold a store, and finding that out costs sales.
• −The extensions that make it competitive are individually paid.

The number that should decide it

Not the monthly total — those are twelve dollars apart.

Order volume, because the fee structures diverge at the edges. Under about 30 orders a month, Shopify's $39 is a real proportion of a small revenue and WooCommerce on modest hosting is clearly cheaper. Over roughly 500 orders, Shopify's plan tiers and processing rates start to bite and self-hosting wins again.

Between those, at the size most stores actually are, it is a question about how you want to spend your attention. Shopify sells you out of a category of problems. WooCommerce sells you control. Both are defensible; neither is $12 better.

If you go the WooCommerce route, the hosting line is the one that decides whether the store stays up. Managed WordPress hosting starts around $35 and is the difference between a store that survives a traffic spike and one that does not — the $5 shared plans are where WooCommerce projects go to die.

Key takeaways

• —At 100 orders a month, Shopify costs about $344 and WooCommerce about $332 — $12 apart.
• —Payment processing is roughly three quarters of both bills, and is not a platform choice.
• —Shopify adds 2% on Basic if you use an external gateway. Use Shopify Payments where you can.
• —Under ~30 orders WooCommerce wins on cost; over ~500 it wins again. In between, cost is not the deciding factor.
• —Budget $35+ for managed hosting on WooCommerce. Shared hosting will not hold a store.