Shopify vs WooCommerce vs Custom: Which Is Right for Your Store?

For most online stores, the Shopify vs WooCommerce vs custom question has a short answer: start on a standard platform. Pick Shopify if you want to sell quickly without running servers, WooCommerce if you already live in WordPress and want full control, and a custom build only when the way you sell follows rules no standard platform can handle.

I build web platforms in Laravel for a living, so I have every reason to recommend custom. That's exactly why this comparison spends as much time on when not to.

The short answer

My rule of thumb: if you can describe your store without the word "but", pick Shopify or WooCommerce. If it sounds more like "we sell online, but every trade customer has their own price list and orders must be approved in our accounting system", look at integrations or custom. And if what you're really planning is a platform with users on both sides, read my guide on how to build your own platform first.

Shopify: fastest to launch, on Shopify's terms

Shopify is a hosted commerce platform. You pay a monthly plan, and Shopify runs the servers, security, updates and checkout. Pick a theme, add products, connect payments and shipping, and you can be selling within a week.

Shopify sets prices per country. On its Irish pricing page, Basic is €24 a month, Grow €69 and Advanced €289 when billed yearly, or €32, €92 and €384 month to month. Shopify Plus starts at €2,100 a month.

The plan is rarely the biggest line item. Three things usually cost more:

• Card fees: With Shopify Payments, Basic charges 2% + €0.25 per online card payment in Ireland, more for Amex and international cards, less on higher plans.
• The third-party payment fee: Use any provider other than Shopify Payments and Shopify adds 2% of revenue on Basic, 1% on Grow and 0.6% on Advanced. At €300,000 a year on Basic, that's €6,000 to Shopify before your provider takes its own cut.
• Apps: Subscriptions, advanced filters, reviews and complex shipping rules often come from apps with their own monthly price. Ten of them add up quickly.

The real constraint is checkout. It's fast and well tested, but you can only change it within Shopify's limits, and checkout extensions for the information, shipping and payment steps are Shopify Plus only. If your sale needs a special step at checkout, this is where you'll hit the wall first. I've listed the usual warning signs in 9 signs your store has outgrown Shopify.

WooCommerce: free software, but you're the ops team

WooCommerce is a free, open source plugin that turns a WordPress site into a store. It runs on hosting you choose, with no platform fee and no revenue share.

Free isn't the same as cheap. WooCommerce's own pricing page puts hosting at $25-350 a month for most stores and extensions at $29-299 a year each. Payments go through the provider you choose. WooPayments, WooCommerce's own option, charges 1.5% + €0.25 per card payment in eurozone countries plus VAT on the fee, according to its fee schedule. Stripe, Mollie, Klarna and most other payment providers used in Europe have WooCommerce plugins too.

The upside is control. You own the installation and the database, you can move hosts whenever you like, and a developer can change almost anything. For a content-led brand where guides, blog posts and products need to work together, WordPress plus WooCommerce is a strong pairing.

The downside is that you run it. WordPress, WooCommerce, your theme and every extension need regular updates, and those updates need testing so a new shipping plugin release doesn't break checkout on a Friday night. Plugins are also where most WordPress security holes come from, which I cover in my comparison of WordPress vs a custom-coded website. A WooCommerce store handling payments without a maintenance plan is a real risk.

When a custom-built store pays off

Custom means cart, checkout, order handling and admin are built for your business, usually on a framework like Laravel. You get full freedom, but you also pay to rebuild things Shopify and WooCommerce already solve: discount codes, tax, shipping, returns, order emails and an admin panel. So you need a concrete reason.

The reasons I consider real:

• Prices that depend on the customer: B2B stores where each account has its own contract, discount structure or credit limit. Standard platforms have B2B features, but they often run out once the rules get complicated.
• Products that need calculating: Items configured by size, material or quantity, where price and lead time follow your own rules.
• The store is part of a bigger platform: Selling is tied to logins, a customer portal, bookings or subscriptions with unusual terms.
• Many sellers: If you take a commission and pay out to other vendors, it's a marketplace, not a store. I cover that in my guide to building a two-sided marketplace.
• Your ERP runs the show: When stock, prices and orders live in an ERP system (the software that runs finance, inventory and orders), a lean storefront built around it can be easier to run than a platform that constantly needs syncing.

Custom doesn't remove card fees. You still pay your payment provider on every transaction. What you drop is Shopify's extra fee, app subscriptions and the checkout limits.

The middle ground: a standard platform plus integrations

Often the right answer is neither extreme. Let Shopify or WooCommerce handle catalog, cart and payments, and build only what's unique to you:

• An integration that pulls stock and prices from your ERP or accounting system and pushes orders back.
• A custom app for your Shopify store, like a price calculator or a special ordering flow before the cart.
• A headless setup, where Shopify runs in the background through its Storefront API and the storefront is built in something like Next.js. More freedom in design and speed, but two systems to maintain.
• An open source commerce foundation like Lunar (for Laravel) or Medusa (for Node.js), when you need custom but don't want to build cart and order handling from zero.

That usually costs a fraction of a full custom store, and you keep what the platform does well.

What each option costs

Design, integrations and data migration drive the price more than the platform itself. As a rough market estimate for a store built by a European freelancer or small agency, it looks something like this. These aren't my prices, and the ranges are wide.

Custom costs the most because even a lean store with catalog, cart, payments, order handling and one integration takes several hundred hours of development. My guide to what custom software costs breaks down where those hours go.

Always compare over three years and include fees. Grow costs about €830 a year on annual billing. At €300,000 in revenue, half a percentage point in fees is €1,500 a year, nearly double the plan. That's why your payment setup often matters more than your platform.

Custom rarely beats Shopify on running costs alone. The math only flips when the alternative is a stack of expensive apps, Shopify Plus and manual work, like staff retyping orders into the accounting system every day.

Selling across the EU: VAT, payments and languages

Selling to consumers in other EU countries adds three things to check, whatever you build on.

VAT. Once your cross-border sales of goods to EU consumers pass €10,000 a year in total, VAT is generally charged at the customer's country rate, and the EU's One-Stop Shop lets you report it in a single return. Shopify and WooCommerce both support country-based VAT rates, natively or through extensions. In a custom build, that logic is yours to build and maintain. Confirm the details with your accountant.

Payment methods. Shoppers expect local options: iDEAL in the Netherlands, Bancontact in Belgium, Vipps MobilePay in Denmark, Norway and Finland, Klarna in many markets. Check that your payment provider supports the ones your markets use.

Languages and currencies. Shopify Markets covers multiple currencies and languages within the platform. WooCommerce usually needs a translation plugin and a currency extension. In a custom store, every translated field and price rule is development work.

When each option is the wrong choice

Each of the three has situations where it's the wrong call.

Shopify is a poor fit when

• Your checkout needs something special and Shopify Plus is too expensive for your revenue.
• The core of your business depends on many apps, so you rely on a chain of small vendors who can raise prices or shut down.
• You want full control over hosting and code. You can export products, customers and orders, but you're renting the store itself.

WooCommerce is a poor fit when

• Nobody on your side will own updates, backups and security, and there's no budget for a maintenance plan.
• You expect order spikes, like Black Friday, and the store sits on cheap shared hosting.
• You're not on WordPress already and content isn't central. You'd get the WordPress upkeep without using its strengths.

Custom is a poor fit when

• You sell standard products to standard consumers. Shopify does that better and cheaper than I could build it.
• You haven't sold anything yet. Test demand on a standard platform first, and see my thoughts on building a site yourself or hiring a developer.
• There's no budget for maintenance after launch. A store that handles payments needs updates, even when it's built for you.
• The main reason is "we want to be independent". Independence from Shopify means dependence on a developer. That can be a good trade, but it's still a trade.

If that last list sounds like you, the honest advice is a good Shopify or WooCommerce developer, not me.

Next steps

Before you pick a platform, write down answers to three questions:

1. What's unusual about how you sell? If the answer is "nothing", you have your answer: a standard platform, usually Shopify.
2. Which systems does the store need to talk to (accounting, inventory, shipping, CRM), and which one is the source of truth?
3. Who looks after the store after launch, and what can that cost per year?

If the answers point to an integration, a Shopify app or a custom build, see how I work on web apps and platforms, including how larger projects start with a paid, fixed-price discovery phase.

Frequently asked questions

Can I move from WooCommerce to Shopify later, or the other way round?+

Yes, products, customers and order history can be migrated with import tools or apps. Your theme, extensions and settings have to be rebuilt on the new platform. The most important step is setting up redirects from old product URLs to the new ones so you keep your Google rankings. Plan the move outside your busiest season and test checkout thoroughly before switching.

Do I own my data on Shopify?+

Yes, you own your product data, customers and orders, and you can export them as CSV files or through Shopify's API. What you don't own is the store itself. Your theme is written for Shopify and won't run anywhere else, and apps and settings don't come with you. If you switch platforms, the store has to be rebuilt even though the data moves.

What is Shopify Plus, and do I need it?+

Shopify Plus is Shopify's plan for large merchants, starting at €2,100 a month. You get lower transaction fees and more room to customize checkout, among other things. Most small and mid-sized stores don't need it. Consider it when your revenue is high enough that the lower fees cover a large share of the price, or when a specific checkout change is critical to sales.

Which platform is better for SEO?+

Both Shopify and WooCommerce can rank well, and content and site structure matter more than the platform. WooCommerce gives you more control because WordPress lets you shape URLs, templates and content freely. Shopify uses a fixed URL structure with paths like /products/ and /collections/ that you can't change. For most stores that's fine, but factor it in if content is your main channel.