WooCommerce vs Shopify: Choose the Operating Model, Not the Feature List

If you are choosing a platform for your store, or wondering whether to move, the useful question in WooCommerce vs Shopify is not which one has more features. It is who does the work of keeping the store running: hosting, updates, security, backups, payments, and your data. Shopify is a hosted platform you subscribe to. WooCommerce is a free, open-source plugin you run on your own WordPress site.

This page is a decision framework for merchants. It applies whichever way you searched it, Shopify vs WooCommerce or the other way round. It skips feature-by-feature scoring, and it does not copy either vendor’s cost tables. Platform facts below come from Shopify’s pricing page, Shopify Help, and WooCommerce’s own documentation.

The difference in one paragraph: On Shopify, Shopify runs the hosting, the platform software, and the checkout. You pay a subscription and add apps. You take payments through Shopify Payments or a third-party provider, and a third-party provider adds a plan-based Shopify fee. On WooCommerce, the core plugin is free and open source, but you choose the host, the payment gateway, and the extensions. You also own updates, backups, and much of the security and PCI work. Pick the platform whose list of jobs your team can actually carry every month.

Who does which job

Job	Shopify	WooCommerce
Hosting	Included in the plan, with SSL for your domains	You choose a host. WooCommerce’s server recommendations list PHP 8.3+, MySQL 8.0+ or MariaDB 10.6+, HTTPS, and a 256 MB WordPress memory limit
Platform updates	Shopify updates the platform. App and theme developers update their own products	You update WordPress, WooCommerce, extensions, themes, and payment gateways, sometimes with a database update
Backups	CSV exports plus a theme download. Backup apps are available in the Shopify App Store	You back up the database and the `wp-content` folder
Card security (PCI)	Shopify says it is certified Level 1 PCI DSS compliant and stores are PCI compliant by default	WooCommerce says PCI DSS compliance is ultimately the store owner’s responsibility
Payments	Shopify Payments where available, or a third-party provider plus Shopify’s third-party transaction fee	Any gateway plugin. Built-in options cover bank transfer, check, and cash on delivery. Card processing comes from WooPayments (selected countries) or other gateways
Adding functionality	Apps. Checkout customization is “Limited” below Plus	Plugins and extensions installed in your own WordPress
Your data	Exportable as CSV. Some things don’t move	Lives in your database, which you control and protect

Hosting, updates, security, backups: who’s on call

On WooCommerce, the maintenance work is yours, and WooCommerce’s update guide spells out what that looks like. It suggests a monthly update cadence for most stores, sooner when a release fixes a security issue. Before each round, it says to make a fresh backup of the database and wp-content, and to test on a staging copy. You then update WooCommerce, extensions, payment gateways, and the theme together, run any database update, place a test order, and only then reopen checkout. None of that is hard. It is a recurring calendar commitment, and it needs a person.

Security follows the same pattern. WooCommerce’s PCI page says the core plugin isn’t PCI certified because it doesn’t handle card data itself. A hosted gateway can shrink your compliance scope a lot, but your site still serves the checkout page, so PCI still applies. Your host, your plugins, and your admin access policies are part of that scope.

On Shopify, there is no platform to patch, and Shopify states that stores are PCI compliant by default. You still own some things: the apps you install, any theme code you edit, and keeping your own exports. Shopify Help’s backups page lists what you can export as CSV (products, customers, orders, gift card codes, discount codes, and financial data) and points to Shopify App Store apps if you want a backup tool.

Plugins vs apps: where custom work lives

A WooCommerce extension is a plugin running inside your WordPress install. WordPress and WooCommerce are GPL-licensed, so you can change the code, and keeping changes compatible is your job. WooCommerce’s update guide tells you to check each extension’s “Tested up to” WooCommerce version before you update. Paid extensions from the WooCommerce.com Marketplace come with an annual or biennial subscription that covers updates and support.

Shopify apps plug into a platform you don’t run. Shopify’s pricing table shows where the edges are by plan. Checkout customization is “Limited” on Basic, Grow, and Advanced and “Full” on Plus. Custom apps built on Shopify’s APIs get “Limited data access” on Basic. If your business depends on checkout or pricing logic the platform doesn’t support, that limit is the cost of not maintaining the platform yourself.

Checkout, payments, and how the fees are built

Prices change, so this section describes how the fees are put together rather than quoting rates.

Shopify has up to three layers:

The plan subscription. Paying yearly is cheaper than paying monthly on the pricing page.
Card processing. With Shopify Payments, the rate depends on your plan, and pricing can differ by where your business is based. Shopify Payments is available only in some countries.
A third-party transaction fee, charged when you use a third-party payment provider, plus the store-credit rule described next. The percentage depends on your plan. On Shopify’s pricing page (USD) checked on 6 October 2026, it ran from 2% on Basic down to 0.2% on Plus. Help adds two details worth knowing before you choose a gateway. The fee comes on top of your provider’s own processing fee, and it is not returned when you refund an order.

With Shopify Payments, Help says orders paid through Shopify Payments, Shop Pay, Shop Pay Installments, PayPal Express Checkout, or manual methods such as cash on delivery and bank transfer don’t incur the third-party fee. One more detail: on stores created on or after 12 May 2025, the amount paid with store credit or gift cards is charged the third-party fee.

WooCommerce has no platform fee and no revenue share, per its pricing page. Your recurring costs move to other bills instead: hosting, any paid extensions, and the processing fees of the gateways you choose. Its payments guide adds that each processor has its own signup, subscription, and transaction terms. You can run more than one gateway. Premium gateway extensions also need an annual WooCommerce.com subscription.

Both vendors publish comparison pages with cost totals that favor themselves. Those totals use someone else’s order volume, average order value, country, and developer rates. Build your own estimate with three inputs: your monthly order volume, your processor’s quote, and what an hour of maintenance actually costs you, whether that’s your time or an agency’s.

Data: who holds it and how it moves

On WooCommerce, products, orders, and settings sit in your own database, and themes, extensions, and uploads in wp-content. Control and responsibility come together: if no one backs it up, no one has it. The built-in product CSV exporter can include custom fields as meta: columns.

On Shopify, the data lives on Shopify, and you take it out through exports. The backups page is honest about the gaps when moving between Shopify stores: orders can’t be imported through the admin (only through apps or the API), and discount codes, issued gift cards, saved custom reports, and visitor traffic data don’t transfer. Shopify’s product export also leaves images out of the CSV. If you import those products elsewhere, the images load only while they’re still publicly viewable, so keep the old store open until the import is finished.

Skills and time: the questions that decide it

Answer these with your actual team, not the team you plan to hire:

Who runs the monthly update window? That means the staging copy, the backup, the test order, and the rollback if something breaks. If the honest answer is “nobody”, that points to Shopify.
Who do you call when checkout breaks? On Shopify, its support, which the pricing page lists as 24/7. On WooCommerce, your host, the plugin’s developer, or the agency you pay.
Is your checkout or pricing logic standard? If it needs changes Shopify’s plan limits won’t allow, WooCommerce’s open code is a real advantage, as long as someone maintains those changes.
Is the business already on WordPress? An established WordPress content site can make WooCommerce the shorter path. Moving that content to Shopify is a separate project.
How sensitive is the business to percentage fees versus fixed costs? Model it. Don’t assume either platform is cheaper.

Lean Shopify if the team has no steady technical owner, wants the platform to absorb hosting, patching, and PCI scope, and can live within the plan’s checkout limits.

Lean WooCommerce if you have reliable development or agency capacity, need to own the code and the database, or already run on WordPress, and you accept that updates, backups, and security are now line items on your calendar.

When to migrate, and when not to

Moving is a good idea when the operating model no longer fits. Maintenance keeps slipping on WooCommerce. You keep paying for workarounds to a Shopify limit you can’t buy your way past. Or your own fee model shows the cost structure is wrong for your volume.

Moving is a poor fix for low sales. If the case for switching is “conversion is low”, read that number properly first. A new platform carries over the same traffic, prices, and product pages.

If you do move, plan for these steps:

WooCommerce → Shopify: Shopify’s migration guide has a WooCommerce-specific path. It says to import products first, then customers, then historical orders, which need a migration app or the API. Help warns your URLs will likely change shape, so set up redirects before the domain switches.
Shopify → WooCommerce: Export the CSVs, keep the Shopify store and its images live until the import finishes, and map columns in WooCommerce’s importer, which skips columns it doesn’t recognize by default.
Either way: Test orders, payments, taxes, shipping, and emails before launch, not after.

FAQ

Is WooCommerce free?

The core plugin is free and open source. You still pay for hosting, any paid extensions or premium gateways, and payment processing.

Does Shopify charge transaction fees?

It charges a plan-based third-party transaction fee when payments go through a third-party provider, on top of that provider’s fees. Orders paid through Shopify Payments and the other methods Help lists don’t incur it, though Shopify Payments’ own processing rates still apply.

Which is better for SEO?

The platform alone does not decide rankings. The bigger SEO risk is a migration that breaks URLs, so plan redirects before you switch.

Can I switch later?

Yes, in either direction, but plan for real work: data exports, order history, redirects, reinstalling apps or extensions, and reconfiguring taxes, shipping, and payments.