WooCommerce or Shopify: which online store for your business?

WooCommerce is a free plugin for WordPress. You install it on your hosting, choose a theme and add the plugins you need: payments, shipping, invoices, subscriptions. The code is open, the database is yours, and nothing ties you to a supplier.

Shopify is a service. You pay a subscription, and the platform provides the store, hosting, security, payments and updates. You add features by installing apps, often paid by the month as well. You never touch a server.

Neither model is better in itself. The first gives you freedom, with the workload that comes with it. The second removes the workload and sets a framework. So the choice depends on your organization, far more than on the technology.

Comparing a subscription with free software is misleading. A store lives for several years, and cost is judged over that period.

With WooCommerce, the software costs nothing. You need to budget for hosting sized for a store, paid plugins, often renewed every year, and above all maintenance: updates to WordPress, WooCommerce, the theme and each plugin, tests after every update, backups, monitoring. That work exists even when nobody invoices it. When it is not done, the store ends up going down on a heavy sales day.

With Shopify, the subscription covers hosting, security and updates. On top come the apps, whose monthly total climbs quickly, and payment fees. If you do not use the platform's payment solution, an extra commission applies to each sale.

We do not publish the amounts: they change, and each vendor displays them. Keep the shape of the two curves in mind. WooCommerce's starts low and depends on the upkeep actually done. Shopify's starts higher and follows your revenue and the number of apps.

A store takes payments and holds personal data. It tolerates neither guesswork nor neglect.

With Shopify, the technical side is not your concern. Your team manages the catalog, the orders, the promotions. That is the platform's main argument, and it is real for a company with no developer.

With WooCommerce, someone has to carry the technical side. A plugin update can break the checkout, so it has to be tried on a copy of the store before being applied. If that person exists, in-house or at a contractor under contract, WooCommerce is reliable. If nobody is in charge, the risk grows every month.

Ask yourself the question before choosing: who will apply the updates in eighteen months, and on what budget? If the answer is vague, Shopify is the cautious choice.

WooCommerce inherits all of WordPress. If your business relies on content, guides, a magazine, advice pages that bring in traffic, you have a complete editorial tool, and the store lives in the same site. The URL structure is free, and so are the templates.

It also accepts particular sales rules: prices per customer, quotes before ordering, configurable products, shipping calculated on your own rates. If a rule does not exist, it can be developed.

Shopify covers the standard case very well: a catalog, variants, a cart, a payment. The checkout is proven and fast. The limits appear when your need goes outside the framework. The URL structure is imposed, the checkout can be changed only slightly on the common plans, and every added feature goes through an app.

For SEO, both let you do things well. WooCommerce gives more freedom and demands more rigor. Shopify gives less freedom and fewer chances to go wrong.

Both take card payments, handle VAT and produce invoices. The differences are in the method.

Shopify offers its own payment solution, switched on in a few minutes. It is simple, and the funds arrive with no other contract. If you prefer another provider, that is possible, with a platform commission added to each sale.

WooCommerce lets you choose your payment provider and connects it through a plugin. No platform commission is added to the provider's. In return, that plugin's updates need to be followed closely.

To sell in several countries, Shopify provides currencies, languages and taxes in a ready-made framework. WooCommerce gets there with dedicated plugins, which have to be chosen, configured and maintained. In both cases, French obligations, such as legal notices and invoicing rules, should be checked with your accountant before opening.

You are launching a store, with no developer and a classic catalog: Shopify. You will sell sooner, with no technical side to carry.

You already have a WordPress site that brings in traffic, and you want to add sales to it: WooCommerce. You keep your content, your URLs and your rankings.

Your sales rules are particular, negotiated prices, quotes, custom products: WooCommerce, with a maintenance contract signed at the same time as the project.

You sell mainly through social networks and marketplaces, with little content: Shopify, for its ready-made connections.

You are still undecided: cost both scenarios over three years, maintenance included. The gap is rarely where you expect it.