This article provides a Shopify vs WooCommerce comparison, with the aim of aiding online business owners in making an informed decision about their preferred platform for setting up online stores. The comparison focuses on various aspects such as cost, user-friendliness, payment options, add-ons, growth, and scalability, as well as support.
This confusion arises in every online business owner’s mind when they design their online shop. Because these two platforms are the best for setting up online stores.
Table of Contents
Shopify vs WooCommerce Cost Comparison:
WooCommerce:
When you are setting up the website, domain name registration, hosting fees, SSL fee, and theme fee, is required. Some hosting provider offers special hosting for WooCommerce you can check out them. But WooCommerce is an open-source plugin and free to install on your website. There is no hidden charge or commission included in transactions. The only thing you may buy after the installation is some paid plugin extension that can enhance your performance. The good news is that there are free alternatives available for the paid extensions.
Shopify:
It is a whole eCommerce platform. Unlike WooCommerce you don’t need extra hosting management, domain, security, or backup. Shopify offers three different types of packages basic Shopify, Shopify & Advanced Shopify. Hosting, domain & SSL are included in all these packages. You can start with a month-free trial. After installing you may buy extensions from the app store to push your shop to the next level.
If you use a third-party payment gateway like PayPal you need to pay 2% per transaction. It could be decreased to 0.5% by using Shopify Advance Plan.
Winner: WooCommerce
Shopify vs WooCommerce User-friendliness Comparison:
WooCommerce:
To set up a store with WooCommerce you need to manage hosting, website, SSL & Backup. It is not a complete platform like Shopify. There is no limit to design your store on WooCommerce. With the help of a variety of plugins and WordPress themes, you can design your shop as you like. More options have a disadvantage too. You need skill and more hands to complete the whole setup and managing it.
Shopify:
As a complete platform, you don’t need to manage hosting or site related things here. After the installation, you can start designing your store. The main advantage of the Shopify store is its drag & drop design features. So, you don’t need to be a pro developer to build your store. But it has a disadvantage too. The features are limited here. Though it is enough to set up a well-looking store and new features are continuously adding.
Winner: Shopify
Shopify vs WooCommerce Payment Option Comparison
WooCommerce:
WooCommerce offers popular payment options like PayPal, Stripe. You don’t need to pay any extra % as a commission per transaction. The only cost is included here the fees charged by PayPal or your bank. You can integrate other payment options by adding extensions e.g. Shopify there is no way to pay from their own payment system. But when you are choosing a third-party payment gateway then WooCommerce is the best option.
Shopify:
Shopify accepts different payment options like PayPal and Stripe. But there is an extra charge of 2 % per transaction + the charge of the payment gateway. This percentage can be decreased to 0.5 % if you upgrade the advance Shopify plan. Using the Shopify payment gateway for smaller businesses is beneficial as it doesn’t cost any extra per transaction.
Winner: WooCommerce
Shopify vs WooCommerce Add-ons Comparison
WooCommerce:
You must need some plugins, no matter how complete your system is. For lead generation, marketing, SEO or store feature purpose, you need to install them.
More than 50,000 free plugins and thousands of paid plugins are available in WordPress. The number is a lot more than the number of Shopify add-ons available in the Shopify store. This huge difference is because the steps to submit add-ons on Shopify and approve them is harder than WooCommerce.
Shopify:
The Shopify app store is also full of different useful apps such as upsell at checkout on Shopify. You can check them out here https://apps.shopify.com. Some of them are free and others are paid. The only disadvantage is the minimum alternative and a small number of apps available in the store.
Winner: WooCommerce
Shopify vs WooCommerce Growth & Scalability Comparison:
WooCommerce:
Starting your business on any platform is okay. But you need to be careful which platform handles it better when your business is growing in large volume. In WooCommerce you have to take care of maximum things including, hosting, security & backups. As your business grows and traffic is increasing your hosting memory limit may cross. You must upgrade your hosting plan or move to another provider that provides WooCommerce hosting especially. Besides the hosting, you need to be careful about security more than before.
Shopify:
As this platform provides the hosting service, you just need to upgrade the plan. They will take care of the other technical parts like security. The extra cost will be added, but you don’t need to worry about maintenance. Still, it’s better because you don’t need a tech team for this purpose. Shopify can be better scaled than WooCommerce without any hassle to face the new challenges when business is growing.
Winner: Shopify
Shopify vs WooCommerce Support Comparison:
WooCommerce:
From the official website of WooCommerce, you can contact the support team for any issue related to WooCommerce. Before contacting them check this page https://docs.woocommerce.com/. Here are many documents related to WooCommerce. You may find the solution yourself. If these things don’t works then look for a freelancer. Due to its popularity, many freelancers are experts on WooCommerce. You need to contact the hosting provider or theme production company for other issues like server or theme.
Shopify:
Besides enriched documentation, Shopify provides 24*7 chat support. Unlike WooCommerce you don’t need to contact another support team for hosting or theme issues. As it is all in one platform, you can contact the support team for site, hosting, design, or any other issues. Also, you can take help from third-party provider to fix your Shopify related problems.
Winner: Shopify
Shopify vs WooCommerce: which one should you Choose?
After reading the above comparison, you already understand which one is suitable for you. If you are a technical guy who is ready to customize his own store and take the responsibility of hosting, security and backup, then WooCommerce is perfect for you. It will be worth it in the end as WooCommerce is cost-effective too.
But if you don’t have enough time to maintain all these things that are needed to run an online shop, or you are not a tech pro then Shopify is the perfect platform for you. As it is hassle-free to maintain and it takes care of a lot of things without your interference.
