Shopify Vs Woo-Commerce: Which Is Better for Ecommerce? 

Starting an online store in 2021? Confused about which one to pick between Shopify and Woocommerce for your new eCommerce store? 

Shopify and Woocommerce are the top eCommerce platform service providers and they both claim to be the most popularly used eCommerce platform in the world. 

So, which one is it? Which is better? 

Today we run a detailed comparison between Shopify and Woocommerce measuring the pros and cons for multiple metrics to guide you to pick the best platform for your online business store. 

Shopify is an eCommerce builder which is easy to use, reliable, fast, powerful, and offers beautiful templates and exceptional customer service. (Thinking we already revealed the winner?) Keep reading to find out for sure. 

Woocommerce is a WordPress plugin that turns a WordPress-powered website into a solid online store. It is an open-source platform, which means anybody can download it for free. But you still have to pay for hosting and security and other things. 

However, with Woocommerce you can build a truly gigantic eCommerce store via coding (or hiring someone who can code). 

Quick pros and cons

Shopify pros and cons 

Woocommerce pros and cons 

1. Beginner friendliness 

Not everyone starting an eCommerce store is a web developer or designer. And even if someone knows basic coding, the platform should be easy to use so that owners can focus on building business. 

Shopify is super easy to get started with. It is a completely hosted service, i.e. you don’t have to manage or update any software. A simple drag and drop interface will help you choose everything from theme, content format, products, and others. 

Woocommerce is not as easy to get started with as Shopify. It does not have a drag and drop interface, you have to install Woocommerce, manage updates, backups and security. Many paid plugins can streamline these tasks. But they will cost you. 

While Shopify is easy to get started with a drag and drop interface, it binds users with the design provided by the platform. On the other hand, Woocommerce is more complex but offers a huge margin of customization. 

So, for user-friendliness, Shopify wins. 

2. Add ons 

Third-party plugins are important to grow an eCommerce store, no matter how powerful the platform is. You will need plugins for email marketing, secure payments, SEO, and more. Plugins or addons are what scale an eCommerce store. 

Shopify has an app store that has an extension for every feature you can think of. There are apps from optinmonster for lead generation to apps for SEO, product comparison, reviews, countdowns, and more. 

The apps available on the Shopify app store are both free and paid. Most paid apps have monthly subscription charges. 

Woocommerce is open-source software built with WordPress. Due to its open-source feature, the platform offers a massive collection of more than 55,000 free plugins for any functionality you want. There are other paid plugins as well. 

Woocommerce has many more plugins than Shopify due to no barrier for entry. All the third-party apps are easily integrated with your store. If you want to personalize your website, you can also hire a developer to create a plugin just for your website. 

Customization of a Woocommerce store is very easy. Also developing and submitting a plugin on WordPress is much easier than on Shopify. 

Woocommerce is the clear winner here. 

3. Cost 

The most important consideration of starting an eCommerce store is the cost. While deciding the total cost, don’t forget to keep in mind the extra cost of add ons features and software. 

The pricing of Shopify starts at the basic plan at $29 and goes up to $299 per month for the advanced plan. But the basic plan is good enough to start an online store with unlimited storage, plugins, domain name, hosting, unlimited products, SSL certificate, and 2 user accounts. 

The basic plan is enticing for new business owners, but you must consider the prices for addons as your store starts to grow. 

Payments on Shopify are another factor. Shopify payments, the platform’s own payment solution, charges 2.9% + 30 cents per transaction. 

Woocommerce is a WordPress plugin available free for download and installation. But you have to pay for hosting, domain name and SSL certificate. 

The general pricing for all these services is:

Domain name – $14.99

SSL Certificate – $69.99

Hosting – $7.99/month 

Now all this is costly but thankfully many companies provide offers for WordPress + Woocommerce hosting plans which reduce the cost considerably. 

An exclusive offer by Bluehost, a hosting provider, charges just $6.95/month with a free SSL Certificate and domain name. 

Woocommerce also has many free themes and addons available. 

Compared with the Bluehost plan, Shopify loses the pricing battle. Woocommerce wins. 

4. Payment and transaction fees

While selling online, you need to add payment options for your customers to pay. Woocommerce and Shopify offer over 100 payment gateways including Paypal, Stripe, Apple pay, credit and debit cards, others. 

Shopify charges a flat 2% fee on all transactions if you are using a third-party payment gateway. These charges can be reduced to 0.5% with the advanced plan of Shopify. 

Woocommerce does not charge any fees at all. You can use any third-party plugin for payments on your online store. However, the bank charges and plugin charges like PayPal fees are still applicable. 

Woocommerce wins this round as well because it does not charge any fees for payments. 

5. Dropshipping 

Dropshipping is the new trend in the eCommerce industry and a very popular one. Many new-age entrepreneurs want to start their side hustle with drop shipping. 

Shopify provides the option to integrate popular dropshipping marketplaces like printify, oberlo, etc. these websites charge their own membership fees, shipping charges, and other costs. So you need to keep these expenses in mind while building your dropshipping store with Shopify. 

Building dropshipping stores with Woocommerce is very popular because it offers plugins to fulfill orders effortlessly. One can find extensions to import products, fulfill orders from websites, and other functionalities. 

Woocommerce wins here as well. 

Neither of the two platforms offers it all, Shopify or Woocommerce. If you want to get started with as much ease as possible, Shopify is the best pick. 

And if you’re looking for a more cost-effective solution where you can introduce any feature you want, Woocommerce is the one. 

Whichever platform you choose, to build a truly awesome eCommerce store that offers the best shopping experience, you will need assistance and that is what we’re here for. Consult our eCommerce solutions development team for more info. 

And if you’re interested in a professionally designed eCommerce store on WordPress plugin Woocommerce, talk to our WordPress development company to get started. 

Author Bio

Giselle Shira is a blogger who writes about the latest technologies and trends. Nowadays she is writing about the latest software development and dot net technology that gains great engagement and is loved by the readers. She keeps herself updated with the latest technologies. She loves to share her expertise with readers and she contributes to various online platforms in the same niche.