WooCommerce vs Shopify: which one is best for your online store?

Nine million ecommerce brands use WooCommerce or Shopify to run their online business. That’s 4.8 million Shopify stores and 6.2 million WooCommerce stores. 

Both platforms are considerably different. For one, Shopify is a fully managed ecommerce platform, while WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin. 

But don’t worry, you’re in the right place. This article will help you weigh up your needs against both platforms to see which is the better home for your ecommerce store. 
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By the end, you should have a clearer idea of which one you should pick. ✨
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First, let’s look at some important things to prioritise when choosing an ecommerce platform. 

What to look for in an ecommerce website

Ecommerce website platforms vary a lot, but there are some basic boxes each one should tick to guarantee a great experience for your business and customers. 

• Pricing that matches your budget: You need an ecommerce platform that fits your budget while providing the core features required for running a successful online store. 
  
  WooCommerce and Shopify structure their pricing differently. With Shopify, you pay a monthly subscription fee and get all the key features provided within your plan. WooCommerce, on the other hand, doesn't charge fixed subscription fees. Instead, you pay for each feature or integration separately. 
  
  WooCommerce might be cheaper for small ecommerce businesses with the technical expertise to choose, install and manage the plugins themselves. Otherwise, you might prefer to pay for Shopify and enjoy a range of features that are already set up.
  
  

• Integrations with other ecommerce tools: Whether via plugins or APIs, a good ecommerce platform lets you connect to other applications. 
  
  For example, you can sync Shopify with email marketing software tools like MailChimp to send newsletters and product updates to your customers. And you can connect WooCommerce and Shopify with Dash, digital asset management software for ecommerce brands  (that’s us 👋) to easily drop images into your product listings.

• Ways to customise your store: You want a unique online store that helps your brand shine. A good ecommerce platform helps you achieve that without sacrificing key features or functionalities. 
  
  WooCommerce and Shopify have themes and templates for customising your store’s look and feel. However, WooCommerce has a slight edge here: because you're building your store from the ground up, you can add advanced features using different plugins. 

• Ease of use: Growing an ecommerce business is already a lot of work. The last thing you need is a complicated website that requires lots of technical knowledge to complete simple tasks. 
  
  This is one area where Shopify outshines WooCommerce. It's fully hosted, meaning you don't need to set up workflows and processes from scratch. It's user-friendly interface also means you can expect a minimal learning curve. 
  
  As I already mentioned, WooCommerce is built from the ground up. While this gives you flexibility around your customisation, it also means you're responsible for maintaining your workflows and updating plugins manually. 

• Payment methods: To sell online, you must be able to receive payments from customers in different locations. That's why it's important to consider the supported payment methods when choosing an ecommerce platform.
  
  WooCommerce and Shopify support similar payment methods, including PayPal and Stripe. They also have native payment gateways, such as Woo Payments and Shopify Payments. 

Now, let’s get into the details of WooCommerce and Shopify. 

What is WooCommerce? 

WooCommerce is a free ecommerce plugin that lets you convert your regular WordPress site into an online store. There are a ton of them on the WordPress store — free and paid.

Once you download and install the WooCommerce plugin on your website, you'll be able to add product images, checkout options, customer reviews, and more, to your new storefront.

Top features 

Here are a few WooCommerce features that stand out for ecommerce store owners:

• It’s free (sort of): WooCommerce is free to use if you already have a WordPress site. Just install the plugin to your WordPress website, and you’re good to go. This makes it a good option for new ecommerce businesses that lack the budget for a dedicated ecommerce platform like Shopify. 

• No migration required: Let’s say you’ve been running a physical store for some time and decided to set up an ecommerce business. If you have an existing WordPress website, you can easily integrate the WooCommerce plugin without migrating to a different ecommerce platform or managing two separate websites for your business. 

• 100% customisable: WooCommerce pretty much gives you a blank slate for your online store. Since you’re building it from scratch, you can customise your storefront as you deem fit. You can also add additional features using other plugins in the WordPress store.

What is Shopify? 

Unlike WooCommerce, Shopify is an already-built ecommerce platform. You don’t need to install plugins or set up your storefront from scratch. 

Once you sign up for Shopify, you can browse some templates and set up a ready-made online store. Then, you can add product images to your Shopify storefront. If you use a digital asset management system like Dash, you can access your image library right in Shopify instead of manually downloading and uploading visual assets. 

You can also connect Shopify to the other platforms where you sell. For example, if you have an Instagram shop or sell on Amazon, you can manage these channels in your Shopify account. 

Larger online stores can subscribe to Shopify Plus which is the enterprise version of Shopify. With this, you can process more orders, access advanced ecommerce features and enjoy dedicated support.

Top features 

Here’s what ecommerce merchants love the most about Shopify: 

• Easy to set up: No need to bother downloading a plugin and setting things up from scratch. With Shopify, you’ll get a functional ecommerce store once you sign up — just add your product catalogue and payment options and start selling. You’ll also be able to customise your store’s appearance using Shopify themes. 

• Third-party integrations: Shopify has a large app store where you can find lots of applications to improve your online store and ecommerce business. For example, you can connect your store with drop shipping apps like Zendrop to source and sell items from different suppliers. 

• Analytics and reporting: Shopify provides detailed insights into your store's performance. It allows you to track sales and customer behaviour, measure performance across multiple sales channels, and discover how long people spend on your store. This data can help you make informed decisions to optimise your business strategy.

WooCommerce vs Shopify: comparisons

Now that you have an overview of both platforms, let’s see how their key features compare. 

Features 

Pricing plans 

Shopify has different pricing tiers and packages for its ecommerce platform. Its cheapest plan (Starter) costs $5 per month and lets you create a simple online store that supports social selling. But you won't have access to Shopify's full themes and customisations or be able to create product collections. 

WooCommerce, on the other hand, is free to use. However, you'll need to pay for several things to ensure your store runs smoothly, and these costs quickly add up in the long term. 

For example, before installing the Woo plugin, you must buy a domain and pay a hosting provider. On average, hosting services typically charge $120 per year, while a domain can be purchased for as low as $15 per year. 

Then comes the cost of themes and plugins for building your WooCommerce store from scratch. While there are free themes and plugins, the paid ones offer better customisation and security. Paid WordPress and WooCommerce themes cost anywhere from $20 to $100 annually. Plugin costs vary per provider. For example, if you wanted to install the JetPack security plugin, it would cost around $20 per month. 

The good thing about WooCommerce is you only pay for what you need. You can run a minimalist ecommerce store with free plugins (you'll still need to pay for domain and hosting, though) and gradually upgrade to paid ones as your store scales. 

On the other hand, Shopify locks you into strict pricing plans, but it's a good option if you want a fully functional ecommerce store from the start.

Ease of implementation and use 

Setting up a new Shopify storefront is 41% faster than setting up a WooCommerce store. That’s because Shopify is a fully-hosted solution, meaning everything is set up for you. 

It's different with WooCommerce. First of all, you need to set up WordPress hosting and install the WooCommerce plugin — which can be confusing and time-consuming for newbies without technical knowledge. Then, build things up brick-by-brick by installing and configuring the plugins you need. 

You're also in charge of maintaining your store setup, ensuring that your data is secure and backups are well-managed. This is a lot of work on top of the regular commitment of running your ecommerce business. 

SEO performance 

SEO stands for search engine optimisation. It’s how your store gets seen online. The better your store’s SEO performance, the easier it is for potential buyers to find and shop from you.

Let's look at how WooCommerce and Shopify compare in two key areas. 

• Site speed: Page speed is how quickly the content on your store loads. It's one of the things that search engines, like Google, access to know how highly to rank your store in search results. Sites that load faster generally perform better in search engine results.
  
  Shopify stores are faster than WooCommerce stores because the former aren’t weighed down by SEO plugins. The more plugins your store has, the more development resources it needs, which can affect speed.

• Content management system: WooCommerce is built on WordPress which is a content-first platform. You can easily set up a blog and post articles targeting important keywords to help your store rank higher in search results. You can also implement advanced ecommerce SEO tactics like schema markup to improve rankings for specific product pages.
  
  Having said that, Shopify allows you to optimise your store for SEO too. For example, take a read of our article about Shopify image optimisation for tips on making your product images more visible. 

Shipping methods

The speed and efficiency at which your customers receive their orders is really important for the overall customer experience. So shipping options are an essential feature for any ecommerce platform. Here's how they both stack up.   

WooCommerce shipping:

WooCommerce gives you lots of flexibility, but you’ll need to use extra plugins to add features. Here’s what you can do with WooCommerce:

• Flat rate shipping: You can set a fixed shipping fee for different areas and locations.
  
  
• Free shipping: You can offer free shipping based on order size or location.
  
  
• Live shipping rates: By adding plugins, you can connect with courier shipping options like UPS, FedEx, and DHL to show real-time shipping costs based on weight and destination.
  
  
• Local delivery or pickup: You can offer delivery to nearby areas or let customers pick up their orders in-store with the right plugin.

WooCommerce’s shipping options are very flexible, but they can be tricky to set up if you’re not familiar with adding and managing plugins.

Shopify shipping:

Shopify comes with built-in shipping features, making it much easier to set up. Here’s what Shopify offers:

• Live shipping rates: Shopify automatically connects with major carriers like Royal Mail, UPS, and DHL to show accurate shipping costs at checkout.

• Shopify Shipping: If you’re in the UK or certain other regions, you can get discounted shipping rates and print shipping labels directly from Shopify.

• Flat rate and free shipping: You can easily set fixed shipping fees or offer free shipping based on order size or location.
  
  
• Local delivery or pickup: Shopify makes it simple to offer local delivery or let customers collect their orders in person.

The main advantage of Shopify’s shipping is that it’s easy to use, especially if you don’t want to spend time setting up extra tools.

Payment gateways 

Third-party payment gateways allow you to accept and process payments from customers in different locations around the world. They’re super important when choosing an ecommerce platform. 

WooCommerce and Shopify have native payment gateways: Woo Payments and Shopify Payments. They work pretty much the same way. The main difference is that you need to set up a Stripe account to use Woo Payments, whereas Shopify Payments works with any credit card payment provider.

They also support third-party payment processors like PayPal, Amazon Pay and Payoneer Checkout. However, both platforms have transaction fees for external payment gateways: 

• WooCommerce charges 2.9% + $0.30 for each transaction made with U.S-issued credit or debit cards. Plus, cards issued outside the U.S. have an additional 1% fee.
  
  
• Shopify's third-party transaction fees vary based on your pricing plan. In addition, if Shopify Payments is your primary payment gateway, the ecommerce platform will waive transaction fees for other payment methods. 

Offline payment methods

Offline payment methods are useful if you receive cheques or cash via post, or you have a brick-and-mortar store and you want to make sure all payments (both online and offline) go to one single place. 

The good news is that Shopify and WooCommerce don’t charge any transaction fees for offline transactions. 

Shopify also has point-of-pale software that lets you receive payments physically. Shopify POS comes with all plans except the Starter plan.

WooCommerce doesn’t have a native POS application, but there are several free and paid options available as extensions or plugins. For example, the POS app by Actuality Extensions costs $249 per year.

In short: Shopify might be the better option if you run a brick-and-mortar store  too want to receive all your payments in one place. 

Themes and customisation 

WooCommerce offers better customisation than Shopify (unless you go with Shopify Plus). Unlike Shopify that comes with fixed features per plan, WooCommerce lets you build your store as you like. You can add or remove plugins at any point to modify how people shop on your website. With Shopify, you’re stuck with the built-in tools on your plan even if you don’t use them. You might end up paying for features and tools you don't need. 

WooCommerce and Shopify have themes and templates for customising your store’s visual appearance. Shopify's native theme library is larger than WooCommerce native theme library because it includes designs from other Shopify store owners. 

However, as a WooCommerce store owner, you can purchase additional ecommerce design templates from third-party WordPress theme libraries, such as ThemeForest and Envato.

Integrations 

WooCommerce and Shopify both offer integrations to boost your online store’s performance. 

Shopify has an app store with over 8,000 apps that allow you to customise your website. Some applications are built by the Shopify team, while others are third-party integrations, such as social media platforms and printing software. You can check out our free Shopify apps database to find the best integrations for your store. 

WooCommerce has an extensions marketplace with free and paid theme plugins, similar to Shopify's app store. You can also buy and install WordPress plugins that are not listed on the marketplace.

While both tools have basic image management features, they also integrate with Dash — our digital asset management tool for organising and sharing visual assets. This is helpful because you can’t ask designers or photographers to upload images directly into your Shopify or WooCommerce backend. That would be chaos, and things could go wrong quickly. 

Instead, use Dash to receive, approve, and prep images for your online store before using them in Shopify or WooCommerce. With Dash, you don’t need to upload these assets to your store’s backend manually. You’ll be able to browse your entire Dash within Shopify and WooCommerce and drop content directly into your product listings.

WooCommerce and Shopify online store examples

To help you decide, let's look at some ecommerce stores powered by Shopify and WooCommerce.

1. Forthglade - Shopify 

Forthglade has been producing high-quality, natural dog food for over 50 years. They’re also one of Dash’s customers. ✨ They primarily sell in brick-and-mortar stores, but five years ago they made the move to sell online.

They picked Shopify as their ecommerce platform and soon decided to upgrade from the basic plan to Shopify Plus. Upgrading meant they could improve the site for mobile shoppers and update their technical infrastructure.

As a Dash customer, they were able to connect their Shopify store to their digital asset library. This meant they could quickly drag and drop images from Dash into their Shopify product listings without continuously downloading and uploading their assets. It saved them loads of time and meant the website migration could move along faster.

Here’s how the store turned out. 

Check out Forthglade’s experience building a Shopify store in 16 weeks with Shopify agency (and Dash partners) Quickfire. 

2. RJ Living- Shopify

RJ Living  is a modern furniture store powered by Shopify (and they’re also a Dash customer!). RJ Living specialises in modern, high-end home furnishings for the Australian  lifestyle. Here’s what the Shopify store looks like. 😍

Learn how RJ Living use Dash to organise their visual content ready for their marketing campaigns. 

3. Style Girlfriend - WooCommerce

Style Girlfriend provides personalised clothing recommendations for men who want to feel and appear more confident.

Megan Collins, founder of Style Girlfriend, said she chose WooCommerce because it’s easy to extend the website’s functionalities. All she has to do is add a plugin to bring a new feature to the website — unlike Shopify, where she would likely need to upgrade to a more expensive plan. 

Here's what Style Girlfriend’s WooCommerce store looks like.  

4. DVO Suspension - WooCommerce

DVO Suspension is another ecommerce business that uses WooCommerce for its online store. Based in Canada, DVO Suspension sells high-performance suspension components for mountain bikes, including forks and rear shocks. 

Bryson Martin, founder of DVO Suspension, said he chose WooCommerce because it's easy to use. While he had some assistance from a developer, he built the WooCommerce store mostly by himself, and it was a seamless process. 

Here's how the store turned out. 

Which ecommerce platform should you choose? 

Now you should have a clear idea of WooCommerce and Shopify’s strengths and weaknesses. Here’s a short summary: 

• WooCommerce summary: If you enjoy building things from scratch and want to have full control over your store’s features and functions, then WooCommerce might be a great option. It’s free to get started, and you’ll be able to scale as your ecommerce business grows. You’ll need to pay hosting fees, buy and install plugins, and spend time managing them manually.
  
  
• Shopify summary: If you have some budget wiggle room and want to kick things off with a fully functional ecommerce store, then Shopify might be the better choice. All you need to do is pay your monthly subscription fees — no need to deal with hosting, manually installing plugins or technical maintenance. But you’ll trade full customisation flexibility for these features and might end up paying for additional features you don’t need or use. 

Ultimately, no ecommerce platform is perfect, and there are trade-offs between each one. The good thing is whether you choose Shopify or WooCommerce, you can enjoy A+ digital asset management courtesy of Dash! 

With Dash, you can find, share and deploy your brand’s visual content to all your marketing channels. It’s a way for you to search and find your product images, share content with retail partners and approve UGC from your customers. 

You can learn more about why you need an ecommerce DAM like Dash. Or, take out a 14-day free trial and give it a spin.