Woocommerce vs Shopify: Which Should You Go For?

For our money, Shopify is the best ecommere solution out of the two, as its website and sales features scored better than Woocommerce’s in our research. In our tests, Shopify scored an amazing 4.7/5 against Woocommerce’s 3.8/5 total score.

We’ll admit that the playing field is not entirely level here. Woocommerce is a standalone ecommerce software, unlike Shopify, which is a full ecommerce/builder platform. To put it simply: Woocommerce will render your online shop operational, whereas, with Shopify, you’ll be able to build your webstore from the ground up.

While looking into ecommerce solutions may be daunting, we’ve done the hard work so you don’t have to. With 10+ years of experience, we tested both platforms. Here are the results.

Woocommerce vs Shopify: Head-to-head

Woocommerce allows for deeper customisation and offers more hands-on support than Shopify. These qualities make it great for small businesses, self-starters and design-centred shops.

For medium and large businesses, Shopify’s scale and advanced reporting makes it a better option than Woocommerce. Shopify’s sales features trump what Woocommerce offers, despite Woocommerce’s support being more comprehensive than Shopify’s. Overall, we think Shopify’s the best between the two.

The difference between the tools can bring strategic advantages. For instance, Woocommerce is based on the popular content management system WordPress. If you already have a site there and want to develop it into a store, we’d be hard-pressed to give you an easier way to do so.

That said, for someone starting fresh without a site, Shopify offers an all-in-one platform allowing you to create and host a website with sales features.

Woocommerce overview

Woocommerce is a free ecommerce software which enables you to turn a WordPress site into an online shop. For the cost-conscious, it’s a cheap way of getting into ecommerce.

Shopify overview

Shopify is a full ecommerce web builder platform with which you can build and host your online shop. Shopify is not as customisable as Woocommerce but its set-up is more intuitive.

Woocommerce pricing vs Shopify pricing

Woocommerce offers the best value, plus you don’t have to pay if you already own a WordPress site. In our research, Woocommerce scored 4.3/5 against Shopify’s 3/5 on value for money – a result influenced by Shopify’s lack of free plan and high price on its Advanced plan.

As we’ve already mentioned, Woocommerce has no price plans because it’s free to download and use. However, there may be some costs that arise if you’re using Woocommerce that you wouldn’t face with Shopify.

Extra costs associated with Woocommerce:

• Hosting, average $21 per month.
• Extensions, average $79 per year.
• Theme, average $38 per year.
• Domain (eg .com), $21.99 per year.

Woocommerce vs Shopify: Which one has the best free plan?

Woocommerce is free by its nature – while Shopify doesn’t have a free plan at all. That said, despite its nominal $0 cost, Woocommerce usually entails payments for extensions, as well as hosting and perhaps a template to render your online shop operational. While lacking a free plan, Shopify does offer a 14-day free trial.

Best for website features: Shopify

Shopify has better web features because, unlike Woocommerce, you can build and host a website there. Being a plugin, Woocommerce websites are actually WordPress ones and their hosting is handled by third-party companies. For its ability to set up shop with less faff, Shopify’s a clear winner.

Best for sales features: Shopify

While Woocommerce does have more payment options (it offers or integrates with five major payment platforms: Amazon, Stripe, Square, PayPal and Apple Pay), Shopify’s ability to set up shop pretty much anywhere more than compensates for the three payment platforms it currently works with (Stripe, Square and PayPal). With Shopify, you can also sell directly through social media, so it wins this one too.

Best for design functionaties: Shopify

Design-wise, Shopify’s greatest asset is the fact that it allows you to have a slick website even if you’re the most code-averse of business owners. The templates look pristine and highly customisable. Woocommerce’s customisation, while extensive, will require more time and effort. As far as we can tell, it’s third time lucky for Shopify.

Best for value for money: Woocommerce

Compared to Shopify’s set price tiers, Woocommerce allows you to build a set-up which works for you while allowing for the spending to be very compartmentalised – and therefore more manageable. Also, it’s worth noting that Shopify charges payment fees of its own while Woocommerce doesn’t, which ended up hurting the former’s cost-benefit assessment. Therefore, Woocommerce wins in this category.

Best for help and support: Woocommerce

Woocommerce’s 24/7 live chat is a key pro of the platform, plus the knowledge centre is very thorough and provides a lot of answers – this comes in handy if you don’t feel like speaking to someone. Shopify also offers 24/7 support but not for all plans – Starter users don’t have access to it – and its knowledge centre doesn’t cover as much ground, so Woocommerce comes out triumphant here.

Best in customer score: Shopify

Beyond our own testing, we also reach out to fellow users of the platforms with a survey so we can compare our findings to that of an outside audience. Our research into this topic shows that users side with Shopify. Users highlighted that  Woocommerce was an intricate platform, with many customers saying they either required help from a dedicated professional to run it, or needed to set time aside to learn it for themselves. In the end, Shopify’s intuitive layout won over the clientele.

Best for ease of use: Tie

Both platforms score 3.5/5 in this category. Shopify allows for a relatively hassle-free start and you can make it work without coding knowledge. However, the design bit can be a bit clunky and overwhelming at times, which isn’t ideal.

Woocommerce’s set-up is not easy, requiring considerable time and effort. While usage gets progressively smoother, even fans of the platform note these growing pains.

Woocommerce vs Shopify: How do they compare to the competition?

According to our research, Shopify is top among the best ecommerce platforms. Big Commerce, due to its focus on large scale orders and ultra detailed inventory features, is still the best choice for large businesses but, apart from these, Shopify covers you.

Wix and Squarespace are other massively popular alternatives that get high praise for their design and, like Woocommerce, it also appeals to self-starters. It’s Shopify’s inventory features that trump them all. It’s also worth mentioning Squarespace’s cheaper price tag beats Shopify and puts it close to Woocommerce in value for money.