Shopify vs WordPress in 2026: which should run your site?

Shopify is a hosted commerce platform: you rent the store and pay plan fees, plus transaction fees if you use another payment gateway. WordPress is open-source software you host yourself, and it becomes a store with the free WooCommerce plugin. Pick Shopify for speed and less maintenance; pick WordPress for content-led sites, full control and lower platform fees.

Most "Shopify vs WordPress" articles that rank today are dated 2024 or carry no date at all, and several build a first-year cost from a promotional price. This one is dated 23 October 2026, uses only the vendors' own pages, and says where a price depends on your country. Disclosure: Elgrith builds on both platforms and holds no Shopify, WooCommerce or Automattic partner status, so nothing here is a sales pitch for either.

How do Shopify and WordPress compare at a glance?

W3Techs' CMS survey puts WordPress at 58.3% of sites with a known CMS and Shopify at 7.9%. The gap reflects that WordPress powers every kind of site, while Shopify powers stores. For ecommerce alone, the question is closer than those numbers suggest.

What does each really cost to run in 2026?

The honest answer is "plan plus apps plus payment fees" for Shopify, and "hosting plus extensions plus payment fees plus maintenance" for WordPress. Here is what the vendors themselves publish.

Shopify

Shopify's pricing page lists four plans: Basic, Grow, Advanced and Plus. Prices are shown in your local currency, so read them from your own country and date-stamp them in your budget. We don't print US dollar prices here because our fetch was served a different region. From India, on 23 October 2026, Shopify's Indian pricing page showed:

On top of the plan, most stores add paid apps for reviews, subscriptions, search, translation or email. Those are monthly subscriptions, and they are where Shopify budgets usually grow.

WordPress with WooCommerce

WooCommerce's pricing page says: "WooCommerce is free to download and use." The same page puts hosting for most stores at $25–$350 a month, paid extensions at $29–$299 a year each, and WooPayments at roughly 2.50–2.90% + 30¢ per transaction (read 23 Oct 2026). Add a premium theme if you use one, and maintenance time: someone has to update WordPress, WooCommerce, plugins and PHP, test them together and keep backups.

Is WordPress cheaper than Shopify?

Often on platform fees, not always on total cost. WordPress has no plan fee and no platform transaction fee, but you pay for hosting, extensions and maintenance. Shopify bundles hosting, security and updates into the plan, then charges for apps and, if you use another gateway, a percentage of sales. For a small store with a simple catalogue, Shopify can be cheaper once you count maintenance hours. For a content-heavy site or a store with high revenue on a third-party gateway, WordPress usually wins.

How do transaction fees work on Shopify?

This is the line most comparisons get wrong. According to Shopify's Help Center, third-party transaction fees are charged "when you use a third-party payment provider to accept customer payments". They are on top of whatever the gateway itself charges.

Three details matter:

• Shopify Payments as the only provider removes them. Shopify's cost page says: "When you use Shopify Payments as your sole payment provider, there are no third-party transaction fees for orders."
• Mixing providers costs more. If you run Shopify Payments alongside a third-party provider, transactions processed by Shopify Payments "are charged at standard Shopify Payments rates plus a 1.25% premium".
• Gift cards changed in 2025. Stores created on or after 12 May 2025 "are charged third-party transaction fees on the amount paid for using store credit or gift cards". Older stores aren't.

Illustrative example (not a quote): a store taking the equivalent of $50,000 a month through a third-party gateway pays Shopify an extra $1,000 a month on Basic (2%), $500 on Grow (1%) or $300 on Advanced (0.6%), before the gateway's own fee. That is why stores that can't use Shopify Payments often move up a plan sooner than the feature list suggests.

Which is better for B2B and wholesale?

Shopify changed this on 2 April 2026. Its announcement says "Shopify B2B is now rolling out across all plans." Per the changelog, Basic, Grow and Advanced stores now get company profiles, up to three custom catalogs with tailored pricing, volume pricing and quantity rules, stored cards and payment terms. Plus keeps unlimited catalogs, direct catalog assignment to companies and locations, partial payments and deposits.

So B2B is no longer, on its own, a reason to buy Plus. It becomes one when you need more than three price lists, deposits, or catalogs assigned per buyer location.

WooCommerce handles wholesale through extensions (role-based pricing, quote requests, net terms) or custom code. That gives you more freedom to model unusual rules, such as contract prices by customer and SKU, but it's more to build and maintain. If you need punchout catalogues, ERP sync or quote approval flows, see our B2B ecommerce development service; for the jump to Plus, read Shopify vs Shopify Plus.

Which is better for SEO and content?

Both can rank. The differences are in control and publishing:

• Content. WordPress was built for publishing: categories, tags, custom post types, revisions, editorial roles and a huge choice of SEO plugins. If content drives your traffic (guides, recipes, news, resources), WordPress is the stronger tool.
• URL control. Shopify uses fixed path prefixes for products, collections, pages and blog posts. WordPress lets you design your URL structure freely.
• Speed and Core Web Vitals. Shopify's hosting and CDN are managed for you, so a lean theme starts fast; heavy apps slow it down. WordPress speed depends on your host, theme and plugins: it can be very fast or very slow.
• Structured data. Both support product schema through themes, apps or plugins. Check it with Google's Rich Results Test either way.

For a content-led brand that also sells, a common pattern is WordPress for content with WooCommerce, or WordPress for content linking to a Shopify store. Shopify's Buy Button is another way to sell a few products inside a WordPress site.

What about maintenance and security?

Shopify maintains the platform, hosting and checkout security. Your job is themes, apps and settings.

WordPress puts more on you. The current release is WordPress 7.1.3 (6 October 2026), in the 7.1 "Mary Lou" line released 19 August 2026. WordPress's requirements page recommends "PHP version 8.3 or greater", and PHP's supported versions page shows PHP 8.2 security support ending on 31 December 2026. If your host still runs 8.2, plan the upgrade and test your plugins against it before the year ends.

A sensible WordPress routine: staging site, monthly updates of core and plugins, uptime and security monitoring, daily off-site backups, and a short list of well-maintained plugins. Our website maintenance team runs this for clients; the scope is agreed in your written plan.

Shopify vs WordPress in India: payments, UPI and GST invoices

India searches this comparison more than any other country, and the payment picture is different there.

• Shopify Payments isn't offered in India. India isn't on Shopify's supported countries list (checked 23 Oct 2026), so Indian stores use a third-party provider, and Shopify's third-party transaction fee applies by plan on top of the gateway's own fee. Check your admin for the exact rate that applies to your store.
• Illustrative maths: on ₹10 lakh of monthly sales, a 2% fee on Basic is ₹20,000 a month and 1% on Grow is ₹10,000, before the gateway's fee. Run that number before you pick a plan.
• UPI on WordPress. Razorpay's own plugin, Razorpay for WooCommerce, accepts UPI, cards, netbanking and wallets and lists 100,000+ active installations. WooCommerce adds no platform fee of its own.
• GST invoices. Both platforms can issue GST invoices through apps or extensions. Confirm invoice format and tax settings with your accountant; we don't give tax advice.

For Indian businesses selling mostly in India, WooCommerce with an Indian gateway is often the lower-fee route, and Shopify is the lower-effort one. Near Delhi? Our Faridabad web development page covers how we serve the NCR from our New Delhi HQ.

Which should you choose? A decision table by business type

Nonprofits and charities have their own needs (donation flows, Gift Aid, accessibility). See nonprofit website design or, in the UK, charity web design in London. Comparing more platforms? Read Shopify vs WooCommerce for the store-only view and Webflow vs WordPress for marketing sites.

When should you switch platforms?

Switch from WordPress to Shopify when maintenance keeps breaking the store, your team can't keep plugins updated, or you want one vendor responsible for checkout security. Switch from Shopify to WordPress when content is your growth channel, app subscriptions keep climbing, or third-party transaction fees are a large line in your P&L.

Either way, the migration risk is SEO. Map every old URL to a new one with a 301 redirect, move product data, customers and order history, and re-check structured data after launch. Our website migration service handles this, and the website migration checklist lists every step.

How can Elgrith help?

Elgrith has delivered 1,000+ projects for 250+ clients since 2015, from our New Delhi HQ and client-partnership centres in New York, London and Shanghai. We build WordPress sites, WooCommerce stores, Shopify Plus builds and ecommerce platforms, so we recommend whichever fits, not whichever we resell. US businesses can work with our New York WordPress agency team. You own the code and content, and you get a fixed written quote after a free call. Book a call or start a project.