Choosing an ecommerce platform isn’t just a technical decision—it’s a business-defining one. Get it right, and you’ll have a foundation that scales with your ambitions. Get it wrong, and you’ll face costly migrations, frustrated customers, and countless headaches down the line.
If you’re weighing up WooCommerce against Shopify, you’re already on the right track. These two platforms power millions of online stores worldwide, but they take fundamentally different approaches to ecommerce. One offers you the keys to the kingdom with complete control. The other handles everything for you, letting you focus purely on selling.
This guide cuts through the marketing noise to give you straight answers. We’ll examine costs, capabilities, and real-world performance to help you make an informed choice for your UK business.
Understanding the Fundamental Difference
Before diving into feature comparisons, you need to grasp what these platforms actually are—because they’re not competing on equal ground.
WooCommerce: The Open-Source WordPress Plugin
WooCommerce isn’t a standalone platform. It’s a free plugin that transforms your WordPress website into a fully functional online store. Think of WordPress as the foundation and WooCommerce as the shopfront you build on top of it.
This approach gives you complete ownership. Your store lives on hosting you choose, runs on code you control, and operates without platform restrictions. You’re the landlord, the architect, and the shop manager all at once.
Currently powering over 6.2 million active installations, WooCommerce dominates roughly 20% of all ecommerce sites globally—a testament to its flexibility and cost-effectiveness.
Shopify: The All-in-One Hosted Solution
Shopify takes the opposite approach. It’s a complete, proprietary platform that hosts your store, manages your security, and provides everything you need in one tidy package. You don’t own the underlying infrastructure—you rent it.
With over 4.3 million active stores and growing rapidly, Shopify has become synonymous with “easy ecommerce.” During Black Friday 2024 alone, the platform processed £4.2 million per minute without breaking a sweat.
The trade-off? Less control in exchange for less responsibility. Shopify handles the technical complexities, but you play by their rules.
The Setup Experience: First Impressions Matter
Getting Started with Shopify
Shopify’s onboarding feels like having a patient guide walk you through every step. Create an account, answer a few questions about your business, and you’re presented with a clean dashboard and setup wizard.
Within an hour—even without technical skills—you can have a functioning store with products listed, payment methods configured, and a professional design in place. Everything from SSL certificates to hosting happens automatically behind the scenes.
For time-pressed entrepreneurs or those allergic to technical tasks, this simplicity is genuinely liberating.
Launching with WooCommerce
WooCommerce requires a few more steps upfront. You’ll need to:
- Purchase hosting from a provider (£10-50 monthly depending on quality)
- Register a domain name (typically £10-20 annually)
- Install WordPress on your hosting account
- Add the WooCommerce plugin through the WordPress dashboard
- Run through the setup wizard to configure basics
- Choose and install a theme
The entire process might take 2-4 hours for someone comfortable with technology, or a full day for complete beginners. However, you’re building on solid WordPress foundations that give you publishing power Shopify simply can’t match.
The Real Cost of Doing Business
Pricing discussions often oversimplify the comparison. Let’s break down what you’ll actually spend with each platform.
Shopify’s Transparent (But Escalating) Costs
Shopify’s pricing is refreshingly straightforward:
| Plan | Monthly Cost | Transaction Fee (External Gateways) | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | £5 | 5% | Social selling only, no full website |
| Basic | £25 | 2% | New stores, single-person operations |
| Shopify | £65 | 1% | Growing businesses needing reports |
| Advanced | £299 | 0.5% | High-volume stores requiring advanced features |
These fees include hosting, SSL certificates, and core functionality. However, costs creep upward when you factor in:
- Premium themes (£100-400 one-time purchase)
- Essential apps (many charge £10-80 monthly each)
- Transaction fees if not using Shopify Payments
- Payment gateway fees (2.9% + 30p per transaction via Shopify Payments)
A realistic annual cost for a Basic plan store using 3-5 apps? Expect £1,200-3,000 minimum.
WooCommerce’s Variable Costs
WooCommerce’s “free” plugin comes with associated expenses:
| Cost Category | Typical UK Pricing | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Hosting | £10-50/month | Performance scales with price |
| Domain Name | £10-20/year | One-time annual fee |
| SSL Certificate | Free-£50/year | Often included with quality hosting |
| Premium Theme | £40-120 | One-time purchase |
| Premium Plugins | £0-200/year | Depends on required functionality |
| Payment Gateway Fees | ~2.9% + 30p | Standard rate via Stripe/PayPal |
A basic WooCommerce setup might run £400-800 in the first year, then £200-600 annually thereafter. However, costs vary wildly based on your choices—you could spend £2,000+ annually with premium hosting and multiple paid extensions.
The crucial difference? WooCommerce has no platform transaction fees. On a store processing £50,000 monthly, that 2% Shopify fee (if using external gateways) equals £12,000 annually—suddenly WooCommerce looks considerably cheaper.
Design Freedom vs Polished Simplicity
Shopify’s Theme Ecosystem
Shopify offers approximately 170 themes (13 free, 157 paid). Every theme undergoes quality control, ensuring they’re mobile-responsive, reasonably fast, and integrate smoothly with Shopify’s features.
The limitation? You’re working within Shopify’s framework. Want to radically change your checkout page? That requires Shopify Plus at roughly £1,600 monthly. Need a unique homepage layout the theme doesn’t support? You’ll need to learn Liquid (Shopify’s templating language) or hire a developer.
For businesses happy with professional, somewhat template-like designs, Shopify’s themes work brilliantly. For brands demanding complete visual uniqueness, the constraints become frustrating.
WooCommerce’s Unlimited Design Potential
WooCommerce taps into WordPress’s vast theme marketplace—thousands of free and premium options. Popular choices like Astra, Flatsome, and Divi offer exceptional flexibility without touching code.
More importantly, you have complete access to your site’s code. Want to redesign your product pages entirely? Go ahead. Need a custom checkout flow for subscription products? Build it. Require integration with niche UK systems like Sage accounting software? Entirely possible.
This freedom comes with responsibility. Poor theme choices can tank your site speed. Incompatible plugins can break functionality. You’re in control, but you’re also accountable for the results.
SEO Capabilities: Fighting for Google Rankings
For UK businesses competing in crowded markets, SEO often determines success or failure. The platforms take markedly different approaches.
WooCommerce’s SEO Advantage
WooCommerce inherits WordPress’s formidable content management capabilities. This matters enormously because modern ecommerce SEO requires robust content marketing—blog posts, buying guides, comparison articles, and more.
Key advantages include:
- Complete URL control: Structure your URLs exactly as you want without platform restrictions
- Powerful plugins: Yoast SEO and Rank Math provide granular control over meta data, schema markup, and technical SEO
- Content-first architecture: WordPress was built for publishing, making it natural to blend commerce with content
- Unlimited categories and tags: Organise products with complex taxonomies Google can easily understand
- Full robots.txt and .htaccess access: Control exactly what search engines crawl
The result? WooCommerce sites that invest in SEO often dominate organic search results for competitive UK keywords.
Shopify’s SEO: Solid but Restricted
Shopify has made significant SEO improvements over recent years. The platform automatically generates sitemaps, includes canonical tags, and ensures mobile responsiveness—all crucial ranking factors.
However, limitations remain:
- Mandatory URL structures (e.g., /products/ prefix cannot be removed)
- Limited blog functionality compared to WordPress
- Restricted control over site structure and internal linking
- Some advanced schema implementations require apps or custom coding
That said, Shopify’s technical performance is excellent. Fast page loads and reliable uptime are ranking factors where Shopify excels—assuming you’ve chosen a lightweight theme and haven’t installed performance-killing apps.
Security and Compliance for UK Businesses
Shopify’s Managed Security
Shopify handles security comprehensively. Every store automatically receives:
- PCI DSS Level 1 compliance (the highest standard for payment processing)
- 256-bit SSL certificates
- Automatic security updates and patches
- GDPR-compliant data handling tools
- Built-in fraud analysis
For UK merchants, GDPR compliance is non-negotiable. Shopify provides tools to export customer data, handle deletion requests, and manage consent—all crucial for meeting Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) requirements.
You essentially outsource security concerns to Shopify’s team. For non-technical owners, this peace of mind is invaluable.
WooCommerce: You’re in Charge
WooCommerce security is entirely your responsibility. WordPress itself is secure, but vulnerabilities typically arise from:
- Outdated plugins or themes
- Weak hosting security
- Poor password practices
- Lack of regular backups
Mitigation requires active management:
- Choose hosting with robust security features (firewalls, malware scanning, SSL)
- Install security plugins like Wordfence or Sucuri
- Keep WordPress, WooCommerce, and all plugins updated
- Implement strong authentication and user permissions
- Schedule regular automated backups
PCI compliance comes through your payment gateway (Stripe, PayPal) rather than platform-level certification. For GDPR, you’ll need plugins or manual processes to handle data requests.
The upside? You can implement security measures beyond what Shopify offers if your business handles sensitive information or serves high-risk markets.
Payment Processing: Follow the Money
Shopify’s Integrated Approach
Shopify Payments (powered by Stripe) offers the smoothest experience—customers never leave your site, and you avoid additional transaction fees. UK businesses benefit from competitive rates:
- Basic plan: 1.9% + 30p per transaction
- Shopify plan: 1.8% + 30p per transaction
- Advanced plan: 1.6% + 30p per transaction
However, if you prefer alternative gateways like WorldPay, SagePay, or PayPal, Shopify charges extra fees on top of the gateway’s own charges—2% on Basic, decreasing to 0.5% on Advanced.
This financial penalty for gateway choice frustrates merchants who have existing relationships or prefer specific providers for business reasons.
WooCommerce’s Payment Flexibility
WooCommerce imposes zero platform fees regardless of which payment gateway you choose. Popular UK options include:
- Stripe (2.9% + 30p for UK cards)
- PayPal (2.9% + 30p for UK transactions)
- WooCommerce Payments (same as Stripe)
- Square, WorldPay, SagePay, and dozens more
You pay only the gateway’s transaction fees—nothing additional to the platform. For high-volume stores, this difference becomes significant. A store processing £100,000 monthly saves £2,000 yearly by avoiding Shopify’s 2% fee alone.
WooCommerce also makes it trivial to accept UK-specific payment methods like Klarna, Clearpay, or direct bank transfers—crucial for certain market segments.
Customer Support: When Things Go Wrong
Shopify’s Round-the-Clock Assistance
Shopify provides genuinely impressive support:
- 24/7 live chat and email support
- Phone support during business hours
- Extensive documentation and video tutorials
- Active community forums
- Shopify Sidekick AI assistant for in-dashboard guidance
Whether it’s 3 AM and your checkout has stopped working, or you’re struggling with inventory settings, help is immediately available. For solo entrepreneurs or small teams without technical expertise, this support safety net is worth its weight in gold.
WooCommerce’s Community-Driven Support
WooCommerce doesn’t offer direct platform support. Instead, you rely on:
- Extensive documentation at WooCommerce.com
- Active WordPress and WooCommerce forums
- Your hosting provider’s support team
- Theme and plugin developers for their specific products
- Community resources like Reddit, Slack groups, and Facebook communities
Quality hosting makes a substantial difference here. Premium WooCommerce hosts like Kinsta or WP Engine offer expert support that can troubleshoot WooCommerce issues—essentially providing the dedicated support Shopify includes.
The open-source advantage? Countless UK-based WordPress developers can help with customisations or problems. With Shopify, you’re limited to Shopify Partners or doing it yourself.
Scaling Your Business: Growth Trajectories
Shopify’s Effortless Scaling
Shopify automatically handles infrastructure scaling. During peak traffic events—Black Friday, product launches, viral moments—the platform simply copes. You don’t provision extra server resources or worry about crashing during your biggest sales day.
Product variant limits are expanding too. Currently supporting 100 variants per product, Shopify plans to increase this to 2,000 variants in 2025—crucial for fashion and customisable product sellers.
The catch? You scale within Shopify’s ecosystem. At a certain point, you might need Shopify Plus (starting around £1,600 monthly) to access features like advanced API limits, wholesale channels, or custom checkout modifications.
WooCommerce’s Flexible Growth Path
WooCommerce scaling depends entirely on your hosting infrastructure. A budget £10/month shared hosting account will crumble under 10,000 monthly visitors. Enterprise-grade managed WordPress hosting effortlessly serves millions of pageviews.
The scaling path typically looks like:
- Start with quality shared hosting (£10-30/month)
- Upgrade to managed WordPress hosting as traffic grows (£50-150/month)
- Move to dedicated or cloud hosting for high-volume stores (£200+/month)
- Implement advanced caching, CDNs, and database optimisation
This approach requires technical oversight—either in-house expertise or agency support. However, it offers unlimited growth potential. Some of the world’s largest ecommerce sites run on WooCommerce because it can scale infinitely with the right architecture.
Considerations for UK Businesses Specifically
Operating in the UK market brings specific requirements that affect platform choice.
VAT and Tax Compliance
Both platforms handle UK VAT, but with different approaches:
WooCommerce: Offers built-in VAT calculations for UK and EU. Extensions handle complex scenarios like Northern Ireland’s dual VAT system, MOSS reporting, or reverse charge mechanisms. You have complete control over tax display and calculation logic.
Shopify: Handles UK VAT automatically, including post-Brexit EU sales scenarios. However, customising tax logic for unusual business models (B2B with reverse charge, mixed retail/wholesale) can be restrictive.
Shipping Integrations
UK merchants typically rely on Royal Mail, DPD, Hermes, or Yodel. Both platforms integrate with these carriers, but WooCommerce offers more granular control over shipping logic—essential for businesses with complex fulfilment rules or multi-warehouse operations.
Local Payment Preferences
UK consumers increasingly expect buy-now-pay-later options like Klarna and Clearpay. Both platforms support these, though WooCommerce’s open ecosystem makes it easier to add emerging payment methods as they gain traction.
GDPR and Data Protection
Both platforms can achieve GDPR compliance, but the approaches differ. Shopify’s built-in tools handle the basics adequately. WooCommerce requires more configuration but offers greater control over data storage, processing, and retention—potentially important for businesses with stringent compliance requirements.
Who Should Choose Shopify?
Shopify makes perfect sense if you:
- Want to launch quickly without technical knowledge
- Prefer predictable monthly costs over variable expenses
- Value immediate access to expert support
- Sell straightforward products without complex customisation needs
- Don’t require deep integration with existing business systems
- Appreciate not worrying about security, updates, or server management
- Process relatively low transaction volumes where platform fees remain manageable
Ideal scenarios include: fashion boutiques, dropshipping operations, single-product brands, creative entrepreneurs, or anyone prioritising speed-to-market over granular control.
Who Should Choose WooCommerce?
WooCommerce is the superior choice if you:
- Already use WordPress for your website and blog
- Require extensive customisation or unique functionality
- Process high transaction volumes where Shopify’s fees become substantial
- Need complete SEO control and content marketing capabilities
- Want to avoid platform lock-in and own your entire stack
- Have technical resources in-house or budget for development support
- Operate in markets requiring specific integrations or compliance measures
- Sell complex products (extensive variants, subscription models, custom pricing)
Perfect for: established businesses migrating online, B2B sellers, content-driven commerce brands, niche markets with specific requirements, or companies wanting complete ownership.
Making the Final Decision
Neither platform is objectively “better”—they serve different needs. The right choice depends on your specific circumstances, technical comfort level, and business model.
Ask yourself these deciding questions:
- Do I have (or can I afford) technical support? If no, lean towards Shopify.
- Will I publish regular content for SEO? If yes, WooCommerce’s content capabilities matter.
- What are my projected transaction volumes? Calculate whether Shopify’s fees or WooCommerce’s hosting costs work out cheaper.
- How unique are my requirements? Standard needs suit Shopify; unusual requirements need WooCommerce’s flexibility.
- What’s my timeline? Need to launch this month? Choose Shopify. Can invest time building properly? Consider WooCommerce.
Remember: switching platforms later is possible but painful. Take time to assess your needs honestly rather than choosing based on upfront costs alone.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I migrate from Shopify to WooCommerce (or vice versa) later?
Yes, migration tools and services exist for both directions. However, the process is complex and potentially expensive, especially if you’ve built custom functionality or have thousands of products. Choose carefully upfront to avoid this headache.
Which platform is actually cheaper in the long run?
It depends on your transaction volume. For stores processing under £20,000 monthly, costs are comparable. Above that threshold, WooCommerce typically becomes cheaper because you avoid Shopify’s transaction fees and escalating plan costs. However, factor in your time value—if you spend 10 hours monthly managing WordPress when you could be selling, that has a cost too.
Is WooCommerce really free?
The WooCommerce plugin itself costs nothing. However, you’ll pay for hosting (£10-50+/month), potentially a premium theme (£40-120 one-time), and possibly premium extensions (£0-200/year). Think of it as free-to-start rather than completely free to operate.
Can Shopify handle large product catalogues?
Absolutely. Shopify comfortably handles stores with 100,000+ SKUs, and their infrastructure scales automatically. The limitation is more around product variant complexity (currently 100 variants per product, expanding to 2,000) rather than total product count.
Which is better for SEO?
WooCommerce generally offers superior SEO capabilities thanks to WordPress’s content management strengths and plugins like Yoast or Rank Math. However, Shopify’s excellent performance and reliability are also ranking factors. A well-optimised Shopify store will outrank a poorly-managed WooCommerce site every time—platform alone doesn’t guarantee results.
Do I need to know coding for either platform?
For basic operations, neither requires coding. Shopify is more beginner-friendly overall. WooCommerce requires more technical comfort but not necessarily coding skills. However, for advanced customisations, both eventually benefit from developer expertise—Liquid for Shopify, PHP for WooCommerce.
Which platform is more popular in the UK?
Both enjoy strong UK adoption. WooCommerce powers more total stores globally (approximately 6.2 million vs Shopify’s 4.3 million), but Shopify has been growing faster recently. In the UK specifically, both have significant market share, with choice often coming down to business type rather than popularity.
Can I run a subscription business on both platforms?
Yes. Shopify offers built-in subscription functionality with certain apps or native features on higher plans. WooCommerce provides excellent subscription capabilities through the WooCommerce Subscriptions extension (paid), offering arguably more flexibility in subscription management and pricing models.
Final Thoughts
Your ecommerce platform choice will shape your business trajectory for years to come. Shopify offers simplicity, reliability, and comprehensive support at the cost of flexibility and ongoing fees. WooCommerce provides unlimited customisation, lower long-term costs, and complete ownership in exchange for greater responsibility.
Neither choice is wrong—they simply suit different businesses at different stages. A solo entrepreneur launching a side hustle might thrive on Shopify’s simplicity. An established retailer moving online might require WooCommerce’s customisation depth.
The most expensive mistake isn’t choosing the “wrong” platform—it’s choosing hastily without understanding your actual needs. Invest time in this decision upfront, and you’ll build on solid foundations that support growth rather than constrain it.
Whichever platform you choose, commit to mastering it rather than second-guessing your decision. Success in ecommerce comes from excellent products, strong marketing, and outstanding customer service—all of which matter far more than which platform powers your checkout.