Shopify vs WooCommerce – Comparisons for the Better Platform?

Would you like to open an online shop? Not sure which Shopify vs WooCommerce can be used? The two biggest eCommerce sites in the country, Shopify and WooCommerce are each with their own benefits and disadvantages. As a company owner, your future needs to choose the best eCommerce platform to meet your business needs.

We will show you a detailed comparison between Shopify and WooCommerce in this guide. It aims to split up the advantages and drawbacks of your eCommerce shop to help you choose the right alternative.

As the comparison between Shop and WooCommerce is a comprehensive one, here is a short content table:

• Overview of WooCommerce and Shopify
• What to look for in your site for eCommerce?
• Comparison of costs
• Facility to compare usage
• Form of payment
• Comparison of add-ons
• Conclusion: Which is better than WooCommerce versus Shopify?

Overview: Shopify vs WooCommerce

We must cover the basics and highlight what makes this platform stand out before we launch our thorough comparison of the two most successful eCommerce systems on the web.

What is Shopify?

Shopify is an all-in-one eCommerce platform that facilitates the development of an online store, accepts payments, and manages your inventory on a single platform without ever being concerned with technical matters such as web hosting, security, caching, etc. For more information, click here.

What is WooCommerce?

WooCommerce is a WordPress-built open-source eCommerce plug-in. You can use the strong content management system (CMS) to run an online shop. It helps you to use it. Due to the open-source design, any part of your store can be adapted and customized plugins can be easily created. The choice of the two platforms depends solely on your requirements and level of expertise.

What do you need on your platform for eCommerce?

When you launch an online shop, there are few items you simply must remember. These important considerations allow you to determine which platform best suits your requirements.

• Budget – The upfront expense to set up a fully operational e-company.
• Simple to use – Even utter beginners can be easy to use.
• Payment Mode – various ways of payment should be supported (e.g., PayPal, Stripe, other merchant processors).
• Integrations – Number of programs and resources that you can incorporate into the business development process.
• Scalability – the network should be able to expand with the growth of the market.

Both online shop owners need to bear these simple criteria in mind. You should also look at other solutions, such as packaging, inventory management, invoicing, taxes, dropshipping, etc., depending on your needs.

We aim to examine in detail how Shopify and WooCommerce are meeting these fundamental criteria and which of these are more suitable for your needs.

Cost: Shopify vs WooCommerce

For eCommerce website operators, the cost is also the most significant factor. You must calculate the start-up expense and also take into account the variable costs of add-ons and apps.

The real expense of Shopify

Shopify makes starting your online shop super-fast. You can upgrade to the Shopify Plan for 79 $, or to the Advanced Shopify Plan for 299 dollars per month, start with $29 per month. Both of the plans contain the domain name, SSL, and web hosting. The simple plan includes sufficient functionality to set up a new online store. You will install unrestricted items, 2 accounts, storage of unlimited files, and more. This price does not include equipment and supplements from third parties you will need to move the shop to the next level.

With the growth of your company, you will start to spend even more than the simple plan. These costs will increase soon. Payments also affect the prices. Payments Shopify has a shopping solution for its own payments that costs 2,9% + 30 cents per purchase. You will be paying a flat rate of 2 percent on all purchases if you wish to use third-party payment gates or your own merchant account. The Shopify Advanced Package costs $299 a month, which reduces the premium to 0.5%. These payments are very high when using foreign payment gates. If, though, you only start using the payment solution Shopify, the payments are equivalent to famous sites, such as Stripe and Braintree.

The real expense of WooCommerce

WooCommerce is a WordPress.org eCommerce plugin (also known as self-hosted WordPress). It is available open-source and as a WordPress plugin. However, for starting a WooCommerce shop you would need a domain name, an SSL certificate, and a WordPress hosting account. The usual expense of domain names is 14.99 dollars; the SSL Certificate is 69.99 dollars, and the website is 7.99 dollars a month. Especially when you just begin, this isn’t cheap. Fortunately, many hosting providers are now selling advanced WooCommerce hosting schemes that reduce costs considerably.

Bluehost has agreed to sell our customers a free domain name, free SSL License, and a deal on web hosting, as an official WordPress and WooCommerce hosting service. You can launch your online shop for up to $6.95 a month. As you can see, the launch cost of a standard WooCommerce store is much lower than that of Shopify. Even, WooCommerce does not owe you a percentage charge, which is a great advantage for your purchases.

But as you buy paying plugins, the WooCommerce costs tend to stack up. If your online shop expands your hosting costs will also rise. One obvious benefit of WooCommerce is however that frequent alternatives to paying extensions are available. By just buying the equipment and plug-ins you like, you can also manage the prices. It is certainly the winner in terms of costs, given that there are several free themes and free add-on to WooCommerce.

Winner: WooCommerce

Useful: Shopify vs WooCommerce

Most online shop customers are not web designers or engineers. And people who know certain common principles require an easy-to-use and removable platform.

Shopify – Ease to Use

Shopify is a fully host network, which ensures that no program has to be installed, administered, or updated. You should not worry about safety, efficiency, backup, and compatibility problems as well. It lets you choose a template for your website when you register. After that, you’ll be customized and helped incorporate items. Shopify comes with an elegant app for dredging and dropping. It is a bit breeze to manage the merchandise, sales, and stock inside Shopify.

One of the disadvantages of this directed, polished, and the streamlined user interface is that it restricts power. You may only use the design and production software that Shopify provides or supplements on its market. It’s not as horrible as it sounds, though. For the majority of consumers, Shopify’s wide choice of extensions and subjects is more than sufficient for your online store to start and expand. 

WooCommerce – Ease to Use

WooCommerce is not a shop-like hosting site. This means you’re going to have to install WooCommerce, handle upgrades, maintain backups and ensure your site is stable. There are plenty of free and paid plugins which will simplify the majority of your tasks. When it comes to customizations WooCommerce is super customizable. The entire network is fully managed. With more than 55,000+ WordPress plugins, you can apply every feature imagined to your website.

There is no built-in concept builder for drag and drop. You can use one of the builders of WordPress pages like Beaver Maker, but it increases the expenses. The greatest disadvantage of versatility is that it comes with a learning curve that needs more practical website maintenance. You must also register with a merchant or utility such as Stripe/PayPal. The WooCommerce led configuration assistant is useful but does not approach Shopify’s embarkation and easy use.

Winner: Shopify

Methods of Payment: Shopify vs WooCommerce

Many payment gates are available for you to use to accept online payments. Anyways of payment cannot be appropriate for you or your clients. Therefore, it is necessary to offer many payment options on the platform you choose. Let’s take a look at how the payment integrations of Shopify and WooCommerce compare.

Shopify Payment Options

Shopify provides a wide range of payment solutions to accept consumer payments. They have their own payment solution called Stripe Shopify Payments and all common payment gates for third parties. The issue is that Shopify charges 2 percent extra fees for any purchase made through payment gates from third parties. The payment portal includes the processing costs paid. By spending $299 a month for the Advanced Shop package you will reduce the fee to 0.5 percent. Shopify Payments has flat credit card charges, but no additional processing charges. Credit card prices for the base plan start at 2.9% + 30 euros and decrease for all options.

WooCommerce Payment Options

PayPal and Stripe are offered by WooCommerce by contrast. It supports all other common providers of payment services through add-ons. WooCommerce supports even several geographic and less common payment services for payment gates. Since there is no entry barrier, any payment company will build WooCommerce add-ons and fund them.

As a self-contained portal, only the payment gateway or bank charges transaction charges. WooCommerce will never bill your store purchases with a percentage fee, which is a big bonus. You can save a large amount of money with WooCommerce if you use your own business account to use a third-party Gateway. But since Shopify Payments, which has the same credit card prices as Stripe / PayPal, is a small business, it doesn’t have a difference.

Winner: Tie

Add-ons and Integrations: Shopify vs WooCommerce

Regardless of how stable an e-commerce infrastructure is, third-party platforms and resources are still needed to develop the shop. An email marketing software, lead generation tool, analytics tools, facilities of communication, etc. Both Shopify and WooCommerce have a large directory extension and are integrated into several services by third parties.

Shopify

Shopify comes with a versatile API and an App Store that allows you to purchase add-ons from third parties to your Shopify store. They have hundreds of applications on the store that cover all the features you want to install. Shopify has integrations with apps such as OptinMonster for lead generation, which will help you expand your email list to reduce your cart drop. They have SEO applications, product ratings, coupons, counts, etc. The App Store of Shopify includes both free and premium applications. Free apps are created by third-party providers with prices of their own and the store is only integrated with the APIs of the app. Prices for paid supplements vary and most applications offer monthly subscriptions.

WooCommerce

WooCommerce is open source and WordPress built top. This enables you to use over 55,000 free plugins and plugins for WordPress and many others. You can install payment gates, lead generation, SEO’s, performance improvement, and almost any functionality that you can consider by using these add-ons.

Due to the low entry barrier, WooCommerce has far more integrations and add-ons than Shopify. Nearly every tool and service provider from a third party has its own plugins to incorporate easily into your WooCommerce shop. You may also employ a developer with your own integration or plugin only. It is important to note, though, that it is much easier to configure WooCommerce. After directly submitting a WordPress plugin and submitting an application to the shop we may conclude that Shopify vs WooCommerce is incredibly difficult to do.

Winner: WooCommerce

Which is the best eCommerce platform WooCommerce vs Shopify?

Shopify and WooCommerce are also strong e-commerce websites. It really reflects your personal abilities and interests. Shopify is much easier to use. You don’t have to install anything and you can start fast. Payments are easier to establish and price schedules are easier to grasp. Shopify’s downside is that you cannot regulate it all. Transaction fees, supplements, and integrations will increase the costs. Your upgrade choices are restricted to selecting plans, and a pay-as-you-go fee cannot be administered.

WooCommerce is open source and provides the website with complete access. Particularly those WooCommerce hosting enterprises cost much less to start an online store with WooCommerce. The drawback is that the program must be maintained. It comes with a little curve for learning. Millions of beginners are using it however already and they are getting very fast through the learning process.

You want to have absolute leverage of your online store and are searching for a low-cost alternative, WooCommerce is your best platform.

Shopify is the best app for you because something is totally trouble-free and infinitely scalable.