Shopify or WooCommerce? Costs, Fees and Maintenance Compared
Shopify or WooCommerce? Shopify prices in euros, fees in a worked example, maintenance effort and when each system fits. Prices as of October 2026.
Contents
Shopify fits if you want to start selling quickly, have no WordPress website yet and don't want to deal with servers, updates and backups. WooCommerce fits if you already work with WordPress, need custom features or an ERP connection, and someone looks after the shop regularly. The cost difference sits less in the software than in payment fees and maintenance: for a business based in Germany, Shopify starts at €36 a month (€27 with annual billing) plus card fees from 2.1% + €0.30 per payment. WooCommerce itself is free, but you pay for hosting, extensions and upkeep. All figures as of 20 October 2026, taken from the vendors' own pricing pages.
So you can weigh my view: I work as a WooCommerce developer. My recommendation at the end is therefore not neutral. The numbers before it are, they come from Shopify and WooCommerce themselves.
Renting versus running it yourself
With Shopify you rent a finished shop system. Hosting, security updates and the checkout are part of the subscription, and according to Shopify's German pricing page the platform is certified to PCI DSS Level 1, the standard for handling card data. You work within the limits of your plan, extra features come from apps.
WooCommerce is a free extension for WordPress. The vendor's pricing page lists no monthly subscription. The shop runs on a server you choose, and the code is yours. In return, updates, security and backups are your job or the job of whoever you hire for it.
What Shopify costs in Germany
Shopify bills businesses in Germany in euros. Prices vary by country, so if you are based elsewhere, check the pricing page for your location. On 20 October 2026 the German pricing page lists these monthly prices; with annual billing the whole year is charged in advance:
| Plan | monthly | annual |
|---|---|---|
| Basic | €36 | €27 |
| Grow | €105 | €79 |
| Advanced | €384 | €289 |
| Plus | from €2,100 | not listed |
On top come fees per payment. If Shopify Payments processes the payment, you pay the online card fee (column “Card”). If a third-party provider processes it, Shopify charges an extra fee (column “Third-party”), and the provider's own fees come on top:
| Plan | Card | Third-party |
|---|---|---|
| Basic | 2.1% + €0.30 | 2% |
| Grow | 1.8% + €0.30 | 1% |
| Advanced | 1.6% + €0.30 | 0.6% |
| Plus | 1.3% + €0.30 | 0.2% |
New shops get a three-day free trial and then pay €1 a month for three months on most plans. The extra fee is the item many people overlook. According to the Shopify Help Center, the extra fee applies whenever a third-party provider processes the payment. With Shopify Payments it does not apply to card payments, Shop Pay, manual methods such as bank transfer, or PayPal if Shopify Payments is your primary provider. On stores created on or after 12 May 2025, Shopify also charges it on amounts paid with store credit or gift cards.
Two limits of the cheaper plans are in the feature list on the same pricing page: checkout customisation is restricted on Basic, Grow and Advanced and only fully available on Plus. B2B catalogues come with every plan, but at most three, unlimited again only on Plus. Paid apps and a premium theme come on top of the subscription as needed.
What WooCommerce costs
The software is free, running costs exist anyway. They are spread over several items:
- hosting that matches your traffic and catalogue
- premium extensions, often sold as annual licences. In German shops I usually cover the legal requirements with Germanized, a plugin built for the German market.
- updates for WordPress, WooCommerce, the theme and plugins, tested before they go live
- your payment provider's fees
WooCommerce charges no fee of its own on payments. Its own payment solution WooPayments lists 1.5% + €0.25 per payment with a European card for businesses in Germany, plus 2% for cards issued outside Europe. There is no monthly fee. Without a VAT ID, 19% VAT is added to these fees.
Typical amounts for hosting, licences and upkeep are in What does a WooCommerce shop cost?. This article is about the comparison.
Worked example: €10,000 in monthly sales
Say your shop has 200 orders a month at €50 each, all paid by card by customers in Germany. Platform and payment costs then look like this:
| Setup and calculation | Per month |
|---|---|
| Shopify Basic, monthly, with Shopify Payments: €36 plan + €210 + €60 card fees | €306 |
| Shopify Basic, annual, with Shopify Payments: €27 + €270 | €297 |
| Shopify Basic with a third-party provider: €36 + €200 extra fee, plus the provider's own fees | €236 + provider |
| Shopify Grow, monthly, with Shopify Payments: €105 + €180 + €60 | €345 |
| WooCommerce with WooPayments: €0 + €150 + €50, plus hosting, licences and upkeep | €200 + running costs |
Between Shopify Basic with Shopify Payments and WooCommerce with WooPayments, this example leaves €97 to €106 a month, roughly €1,160 to €1,270 a year. That is the budget WooCommerce has for hosting, licences and upkeep. Whether it is enough depends mostly on the number of extensions and on whether the shop runs custom code. The gap grows with your sales, because card fees rise as a percentage while hosting and upkeep usually do not.
Two calculations worth doing before you change plans: with monthly billing, Grow costs €69 more than Basic and lowers the card fee by 0.3 percentage points. That only pays off above €23,000 in monthly card sales, or about €17,300 with annual billing. With a third-party provider, Grow saves a full percentage point of extra fee instead, so the break-even point is €6,900 in monthly sales through that provider.
Who takes care of updates, security and backups
Day to day, this is a bigger difference than price. On Shopify, the vendor rolls out platform updates itself. On WooCommerce, five layers have to fit together: PHP on the server, WordPress, WooCommerce, the theme and every plugin. Larger changes come on top, such as switching order storage to HPOS, which I budget at 3 to 8 hours.
What comes up regularly in a WooCommerce shop:
- installing updates, on a staging copy first if the shop makes money
- backups stored off the server that have been test-restored at least once
- checking that every plugin is still maintained and finding a replacement if not
- keeping the PHP version current
A Shopify shop is not maintenance-free either. Apps change their prices or get discontinued, the theme needs updating, and legal texts, shipping rules and tax settings are yours to maintain. The effort is smaller, but it is not zero.
For Ringnaturshop I handle the WordPress support and ongoing development of their large online shop. My advice to anyone choosing WooCommerce: plan the upkeep from day one, with a fixed rhythm and one person responsible. What that costs and who can do it is covered in the guide to WordPress maintenance costs.
Selling legally in Germany
Neither system takes the legal questions off your hands. Order button, price display, legal texts and withdrawal information have to fit your shop, and a lawyer checks that, not a shop system. A recent addition to German law is the electronic withdrawal function under Section 356a of the German Civil Code (BGB): for distance contracts concluded through an online interface, consumers must be able to withdraw via a button clearly labelled „Vertrag widerrufen“ (cancel contract) or an equivalent wording. This applies to shops on both systems if you sell to consumers in Germany. How to set it up and test it in WooCommerce is covered in the guide to the EU withdrawal button in WooCommerce.
Custom features, B2B and ERP
With WooCommerce the code is yours, which matters as soon as the shop has to do something that isn't standard. For the shop at thestars.de, for example, I built a custom plugin: customers design their personal night sky, see a preview in the browser and get a printable poster. On WooCommerce a feature like that lives in your own code. On Shopify it sits in an app or the theme, and the deeper it reaches into the checkout, the more likely you need the Plus plan.
The same goes for ERP systems. WooCommerce exposes products, orders and customers through its REST API, and I budget 8 to 25 hours for a connection to JTL, Lexware or sevDesk. For shops with customer groups, net prices and invoice payment, the process is described in the article on the WooCommerce B2B shop.
SEO and moving later
Both systems can rank well on Google, content matters more than the platform. One difference is the URL structure. On WooCommerce you set the URLs yourself and keep shop and guides in one WordPress. Shopify places products under /products/ and categories under /collections/, and those paths are fixed.
When you change systems, the URLs almost always change. Every old product and category URL then needs a redirect to the new one, or rankings and links are lost. According to the Help Center, Shopify allows up to 100,000 redirects, up to 20 million on Plus. Moving from Shopify to WooCommerce, the effort depends mainly on how much data comes along and in what state: products with variants, customer accounts, old orders. Factor a possible move into your platform choice, even if it is years away. What comes along when moving between WooCommerce and Shopify, and what has to be set up again, is covered in a separate guide.
Reading vendor claims
Both vendors advertise numbers against each other. On its comparison page, Shopify claims a 17% higher conversion rate and a 36% lower total cost of ownership than WooCommerce. By Shopify's own account, the first figure comes from a study run with one of the big management consultancies, the second from a TCO study Shopify commissioned; the footnotes on the German version add that the study covered platforms in North America. WooCommerce promises the opposite on its comparison page: earn more while spending less than with Shopify.
None of these numbers is a basis for your decision. What holds up is the calculation with your own sales, your payment methods and your upkeep, like the example above.
My recommendation
If you have no website yet, a standard catalogue and nobody for the technical side, start with Shopify. It is the shorter route to your first sale, and at low sales the cost gap is small. If you already run a WordPress website, want content and shop in one system, or need custom features, B2B pricing or an ERP connection, choose WooCommerce and plan the upkeep firmly.
If you go with WooCommerce: as a WooCommerce developer I build your shop, connect payment methods and your ERP, and look after the upkeep afterwards if you want.
Frequently asked questions
How much does Shopify cost per month?
For businesses in Germany, Basic costs €36 a month or €27 with annual billing, Grow €105 or €79, Advanced €384 or €289. Plus starts at €2,100 a month. On top come card fees from 2.1% + €0.30 per payment through Shopify Payments, or an extra fee of 2% to 0.2% depending on the plan with a third-party provider (as of 20 October 2026). Prices differ in other countries.
How much does WooCommerce cost per month?
The software itself is free and has no subscription. You pay for hosting, premium extensions, upkeep and your payment provider's fees. With WooPayments that is 1.5% + €0.25 per payment with a European card for businesses in Germany. Typical amounts for the other items are in the article on WooCommerce costs.
Which system is better for SEO?
Neither ranks better by itself, content and technical execution decide. WooCommerce gives you free-form URLs and shop and guides in one WordPress. Shopify places products and categories under fixed paths such as /products/ and /collections/. The difference matters most when you move later, because every old URL then needs a redirect.
Who is Shopify a good fit for?
For merchants who want to start quickly, have no WordPress website yet and nobody for servers, updates and backups. If your checkout is standard and the shop needs no custom logic, Shopify is the simpler route. As sales and special requirements grow, recalculate the fees and the plan limits.
Can I switch from Shopify to WooCommerce later?
Yes. Products, customers and orders move with you, but the URLs change and every old URL needs a redirect. The effort depends mainly on how much data there is and in what state. Plan the move for a quiet sales period and test the new shop on a copy before you switch.
