WooCommerce vs Shopify vs Headless: Which Fits Your Store

The platform you choose decides how much you pay every month, who keeps the store secure, and how far you can customize it later. Moving a store with thousands of products and orders is expensive, so it pays to choose carefully the first time.

We build stores on all three approaches through our e-commerce development service. The WooCommerce stores we built include Legacy Garage Depot, which sells garage door parts, Lucy Aranjuez, a jewelry boutique in Spain, and Arvera World, a natural herbs and wellness shop. This guide compares the options with each platform's published prices from October 2026.

The short version

Shopify: what you get and what you pay

Shopify runs the hosting, security and checkout for you. Every plan includes unlimited hosting and a free SSL certificate, and Shopify says it is certified Level 1 PCI DSS compliant. According to Shopify's pricing page, the plans cost:

• Basic: $39 a month, or $29 a month billed yearly.
• Grow: $105 a month, or $89 billed yearly.
• Advanced: $399 a month, or $359 billed yearly.
• Plus: from $2,300 a month.

With Shopify Payments, online card rates start at 2.9% + 30¢ on Basic and drop to 2.7% on Grow, 2.5% on Advanced and 2.25% on Plus. If you use a different payment provider, Shopify adds a third-party transaction fee of 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow, 0.6% on Advanced and 0.2% on Plus. Its help center explains that the fee applies to every transaction processed through a third-party gateway, even when Shopify Payments is also turned on.

The other cost to watch is apps. Many stores add apps for reviews, subscriptions, bundles or shipping rules, and each one can carry its own monthly fee. Add them to your budget before you compare totals.

WooCommerce: what you get and what you pay

WooCommerce is a free plugin that turns a WordPress site into a store. It is widely used: W3Techs finds it on 19.7% of WordPress sites. You own the store's code and data, you choose the host, and you can change almost anything.

Card fees depend on the processor. WooPayments, WooCommerce's own option, charges US stores 2.9% + $0.30 per card payment, with no setup or monthly fee. International cards add 1.5% and currency conversion adds 1%. Stripe lists the same 2.9% + 30¢ for domestic cards.

The price of that control is upkeep. You are responsible for WordPress, plugin and theme updates, PHP versions, backups and security. That is why our WooCommerce stores ship with a maintenance plan. Our comparison of Next.js and WordPress covers that upkeep in more detail.

The flexibility is real, though. On Legacy Garage Depot, products are organized into categories for torsion springs, hardware, tools and openers, so a customer can find the exact part they need. On Arvera World, the same WordPress site handles both the shop and online booking.

Headless commerce: when it is worth it

A headless store separates the storefront from the commerce engine. The products, cart and checkout run on a platform such as Shopify, while the pages customers see are a custom site, often built with Next.js.

Shopify supports this with Hydrogen, which it describes as its headless toolkit. Hydrogen handles the Shopify-specific parts, like the cart, variant selection and collection filtering, and works with frameworks such as Next.js. Checkout stays on Shopify. Shopify's pricing page shows that Basic, Grow and Advanced each allow one headless storefront, and Plus allows 25.

Headless is worth it when:

• The brand needs a storefront that themes cannot deliver.
• Speed is a priority on large product and collection pages.
• The store mixes heavy content, such as guides or lookbooks, with products.
• Product data must combine with other systems, such as a custom configurator or a dealer portal.

It is usually not worth it for a small catalog with a standard theme. You pay for custom development and for maintaining a second codebase, on top of the commerce platform.

What the fees look like on $20,000 a month

Here is a worked example with published rates: $20,000 in monthly sales from 400 orders of $50, all on domestic cards, with Shopify plans billed yearly.

Two lessons come out of the math. First, at this volume the cheapest Shopify plan is the best value; higher plans pay off only as sales grow. Second, the third-party transaction fee is expensive, so on Shopify, use Shopify Payments unless you have a strong reason not to. Apps, themes and hosting are not included in this table, and international cards cost more on every platform.

How we help clients choose

1. Who will run the store day to day? If nobody wants to manage updates, Shopify removes that job.
2. How custom is the catalog? Complex product options, bookings or B2B pricing can be easier on WooCommerce with custom code.
3. Where is the store already? If you have a WordPress site that ranks well, adding WooCommerce keeps everything in one place.
4. What does the brand need to look like? If no theme comes close, consider headless on Shopify.
5. What is the three-year cost? Add plan fees, card fees, apps, hosting and maintenance, not just the build price.

Moving between platforms

Products, customers and orders can be exported and imported, but the details rarely map one to one. Plan time for product variants, customer passwords, which usually cannot be moved, and order history. Every product and category URL also needs a permanent redirect to its new address so search traffic carries over.

Before a migration goes live, we work through this list:

1. Export every product with its variants, images, prices and stock levels, then spot-check a sample after the import.
2. Map every old product, category and page URL to its new address, and set up permanent redirects.
3. Move customer accounts and plan an email that asks customers to set a new password.
4. Import past orders if customers need to see their history, or keep a full export for your records.
5. Recreate taxes, shipping zones and discount codes, then place test orders with real cards and refund them.
6. After launch, watch Google Search Console for crawl errors and fix any URL that was missed.

If you are weighing a store against a simpler site first, our guide to what a custom website costs covers the build and running costs of a non-store site.

What a store costs with JCerme

Our basic stores cost $3,000 to $8,000 and launch in 4 to 6 weeks. Custom stores with integrations cost $8,000 to $25,000 over 6 to 12 weeks, and enterprise or large-catalog builds start at $25,000. Store maintenance starts at $300 per month. See the details on our e-commerce development page, or ask for a store quote with your product count and the platform you are leaning toward.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Shopify cheaper than WooCommerce?

It depends on what you count. WooCommerce has no license fee, but you pay for hosting and maintenance. Shopify charges a monthly plan but includes hosting and security. For a small store, the totals are often close; compare three years of all costs.

Can I move my store from WooCommerce to Shopify, or back?

Yes. Products, customers and orders can be migrated with export tools or apps. Plan for redirects on every product and category URL, and expect customers to reset their passwords.

Do I need Shopify Plus to go headless?

No. Shopify's pricing page shows one headless storefront on the Basic, Grow and Advanced plans. Plus raises the limit to 25 storefronts and adds higher API limits.

Which platform is best for SEO?

All three can rank well. WooCommerce gives the most control over URLs and content, Shopify handles the technical basics for you, and headless stores can be the fastest. Product content and category pages matter more than the platform.