Shopify vs WordPress: which should an agency pick for a client store?

Shopify vs WordPress: how do they compare for a client store?

They split the work differently. Shopify is a subscription: it runs the hosting, the security updates and the checkout, and you add features with apps. WordPress is software your client owns a copy of; add the WooCommerce plugin and it becomes a store you can change without limit, which someone then has to host and maintain.

So which set of trade-offs can your client live with for the next few years: a monthly plan with fixed edges, or freedom with a maintenance job attached? We don’t think either answer is wrong. The mistake is choosing before you know who’ll look after the store once it’s live.

One thing about names. WordPress on its own isn’t a store. When we say “WordPress” here we mean WordPress with WooCommerce, which is how a WordPress site sells things, and we mean the self-hosted software from WordPress.org. WordPress.com is a hosting service, and a different thing.

What does each cost to run?

Shopify charges a monthly plan (from $29 a month billed yearly on the US price list), plus card fees and any paid apps. WooCommerce itself costs nothing, but its makers put hosting at $25 to $350 a month for most stores, and paid extensions and card fees come on top. Add maintenance to the WooCommerce side before you compare.

We read both pricing pages on 12 October 2026: Shopify pricing and WooCommerce pricing. Shopify’s live page shows prices in the visitor’s local currency, so the US dollar figures come from the archived US copy of that page dated 10 October 2026. They’re US prices before tax, and both companies change them, so check the pages again before you quote.

Two costs aren’t in that table, because neither comes as one figure: what your client’s apps or plugins will cost, and what maintenance will cost. To get them, list the features the store needs, price the app or extension for each one on both platforms, and add them up. It comes out differently for every store.

Whichever platform you pick, these fees are your client’s. Shopify, the host and the app and plugin makers bill them directly, on accounts your client owns.

Who maintains what on each platform?

On Shopify, the platform maintains the servers, the core software and the checkout; your client looks after the theme, the apps and the content. On WordPress, all of it is your client’s to maintain: the hosting, WordPress itself, WooCommerce, every plugin, the backups and the security. Name the person who’ll do that before launch.

If an agency reads one table on this page closely, it should be this one. A WooCommerce store that nobody maintains falls behind on updates. If your client has no developer, sell the maintenance with the build, or pick the platform that needs less of it.

What a maintenance plan should cover is on white label WordPress maintenance, and our guide to website care plans goes through it in more detail.

Which gives more control over content and SEO?

WordPress gives more control, because you can change every template and every line of output. Shopify gives sensible defaults and less to manage: it generates canonical tags, a sitemap and a robots.txt file for you, and lets you edit titles, descriptions and URLs. Either platform can rank. Neither will do the SEO work for you.

• Shopify’s SEO overview lists what it does for you: canonical tags and sitemap.xml and robots.txt files, all generated automatically, title tags that include the store name, and SSL certificates switched on by default.
• The same page says you can edit the title tags, meta descriptions and URLs of the pages on the site, and the alt text of images.
• WordPress is open source, so the theme decides the HTML, and a plugin or custom code decides the titles, schema, sitemaps and redirects. You get more control, and more to get right.
• Both have pages and a blog. On WordPress a developer can add content types of their own in code, so a site with guides, recipes, locations or a large editorial section can model each one properly. On Shopify, work out where content beyond pages, posts and products will live before you commit.

Your client’s editors will live with how the theme is put together. A Shopify theme is made of layouts, templates, sections and blocks, and merchants can add, remove and reorder sections and blocks in the theme editor. On WordPress, the editing experience depends on what the site was built with, which is what Bricks vs Elementor is about.

We won’t claim either platform ranks better or loads faster, because we haven’t seen a test that holds across stores. What moves results is the work done on the site: see white label SEO and speed optimisation.

How do checkout and payments compare?

Shopify runs its own checkout, and it works the same way on every store. You can brand it on the Basic plan and above; deeper changes need Shopify Plus. A WooCommerce checkout is part of your client’s own site, so you can change it freely, and your client carries more of the job of keeping it secure and working.

Sources, read on 12 October 2026: Shopify pricing, Shopify’s checkout customisation article and WooCommerce pricing.

In practice, if your client wants a standard checkout that somebody else keeps running, Shopify is less work. If the checkout itself has to behave differently (custom fields, unusual pricing rules, a step Shopify doesn’t offer below Plus), WooCommerce lets you build it, and from then on it’s yours to own.

Whichever you choose, put test orders through the checkout before launch: every payment method, tax, shipping, discount codes, the order emails and a refund. Our own test list for each platform is on white label ecommerce development.

Apps or plugins: how do you add features to each?

On Shopify you add features with apps: separate services, built and priced by their makers. On WordPress you add plugins, which are code installed on your client’s own site. Apps leave you less to maintain. Plugins can be changed, and a developer can write exactly what’s missing for that one store.

• A Shopify app is a separate service connected to the store. A WordPress plugin is code on the site itself, so it shares the site’s server, its database and its update cycle.
• Each Shopify app is priced by its maker. WooCommerce lists its extensions at $29 to $299 a year each.
• WooCommerce describes hooks and filters for changing or adding functionality, and a REST API for connecting other services. On Shopify, an app does what its maker built, and anything custom goes through Shopify’s APIs.
• Its maker updates a Shopify app for you. A WordPress plugin is updated on the site, and we’d check each update on a staging copy first.
• Either kind can leave things behind when you remove it: code in a Shopify theme, or tables and settings in a WordPress database. Try the removal on a copy of the site first.

Count before you choose. Write down each feature the store needs beyond selling a product, such as subscriptions, reviews, bundles or trade prices, and find the app and the plugin for each, with its price. A store that needs eight paid apps on one platform and two plugins on the other has told you something.

When is Shopify the better choice, and when is WordPress?

Shopify is the better choice when your client wants a store their own team can run, with the hosting, security and checkout handled for them. WordPress with WooCommerce is the better choice when the store lives inside a content-heavy WordPress site, or needs product and checkout logic that apps can’t provide.

How do you choose for a client?

Ask five questions, in this order: who maintains the store after launch, how much of the site is content, whether the checkout has to behave in an unusual way, which features need an app or a plugin (and what each costs), and what your client’s team already knows. Quite often the first answer settles it.

1. Who maintains the store after launch?

   If the answer is nobody, choose Shopify, or sell a care plan with the build. A WooCommerce store needs a named person.

2. How much of the site is content?

   A shop with a blog fits either. A large editorial site with a shop attached points to WordPress.

3. Does the checkout need to work differently?

   If a standard checkout is fine, both work. If it has to change and Shopify Plus is out of reach, WooCommerce lets you do it.

4. What do the features cost on each?

   Price the apps and the plugins for the same feature list over three years, with hosting and maintenance on the WooCommerce side and the plan on the Shopify side.

5. What does your client’s team already use?

   Editors who know WordPress, or a team that’s run a Shopify store before, are a real reason to stay put. Retraining people has a cost.

Our own view follows from those answers. If nobody will be named to run updates, hosting and security, we pick Shopify. If the store sits in a content-heavy site or needs product logic no app covers, and a developer or care plan is behind it, we pick WooCommerce. Put the answers in your proposal. A client who’s seen why you chose the platform is less likely to ask for the other one in month three. If you’re writing a brief for suppliers, the website RFP template has a space for it.

Can you move a store between Shopify and WordPress?

Yes, in either direction. Products, customers, past orders, pages and posts can all be moved, and every old URL should redirect to its new address. The design can’t come with you: a WordPress theme won’t run on Shopify, or the other way round. So a migration is a data move and a rebuild, planned together.

• The catalogue, the customer records and the order history move as data, and then the pages and blog posts. Each has its own export and import route, and its own catches.
• The theme and templates are rebuilt in the new platform’s own system. If the design has problems, this is the time to fix them.
• Every plugin or app gets replaced. List each job one did on the old platform, what will do it on the new one, and what that costs.
• Customer passwords are encrypted and don’t transfer, so customers sign in afresh. Subscriptions and stored cards move only where the payment provider allows it.
• What protects search traffic is a redirect from every old URL to its new one, checked before launch. URL patterns differ between the two platforms, so expect most addresses to change.

The move from WooCommerce to Shopify, row by row, is on WordPress to Shopify migration. Other routes, including onto WordPress, are on white label website migration. The website redesign checklist and the website launch checklist cover the steps around the move.

Because you can move, the first choice isn’t permanent. It’s still expensive to undo, though, so we’d choose as if it were.

Is headless a third option?

Yes. A headless store keeps Shopify or WooCommerce for products, orders and payments, and swaps the theme for a custom front end that reads from the platform’s API. You get complete control of the storefront. You also pay more for the build, need a developer for every change, and lose the theme editor.

• On Shopify. Shopify documents headless storefronts, with Hydrogen as its official headless framework, Oxygen as its hosting for it, and the Storefront API for products, carts and checking out from any platform.
• On WooCommerce. The Store API provides public endpoints for customer-facing cart, checkout and product functionality, and a custom front end can use them.
• What your client loses. The theme editor. Nobody can drag sections around any more, so any page the team needs to change is modelled in a headless CMS instead.
• What happens to apps and plugins. Anything that added a block to the theme now has no theme to add it to. Each one gets connected through its API, or replaced.

We’d keep headless for a content-heavy brand that needs a front end no theme can give it. For a standard catalogue and checkout, a customised or custom theme costs less and is easier to live with. There’s more on when it fits on white label headless development. We quote every headless build after a call, as a fixed price in writing.