You’ve probably been told WooCommerce is “free” and Shopify is “easy,” and both of those things are half true. If you’re a small business owner comparing WooCommerce vs Shopify in 2026 — for a store you actually plan to run for the next five years — the interesting question isn’t which platform wins on paper. It’s which one leaves you with more margin, more control, and fewer surprises after the honeymoon.
This is our honest read as a South Florida shop that builds on both. Below are real 2026 prices, the fees the pricing pages don’t advertise, and where each platform quietly costs you more than it should.
The short answer
If you sell twenty products, take Stripe, and want to be live by Friday, Shopify is fine. If you sell two hundred products, care about margin as you grow, or already run your marketing on WordPress, WooCommerce is almost always the better long-term bet — but only if you (or someone you trust) will keep it patched.
Neither one is a scam. The trap is picking the wrong one for the wrong reason.
Shopify’s real 2026 price tag
US pricing on Shopify’s official plans page for 2026:
| Plan | Monthly billing | Annual (per month) | Shopify Payments rate | 3rd-party gateway surcharge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | $39 | $29 | 2.9% + 30¢ | +2% |
| Grow | $105 | $79 | 2.7% + 30¢ | +1% |
| Advanced | $399 | $299 | 2.5% + 30¢ | +0.6% |
Two things stores overlook. First, the plan fee is the smallest number on the page — real spend is Shopify’s cut of every sale plus the apps you’ll add. Second, if you take payments through anything other than Shopify Payments (PayPal, Stripe, Authorize.net), Shopify adds a 2% surcharge on Basic on top of what your gateway already charges. On a $500 order run through PayPal on the Basic plan, that surcharge alone is $10.
Apps compound too. A mid-sized Shopify store typically runs $50–$200 per month in third-party apps for reviews, subscriptions, email, and shipping rules — none of which are on the sticker price.
WooCommerce’s real 2026 price tag
WooCommerce itself is free. What it costs you is everything around it:
| Line item | Typical range | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Hosting | $15–$50/mo shared · $50–$150/mo managed WooCommerce | Managed hosting (Nexcess, Kinsta, Cloudways) is worth it once you’re doing real volume. |
| Theme | $0–$200 one-time | Or a custom-built one, if you actually want to look like a brand. |
| Extensions | $0–$2,000/year | Payments, subscriptions, shipping, reviews — usually one license per site. |
| Payment processing | ~2.9% + 30¢ | Your gateway keeps this; WooCommerce takes nothing on top. |
| Maintenance | DIY, or ~$80–$400/mo done-for-you | Updates, backups, security. Not optional at any store size. |
A first-year small-business WooCommerce store realistically lands between $800 and $2,000 if you’re technical enough to run it yourself, or $5,000–$10,000 the first year if you have someone build it and keep it patched. Our own South Florida website cost guide walks through where the money actually goes on the build side.
The transaction-fee math, plainly
Both platforms end up on roughly the same ~2.9% + 30¢ credit-card rate, because that’s what your bank charges. The difference is that Shopify layers extra fees on top of that unless you use their in-house Shopify Payments, which isn’t available in every country and locks you deeper into their ecosystem.
A store doing $10,000 per month in gross online sales, year one:
- Shopify Basic (annual) + Shopify Payments: $348 plan + ~$3,840 in payment fees = ~$4,188 in platform + processing.
- WooCommerce (managed hosting) + Stripe: ~$1,200 hosting + ~$200 in extensions + ~$3,840 in payment fees = ~$5,240 — before any maintenance retainer or your own time.
At that revenue level, Shopify looks cheaper on paper. Cross $200k/year, add subscriptions or wholesale rules, and the ratio flips because every Shopify app is a recurring bill and most WooCommerce extensions are one-time licenses.
When Shopify is genuinely the right call
- You want to be selling next week and can’t wait on a build.
- You have fewer than about a hundred SKUs and a simple catalog.
- You don’t have — and don’t want — a technical person on speed dial.
- You’re happy to trade margin for someone else handling uptime, PCI, and updates.
If that’s honestly you, we’ll say so. A well-run Shopify store beats a neglected WooCommerce one every day of the week.
When WooCommerce is the right call
- Your site already runs on WordPress and your content and SEO already live there.
- You sell more than a few dozen products, or you need custom rules (B2B pricing, subscriptions, wholesale tiers, complex shipping) that would each cost a monthly Shopify app.
- You want to own your data — customers, orders, products — as a portable database, not a hosted account.
- You expect to grow past the point where per-app fees start compounding faster than your margins.
The cost nobody puts on the pricing page: ownership
Shopify is a rented storefront. That’s not an insult — rented can be exactly the right choice. But if Shopify changes its terms, raises its rate, deprecates an app you rely on, or (as has happened) closes an entire regional market, you don’t have great options. Your theme is theirs. Your checkout is theirs. Migrating out is a project, not a click.
WooCommerce is code and a database you host anywhere. If your host is bad, you move hosts in an afternoon. If your developer disappears, another one can pick it up because it’s WordPress and PHP, not a proprietary DSL. That optionality has real value the moment you actually need it — and no value at all until you do.
WooCommerce vs Shopify: how we’d choose for a small business in South Florida
If you’re doing under $5,000 a month in online sales and don’t have a technical person, start on Shopify. Don’t overthink it. Move later if the numbers demand it.
If you’re already on WordPress, or you’re doing (or planning) real volume, build on WooCommerce from day one. Our WooCommerce builds start at $5,000 and our care plans run from $80 per month, which — before you’re at Shopify Advanced money — is the cheaper long-term seat.
The migration horror stories almost always come from picking the wrong platform for the wrong reason: cheap when you needed control, or “easy” when you needed leverage. There is no wrong platform in the abstract, only wrong platforms for your specific business.
If you’d like a real read on which one fits yours, book a free 20-minute call and we’ll walk through your numbers with you — no upsell, no hard pitch, just an honest recommendation. Sometimes it’s Shopify. Often it’s WooCommerce. Either way you’ll leave the call knowing which one, and why.