Shopify vs. WooCommerce

Commerce runs on platforms — not plugins

Between strong conversion, cost efficiency, and first-to-market innovation, the data all points to one conclusion: Shopify is leading the commerce race

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Thousands of brands have outgrown WooCommerce

Brands are switching to Shopify — the most dependable global commerce platform to expand your business.

Secure and reliable

Run on Shopify’s global infrastructure

Shopify provides you with secure encryption, access control, data backups, and network security — so you can focus on your brand’s growth. With open-source platforms like WooCommerce, your teams are responsible for hosting, PCI compliance, and software updates all on their own — increasing potential cybersecurity threats.

Reported vulnerabilities on WooCommerce in 2023, highlighting security risks for brands

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99.99%+

Shopify’s average uptime ensures that online stores are always accessible to customers.

WE HANDLE IT ALL

Industry-leading performance

When it comes to performance, we’re leading the race. Shopify services over 644 million shoppers worldwide, with high-speed performance and high converting sites. A global study shows Shopify outperforms WooCommerce’s checkout by 17%. And with over 5.5 billion processed orders on record, Shopify empowers you with market-leading scalable solutions.

END-TO-END COMPLIANCE

Keep all of your data safe

Shopify prioritises enabling your compliance with frameworks like PCI for secure payments, SOC 1, 2, 3 for retailers, and GDPR for data protection. In comparison, WooCommerce lacks out-of-the-box PCI, SOC, and GDPR compliance — increasing the risks of identity theft, damage to your company’s reputation, and loss of customers — not to mention potential lawsuits, insurance claims, and government fines.

FRAUD PROTECTION

Protect against fraud

Shopify offers layered fraud protection, including integrated fraud analysis tools that sync with top detection services. With insights on order risk, chargebacks, and more, our built-in analytics empowers you to make informed decisions without security breaches, ensuring data safety.

Shopify has the fastest server speed in commerce

Faster site speed impacts everything—from revenue to operations. Measure your site’s performance to see how it could affect your sales and how it compares to the competition.

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Our website was stopping our growth. We realised we needed to stop, rewind, and get the right infrastructure in place to stabilise us. Then we could focus on growing again.
Chris Anastasi — Co-ownerRead case study

Better TCO

Be more efficient on Shopify

Shopify’s total cost of ownership (TCO) is 36% better than WooCommerce’s. From competitive platform fees to platform simplicity and user-friendliness, Shopify is the platform of choice for businesses looking to improve their operational efficiency.^*

36% Better TCO on Shopify than WooCommerce, on average

Compared to Shopify, WooCommerce has:

49%

Higher implementation and setup costs, on average

32%

Higher platform fees and ecommerce stack costs, on average

41%

Higher operating costs, on average

UNCOVER SURPRISE COSTS

WooCommerce is free (but read the fine print)

Platform costs are better on Shopify, overall. WooCommerce, being a plugin itself, provides only the basics out-of-the-box, and relies heavily on additional plugins for functionality. When adding up the costs of payment fees, additional plugins and software, you’ll pay 32% more in platform and tech stack costs on WooCommerce than Shopify, on average.

OPERATE WITHOUT DELAY

Choose convenience over compromise

Shopify's overall operating costs are better than WooCommerce's due to platform simplicity and less reliance on developers. WooCommerce requires multiple add-ons and many of the brands that have switched from WooCommerce to Shopify reported having to hire someone in-house or outsource an agency just to keep things running smoothly. This can cost you more money and slow down your work. WooCommerce has 41% higher operational and support costs, on average.

IMPLEMENT EFFICIENTLY

Save on your setup

An implementation of a new storefront on Shopify is 41% faster than on WooCommerce, on average. This could be due to additional plugins and customisations required to enhance your site. This can complicate your tech stack and slow down your setup on WooCommerce. In fact, WooCommerce's limited functionality and complex integrations, like needing API gateways, lead to about 49% higher setup costs, on average.

BETTER ROI

Our conversion study says it all

Shopify has the best global checkout and, on average, a 17% higher conversion rate than WooCommerce. Consider this 17% difference in conversion rate as money you're leaving on the table by choosing WooCommerce instead of Shopify.

WordPress... incurs significant additional costs in terms of development and project management, which would have eventually exceeded the price of the Shopify package.
Vincent Arrouet — CEO and co-founder, SunologyRead case study

Usable and agile

One plugin shouldn't power your entire business

With a user-friendly interface, Shopify fuels agility, allowing your business to adapt and respond to market trends as you grow. Your teams can manage your storefront with ease, even without technical expertise. In contrast, WooCommerce operates as a plugin for your WordPress site, with additional plugins required to enhance it. However, plugins don’t always work well together when integrated on WooCommerce — leading your teams to rely on developers even for minor changes.

EASY ADMIN MANAGEMENT

Anyone on your team can run Shopify

Shopify's intuitive UI empowers both technical and business users to drive value, independently. In contrast, WooCommerce requires developer involvement for implementing and updating plugins and many changes to storefronts. Shopify has the ability to run on “low code” without compromising the quality of your storefront.

WORDPRESS

Shopify integrates seamlessly with Wordpress

Brands are often surprised by Shopify’s content capabilities. You can create rich content on our platform, reducing the need for a separate CMS. However, Shopify seamlessly supports headless storefronts of all types including Wordpress. As Mark Negelmann, Director of Operations at Lull, says, "Would our unique identity fit into the confines of the Shopify infrastructure? The answer: Yes," leading Lull to save 25% on software costs and 10%–15% on tech expenses.

Shopify's powerful CMS allows RUDIS to exhibit their wrestling ethos and unparalleled expertise with engaging product stories, highlights of RUDIS's design and engineering, champion athlete stories, and spotlights on Team RUDIS.
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MOVE FASTER WITHOUT FRICTION

All the agility, none of the technical debt

Empower your engineers to innovate by working with Shopify's prebuilt solutions. Eliminate technical debt and the need for custom development on WooCommerce. On Shopify, you can accelerate business innovation by reducing time spent on implementations and maintenance.

With WordPress and WooCommerce, I was completely out of sync with my agency. Every time I needed to change a comma or anything, I had to create specifications, request a quote, wait for the developer to be available... It was not at all sustainable.
Vincent Arrouet — CEO and co-founder, SunologyRead case study

More capabilities

Get more out of the box on Shopify

Shopify has a full suite of best-in-class commerce capabilities that will support your business no matter what your plans are for growth. Features on Shopify like advanced B2B, product configurations, and marketing tools are just some features we’ll provide your business — minus the technical debt.

100%

Shopify is commerce-focused

200+

Product enhancements and updates in the past year alone

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BUILT-IN CAPABILITIES

Everything you need is on one platform

Shopify’s comprehensive commerce solution across DTC, B2B, and Point of Sale (POS) is here to help your business grow, in every way. Our built-in features like semantic search, multicurrency and language management, free first-party marketing tools, and customisable data models provide best-in-class functionality to help your teams focus on innovating more and building from scratch less.

EXTENSIVE APP SELECTION

The advantage of Shopify's trusted ecosystem

Shopify gives you access to more than 8,000 trusted apps that are prebuilt and ready to use, so you can extend functionality that meet your business needs — without a developer to assist. On WooCommerce, there’s limited governance as to what plugins are listed, and little information about how they’re maintained. Shopify focuses on making sure everything works together smoothly and updates easily.

WHY RECOGNITION MATTERS

Trust the leaders in commerce

Shopify, with its growing customer base, CMS optionality, and scalability, is highly rated as a leader in ecommerce in known analyst reports. With WooCommerce’s slow growth momentum, coupled with a customer base focused primarily on smaller businesses, they don’t show up on reports like IDC, Forrester, or Gartner that are geared towards scalability for larger brands. Also, the company’s dependence on WordPress limits your CMS options, placing a roadblock in front of your growing business.

A CLEAR ROADMAP

Shopify launches more new features than WooCommerce

Shopify has released hundreds of product updates, twice a year, through Editions since 2021 — with a focus on making commerce better for everyone. In contrast, WooCommerce’s roadmap is sparse. At Shopify, we provide you with a frequently updated, secure, optimised, and sustainable commerce platform that’s made for your business growth.

TRUSTED ECOMMERCE PARTNERS

Shopify expertise is easy to find

Hundreds of global agencies and partners are deeply versed in Shopify to help support your business. Quickfire Digital, a Shopify partner, developed a guide on why moving off of WooCommerce to Shopify will benefit your growing business. Another Shopify partner, Fyresite, released a brief stating reasons why they won’t implement WooCommerce any longer.

Shopify’s investment in R&D

We’re standing by our mission of making commerce better for everyone. Shopify has spent billions on research and development (R&D) to continuously make product improvements for our customers.

Billions

Invested to improve Shopify’s platform for its customers

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800+

Shopify features and improvements added since 2020

One of the biggest advantages of Shopify Plus is the peace of mind we get being with the biggest platform with the biggest players on it.
Justin Gaggino — Chief Operating Officer, HiSmileRead case study

Analyst validation

The experts choose Shopify

2024 Leader in Gartner® Magic Quadrant™

70%

Shopify’s market share of the top 800 global DTC brands

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83%

Number of rising apparel brands on Shopify, according to 2PM

Read it on 2PM

Gartner® Magic Quadrant™

Shopify is once again a Leader in the 2024 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™

Shopify continues our tradition of excellence and innovation in commerce, being named a Leader for the 2nd consecutive year in the 2024 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™.

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August 21, 2023

2PM

2PM reports a surge of brands using Shopify vs. WooCommerce

The news outlet 2PM recently audited the technology of 60+ rising apparel brands from around the world. Their finding? 55 of those brands, or 83%, are on Shopify, while 3% of those brands are WooCommerce customers.

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November 2023

IDC

IDC says Shopify is “reshaping the concept of enterprise commerce”

At Shopify's Enterprise Partner Summit in Los Angeles, IDC concluded that Shopify’s “bold foray into the enterprise sector” is “reshaping the concept of enterprise commerce” and “challenging established enterprise players with ‘unified commerce’ capabilities.”

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October 4, 2023