Shopify vs WooCommerce: The Short Answer
For most UK businesses, Shopify suits owners who want a fast launch and predictable monthly fees, while WooCommerce suits those who want full control, no platform transaction cut, and a site they own outright. Shopify is rented software. WooCommerce runs on your own WordPress website build. The right pick depends on your budget, your team and your growth plans.
Most comparison articles list features and call it a day. This guide does something competitors skip. It puts real UK numbers against each option, covers Stripe and GoCardless, and explains how VAT and Making Tax Digital actually work on each platform.
Why does this choice trip up so many UK shop owners?
The two platforms look similar from the outside. Both sell products, take card payments and ship orders. The difference sits underneath, in who owns the code and where the money goes. Shopify charges a monthly fee plus a slice of every sale unless you use its own payment system. WooCommerce charges you nothing per sale, but you carry the cost of hosting, security and updates yourself. Pick the wrong one and you either overpay on transaction fees for years, or you take on technical work your team cannot handle. We see both mistakes every month from UK founders who chose on price alone rather than fit.
Upfront Cost of Each Platform
Upfront cost means everything you spend before your first sale. Design, build, product setup and any custom features all sit here. The two platforms split sharply on this point.
What does a Shopify store cost to set up in the UK?
A simple Shopify store using a paid theme and a UK freelancer or small agency runs from £1,500 to £6,000. The theme itself costs roughly £0 to £280 one-off. The rest pays for layout, branding, product upload and apps. Shopify hosts the site, so you skip hosting setup entirely. A more involved build with custom sections, a migration from another platform and bespoke app work climbs to £8,000 to £20,000. The platform handles security patches, so you never budget for that. This predictability is the main reason time-pressed owners lean Shopify.
What does a WooCommerce store cost to set up in the UK?
A WooCommerce store typically costs £2,500 to £10,000 to build with a UK agency. The software itself is free and open source, but you pay for hosting, a theme or custom design, and the developer time to wire it all together. Premium extensions for subscriptions, bookings or advanced shipping add £50 to £200 each per year. A larger custom WooCommerce build with complex product logic reaches £12,000 to £30,000. You own everything when it ships, which matters if you plan to grow or move agencies later. The trade-off is that you own the maintenance too.
Monthly and Transaction Fees
Ongoing fees decide which platform wins over five years. A cheap setup with high running costs often beats a pricier setup that bleeds fees on every order. Run the maths on your real order volume before you commit.
How much does Shopify cost per month?
Shopify plans in the UK run roughly £25 per month for Basic, £65 for Shopify and £289 for Advanced, billed yearly to get the lower rate. On top of that sits the transaction cut. If you use Shopify Payments you pay card fees only, around 1.7% to 2.5% plus a small fixed amount per UK transaction. If you use any other gateway, Shopify adds a platform fee of 0.5% to 2% on every order on top of the gateway fee. At £10,000 monthly turnover that extra 2% costs £200 a month, or £2,400 a year, purely for using your preferred payment provider.
What does WooCommerce cost to run each month?
WooCommerce has no monthly licence fee and takes no cut of any sale. Your running cost is hosting, which sits at £15 to £60 a month for solid UK managed WordPress hosting, plus annual renewals on any premium extensions. You pay your payment gateway directly, so Stripe charges its standard 1.5% plus 20p for UK cards and nobody adds a platform fee on top. Budget £200 to £600 a year for plugin renewals and a maintenance retainer if you want hands-off updates. The lack of a per-sale platform fee is where WooCommerce pulls ahead as volume grows.
Pro tip: Work out your annual turnover, then calculate the platform transaction cut at 2%. If that number is larger than a year of WooCommerce hosting plus maintenance, the fee maths favours WooCommerce. The crossover point for most UK shops sits around £80,000 to £120,000 a year in sales.
Control and Ownership
Ownership is the quiet factor that decides how much freedom you have in three years. It rarely shows up in a sales demo, but it shapes every future decision about your shop.
Do you actually own a Shopify store?
You own your products, your customer list and your brand, but you do not own the platform. Shopify controls the code, the checkout and the hosting. You build within their system using their templating language, Liquid, and their app marketplace. This keeps things simple, and it means Shopify handles uptime and security. The limit shows when you want a checkout behaviour or data flow the platform does not allow. You also cannot move the store wholesale to another host. If Shopify raises prices or changes a policy, you adapt or you migrate, and migration is real work.
How much control does WooCommerce give you?
WooCommerce gives you full control because it is open source software running on your own WordPress install. You can edit any file, change the checkout, add custom fields, hook into any step of the order process and host it wherever you like. You own the database and can export everything at any time. This freedom is the reason agencies and developers favour it for anything unusual, such as trade pricing, complex bundles or integrations with a UK accounting system. The cost of that freedom is responsibility. Updates, backups and security sit with you or your agency, not a platform.
A Cardiff homeware retailer came to us on Shopify paying the 2% platform fee because they wanted to keep their existing payment provider. At roughly £14,000 monthly turnover, that fee cost them around £280 every month on top of normal card charges. We migrated them to WooCommerce with Stripe direct, kept their product photography and rebuilt the checkout. The platform fee vanished, and the hosting plus maintenance came in well under what they were losing each month. The build paid for itself inside the first year.
Scalability and Performance
Scalability means how well the platform copes as orders, products and traffic grow. Both scale well, but they hit different ceilings and the warning signs differ too.
Which platform handles growth better?
Shopify scales without you thinking about servers. It absorbs traffic spikes, handles a flash sale and stays fast because Shopify manages the infrastructure. The ceiling is commercial, not technical. As you grow you pay more per month and the platform fee scales with your turnover, so success costs more. Very large brands move to Shopify Plus, which starts around £1,800 a month. For most UK SMBs the standard plans cope fine, and you trade higher recurring fees for zero server worry.
Can WooCommerce handle a high-volume shop?
WooCommerce scales as far as your hosting allows, which means it can run a shop turning over millions if it sits on the right infrastructure. The difference is that performance becomes your job. A cheap shared host will struggle past a few thousand products or a busy sale. Good managed hosting, sensible caching and a tidy plugin list keep it fast. We have run WooCommerce stores handling heavy Black Friday traffic with no platform fee eating margin. The catch is that you must invest in hosting and maintenance, otherwise growth exposes weak foundations.
UK Payment Gateways
Payment gateways decide how you get paid and what each sale costs in fees. UK shops have strong options on both platforms, but the way fees stack differs.
How do Stripe and other gateways work on each platform?
Stripe is the default choice for most UK online shops and works natively on both platforms. Stripe charges around 1.5% plus 20p per standard UK card transaction, per its published UK pricing. On WooCommerce you connect Stripe directly and pay only Stripe's fee. On Shopify you can use Stripe through a gateway, but Shopify then adds its own platform fee unless you switch to Shopify Payments. The Financial Conduct Authority regulates payment firms in the UK, and you can confirm a provider on the FCA register before you sign up.
What about GoCardless and recurring payments?
GoCardless handles Direct Debit, which suits subscriptions, memberships and B2B invoicing where card fees hurt on large amounts. GoCardless charges roughly 1% plus 20p per UK transaction, capped, which beats card fees on bigger sums. It integrates cleanly with WooCommerce through official and third-party extensions, giving you Bacs Direct Debit at checkout. On Shopify, GoCardless support is more limited and usually runs through an app rather than native checkout. If recurring Direct Debit is core to your model, such as a gym, a SaaS tool or a trade supplier, WooCommerce gives you the smoother path and the lower running cost.
VAT and Making Tax Digital
VAT and Making Tax Digital are where UK shops trip up, because both platforms handle tax differently and the legal duty sits with you, not the software.
How does each platform handle UK VAT?
The UK VAT registration threshold is £90,000 of taxable turnover, set out on GOV.UK. Once registered, you must charge 20% standard rate VAT on most goods and show it correctly. Shopify includes built-in tax settings that apply UK VAT automatically once you set your region, which is genuinely useful for non-technical owners. WooCommerce handles UK VAT through its tax settings or a dedicated extension, giving you finer control over zero-rated and reduced-rate items, which matters if you sell things like children's clothing or certain foods. Both display VAT-inclusive prices to UK shoppers when configured correctly.
How do you meet Making Tax Digital requirements?
Making Tax Digital for VAT means you must keep digital records and submit VAT returns through compatible software, as explained on the HMRC MTD guidance. Neither Shopify nor WooCommerce files your VAT return for you. The usual route is to connect your store to accounting software such as Xero or QuickBooks, which then submits to HMRC. Shopify has plenty of accounting connector apps. WooCommerce connects through plugins or a bridge in your accounting tool. The duty to keep accurate digital records and file on time stays with you under HMRC rules, whichever platform you run.
Watch the VAT threshold as you grow. Crossing £90,000 in taxable turnover without registering on time can trigger penalties from HMRC. Set a reminder when you reach about £75,000 so you have room to register and update your checkout tax settings before you go over.
| Factor | Shopify | WooCommerce | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Upfront build | £1,500 – £6,000 | £2,500 – £10,000 | Shopify |
| Monthly cost | £25 – £289 plan | £15 – £60 hosting | WooCommerce |
| Platform transaction fee | 0% – 2% extra | None | WooCommerce |
| Ease of use | Very easy | Moderate | Shopify |
| Control and ownership | Rented platform | You own it | WooCommerce |
| GoCardless / Direct Debit | App only | Native extension | WooCommerce |
| Maintenance burden | Handled for you | Your responsibility | Shopify |
| VAT setup | Built-in, automatic | Configurable, granular | Tie |
Who Each Platform Suits
The best platform depends on who runs the shop and where it is heading. Match the tool to your team, not to a feature list.
When should a UK business choose Shopify?
Choose Shopify if you want to launch quickly, you have no technical team, and predictable monthly billing matters more than the long-term fee total. It suits first-time sellers, drop-shippers, single-founder brands and anyone who would rather pay a monthly fee than manage hosting and updates. It also suits shops that sell straightforward physical products with standard VAT. If you happily use Shopify Payments, the platform fee disappears and the running cost stays clean. The honest trade-off is less control and a per-sale cut that grows with your success.
When is WooCommerce the better fit?
Choose WooCommerce if you want full ownership, no platform cut on sales, and the flexibility to build unusual features. It suits shops with higher turnover where the 2% fee adds up, businesses that need Direct Debit through GoCardless, and anyone who already runs a WordPress site and wants the shop on the same install. It fits trade suppliers, subscription brands and content-led shops that blog heavily. The trade-off is that you, or an agency on a retainer, must own hosting, security and updates. With the right support partner that burden is small and the fee savings are real.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Choosing on monthly price alone — the transaction cut, not the plan fee, usually decides the true cost over five years.
- Ignoring the Shopify platform fee — using a non-Shopify gateway adds 0.5% to 2% on every order, which can outweigh a cheaper plan.
- Putting WooCommerce on cheap shared hosting — it will crawl during a sale and feel slow, which kills conversions.
- Forgetting the VAT threshold — crossing £90,000 turnover without registering on time risks HMRC penalties.
- Assuming the platform files your VAT — neither does it for you, you still need MTD-compatible accounting software.
- Skipping a maintenance plan on WooCommerce — unpatched plugins are the leading cause of hacked WordPress shops.
- Not testing payment fees on your real volume — a quick spreadsheet beats a year of overpaying on transaction cuts.
6 Frequently Asked Questions
It depends on your sales volume. For a new shop with low turnover, Shopify is often cheaper because you avoid hosting and maintenance, and the monthly fee starts around £25. For an established shop turning over £100,000 or more a year, WooCommerce usually wins because it takes no platform cut on sales, so the only running costs are hosting at £15 to £60 a month plus plugin renewals. The crossover point sits roughly between £80,000 and £120,000 in annual sales. Run the maths on your real order volume and apply a 2% platform fee to Shopify to see where you land.
Yes, Stripe works on both. On WooCommerce you connect Stripe directly and pay only Stripe's standard UK fee of about 1.5% plus 20p per card transaction, with no platform fee on top. On Shopify you can use Stripe through a third-party gateway, but Shopify then charges its own platform fee of 0.5% to 2% per order unless you switch to Shopify Payments, which itself runs on Stripe's infrastructure. If keeping Stripe direct with no extra cut matters to you, WooCommerce gives you the cleaner route. Always confirm any payment provider on the FCA register before you sign up.
Both handle UK VAT well, but neither files your VAT return for you. Shopify applies UK VAT automatically once you set your region, which suits non-technical owners. WooCommerce gives more granular control over zero-rated and reduced-rate items, which helps if you sell children's clothing or certain foods. For Making Tax Digital, you connect either platform to accounting software such as Xero or QuickBooks, which submits returns to HMRC. The legal duty to keep digital records and file on time always stays with you, whichever platform you choose. Set up the accounting link before you register for VAT.
You own your products, customer data and brand, but you do not own the platform or the code. Shopify controls the checkout, hosting and underlying software, and you build within their system. You can export your products and customers at any time, so you are not locked in completely, but you cannot move the whole store to another host the way you can with WooCommerce. If you want to own the full codebase and host it wherever you like, WooCommerce on WordPress gives you that. The trade-off is that ownership also means you carry maintenance and security.
WooCommerce needs more care than Shopify because you own the hosting, updates and security. In practice this is manageable. Good managed UK hosting handles backups and updates, and a small maintenance retainer from your agency keeps plugins patched and the site fast. The main risk comes from cheap hosting and neglected updates, which is how most hacked WordPress shops get compromised. If you have no technical support and want zero upkeep, Shopify is the safer pick. If you have an agency partner or in-house developer, WooCommerce maintenance is light and the fee savings on sales usually cover it many times over.
Yes, and we do this migration regularly for UK shops that outgrow the Shopify fee model. You export your products, customers and orders from Shopify, then import them into a fresh WooCommerce build. Product images, descriptions and customer lists transfer well. The areas that need rebuilding are the theme, the checkout and any Shopify apps, since those do not carry across. A typical migration takes two to five weeks depending on catalogue size and complexity. Plan the redirects carefully so you keep your search rankings. The usual trigger for switching is the platform transaction fee growing large enough to fund the rebuild within a year.
Still weighing up Shopify against WooCommerce for your shop? At Cambria Digital we have built and migrated online stores across more than 100 UK projects, and we will tell you honestly which platform fits your turnover, your team and your VAT setup. Book a free discovery call and we will review your plans in 30 minutes, or read more about our UK website design and build service to see how we approach e-commerce. No obligation, reply within 1 business day.