Shopify makes a compelling first impression. You sign up, pick a theme, upload your products, and you’re selling online. No developer required, no technical setup, no upfront investment. The Basic plan is $39 USD per month — about $54 CAD at current rates. That’s less than a tank of gas.
The problem isn’t the price. It’s the math you don’t do at signup.
That $39/month compounds into thousands of dollars over the life of your store, and that’s before factoring in the apps Shopify essentially requires you to buy to run a real business. Meanwhile, WooCommerce — the e-commerce plugin built on WordPress — costs nothing to use. You pay for hosting and, if you want a properly built store, a developer. That’s it.
Short answer: Shopify is faster to launch but more expensive to operate indefinitely. For most Canadian small businesses with modest to mid-range revenue, WooCommerce on WordPress delivers lower total costs, full ownership of the store, and equivalent payment processing rates. The rest of this post shows the numbers.
The Psychology Behind the Monthly Fee
Behavioural economists call it present bias: the tendency to underweight future costs relative to immediate ones. A $39 charge next month feels almost theoretical compared to a $1,400 invoice right now, even though $39 per month for three years adds up to exactly $1,404 — and that’s the floor.
Businesses make this mistake with software constantly. The $39 sign-up feels like a small, reversible decision. The total cost of ownership — the actual dollars leaving your account over the life of the platform — rarely factors into the comparison at that moment.
Shopify is priced to exploit that. The monthly fee feels like a convenience tax. By the time you’ve added apps, upgraded plans, and paid for three years of hosting someone else’s infrastructure, it’s anything but small.
What Shopify Actually Costs Over Three Years
Shopify’s current plans (billed monthly in USD):
- Basic: $39/month
- Grow: $105/month
- Advanced: $399/month
Most small businesses start on Basic and eventually move to Grow once they need features like professional reporting or lower transaction fees. For this comparison, assume Basic for year one and Grow for years two and three — a realistic trajectory for a growing store.
Platform fees alone: ($39 × 12) + ($105 × 24) = $468 + $2,520 = $2,988 USD (~$4,100 CAD).
Now add the apps.
The App Store Trap
Shopify’s built-in feature set is intentionally lean. Out of the box, you get a functional store — but not a competitive one. To run a real e-commerce operation, most stores pay for apps to cover what Shopify doesn’t include:
- Product reviews: Loox or Stamped start at $19–$40 USD/month (Judge.me has a free tier, but paid features start immediately)
- Email marketing: Klaviyo runs $45–$150 USD/month for a growing list; Mailchimp’s Shopify integration has friction
- Upsells and bundles: Most dedicated apps cost $20–$40 USD/month
- Subscriptions: Recharge starts at $99 USD/month if recurring orders are part of your model
- Advanced SEO: Tools like Plug In SEO run $20–$30 USD/month
A modest app stack — reviews, email, and one upsell tool — runs $80–$150 USD/month. That’s before subscriptions or anything more specialized.
At $100 USD/month in apps alongside a Grow plan: ($39 + $100) × 12 + ($105 + $100) × 24 = $1,668 + $4,920 = $6,588 USD (~$9,000 CAD) over three years.
Transaction Fees
If you process payments through Shopify Payments, credit card rates are 2.9% + 30¢ per transaction on Basic, dropping to 2.6% + 30¢ on Grow. If you use a third-party payment processor (Stripe, Square, PayPal), Shopify charges an additional transaction fee on top: 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow.
On $10,000 CAD/month in revenue, that 2% transaction fee on Basic costs $200 CAD extra every month — $2,400/year — just for not using Shopify’s own payment system. Shopify Payments removes that surcharge but ties you exclusively to their gateway.
What WooCommerce Actually Costs Over Three Years
WordPress and WooCommerce are both open-source and free to use. You pay for three things: hosting, any premium plugins, and (once) a developer to build and configure the store.
Hosting: Good managed WordPress hosting — the kind that handles updates, security, and backups — runs $20–$50 CAD/month. Call it $30/month. Over three years: $1,080 CAD.
Developer setup: A properly built WooCommerce store for a small business in Canada typically costs $1,200 to $2,500 CAD. That’s a one-time fee. The store you receive is yours permanently — no ongoing platform cost, no permission required to make changes.
Plugins: Most WooCommerce extensions are one-time purchases or free. A review plugin, email integration with Mailchimp, and basic SEO with Rank Math cost far less than equivalent Shopify apps — and many carry no annual renewal.
Payment processing: Stripe on WooCommerce charges 2.9% + 30¢ per transaction — the same rate as Shopify Basic’s Shopify Payments. No additional transaction fee on top.
Three-year total for a developer-built WooCommerce store: developer fee ($1,500 midpoint) + hosting ($1,080) + plugins (~$200 one-time) = roughly $2,780 CAD.
Compare that to the Shopify scenario above: $9,000 CAD over the same period. The gap is over $6,000 CAD — money that stays in your business instead of going to a platform.
Side-by-Side Cost Comparison
| Cost Item | Shopify (Basic → Grow) | WooCommerce (Developer-Built) |
|---|---|---|
| Setup / upfront cost | $0 (theme ~$200 USD one-time) | $1,200 – $2,500 CAD (one-time) |
| Platform fee (3 years) | $2,988 USD (~$4,100 CAD) | $0 |
| Hosting (3 years) | Included in plan | $1,080 CAD ($30/month) |
| Apps / plugins (3 years) | $3,600+ USD for modest stack | ~$200 CAD one-time |
| Transaction fee | 2% extra if not using Shopify Payments | None (Stripe rates only) |
| Estimated 3-year total | ~$9,000 CAD (with modest apps) | ~$2,800 CAD |
| You own the store | No — platform-hosted | Yes — fully portable |
| SEO control | Moderate — some limitations | Full control (Rank Math, schema, speed) |
| Time to launch | Days | 2 – 6 weeks |
The Ownership Question
When you build on Shopify, you rent your store. The files live on Shopify’s servers. Your product data, customer records, and order history can be exported — but the store itself cannot be migrated anywhere else without rebuilding it. If Shopify raises prices (it has, multiple times), you absorb it or rebuild. If a feature you depend on changes, you adapt on their timeline.
WooCommerce stores live on your hosting account. The code is yours. You can move hosts in a few hours, hire any developer to work on it, and modify anything without asking anyone’s permission. That permanence has real value — it just doesn’t show up in a signup comparison.
Where Shopify Has a Genuine Edge
Shopify’s infrastructure handles traffic spikes, PCI compliance, and platform updates without you touching anything. For a business owner with no interest in technical management, that peace of mind has value.
Shopify also wins on checkout conversion. Its one-page checkout and Shop Pay accelerated checkout are among the best in the industry. If your store does significant volume and abandoned carts are a real problem, Shopify’s checkout UX can recover revenue.
For high-volume merchants — stores doing $50,000+ CAD per month — the math shifts. At Advanced tier, transaction fees drop to 0.5%, and the platform’s stability and support justify the cost. Shopify Plus at $2,500 USD/month is a legitimate enterprise tool, not a small business product.
Shopify also makes sense for:
- Short-term or pop-up stores where speed matters more than cost
- Businesses with genuinely zero technical tolerance who need everything managed
- Brands already deep in the Shopify ecosystem with significant app integrations
When WooCommerce Is the Right Call
WooCommerce fits businesses that plan to operate a store for more than two years, want full control over their data and codebase, and care about SEO. Local businesses in Vancouver and across BC that want to rank for product or service searches — rather than rely entirely on paid ads — benefit from WordPress’s SEO infrastructure, which runs deeper than Shopify’s.
WooCommerce is also the right choice if:
- You’re already building a WordPress site and adding e-commerce to it
- You sell products that require complex configuration (variable products, custom pricing, subscriptions)
- You want payment processing through Stripe without a platform surcharge on top
- You need the flexibility to customize the store beyond what Shopify’s theme system allows
The Honest Take
Shopify isn’t a bad product. It’s a good product priced to extract ongoing revenue from your business indefinitely. That model works well for Shopify. Whether it works well for you depends on how long you plan to operate the store and how much of your margin you’re willing to hand over to a platform.
Most small businesses that contact me after running on Shopify for two or three years have spent more than they expected and gotten less than they hoped — particularly on organic search, where Shopify stores consistently underperform compared to well-built WordPress sites. They paid the convenience tax, and it compounded.
The total cost of ownership argument for WooCommerce isn’t close. At three years, a developer-built WooCommerce store costs less than a third of an equivalent Shopify setup with a realistic app stack. That gap grows every year you stay on the platform.
The upfront developer fee is real, and it’s larger than zero. But it’s a one-time cost for an asset you own, not a subscription you rent. For a business planning to sell online for the next five years, the math is straightforward.
Thinking about switching from Shopify — or starting fresh with WooCommerce? Use the free cost estimator to see what a WordPress e-commerce build would realistically cost for your business, or get in touch and we can talk through whether the switch makes sense for where you are right now.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I migrate my Shopify store to WooCommerce?
Yes. Products, customers, and order history can be exported from Shopify and imported into WooCommerce using migration tools. It’s not painless — redirects need to be set up, images need to be re-optimized, and the store needs to be rebuilt in WordPress — but it’s entirely doable and many businesses make the move after the cost math becomes impossible to ignore.
Is WooCommerce harder to manage than Shopify?
The back end of a well-built WooCommerce store is not significantly harder to use than Shopify’s dashboard once you’ve had a short walkthrough. Adding products, updating prices, and running promotions all work similarly. The difference is in setup: WooCommerce requires more initial configuration, which is why hiring a developer pays off at the start.
What about Shopify’s SEO?
Shopify has improved its SEO tooling over the years, but it still carries structural limitations — including URL structure constraints, limited control over technical SEO settings, and slower page speed on default themes. WordPress with Rank Math gives you deeper control over every SEO variable, which matters if organic search is part of how you plan to acquire customers.
Are WooCommerce payment processing fees the same as Shopify?
Yes. Stripe on WooCommerce charges 2.9% + 30¢ per transaction — identical to Shopify Payments on the Basic plan. The key difference: WooCommerce doesn’t add an additional platform transaction fee on top of that. On Shopify Basic, using any payment processor other than Shopify Payments costs you an extra 2% per sale.
