Shopify vs WooCommerce: Which Suits an Australian Store?

Quick answer: Shopify is a managed store you rent: hosting, checkout, security and updates are included from AUD $56 a month. WooCommerce is free software that runs on a WordPress site you host and maintain yourself. Choose Shopify if you want to spend your time selling rather than running a website. Choose WooCommerce if content matters as much as the catalogue, or you need pricing and product rules Shopify does not support.

wow.digital builds online stores and WordPress websites and is paid for that work. The prices below come from each platform's own published pages, checked on 3 October 2026. Prices change, so check the linked sources before you decide.

Shopify vs WooCommerce at a glance

	Shopify	WooCommerce
What it is	Hosted ecommerce platform	Free plugin for WordPress
Who hosts and secures it	Shopify	You, through a web host
Platform price	Basic AUD $56 a month, Grow $149, Advanced $575; or $42, $114 and $431 a month when billed yearly	Free. Hosting, a domain and any paid extensions are separate costs that vary by provider
Card fees with the platform's own payments	Shopify Payments, standard online cards: 1.7% + 30¢ (Basic), 1.55% + 30¢ (Grow), 1.35% + 30¢ (Advanced)	WooPayments: 1.75% + 30¢ on Australian cards, plus 1.5% on international cards
Fee for using another payment provider	2% (Basic), 1% (Grow), 0.6% (Advanced), on top of that provider's own fees	None from WooCommerce
Staff accounts	Up to 5 on Grow, up to 15 on Advanced	No limit set by the software
Updates and security patches	Handled by Shopify	Your responsibility, or your developer's
Content and blogging	Built in, basic	WordPress, a full content system
Custom checkout	Fully customisable checkout is a Shopify Plus feature	Open to custom development
Moving away later	You can export products, customers and orders; the theme and apps do not come with you	You own the code and the database

Sources: Shopify Australia pricing and WooPayments fees, both read on 3 October 2026. Shopify's rates for American Express and international cards are higher than its standard card rate, and WooPayments adds 10% GST to its fees (not charged to GST-registered merchants who supply a valid GST ID).

What is the difference between Shopify and WooCommerce?

Shopify is a service you rent. You pay a monthly plan and Shopify runs the store for you: the servers, the checkout, the security updates and the software itself. You manage products, orders, content and apps through its admin. You do not touch the underlying system, and you cannot.

WooCommerce is software you run. It is a free plugin that turns a WordPress website into a store. The software costs nothing, but it has to live somewhere: you choose a web host, install WordPress and WooCommerce, and keep all of it updated. In exchange you can change almost anything, because the code and the database are yours.

Most of the differences below follow from that one distinction.

What does each cost over a year?

Shopify has three cost lines: the plan, card fees, and any paid apps.

• The plan is fixed. Basic billed yearly is AUD $42 a month, which is AUD $504 for the year. Billed monthly it is AUD $56 a month, or AUD $672 for the year.
• Card fees depend on your sales. With Shopify Payments on the Basic plan, a standard online card payment costs 1.7% + 30¢.
• Paid apps vary by store. Many stores need none at launch; others add several.

One cost is easy to miss. If you cannot or will not use Shopify Payments, Shopify charges its own fee on every sale made through another payment provider: 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow and 0.6% on Advanced, on top of what that provider charges you.

WooCommerce has no plan fee, which does not make the store free. Its cost lines are hosting, a domain name, any paid extensions, and someone's time to keep it updated. These vary too much between providers and stores to quote a single figure honestly, so get real quotes for your own setup. With WooPayments, an Australian card payment costs 1.75% + 30¢, and WooCommerce charges nothing extra if you use a different payment provider.

The fair comparison is a full year of each, for your store: plan or hosting, payment fees at your expected sales, extensions or apps, and the cost of the time spent maintaining it.

Which is easier to run week to week?

This is where Shopify is strongest.

On Shopify, the platform is updated and secured for you. You still look after your apps, theme, tracking scripts, product information, redirects and content, but you are never the person applying a security patch to the store software at short notice.

On WooCommerce, that job is yours or your developer's. A typical month includes WordPress updates, plugin updates, theme updates, backups and checking that nothing broke. A store built with a small number of well-supported plugins on good hosting can run smoothly for years. A store with many overlapping plugins becomes fragile, and the problems tend to show up at checkout.

If nobody on your team wants that responsibility and you do not plan to pay someone for it, that alone can decide the question.

Which is better for search visibility?

Both can rank well. The platform is rarely the reason one store outranks another; content, site structure, internal links and authority matter more.

WooCommerce gives you more control. Because it runs on WordPress, you decide the page addresses, the content structure and most technical settings. That helps when content is a large part of how customers find you: buying guides, comparisons, detailed category pages.

Shopify gives you fewer ways to get it wrong. It handles many technical basics consistently, and some page address patterns are set by the platform. A good Shopify strategy works within those rules rather than fighting them.

Whichever you choose, the same checks apply before launch. Our technical SEO checklist covers them.

How much can you customise?

On Shopify, design comes from themes and features come from apps. That covers most stores well. The limit to know about is checkout: a fully customisable checkout is listed as a Shopify Plus feature, and Plus starts from AUD $3,700 a month.

On WooCommerce, design comes from WordPress themes and features from plugins or custom code. Unusual pricing, product options, shipping rules or account types are possible because a developer can change how the store works. The cost of that freedom is the maintenance described above.

Which suits which store?

Shopify is usually the better fit if you are starting a store, have a straightforward catalogue, want predictable monthly costs, and have nobody technical on the team.

WooCommerce is usually the better fit if you already run a WordPress site that ranks, publish a lot of content, need unusual pricing, product or shipping rules, or want to own the whole system.

Either works if your catalogue is small and standard. In that case, choose based on who will run it day to day.

If you are still deciding whether the site should be a store at all, WordPress vs Shopify for Australian businesses compares the two for service businesses as well as retailers. If you already have a store and are wondering whether to move, read website redesign vs rebuild first.

Need help choosing?

Our eCommerce Web Design Adelaide service starts with your catalogue, your customers and who will run the store, and recommends the platform after that. Talk to wow.digital and bring your product range, your current costs and what is not working.