Shopify vs WordPress
Shopify scores 9.0/10, WordPress 7.9/10. Where each one wins, what they cost and who should pick which, side by side.
The short answer
Shopify scores 9.0/10 and WordPress scores 7.9/10 on our rubric. Shopify is the stronger all-round pick.
Shopify leads on ease of use, design and support. WordPress leads on flexibility and value.
Shopify starts at $29/mo with no free plan; WordPress starts at $0/mo and has a free plan. WordPress is the cheaper way in.
Selling first, or publishing first
People compare these when they want to sell online and are not sure whether to start from a store or from a website. Shopify starts from the store: products, checkout, payments and inventory are the product, and content pages come second. WordPress starts from content: posts, pages and structure are the product, and selling is added through WooCommerce or a WordPress.com Commerce plan.
If you will mostly sell, Shopify gets you there faster and with less upkeep, from $29 a month. If you will mostly publish, with guides, reviews or a large blog and products alongside, WordPress handles the content far better and can sell without a platform fee through WooCommerce. Many successful brands end up with both: Shopify for the store and WordPress for the content. That is worth knowing before you force one to do the other's job.
| Shopify | WordPress | |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 9.0 | 7.9 |
| From | $29 | $0 |
| Free plan | No | Yes |
| Sells online | Yes | Yes |
| Code export | Yes | Yes |
| Ease of use | 8.4 | 5.6 |
| Design | 8.2 | 7.8 |
| Flexibility | 9.2 | 9.8 |
| Value | 8.0 | 9.2 |
| Support | 9.4 | 6.4 |
What Shopify does well
- Deepest commerce feature set anywhere
- App ecosystem handles every edge case
- Scales from first sale to enterprise
What WordPress does well
- Powers a large share of the web, so every problem has been solved by someone already
- Tens of thousands of themes and plugins
- You own the site outright and can move it to any host
Who each one is for
Shopify. Anyone whose primary activity is selling physical or digital goods and who wants the commerce infrastructure to be someone else's problem. It is the right answer from the first sale up to very large volumes, and the point at which you outgrow it is far enough away that most merchants never reach it.
WordPress. Content-heavy sites, anyone who wants to own the stack outright, and projects where a specific plugin solves a problem no hosted builder addresses. If the site will live for years and change often, the ownership pays for itself.
Pricing side by side
Shopify
| Basic | $29/mo yearly · $39 monthly | 2% fee on third-party gateways, 10 inventory locations |
|---|---|---|
| Grow | $79/mo yearly · $105 monthly | 1% third-party fee, 5 staff accounts |
| Advanced | $299/mo yearly · $399 monthly | 0.6% third-party fee, 15 staff accounts, third-party shipping rates |
| Plus | from $2,300/mo | 0.2% third-party fee, full checkout customisation, unlimited staff |
WordPress
| WordPress.org | Free software | you pay for hosting, a domain and any premium plugins or themes |
|---|---|---|
| WordPress.com Personal | $4/mo first year, then $5 | billed yearly, 6 GB, no ads, plugins allowed |
| WordPress.com Premium | $8/mo first year, then $9 | 13 GB, all premium themes, payment buttons, video |
| WordPress.com Business | $25/mo first year, then $28 | 50 GB, SSH and Git deploys, real-time backups, priority support |
| WordPress.com Commerce | $45/mo first year, then $50 | WooCommerce store features on top of Business |
What a year costs
Shopify
The prices on the plan cards are yearly prices. Pay month to month and Basic is $39 rather than $29, Grow is $105 rather than $79 and Advanced is $399 rather than $299, so the monthly option costs about a third more. If you are confident enough to launch, the annual plan is the obvious saving.
Subscription, billed yearlyShopify's third-party transaction fee
WordPress
WordPress.com's headline prices are introductory. On yearly billing, Personal is $4 a month for the first year and renews at $5; Premium goes from $8 to $9, Business from $25 to $28 and Commerce from $45 to $50. Paying monthly is much more expensive, from $9 a month for Personal to $70 for Commerce, and two- and three-year terms are cheaper still. Budget on the renewal figure, not the first-year one.
Plan price after the first year
Who should skip each one
Shopify
A content site with a small shop attached. If you have ten products and two hundred articles, you are paying commerce pricing for a blog. It is also the wrong pick if you need an unconventional checkout, since the checkout is the part Shopify guards most closely.
WordPress
Someone who wants to be online this afternoon and never think about the site again. Every hosted builder here beats it on time-to-live and on not having to care about updates.
The bottom line
Shopify
For most people starting a store, Shopify is the safe choice and the right one. Buy the annual plan, start on Basic, and move to Grow once you are selling more than about $5,000 a month and cannot use Shopify Payments, or once you need staff accounts.
WordPress
Choose WordPress when you want to own your site outright and expect it to grow into something other builders cannot contain. For most people, WordPress.com's Personal or Premium plan is the sensible way in; developers and content-heavy businesses should look at Business or self-hosting.
Questions people ask
Is Shopify better than WordPress?
Shopify scores 9.0/10 and WordPress scores 7.9/10 on our rubric. Shopify is the stronger all-round pick. Shopify leads on ease of use, design and support. WordPress leads on flexibility and value.
Which is cheaper, Shopify or WordPress?
Shopify starts at $29/mo with no free plan; WordPress starts at $0/mo and has a free plan. WordPress is the cheaper way in.
Which is easier to use, Shopify or WordPress?
Shopify scores 8.4/10 for ease of use against WordPress at 5.6/10.
Do Shopify and WordPress have a free plan?
Shopify has no free plan; WordPress has a free plan.
Can you sell online with Shopify and WordPress?
Both Shopify and WordPress can take payments and run a store.
Can you move your site off Shopify or WordPress?
Both Shopify and WordPress let you export your code.
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