Shopify vs WooCommerce UK: Real Costs for a Small Store

If you are weighing up Shopify vs WooCommerce for a UK small store, the honest answer is that the sticker price only tells you half the story.

I have built stores on both. I have run a Shopify shop end to end, and I have done a full WordPress to Shopify migration for a real site. So this is not a spec sheet copied off two pricing pages. It is what each one actually costs once you add up everything that lands on your plate.

If you already know you want the simplest route and just want to start selling, you can start a Shopify trial here. If you want to understand the true cost first, read on.

The short version

WooCommerce looks cheaper. The core plugin is free, and you can point at a budget host and be live for a few pounds a month. Shopify charges a clear monthly fee that feels higher when you first see it.

But WooCommerce shifts a big chunk of the cost off the invoice and onto your time. You become the host manager, the security team, the backup service and the person who fixes it at 11pm when a plugin update breaks the checkout.

Shopify rolls all of that into one predictable bill. You pay more in visible fees and less in hours and stress. Which one wins depends entirely on how you value your own time.

Shopify costs for a UK small store

Shopify bills you a single monthly plan fee, and almost everything a small store needs is included in that fee: hosting, security, an SSL certificate, updates and support.

Here is where the money actually goes.

• Monthly plan. Shopify publishes its plan names and prices on its own pricing page and they change from time to time, so check the current figure before you commit. Basic is the usual starting point for a small UK store. My own plan costs £30 a month.
• Payment processing. Use Shopify Payments and you pay a card rate set by your plan, with no extra Shopify transaction fee. Use a third-party gateway instead and Shopify adds an extra transaction fee on top of that gateway's own charge. For most UK stores, Shopify Payments is the cheaper choice.
• Apps. The app store is where costs creep up. A small store might run one or two paid apps, for example a reviews app or a slightly better email tool. Many stores get by on free apps at the start.
• Theme. Shopify has strong free themes. A premium theme is a one-off cost, not a subscription, and plenty of stores never buy one.

The point is that the plan fee is the bulk of it. There is very little you are forced to bolt on, and the bill barely moves month to month.

WooCommerce costs for a UK small store

WooCommerce is a free plugin that runs on WordPress. That free headline is real, but it is only the first line of the budget.

• Hosting. This is the big one. Cheap shared hosting will run WooCommerce, but it can crawl once you add products, traffic and plugins. Proper hosting for a store costs more. I have written up my best WordPress hosting for UK small business picks if you want the detail.
• Domain. A yearly cost, usually small, but it is still on the list.
• SSL certificate. Many good hosts include this free now. If yours does not, that is another line.
• Premium plugins. This is where WooCommerce quietly catches up to Shopify. Things Shopify bundles in, like decent shipping rules, bookings, subscriptions or advanced SEO controls, often need a paid extension on WooCommerce. Each one is usually a yearly licence.
• Payment gateway fees. You will use Stripe, PayPal or similar, each with its own per-transaction rate on every sale.
• Performance tuning. WooCommerce can be fast, but it needs looking after. My guide to the best Perfmatters settings for WooCommerce covers the tuning that keeps a store quick.
• Your time, or a developer's. Updates, backups, security and fixes are all on you. If you do not want to do it, you pay someone who will.

None of these lines is huge on its own. Added together, and with your own hours in the mix, the "free" platform stops looking so free.

Side by side: the real cost lines

Here is how the two compare, line by line, for a typical small UK store.

The row that most comparisons leave off is the last one. It is also the one that decides the winner for most people.

The hidden cost nobody puts on the invoice

WooCommerce hands you control, and control comes with chores. Every plugin update is a small risk. Every host issue is yours to chase. Every security patch is your job to apply.

If you enjoy that side of things, or you already run WordPress sites, it is no bother. If you do not, it is a slow drain on the hours you should be spending on products, customers and marketing.

Say you spend two or three hours a month keeping a WooCommerce store healthy. Put a value on your time and add that to the yearly total. Suddenly the cheaper platform is not obviously cheaper. That is the honest maths most "WooCommerce is free" articles skip.

Which suits whom

Shopify suits you if you want to sell, not maintain a website. It fits first-time store owners, busy founders, and anyone who would rather have one predictable bill than a pile of licences and a maintenance to-do list. You trade some flexibility for a lot less hassle. If that sounds right, you can start with Shopify here.

WooCommerce suits you if you want full control, you are comfortable with WordPress, and you have content or custom needs that benefit from owning the whole stack. It rewards people who enjoy the technical side or already have the skills in-house.

There is no universally right answer. There is only the right answer for how you value your time and how much control you actually want.

Get help either way

If you would rather someone set the store up properly the first time, that is exactly what my agency does. We build and migrate stores on both platforms, and we will tell you honestly which one fits your business rather than pushing whichever earns us more. Have a look at Glide Marketing if you want a hand.

And if you have already outgrown WooCommerce and want to move, my WordPress to Shopify migration checklist walks through it step by step, including the redirect work that protects your search rankings.

Mike McDonnell, Founder of Glide Marketing