Shopify vs WordPress: Which Is Better for Your Online Store?

Are you confused between Shopify vs WordPress to build your online store?

Both Shopify and WordPress are excellent platforms for eCommerce sites. But making the right choice depends on your specific needs and goals.

In this article, we will show you a detailed comparison of WordPress vs Shopify to help you choose the best platform for your eCommerce store.

Let’s dive in!

Reasons to Use Shopify vs WordPress

Shopify is an eCommerce platform built specifically for people who want an out-of-the-box solution for building an eCommerce site.

It’s an excellent option for those who have big ideas but lack the skill to create an online shop from the ground up.

Here are some reasons why you might choose to use Shopify instead of WordPress for your online store:

• Since Shopify is a hosted platform, you don’t have to bother about handling hosting.
• It’s easy to set up and manage your online store without any advanced technical skills.
• It offers 24/7 customer support, providing assistance whenever you need it.
• You don’t need to know any code to build a beautiful and mobile-friendly shop.
• Shopify has built-in SEO features, making it easier to optimize your store for search engines.
• You can buy your domain through Shopify. There is no need to worry about managing domains from third-party platforms.
• It provides built-in analytics to track your store’s performance.
• Shopify makes it very easy to sell products through other channels like TikTok and Amazon.

Now, let’s take a look at why WordPress might be a good option for your eCommerce platform.

Reasons to Use WordPress vs Shopify

WordPress is a popular CMS software that many businesses use to create ecommerce sites.

The main reason why people choose WordPress over Shopify is that WordPress is an extremely flexible and robust platform that can handle more complex sites.

Plus, it can scale with your business. As a result, you won’t have to worry about switching platforms as your business grows.

Here are some reasons to use WordPress over Shopify for your online store:

• WordPress is a highly customizable platform. It offers full control over the design, functionality, and content of your websites.
• You can choose from thousands of WordPress plugins to customize your site.
• WordPress can help you control costs by giving you full control over your hosting provider and which plugins and themes you use.
• You can translate your sites into an unlimited number of languages, each with different currencies.
• WordPress lets you set up multiple sites under one account with its Multisite feature.
• WordPress offers various powerful SEO plugins. This makes it easy to optimize your website for search engines and boost your organic search rankings.

Note: WordPress comes in two versions: WordPress.com and WordPress.org. In this article, we’re discussing WordPress.org, which is different from WordPress.com.

See the difference between the two in our complete guide on WordPress.org vs WordPress.com.

Shopify vs WordPress: Side-by-Side Comparison

Let’s take a closer look at how these platforms differ.

Here are some specifics to consider:

Shopify Versus WordPress: Web Hosting

Before you can create a website, you’ll need a reputable web hosting provider to keep your site up and running.

This is how it works:

To make your site’s content available online, you must store all your files and data, such as images and website code, somewhere secure and reliable.

Web hosts store your content on servers for a monthly fee. Also, make sure people can access your website.

Shopify is fully hosted, which means it hosts all of your website’s files.

That’s great for people who don’t want to deal with the hassle of finding and choosing a web hosting service.

However, this ease comes at a price tag.

When you don’t select your host, you have less control over the server environment and parameters.

For example, you can’t properly debug issues yourself if you don’t have access to server logs.

With WordPress, you are responsible for finding your own hosting platform. As a result, you have greater control over your server environment.

It also means that you will have to pay an extra cost.

The cost of hosting plans can differ based on factors such as the size of your site and the number of traffic it gets.

For example, hostinger offers hosting that starts at $2.99/mo for the first year. Which covers unlimited monthly visits.

WordPress vs Shopify: UI and UX

Both Shopify and WordPress feature simple user interfaces that make it easy to find what you’re looking for. And properly manage your site.

This is how a new site looks in the Shopify admin:

Here is the WordPress admin interface for a new website:

Let us compare Shopify’s user experience (UX) with that of WordPress.

First up, Shopify.

One feature that stands out on Shopify is the setup guide that helps you create your shop:

The setup guide helps store owners select a template, add products to their store, and configure everything to start selling products.

Adding products is also straightforward. You can do this by adding products one at a time or by bulk uploading products via a CSV file.

To add a new product, simply fill out the information (title, description, media, price, etc.), and Shopify will add products to your shop after you click Save.

On the other hand, setting up an ecommerce store in WordPress isn’t as straightforward as with Shopify because you need an ecommerce plugin to sell products on a WordPress site.

Some popular ecommerce plugins are WooCommerce, WP EasyCart, and Easy Digital Downloads.

With over 5 million installations, WooCommerce is the most popular plugin for creating an ecommerce WordPress site.

WooCommerce walks you through seven steps to get ready to sell your products:

Adding products is also similar to Shopify. You can add them one by one or via a CSV file.

To add new products, fill out the information and click Publish to get your products added to your shop.

When it comes to user experience, Shopify is the clear winner. The installation guide is detailed and walks users through each step.

However, if you’re comfortable building websites, you won’t need this kind of help.

Shopify vs WordPress: Themes & Templates

Both Shopify and WordPress let you design a custom storefront or choose from a library of premade themes.

First, let’s talk about about Shopify themes.

Shopify has over 150 themes to choose from:

Each theme is almost ready to use soon after installation. Simply change the text and update the branding to fit with your business.

You might get your storefront ready in a matter of hours.

WordPress also offers thousands of free themes in its theme library. You can also filter them by “E-Commerce” to uncover those that are particularly built for ecommerce stores:

Because WordPress is so flexible, you can change almost every element of your site’s appearance.

However, creating a shop on WordPress can require more effort.

Most themes aren’t ready out of the box and might take weeks or months to finalize, especially if you’re new to web design.

You can buy page-building plugins like Divi, which offer ready-made templates and drag-and-drop page builders to speed up the process.

Read out: 15 Free WordPress Themes for eCommerce.

WordPress Versus Shopify: eCommerce Functionality

Shopify and WordPress take a different approach to ecommerce features. And which one you select depends on your needs.

Overall, Shopify or WordPress lets you:

• Sell physical and digital products
• Offer support for a number of payment gateways
• Customize shipping rates
• Schedule and run discounts and promotions
• Create and accept gift cards
• Generate automatic or manual tax rates
• Integrate with dropshipping and print-on-demand platforms
• Add cross-sell and upsell functionality to increase your sales

Shopify is specially built for ecommerce. As a result, it has everything you need to start and expand an eCommerce shop.

Furthermore, in Shopify’s Apps Store, you can look through many categories, such as “Finding products” and “Selling products,” to find free or premium apps that suit your specific needs:

WordPress also offers free and paid plugins. Over 1,000 plugins are specifically for ecommerce functionality:

However, Shopify’s categories make it easier to find apps. WordPress users have to browse through pages of plugins to find what they need.

WordPress vs Shopify: Multi-Channel Commerce

Both WordPress and Shopify allow you to sell things outside of your online store. But it’s much easier with Shopify.

Selling through channels other than your ecommerce site is called “multi-channel commerce.”

Some examples of multi-channel commerce include selling your products via:

• Online marketplaces like Etsy and Amazon
• Brick-and-mortar stores
• Social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook

With multi-channel commerce, everything connects to your online shop, so you can keep track of orders and inventory.

For example, your website will show an “out of stock” label if you sell out all your products on Amazon. As a result, there is no need for manual updates.

First, let’s take a look at Shopify’s multi-channel commerce features.

Shopify integrates your store with Facebook, Instagram, and Handshake.

You’ll need extra apps if you wish to sell on other platforms. These applications allow you to sell items on:

• TikTok
• Etsy
• Amazon
• eBay
• Walmart

Furthermore, Shopify integrates with a POS system — the tools that allow you to sell and receive payments in person. As a result, you can sell in physical stores or marketplaces.

WordPress is also capable of connecting to many channels, such as eBay, Amazon, and Google. However, setting up multi-channel commerce on WordPress is not as easy as it is on Shopify.

First and foremost, it depends on the ecommerce plugin you use. If you use WooCommerce, you will need to install extra plugins before connecting to any other channels.

For example, if you want to sell things on Facebook, you need to download the free Facebook for WooCommerce plugin.

Another plugin will be required if you want POS integration.

The great thing about WordPress’s extensive plugin library is you can often find free options.

WordPress vs Shopify: SEO

In comparison to Shopify, WordPress gives you more control over search engine optimization (SEO). It is a set of steps you can follow to improve your visibility in search engine results.

Why does SEO matter?

SEO is important since generating organic traffic (unpaid visits to your website from search engine results) allows you to reach more people and drive more sales.

Let’s suppose you sell T-shirts.

If someone searches for “T-shirts” on Google, you want your store to appear on the first page.

And you achieve this by ensuring that your website is search engine optimized.

SEO contains several strategies, such as improving the technical aspects of your shop (via technical SEO) and optimizing individual pages (via on-page SEO).

Technical SEO

WordPress users have greater control over technical SEO. Technical SEO involves things like submitting your sitemap to Google, building a logical website structure, and optimizing your site speed.

Users, for example, have the option of selecting their own hosting provider. To ensure that their site loads quickly.

They can also change configuration files, such as the .htaccess file, to write custom code that helps their shop load faster.

However, you can’t perform these actions with Shopify.

However, plugins like Yoast SEO (available for Shopify and WordPress) help users manage aspects of their technical and on-page SEO.

On-Page SEO

Both WordPress and Shopify offer excellent on-page SEO features that allow you to optimize your individual web pages.

Users of both WordPress and Shopify can:

• Write custom title tags and meta descriptions for each page
• Optimize content with keywords
• Manage internal links
• Add alt text to images
• Customize URL slugs
• And lot more

Shopify vs WordPress: Multilingual Sites

Both WordPress and Shopify support multilingual. However, WordPress allows you to translate your shop into more languages and currencies than Shopify.

This is important because having separate pages that use a specific region’s language and currency delivers a better user experience.

For example, if you have a Netherlands version of your website, anyone visiting your site from the Netherlands will see that version with prices displayed in euros.

WordPress users can create multilingual sites with multiple currencies by using plugins such as WooCommerce Multilingual & Multicurrency with WPML.

If you’re using WordPress, there’s no limit to how many languages you can add to your shop.

However, remember that adding too many languages may cause your site to run slowly (affecting your SEO performance).

Shopify also makes it simple to add various languages and currencies to your store without having to create each version from scratch.

With Shopify Translate & Adapt app, you can add up to 20 different languages to your shop.

Plus, you can also add different currencies.

WordPress vs Shopify: Multiple Sites

WordPress allows users to open multiple stores under a single account, while Shopify does not.

For example, let’s suppose you start a shop selling clothes.

Then, you open a totally new shop selling electronic items.

The two niches are very different. And you’d want to divide them into two different sites.

If you use Shopify, you’ll need to create a new account, which is OK for some people.

However, for those who manage multiple ecommerce stores, logging into multiple sites with different usernames and passwords is a hassle.

WordPress allows you to enable the Multisite feature. This allows users to switch between multiple sites under one account.

If you know how to code, you can enable WordPress Multisite by adding the following line of code to your wp-config.php file:

define('WP_ALLOW_MULTISITE', true);

Then, configure your Multisite Network by logging into your WordPress site and going to Tools » Network Setup.

Shopify Versus WordPress: Mobile Apps

Shopify and WordPress both provide apps that allow users to control their stores on the go.

The free Shopify iOS and Android app allows users to manage products, handle orders, run marketing campaigns, and communicate with customers.

If you use WordPress and WooCommerce, you can download the WooCommerce Mobile App to create products, manage orders, print labels, and track statistics.

WordPress vs Shopify: Customer Support

In comparison to WordPress, Shopify offers greater support options.

Shopify offers a live help chat, the opportunity to leave a message, and a discussion group where you can engage with other Shopify users.

With so many resources, you can find solutions to almost any question.

WordPress is a free and open-source platform. As a result, it lacks the same degree of support.

There is no support chat, but there is an active online forum where volunteers answer questions and help fellow community members.

Each plugin and theme will have its own support staff and forums. So you can reach them directly to get answers.

Shopify vs WordPress: Pricing

WordPress can be more cost-effective than Shopify. However, it depends on your hosting provider, plugins, themes, etc.

Here’s a look at the pricing cost between Shopify vs WordPress:

How Much Does Shopify Cost?

Shopify makes it really easy to start your online store. Their Basic plan starts at ₹1,994/mo, and you can upgrade to the Shopify plan for ₹7,447/mo or the Advanced Shopify plan for ₹30,164/mo.

Each of these plans includes an SSL certificate and web hosting. Plus, it will come with a Shopify branded subdomain (e.g., https://your-store.myshopify.com).

If you want to use your own domain name, then you’ll need to purchase it separately. Pricing for a regular .com domain name generally starts at ₹1163/year.

Furthermore, if you only want to sell products through social media and messaging channels, you can select the Starter plan, which costs ₹399/mo.

There is also a free trial available; this lasts for three days. When your trial is over, you can pay $1 for three months of full access to the platform.

Start Shopify 3 Days Free Trial

How Much Does WordPress Cost?

WordPress is free to use. However, you’ll need a domain name, SSL certificate, WordPress hosting, etc, to start a WooCommerce store.

Typically, a domain name costs $14/year, an SSL certificate costs $60/year, and web hosting costs around $7.99/mo. This is not cheap, particularly when you are just starting.

Plus, you also need to pay for premium WooCommerce themes and some official WooCommerce extensions.

These factors make calculating the entire cost of a WordPress WooCommerce shop challenging, especially when compared to a set of Shopify plans. However, the sheer number of free and paid add-ons available means that you can make WooCommerce as cheap or as pricey as you want.

Final Verdict: Shopify vs WordPress?

If you’re still asking yourself, “Should I use WordPress or Shopify?” Here’s a quick way to tell:

You’ll love WordPress if you:

• Want a highly customizable site
• Comfortable with the code, or have a budget to hire someone

And you’ll love Shopify if you:

• Need a user-friendly way to build a site fast
• Don’t want to code and don’t have the budget to hire a web developer

We hope this comparison of Shopify vs WordPress helped you find the best platform for your eCommerce store.

For more, check out these other WordPress comparisons:

• Wix vs WordPress
• Weebly vs WordPress
• Blogger vs WordPress
• WordPress.com vs WordPress.org
• Wix vs Squarespace vs WordPress
• Drupal vs WordPress

Lastly, follow us on Facebook and Twitter to stay updated on the latest WordPress and blogging-related articles.