Shopify vs WooCommerce for Australian stores

WooCommerce is a plugin that turns a WordPress website into a shop. You choose the hosting, you install and update the software, and you can change almost anything because you own all the code. Shopify is a hosted platform. The servers, security, checkout and updates are Shopify's problem, and you work inside what the platform allows, extended by themes and apps.

We build on Shopify, so you should read this with that in mind. We have also moved plenty of stores off WooCommerce, and we will tell you where WooCommerce is the better answer, because moving is a waste of money if you do not need to.

WooCommerce looks free, and the software is. The bill comes from everything around it. You pay for hosting that is fast enough to run a shop, a theme or a developer, plugins that add functions Shopify would cover with a setting or an app, backups, security monitoring and the time or money to apply updates.

Shopify rolls hosting, the checkout, security patching of the platform and the admin into one monthly plan. As of late 2026, Shopify's Australian pricing page lists Basic at $56 a month or $42 a month billed yearly, Grow at $149 or $114, and Advanced at $575 or $431. The full breakdown is in Shopify pricing in Australia.

Card fees are close. WooCommerce's own payments product, WooPayments, charges 1.75% + 30 cents on Australian card payments per the WooCommerce fees page, plus 1.5% for international cards and 2% for currency conversion, and GST of 10% on those fees. Shopify Payments on Basic is 1.7% + 30 cents online, and higher plans are lower. At small volumes the difference is cents. On WooCommerce you can use other gateways without a platform surcharge. On Shopify, a gateway other than Shopify Payments adds a third-party transaction fee of 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow and 0.6% on Advanced.

Both platforms can do everything an Australian store needs. They differ in how much of it is set up for you.

• GST. Shopify has a tax-inclusive pricing setting for Australia that works per market. WooCommerce has tax settings too, but you configure the tax class, display and invoice details yourself. See our Shopify GST setup guide.
• Shipping. Australia Post's MyPost Business connects to Shopify directly, and Australia Post says its Shopify integration works with any Shopify plan. WooCommerce uses plugins for the same job, which you buy, configure and keep updated. See Australia Post shipping on Shopify.
• Buy now pay later. Afterpay connects to Shopify through its own setup in Shopify's payment settings, and Shop Pay Installments launched for Australian merchants in August 2026. WooCommerce supports Afterpay and Zip through plugins. See Afterpay and Zip on Shopify.

Maintenance

A WooCommerce store has many moving parts: WordPress core, the theme, WooCommerce, and every plugin, each updated on its own schedule by a different developer. An update can break the checkout. Someone has to test updates on a staging copy, and someone has to restore from backup when it goes wrong.

Shopify keeps the core platform consistent. You still manage apps, and an app can still slow or break a store, but there are fewer places for a problem to start. Our Shopify support plans cover app updates and checkout monitoring if you want to hand that off.

Speed

A well-built WooCommerce store on good hosting can be fast. A badly hosted one with 30 plugins is slow. On Shopify, speed is mostly decided by your theme and your apps. We build to a budget of product pages under 2.5 seconds LCP on mobile for Custom builds, and we cover how in Shopify speed and Core Web Vitals.

Editing

Shopify's theme editor lets non-technical staff edit sections, change images and rearrange pages with limited risk. WordPress has its own editors, and the experience depends on the theme and page builder you chose. Page builders can be flexible and also be a source of slow, heavy pages.

• Your site is mostly content, with a shop attached. A publication or a service business that also sells products is well served by WordPress.
• You need logic that Shopify does not allow. Heavily customised product configurators, unusual checkout rules or deep integration with a PHP system are easier when you own the code.
• You have developers and want full control of hosting, the database and the code.
• You want to avoid a platform fee structure. If your volume is high and you are comfortable running infrastructure, self-hosting can be cheaper.
• You already run it well. A WooCommerce store that is fast, patched and profitable does not need to move because we say so.

• Nobody on your team wants to be the person who updates plugins at 9pm.
• Your checkout is your revenue and you want it to be the same checkout that millions of other shoppers have already used.
• You sell on social channels, run subscriptions, bundles, wholesale or multiple markets and want those to be built-in features or well-supported apps.
• You want a store your team can edit without a developer.
• You want predictable monthly costs and one place to call.

Most of the WooCommerce owners who come to us are not unhappy with the idea of WooCommerce. They are tired of the maintenance, a slow checkout, or a developer who has moved on. If that sounds familiar, our WooCommerce to Shopify migration page lists what moves and how we protect your search rankings with redirects.

1. Step 1

   Step 1

   Export products, customers and order history, and list everything that makes your current store work: plugins, custom code, email flows.

2. Step 2

   Step 2

   Match each plugin to a Shopify feature or app, or decide it is no longer needed.

3. Step 3

   Step 3

   Build a redirect map from every old URL to its new one, so Google keeps your rankings. Our migration checklist covers it in detail.

4. Step 4

   Step 4

   Build and test the new store while the old one keeps selling.

5. Step 5

   Step 5

   Launch, submit the new sitemap and watch Search Console for errors for several weeks.

If you decide to stay on WooCommerce, you can still use the same checklist for a new theme or host. If you want a view on whether to move, talk to us. We will say so if the answer is to stay.

If you are weighing the two, put these questions to whoever would run the store. The answers usually make the choice for you.

• Who applies updates, and who tests them before they reach the live site? On WooCommerce this is a named person with a staging copy. On Shopify it is mostly the apps you install.
• What happens when the checkout breaks on a Saturday? Ask for a name and a response time, not a promise.
• Where is the site hosted, and who pays for it when traffic spikes in a sale?
• Which plugins would the store depend on, and who maintains each one? A plugin abandoned by its developer becomes your problem.
• How will staff edit the site? Try the editor yourself before you commit.
• What would it cost to move away later? On either platform, owning your product data and keeping your URLs tidy keeps that cost low.

A short trial helps. Shopify offers an introductory trial on most plans, per its pricing page, so you can build a dozen products and see how the admin feels. For WooCommerce, set up a staging site on the host you would use and place a test order.

If the answers point towards a store you would rather not look after, that is the strongest argument for a hosted platform. If they point towards a team that enjoys looking after it, WooCommerce deserves a fair hearing.