WooCommerce vs Shopify for AU Retailers (2026)

These are the two platforms most Australian retailers actually choose between, and the comparison is usually framed as open source versus hosted, or free versus subscription. Neither framing predicts which one you should pick.

The question that does: who is responsible when something breaks at 11pm on a Thursday?

What you are actually choosing between

Shopify is a hosted platform. Hosting, security patching, PCI scope and platform upgrades are Shopify’s problem. You pay a subscription and, unless you use Shopify Payments, a transaction fee. You work within their model.

WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin. You own the store outright, run it where you like, pay no platform fee, and can change anything. Hosting, security, updates and performance are yours.

That is the entire trade. Everything else follows from it.

Total cost of ownership, honestly

The sticker price misleads in both directions.

Shopify looks more expensive because the subscription is visible. Add app subscriptions — and a store of any complexity accumulates them — and the monthly number grows. What you stop paying for is hosting, security work, upgrade projects and the developer time those consume.

WooCommerce looks cheaper because the software is free. It is not free to run. Managed WordPress hosting suitable for commerce, a maintenance arrangement, and periodic work replacing a plugin whose vendor has stopped maintaining it are all real line items. A WooCommerce store with nobody maintaining it is not a saving; it is deferred cost with a security risk attached.

For most mid-market retailers the two land closer than expected. The difference is where the cost sits: Shopify’s is predictable and recurring, WooCommerce’s is lumpier and depends on discipline.

The Australian specifics

Both handle GST display and reporting, Australian carriers and live rate calculation, and local payment gateways. Neither has a decisive advantage, and anyone claiming otherwise is selling something.

Two real differences:

Shopify’s transaction fees apply if you use a gateway other than Shopify Payments. For a high-volume, low-margin catalogue that is a genuine number worth modelling before choosing.

WooCommerce’s flexibility on unusual trading rules. Wholesale tiers, customer-specific pricing, complex freight logic — all achievable on Shopify, sometimes via apps or Plus, but on WooCommerce you are changing code rather than working within a model. Whether that is an advantage depends entirely on whether you have someone to change the code.

Choose Shopify when

You would rather not think about hosting, security or upgrades — and this is most retailers
Your trading rules fit a mainstream model
You have no in-house developer and no maintenance arrangement you trust
You want the checkout to be someone else’s ongoing engineering problem
Predictable monthly cost matters more than flexibility you may not use

Choose WooCommerce when

You want to own the store outright, with no platform fee and no vendor able to change the terms
Content and commerce genuinely belong together — a content-heavy brand where the store is one part of a larger WordPress site
Your trading rules are unusual enough that a hosted platform would be fought rather than used
You have someone maintaining it, in-house or under contract

That last point is not a footnote. It is the deciding factor more often than every other consideration combined.

The honest failure modes

Shopify’s is outgrowing the model. You need something the checkout will not do below Plus, or an app subscription stack that has quietly become significant, or a workflow that does not fit and cannot be made to.

WooCommerce’s is neglect. Sixty plugins installed over eight years, several abandoned by their vendors, an unpatched core and hosting chosen on price. This is the more common failure, and it is not a platform flaw — it is what happens when nobody owns maintenance. We see it regularly, and the fix is usually an audit and a rescue rather than a replatform.

What about migrating?

Both directions are routine. The work that decides the outcome is the same either way: mapping product, customer and order data accurately, and preserving URLs so you keep the rankings you already earned.

If you are considering leaving Magento, that is a different comparison with its own considerations — we covered it in what a Magento to Shopify migration costs.

The short version

Shopify if you want to run a store. WooCommerce if you want to own one, and have someone to look after it.

Most Australian retailers are better served by Shopify, and we say so regularly — including to people who came to us wanting WooCommerce. The exceptions are real but narrower than the internet suggests.

If you want a straight recommendation for a specific business, we build both, so we have no reason to push you either way.

WooCommerce vs Shopify for Australian Retailers