We tested the four leading ecommerce platforms across setup speed, performance, costs and scalability. Here's what actually separates them and how to choose the right one for your store.
TL;DR
Choosing an ecommerce platform is one of the most consequential decisions you'll make for an online store. Migrate from the wrong platform 18 months in, and you're looking at data migration complexity, URL redirect management, integration rebuilds, and weeks of downtime risk. Get it right first time and you have a stable foundation to build on for years.
We've set up and run stores across all four major platforms, analysed real cost data, and benchmarked performance. This comparison covers what actually matters for the decision - not just features lists, but the experience of building, running, and scaling a real store on each.
Platforms compared
- Shopify (market leader)
- WooCommerce (WordPress-based)
- BigCommerce (enterprise-leaning alternative)
- Wix eCommerce (website builder with commerce features)
Before the comparison: here's the framework we used to evaluate each platform.
Ease of setup: How quickly can a non-technical person get a store functional and looking good?
Total cost of ownership: Not just the subscription fee, but hosting, apps, payment processing fees, and developer costs for customisation.
Performance: Page load speed directly affects conversion rate and SEO. We tested real stores on each platform.
App/integration ecosystem: Can you add the functionality you need without extensive custom development?
Scalability: Does the platform handle growth without requiring migration or significant re-architecture?
SEO capability: How much control do you have over technical SEO, and how does the platform's default output perform?
Shopify launched in 2006 and now powers over 4.6 million stores globally, making it the world's most popular ecommerce platform by active stores.
Onboarding and setup: Shopify's setup experience is genuinely impressive. A basic store - with products, payment processing, shipping, and a professional theme - can be operational in under four hours without touching code. The platform guides you through each step with sensible defaults.
Shopify Payments: Shopify's built-in payment processor eliminates the 0.5-2% transaction fee that applies when using third-party payment gateways. It's available in the UK, US, Australia, Canada, and most major markets, and simplifies setup significantly.
App ecosystem: The Shopify App Store contains over 13,000 apps covering virtually every functionality you might need - from loyalty programmes and subscription management to complex B2B pricing and multi-currency. Most popular integrations (Klaviyo, Gorgias, ReCharge, etc.) are Shopify-native and work more reliably than on other platforms.
Reliability: Shopify's infrastructure handles traffic spikes well. During Black Friday 2025, Shopify processed £9.5 billion in global sales without significant outages - that kind of reliability is difficult to replicate on self-hosted solutions.
Support: 24/7 live chat support for all paid plans. Genuinely responsive and knowledgeable for most common issues.
Transaction fees: Using a third-party payment processor costs 0.5-2% per transaction depending on your plan (in addition to the processor's own fees). For stores with high volume, this adds up. The solution is using Shopify Payments, but that's not available everywhere.
App dependency: Shopify's core product is intentionally lean. Some features that competitors include natively - advanced reporting, B2B pricing, complex product options - require paid apps. It's easy to end up with £150-£300/month in app subscriptions on top of your platform fee.
Customisation limits: Shopify's Liquid templating language and platform architecture impose limits on what can be customised without significant developer expertise. Deep customisation is possible but expensive.
Content management: Shopify's built-in blog is functional but limited. Not ideal if content marketing is central to your growth strategy.
| Plan | Monthly Cost | Transaction Fee (non-Shopify Payments) | Staff Accounts |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | £25/month | 2% | 2 |
| Shopify | £65/month | 1% | 5 |
| Advanced | £344/month | 0.5% | 15 |
| Plus | From £2,000/month | 0.15% | Unlimited |
Prices as of February 2026 - verify current pricing at shopify.com
Best for: Most businesses starting out, DTC brands, stores focused on UK/US consumer markets, merchants who want reliability and ease of use over maximum flexibility.
WooCommerce is a free, open-source ecommerce plugin for WordPress. With over 5 million active installations, it's technically the most-used ecommerce solution globally - though "installed" and "actively maintained" are different things.
Cost at face value: WooCommerce itself is free. The plugin ecosystem includes many free extensions. If you're already running WordPress, adding a basic store is genuinely low-cost to start.
Flexibility: WooCommerce gives you complete control over your store. No platform restrictions on what can be customised, no forced upgrades, no terms of service that can affect your business. This is meaningful for stores with unusual requirements.
Content integration: Built on WordPress, WooCommerce naturally integrates with the world's leading CMS. If content marketing (blog, landing pages, resources) is important to your business, this is a genuine advantage.
Ownership: Your code, your database, your server. No dependency on a platform that could change pricing or terms.
The "it's free" framing is misleading. A properly functioning WooCommerce store typically requires:
| Cost Component | Annual Cost |
|---|---|
| WordPress hosting (managed, reputable) | £200-£600 |
| Premium theme | £50-£200 one-time |
| Essential plugins (SEO, security, backup, performance) | £200-£400 |
| Payment gateway (Stripe, etc.) | 1.4-2.9% + 20p per transaction |
| Developer costs for setup and maintenance | £500-£2,000+ |
| Total first year | £1,000-£3,200+ |
Beyond initial cost, WooCommerce requires ongoing maintenance that Shopify handles automatically: WordPress core updates, plugin updates, security patches, and hosting management. Failing to maintain these can result in security vulnerabilities or site downtime.
Performance: Self-hosted WooCommerce performance is extremely variable. An unoptimised WooCommerce store can have dreadful Core Web Vitals. A properly configured store on quality hosting with caching, CDN, and image optimisation can be excellent. The variance requires expertise to manage.
Best for: Businesses already deeply invested in WordPress, developers who want full control, stores with unusual customisation requirements, content-first businesses where WordPress's CMS capabilities are valuable.
BigCommerce positions itself between Shopify's ease of use and enterprise-grade functionality, targeting mid-market and enterprise merchants.
Built-in features: BigCommerce includes more natively than Shopify - multi-currency, advanced product options, B2B pricing, wholesale portals, and advanced reporting are included without needing apps. For merchants who need these features, this meaningfully reduces total cost.
No transaction fees: BigCommerce charges zero transaction fees on any payment processor, which is an advantage over Shopify for merchants not using Shopify Payments.
SEO control: BigCommerce's SEO tools are more granular than Shopify's by default - more control over URL structures, canonical tags, and metadata.
API capabilities: BigCommerce's API is robust, making it attractive for enterprise stores with complex system integrations (ERP, PIM, OMS).
User experience: BigCommerce's admin interface is noticeably less polished than Shopify's. Setup takes longer, the learning curve is steeper, and some workflows feel clunky.
App ecosystem: The BigCommerce app store is smaller than Shopify's, and some popular apps are Shopify-native with less capable BigCommerce versions.
Pricing thresholds: BigCommerce's plans are capped by annual sales volume, which creates forced upgrades as you grow - a £39/month plan is limited to £50,000 annual online sales.
Market share: BigCommerce's smaller market share means fewer developers, fewer experts, and a less active community than Shopify or WooCommerce.
Best for: Mid-market retailers with B2B requirements, stores with high transaction volumes where zero transaction fees matter, merchants who need enterprise features without the Plus/enterprise tier of Shopify.
Wix's ecommerce capabilities have improved significantly over the past few years, but it remains primarily a website builder with commerce features rather than a dedicated ecommerce platform.
Ease of use: Wix's drag-and-drop builder is genuinely the easiest to use of any platform. For someone with no technical background, it's the fastest route to something that looks good.
Design flexibility: More visual design control than Shopify's theme system.
All-in-one: Website, blog, and shop in one tool without managing multiple platforms.
Performance: Wix-generated sites consistently underperform on Core Web Vitals compared to alternatives. This has SEO implications.
Scalability: Wix hits limits at meaningful scale. Inventory management, complex variants, high-volume order processing, and advanced marketing integrations are all weaker than dedicated ecommerce platforms.
App ecosystem: Limited compared to Shopify, with fewer quality integrations available.
Best for: Local businesses with simple product catalogues, early-stage stores testing an idea, businesses where the website is primary and ecommerce is secondary.
| Factor | Shopify | WooCommerce | BigCommerce | Wix |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Setup ease | ★★★★★ | ★★★ | ★★★★ | ★★★★★ |
| True total cost | ★★★★ | ★★★ | ★★★★ | ★★★★ |
| App ecosystem | ★★★★★ | ★★★★★ | ★★★ | ★★ |
| Performance | ★★★★ | ★★★ (variable) | ★★★★ | ★★★ |
| SEO capability | ★★★★ | ★★★★★ | ★★★★★ | ★★★ |
| Scalability | ★★★★★ | ★★★★ | ★★★★★ | ★★ |
| Support quality | ★★★★★ | ★★ (community) | ★★★★ | ★★★ |
| Design quality | ★★★★ | ★★★★★ | ★★★ | ★★★★★ |
Starting a new consumer DTC store: Shopify. The ease of setup, reliability, and app ecosystem advantages compound over time. The additional cost versus WooCommerce is worth the saved headaches.
Content-first business adding ecommerce: WooCommerce. If your primary channel is blog-driven organic traffic and you're adding a shop, the WordPress ecosystem makes more sense than migrating to a separate platform.
B2B or wholesale focus: BigCommerce or Shopify Plus. BigCommerce's native B2B features are stronger at standard pricing tiers; Shopify Plus closes the gap at enterprise pricing.
Simple local service or small catalogue: Wix. If you're selling fewer than 20 products and have no plans to scale significantly, Wix's simplicity is genuine value.
High-volume retail (£1m+ annual): Shopify Plus or BigCommerce Enterprise. Both are purpose-built for this scale. Compare based on specific feature requirements and negotiate pricing.
One more thing worth saying clearly: switching ecommerce platforms after you've built a business is painful. You need to migrate products, customers, orders, and reviews, rebuild integrations, manage SEO redirects, and retrain staff. This is several weeks of focused work and real risk.
The right answer is to choose well the first time. Read this comparison, match it to your specific situation, and if you're genuinely uncertain, start with Shopify - it's the platform most stores don't need to migrate away from.
Can I switch from WooCommerce to Shopify later? Yes, and many merchants do. Shopify provides migration tools, and there are established third-party migration services (Cart2Cart, LitExtension) that handle product, customer, and order data transfer. The most complex part is URL redirects for SEO - your WooCommerce URL structure will likely differ from Shopify's, and all old URLs need 301 redirects to preserve rankings. Budget 2-4 weeks for a clean migration.
Which ecommerce platform has the best SEO? WooCommerce on WordPress gives you the most granular control over SEO - it works with any WordPress SEO plugin and has no platform restrictions. BigCommerce is a strong second. Shopify is good but has some limitations (e.g., the /collections/ and /products/ URL path structure can't be changed). All significantly outperform Wix for SEO.
What are the hidden costs of Shopify? The main ones: app subscriptions (average growing store spends £100-£300/month), Shopify Payments isn't available in all countries (so you may pay transaction fees), and premium themes cost £150-£400. For large catalogues, Shopify's standard plan's export/reporting limitations may push you to the Advanced plan. Budget the full cost realistically before committing.
Is WooCommerce really free? The plugin is free, but hosting, themes, extensions, and ongoing maintenance are not. A realistic estimate for a properly functioning, secure, and performant WooCommerce store starts at around £1,000 per year before any developer time. This is still potentially cheaper than Shopify at higher revenue volumes, but the "free" characterisation is misleading.
Which platform is best for dropshipping? Shopify, clearly. The dropshipping app ecosystem (DSers, Zendrop, AutoDS) is strongest on Shopify, and the platform handles supplier integration and fulfilment automation more cleanly than alternatives.
For most new and growing ecommerce businesses, Shopify is the right starting point. It's more expensive than WooCommerce in theory but usually cheaper in practice when you account for total cost of ownership. Its reliability, app ecosystem, and support quality make it the lowest-risk choice.
WooCommerce makes sense if you're deeply invested in WordPress and have the technical capability to manage a self-hosted environment properly. BigCommerce is worth serious consideration if B2B features or high transaction volumes make its specific advantages meaningful for your business.
If you're building on Shopify and want to maximise your marketing programme, see our Shopify marketing strategy guide and Shopify email marketing comparison.
Pricing data verified February 2026. Sources: Shopify Pricing, BigCommerce Pricing, BuiltWith Ecommerce Technology Usage, Baymard Institute UX Research