The Short Answer
Choose Shopify if you want simplicity, fast launch, and are willing to pay a monthly fee. Choose WooCommerce if you want full control, lower long-term costs, and have some technical comfort (or a developer). For most Indian businesses starting out, Shopify is the faster path to a live store. For businesses with specific customisation needs or cost sensitivity at scale, WooCommerce makes more sense.
The detailed answer depends on your specific situation — here's how to think through it.
Cost Comparison for Indian Businesses
Shopify Costs (2026)
- Basic plan: ~₹1,994/month (billed annually)
- Shopify plan: ~₹5,449/month
- Advanced plan: ~₹21,949/month
- Transaction fees: 0.5–2% per transaction if not using Shopify Payments (Shopify Payments is not available in India, so you'll pay this on every order)
- Apps: Most serious stores need 5–10 apps — budget ₹3,000–15,000/month extra
For an Indian store doing ₹5 lakh/month in revenue on the Basic plan, transaction fees alone (2%) add up to ₹10,000/month — more than the subscription itself.
WooCommerce Costs (2026)
- WooCommerce plugin: Free (runs on WordPress)
- Hosting: ₹500–3,000/month depending on traffic and host quality
- Domain: ₹700–1,500/year
- Payment gateway: Razorpay charges 2% per transaction (same as Stripe in India) — no additional platform fee on top
- Premium plugins: Budget ₹15,000–40,000/year for a full-featured store (one-time or annual fees, not monthly)
- Developer for setup: ₹20,000–80,000 one-time setup cost if you're not doing it yourself
WooCommerce has higher upfront setup costs but lower recurring costs — especially at scale, where Shopify's transaction fees become significant.
UPI and Razorpay Support
Both platforms support Indian payment gateways including Razorpay, PayU, and CCAvenue. UPI is supported through these gateways on both platforms. Neither platform has a native Shopify Payments equivalent in India, so you'll use a third-party gateway regardless of which platform you choose.
WooCommerce's Razorpay plugin is free and well-maintained. Shopify's Razorpay integration works well but you pay the Shopify transaction fee on top of Razorpay's fee — a double payment processing cost that WooCommerce avoids.
Ease of Use
Shopify is genuinely easier to use. The admin interface is clean, product management is intuitive, and non-technical users can manage a Shopify store without help. This is a real advantage if you're running the store yourself and don't have a developer on hand.
WooCommerce requires WordPress knowledge and a higher tolerance for configuration. The admin is more complex, updates require more attention, and things can break in ways that need a developer to diagnose. The tradeoff is complete flexibility — if you can imagine a feature, there's probably a WooCommerce plugin for it or a developer who can build it.
Scalability
Shopify handles infrastructure automatically — your store won't go down on a sale day because of traffic. This is a genuine advantage for stores running high-volume flash sales or seasonal spikes. You don't manage servers.
WooCommerce performance is your responsibility (or your developer's). A poorly configured WooCommerce store on shared hosting will fall over under load. But a well-configured WooCommerce store on proper hosting handles very high traffic — large Indian e-commerce players have run WooCommerce at significant scale.
The Honest Recommendation for Indian Businesses
- Starting a new store, non-technical founder, want to launch fast: Shopify Basic. Revisit in 18–24 months when you understand your real requirements.
- Have a developer, want full control, budget-conscious at scale: WooCommerce with good hosting (Kinsta, WP Engine, or a well-configured AWS setup).
- Doing ₹1 crore+ monthly revenue and hitting platform limits: Consider a custom platform — the economics often make sense at this scale.
- Need complex B2B pricing, wholesale channels, or heavy customisation: WooCommerce or custom — Shopify's limitations become painful here.
What About Custom Development?
Both Shopify and WooCommerce have limits that a custom platform doesn't. If you're at a stage where platform constraints are materially impacting your business, building custom is worth evaluating. We've built custom e-commerce platforms for companies that outgrew Shopify — we're happy to walk you through the economics.