If you are making a brand or product, it is important to have a website to showcase your product to people. Not only that, it opens an area of opportunities for your like; you can list your product, its features, compare and shop products online, etc. So to start a website, all you need is a domain name and website, which is simple to get, but the toughest job is to choose among the CMS’ available to create your site. There are several CMS that you can use to start your online store. And so, we have picked up the two most popularly used services, namely WordPress and Shopify, to make a comparison with its features, pricing, and all important aspects. So let’s get into the comparison battle of Shopify vs WordPress in the article below.
Comparison of Shopify vs WordPress
- Pricing
- Accessibility and Convienence
- Mode of Payments
- Plugins and Add-ons
- Dropshipping
- Scalability and Support
Pricing
When it comes to any CMS pricing is the first thing that you should consider is whether the service is valuable or not. Checking on pricing is not just the CMS price, but you should be careful about the pricing of add-ons like plugins, themes, etc. So let’s see more about this on WordPress vs Shopify.
- The Pricing of Shopify starts from $29 per month.
- All plans include a domain name, SSL certificate, and web hosting.
- With a single price, you can also have access to Shopify exclusive payments using which you can receive or accept payment.
- You can also opt for third-party payment plugins that suit your business.
- You can also have access to a number of themes and add-ons for free and paid.
- If you are a beginner at an online store site then Shopify offers the best plan and offers.
- WordPress with Woocommerce pricing starts from about $7 per month and it was completely based on the Web hosting you are opting for.
- Like Shopify, it does not offer a domain name, SSL certificate, and web hosting with the subscription.
- It does not collect any percentage fee for any kind of transaction on your site.
- You are free to use any payment mode which you find best for your site and business.
- Also, it offers a huge number of theme and plugin which is mostly available for free.
Accessibility and Convienence
Even if you are not a professional web developer, most of the CMS tools offers several theme and templates which are customizable and easy to create your site in no matter of time. So let’s see which is good for the simpler and faster developer of an online shopping store.
- Shopify offers you the domain name and web hosting, so there is a need for any setup and installation in it.
- It comes with an amazing drag and drop interface that allows you to add and edit the theme within the given tool and limits for customization.
- Once the site is designed, you are ready to go live with your online store in no matter of time.
- It comes with a payment module in-built, so it is easy to activate in no matter of time to collect payment online.
- In WordPress, you need to set up your WordPress with Woocommerce to a web hosting to start designing your site, which is not that difficult.
- It also has a drag and drop builder interface to make your job easy and reliable.
- Speaking of customization, you can make an endless amount of customization you can opt for.
- You need to use services like stripe to receive and manage payments online from the users.
Mode of Payments
It is the gateway through which the payment is received, collected, and managed from your online store. Without a payment module, you can’t be able to keep receive or manage your payment. So the payment module plays a vital role in your online store.
- Shopify offers its own mode of payment powered by stripe which you can choose and activate with some simple clicks.
- It also supports third-party payment gateways like PayPal, Stripes, Authorize.net, 2checkout, First Data, Amazon payments, etc.
- In Shopify, for each payment, you will be charged 2% of the commission, but with the $299/month plan, you can reduce the commission percentage to 0.5%.
- There are only two possible ways to add payment on your online store, and they are Stripe and PayPal.
- It supports several gateways of payment, and there are several Payment Plugins available on WordPress, which you can add directly from the plugin store.
- There are no commission or transaction charges for transactions via WordPress with the Woocommerce site.
Plugins and Add-ons
Plugins and Add-ons are a great addition to your website, which saves tons of time on your coding with just a by drag and drop. They are available for free, freemium, premium, and based on which the features will be. So let’s see more about plugins and add-ons on WordPress vs Shopify.
- Shopify has an exclusive store for plugins and apps, which you can add directly from the Shopify App Store.
- They have plugins and apps for Search Engine Optimization, Star ratings, product reviews, offers & discounts, countdowns, and many more.
- It has both free and paid plugins; you can also try out some plugins for some time by enabling its free trial.
- WordPress has over 55,000+ plugins that you can install and activate directly from your WordPress dashboard.
- Refer Best WordPress Plugins.
- Like Shopify, it also has plugins for payment gateways, lead generation, Search Engine Optimization, performance optimization, and many more at a meager cost.
- Most of the plugins available on WordPress are free or available at a low cost compared to Shopify.
Dropshipping
If an order is not available in your stock, you can get the order from the nearest available store and deliver it to the required customer. This process is completely legitimate when it comes to online shopping to fulfill the user’s requirements. But also be careful on Dropshipping contract before adding one to your site.
- Dropshipping in Shopify can be done through integrating apps like AliExpress, Oberlo, Printify, etc.
- Here you cannot create your own marketplace for other vendors to sell on your website.
- Users can browse/navigate among products, add products to the cart, and make a payment, but in the end, they will receive the product from other e-commerce store partners with the online store.
- You can add dropshipping on your WordPress via Woocommerce just by adding an extension to your site.
- You can also allow vendors to sell from your site by creating your own e-commerce marketplace online.
- But before allowing vendors to your dropshipping store, make sure they reach all your requirements like the minimum number of orders, membership fees, and other charges.
Scalability and Support
When there is business growth, there comes the need for scalability. Scalability is the ability to handle all the resources and challenges thrown upon you without any loss in business growth. Also, the support system is more important to support things that you needed.
- Shopify can handle the core aspects like performance, security, and scalability without any issues when there is a massive gain in business.
- Also, it can handle downtimes, backups, updates, or security if you are subscribed to Shopify Plus Plan.
- They provide round-the-clock support via live chat, phone, email, and social media. They also have sites and forums to refer to extensive documentation, how-to guides, knowledge base, video tutorials, etc.
- You can even add some third-party management support to boost your business and hire time to manage it.
- They are not self-manageable, so you need to hire a separate team for management if the business gets boosted.
- To better control your online store’s resources, you need to upgrade your web hosting plan for additional management controls.
- You can also use managed WordPress hosting providers like WP Engine or LiquidWeb on your WordPress online store, which helps you scale up.
- If you are facing any issue or error, you can contact via any mode to the WordPress service, and there are also several kinds of mediums and forms to resolve those issues.
Conclusion
If you are new to this online or e-Commerce, then Shopify is the best option you should go for. Shopify can be a great time-saver by easing out the various tasks on your e-Commerce site, even for experts. If you have a large resource and team to work with, you can go for WordPress as they are cost-effective and more profitable when compared to WordPress. It is totally up to you, on what to choose. I hope this comparison on Shopify vs WordPress helps you choose the best and what suits you the most. Also, you can check out several other sites like Wix, Etsy, etc. If you have any queries, let us know in the comments section below.
