12 honest pros and cons of using Shopify

We're a UK company founded in 2009 that makes both Shopify apps and WooCommerce plugins. Here's our expert, in-depth comparison of the pros and cons of Shopify to help you pick the right ecommerce platform for your website.

Weighing the pros and cons of Shopify? Ranked 4th among the top 5 ecommerce platforms worldwide, Shopify is a popular choice for building virtually any type of website.

But picking a website platform to create your online store isn't a popularity contest. If you've landed on this article, you're probably contemplating whether Shopify is the right platform for you.

Based on our many years of experience in the web design and development space (we've been creating websites since 2009 and now make both Shopify apps and WooCommerce plugins), here's our honest review of the pros and cons of Shopify.

As a bonus, we'll also compare how WooCommerce stacks up across each aspect, so you can decide which ecommerce platform is the right fit for your online store.

Without further ado, here are 12 honest pros and cons of using Shopify.

6 pros of using Shopify

Shopify pro: It is easy to set up and use

Shopify's learning curve is almost non-existent. Once you sign up for the platform, its setup wizard guides you through quick steps to get a functioning ecommerce store up and running within a few minutes. You can add products, pick from tons of pre-made templates, set up payment gateways, configure tax calculations, and much more — without needing an expert developer.

How does WooCommerce stack up?

WooCommerce is beginner-friendly too but it requires a bit more effort to set up out of the box. It has a steeper learning curve compared to Shopify, however, once you get past the basics, you'll find it simple to use.

Shopify pro: It is fully hosted and managed

Shopify takes care of all the technical aspects — think: web hosting, security, server management, performance optimization, updates, etc. — of running a website for you. This empowers you to direct your attention to revenue-boosting activities rather than maintaining your site’s backend.

How does WooCommerce stack up?

WooCommerce is self-hosted; you’ll need to sign up with a good web host, install WordPress, and maintain your website. This gives you more control over your site but the tradeoff is that you’re responsible for hosting performance, security, and updates.

Shopify pro: It is reliable and secure out of the box

Shopify is designed to be PCI-compliant, meaning that it meets the stringent requirements for safely processing payments. Your customers’ data is automatically encrypted and protected from data breaches.

Additionally, it offers built-in SSL certificates, fraud analysis tools, and automated security updates to help prevent security breaches from store admins' perspectives.

How does WooCommerce stack up?

WooCommerce supports SSL and is as PCI-compliant as Shopify (if configured properly). However, WooCommerce is self-hosted, so you are 100% responsible for setting up and maintaining your site's security measures.

Shopify pro: It has a wide range of built-in features

Shopify includes heaps of useful ecommerce features out of the box. Here are a few:

• Multi-channel selling – Sync your Shopify store and enable sales on third-party platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Amazon, eBay, etc.
• Integrated payment processing – Shopify's very own payment processor, aptly named Shopify Payments, eliminates the need for third-party gateways. You can also integrate PayPal, Stripe, and other gateways as desired.
• Abandoned cart recovery – Automatically send reminder emails to customers who leave items in their shopping carts to increase conversions.
• Built-in analytics – Send store admins real-time sales reports, customer insights, and performance metrics.
• Shipping and tax automation – It calculates shipping rates and taxes automatically based on customers' location.

How does WooCommerce stack up?

WooCommerce is more feature-light out of the box. You'll need to install plugins to get it to match all of Shopify’s built-in features. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, though, as it enables you to install only the features you actually need, which helps your site load speedily.

Shopify pro: Stellar customer support options

Shopify provides round-the-clock support to customers via multiple channels: live chat, phone, and email. Their support team is knowledgeable, friendly, and quick to respond, making it easier to resolve technical issues in real time.

Shopify's Help Center and community forums offer extensive documentation on virtually every topic, from setting up your store to advanced API development. And if needed, you can hire expert Shopify developers to assist with your store's development and design.

How does WooCommerce stack up?

WooCommerce doesn’t provide direct support. But you can get easily help from experts in the WordPress community (by posting on the forum) or hire a professional developer. Third-party theme and plugin developers provide support for their products, as specified on their respective websites.

Shopify pro: High-quality themes and apps

Shopify’s theme store includes over a hundred professionally designed mobile-responsive, speed-optimized free and premium themes for you to choose from. Plus, there are 8,000+ apps that make it possible to extend your store's capabilities with email marketing, AI-driven product recommendations, inventory management, and more.

How does WooCommerce stack up?

There are arguably more WooCommerce themes and plugin choices. However, their quality can vary, especially if you look outside the official WooCommerce store.

6 cons of using Shopify

Shopify con: They charge transaction fees on third-party payments

If you plan to use a payment gateway other than Shopify Payments (such as Stripe, PayPal, etc.), get ready to pay additional transaction fees. Depending on your base Shopify plan, the fees can range from 0.6% to 2% per transaction. To put this in context, if you're on Shopify’s Basic plan (2% fee) and want to use Stripe, a $100 order would incur a $2 Shopify fee — on top of Stripe’s processing fees.

This isn't ideal, especially considering that Shopify Payments isn't available in every country. Over time, payment processing costs can add up and eat into your profit margins.

How does WooCommerce stack up?

You're free to choose your payment processing company and there are no additional transaction fees beyond those charged by the payment processor (e.g., PayPal or Stripe). This can make WooCommerce more cost-effective.

Shopify con: It is less flexible and customizable

While Shopify's structured system simplifies store setup, the flip side is that it limits customization options, especially for stores that need complex backend functionality or highly unique storefronts.

For instance, Shopify themes are developed using Liquid, their proprietary templating language. While Liquid is open-sourced to some degree, Shopify doesn’t allow full access to all aspects of its codebase. You can modify Liquid-coded themes, but you’re limited by the structure unless you edit the code directly.

Another area where the drawbacks of Shopify's closed system becomes apparent is in its site hosting; you can't change Shopify's core server configurations or use external web hosting.

How does WooCommerce stack up?

With WooCommerce, you have full access to your store’s code and server-side settings. This makes it possible for you to customize nearly every aspect of your site.

Shopify con: It may be more expensive

Shopify prices their base starter plans reasonably but as you scale your online store, ancillary costs can quickly add up.

Many essential features that can skyrocket your revenue are only available on advanced plans. For instance, the option to fully customize your store's checkout flow to add upsells, custom fields, advanced checkout flows, etc., is only available on Shopify Plus plans which cost $2,000 per month.

If you’re on a lower-tier plan and want to tailor your checkout process, you’ll have to upgrade to Shopify Plus (their most expensive plan) or use a third-party app (and run the risk that it does not fully integrate with Shopify’s native checkout).

Here's a brief overview of what you can expect to spend to run a fully-functioning Shopify store:

• Themes – Free themes cost nothing but offer a relatively limited feature set. Premium themes typically range from $180 to $350 yearly.
• Apps – Bulk discounts, combo products, free gifts (either selected by the customer or added automatically), advanced filtering, subscriptions, multilingual support, and other robust features require paid apps. Although these are handy, they can add to your recurring costs.
• Transaction fees – If you don’t use Shopify Payments, you’ll pay extra transaction fees, on top of your payment processor's fees.
• Shopify Plus – Shopify's most advanced plan with enterprise-level features and customization options starts at $2,000/month, which can be expensive for small-sized businesses.

Over time, these costs can add up and exceed what you'd pay for a custom-built solution on an open-sourced platform like WooCommerce.

How does WooCommerce stack up?

WooCommerce provides basic ecommerce features for free, and similar to Shopify, you need premium extensions to add more robust features. However, WooCommerce’s plugin-based system is known to be more cost-effective than Shopify.

Shopify con: Its content marketing features are pretty basic

Shopify is an ecommerce-first platform. It does include a built-in blogging tool, however, it lacks many of the advanced features found in content-management-first platforms like WordPress (what WooCommerce is built on).

For instance, Shopify’s blog editor is functional but lacks flexibility. It doesn’t support custom blocks, advanced formatting, reusable content elements, or extensive media embedding. Also, there are no built-in categories. Blogs built with Shopify use tags instead of categories, which makes it difficult to organize content for large blogs.

If your online store heavily depends on content marketing — for example, a beauty brand that publishes detailed makeup tutorials or a fitness store with workout plans — Shopify’s blogging features may not be enough. You'll probably have to set up an external blog (such as WordPress) and use a subdomain (e.g., blog.yourstore.com), which can fragment your SEO efforts.

How does WooCommerce stack up?

WooCommerce functions on top of WordPress which is arguably the best content management system in the world. WordPress was originally designed for content, which makes it easy to manage large blogs, create pages, and run advanced content marketing campaigns.

Shopify con: It doesn't support multisites

Multisites are especially useful if you operate multiple brands or regional stores. For example, if you’re selling in different countries, you might want to create subdomains or subdirectories (e.g., us.yourstore.com and uk.yourstore.com) and manage everything from a single backend admin interface while maintaining distinct, individual storefronts on the front end.

Shopify does not natively support multisites. The closest they come to a multisite setup is with the "Organization" feature on Shopify Plus which enables you to link to all your Shopify-hosted stores and access them from one admin panel. However, this is only available for high-volume businesses that use Shopify Plus. Not to mention, you still have to manage each store individually (and pay separate bills for the base plan, themes, and apps).

Small and medium-sized businesses that want to run multiple stores will have to create standalone Shopify accounts for each one. This means managing separate dashboards, inventories, themes, and apps for each store — all billed individually.

How does WooCommerce stack up?

WooCommerce, built on WordPress, fully supports multisite networks. With WordPress Multisite, you can manage multiple stores from a single central dashboard and share data, users, themes, etc. across different stores with ease — and at a far lower price point.

Shopify con: Shopify locks your store data onto its platform

Your website data — including products, customer records, site structure, etc. — is tied to Shopify's platform. If you decide to switch to a different platform, migrating your data isn't a straightforward process:

• Product data can be exported via CSV, but you may not be able to properly transfer digital products, custom fields, and SEO settings.
• Customers and order history can’t be exported natively — you’ll need a third-party app.
• Blog content and pages must be manually copied or migrated using tools.
• Design and themes can’t be transferred — you’ll have to rebuild your store from scratch elsewhere.

How does WooCommerce stack up?

WooCommerce is open-sourced. If you decide to migrate to another platform, it gives you full access to your store data which you can easily export in CSV and XML formats.

Conclusion of the pros and cons of Shopify

Shopify and WooCommerce are both excellent platforms but which is the right fit for your specific business needs?

• Pick Shopify if you want an easy-to-use, fully hosted ecommerce platform with built-in hosting, security, round-the-clock support, and seamless integrations. It’s great for business owners who prefer a hassle-free setup, don’t want to deal with technical maintenance, and are willing to pay the relatively high cost.
• Pick WooCommerce if you prefer to have complete control over your site's customization, data, and content marketing at a reasonable pricepoint. Built on WordPress, it is ideal for businesses that want advanced blogging capabilities and unrestricted access to plugins, themes, and code. You’ll manage hosting, security, and updates, but you won’t face transaction fees beyond what payment processors charge.

Whichever platform you choose, check out Barn2's catalog of powerful Shopify apps and WooCommerce plugins that can help enhance your site's user experience (UX), boost your revenue, and increase customer satisfaction.