If you want to launch an online store without managing hosting and software updates, Shopify is usually the easier starting point. If your store needs to live inside an existing WordPress website, or your ordering process needs substantial customization, WooCommerce deserves a closer look.
For Canadian businesses, the choice also depends on payment fees, shipping arrangements, bilingual content, and who will look after the store after launch. A low subscription price means little if the platform cannot handle the way you sell.
This comparison covers the current platforms as checked on September 13, 2026. WooCommerce’s latest stable release is 11.1.0. Shopify is a continuously updated hosted service, so there is no equivalent store software version for merchants to install.
Shopify vs WooCommerce at a glance
| Decision | Shopify | WooCommerce |
|---|---|---|
| Starting a first store | Simpler setup with managed infrastructure | More setup choices and technical responsibility |
| Existing WordPress website | A separate commerce platform to integrate or migrate to | Adds ecommerce to your WordPress site |
| Ongoing costs | Plan, apps, payment fees, and any support work | Hosting, extensions, payment fees, and maintenance |
| Custom ordering rules | Check app availability and plan restrictions | More control over code and integrations |
| Content and SEO | Capable store SEO with a more prescribed structure | Flexible WordPress content and technical controls |
| Best operational fit | A team that wants fewer infrastructure tasks | A business with a reliable maintenance arrangement |
Neither platform guarantees better sales or search rankings. The useful question is which one can support your actual products, customers, and day-to-day work with fewer compromises.
What you manage on each platform
Shopify: a managed store platform
Shopify brings the storefront, checkout, hosting, and store administration together. You can build with a theme and add features through apps, while Shopify manages the underlying platform.
That removes a significant part of the technical workload. It does not remove your responsibility for product accuracy, account security, app permissions, store policies, or testing changes. Custom design and integrations may still need a developer.
WooCommerce: a store inside WordPress
WooCommerce adds ecommerce to WordPress. You choose the hosting, theme, extensions, and maintenance arrangements, with more access to the code and database behind the store.
This can be a good fit when your business already depends on WordPress content or needs a particular ordering workflow. Someone still needs to handle updates, backups, compatibility issues, and recovery. A managed host can help, but check exactly what its support covers.
What Shopify and WooCommerce cost in Canada
Shopify subscription prices
The following standard prices come from Shopify’s Canadian pricing page. They exclude introductory offers and tax.
| Plan | Monthly billing | Monthly equivalent on annual billing |
|---|---|---|
| Basic | C$49 | C$37 |
| Grow | C$132 | C$99 |
| Advanced | C$517 | C$389 |
Basic therefore costs C$444 for a year on annual billing, before extras. A custom domain, paid theme, apps, payment processing, and professional help can increase the total.
WooCommerce running costs
WooCommerce’s core software is free, with no platform subscription or revenue share. Running the store still involves hosting, a domain, any paid extensions, and maintenance.
Use actual supplier quotes when comparing budgets. As a simple illustration, C$40/month for hosting plus C$180/year for extensions totals C$660/year before a domain, payment fees, and maintenance. Those are example inputs, not a WooCommerce package or a Maple quote.
Compare both platforms over the same period and with the same requirements. Include renewal prices and any app or extension needed for subscriptions, shipping, wholesale orders, or accounting. Our website cost guide for Canada separates the initial build from ongoing expenses.
Payment processing is separate from platform fees
Shopify Basic currently lists standard online card processing at 2.8% + C$0.30 through Shopify Payments. Amex and international cards have different rates. Its listed third-party transaction fee is 2% when applicable, in addition to the external provider’s processing charges.
WooPayments lists Canadian online card processing at 2.9% + C$0.30, with additional international-payment and currency-conversion fees where applicable. Other WooCommerce gateways have their own pricing.
For C$10,000 in eligible domestic standard-card payments across 100 transactions, those base rates work out to C$310 on Shopify Basic and C$320 with WooPayments. That C$10 difference is small compared with some maintenance or app costs. Conversely, an applicable 2% third-party Shopify fee would add C$200 on C$10,000 processed through that provider.
The takeaway: compare your payment mix and gateway, not the claim that one platform has “no transaction fees.” Check eligibility for your business and how refunds, disputes, and foreign currency affect the bill.
Design, product options, and checkout
Both platforms can produce a professional storefront. The practical differences appear when a product has unusual options, an order needs approval, or checkout must follow specific rules.
Shopify supports theme customization and app-based features. However, apps added to the information, shipping, and payment pages of checkout require Plus. Basic and higher plans support branding edits and eligible apps on the thank-you and order-status pages. WooCommerce gives developers more direct control, with the responsibility to maintain compatibility as the store changes.
A useful recent change is WooCommerce 11.1’s native variation image galleries. A clothing store can show a separate image gallery for each colour variation without the former Additional Variation Images extension. Product gallery video support in that release is experimental, so it should not be treated as an established requirement without testing.
Before choosing, build one representative product. Include the hardest real combination of options, personalization, discounts, and fulfilment rules. Check it on a phone and complete an order. A platform that handles your simplest product may still struggle with the one that drives your revenue.
Wholesale and B2B need a current comparison
Shopify B2B is no longer a Plus-only proposition. Its current B2B plan documentation includes Basic, Grow, and Advanced, with up to three active catalogue assignments across B2B markets. These catalogue features require the new Shopify Markets.
Plus adds capabilities such as direct catalogue assignment to individual companies or locations and certain advanced payment arrangements. Check those distinctions if every wholesale customer needs different pricing.
WooCommerce can support wholesale pricing, quote requests, and account-specific workflows through suitable extensions or custom development. Compare a complete workflow, including approval, repeat ordering, tax treatment, and accounting, rather than counting available plugins.
Canadian shipping, taxes, and bilingual stores
Shipping: labels and your own carrier rates are different
Buying shipping labels through a platform is not the same as showing rates from your own negotiated carrier account at checkout.
Shopify’s third-party carrier-calculated shipping is available on Advanced and Plus. Grow can add it for an extra monthly fee or through annual billing. Do not assume a Basic subscription includes connecting your own Canada Post account for that workflow.
WooCommerce can obtain live rates through a compatible integration such as its Canada Post extension. Confirm the extension cost, account requirements, and support for the currencies and services you need.
Test a nearby delivery, another province, a remote postal code, and a mixed cart with different package sizes. Accurate weights and dimensions matter on either platform. Also check pickup, free-shipping thresholds, and what the customer sees if a carrier cannot return a rate.
Taxes: configure your obligations, then test them
Shopify provides Canadian tax settings, while WooCommerce supports manual tax configuration and automated options. Your registrations, products, exemptions, and customer destinations determine the setup you need.
Have your accountant confirm the requirements, then test representative orders and refunds. Do not assume that selecting “Canada” makes every GST/HST, PST, or QST situation correct automatically.
English, French, and cross-border selling
Shopify supports multiple storefront languages through tools such as Translate & Adapt, translation imports, or compatible apps. WooCommerce can use WordPress multilingual tools, but check compatibility with the theme, checkout, extensions, and email templates.
Translate the complete buying journey: options, delivery messages, checkout, order emails, and returns information. Review automated translations before publication. For US sales, also distinguish the currency shoppers see from the currency you receive and any conversion charges.
SEO, speed, and ongoing maintenance
WooCommerce offers flexible WordPress publishing, URL configuration, and technical customization. Shopify provides a more standardized structure with useful built-in SEO foundations. Neither is automatically the SEO winner.
A clear category hierarchy, useful product copy, relevant buying guides, internal links, and crawlable pages matter on both. Avoid generating hundreds of nearly identical filter or location pages simply because the platform allows it.
Shopify manages the hosting environment, while WooCommerce performance depends more directly on your host and implementation. Either store can become slow when large images, tracking scripts, themes, or extensions do too much work. Use website speed tests on actual product, category, and cart pages, not just the homepage.
For WooCommerce, plan updates around a backup and staging test, especially for payments, subscriptions, and checkout extensions. These WordPress backup methods explain the recovery foundation. Shopify still needs a plan for accidental content changes, data exports, and app-related problems.
Support ownership matters too. With WooCommerce, a problem may involve the host, theme developer, gateway, or extension vendor. With Shopify, app-specific issues may still need the app developer. Know who will investigate a failed checkout before the first busy sales weekend.
Retail POS, integrations, and room to grow
For a business selling online and in person, Shopify POS offers a connected retail route. Advanced POS Pro features are listed at C$119/month per location in addition to the relevant online plan; hardware and payment costs are separate.
WooCommerce also has POS integration options. For example, Square for WooCommerce connects online and in-person operations. It is inaccurate to dismiss WooCommerce as having no offline selling options.
Test inventory updates, returns, customer records, and which system controls the product catalogue. A long integration list does not tell you whether two systems agree after a refund or a stock adjustment.
Both platforms can support growing businesses. Shopify reduces infrastructure management; WooCommerce offers more architectural control but needs suitable hosting and technical work. Order complexity, peak demand, and integration reliability are more useful decision points than a fixed product-count cutoff.
AI tools: running the store versus helping the shopper
These are two different jobs. Shopify Sidekick works in the merchant admin, helping with content, analysis, and operational tasks. It presents changes for review. That does not make it the customer-facing assistant visitors use to choose a product.
WooCommerce businesses can choose AI tools through the WordPress ecosystem and connected services. Check what information each tool can access, what actions it can take, and whether usage is charged separately.
For shopper guidance, our MWD AI Assistant with its WooCommerce add-on can display product cards with names, images, current prices, stock information, and product-page links. Product options and payment stay in the normal WooCommerce flow.
The add-on is US$69/year for one website and requires an active paid core licence. Pro starts at US$79/year, making the entry combination US$148/year before tax and separate AI provider usage. The add-on is not a standalone Shopify app.
You can see the core assistant on Maple’s website, but that service-guidance example is not a demonstration of every WooCommerce shopping feature. Choose the store platform around your commerce requirements first, then add the assistance that fits it. Our website chat comparison explains the available approaches.
Which platform fits your business?
Choose Shopify when you want a managed platform, your products and checkout fit its supported workflows, and you prefer spending less time on infrastructure. It is a sensible default for many first stores and retailers seeking connected online and in-person selling.
Choose WooCommerce when an existing WordPress site is central to the business, you need custom ordering logic, or you value direct control over the store’s code and hosting. It works best when maintenance has a clear owner and budget.
Keep your current platform when the real problem is weak product information, unclear delivery costs, poor navigation, or a fixable technical issue. Moving platforms does not solve those problems by itself.
Before signing off, ask for a demonstration of your hardest product, preferred payment method, delivery rules, a refund, and any wholesale or subscription process. Compare the annual operating costs of that exact setup.
Still comparing other options? See our guide to ecommerce platforms for Canadian businesses to decide what else belongs on your shortlist.
Already have a store? Treat migration as a separate project
Products are only part of a migration. Check customer records, order history, gift cards, subscriptions, reviews, discounts, and any app-specific data. Some items require a dedicated migration tool or cannot transfer unchanged.
Map old product, category, and content URLs to their closest replacements. Google’s site migration guidance recommends permanent redirects and careful monitoring; temporary ranking fluctuations can occur. Sending every old URL to the homepage is not a substitute for a proper mapping.
Plan a final data sync so orders placed during the move are not missed. Test checkout, payment capture, shipping, tax, order emails, and analytics before switching the live store.
Frequently asked questions
It can be, but free core software does not make the complete store free. Compare hosting, extensions, maintenance, processing fees, and build costs against the Shopify plan and apps your store would actually need.
Yes, but decide how the content site and storefront will connect. You may be managing two systems. WooCommerce keeps the store inside WordPress; Shopify can be preferable if its commerce workflow is the stronger fit.
Yes, with the appropriate setup. Check the delivery or subscription app, payment gateway, renewal behaviour, customer self-service, and cancellation process. These details matter more than a simple feature-list checkmark.
You can build a straightforward store without custom development, particularly on Shopify. Complex design, integrations, migration, and unusual ordering rules often need professional help on either platform. WooCommerce also needs someone responsible for ongoing technical care.
Get the platform decision right before the build
Bring your product list, delivery rules, payment requirements, and the tasks that currently take too much time. Those details make a platform recommendation more useful than a generic feature score.
Maple’s Shopify and WooCommerce store design services start at C$3,300 for a Starter store; migration projects start at C$4,900. The build is scoped separately from subscriptions, hosting, apps, and payment fees.
If you are choosing a platform or reconsidering an existing store, request a store quote. We can assess the requirements before you commit to a build or migration.
