Shopify vs WooCommerce vs a custom store: an honest guide for Indian sellers

Shopify vs WooCommerce vs a custom store comes down to two questions for most Indian sellers: who will look after the store every week, and how unusual your selling rules are. Shopify suits a standard catalogue and a team that never wants to think about servers, but it adds its own fee to every order paid online through a gateway such as Razorpay. WooCommerce suits sellers who want lower running costs and full ownership, and who have someone to keep it updated. A custom store suits businesses whose pricing, ordering or invoicing doesn't fit either platform. A note on bias: we build stores on WooCommerce and Laravel, so we have taken Shopify's fee and GST details straight from Shopify's own pages.

Shopify, WooCommerce or custom: which suits whom?

What does Shopify's extra fee mean for an Indian store?

Shopify's own payment service, Shopify Payments, isn't offered to businesses in India. Indian Shopify stores take online payments through a provider such as Razorpay instead, whose Shopify app handles UPI, cards, netbanking and wallets.

Every order paid through that provider then carries a Shopify fee on top of the gateway's own charge. Shopify's help page on third-party transaction fees sets out three details that most comparisons skip:

• It is calculated on the order total after discounts, including GST and shipping.
• It isn't returned when you refund an order.
• Orders paid through a manual payment method, which includes Shopify's built-in cash on delivery option, don't attract it.

That last point matters in India. A store where most customers choose cash on delivery pays the fee on far fewer orders than one where nearly everyone pays by UPI. The rate also drops on the higher plans, which cost more each month. Rates change, so check the current figure for each plan on Shopify's India pricing page rather than trusting any blog, this one included.

How to compare running costs fairly

Add up a typical month for each option:

1. Shopify: the plan fee, paid apps, and your expected online-paid sales (with GST and shipping) multiplied by your plan's fee rate.
2. WooCommerce: hosting, paid plugin renewals, and someone's time to keep it all updated.
3. Custom: hosting and a support plan, plus the build cost spread over the years you expect to use the store.

Leave the gateway's own fee out of the sum, because you usually pay the same rate whichever platform you choose. The guide to what affects website design cost in India explains what drives the one-time cost of a build.

How do they handle GST invoices, COD and Shiprocket?

GST invoices

Shopify's help centre is direct about this: Shopify doesn't create a GST-compliant bill, and it points sellers to a GST invoicing app or an outside service. The same page explains that Shopify can't show CGST and SGST as separate tax lines. You set a combined rate for your home state and IGST for other states, and the app produces the invoice your CA needs.

WooCommerce has tax settings built in, and GST invoices usually come from a plugin that your developer sets up and keeps updated. On a custom store, the invoice is part of the build: your GSTIN, HSN codes and the correct CGST and SGST or IGST split, in the layout your accountant asks for.

Cash on delivery

All three can offer COD, and Shopify and WooCommerce both include it as standard. The differences show up in the rules, such as switching COD off above a certain order value or for pin codes where too many parcels come back. Those rules usually need an app on Shopify and a plugin or custom code on WooCommerce. On a custom store they are written in from the start.

Shiprocket and couriers

Shiprocket has ready-made connections for both Shopify and WooCommerce that pull new orders in, push the shipping status back to your store and can keep stock in sync. A custom store connects through Shiprocket's API instead, so a developer writes and maintains the link. It takes more work, but it can follow rules a ready-made connector can't, such as shipping different products from different warehouses.

Who looks after the store once it's live?

Owners often skip this question, yet it decides more than the fee does. Shopify includes hosting and an SSL certificate in every plan and runs the checkout's security for you. When a Diwali sale sends traffic up, keeping the store online is Shopify's job, not yours.

WooCommerce runs on hosting you choose. WordPress, WooCommerce and every plugin need regular updates, backups need testing, and cheap shared hosting is a common reason stores slow down at the worst moment. Someone has to own this every month. If nobody on your team will, budget for a maintenance plan; the hosting and maintenance page explains what one should cover.

A custom store puts all of it with your developer, including every new feature. That works with a team you trust for the long run, and becomes a risk if the one person who understands the code moves on.

What can you take with you if you switch later?

Plan the exit before you need it. From Shopify, you can export products, customers and orders as spreadsheet (CSV) files. Product photos aren't inside the product file, so save them before you close the account. Your theme and apps only work on Shopify, so the design and app features have to be rebuilt.

From WooCommerce, you can move the whole store, orders and customers included, to another host or developer. Because WooCommerce is open source, the code and the data sit on hosting you control.

From a custom store, you can take everything, but only if your contract says the code belongs to you and you hold the logins for the code repository, hosting and domain. Get that in writing before the build starts.

Whichever way you move, product and category web addresses usually change. Set up redirects from every old address to its new one, or you risk losing the Google rankings those pages have earned.

When is a custom store worth it?

A custom build makes sense when the way you sell doesn't fit a standard shop. Common signs:

• Different prices for different customers, such as dealer, wholesale and retail rates
• Build-your-own products, such as gift hampers
• Subscriptions or repeat orders with rules no plugin quite handles
• Stock or invoices that must sync with Tally, an ERP or a warehouse system
• Separate logins for different kinds of users, each with their own dashboard

The stay-booking platform we built for Buonafortuna, with separate guest and owner logins, is a web application rather than a shop, but a store with dealer accounts sits on the same kind of foundations.

If you have a standard catalogue, one price for everyone and an idea you are still testing, you don't need custom yet. Shopify or WooCommerce will get you selling sooner for less, and you can move once the business has shown what it needs.

A checklist before you choose

• Roughly what share of your orders will be prepaid, and what share COD?
• Who will handle updates, backups and problems in the middle of a sale?
• Does your CA need a particular GST invoice format?
• Do you need dealer prices, hampers, subscriptions or a Tally link?
• Will blog posts and buying guides be a big part of your marketing?
• If you switch platforms later, what must come with you?

If your selling is standard and nobody will look after the tech, Shopify is likely the sensible start. If upkeep is covered and you want lower running costs and full ownership, look hard at WooCommerce. If several of your answers don't fit a normal shop, a custom store deserves a proper look.

FAQs

Is Shopify Payments available in India?

No. India isn't on Shopify's list of countries for Shopify Payments, so Indian stores take UPI, card and netbanking payments through a gateway such as Razorpay. Shopify adds its third-party transaction fee to those orders, on top of the gateway's charge, but not to orders paid through its built-in cash on delivery option. Check current rates on Shopify's pricing page.

Is WooCommerce really free?

The plugin is free and open source, and it takes no cut of your sales. A working store still costs money: hosting, a domain, any paid plugins or theme, your gateway's charges, and someone's time to keep WordPress and the plugins updated. That last cost is easy to leave out of the sums, and it bites during a busy sale.

Can I start on Shopify and move to WooCommerce or a custom store later?

Yes. Shopify exports products, customers and orders as CSV files that a developer can import into the new store. Photos, the theme design, app features and settings such as shipping and tax have to be moved or rebuilt separately, and your old product addresses need redirects to the new ones so you don't throw away the search rankings you have built.

Which is better for SEO: Shopify, WooCommerce or custom?

Any of the three can rank well. Useful product descriptions, page speed, a sensible site structure and links from other sites matter far more than the platform. WordPress gives WooCommerce strong blogging tools, Shopify covers the technical basics out of the box, and a custom store gives full control, provided the developer builds the SEO groundwork properly.

If you are weighing WooCommerce against a custom Laravel store, the ecommerce development page explains how we build both, with Razorpay, cash on delivery, Shiprocket and GST-ready invoices set up for India. If Shopify suits you better, we will say so. Either way, tell us what you sell and how you ship, and we will recommend a route and send a fixed written quote after a short call.