Shopify vs WooCommerce for Indian Small Businesses: Costs, Payments, GST and SEO

For most Indian small businesses the choice comes down to this: Shopify is a monthly subscription where hosting, security and the store software are handled for you, while WooCommerce is free software you run on your own WordPress hosting, with more control and more responsibility. Shopify is usually quicker to launch and easier to run without a developer. WooCommerce usually suits businesses that already have a WordPress site, want full ownership or need unusual customisation. Below we compare the real costs in India, payments, GST, SEO and who should pick which.

Quick comparison

What Shopify costs in India

Shopify's India pricing page, as read on 18 October 2026, lists these plans:

The same page offers a 3-day free trial, then ₹20/month for the first 3 months, and says there are no setup fees. Prices change, so check the page before you budget.

The transaction fee matters more in India

Shopify Payments, Shopify's own payment processor, is not available in India: its supported-countries list doesn't include India and says that if your country isn't listed "you need to use a third-party payment provider". Shopify's help centre states that "third-party transaction fees apply to all transactions processed through third-party and alternate payment gateways". So on the Basic plan, Shopify adds 2% of each online-paid order on top of whatever your payment gateway charges.

The exception is manual payments. Shopify's help centre lists cash on delivery and bank transfers as manual payment types and says: "You aren't charged third-party transaction fees for manual payments." For stores with a lot of COD orders, that changes the maths.

Rough example: a store doing ₹3,00,000 a month in prepaid orders on Basic would pay ₹6,000 in Shopify transaction fees (2%), plus gateway charges, plus the plan. On Grow, the fee would be ₹3,000, but the plan costs more. Work out your own break-even using your expected prepaid sales.

Other Shopify costs

• Apps: many features (reviews, GST invoices, WhatsApp notifications, advanced filters) come from paid apps with their own monthly fees.
• Themes: check whether the theme you want is free or paid.
• Payment gateway charges: set by your gateway, not Shopify.

What WooCommerce costs

WooCommerce describes itself as "the free, open-source ecommerce platform for WordPress", with no monthly subscription. But a running store has other costs. WooCommerce's own pricing page names the main ones:

• Hosting: you need WordPress hosting that can handle your traffic and orders. WooCommerce's page gives a range in US dollars for "most stores" and says it scales with traffic. Indian hosting plans vary widely. In our view, very cheap shared hosting is a poor fit for a store that expects regular traffic.
• Extensions: features beyond the basics, such as subscriptions, advanced shipping or bookings, are often paid extensions priced per year.
• Payment processing: you pay only your gateway's fees; WooCommerce doesn't add its own per-order fee.
• Maintenance: updates to WordPress, WooCommerce, the theme and every plugin, plus backups and security. Either your team does this or you pay someone to.
• Domain, SSL, theme and development, as with any website.

In our view, WooCommerce isn't automatically cheaper. It's cheaper per order as sales grow, because there's no platform transaction fee, but you take on hosting and maintenance.

Payments: UPI, cards, net banking and COD

Indian customers expect UPI, cards, net banking and often cash on delivery.

• WooCommerce: the official WooCommerce marketplace lists a "Razorpay for WooCommerce" extension, developed by Razorpay and listed for India, describing support for cards, UPI, net banking, wallets, EMI and PayLater. Other Indian gateways offer their own WooCommerce plugins; check each gateway's documentation. Cash on delivery can be enabled in WooCommerce's own payment settings, under offline payments.
• Shopify: because Shopify Payments isn't available in India, you connect a third-party payment provider. Shopify's payment gateways page says each gateway sets its own pricing and there's no fee to integrate one. Check which providers are offered for Indian stores in your Shopify admin, and confirm the provider is accepting new merchants, before you commit.

Whichever platform you use, compare the gateway's own rates, settlement times and onboarding requirements directly with the gateway.

GST: what each platform does and doesn't do

This is general information, not tax advice. Confirm your GST setup with your chartered accountant.

Shopify

Shopify's GST help page (updated September 2025) says Shopify pre-fills some default GST rates, but they are "provided only as a starting point" and must be reviewed, because "the tax rate differs depending on the type of product". You can set different rates using collections. Two important points from the same page:

• "Shopify doesn't create a GST-compliant bill." It suggests a third-party GST invoicing service or an app.
• "Shopify helps to automate your taxes, but doesn't remit or file your taxes for you."

WooCommerce

WooCommerce lets you set up tax classes (such as standard and reduced rates) and tax rate tables by location. Its documentation says "we are not tax professionals" and recommends consulting a tax professional on what to charge. That documentation doesn't cover invoices, so plan how you'll produce GST-format invoices, usually through a plugin or custom work.

On both platforms, get your accountant to check the invoice format and product tax rates before launch, and place test orders.

SEO and control

Both platforms can run a store that ranks well. Search engines care about useful product and category pages, speed, clean structure and crawlability, not the platform name.

• Shopify handles hosting for you and, according to its help centre, every store automatically generates a sitemap.xml file. That removes some technical work. You work within Shopify's URL structure and platform rules.
• WooCommerce gives you full control of URLs, templates, server and structured data, because it's WordPress. The trade-off: performance is your job. A slow theme or overloaded hosting will hurt you. Our guide to Core Web Vitals on WordPress covers the fixes.

Data ownership is another difference. With WooCommerce, your orders and customer data live in your own database on your own hosting. With Shopify, they live on Shopify's platform, and you rely on its exports and apps to move them.

Who should choose which?

Choose Shopify if:

• you want to launch quickly and don't have anyone technical in-house;
• a standard catalogue, cart and checkout fits your business;
• you'd rather pay a predictable monthly fee than manage hosting and updates;
• a large share of your orders is COD, so the transaction fee affects fewer orders.

Choose WooCommerce if:

• you already have a WordPress website and want the shop on the same site;
• your prepaid sales are large enough that a per-order platform fee adds up;
• you need custom features, B2B pricing or tight integration with your own systems;
• you want full ownership of code and data, and have a developer or agency to maintain it.

For example, a Kolkata saree boutique starting online with a few hundred products and mostly Instagram traffic may be happier on Shopify at first. A Howrah-based industrial supplier with dealer pricing and an existing WordPress site is usually a better fit for WooCommerce.

Once the store is live, the harder work is bringing in buyers. See our digital marketing for ecommerce businesses.

Need help choosing or building your store?

We build WooCommerce and Shopify stores and set up payments, shipping and tracking. See our ecommerce website development service or ask us for a quote.

Based on Shopify's India pricing page and Help Center, and WooCommerce.com pages and documentation, as read on 18 October 2026. Prices and fees can change; check the official pages before deciding.

Sources

• Shopify India: Pricing
• Shopify Help Center: Shopify Payments supported countries
• Shopify Help Center: Third-party payment providers
• Shopify Help Center: Manual payment methods
• Shopify Help Center: GST in India FAQ
• Shopify Help Center: Finding your sitemap
• Shopify India: Payment gateways
• WooCommerce: About WooCommerce
• WooCommerce: Pricing
• WooCommerce Marketplace: Razorpay for WooCommerce
• WooCommerce docs: Setting up taxes
• WooCommerce docs: Cash on Delivery

Written by Koushik Paikar

Founder of Pocket Web Dev, a digital marketing and web development agency in Kolkata. About us