The short answer
If you mainly sell products online, choose Shopify. If your website exists to bring in calls, bookings or quote requests, or you publish a lot of content, choose WordPress.
That covers most of the businesses we talk to. The rest of this guide is for the cases in between.
When Shopify is the better fit
Shopify is built for selling. Checkout, payments, inventory, shipping rates and taxes work out of the box, and the platform takes care of hosting, security and updates for you.
- You sell physical products and want checkout to just work
- You manage inventory, variants like sizes and colors, and shipping
- You’d rather not deal with hosting or software updates
- You want to sell on social media and marketplaces too
The trade-offs: you pay for a monthly plan, many features come from paid apps, and you have less control over how content pages are structured than you would with WordPress.
When WordPress is the better fit
WordPress is built for content. It gives you full control over layout, SEO and page structure, and you own the whole site, from the code to the database.
- You run a service business: contractors, clinics, studios, professionals
- Customers find you through local search and useful content
- You want flexible pages and full control over the design
- You sell only a few products, or none at all
The trade-off: you’re responsible for hosting, updates and backups. That’s exactly what a care plan is for.
Side by side
| Shopify | WordPress | |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Online stores | Service businesses and content |
| Selling online | Built in | With WooCommerce |
| Hosting and updates | Handled by Shopify | Your host, or a care plan |
| Design control | Theme and custom sections | Full control |
| Running costs | Monthly plan and apps | Hosting and plugins |
| What you own | Your data and content | Everything, including the code |
What about WooCommerce?
WooCommerce turns WordPress into a store. It’s a good choice when content is the main event and the shop is a smaller part of the business, or when you need something Shopify can’t do.
When the store is the business, Shopify usually wins: less to maintain, and fewer things that can break.
Can I switch later?
Yes. Products, customers and orders can move between platforms, and redirects keep your search rankings in place. Migrations from WooCommerce, Wix and Squarespace are part of our Shopify service.
Switching is still work, though, so it pays to choose well the first time.