Shopify vs WooCommerce for UK retailers: fees VAT, payments

Last checked: October 2026. Shopify is a hosted service: you pay a monthly plan plus card fees and the cost of any apps, and the platform includes hosting. WooCommerce is a free plugin for WordPress: there is no platform fee, but you pay for hosting, plugins and whoever looks after the site.

For many UK retailers the real question is not which is cheaper in the abstract but who you want to be responsible for running the shop. Plan prices and fees below come from the UK pages of Shopify, WooCommerce, Stripe and PayPal as they stood on 20 October 2026. Running-cost estimates come from published guides and are labelled as such. Confirm every figure on the supplier's page before you decide, because prices change. Nothing here is tax or legal advice.

Shopify's UK pricing page listed these prices and Shopify Payments rates in pounds on 20 October 2026:

Plus is sold on 1- or 3-year terms, which can be cancelled when the term commitment expires. The page also offers a three-day free trial, after which most plans cost £1 a month for the first three months before standard monthly pricing applies. Shopify says there are no setup fees on any plan.

Online Amex and international cards cost more: 3.1% + 25p on Basic, falling to 2.3% + 25p on Plus. In-person card payments on Basic are 1.7% + 0p. The third-party fee is charged as an extra transaction fee when you use another payment provider instead of Shopify Payments. The page does not say whether the plan prices include VAT, so check the total at checkout.

WooCommerce itself is free. Its pricing page says there is no monthly subscription, no platform fee and no revenue share, and gives its own ranges in US dollars: $25 to $350 a month in hosting for most stores and $29 to $299 a year per extension. UK guides put the figures in pounds:

• Hosting: Compare the Cloud gives £3 to £25 a month for a small store with a provider such as SiteGround; Website Builder Insider says £5 to £50 a month.
• Plugins: essential paid plugins such as payment gateway, shipping calculator and backup add £100 to £300 a year, according to Compare the Cloud.
• Domain and theme: the same guide puts a domain at £10 to £15 a year and a premium theme at £40 to £80 as a one-off.
• First-year budget: Compare the Cloud estimates £400 to £800 for a small store, dropping to £250 to £500 in later years.

These figures assume you do the technical work yourself. The same guide notes that a store running ten plugins needs someone checking for conflicts after every WordPress update, and puts a WordPress maintenance service at £50 to £150 a month if you would rather not do that yourself.

With WooCommerce you choose your payment provider. Stripe's UK pricing page lists 1.5% + 20p for standard UK cards, 2.8% + 20p for premium UK cards, 2.5% + 20p for EEA cards and 3.15% + 20p for other international cards, plus 2% where currency conversion is required. PayPal's UK fee page, last updated on 1 October 2026, gives a standard rate of 2.9% plus a fixed fee for most domestic commercial transactions; for payments received in pounds the fixed fee is 30p.

One published model, Whito's year of fees based on prices read on 30 September 2026, found WooCommerce on Hostinger's managed hosting with Stripe cost about £428 a year on £20,000 of sales, against about £728 on Shopify Basic. It is a single example with specific assumptions, and Whito itself reminds readers that a WooCommerce site is maintained by the owner, so time or a developer has to be counted. The sensible use of a figure like that is to build your own version: your sales, your average order value and your preferred payment methods.

According to gov.uk, the standard VAT rate is 20% and applies to most goods and services, and a reduced rate of 5% applies to some goods and services. You must register for VAT if your total taxable turnover for the last 12 months goes over £90,000, or if you expect it to go over £90,000 in the next 30 days.

On the platforms, according to a Compare the Cloud comparison published in February 2026:

• Shopify: handles UK VAT well out of the box. Prices can be set as VAT-inclusive, and Shopify Tax provides threshold tracking and automated calculations. Shopify generates VAT invoices, but the guide points to an app for invoices that meet the full HMRC specification. Shopify does not file returns, so you still need a Making Tax Digital-compatible tool. Shopify's own pricing page lists VAT validation, exemptions and invoicing among its tax features.
• WooCommerce: requires manual configuration. You set rates by country and region and are responsible for keeping them current; plugins can automate rate lookups. If you sell digital products to EU customers, you will need a plugin that handles the One Stop Shop rules.

Software does not make you compliant. Whether you must register, how you show prices and how you account for VAT on shipping are matters for your accountant. Ask them before you build the shop, not after.

Think about the payment methods your customers expect: cards, wallets and any pay-later option. Both platforms support a range, through Shopify Payments or other providers on Shopify and through gateways and plugins on WooCommerce. What matters is what each method costs, how quickly money reaches your account and how disputes are handled.

For the checkout itself, UK consumer rules apply to either platform. Under regulation 30 of the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013, the cancellation period for a sales contract generally ends 14 days after the day the goods come into the consumer's physical possession; for a service contract it ends 14 days after the contract is entered into. Regulation 14 requires that, where placing an order means activating a button, the button is labelled only with the words ‘order with obligation to pay’ or a corresponding unambiguous formulation.

The government guidance tells traders to make a model cancellation form available where a right to cancel exists. Under section 28 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015, unless a time or period is agreed, goods must be delivered without undue delay and not more than 30 days after the contract is entered into.

The guidance document dates from December 2013, and the regulations have been amended since, so read the current text on legislation.gov.uk or ask a legal adviser.

A simple spreadsheet beats any headline comparison. For each platform, enter:

1. Plan or hosting for 36 months.
2. Apps or plugins you will actually use, at their annual prices.
3. Card fees: expected yearly sales, divided by average order value, multiplied by the fixed fee, plus the percentage on total sales.
4. Maintenance: your own time or a supplier's retainer, including security updates and testing after every major update.
5. Setup: design, product upload, migration and training, one-off.
6. VAT: whether you can reclaim it on each cost.

Run it at three sales levels, such as half, expected and double your forecast. Subscription-plus-percentage models and fixed-cost models react differently to growth, and the crossover point tells you more than a single average.

Whichever you choose today, assume you may move later. Ask how product data, customer records, order history and redirects can be exported, and test an export with a sample before you commit. On a hosted platform, check what you can take with you and in what format. On WooCommerce, check who holds the hosting account, domain and licences so you can hand the site to another supplier without a dispute.

• Shopify fits you if you want to launch quickly, prefer a predictable subscription and do not want to manage hosting and updates.
• WooCommerce fits you if you already run WordPress, want content and shop in one place and have someone to maintain it. The cost is control and responsibility.
• Neither may fit if you have complex pricing, trade accounts or system integrations. Then a custom build or a different platform may justify its cost.

A practical way to decide: list your products, shipping rules, payment methods and integrations, then price both options over three years including apps, plugins, fees and support.

We build online shops on both platforms and can tell you which suits your case. Shop projects are priced on request, and simple presentation websites start from €300 excluding VAT. See our services, browse the references or send your requirements through the quote form. For a conversation, use the contact page.

• Shopify pricing – Shopify UK
• WooCommerce pricing – WooCommerce
• Pricing and fees – Stripe UK
• PayPal merchant fees – PayPal UK
• Shopify vs WooCommerce vs BigCommerce for a UK DTC brand: VAT, GBP pricing and real transaction costs – Compare the Cloud
• How much does WooCommerce cost in the UK? – Website Builder Insider
• Shopify alternatives UK: a year of fees priced – Whito
• VAT rates – GOV.UK
• Register for VAT – GOV.UK
• Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013, regulation 30 – legislation.gov.uk
• Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013, regulation 14 – legislation.gov.uk
• Consumer Rights Act 2015, section 28 – legislation.gov.uk
• Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 implementing guidance – GOV.UK (BIS)