Short answer: choose Shopify if you want a store you can run yourself with almost no technical upkeep, and you're happy to pay a monthly fee in exchange. Choose WooCommerce if you want full control, lower running costs as you grow, and you have someone (in-house or an agency) to look after updates and security. For most Kerala shops selling under a few hundred orders a month, both work well. The real differences are in fees, payment gateways and who maintains the site.
This guide compares the two for Indian stores specifically: rupee costs, Indian payment gateways, UPI and cash on delivery, GST invoices, shipping across India and to the Gulf, and Malayalam product pages.
What's the difference between Shopify and WooCommerce?
Shopify is a hosted service. You pay a monthly subscription, and Shopify runs the servers, security and updates. You choose a theme, add products and connect a payment gateway.
WooCommerce is a free plugin that turns a WordPress website into a store. You own the site and choose where it's hosted. That means more freedom, and also more responsibility: someone has to keep WordPress, the theme and the plugins updated.
What does each one cost in the first year, in rupees?
Here is what a typical small Kerala store (around 50 products, a few hundred orders a year) pays in year one. Prices checked on 30 September 2026, on Shopify's India pricing page and the payment gateways' own pricing pages.
| Cost | Shopify (Basic plan) | WooCommerce |
|---|---|---|
| Platform | ₹1,499 a month on annual billing (₹1,994 month to month), plus 18% GST (about ₹21,200 a year) | Free |
| Hosting | Included | ₹3,000–15,000 a year for decent Indian or managed WordPress hosting |
| Domain | ₹800–1,500 a year | ₹800–1,500 a year |
| Theme | Free, or a paid theme as a one-off purchase | Free, or a premium theme as a one-off purchase |
| Apps / plugins | Often ₹0–3,000 a month for reviews, GST invoices, WhatsApp, shipping | Many free; paid extensions are usually yearly licences |
| Payment gateway | Gateway fee (about 2% + GST) plus a Shopify transaction fee of 2% on Basic | Gateway fee only (about 2% + GST) |
| Setup by a developer | A one-off project fee, quoted on scope | A one-off project fee, quoted on scope |
| Maintenance | Mostly handled by Shopify | Updates, backups and security needed: in-house or an AMC |
The fee that surprises most Indian store owners: Shopify Payments isn't available in India, so every Indian Shopify store uses a third-party gateway such as Razorpay, PayU, Cashfree or CCAvenue. On top of the gateway's own fee, Shopify adds a transaction fee: 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow and 0.6% on Advanced. On ₹5 lakh of sales a year, that's ₹10,000 on the Basic plan that a WooCommerce store doesn't pay.
Where WooCommerce costs more: time. A WooCommerce store that nobody updates becomes slow and vulnerable. Budget for maintenance, either your own hours or a maintenance plan.
Which payment gateways work in India: Razorpay, PayU, Cashfree, PhonePe?
Both platforms connect to all the major Indian gateways:
- Shopify: Razorpay, PayU, Cashfree, CCAvenue and others are available as payment providers or apps. Remember the extra Shopify transaction fee on lower plans.
- WooCommerce: every major Indian gateway publishes an official WooCommerce plugin. No platform fee on top.
Standard pricing for most gateways is around 2% of the transaction, plus 18% GST on that fee, across UPI, cards, net banking and wallets. That works out at roughly 2.36% of each order. High-volume stores can negotiate lower rates.
UPI matters most. Most Kerala customers pay by UPI (Google Pay, PhonePe, Paytm). Make sure your checkout shows UPI first on mobile, whichever platform you use.
Can I offer cash on delivery (COD)?
Yes, on both. COD is still important for first-time buyers in Kerala, but it brings returns and failed deliveries. What works in practice:
- confirm every COD order by WhatsApp or a quick call before dispatching;
- consider a small COD fee, or a discount for prepaid orders;
- turn off COD for pincodes with high return rates.
On Shopify these rules usually need an app; on WooCommerce, a plugin or a little custom code.
How do GST invoices work on each platform?
If you're GST-registered, every order needs a proper tax invoice with your GSTIN, HSN codes and the right tax split (CGST and SGST inside Kerala, IGST for other states).
- Shopify: Shopify's tax settings can charge GST at checkout, but for a proper Indian tax invoice with HSN codes and the CGST/SGST/IGST split, most stores add a GST invoice app.
- WooCommerce: GST invoice plugins handle HSN codes, tax splits and invoice numbering.
Either way, have your chartered accountant check a sample invoice before launch.
Shipping within Kerala, across India and to the Gulf
Most Kerala stores use a shipping aggregator such as Shiprocket, which gives you several couriers (Delhivery, Blue Dart, Xpressbees and others) from one dashboard, with pincode checks and COD remittance.
- Shopify: install the aggregator's app, and orders sync automatically.
- WooCommerce: the aggregators provide WooCommerce plugins that do the same.
If you sell to Gulf customers (a common case for Kerala businesses with NRI buyers), check the aggregator's international rates and customs paperwork before you promise delivery times.
Can I have Malayalam and English on the same store?
Yes, on both.
- Shopify: built-in multi-language support plus translation apps. You'll still want a person to write or check the Malayalam; machine translation reads badly to local customers.
- WooCommerce: WPML or Polylang give you full control over each language version, including separate URLs that Google can index.
Who looks after the store day to day?
This is often the deciding question.
| Task | Shopify | WooCommerce |
|---|---|---|
| Adding products, orders, offers | Easy | Easy |
| Software updates | Done by Shopify | You or your developer |
| Security and backups | Done by Shopify | You or your developer (or a maintenance plan) |
| Site speed | Mostly handled; too many apps slow it down | Depends on hosting and plugins |
| Custom features | Limited to what apps allow | Almost anything, with a developer |
If nobody on your team is comfortable with WordPress, and you won't pay for maintenance, Shopify is the safer choice.
Which is better for SEO?
Both can rank well on Google. What matters more is how the store is built:
- fast pages on mobile (keep apps and plugins to what you actually use);
- unique product descriptions, not copied from the manufacturer;
- proper category pages with helpful text;
- structured data for products, prices and reviews.
WooCommerce gives slightly more control over URLs and technical SEO. Shopify handles the basics well without any setup.
Shopify or WooCommerce: which is better for your store?
| Choose Shopify if… | Choose WooCommerce if… |
|---|---|
| You want to launch quickly and run the store yourself | You want full ownership of the site and its data |
| You don't have anyone to maintain a website | You have a developer, or an agency on a maintenance plan |
| Your sales are modest and predictable, so the extra transaction fee stays small | Your sales are growing and platform fees would add up |
| You mainly need standard store features | You need custom features: B2B pricing, complex products, bookings |
| You're happy paying monthly for convenience | You'd rather pay less each month and invest in setup |
When neither is the right choice
Some businesses outgrow both: complex B2B pricing, large catalogues with unusual rules, deep integration with ERP or billing software, or a marketplace with many sellers. In those cases a custom ecommerce platform can cost less over time than forcing a template to fit.
Two examples from our work
Best Marine Automation, a marine spare-parts supplier in Bhavnagar, Gujarat, sells to ships and offshore rigs in more than 100 countries. Its catalogue has 500+ specialist parts, and buyers need bulk ordering, calibration and repair requests, and order tracking to their port. Those workflows ruled out a standard Shopify setup. We kept WooCommerce as the store's backend, for products, orders, payments and bulk pricing, and built the storefront in Next.js for fast pages worldwide. The team manages products and orders in WooCommerce as usual, while buyers get a fast, trustworthy catalogue. Read the full case study.
MS Bollywood Film Equipments, in Goregaon West, Mumbai, sells and rents everything a film shoot needs: cinema and video cameras, lenses, tripods, cranes and jibs, LED lighting from Godox, Nanlite, Aputure and Amaran, grip gear, and diffusion silks, grid cloths and skimmer frames, shipped across India. We built bollywoodfilmequipments.com the same way: WooCommerce manages the products, stock and orders, and the storefront is built in Next.js, so the catalogue loads quickly on the phones most buyers use.
Both stores show the same pattern: when a business outgrows a standard theme but still wants an admin it already knows, WooCommerce as the backend with a custom storefront is often the middle path between Shopify and a fully custom build.
Frequently asked questions
Is Shopify or WooCommerce cheaper in India? In the first year they can cost about the same once you add hosting, apps and setup. Over time WooCommerce is usually cheaper for growing stores, because it has no monthly subscription and no platform transaction fee. Shopify costs less in maintenance time.
Does Shopify charge extra fees in India? Yes. Because Shopify Payments isn't available in India, Shopify adds a transaction fee on top of your gateway's fee: 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow and 0.6% on Advanced (checked 30 September 2026).
Can I move from Shopify to WooCommerce later, or the other way? Yes. Products, customers and orders can be migrated. Plan the URL redirects carefully so you don't lose your Google rankings.
Which is easier for a beginner? Shopify. You can set up a basic store in a day without touching code. WooCommerce needs a little more setup, or a developer to do it for you.
Do both support UPI and COD? Yes. Both connect to Indian gateways that accept UPI, and both can offer cash on delivery.
Need help choosing, or building the store? Wosag Tech builds Shopify stores and WooCommerce stores for businesses across Kerala, from our office at HiLITE Business Park, Kozhikode. Talk to us about your store.