Shopify is worth it if you sell physical or simple digital products and want checkout, payments, shipping and tax handled for you, starting at $37 CAD a month on the Basic plan paid yearly, per Shopify's published pricing. It is not worth it for content sites, service businesses, or stores needing custom logic Shopify apps cannot cover.
Choosing an e-commerce platform is a commitment that lasts years. Your catalogue, customer accounts, order history, payment setup and every app you install get built around it. Moving later takes real time and budget, even when the data exports cleanly.
The decision usually comes down to three paths: Shopify, WooCommerce on WordPress, or a custom build. Each one is right for some brands and an expensive mistake for others. The hard part is getting the numbers in Canadian dollars and a straight answer on where Shopify stops fitting.
We build Shopify and WooCommerce stores at DigiBenders in Saint John, New Brunswick, and we have built custom Shopify apps for stores whose rules went past what the App Store offers. Below you will find Shopify's costs in CAD, what the fee does and does not cover, honest comparisons with WooCommerce and WordPress, the cases where Shopify is the wrong pick, and five questions to settle the decision before you commit.
Shopify charges a monthly plan fee plus a card fee on every sale, and both depend on the plan you choose. Higher plans cost more per month but list lower card rates, so the right tier depends on how much you sell.
The figures below come from Shopify's pricing page for Canada, in Canadian dollars.
| Plan | Pay yearly (CAD) | Card rate, from (CAD) | What the plan adds |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | $37/month | 2.8% + 30¢ | Sell online, in person and in AI chats |
| Grow | $99/month | 2.6% + 30¢ | Up to 5 staff accounts, up to 50% off shipping |
| Advanced | $389/month | 2.4% + 30¢ | Up to 15 staff accounts, live third-party shipping rates |
| POS Pro add-on | +$119/month | Not listed | In-store inventory, in-store pickup and staff permissions |
These are the rates the page shows under its pay-yearly option. Check the month-to-month rate on the same page before you set a budget, because that is the figure you pay if you skip the annual commitment.
New stores can start on a trial. Shopify's published pricing advertises 3 days free, then $1 a month for 3 months, which gives you time to load products and test checkout before the full fee applies.
The plan fee is where the budget starts, not where it ends. These are the extras that show up on real store budgets:
The plan fee buys a hosted store with checkout, payments, security and core selling tools already running. It does not buy a store designed around your brand, your catalogue or your workflows, and that is the part to budget for separately.
For the build side of the budget, our guide to how much a website costs in Canada breaks down where design and development money goes in CAD.
Choose Shopify if you want the platform, hosting and security handled for one monthly fee. Choose WooCommerce if you want to own the code, pick your own host, and have someone on hand to maintain it.
WooCommerce's pricing page lists its figures in US dollars and makes the case for its own model, so read it as one side of the argument. It describes WooCommerce as a free, open-source platform for WordPress with no monthly subscription and no revenue share, hosting at $25 to $350 a month for most stores, and paid extensions at $29 to $299 a year each.
| Factor | Shopify (CAD) | WooCommerce (USD, WooCommerce pricing page) |
|---|---|---|
| Ownership | Hosted platform; your store runs on Shopify's servers under a subscription | Free, open-source plugin for WordPress; you own the code and choose the host |
| Platform fee | Monthly plan fee by tier (see the cost table above) | No platform fee and no monthly subscription |
| Hosting | Included in the plan | $25 to $350/month for most stores, scaling with traffic |
| Add-ons | App subscriptions, priced by each app developer | $29 to $299/year per extension |
| Card processing | Card rates by plan through Shopify Payments | About 2.50% to 2.90% + 30¢ per transaction with WooPayments |
| Third-party payment gateway | Additional per-transaction fee on top of the processor's rate | No additional fee |
| Maintenance | Shopify handles platform updates, hosting and security | You or your developer handle WordPress, plugin and server updates, backups and security |
| Best fit | Product brands that want to sell quickly with low technical overhead | Brands with a developer on hand, an existing WordPress site, or unusual requirements |
There is no fixed answer to the three-year cost question. Shopify's cost is predictable: the plan fee every month, plus card fees and app subscriptions. WooCommerce's cost depends on your hosting tier, how many paid extensions you run, and the hours someone spends on updates, security and fixes. A WooCommerce store with budget hosting and no developer time planned only looks inexpensive until a plugin update breaks checkout during a sale. Price the maintenance hours honestly before you compare.
If content drives your traffic and the store is a secondary revenue line, WordPress is usually the right home, with Shopify handling checkout through the Buy Button or a headless setup. If the store drives revenue and you publish now and then, Shopify's built-in blog is enough.
The Shopify vs WordPress question is really about where your content lives. A recipe brand, an outdoor gear brand with buying guides, or a publisher with a merch shop all need a strong content system next to the store. There are three workable setups.
This works for launch announcements, care guides and occasional posts. The limits show up when you need custom content types, deeper category structures or flexible page layouts, and blog URLs follow Shopify's fixed pattern.
WordPress runs the site and the blog, and the Buy Button embeds Shopify products and checkout into any page. This suits brands with a short product list and a deep content library. The trade-off is two systems to manage and a shopping experience that sits partly outside your main site.
A custom front end pulls products and checkout from Shopify's back end. The Shopify Plus page describes a headless API layer that lets you host anywhere, along with a React-based headless stack offered at no extra cost. You get full design and content freedom, but you also take on development work and depend on developers for changes.
We design and build on Webflow, WordPress and Shopify through our web design and development services, so the platform follows the content plan, not the other way round.
Shopify is not worth it when your business model needs rules its apps cannot express, or when you are not really running a store. In those cases you pay a monthly fee for the platform and then pay again to work around it.
Shopify Plus is the enterprise step for complex businesses. The Plus page describes B2B features for wholesale buying, APIs for connecting third-party systems, and headless options. Before you move up, list the exact rules you need and confirm Plus covers each one, because a bigger plan does not automatically mean your logic fits.
If Plus still does not cover it, the next step is a custom Shopify app or a fully custom build. Our custom app development team scopes both from your written requirements.
Shopify was the right base for the store, and the business logic needed custom code on top of it. We built a custom Shopify marketplace app with a built-in affiliate network, product sync and a commission engine. The store's model was a marketplace rather than a single-brand shop: products had to sync in, affiliates had to be part of a network, and commissions had to be calculated by an engine that followed the store's own rules. Those are business rules, not storefront features, so we built them as one custom app running on top of Shopify instead of forcing the model into a standard store setup. Our takeaway for any brand weighing Shopify is to write down your rules before you browse the App Store. If the list describes how money moves between people, plan for custom development from day one. The full build is in our Shopify custom app case study.
Answer these five questions and the right platform usually becomes obvious. Each answer points to Shopify, WooCommerce or a custom build.
If two or more answers point to a custom build, get that scoped before you sign up for any plan.
Shopify earns its fee when you sell products and want checkout, payments, shipping and tax handled without running servers. Budget for the plan fee in CAD plus card fees, apps and theme work, and the numbers stay predictable. WooCommerce makes sense when you want to own the code and have someone to maintain it. WordPress with the Buy Button or a headless build fits brands where content leads. When your rules look like a business model, such as complex subscriptions, B2B tiers or a marketplace, plan for custom development from the start instead of stacking apps and hoping they hold. If you are still weighing the options, book a free consultation with our team in Saint John and we will map your requirements to the right platform.
