Most WordPress vs Shopify comparisons assume you’re building an online store. Many businesses aren’t. They run a service business with a WordPress site that brings in leads, and they want to sell a few products on the side: a book, a kit, gift cards, a short course. For that business, the question isn’t which platform is better. It’s how to add a shop without breaking what already works.
There are three ways to do it. I priced all three with Shopify’s and WooCommerce’s current fees, checked on October 19, 2026.
The example business
- A service business with an existing WordPress site that ranks
- Five products, about 20 orders a month at $40 each ($800 in sales)
- US customers paying by card
Three ways to sell, and what each adds per month
| Added each month | WooCommerce on your site | Shopify Buy Button on your site | Whole site on Shopify |
|---|---|---|---|
| Platform | $0 | $29 yearly ($39 monthly) | $29 yearly ($39 monthly) |
| Card fees | $29.20 | $29.20 | $29.20 |
| Total | $29.20 | $58.20 ($68.20) | $58.20 ($68.20) |
| WordPress hosting | Keep paying it | Keep paying it | Stops |
Card fees are the same everywhere: WooPayments, Stripe and Shopify Payments all charge 2.9% plus 30 cents per US card payment. On a $40 order that’s $1.46, so 20 orders cost $29.20 whichever way you sell.
WooCommerce adds the least. It’s a free WordPress plugin, so on a site you already host, the only new cost is card fees.
The Shopify Buy Button costs a full plan. Shopify’s Buy Button puts its products and checkout on any website, including a WordPress page, and it comes with every Shopify plan. The catch is which plans you can buy. The $5 Starter plan is, in Shopify’s words, “only available if you’re already on the plan”. A new merchant starts at Basic, $29 a month billed yearly, on top of keeping WordPress.
Moving the whole site to Shopify costs the same as the Buy Button, but you stop paying for WordPress hosting. It also means rebuilding every page, which is where the real cost sits.
What Shopify lacks for a service business
Shopify is built to run a store, and it does that well. For a site that wins customers with service pages and a blog, a few things work against you.
Fixed URLs. Shopify puts every regular page under /pages/ and every blog post under /blogs/ plus the blog’s name. A live Shopify store like Allbirds shows the pattern: /pages/careers, /blogs/the-perch/how-to-wash-running-shoes. If your WordPress service page lives at /teeth-whitening/, on Shopify it becomes /pages/teeth-whitening. Every page that ranks today needs a redirect to its new address, or it loses those rankings.
Simpler blog organization. WordPress groups posts with categories and tags. Shopify groups them with tags, or by splitting posts across separate blogs. For a business that publishes a lot, WordPress categories are easier to build a clear structure on.
No extra logins on Basic. Shopify’s pricing page lists additional staff accounts from the Grow plan, which starts at $89 a month billed yearly and includes five. On Basic, only the owner logs in. On WordPress, you can add your office manager or marketer as a user for free, with a role that limits what they can change.
What WordPress lacks
To be fair to Shopify, WordPress has real gaps too.
Someone has to maintain it. WordPress, the theme and every plugin need updates, and a shop raises the stakes, because a broken update can stop checkout. Shopify runs the platform and checkout for you.
It’s not built for a big catalog. WooCommerce handles large stores, but they need better hosting and more care. If products are heading towards being the main business, Shopify’s tools for inventory, shipping and selling on other channels are ready from day one.
Speed depends on the setup. Adding a shop adds pages and scripts. On good hosting with a lean setup that’s fine. If your site is already slow, fix that first; see how to speed up a WordPress site.
If you add WooCommerce, keep the rest of the site safe
A few setup choices stop a small shop from affecting the pages that bring in your leads:
- Keep the shop in its own section, such as
/shop/, so your service pages and blog keep their URLs. - Leave the cart, checkout and account pages out of page caching, as WooCommerce’s own documentation advises, because these pages show information for the current customer.
- Place a test order after every update, before customers find a problem for you.
When Shopify is the right call
Move to Shopify when:
- products are becoming the main business, not a side line
- the catalog will keep growing
- nobody is maintaining your WordPress site, and nobody will
In that case, WooCommerce vs Shopify prices a full store on both, and WordPress alternatives covers the other platforms worth a look.
Which one I’d pick
For a service business selling a few products, I’d keep WordPress and add WooCommerce. It adds card fees and nothing else, your pages keep their URLs and rankings, and your team keeps its logins.
I’d only use the Shopify Buy Button if you specifically want Shopify’s checkout and admin, because you’re paying for a full Shopify plan to sell a handful of products. And I’d only move the whole site once products bring in most of the money.
If you’d like WooCommerce added to your site and set up properly, that’s part of my WordPress development work. If you’re planning a new site around both services and products, start with web design.
