Shopify vs WooCommerce vs Custom Ecommerce: Cost, Integrations and Migration

Should I use Shopify, WooCommerce or custom ecommerce development?

Start with Shopify if you want the least to maintain, WooCommerce if you are already on WordPress and want to own your hosting, and custom only when a specific rule (B2B pricing, complex ordering, deep ERP sync or unusual traffic) does not fit either. For a growing US or UK small business, the best platform is the one whose limits you will not hit in the next two to three years, not the one with the most features today.

The three options in one table

Shopify's US pricing page lists Basic at $19, Grow at $49 and Advanced at $299 a month billed yearly ($25, $65 and $399 billed monthly), with Plus starting at $2,300 a month. Its UK page lists £19, £49 and £259 a month billed yearly (£25, £65 and £344 monthly) and Plus from £1,800 a month (Shopify US pricing, Shopify UK pricing). The WooCommerce plugin page says its core platform is free and that it offers paid upgrades and extensions (WooCommerce on WordPress.org).

Which platform suits a growing small business

• You sell a normal catalogue to consumers and want to spend your time on products and marketing: a hosted platform. In our view this is the right default for most US and UK small stores.
• Your site is already WordPress and content drives your sales: WooCommerce keeps one system, as long as someone owns updates and backups (see our maintenance cost guide).
• Customers see different prices, order in bulk, configure products or the store must read stock and orders from an ERP in real time: a custom or headless build, often keeping a platform for the catalogue and checkout and adding custom code only for the part that does not fit.
• You are not sure yet: launch on a hosted platform, keep your product data and domain in your own accounts, and plan the exit before you need it. Our guide on AI website builders vs custom development covers that graduation path.

Building custom features without a full custom store

Most "custom ecommerce" requests are one custom feature, not a custom store: a quote builder, trade accounts, subscription boxes, a product configurator or a stock sync. The cheapest sound route is usually to keep the platform for catalogue, checkout and order management and build the special part as an app or a separate service that talks to it through the platform's API. A fully custom storefront (headless commerce) earns its cost when page speed, design freedom or multi-region rules matter more than the convenience of themes. Our custom ecommerce development service builds that kind of headless storefront, and the custom features that sit alongside a platform, and we will say when a theme is enough.

Can Shopify or my website integrate with my ERP, CRM, inventory or accounting software such as Xero or Sage?

Usually, yes. Shopify's Admin API exists so apps and integrations can extend the Shopify admin, and most connectors for ERP, CRM, inventory and accounting tools are built on it. The questions that decide cost are which system is the source of truth for stock, prices and customers, how often data must sync, and what happens when a sync fails.

Shopify's documentation describes its Admin API as the way to "build apps and integrations that extend and enhance the Shopify admin" (Shopify Admin API). WooCommerce and custom sites integrate the same way, through APIs. Off-the-shelf connector apps cover common pairings; check each connector's listing for exactly what it syncs, because "integrates with Xero" can mean anything from a daily sales summary to every invoice line.

Decide these before anyone writes code

1. Source of truth. For each item (stock levels, prices, product data, customers, orders, invoices) write down which system owns it. Two systems that both think they own stock is the most common cause of overselling.
2. Direction and timing. One-way or two-way, real time or scheduled. Real-time two-way sync costs the most to build and test.
3. Failure handling. What happens when the accounting or ERP system is down: retry, queue, alert someone. Ask to see this in the quote.
4. Mapping. Tax codes, SKUs, customer accounts and currencies rarely match between systems; budget time to map them.
5. Ownership. API keys and connector accounts should be in your business's name, not your developer's.

Use a connector app when it does what you need; commission a custom integration when the connector cannot model your pricing, stock or approval rules. The same advice applies to CRMs. Our web development service covers custom integrations with existing CRM, ERP and business systems.

How do I migrate an ecommerce website, for example from WordPress to Shopify, without losing Google traffic?

Map every old URL to its closest new URL and redirect it with a server-side permanent (301 or 308) redirect, keep the redirects for at least a year, submit a new sitemap and watch Search Console. Google says to expect temporary ranking fluctuation; a mapped, redirected move recovers, an unmapped one loses the traffic those URLs earned.

Google's guidance on site moves with URL changes recommends mapping old URLs to new ones, using permanent server-side redirects, redirecting to relevant pages rather than the home page, submitting a sitemap of the new URLs and keeping redirects for as long as possible, generally at least a year. It warns of "temporary fluctuation in site ranking during the move" (Google Search Central).

An ecommerce migration checklist

1. Crawl and export the old site: every product, category, blog post and page URL, plus the URLs with traffic and links in Search Console and analytics.
2. Map URLs one to one. Platforms impose their own URL patterns (Shopify uses fixed prefixes for products and collections), so most URLs will change; each needs a mapping.
3. Move the data, not just the products: customers, order history if you need it, reviews, product images, alt text, titles and meta descriptions.
4. Load the redirects before launch and test a sample, including the top 100 pages by traffic.
5. Keep structured data and internal links pointing at the new URLs.
6. After launch: submit the new sitemap, check Search Console coverage and 404 reports weekly, and fix gaps quickly.

The same rules apply to a redesign that keeps the platform; see when to redesign your website for the redesign SEO checklist.