Shopify and WooCommerce are the two platforms most Indian brands end up choosing between when they want their own store. Both can take UPI and card payments through Indian gateways, both can do cash on delivery, and both can connect to shipping tools like Shiprocket.

So the real question isn’t “which one is better?” It’s “which one fits how you want to run your business?” This guide compares them on the things that actually matter for an Indian brand: cost in rupees, payments, GST, shipping, and who looks after the store once it’s live.

The one-line difference

Shopify is a hosted service. You pay a monthly fee, and Shopify runs the servers, security and updates. You run the shop.
WooCommerce is free, open-source software that adds a store to a WordPress website. You (or your developer) choose the hosting and look after updates, backups and security.

Everything else follows from that.

Cost: monthly fees vs per-order fees

Shopify

From Shopify’s India pricing page, the Basic plan is ₹1,994/month paid monthly, or ₹1,499/month paid yearly, before tax. Hosting and an SSL certificate are included.

The cost that surprises people is per order. Shopify’s own payment system isn’t available in India, so you’ll use a third-party gateway like Razorpay, and Shopify charges a third-party transaction fee on those orders: 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow, 0.6% on Advanced. That’s on top of the gateway’s fee.

The fee doesn’t apply to manual payment methods like cash on delivery.

WooCommerce

WooCommerce’s pricing page says the core plugin is free, with “no platform fees, no revenue share”. You pay for:

Hosting. WooCommerce’s own estimate is $25–$350/month “for most stores”. Indian hosting plans can cost less; what matters is that the host is fast and reliable for a store, not just a blog.
Extensions. WooCommerce lists $29–$299/year per extension for paid add-ons. Many free plugins exist too.
Your gateway’s fee. Same as on Shopify, minus the Shopify transaction fee.

What that means in practice

On a ₹1,000 prepaid order with Razorpay (2% fee plus 18% GST on the fee, per Razorpay’s pricing):

	Shopify Basic	WooCommerce
Gateway fee + GST	₹23.60	₹23.60
Platform fee on the order	₹20 (2%)	₹0
Total per order	₹43.60	₹23.60

That ₹20 gap per ₹1,000 is WooCommerce’s biggest advantage. But it isn’t free money: you’re trading it for hosting costs and the time (or developer cost) to keep a WordPress site updated and secure. If most of your orders are COD, the gap shrinks, because Shopify doesn’t charge its fee on COD orders.

For a fuller breakdown of every rupee on the Shopify side, see Shopify website cost in India.

Payments: Razorpay, PhonePe, Cashfree and COD

Both platforms work with the main Indian gateways:

Razorpay has an official Shopify app and an official WooCommerce plugin.
PhonePe PG publishes a Shopify plugin guide.
Cashfree has a Shopify integration too.

Whichever platform you choose, the gateway still has to approve your business (KYC and website checks), and that takes the same time either way. I’ve written a step-by-step Razorpay setup guide for Shopify that covers what Razorpay checks.

COD: Shopify has cash on delivery built in as a manual payment method. WooCommerce also includes a “Cash on delivery” option in its core payment settings. On either platform, you’ll probably want extra tools for COD order confirmation, because refused COD parcels cost you shipping both ways.

GST and invoices

Neither platform gives you a fully GST-ready setup out of the box, so plan for this whichever way you go.

On Shopify, the GST in India FAQ says a few important things:

Shopify can’t add multiple tax lines, so you charge the combined CGST + SGST rate for in-state orders and IGST for out-of-state orders.
You add HSN codes in the product’s HS tariff code field.
“Shopify doesn’t create a GST-compliant bill,” so you’ll need a GST invoicing app or a local service.

On WooCommerce, tax rates are set up in WooCommerce’s tax settings, and GST invoices usually come from an invoice plugin. Because it’s open, a developer can shape invoices exactly to your accountant’s needs, but that’s work someone has to do and maintain.

Either way, check your GST registration and tax rates with a chartered accountant. Platform settings can’t tell you what rate applies to your product.

Shipping

Shiprocket and similar aggregators connect to both platforms, pulling in orders so you can book couriers and print labels. Shopify’s App Store makes this a few clicks; on WooCommerce it’s a plugin. Courier rates are set by the aggregator, not the platform, so this doesn’t change your per-parcel cost.

Upkeep: who looks after the store?

This is where most decisions are really made.

Shopify: Shopify handles hosting, security patches and platform updates. Your ongoing work is products, orders and marketing. When something breaks, Shopify’s 24/7 support is a first stop, and apps are supported by their developers.

WooCommerce: WordPress, WooCommerce, your theme and every plugin need regular updates, and an update can occasionally clash with another plugin. You’ll need backups, security, and a host that can handle a traffic spike during a sale. If you have a developer on hand (or are one), that’s routine. If you don’t, it’s the part that tends to get neglected.

Speed to launch

Both can launch quickly when someone experienced does the setup. Shopify usually gets to “able to take an order” faster, because there’s no hosting to set up and the payment and shipping apps install from inside the admin. That’s why I usually recommend Shopify for a first store. At The Webcrafters, milestone 1 is a store that’s live and able to take orders within 24 hours, for everything in my control. Gateway approval follows the gateway’s own timeline.

Who should pick which

Choose Shopify if:

You want to focus on products and marketing, not servers and updates
You don’t have a developer on call
You want to start selling fast and add features as you grow
A mix of COD and prepaid orders means the 2% fee on Basic is manageable for you

Choose WooCommerce if:

You already run a WordPress site with content that brings in traffic
You have, or will pay for, ongoing developer support
Your prepaid volume is high enough that per-order platform fees really add up
You need unusual customisation that Shopify apps can’t handle

Consider a custom build if your product flow is unusual (configurators, bookings, complex B2B pricing) and neither platform fits without heavy workarounds.

A sensible way to decide

Estimate your monthly prepaid sales in rupees. Multiply by 2% to see what Shopify Basic’s transaction fee would cost you each month.
Price out WooCommerce hosting you’d trust for a store, plus the paid plugins you’d need, plus someone’s time to maintain it.
Compare the two numbers, then ask yourself honestly who will look after the site in a year’s time.

For most new Indian brands, Shopify Basic is the simpler start, and you can revisit the decision once your volume is known. If you’re still at the very beginning, my step-by-step checklist for starting an online store in India covers GST, payments and shipping in the right order.

Need a second opinion?

If you’d like me to look at your products, your expected order mix and your budget and tell you which platform I’d pick, get in touch. I build on both Shopify and custom stacks, so I’ll tell you what fits, not what’s easiest for me to sell. You can see my pricing here.

Shopify vs WooCommerce in India: which should your brand use?