It is the first question in almost every website consultation: Shopify or WordPress? Both are excellent — for different jobs. Here is the honest comparison we give our own clients.

Choose Shopify if selling is the whole point

Shopify is a shop that happens to have pages. Payments, shipping, taxes, inventory, abandoned-cart emails — it all works out of the box, is PCI-compliant, and never falls over on Black Friday. Monthly fees start around £25 and you never think about hosting or security again.

Best for: product businesses, D2C brands, anyone who wants to sell from day one. Our Shopify builds start from £1,400 including design and product setup.

Choose WordPress if content and flexibility win

WordPress powers over 40% of the web because it can be anything: portfolio, booking system, membership site, blog-driven SEO machine. With WooCommerce it sells products too. You own everything and hosting costs pennies — but you (or your agency) are responsible for updates and backups.

Best for: service businesses, content-led SEO strategies, bespoke functionality. Our WordPress builds start from £1,200 — and we offer maintenance plans from £60/month so updates and backups are never your problem.

The quick decision table

• Selling physical products, want simplicity → Shopify
• Service business that needs to rank on Google → WordPress
• Content, blog and lead generation → WordPress
• Scaling e-commerce, no technical team → Shopify
• Both products and heavy content → WordPress + WooCommerce, or Shopify with a blog — talk to us first

Still not sure?

Tell us what you sell and where you want to be in two years — we will recommend the right platform even if it is the cheaper one. Free consultation here, or call 07464 964459.