If your business mainly sells products online, Shopify is usually the easier choice. If your site is mostly pages, information and forms, or you need something unusual like a marketplace, WordPress is usually the better fit. When neither can do what you need, a custom build is the third option. Here is how to tell which applies to you.
What is the real difference?
Shopify is a hosted shop. You pay a monthly fee, and Shopify runs the servers, security and checkout. You choose a theme, add your products and adjust it with apps.
WordPress is software that you host yourself, and it is free to download. You pay for hosting, usually a theme, and the plugins you need. Shops are added with WooCommerce. You get more freedom, and more things to look after.
The practical difference is who carries the upkeep. With Shopify the platform does most of it. With WordPress it is yours, or the person you pay to do it.
When should you choose Shopify?
Choose Shopify when:
- Selling products is the main job of the site.
- You want orders, stock, shipping and checkout to work with little attention.
- You would rather pay a monthly fee than manage hosting, updates and backups.
- You want to start selling quickly and add features later.
A good example is a fashion store. labels Islamabad sells designer wear, and customers shop by occasion and by designer, choose a size, and keep a wishlist. That is what a Shopify theme and a few apps are built to do, so the work was in setting up the collections, adjusting the theme to the brand and adding the extras that help a customer decide.
When should you choose WordPress?
Choose WordPress when:
- The site is mostly pages, articles and forms, and selling is secondary or absent.
- You need a layout or workflow that a shop template does not offer.
- You want your own team to edit the text, images and pages without a developer.
- You need a marketplace, a members' area or something with several kinds of users.
Two examples from our work. Jahn Housing is a site for a supported housing provider, with pages for tenants and landlords and an online application form. Nothing is sold, so a shop platform would be the wrong tool. CayMade is a marketplace where each independent maker has a store of their own. That is a job for WordPress with WooCommerce, not for a single-shop platform.
What does each one ask of you afterwards?
This is the question people forget to ask.
- Shopify: a monthly subscription, and the apps you add may have their own fees. Updates to the platform itself happen for you.
- WordPress: hosting, and regular updates to WordPress, the theme and every plugin. Backups. Security. Speed. None of it is hard, but if nobody owns it, the site slowly gets slower and less safe.
If you cannot name who would do that on a WordPress site, either pay for a maintenance arrangement or choose Shopify.
What about payments in Pakistan?
Check this before you decide, not after. Not every payment service works in every country, and the one a platform advertises first may not be available here. Many Pakistani shops rely on cash on delivery, bank transfer or a local payment provider connected through an app or plugin.
Make a short list of how your customers actually pay, then confirm that your chosen platform can take each one. We test the checkout before launch, whichever platform it is.
When is a custom build better?
When the thing you need is logic, not pages. The Delta Solar website is an example. A visitor enters their monthly electricity units and whether they have load shedding, and a calculator suggests a system size and type, then sends the answer to WhatsApp. That is a small application, so it was built with code, not with a theme.
Custom work costs more to build and more to look after, so it is the right choice only when a platform cannot do the job.
How do you decide?
Answer these in order:
- Is selling products the main job? If yes, start with Shopify.
- Is it mostly pages, forms or several kinds of users? Start with WordPress.
- Does it need its own logic, such as a calculator or a booking flow? Think about a custom build.
- Who will look after it next year? If the answer is nobody, favour the option that needs less looking after.
Can we help you choose?
We build and set up both. Atif Bashir builds our WordPress and WooCommerce sites, and our Shopify work covers setup, themes, payments, apps and moving a store over from another platform. See Commerce and CMS for what that includes.
If you are unsure which fits, that is a good place to begin. Tell us what you sell and how customers pay, and we will say which platform we would pick and why, before any quote.