You know your product inside out, but the moment “website” comes up, everything stalls. Maybe you’ve worked with an agency that promised a finished site and left you with something half built and hard to edit. Or maybe you’re doing everything yourself, from sourcing to sampling to sales, and simply don’t have the hours to figure out web development on top of it all.
Before you touch a website builder
Two things come before any design decision.
First, your domain. If your brand name is available as a .com or .com.au, register it before someone else does, even if you’re months away from launching.
Second, your email. Once the domain is live, set up an email address on that domain (yourname@yourbrand.com) rather than running your business from a Gmail address. It looks more established to wholesale buyers and stockists, and it’s a small monthly cost through your domain provider or a service like Google Workspace.
Neither of these needs a developer. Between your domain registrar’s own setup guides and AI tools that can walk you through the steps, this is genuinely doable yourself, even with no IT background.
WordPress or Shopify: what does it actually cost?
Figures below are in AUD unless noted, and GST (10%) applies on top for Australian businesses.
Getting started
Shopify Basic runs AU$56/mo (AU$42/mo annual); Grow is AU$149/mo (AU$114/mo annual). WordPress and WooCommerce are free software, but need hosting. VentraIP (Australian-owned) starts around AU$9.25/mo, roughly doubling at renewal. SiteGround’s GrowBig plan starts around AU$7.49/mo, renewing at AU$39.99/mo, over five times the intro rate.
Always check the second-year price, not just the sign-up offer.
Running the store: themes and page builders
Shopify’s free default theme, Horizon, is ready out of the box. Premium themes exist if you want something different, but in our experience they mostly differ in layout, not in anything underneath.
A tip worth remembering: what actually makes a store look premium isn’t the theme. It’s your product photography, and the space you leave between content. Give your images and text generous breathing room, more than feels natural at first, and the page reads as luxury. Cram everything together and no theme fixes that.
WordPress needs a page builder for the same drag-and-drop experience, and Elementor is the most common choice (Pro from ~AU$90/year, single site). You’re building every page yourself, and the same rule applies: the layout is just a frame. Photography and spacing do the actual work of looking expensive.
One thing to flag: Shopify’s Horizon theme comes ready to go, but WooCommerce and Elementor give you a blank canvas. You’re building the site structure yourself from scratch. If you want a pre-built WooCommerce theme instead, that’s a separate plugin, and a separate cost.
One of our clients used a budget theme called Shoptimizer, and while the price was right, they ran into real difficulty customising it and weren’t happy with how it turned out. Cheap themes can save money upfront but cost more in frustration later.
Security
SSL and PCI compliance sound technical, but they boil down to one thing: keeping your customers’ card details safe when they pay. Without them, browsers show a “Not Secure” warning, and customers won’t buy from a site that looks unsafe. Shopify includes SSL, PCI compliance and firewall protection in the subscription, nothing extra to pay. WordPress gets SSL free through your hosting too, and a payment gateway like Stripe or PayPal covers PCI, since card details never touch your site directly. What WordPress doesn’t include is firewall protection against hacking attempts. A free plugin (Wordfence) covers the basics, but real-time protection costs ~AU$180/yr, and Sucuri starts from ~AU$350/yr.
Selling internationally
Shopify Markets is built into every plan. WooCommerce needs plugins for multi-currency and localisation, more flexible, more to manage.
Newsletter and email marketing
Once your store is live, email is one of the most effective ways to stay in front of customers, announce new collections, and bring people back to buy. Both Shopify and WordPress connect to the same tools.
Both platforms connect to the same email marketing tools. The most popular options are:
- Klaviyo — the most widely used for e-commerce, with strong automation and Shopify integration. Free up to 250 contacts, then ~AU$30/mo at 500 contacts, ~AU$225/mo at 10,000.
- Mailchimp — well known and easy to start with. Free up to 500 contacts, then from ~AU$20/mo. Less e-commerce-focused than Klaviyo.
Shopify bundles a basic free email tool, which works for simple sends. Most growing stores move to a dedicated platform like Klaviyo as their contact list builds.
Other costs that sneak up on people
- Apps and plugins on both platforms for reviews, upsells, SEO, cart recovery
- Payment processing: 1.6–1.75% + 30¢ via Shopify Payments; similar via WooCommerce gateways
- Renewal jumps: hosting and plugins often rise sharply in year two
- Your own time: design, copywriting and photography take longer than expected either way
Maintenance
This is the part people underestimate most.
Shopify apps live on the developer’s own servers, not on your site, so most updates happen automatically in the background. Occasionally you’ll get a notification asking you to approve new permissions, but there’s rarely anything to install yourself.
WordPress is the opposite. Every plugin lives on your own site, and updating is entirely on you. Before any update, you’re meant to back up your site first, in case something breaks. Then you go into your plugin list and update each one individually, one click at a time. If you’re running fifteen or twenty plugins, that’s fifteen or twenty separate updates, and it comes around again every week. It’s tedious, and it’s easy to let it slide until something actually breaks.
Cost Comparison At A Glance
| Category | WooCommerce | Shopify |
|---|---|---|
| Starting cost (Year 1) | Software free hosting ~AU$7.49–9.25/m intro | AU$56/m Basic (AU$42 annual) |
| Renewal cost (Year 2+) | Jumps sharply, SiteGround to AU$39.99/mo; VentraIP roughly doubles | Same subscription price |
| Theme / page builder | Elementor Pro ~AU$90/yr (single site) | Free (Horizon) premium themes one-off |
| Security | Not included (Wordfence ~AU$180/yr / Sucuri ~AU$350/yr) | Included (SSL, PCI) |
| Selling internationally | Needs plugins Flexible, but more setup | Shopify Markets built in |
| Newsletter / email | Needs plugins | Same tool options basic free tier bundled |
| Payment processing | Similar range to Shopify | 1.6–1.75% + 30¢ (Shopify Payments) |
| Ongoing extras | Plugin stack grows watch renewal dates | App subscriptions grow GST added at checkout |
So, Which One Should You Choose?
There is no single right answer. The best platform depends on how much you want to manage yourself, how quickly you need to launch, and where you plan to take the business.
If you already have some UX/UI sense, or someone in-house who can help, WooCommerce is genuinely the better platform for shaping a site around your exact brand. It bends to whatever you want. If that’s not your situation and you’re doing this entirely alone, Shopify is probably the easier road. You upload your product photos, and most of the rest is already built for you.
What the numbers do show is that Shopify’s pricing is more predictable. What you pay in year one is what you pay in year two. WordPress can cost less upfront, but the renewal jumps on hosting and plugins add up, and the ongoing maintenance takes time you may not have.
If you are building your first store and want to focus on your product rather than your website, Shopify removes a lot of the friction. If you are still weighing it up, feel free to reach out. We have worked alongside a lot of fashion startups, and between our experience with them and our in-house technical team, we are happy to help you think it through before you commit to anything.
