WordPress or Shopify? What’s Better?

When I started my first ecommerce business in 2007 I sold herbal products to people with fat metabolism issues. I started with WordPress. Shopify didn’t exist.

Since then I’ve extensively used Shopify, 1ShoppingCart, Volusion, Wix, Ecwid, Magento, Marketecture-Stores Online, BigCommerce and 15 other ecommerce platforms.

You name it, I’ve given all of those platforms their chance.

Now I’m not going to bore you with the technicalities, but suffice it to say 2 systems rose to the top.

Yep, you guess it.

WordPress and Shopify.

Those are the two website systems/builders that have continued to shine among all the rest.

Let’s discuss the biggest, most important pros and cons to you as an online entrepreneur so you can make the best choice for your time and money.

12 Advantages of using WordPress

1. You can’t get banned or shut down. Because you own the system 100% you can trust your site won’t get taken down or banned like you can on Shopify. I discuss this in more detail below.
2. It’s 100% Flexible. you can literally use WordPress to build any type of site you desire including a dropship store. You can build funnels, a blog, affiliate site or store, membership sites, service business sites, etc.
3. It’s very popular. WordPress currently powers 44.1% of all websites in the world as of 2024. Something good has to be going on. And that something “good” comes in the form of 100% ownership, control & flexibility for you.
4. WordPress is Free but requires your own secure WordPress host 
   • The open-source software called WordPress itself is free. The only thing you’d invest in is a great hosting provider. Don’t get confused with WordPress.com and WordPress.org – The .org version of WordPress is the one you want which gives you full freedom and control. It’s super easy to install with a click of a button on the domain name of your choice through this WordPress hosting provider.
   • From there you’ll be set to customize your site or store the way you want. Follow this free tutorial to walk you through the process.
5. Affordability
   • You can’t beat free! With Shopify you’ll be paying at least $468 a year plus app fees on the cheapest plan they have. With WordPress you just pay for a great host for about $65 a year here. The required plugins for WordPress are free. Yes you can pay for premium WordPress plugins but you don’t need them to start.
6. Unlimited sites and stores at no additional cost!
   • That’s right. If/when you want to have another site/store it won’t cost you another fee. With Shopify you would need to pay at least another $39 a month ($468/yr) for another store.
7. Greater privacy & 100% control
   • Since WordPress is open-source there are thousands of designers and coders constantly contributing to improving WordPress every day. Because of those great people you gain the advantage of using software that is extremely flexible and gives you 100% control over your sites and business. It’s your asset. It’s not built on someone else’s system or platform which also gives you more privacy from prying eyes of 3rd parties. You marry the system, so marry right.
8. Well documented tutorials
   • Any time you have questions about using WordPress simply go to Google or YouTube and you’ll immediate see all types of specific tutorials for your problem.
9. Free domain name
   • A domain normally costs around $10 to $21 with other companies. When you set up your secure WordPress site/store here you will receive a free domain name of your choice or you can save that credit and port in a domain name you already own and use the free domain credit in the future.
10. Free SSL certificate for WordPress
    • All of your WordPress stores that you create can also be easily secured which is awesome. This means you can confidently connect your store to one of the best free payment processors, like Stripe.com to accept payments directly from your customers on your store which increases conversions for you!
11. Free business emails
    • If you use the same host I use here you can create as many business emails as you need for free. Business emails for example are yourname@yourdomain.com You’ll want to use your business email on your site’s contact page, when you receive orders, on your business cards and many other places. Now you’ll look legit.
12. WordPress is not publicly traded. This is actually a big benefit in my eyes because when you’re a company like Shopify, who is publicly traded, trying to please shareholders vs customers can get a bit out of focus, namely user-friendliness, prices and customer support.

3 Cons of using WordPress

1. A little more technical (not much though)
   • There’s no such thing as a “perfect” system. It’s no different with WordPress. There is a learning curve to go through just like there is using any other system including Shopify. There are more bells and whistles with WordPress which means it can seem a bit more involved but after you learn the system it’s simple to use. Follow this tutorial here to walk you through. Using WordPress will mean that you’ll need to get familiar with using plugins and themes, or have someone else help you out. Schedule a free 30-minute call with me here and I can help you.
2. No direct 24/7 live customer support
   • Since WordPress.org is an open-source software built by thousands of contributors there is no live support of course because the software you’re getting is free. The 24/7 customer support is offered through your WordPress host though so you’ll be in good hands. You can also access a wealth of support through free tutorials, videos and articles on the internet. All you need to do to get help using WordPress is to make Google and YouTube your best friends or me here 🙂
3. You would need to get your own CDN
   • While having a CDN is not absolutely necessary or needed for new sites/stores, it is a good thing to have in the future for BIG sites. A Content Delivery Network (CDN) is a system that drastically speeds up the loading time of your website or store (test your site speed here). Most hosting providers will not provide a CDN, but the best WordPress host systems like the one I use will give you a Free CDN. You can easily get your own free WordPress CDN using CloudFlare by clicking on the button inside your cpanel. With Shopify a CDN comes as a part of their system. It doesn’t mean though you don’t need to resize or optimize your images. Regardless of using WordPress of Shopify it’s still important to optimize your product and store images before loading them to your site if you want to have a fast loading site that improves your conversions.

Now let’s discuss the pros and cons of using Shopify in more detail:

5 Pros of using Shopify for your ecommerce business

1. Very easy to set up and use
   • Shopify is a very impressive 3rd party, all-in-one ecommerce platform. They make it extremely easy for someone wanting to quickly set up a store and start selling products. For this reason they continue to be the most popular 3rd party ecommerce platform in the world. The set-up process of your store is as simple as signing up. That’s it. There is no software to install because Shopify created and hosts all website code and files for you. Once you sign up all you would need to do from there is customize your store’s domain, design, apps, add your products and you’re ready to sell.
2. 24/7 live customer support
   • One of the best things about using Shopify is their customer support. You can call them day or night, any time of the day and speak with a live, living, breathing person to get help with your store. You don’t have to search for tutorials or videos to help you out, although they have many you can access for free on their blog. For people who like fast, professional help with their dropship or ecommerce stores this benefit makes a huge difference.
3. Easy to Integrate Payment Processing
   • Accepting payments on your store is very easy with Shopify. They are also very well connected into another payment processing and gateway companies. You can use Shopify’s default payment gateway with Stripe, or connect your own. The process with WordPress is fairly simple as well by installing a plugin and adding in your payment gateway keys to connect to your store.
4. Free SSL Certificate
   • All Shopify stores by default come secured so you can accept payments from your customers directly on your website.
5. Comes with a CDN
   • I discussed this already above but Shopify comes with an excellent Content Delivery Network (CDN)

6 Disadvantages of using Shopify

I shared with you many of the cons of Shopify already but here’s a recap:

1. You could get banned or shut down fast. The stories are crazy, see here. Shopify can destroy the hard word you have done in seconds. Because you don’t own the system you must follow their terms of service. There are some odd situations. Watch this video to discover why and what sites Shopify bans. It’s quite shocking.
2. You don’t control or own your site fully. Yes Shopify does allow you to download your site to be hosted elsewhere after signing up. However, since Shopify hosts everything they control everything. That includes your site code, apps, theme, everything.
3. Costs significantly more to have one or multiple sites – stores
   • The cost for one Shopify store on the basic is $39 a month ($468 a year) for each store. If cost is an issue for you go with WordPress.
4. High costs for permium themes and apps
   • Some Shopify themes are free, but the best ones will cost around $90 to $180 and more. Also, many of Shopify’s apps are for free, but most of them cost, particularly the advance marketing apps to help you grow your store. It’s common to see people paying $50 to $4,000 extra every month for premium Shopify apps.
5. You have to buy your domain name
   • To have your Shopify store appear on a custom domain name that does not have the word “shopify” in the URL you have to buy your own domain name which is only around $15. You can buy domain names though very easily directly inside your Shopify account.
6. No business email
   • It’s important to set up professional emails for your store such as order@ yourstore.com or yourname@ yourstore.com and so forth. With Shopify you can’t set up email with them which makes it more of a hassle to set that up with a 3rd party such as with Google. It’s not too difficult to set up though. Shopify has a tutorial or live support to help you out with getting your business email set up properly.

Wrapping it up

You can’t go wrong with either WordPress or Shopify. Both are excellent choices. Are either of the platforms without their flaws? No. There are always going to be technical things that will bother you. Just remember that it comes as part of the territory of building an online business. The two most amazing platforms and systems for ecommerce and dropshipping, WordPress and Shopify, are outstanding systems for anyone wanting to easily and quickly launch & grow a business online.

If you would like some hand-holding and personal guidance from me navigating through the waters of building a profitable site or store click here to set up a Free 30-minute breakthrough call with me. I’ll be glad to discuss any questions you have and help you out.