Shopify vs WooCommerce for a New D2C Brand in India

If you are about to launch a D2C brand in India, the platform question usually comes down to Shopify or WooCommerce. Both can run a serious store. The real difference is who owns the hosting, the updates and the fixes after launch, and how each one handles Indian payments, cash on delivery and GST. This guide compares the two on the things that decide your first year, and tells you plainly when WooCommerce is the better pick.

Plan prices and fees are from Shopify's India pricing page, platform details from the Shopify Help Centre, WooCommerce documentation and Razorpay's plugin docs, all checked on 9 October 2026. Prices and plan offers change, so recheck them on the day you sign up.

What is the actual difference between Shopify and WooCommerce?

Shopify is a hosted platform you rent. You pay a monthly plan, and Shopify runs the servers, the checkout and the core software. WooCommerce is a free plugin that turns a WordPress website into a store. You arrange the hosting, install WordPress and WooCommerce, and keep all of it updated yourself or through a developer.

That one difference drives most of the others. With Shopify you give up some control in exchange for not owning the technical upkeep. With WooCommerce you own everything, including the code, the server and the problems.

Which costs less for a new Indian brand?

WooCommerce looks cheaper because the plugin is free, but it is rarely free to run. Shopify looks more expensive because the bill is visible, but much of the running cost is inside it.

On Shopify, the fixed cost is the plan. Shopify's India pricing page, checked on 9 October 2026, lists Basic at Rs 1,499 a month and Grow at Rs 5,599 a month when paid yearly, or Rs 1,994 and Rs 7,447 when paid monthly. New stores currently get 3 days free, then Rs 20 a month for 3 months on those plans. There is one more line that Indian founders often miss: because Shopify Payments is not available in India, you use a third-party gateway, and Shopify charges its own fee on those orders. The pricing page lists that fee as 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow and 0.6% on Advanced, on top of what your gateway charges. Our Basic or Grow fee maths works through when the bigger plan pays for itself.

On WooCommerce, the cost lines are different:

• Hosting. A store needs better hosting than a blog. WooCommerce's own server recommendations ask for PHP 8.3 or greater, MySQL 8.0 or greater (or MariaDB 10.6 or greater), HTTPS support and a memory limit of 256 MB or more.
• Paid extensions. Many features a D2C store expects, such as subscriptions, advanced shipping rules or product bundles, come as paid extensions with yearly renewals.
• Upkeep. Someone has to update WordPress, WooCommerce, the theme and every plugin, test that nothing broke, and keep backups. If that is a developer, it is a monthly cost even when nothing new is being built.

The core WooCommerce plugin is free and does not add a platform fee on gateway orders the way Shopify does, which is a real point in WooCommerce's favour as order volume grows. The honest comparison is the full monthly cost of a working, maintained store on each, not the plugin price against the plan price.

How do Indian payments and COD work on each?

Both platforms work with the gateways Indian brands actually use. Razorpay's ecommerce plugins page lists official support for both Shopify and WooCommerce. There is a difference in what that support covers. In Razorpay's plugin table, WooCommerce is ticked for Payment Gateway, Route and Subscriptions, while Shopify is ticked only for Payment Gateway. If you plan to run subscriptions through Razorpay, or split payments to vendors with Route, check how you would do that on Shopify before you commit. Our Razorpay and Cashfree comparison covers the gateway choice in more detail.

Cash on delivery is where Shopify's app ecosystem helps a new Indian brand. COD verification, partial prepaid, RTO prediction and Indian checkout apps are built for Shopify first, because that is where most Indian D2C brands sell. WooCommerce has plugins for COD too, but you will usually have fewer choices and more testing to do yourself. If cash on delivery will be a big share of your orders, read our guide on cutting COD RTO losses before you choose.

How does GST invoicing compare?

Neither platform gives you GST-compliant invoices out of the box, so plan for this on both.

On Shopify, the Help Centre's India GST page says Shopify can charge CGST and SGST on sales within your state and IGST on sales to other states, once you set up the rates. It also says plainly that Shopify does not create a GST-compliant bill, and points merchants to a local GST invoicing service or an app from the Shopify App Store. HSN codes go in the HS tariff code field, which needs at least 6 digits.

On WooCommerce, taxes are calculated from tax rate tables you enter yourself in the settings, and invoices come from a plugin. The work is similar. The difference is that on Shopify you pick an invoicing app, while on WooCommerce you pick a plugin and also own the job of keeping it compatible with every update. Our Shopify GST setup guide walks through the Shopify side step by step.

Who maintains the store after launch?

This is the question founders skip, and it is the one that decides how the first year feels.

On Shopify, the platform itself, the checkout and the servers are Shopify's job. You maintain your theme changes and your apps. When something breaks after a Shopify update, the fix is usually in an app or a theme customisation, not in the platform.

On WooCommerce, the store is your software. WooCommerce's support policy says it does not give general WordPress support, does not cover third-party plugins it did not sell, and does not support customisations. Support for the free core plugin happens in the WordPress.org forums. So if your store breaks after a plugin update on a Saturday before a sale, the people responsible are your host, your developer and the vendor of whichever plugin caused it. Before launch, name the person who will own updates, backups and security every month. If nobody comes to mind, that is a strong reason to pick Shopify. Our post on what a maintenance plan should include lists what that ongoing work covers.

When is WooCommerce genuinely the better choice?

WooCommerce is a good choice in some situations, and we would say so to a founder:

• Your business is content first. If the site is mostly articles, courses or a large WordPress blog with a few products, adding WooCommerce to the WordPress site you already have can make sense.
• You already have a strong WordPress team. If an in-house developer knows WordPress well and will own updates and security, the maintenance burden is already paid for.
• You need something Shopify will not let you change. WooCommerce gives full control of the code and the server. If your model needs deep changes to how checkout or orders work and you have the budget to build and maintain them, that control matters.
• Razorpay Route or Subscriptions are central. As noted above, Razorpay lists those features for WooCommerce and not for Shopify.
• Very low order volume with a long runway. Shopify's fee on third-party gateway orders does not exist on WooCommerce. For some low-margin models it is worth doing the numbers.

When is Shopify the better choice?

For most new Indian D2C brands selling physical products, we recommend Shopify, for practical reasons rather than fashion:

• The founding team has no one who wants to run servers, updates and backups.
• COD, courier, WhatsApp and Indian checkout tools matter from the first month, and most are built for Shopify first.
• You want to launch quickly on a stable theme and spend your time on product, content and ads rather than on the platform.
• You expect to grow into B2B, more markets or Shopify Plus later without changing platform again.

The trade-off is real. You accept Shopify's rules, its fee on third-party gateway orders, and a monthly bill that rises with the plan. For a team without in-house developers, that is usually a better deal than owning the whole stack.

What if you are already on WooCommerce?

If your store already runs on WooCommerce and works, there is no rule that says you must move. Move when the platform is getting in the way: plugin conflicts after every update, slow pages you cannot fix, or upkeep costs that keep rising. When that happens, our WooCommerce to Shopify migration guide covers what moves, what does not, and how to keep your Google rankings during the switch.

How should you decide this week?

Answer four questions in writing before you pick:

1. Who will maintain the store every month? Write a name. If the answer is "a developer when something breaks", lean towards Shopify.
2. What share of orders will be cash on delivery? If it is high, list the COD and RTO tools you need and check they exist for your platform.
3. Do you need Razorpay subscriptions or split payments? If yes, confirm how you will do it on Shopify, or count it as a point for WooCommerce.
4. What will the store cost per month, all in? For Shopify, the plan plus the third-party gateway fee plus apps. For WooCommerce, hosting plus paid extensions plus upkeep time.

If two of the four point the same way, you have your answer. The wrong choice is not fatal, since stores do move between platforms, but a move costs time you would rather spend selling.

Still deciding between Shopify and WooCommerce?

Free platform fit check. Get in touch or email hello@exactwhy.com with the subject "Shopify or WooCommerce" and your product category. Tell us your expected order mix (prepaid and COD), whether you need subscriptions, and who will maintain the store. We reply within 4 hours with a clear recommendation, the cost lines to budget for on each platform, and the risks we would watch in your case.

If you go ahead. We set up your Shopify store with an Indian payment gateway, COD controls, GST rates and an invoicing app, courier integration and a theme built around your products, then hand it over with a short guide so your team can run it.