When a store outgrows its first setup, Shopify Plus is often the first option owners look at. It is fully hosted and well supported. It is also a significant fixed cost.
01Shopify Plus
Shopify Plus starts at $2,300 a month on a three-year term, which is $27,600 a year before apps, themes or payment processing. Additional fees apply if you use a third-party payment gateway. A marketplace also needs a multi-vendor app on top, which brings a typical total to around $28,320 a year.
02Headless WooCommerce
WooCommerce itself is free. With a weLabs headless storefront, the platform cost is a monthly or yearly plan plus a one-time onboarding fee.
- Monthly: $104/mo at launch pricing (regular $149), plus $999 onboarding
- Yearly: $894/yr at launch pricing (regular $1,490), plus $999 onboarding
- No revenue sharing or transaction fees from us
In the first year on the yearly plan, that is $1,893 including onboarding. Neither figure includes payment processing, which you pay to your gateway on either platform.
03When Shopify Plus makes sense
If you are starting from scratch, don’t want to manage WordPress at all and are comfortable with the platform’s limits, Shopify Plus is a reasonable choice. If you already run WooCommerce, the bigger costs of switching are often the migration itself: moving products, customers, order history and SEO, then retraining your team.
A headless storefront keeps your existing WooCommerce data and workflow in place and addresses the usual reason for leaving, which is speed.
We will model platform costs for your catalog, traffic, and growth plans.