Shopify or WooCommerce in 2026? How an Ontario small business should choose

If you are opening an online store in Ontario this year, the choice usually comes down to Shopify or WooCommerce. Both can run a proper Canadian store with HST, Interac and real shipping rates. The difference is who does the work of keeping it running, and how the costs stack up once you are past the launch.

Here is the short version, then the detail.

What is the difference between Shopify and WooCommerce?

Shopify is a hosted platform. You pay a monthly subscription and Shopify runs the servers, the checkout, the security and the updates. You log in, add products, and sell.

WooCommerce is a free plugin that turns a WordPress site into a store. You (or whoever looks after your site) provide the hosting, install the plugin, pick a payment processor, and keep everything updated. It is more flexible and it can be cheaper, but the responsibility sits with you.

That is the whole decision in one line: Shopify trades control for convenience, WooCommerce trades convenience for control.

How much does Shopify cost in Canada in 2026?

Shopify publishes Canadian pricing in CAD. As of September 2026 the plans are:

• Basic: $49 a month, or $37 a month if you pay yearly. Online card rate 2.8% plus 30 cents. A 2% fee if you use a payment provider other than Shopify Payments.
• Grow: $132 a month, or $99 a month yearly. Online card rate 2.6% plus 30 cents. Third-party payment fee drops to 1%.
• Advanced: $517 a month, or $389 a month yearly. Online card rate 2.4% plus 30 cents. Third-party fee 0.6%.
• Plus: from $3,400 a month, for large operations.

Most small businesses in Guelph, Kitchener-Waterloo or the GTA belong on Basic for the first year. Grow starts to pay for itself when your monthly card volume is high enough that the lower processing rate covers the price difference, which for many stores is somewhere past $40,000 a month in sales. Do the math on your own numbers before upgrading.

Theme and app costs sit on top. A free Shopify theme is fine for most stores. Paid themes are a one-time purchase, and apps for reviews, subscriptions or advanced shipping are typically monthly. Two or three apps can quietly add $50 to $100 a month, so keep a list.

How much does WooCommerce really cost?

The plugin is free. Everything around it is not.

• Hosting: the biggest variable. Cheap shared hosting can run a small store but often struggles on speed, and speed matters for both sales and search. Managed WordPress hosting built for stores costs more per month but takes backups, caching and updates off your plate.
• Domain and SSL: a domain is a small yearly cost. SSL is usually included with decent hosting.
• Payments: WooPayments, the built-in processor, charges 2.9% plus 30 cents per domestic card transaction in Canada, plus 1% for international cards and 2% if a currency conversion is involved. Stripe, PayPal and Square are alternatives with their own rates. Unlike Shopify, there is no platform penalty for using the processor you prefer.
• Extensions: many are free. The ones that handle things like per-province tax rules, advanced shipping or subscriptions are often paid, and are usually billed yearly.
• Maintenance: WordPress, WooCommerce, your theme and every plugin ship updates. Someone has to apply them, test that checkout still works, and fix it when a plugin update breaks something. That someone is you, or a developer you pay.

On paper, a WooCommerce store can run for less than Shopify Basic. In practice, once you add proper hosting and a few hours of maintenance a month, the gap is smaller than most people expect, and it can flip.

Which platform is better for a small business in Ontario?

Pick Shopify if:

• You want to spend your time selling, not managing software.
• Nobody on your team is comfortable with WordPress updates and plugin conflicts.
• You sell in person too. Shopify POS keeps inventory in one place across your shop and your site.
• You want Canadian checkout details (HST, Interac, Canada Post rates) to work with minimal setup.

Pick WooCommerce if:

• Your business already runs on WordPress and you want the store, the blog and the content under one roof.
• You need custom functionality: unusual product configurators, membership content, quotes instead of carts, tight integration with an existing system.
• You want to own the whole stack and never be tied to a platform’s rules or price changes.
• You have a developer you trust, or you are one.

If you are still unsure, the honest tiebreaker is this: if you cannot name who will apply the next WordPress update, go with Shopify.

What should you compare beyond the monthly price?

Three-year cost is the number that matters. A quick way to build it:

1. Subscription or hosting, times 36 months.
2. Payment processing on your expected sales. On $10,000 a month in sales, the difference between 2.8% and 2.9% is only about $10 a month, so fees rarely decide it at small volume.
3. Apps or paid extensions, times 36.
4. Maintenance hours, times an hourly rate you would actually pay.
5. The build itself. A professionally set up store costs the same order of magnitude on either platform. Skroll’s online store packages start from $1,950 one-time on Shopify or WooCommerce, with Canadian tax, shipping and payments handled.

Run those five lines for both options and the answer is usually obvious.

Does the platform affect SEO or site speed?

Less than people fear, and more than they act on.

Shopify handles the technical basics well out of the box: hosting, SSL, a clean URL structure, sitemaps, and a fast CDN. Its main limits are around URL customization and how much you can change deep templates without a developer.

WooCommerce can be extremely fast or painfully slow. It depends entirely on hosting, theme and plugin discipline. A lean WooCommerce store on good hosting will pass Core Web Vitals. A store with 40 plugins and a page builder will not, and Google notices. If you go the WordPress route, treat performance as part of the build, not an afterthought. We covered why speed matters for both ranking and sales in why fast websites win in 2026.

Either way, the things that move rankings for a local store are the same: real product descriptions instead of supplier copy, category pages that answer a search, a Google Business Profile that is claimed and active, and reviews that keep coming. See our guide to Google Business Profile ranking in Kitchener-Waterloo and Guelph for that side.

Can you switch later?

Yes, and businesses do it in both directions. Products, customers and orders can be exported and imported. What does not move cleanly is your URL structure, which is why a migration needs a redirect plan so you do not throw away the search rankings you built. Plan the platform choice as a three-to-five-year decision and you will rarely need to move.

What does a good Canadian store setup include on either platform?

Whichever you pick, make sure the launch checklist covers:

• HST, and PST or QST where you ship to other provinces, applied correctly at checkout.
• Interac, credit cards and PayPal accepted, in CAD.
• Real-time Canada Post or courier rates, or flat rates you have actually costed.
• A returns and shipping policy page that a customer can find in one click.
• Accessible design that meets Ontario’s AODA expectations.
• Order confirmation and shipping emails from your own domain.
• Google Shopping feed and conversion tracking from day one.

Miss those and the platform will not save you. Get them right and either platform will serve you well.

The bottom line

Shopify for most Ontario small businesses that want a store that runs itself. WooCommerce for businesses already on WordPress, or with needs that go beyond what a hosted platform allows. Compare the full three-year cost, decide who owns maintenance, and then spend your energy on products, photos and getting found.

If you want a second opinion on your specific case, Skroll builds on both platforms from Guelph and works with stores across Kitchener-Waterloo and the GTA. Have a look at our web design and development service or get in touch and we will tell you plainly which one fits.