SEVEN DIGITAL SERVICES — BLOG
We've built on both. Here's an honest answer based on what we've actually seen work — and not work.
The Shopify vs custom website debate never dies, and for good reason — there genuinely isn't one correct answer. The right choice depends entirely on your business stage, product type, technical requirements, and budget. What frustrates me is when web developers push clients toward custom builds just because it's a bigger project for them, or when Shopify evangelists oversell the platform's limitations as features.
We've built Shopify stores. We've built fully custom websites on Java Spring Boot deployed on AWS. We've also migrated clients from Shopify to custom platforms. I'll tell you what I actually think, not what sells better.
Shopify is a hosted e-commerce platform. You pay a monthly subscription, and in return, Shopify handles your hosting, payment processing infrastructure, security, software updates, and gives you a drag-and-drop store builder. You don't own the underlying code. You're renting a very well-built shop in someone else's mall.
That metaphor matters. Shopify is brilliant if it meets your needs. It becomes a problem when your business grows in ways Shopify wasn't designed for — custom pricing logic, complex B2B workflows, deep ERP integration, or very high-volume operations where Shopify's transaction fees start eating into margins significantly.
Shopify's Basic plan is $39/month (roughly ₹3,200/month). Shopify Standard is $105/month (₹8,700/month). Shopify Advanced is $399/month (₹33,000/month). These are USD prices billed in INR at prevailing exchange rates — they've become noticeably more expensive as the rupee has weakened.
On top of the subscription, Shopify charges a transaction fee of 0.5–2% per order if you don't use Shopify Payments. In India, Shopify Payments isn't available — you have to use Razorpay, PayU, or another Indian gateway. So you're paying Shopify's transaction fee on every order, plus the payment gateway's fee (typically 2%). On a ₹500 order, that's potentially ₹12–22 in fees per transaction, not counting GST on these fees.
Premium themes: ₹5,000–15,000 one-time. Apps: most serious functionality (loyalty programs, advanced inventory, subscriptions, custom discount rules) requires paid Shopify apps at ₹500–3,000/month each. A real-world Shopify setup for a mid-size Indian D2C brand typically runs ₹15,000–35,000/month in platform costs before you've spent a rupee on marketing.
A custom e-commerce website built on a modern stack (React/Next.js frontend, Java or Node.js backend, PostgreSQL database, hosted on AWS or DigitalOcean) costs more upfront — typically ₹1,50,000–5,00,000 depending on features and complexity. But the ongoing cost is dramatically different.
Hosting on AWS for a mid-size e-commerce store: ₹3,000–8,000/month. Payment gateway: ~2% per transaction (same as with Shopify, since you'd use the same gateways). No transaction fees to Shopify. No monthly platform subscription. No per-feature app costs.
The math flips at roughly the 12–18 month mark for most businesses. After that, the custom site typically saves money compared to Shopify, while giving you complete control over every feature.
We actually migrated our own website from Shopify to a custom Java Spring Boot platform hosted on AWS. The performance improvement was immediate — faster load times, full control over the codebase, and zero platform dependency. For a business that depends on its website, owning your tech matters.
Shopify is genuinely the right choice for a meaningful segment of businesses. You should use Shopify if:
Shopify's ecosystem is also genuinely excellent for certain integrations — their app store has thousands of tools, many built specifically for the platform. If you need something that's a standard Shopify use case, there's almost certainly an app for it.
You should consider a custom build if:
A useful rule of thumb: if everything you need exists in Shopify's standard feature set or app store, use Shopify. The moment you find yourself needing a developer to build a custom Shopify app to do something basic, you're probably outgrowing the platform.
Migrating from Shopify to a custom platform is entirely possible and we've done it. Product data, customer records, order history — all can be exported from Shopify and imported into a custom system. SEO equity (your Google rankings) can be preserved with proper 301 redirects. The main cost is developer time: a full migration for a mid-size store typically costs ₹80,000–2,00,000 depending on the complexity of what you're moving from and building to.
The best approach: start on Shopify if you're early-stage, validate your product-market fit, grow to a point where you can justify the custom build investment, then migrate with your established customer base and brand. Don't build something custom before you've proven the business works.
WooCommerce (WordPress + WooCommerce plugin) sits between Shopify and fully custom. It's open-source, hosted on your own server, and has no transaction fees or monthly subscription. It's cheaper than Shopify for ongoing costs and cheaper than fully custom to build. The tradeoff: you're responsible for updates, security, and maintenance. And WooCommerce can get messy at scale — too many plugins, performance issues, and security vulnerabilities are common complaints.
For most Indian small businesses that want to start selling online without high costs, WooCommerce is actually an excellent middle ground. We've set up WooCommerce stores for clients at ₹40,000–80,000 all-in, with hosting costs of ₹3,000–6,000/year.
Want to talk through what's right for your specific situation? Our web development team has built on Shopify, WooCommerce, and fully custom stacks — we'll give you an honest recommendation, not just pitch the most expensive option.
We'll look at your business requirements and tell you honestly whether Shopify, WooCommerce, or a custom build makes the most sense — no upselling.
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