Shopify, WooCommerce, or a Custom Store? How to Choose

Once a Lagos business decides to sell online properly, the next question is always the same: "What should we build it on?" People throw around names like Shopify and WooCommerce as if one is obviously best. The honest answer is that it depends on your products, your budget, and how much control you want. Let me compare the three real options without the sales pitch.

Shopify: fastest to launch, ongoing rent

Shopify is a hosted platform, meaning they handle the technical side and you pay a monthly fee. It's polished, reliable, and quick to get going.

• Cost: roughly ₦40,000-₦100,000+ per month depending on plan, paid in dollars, so the naira figure moves with the exchange rate
• Strength: dependable, secure, looks professional out of the box, good for growing catalogues
• The catch for Nigeria: Shopify Payments isn't available here, so you rely on third-party gateways, and on many plans Shopify adds an extra transaction fee on top of your gateway fees. Those small percentages add up as you grow.

Shopify suits a seller who wants reliability and doesn't want to think about maintenance, and who can absorb a monthly dollar cost.

WooCommerce: flexible, you handle more

WooCommerce is a free plugin that turns a WordPress website into a store. There's no monthly platform fee, but "free" is misleading once you add it up.

• Cost: no platform fee, but you pay for hosting, a theme, plugins, and someone to maintain it. Realistically budget for hosting and occasional developer help.
• Strength: huge flexibility, no transaction fee from the platform itself, and plug-ins for Paystack and Flutterwave are well supported
• The catch: you (or your developer) are responsible for updates, security, and backups. Neglect it and it breaks or gets hacked.

WooCommerce suits sellers who want lower running fees and more control, and who have someone reliable handling maintenance.

Custom store: total control, higher upfront cost

A custom-built store is coded specifically for your business. You own everything and it does exactly what you need.

• Cost: the highest upfront, often ₦1.5 million and up, but low ongoing fees beyond hosting and support
• Strength: complete control, fast, no platform limits, and you fully own it
• The catch: it only makes sense when your needs are genuinely unusual, or your volume is high enough to justify the investment

Most small and mid-size sellers don't need this yet. It's worth it when off-the-shelf platforms genuinely can't do what your business requires. The broader custom vs template trade-off applies here too.

The fees that actually matter in Nigeria

Whatever you choose, your customers pay through a Nigerian gateway, and those fees are roughly 1.5% per transaction with Paystack or Flutterwave (with caps). Shopify can stack its own fee on top; WooCommerce and custom stores don't. Over a year of sales, that difference can be substantial, so factor it into your decision rather than just comparing monthly prices. I go deeper on the gateways in Paystack vs Flutterwave.

So which should you pick?

A rough guide based on what I've seen work:

• Just starting, want zero hassle, can pay monthly: Shopify
• Want lower fees and more control, have dev support: WooCommerce
• Unusual needs or high volume, want to own it fully: custom
• Tiny catalogue, testing the idea: start simple and upgrade later

There's no universally "best" option, only the best fit for your situation. Don't let anyone push you toward the choice that's easiest for them to build.

Takeaway

Shopify trades monthly rent and extra fees for convenience. WooCommerce trades self-management for flexibility and lower fees. A custom store trades a big upfront cost for total ownership. Match the choice to your budget, volume, and appetite for maintenance, not to whatever a developer happens to prefer, and remember the Nigerian transaction fees in your maths.