WordPress or Shopify: which suits a Thai store?
Pick Shopify if you want a hosted store that someone else keeps running, a simple catalogue and a monthly plan instead of servers and plugin updates. Pick WooCommerce on WordPress if the store sits inside a content-heavy site, needs custom pricing or shipping rules, or must keep every order and customer record on hosting you control.
For most Thai shops the decision turns on three practical points rather than on features lists: how customers will pay (PromptPay QR and cash on delivery are expected), how orders reach KEX Express (formerly Kerry Express), Flash Express, J&T or Thailand Post, and who on your side will look after the store after launch. We build both Shopify stores and WooCommerce stores, so the verdicts below are by store type, not by loyalty.
If you are still at the stage of learning what Shopify is and how a hosted platform differs from a plugin, start there and come back.
WordPress (WooCommerce) and Shopify side by side
How the two compare on the points that decide a Thai store. The last column says which side usually has the edge, not which one wins overall.
| Factor | WooCommerce on WordPress | Shopify | Usual edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Software cost | Free, open-source plugin on free WordPress | Monthly or yearly plan | WooCommerce |
| Running costs | Hosting, domain, paid extensions, upkeep | Plan fee, paid apps, third-party transaction fee | Depends on sales volume |
| PromptPay and cards | Through a Thai payment gateway plugin | Through a third-party provider app (Shopify Payments is not offered in Thailand) | Even |
| Cash on delivery | Built-in payment method | Built-in manual payment method | Even |
| Thai couriers | Plugins or CSV export | Apps or CSV export | Even |
| Thai and English storefront | Full control of both languages, URLs and Thai fonts | Language settings and translation apps, within the theme's limits | WooCommerce |
| Content and blog | Full WordPress CMS | Basic blog | WooCommerce |
| Upkeep and security | Your job, or your developer's | Handled by Shopify | Shopify |
| Moving later | Move the whole site to any host | Export products and customers as CSV | WooCommerce |
What does each cost to run?
The two platforms charge in opposite ways, which is why owners compare the wrong numbers.
Shopify: a plan plus a share of each sale
Shopify sells plans (Basic, Grow, Advanced and Plus at the time of writing) billed monthly or yearly, with prices shown in your local currency on its pricing page. The detail that matters in Thailand: Shopify Payments, its own payment processor, is not available to Thai stores, so you take payments through a third-party provider. When you do, Shopify adds its own transaction fee on top of the provider's fee. At the time of writing that fee is 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow and 0.6% on Advanced. Check the current rates on Shopify's pricing page before you model your margins.
WooCommerce: free software, paid everything around it
WooCommerce and WordPress cost nothing to download. You pay for hosting good enough to handle checkout traffic, a domain, any premium extensions (subscriptions, bookings, advanced shipping rules) and someone to apply updates. There is no platform fee per order, only your payment gateway's charge.
The rough rule: a store with low monthly sales often finds Shopify's predictable plan cheaper in time and money. A store with steady volume starts to feel that extra percentage on every order, and WooCommerce's fixed costs look better. Our breakdown of how much a WordPress website costs to build covers the one-time side; the e-commerce build prices page covers stores specifically.
PromptPay, cards and COD
Thai shoppers expect to scan a PromptPay QR in their banking app, and many still prefer to pay the rider in cash. Both platforms can do both, by different routes.
- PromptPay and cards on Shopify: through a payment provider that offers a Shopify integration for Thailand. Confirm the provider supports THB, PromptPay and automatic order confirmation before you commit, and remember the transaction fee above applies.
- PromptPay and cards on WooCommerce: through a gateway plugin from a Thai payment provider or bank. The choice of provider is wider, and there is no platform fee on top.
- Cash on delivery: built into both as a manual payment method. What differs is how COD orders are confirmed and reconciled with the courier's cash remittance, which is a workflow question more than a platform one.
Our guide to Thai payment gateways goes through the provider options in more depth.
Shipping with Thai couriers
Every order ends with a parcel label. The question is how many times a person has to type the address.
On both platforms you can connect a courier or shipping aggregator through an app (Shopify) or a plugin (WooCommerce), so orders flow across with the address, weight and COD amount already filled in. Where no integration fits, both platforms export orders as a CSV that you upload to the courier's own system. That works for twenty orders a day and becomes a chore at two hundred.
WooCommerce gives more room for unusual rules, for example free delivery inside Bangkok above a basket value, a flat rate upcountry and no COD for bulky items. Shopify handles the common cases through its shipping settings and apps, and asks you to fit the rest around them. Before you choose, list your actual rules and ask how each one will be set up.
Tax documents
If you are VAT registered and your buyers ask for tax invoices, plan the e-Tax invoice and e-Receipt flow from the start. Neither platform is a Thai tax system on its own; the store sends order data to an e-Tax service or your accounting software, which issues the document under the Revenue Department's rules.
SEO, content and speed
Both can rank. The difference is how much you control.
- URLs: Shopify uses fixed path patterns such as /products/ and /collections/. WooCommerce lets you shape the structure, which matters when you migrate an older site and want to keep its addresses.
- Content: WordPress was built for publishing, so buying guides, recipes, size charts and Thai-language articles sit naturally next to the products. Shopify's blog covers the basics.
- Speed: Shopify's hosting is fast out of the box, but every app can add scripts to the storefront. WooCommerce speed depends on hosting and theme quality, which is where a lean custom theme pays off.
A content brand selling to Thai and English readers usually gets more from WordPress. A store whose traffic comes mostly from social media and ads will not feel the difference much.
Upkeep and who owns what
On Shopify, the platform patches security, runs the servers and keeps checkout working. Your job is the catalogue and the apps you install. On WooCommerce, WordPress core, the theme and every plugin need updates and someone to test that checkout still works afterwards. That is ongoing work, which is why we offer maintenance after launch, priced per site on request.
Ownership cuts the other way. A WooCommerce site is a set of files and a database you can move to any host. A Shopify store runs only on Shopify; you can export products, customers and orders as CSV files, but the theme and apps stay behind. Switching later in either direction is possible and done often, but it is a project: product data moves easily, URLs, reviews and custom rules take planning.
For the wider WordPress picture, including hosting and developers here, read our overview of WordPress in Thailand.
Which one we would choose for your store
Four common store profiles and where we would usually land:
- A small catalogue, owner-run, sales through Instagram and LINE: Shopify. Less to maintain, quick to start, and the transaction fee stays small at low volume.
- A B2B or wholesale store with customer-specific prices or quote requests: WooCommerce, because those rules are easier to build without stacking paid apps.
- A large catalogue with thousands of variants: either can work. Shopify if the team wants low upkeep, WooCommerce with serious hosting if the data needs custom handling. Import takes longer than our typical 15-day project either way, and we say so in the quote.
- A content brand (food, wellness, education) that publishes as much as it sells: WooCommerce on WordPress.
Our ecommerce website design service covers both platforms, and the E-commerce package starts from THB 50,000 as an indicative one-time price including PromptPay, cards, COD, Thai couriers, product import, e-Tax invoice setup and staff training. The final price is in your written quote. If you are weighing other builders too, see WordPress vs Wix, WordPress vs Webflow or the Squarespace vs WordPress vs Wix scorecard, or go back to all our platform comparisons. New to the whole process? Our guide on how to make a website lays out the steps.
