Shopify or WooCommerce: which to choose for a Slovenian online store?

For most Slovenian merchants who want to sell without an in-house technical team, Shopify is the safer choice: the monthly fee is known in advance, hosting, security and updates are included, and Shopify Payments is available in Slovenia. WooCommerce makes sense when you already run a WordPress site, need unusual logic, or want full control over code and data, and you have someone who maintains the store regularly. A free plugin is not a free store, because the costs move to hosting, extensions and maintenance.

The key difference in one sentence

Shopify is a rented, managed platform; WooCommerce is your own store on WordPress, and you are responsible for it.

With Shopify, the platform looks after servers, security and checkout, while you look after products, content and the apps you add. With WooCommerce, WordPress and the plugin are free, but you choose and maintain everything else yourself (or pay someone to): hosting, backups, updates to WordPress, the theme and plugins, and fixing things when two plugins stop getting along.

Ceramic vase

€49.00

Add to cartAdded

Cart01

Order placed

#2051 · paid by card

Total cost of ownership

Comparing “€27 a month versus €0” is misleading. You need to compare everything the store costs over a year.

Shopify

Prices on Shopify's Slovenian pricing page (checked on 2 November 2026; the page does not state whether VAT is included):

International cards carry a higher rate (2.6% + €0.25 on Basic). If you use another provider instead of, or alongside, Shopify Payments, Shopify adds its own fee from the last column on top of that provider's fee. Manual payment methods such as cash on delivery and bank transfer do not incur this fee.

Add paid apps on top of the subscription (often for shipping, reviews, email or invoicing) and possibly a paid theme.

WooCommerce

WooCommerce is a free, open-source WordPress plugin. The real cost is made up of:

• hosting that can handle the store during traffic peaks;
• paid extensions for payments, shipping, invoices or subscriptions;
• a theme and possibly a page builder;
• maintenance: updates, backups, monitoring, testing after updates;
• time, yours or a developer's, when something breaks.

Security is not a side issue with WooCommerce. Patchstack recorded 11,334 new vulnerabilities in the WordPress ecosystem in 2025, 91% of them in plugins. A store with twenty plugins has twenty things someone needs to keep an eye on.

Payments in Slovenia

For Slovenian merchants, this is often the deciding question.

• Shopify Payments is available to stores based in Slovenia (for online sales only). It supports Visa, Mastercard, American Express and UnionPay cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay and Shop Pay, plus local methods such as Klarna and Przelewy24, which are shown to customers based on their country.
• WooPayments (the payment module from the WooCommerce team) is also available to Slovenian merchants, with no monthly fee and a per-transaction charge.
• PayPal can be connected to both platforms, and Stripe is a common choice with WooCommerce. On Shopify, remember the extra fee for payments through other providers.
• Cash on delivery and bank transfer (UPN) are supported on both platforms as manual payment methods. WooCommerce includes them in core; on Shopify you set them up as manual payments.

One Slovenian specific: according to gov.si, for the purposes of fiscal verification of invoices, payment by debit or credit card counts as a cash payment, while a direct transfer to a bank account does not. Check with your accountant whether and how this applies to your online sales before choosing an invoicing tool. Neither platform solves this out of the box; it is usually handled by a connected invoicing app.

Budget

Example

Budget€600

• Inquiries
• Google 50%21
• Meta 35%15
• ChatGPT 15%6

Language, invoices and legal pages

Shopify provides Slovenian translations for checkout, the cookie banner and the default text in its own themes. Third-party themes and apps vary in translation quality, so they need checking.

WordPress and WooCommerce are translated by the community on translate.wordpress.org. Core is usually well covered, but smaller plugins often lack Slovenian or have only partial translations.

On either platform, you will almost certainly issue Slovenian invoices through an external invoicing tool connected via an app or plugin. Legal pages (terms of sale, privacy policy, right of withdrawal) are yours to prepare; the platform only offers templates.

Shipping: Pošta Slovenije, GLS, DPD

For Shopify, there is a Slovenian app that connects the store to DPD, GLS and Pošta Slovenije, prints labels and tracks shipments (from $19 a month, checked on 2 November 2026). GLS also offers its own free Shopify integration.

For WooCommerce, there are plugins for GLS and DPD; for Pošta Slovenije, check the current options with the carrier or a developer. For any integration, ask who maintains it and what happens when the carrier changes its API.

Speed, SEO and growth

Speed. Shopify hosts stores on its own infrastructure, so the baseline is stable; most speed is lost to too many apps and a heavy theme. With WooCommerce, speed depends on hosting, caching and the number of plugins. A well-built WooCommerce store can be fast; a poorly built one is noticeably slow.

SEO. Both platforms let you edit titles, descriptions, URLs and redirects. Shopify has some fixed URL segments (such as /products/ and /collections/), while WooCommerce gives more freedom over structure. Content, category structure and speed matter more for rankings than the platform itself.

Growth. Shopify covers larger volumes through higher plans without moving servers. WooCommerce grows as far as your hosting and your team's skills allow; larger catalogues and more traffic need more serious infrastructure.

Quick comparison

Who should pick which

Choose Shopify if you:

• have no developer to look after servers and updates;
• want a predictable monthly cost;
• plan to sell abroad and need multiple currencies and languages;
• are happy with standard order and checkout flows.

Choose WooCommerce if you:

• already have a well-maintained WordPress site with plenty of content;
• need special pricing, product or order logic that Shopify cannot handle without workarounds;
• have a regular developer or maintainer;
• want code and data fully on your own server.

A third option: a managed custom store. For smaller stores with a simple catalogue, a store built and maintained by a provider, with no platform subscription and no plugins, can make sense. The downside is dependence on that provider, so check what you get if you end the cooperation.

Frequently asked questions

Does Shopify Payments work in Slovenia?

Yes. Slovenia is on Shopify's list of supported countries, and the service is intended for online sales. You will need to verify personal and business details when activating it.

Is WooCommerce really free?

The plugin is free. Hosting, paid extensions, the theme and maintenance are not. The real annual cost is often comparable to Shopify, just spread across more providers.

Can I offer cash on delivery on Shopify?

Yes, as a manual payment method. Shopify does not charge its extra transaction fee on manual payments. You arrange cash collection and settlement with the courier separately.

Which is better for SEO?

Neither platform guarantees better rankings on its own. WooCommerce gives more freedom over URLs, Shopify has fewer technical pitfalls. Content, structure and speed decide.

Can I switch platforms later?

Yes, but migration is a project: moving products, customers, orders and redirecting URLs. More in Migrating an online store to Shopify.

How we can help

We are a Shopify Partner. We build Shopify stores after a consultation, with a fixed quote for the agreed scope; see Shopify stores.

For smaller stores, we also build a managed custom online store: €500 to build and from €29.90 per month, with payment provider fees not included. Details are on the online store page.

If you are not sure which route suits your business, get in touch through the contact section.

Sources

• Shopify, Pricing (Slovenian page), accessed 2 November 2026.
• Shopify Help Center, Shopify Payments supported countries, accessed 2 November 2026.
• Shopify Help Center, Payment methods in Slovenia, accessed 2 November 2026.
• Shopify Help Center, Manual payment methods, accessed 2 November 2026.
• Shopify Help Center, Language requirements, accessed 2 November 2026.
• WooCommerce, WooPayments: supported countries, accessed 2 November 2026.
• Shopify App Store, vticniki.si – Shipping labels, accessed 2 November 2026.
• GLS, GLS Shopify plug-in, accessed 2 November 2026.
• GOV.SI, Davčni postopek in davčno potrjevanje računov (in Slovenian), accessed 2 November 2026.
• Patchstack, State of WordPress Security in 2026.

← Back to the blog