PrestaShop vs WooCommerce vs Shopify — 3-Year TCO [2026]

PrestaShop, WooCommerce and Shopify are the three most frequently compared e-commerce platforms in Poland — but their cost models differ so much that comparing "store prices" alone makes no sense. What matters is the 3-year TCO (total cost of ownership): build, recurring costs, commissions, modules and maintenance. Below is an honest comparison with numbers for three scenarios: a starter store, a growing store with a 10,000+ product catalogue, and a B2B store.

Key takeaway: In 3-year TCO for a store doing 500,000 PLN in annual sales: PrestaShop ≈ 22,000–45,000 PLN (ownership, no commission, higher technical costs), WooCommerce ≈ 18,000–35,000 PLN (cheapest start, weaker performance with a large catalogue), Shopify ≈ 30,000–60,000 PLN (simplest start, but subscription + commissions + limited B2B). PrestaShop wins with large catalogues and B2B, WooCommerce — with a WordPress content ecosystem, Shopify — with the fastest launch without technical resources.

Three cost models — what really differs

The platforms differ not in price but in cost structure

• PrestaShop — open source: free software, you pay for work (build, modules, care). No sales commission. Costs are front-loaded (more expensive start) but decline over time.
• WooCommerce — a WordPress plugin: cheapest start, but with a large catalogue it requires increasingly expensive hosting and optimisation, and premium plugins add up as subscriptions.
• Shopify — SaaS: zero technical work at launch, but a constant subscription (from ~150 PLN/month to ~1,300 PLN/month for Advanced), payment commissions (1.5–2.9% + fees) and limitations for B2B and non-standard processes.

Build costs — what you pay upfront

• Bottom line: WooCommerce starts cheapest (if you already run WordPress), PrestaShop costs more but gives the most freedom, Shopify is the most expensive to customise — you pay there through apps and subscriptions.

Recurring monthly costs

• The key difference: with PrestaShop and WooCommerce you pay for technical maintenance; with Shopify — for the subscription and commissions. At 40,000 PLN monthly sales, Shopify commissions alone run 600–1,200 PLN per month — 7,000–14,000 PLN per year.

3-year TCO — three scenarios

• ### Scenario A: starter store (100 products, 200,000 PLN/year)

• ### Scenario B: growing store (10,000 products, 1.5M PLN/year)

With a large catalogue WooCommerce starts losing to PrestaShop — WordPress with 10,000 products needs aggressive caching, a CDN and is still often slower. Shopify is stable, but commissions grow with sales — at 1.5M PLN a year that is ~9,000 PLN a year in a "tax on success".

• ### Scenario C: B2B store (individual pricing, trade credit)

B2B is where PrestaShop and WooCommerce shine: individual price lists, trade credit and sub-accounts can all be implemented with modules. Shopify does not support this in the standard plan — full B2B requires Shopify Plus, where the subscription alone costs tens of thousands of złoty per year.

Performance and scaling

• PrestaShop — PHP + MySQL/Smarty architecture; with Redis, caching and clean modules it handles 50,000+ product catalogues on your own VPS. Requires technical competence.
• WooCommerce — WordPress + plugins; fine up to ~2,000 products, beyond that it needs work (object cache, separate tables, CDN). The lowest performance ceiling of the three.
• Shopify — infrastructure managed by Shopify, stable regardless of catalogue size; the bottleneck is API limits and checkout customisation limits (outside Plus).

SEO and data ownership

All three platforms can rank well — SEO depends on execution, not the platform. The differences

• PrestaShop and WooCommerce — full control over URLs, structure, schema and content; data lives in your database.
• Shopify — less SEO control (URL structure, some technical elements), data lives in Shopify; migrating away after years can be costly.

If the site is meant to be part of a content ecosystem (blog, guides, informational traffic), WooCommerce wins naturally — it is WordPress. If what matters is a store with its own process logic, PrestaShop gives the most.

Which platform to choose

Frequently asked questions

Is PrestaShop free?

Yes — the software is open source, with no licence or commission. You pay only for the build (6,000–40,000 PLN net), hosting (100–400 PLN/month), commercial modules (200–2,000 PLN one-off) and care (from 400 PLN/month). The entire budget goes into developing the store rather than a platform subscription.

How much does a Shopify store cost versus PrestaShop?

Starting on Shopify is cheaper (2,000–5,000 PLN setup), but a subscription (150–1,300 PLN/month) and commissions add up. PrestaShop costs more upfront (6,000 PLN+), but above ~300,000 PLN in annual sales its 3-year TCO comes out lower. The break-even point depends on sales volume.

Can you migrate from Shopify to PrestaShop or WooCommerce?

Yes. Migration covers products, customers, orders and content, preserving URLs through 301 redirects. It is a 2–6 week project depending on the catalogue — like any platform migration. I describe it in migrating a store to another platform.

Which platform is best for B2B?

PrestaShop and WooCommerce — both support individual price lists, trade credit and sub-accounts through modules. Shopify does not have B2B features in the standard plan; full support requires Shopify Plus, where the subscription alone costs tens of thousands of złoty per year. I cover B2B implementation details in PrestaShop B2B.

Sources and tools

• PrestaShop — documentation
• WooCommerce — documentation
• Shopify — pricing
• Shopify Payments — country availability
• Omnibus Directive (EU) 2019/2161