The same monthly fee can buy very different amounts of work depending on what your site runs on. WordPress, WooCommerce and Shopify each have their own upkeep, and a fair comparison starts by knowing what that is. This guide sets out what drives the cost on each, and uses our own published plans as the single reference point.
The plans we use as a reference
| Plan | Per month | Hands-on hours | Best known for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Essential | $99 | 2 | A small site that changes a little |
| Business | $199 | 6 | Staging, a named contact and store support |
| Priority | $399 | 12 | Same or next business day completion, and an engineer check on every update |
WordPress
What drives the cost. WordPress itself, your theme and every plugin each release updates. The more plugins, the more to test. Sites built with heavy page builders or custom code take more care.
What a plan should include. Updates, a firewall and malware scans, off-site backups with a restore test, uptime and form monitoring, a monthly report and hours for changes.
Where it lands. A brochure site usually fits Essential. A busy business site with frequent changes tends to fit Business. Read the details on our WordPress maintenance page.
WooCommerce
What drives the cost. Everything WordPress has, plus a checkout, a payment gateway, stock, shipping and customer details. A broken update here costs orders, so testing matters more.
What a plan should include. Staging for updates, a test order every month, daily backups, daily security scans and a faster queue.
Where it lands. Store support starts at Business. If the store is most of your revenue, Priority adds an engineer check on every update. See WooCommerce maintenance.
Shopify
What drives the cost. Shopify handles hosting, server security and platform updates, so the technical upkeep is smaller. What is left is your theme, your apps, your products and pages, and your tracking.
What a plan should include. Theme and content changes, an app review, store monitoring and a monthly report. Parts of a plan that fix servers do not apply.
Where it lands. Essential suits a small store with occasional changes. Business adds a named contact, a priority queue and a monthly test order. See Shopify maintenance.
Side by side
| WordPress | WooCommerce | Shopify | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who updates the platform | You or your maintenance team | You or your maintenance team | Shopify |
| Main cost drivers | Plugins, theme, changes | Checkout, payments, plugins | Theme, apps, content |
| Testing that matters most | Key pages and forms | A test order | Theme changes and a test order |
| Where our plans usually fit | Essential or Business | Business or Priority | Essential or Business |
A scenario for each platform
Again, these are illustrations, not real clients.
- WordPress. A dental practice with a twelve-page site and an appointment form. It changes a few times a month. Updates, security, backups and two hours cover it, so it tends to fit Essential.
- WooCommerce. A gift shop with two hundred products and a busy December. Staging, a monthly test order and daily backups matter more than usual, so it tends to fit Business, with Priority in the weeks around a big sale if speed matters.
- Shopify. A clothing store that changes its home page every week and adds new collections each season. The platform is looked after by Shopify, so the hours go on theme and content changes, and it tends to fit Essential or Business.
Costs that sit outside the plan
- WordPress and WooCommerce: hosting, the domain, premium plugin and theme licences, and payment provider fees.
- Shopify: your Shopify subscription, paid apps and themes, and payment fees.
- All platforms: design and development projects, which are scoped separately from upkeep.
When to move up a plan
- You run out of hours most months.
- A failure would now cost orders, so staging and test orders are worth having.
- You need answers faster than the standard queue.
- The site is changing more than when you started.
Mistakes people make when comparing
- Comparing the monthly price without comparing the hours.
- Assuming Shopify needs no maintenance at all. It needs less technical upkeep, but a store still needs care.
- Assuming a store and a brochure site need the same cover.
- Ignoring the cost of leaving a long contract.
What the first year can look like
| Cost | WordPress | WooCommerce | Shopify |
|---|---|---|---|
| Maintenance plan | Essential to Business | Business to Priority | Essential to Business |
| Hosting | Paid to your host | Paid to your host | Included in your Shopify subscription |
| Software and apps | Premium plugins and themes, if you use them | Premium plugins, extensions and payment add-ons | Paid apps and themes |
| Payment fees | If you take payments | Payment provider fees | Payment fees |
| Projects | Redesigns and new features, quoted separately | The same | The same |
What changes as you grow
- More products and more plugins mean more to test, which points to staging and a test order.
- More traffic means speed matters more, which is a reason for regular checks.
- More orders mean downtime costs more, which is a reason for faster response.
- More sites mean routine matters more, which is a reason to plan per site and report in one place.
What a month of care looks like on each
WordPress. Updates to core, theme and plugins are applied and checked. Security scans and backups run, a restore is tested, and forms and key pages are tried. You send a few changes, which are done from your hours, and a report arrives at the end of the month.
WooCommerce. All of the above, plus a test order placed by a person, tested updates on a staging copy, and closer attention to payments, stock and email delivery. Changes to products and pages come from your hours.
Shopify. Shopify handles the platform. Your hours go on theme edits, products, apps and tracking, the store is watched, apps are reviewed from time to time, and a monthly report records what was done.
How to choose
- Decide how often you change the site, and pick hours to match.
- Ask whether a failure would cost you orders. If so, choose a plan with staging and test orders.
- Check what is excluded, especially on Shopify, where server-level work does not apply.
- Compare the plans on the pricing page.
