Platform debates usually get stuck on features. In practice, the choice comes down to what your business does every day and how much of that has to happen on the website. Start there and the right platform is usually pretty clear.
What each platform is good at
WordPress is good at content. If you publish often, have lots of pages, and want to edit them yourself, it's a strong choice, and a lot of developers know it well.
Shopify is good at selling products. Inventory, checkout, payments, shipping, and taxes are handled for you, so you're not paying to build them.
A custom build makes sense when your process doesn't fit either one. Usually that means the website has to work with a system you already run on, like a dealer inventory, a scheduling tool, or your own software.
Matching the platform to the business
Start by counting what you sell and how often it changes.
- A handful of services that rarely change point to WordPress or a simple custom site.
- Hundreds of products with stock levels and variants point to Shopify.
- A process that lives in another system points to a custom build that connects to it directly.
Many businesses land in between. A service business that sells a few products can add a small store to WordPress, and a Shopify store can carry plenty of content pages. The goal is a platform that handles your main job well.
The cost of choosing wrong
Choosing wrong rarely shows up all at once. It shows up as work someone does by hand every week, like copying orders between systems, or as a pile of plugins holding together something the platform wasn't meant to do.
That cost is easy to miss at first, and it adds up every week the workaround stays. Before you pick, look at where your time goes each week, and choose the platform that handles the most of that work for you.
What it costs to run
The build is only part of the cost. Each option has its own ongoing costs, so ask for them in writing.
- WordPress: hosting, any paid plugins or themes, and regular updates to keep it secure.
- Shopify: the monthly plan, payment processing fees, and any paid apps.
- Custom: hosting and support for the code, plus any services it connects to.
Knowing them up front makes them easier to plan for.
Questions to ask before you commit
- What happens when I outgrow it, and what would moving away involve?
- Who can edit the site once it's live, and do routine changes need a developer?
- What does it cost every month once the add-ons I need are turned on?
- Who owns the content and the customer data, and can I export it?
- Does this fix my real bottleneck, or only the part that's easiest to see?
If you're still sizing the project, How much does a website cost in 2026? walks through what moves the price. Our website design page shows the kinds of sites we build, and you can tell us what you're working with if you'd like a second opinion.