WooCommerce, Shopify, Squarespace, and Wix are the four main ecommerce platforms Australian businesses choose between. WooCommerce gives you full ownership, the best SEO control, and the lowest cost at scale. Shopify is faster to launch but costs more over time. Squarespace suits small lifestyle stores. Wix is entry-level only. For most Australian businesses serious about growth, WooCommerce is the strongest long-term choice.

So you want to sell online. Great decision. But now you’re staring down a list of platforms — WooCommerce, Shopify, Squarespace, Wix, maybe a few others — and everyone online seems to have a strong opinion about all of them.

Here’s the thing: there’s no single “best” ecommerce platform. There’s the best one for your business, your budget, your growth plans, and how much control you actually want over what you’ve built.

This guide is going to walk you through the four platforms most Australian businesses are choosing between right now. We’ll be direct about what each one is good at, where it falls short, and who it’s actually built for. By the end, you’ll know exactly which direction to take.

Let’s go.

The Four Platforms at a Glance

Before we get into the detail, here’s the honest one-line version of each:

WooCommerce — the most powerful and flexible option, built on WordPress, you own everything
Shopify — the easiest all-in-one platform, fast to launch, but you’re renting not owning
Squarespace — beautiful templates, decent for simple stores, limited as you grow
Wix — entry-level, drag-and-drop, fine for very small or casual stores

Now let’s go deep.

WooCommerce — The One Built for Businesses That Are Serious About Growth

WooCommerce is an open-source ecommerce plugin that runs on WordPress. It powers approximately 28% of all online stores globally — more than any other single platform. That number exists for a reason.

What makes WooCommerce different

The fundamental difference between WooCommerce and every other platform on this list is ownership. When you build on WooCommerce, you own your website outright. Your data, your code, your content, your customer list — all yours. No monthly fees to a platform provider just to keep your store alive. No being at the mercy of a pricing change you didn’t see coming.

WooCommerce is also genuinely unlimited in what it can do. Need a complex product configurator? Custom shipping rules based on postcode? A subscription model? A members-only shop? A marketplace with multiple vendors? All possible. There are over 59,000 plugins in the WordPress ecosystem, and WooCommerce has its own library of extensions on top of that.

SEO — WooCommerce’s real competitive advantage

This one matters more than most people realise. WooCommerce runs on WordPress, which is widely considered the best CMS for SEO. You have complete control over your URLs, metadata, structured data, page speed, and content strategy. When you’re trying to rank for product searches in Perth, across Australia, or globally — that level of control makes a real difference.

Shopify and the others give you SEO tools. WooCommerce gives you SEO control.

What WooCommerce requires

WooCommerce isn’t a drag-and-drop platform. You need a WordPress hosting account, a properly configured theme, and ideally a developer who knows what they’re doing. If you try to set it up without experience, you can end up with a slow, insecure, or poorly built store that underperforms regardless of how good the platform is.

This is where working with a specialist WooCommerce agency pays for itself. A well-built WooCommerce store is an asset. A poorly built one is a headache.

WooCommerce costs

Platform: Free (open source)
Hosting: $10–$60/month depending on scale
Domain: ~$15–$25/year
Theme: $0–$100 (one-off)
Plugins/extensions: $0–$300/year depending on what you need
Developer build: $3,000–$15,000+ depending on complexity

You pay more upfront. You pay significantly less ongoing compared to Shopify at scale.

WooCommerce is the right choice if:

You’re serious about growth and want a platform that scales with you
SEO and organic traffic are part of your strategy
You want full ownership and control over your store
You’re selling a complex product range or need custom functionality
You’re already on WordPress or planning to be

Shopify — The Fastest Way to Get a Store Live

Shopify launched in 2006 and completely changed the ecommerce landscape by making it possible for almost anyone to set up an online store without touching code. That’s genuinely impressive — and for the right business, it’s still a compelling option.

What Shopify does well

Shopify is the most polished all-in-one ecommerce experience available. The dashboard is clean and intuitive, the checkout is fast and reliable, and it comes with built-in payment processing (Shopify Payments), abandoned cart recovery, and a solid app ecosystem.

If you want to go from zero to live store in a weekend, Shopify is probably your fastest path. Their templates are professional and conversion-optimised, and the learning curve is genuinely low.

The real cost of Shopify

Here’s where it gets complicated. Shopify’s pricing looks reasonable at $39–$399 AUD/month for their standard tiers. But that’s before you factor in:

Transaction fees — if you don’t use Shopify Payments (not always available in Australia at competitive rates), you pay 0.5%–2% on every transaction on top of your payment gateway fees
App costs — many features that WooCommerce provides for free (advanced shipping rules, product bundles, subscription billing, loyalty programs) require paid Shopify apps, often $15–$50/month each
Theme costs — premium Shopify themes run $250–$450 AUD one-off

For a store doing $500k/year in revenue, the difference in platform costs between Shopify and WooCommerce can easily reach $10,000–$20,000 per year. That’s worth knowing before you sign up.

The ownership problem

You don’t own a Shopify store. You’re renting it. Shopify can change their pricing, their terms, or their transaction fee structure — and has done all three. Your store lives on their servers, your data is in their system, and if you ever want to leave, migration is painful and you often lose SEO rankings you’ve spent years building.

That’s not a dealbreaker for every business. But it’s a risk worth understanding.

Shopify is the right choice if:

You want to launch quickly with minimal technical involvement
You’re testing a product concept before committing to a full build
Your product range is simple and straightforward
You don’t rely heavily on SEO for traffic (you’re running paid ads, social, or have a strong existing audience)
Monthly fees at scale don’t concern you

Squarespace — Beautiful, But Built for Portfolios More Than Stores

Squarespace started as a website builder for creatives — photographers, designers, agencies. It’s genuinely excellent at that. The templates are some of the best-looking in the industry, and the editor is clean and intuitive.

But ecommerce was added to Squarespace later, and it shows.

What Squarespace does well

If you’re selling a small range of physical products and design matters a lot to you — think a boutique clothing brand, a gift store, a local artist selling prints — Squarespace can produce a beautiful result without a lot of technical effort.

Their templates are mobile-responsive, the checkout process is solid, and the platform handles basic inventory management cleanly.

Where Squarespace falls short for serious stores

The limitations appear quickly once your store grows:

App ecosystem is thin. Squarespace has a small third-party integration library compared to WooCommerce or even Shopify. Custom functionality is hard to add.
SEO is limited. You have less control over URL structures, structured data, and technical SEO than you do on WordPress/WooCommerce. For businesses competing on organic search, this is a genuine problem.
Product management gets clunky at scale. Managing hundreds of SKUs, complex variants, or multiple product types is not what Squarespace was designed for.
Transaction fees apply on their lower tiers (0% only on their Commerce Advanced plan at ~$65 AUD/month).

Squarespace is the right choice if:

You’re a small or lifestyle business selling a curated, simple product range
Brand aesthetics are your top priority
You expect low-to-moderate traffic and a small product catalogue
You don’t need custom functionality or deep SEO control

Wix — Entry Level, and It Shows

Wix is the most accessible platform on this list. It’s drag-and-drop, it’s cheap, and it’s designed for people who want a website today with zero technical knowledge. For a brochure website or a local service business, it does the job.

For a serious ecommerce store, it’s generally not the right tool.

What Wix does well

Ease of use is Wix’s whole pitch. The editor is genuinely the most beginner-friendly of any platform — drag anything anywhere, publish immediately. Their templates are decent and their pricing starts low.

If you’re a sole trader selling a handful of products and you just need something live quickly and cheaply, Wix won’t break your heart.

Where Wix falls short

Performance. Wix sites are historically slow compared to well-built WooCommerce or Shopify stores. Page speed directly affects conversions and Google rankings. Google’s Core Web Vitals penalise slow stores in search rankings.
Limited scalability. Wix’s ecommerce functionality doesn’t scale well. As your product range, traffic, and complexity grow, you’ll hit walls.
SEO. While Wix has improved its SEO tools significantly, it still lags behind WordPress/WooCommerce for technical SEO control.
You’re locked in. Like Shopify, migrating away from Wix is painful. Your content doesn’t export cleanly.

Wix is the right choice if:

You’re a very small or brand new business testing the waters
Budget is the absolute primary constraint right now
You’re selling 5–20 products, not 500
You plan to move to a proper platform once you’ve validated your concept

The Honest Comparison

	WooCommerce	Shopify	Squarespace	Wix
Ownership	You own everything	You’re renting	You’re renting	You’re renting
Flexibility	Unlimited	High within limits	Moderate	Low
SEO control	Full	Good	Limited	Basic
Ease of use	Moderate (needs setup)	Easy	Easy	Very easy
Ongoing cost	Low–medium	Medium–high	Medium	Low–medium
Scalability	Unlimited	High	Limited	Low
Best for	Growth-focused businesses	Fast launchers	Small lifestyle brands	Beginners

A Note on “Free” Platforms

WooCommerce, Shopify, Squarespace, and Wix all have free tiers or free trials. None of them are truly free for a real business. You’ll always need hosting, a domain, and either developer time or paid features to build something worth launching.

The question isn’t which platform costs the least to start — it’s which one costs the least over the life of your business while actually delivering the results you need.

When you run that calculation, WooCommerce wins for most businesses that are serious about ecommerce.

FAQ

Which ecommerce platform is best for Australian businesses?

For most Australian businesses focused on growth, WooCommerce is the strongest choice. It offers full ownership of your store, the best SEO control, native support for Australian payment gateways, and no ongoing platform transaction fees. Shopify is a solid second option for businesses that prioritise fast setup over long-term cost and control.

Is WooCommerce better than Shopify?

For most growing businesses, yes — particularly when SEO, cost at scale, and ownership matter. WooCommerce is free and open-source, gives you full control over your store, and doesn’t charge transaction fees. Shopify is easier to set up but costs significantly more as your revenue grows and limits your ability to customise deeply.

How much does it cost to build a WooCommerce store in Australia?

A professional WooCommerce store in Australia typically costs between $3,000 and $15,000 to build, depending on complexity. Ongoing costs are low — hosting ($10–$60/month), domain (~$20/year), and any premium plugins you choose. At scale, WooCommerce is considerably cheaper to run than Shopify.

Can I switch from Shopify to WooCommerce?

Yes, migration from Shopify to WooCommerce is possible and something agencies like MOMO Media can manage for you. It requires migrating products, customer data, and order history, and then redirecting your URLs to protect your SEO rankings. It’s a process — but for many businesses growing past $300k–$500k in revenue, the long-term savings and control make it worth it.

Is WooCommerce good for SEO?

WooCommerce is built on WordPress, which is widely considered the strongest CMS for SEO. You have complete control over URLs, metadata, structured data, page speed optimisation, and content strategy. This gives WooCommerce a significant SEO advantage over Shopify, Squarespace, and Wix.

What’s the difference between WooCommerce and Shopify for small businesses?

For very small or early-stage businesses, Shopify’s ease of setup can be appealing. But even for small businesses, WooCommerce offers a better long-term foundation — you own your store, your costs don’t scale upward with revenue, and you have room to grow without migrating platforms later. If you can get a WooCommerce store built properly from the start, it’s worth it.

Is Wix good for ecommerce?

Wix works for very small, simple stores where budget is the primary constraint. It’s not recommended for businesses with growth ambitions. The platform has performance limitations that affect Google rankings, limited scalability, and a thin app ecosystem compared to WooCommerce or Shopify.

What Most Australian Businesses Should Build On

If you’re an Australian business with genuine growth ambitions, you’re almost certainly better served by WooCommerce than any other platform on this list.

Here’s why it matters specifically in Australia:

GST and Australian tax handling is better supported and more customisable on WooCommerce
Australian payment gateways (Square, Tyro, eWAY, Stripe) all integrate natively
Local hosting on Australian servers keeps load times fast for Australian customers — and you have full control over where your store lives
You’re not paying Shopify’s transaction fees in USD — which adds currency conversion costs on top of the base fee

The businesses we build WooCommerce stores for at MOMO Media range from product startups to established retailers. The pattern is consistent — the ones who chose WooCommerce from the start have more control, better SEO performance, and lower costs at scale than those who migrated from Shopify.

If you’re ready to build something serious, talk to us about your WooCommerce project.