Omniterra vs Shopify: which one costs less for your store?

Short answer

Shopify and Omniterra are both hosted platforms: on either one, you don't manage servers, software updates or security patches. The difference is in how you pay.

Shopify charges a monthly subscription and, if you take card payments through a provider other than Shopify Payments, an extra percentage on every card order. Omniterra charges a flat monthly plan and 0% commission on sales on every plan, including Free.

The gap is widest in three situations: you have a team, a real share of your payments goes through a gateway that isn't Shopify Payments, or you sell cash on delivery. If you also sell in a physical shop, or you depend on one specific app, Shopify is often the better fit. More on that below.

At a glance

Shopify's euro prices come from its Irish pricing page: Basic €32/month (€24 billed yearly), Grow €92 and Advanced €384. Plus starts at €2,100/month. New stores get a 3-day free trial. Prices differ by country, so check your own market's pricing page.

Our plans are on the pricing page. The Free plan includes 50 orders per month and 250 products, with no time limit.

Where the money goes

Subscription and staff accounts

On the monthly price alone, our Start plan at $15/month costs less than Shopify Basic at €32/month. The next difference is staff. According to Shopify's pricing page, Basic has no staff accounts besides the owner, Grow allows up to 5 and Advanced up to 15. So if two colleagues pack orders and answer customers, on Shopify you move up to Grow at €92/month. On Omniterra, Start includes 2 staff accounts and Grow ($29/month) includes 5.

Transaction fees with a third-party gateway

This is the line most people miss. Shopify adds a fee when you take payments through a provider other than Shopify Payments: 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow, 0.6% on Advanced and 0.2% on Plus, on top of what the gateway itself charges (source).

It matters in two cases: Shopify Payments isn't available in your country (supported countries), or you already have a contract with a local processor you want to keep. Check this line before you choose.

Where Shopify Payments is available, the extra fee disappears and you pay Shopify's own card rates instead, which differ by country and by plan.

Cash on delivery

Shopify treats cash on delivery as a manual payment method, and its help center says third-party transaction fees are not charged for manual payments. So a store that sells only with COD pays Shopify the subscription and nothing more. On Omniterra it is the same: no percentage. In both cases, your courier may charge its own COD fee.

The difference is what you get around it. On Omniterra, COD is a first-class payment method: rules for when to offer it, a COD fee, "refused at delivery" tracked separately from "delivered", and an optional risk score per order. On Shopify, that usually means apps.

Worked example: €6,000 in monthly sales

Take a store with 150 orders a month at an average of €40, so €6,000 in sales. The owner works with two colleagues. We use monthly billing and look only at the platform side, since courier and processing costs are the same wherever you sell.

Scenario A: 100% cash on delivery. Shopify charges no transaction fee here. Basic costs €32/month but has no staff accounts, so with two colleagues you need Grow at €92/month. On Omniterra, Start at $15/month covers the team, with 0% commission.

Scenario B: 60% COD, 40% card through a third-party gateway. Card sales are €2,400 across 60 orders.

The gateway's own processing fee comes on top in every column. Over a year, the 2% on Basic adds €576 on these numbers — and it grows with your sales, which is the point: it is a percentage, not a fee.

Scenario C: card through Shopify Payments or Stripe. Where Shopify Payments is available, the extra percentage disappears and you pay Shopify's card rate. On Omniterra, the same payments go through your own Stripe account, at the rate you negotiated, and that money goes to Stripe rather than to us. Which is cheaper depends on the two rates in your country, so compare them directly.

Run your own numbers with our guide to what an e-commerce platform really costs.

What you get here that usually costs extra there

• Cash on delivery, built in. Rules, COD fee, refusal tracking, optional per-order risk score and phone blacklist. See our cash on delivery best practices.
• Your storefront in your customer's language. The storefront ships in 17 languages and the admin in 15, right-to-left included, with no translation app.
• Invoices with VAT. Company tax ID on B2B orders, continuous numbering, printable PDF.
• Apps at app prices, not platform prices. Our own add-ons — reviews, bundles, upsells, trust badges, COD protection — cost between €1 and €3 a month each.

On Shopify, several of these are covered by apps from its app store, and those apps have their own monthly price. That is the number worth adding up before you compare subscriptions.

Where Shopify is the better choice

Shopify is a strong platform, and in several cases it is the right pick:

• You also sell in a physical shop. Shopify has its own POS. Omniterra does not offer POS.
• You depend on a niche app. Shopify's app ecosystem is far larger than ours. Many tools built for Shopify connect to our compatible API, but not all, so check your must-have integrations first.
• You want a name buyers already recognise. Shopify is a global brand, and Shopify Payments works in many markets where you would otherwise need your own processor.
• You need native mobile apps or several stores in one account. We don't have native mobile apps, and multi-store is coming soon.

If one of those four describes you, stay where you are. We would rather tell you that now than after you move.

How to switch from Shopify

Moving is a one-time job, and most of it is automatic:

1. Create a free account.
2. Run the Shopify import: products, variants, collections, customers, orders, discounts, pages, blog, menus, URL redirects and files. Your Shopify store stays untouched and keeps selling while you look.
3. Keep your links. Storefront URLs follow the same pattern as Shopify (/products/handle, /collections/handle, /pages/handle, /blogs/blog/handle), so your handles carry over and indexed pages keep their addresses.
4. Reconnect your tools. Our Admin API is compatible with Shopify's GraphQL and REST APIs, so many Shopify tools connect with little or no change.
5. Point your domain to us. SSL is set up automatically.

The full checklist is in how to migrate from Shopify or WooCommerce without losing SEO, and the key you need is explained in getting the Shopify key that moves your store. Weighing a self-hosted option too? Read Omniterra vs WooCommerce.

Shopify is a trademark of its owner. Omniterra is not affiliated with it.