Shopify Alternatives for Australian Businesses (2026)

Shopify is the default choice for Australian ecommerce for a reason. It is easy to set up, has a massive app ecosystem, and handles hosting, security, and payments without asking you to think about servers.

But "easy to start" and "cost-effective to run" are different things. Once your store hits A$10,000 to A$20,000 per month in revenue, the monthly bill starts climbing in ways the pricing page does not advertise. Apps, transaction fees, premium themes, and third-party gateway surcharges can push the real cost to 3x or 4x the headline subscription price.

This guide covers seven Shopify alternatives available to Australian businesses in 2026, with real pricing in AUD where possible, honest trade-offs, and a three-year cost comparison. Every number is cited or computed from the platforms' published rates, re-verified 16 August 2026.

Why businesses leave Shopify

The top three reasons, based on the recurring themes across r/ecommerce and r/shopify and the Shopify stores we audit:

1. Fees compound faster than expected

Shopify's Basic plan costs A$42/month on annual billing (A$56 billed monthly). That looks manageable. But on top of that:

• Transaction fees: 1.75% + 30c per online sale with Shopify Payments on Basic (1.6% on Grow, 1.4% on Advanced). Use a third-party gateway like PayPal or Stripe directly, and Shopify adds an extra 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow, or 0.6% on Advanced on top of the gateway's own charges (how the fee is calculated).
• App costs: The Shopify stores we audit typically run 5 to 10 paid apps. Email marketing, reviews, upsells, SEO tools, loyalty programs. A$100 to A$300/month is a normal app bill.
• Premium themes: $150 to $400 one-time.

The arithmetic on a store doing A$10,000/month through Shopify Payments on Basic: A$42 plan + A$175 in percentage fees + roughly A$40 in per-order fees (about 133 orders at 30c) is A$257/month before a single app. Add A$150/month in apps and the total is around A$400/month, roughly ten times the headline plan price.

2. Checkout customisation is locked behind Plus

Need custom fields at checkout for regulatory compliance, invoice data, or special delivery instructions? On standard Shopify plans, you cannot edit the checkout. That feature requires Shopify Plus, from A$3,700/month. For a small Australian store, that is not a realistic option.

3. You don't own the platform

Shopify is a rental. The code, the checkout, the hosting environment, the data structure: none of it belongs to you. If you stop paying, the store goes offline. If Shopify changes its terms, fee structure, or API, you adapt or leave. And if your account is closed for a policy violation, real or mistaken, your storefront goes dark while you argue it out through support.

The 7 alternatives compared

Prices as of 16 August 2026. Where a platform bills in USD, the AUD figure uses A$1 = US$0.71.

1. WooCommerce

WooCommerce is a free, open-source plugin for WordPress, and the alternative we see most often among Australian stores that leave Shopify. It is the strongest option for businesses that want full ownership of their store.

Pricing:

• Plugin: free
• Hosting: A$15 to A$50/month for shared or managed WordPress hosting. WP Engine managed hosting starts at US$30/month (about A$42).
• Domain: A$15 to $40/year for .com.au
• Premium extensions: $0 to $300/year depending on needs
• Payment processing: Stripe at 1.7% + A$0.30 per domestic card transaction. No platform surcharge.

Pros:

• No monthly platform subscription
• No transaction fees beyond your payment processor
• Full code ownership. Your store, your hosting, your database.
• Tens of thousands of plugins for any functionality
• Strongest SEO control of any platform via plugins like Yoast or Rank Math
• Every Australian payment gateway supported: Stripe, PayPal, Afterpay, Zip, Square

Cons:

• Requires a developer or technical knowledge to set up and maintain
• Security is your responsibility. WordPress needs regular patching, and plugins can introduce vulnerabilities.
• Only 43.4% of WordPress sites pass Core Web Vitals on mobile (CrUX June 2025). Performance depends heavily on hosting quality, theme choice, and plugin count.
• Maintenance can negate cost savings if you don't have a technical partner

Who it's for: Stores that have access to a developer (in-house or agency) and either a heavy Shopify app stack or third-party gateway surcharges to eliminate. Store owners who run it well say the same thing: structured properly it is stable and cost-efficient, but you need a plan for security incidents at inconvenient hours.

2. BigCommerce

BigCommerce is a hosted SaaS platform that sits between Shopify's simplicity and WooCommerce's flexibility. Its long-standing pitch was zero transaction fees on every plan. That changed with its pricing overhaul: zero transaction fees now apply only to orders processed through BigCommerce's embedded payment providers. Orders through an open provider (such as Stripe connected directly) attract a monthly fee calculated on those orders' value: 2% on Core, 1% on Growth, 0.6% on Scale.

Pricing (USD, as of August 2026):

Source: BigCommerce pricing page. GMV is your gross order value minus 10%; when you exceed a cap, the plan auto-upgrades.

Pros:

• No transaction fees when you use embedded payment providers
• Multi-currency and multi-storefront built in, without apps
• Strong B2B features: tiered pricing, customer groups, purchase orders
• Better built-in SEO tools than Shopify, including customisable URLs
• Afterpay, Zip, and PayPal supported natively in Australia

Cons:

• Pricing is in USD, not AUD, which adds currency conversion friction
• A much smaller app marketplace than Shopify's
• A smaller Australian footprint than Shopify, which means fewer local agencies and developers
• GMV caps force plan upgrades as you grow: a store doing around A$360,000/year already needs the Scale plan
• Using your own payment provider now costs 0.6% to 2% of those sales
• Less intuitive admin interface than Shopify

Who it's for: B2B and wholesale operations that need tiered pricing, customer groups, and purchase orders without stacking apps, and stores happy to use BigCommerce's embedded payment providers. The old case for BigCommerce as the cheap fee-free alternative no longer holds under the new pricing; check which plan your GMV lands you on before comparing.

3. Square Online

Square Online is the ecommerce extension of Square's payment ecosystem. If you already use Square for in-person sales, this is the path of least resistance to adding an online store.

Pricing (AUD, as of August 2026):

Source: Square Online AU pricing

Pros:

• Free plan with no monthly subscription. You only pay when you make a sale.
• Direct POS integration with Square hardware for in-store and online inventory sync
• Simple setup for businesses already in the Square ecosystem
• Australian payment support out of the box

Cons:

• 2.2% transaction fee on the Free and Plus plans; Premium at A$99/month only brings it down to 1.9%
• Limited customisation compared to Shopify, WooCommerce, or BigCommerce
• No advanced ecommerce features (subscriptions, B2B, complex shipping rules)
• Design templates are basic and limited
• Not built for stores with large catalogues or complex operations

Who it's for: Brick-and-mortar businesses in Australia that want to add an online store without a major investment. Cafes, retail shops, and service businesses that already use Square POS. Not suitable for pure-play ecommerce or stores with more than 100 products.

4. Ecwid

Ecwid (now part of Lightspeed) lets you add an ecommerce store to any existing website. Rather than replacing your current site, it embeds a shop widget into it. Note that Ecwid retired its free plan and raised prices in March 2026; Australian merchants are billed in AUD.

Pricing (AUD, as of the March 2026 change):

Sources: Ecwid March 2026 pricing notice (AUD table), plan feature comparison.

Pros:

• No transaction fees on any plan
• Bills in AUD for Australian merchants
• Embeds into any existing website (WordPress, Wix, Squarespace, or custom HTML)
• Lightweight and does not slow down your existing site
• Multi-channel selling (Facebook, Instagram, Google Shopping)

Cons:

• Limited design customisation. The store widget has a standard look.
• SEO is weaker than standalone platforms because product pages live inside embedded widgets
• The Starter tier is limited: 10 products and no digital goods (digital products start on Venture)
• The March 2026 price rise made it noticeably more expensive than it used to be
• Less mature than Shopify or WooCommerce for complex store operations

Who it's for: Small businesses with an existing website that want to sell a handful of products without rebuilding from scratch. Not suitable for stores where ecommerce is the primary business.

5. Magento (Adobe Commerce)

Magento is an open-source ecommerce platform used by large enterprises. The community edition (now called Magento Open Source) is free. The commercial version, Adobe Commerce, is quoted case-by-case and typically runs to tens of thousands of US dollars per year.

Pricing:

• Magento Open Source: free to download and use
• Hosting: A$100 to A$500+/month (Magento requires dedicated or cloud hosting)
• Development: $20,000 to $100,000+ for initial build
• Adobe Commerce: custom pricing, typically tens of thousands of US dollars per year

Pros:

• Extremely flexible. Can handle millions of SKUs, complex pricing rules, multiple storefronts.
• No platform transaction fees on the open-source edition
• Full code ownership
• Strong B2B and wholesale features
• Multi-currency, multi-language, multi-warehouse natively

Cons:

• Expensive to build and maintain. Developer scarcity in Australia makes hourly rates high.
• Requires dedicated hosting with significant resources
• Overkill for any store under $5 million per year in revenue
• Steep learning curve for store administrators

Who it's for: Enterprise retailers with complex operations, large catalogues (10,000+ SKUs), and dedicated development teams. Not a realistic Shopify alternative for small or mid-sized Australian businesses.

6. Maropost (Neto)

Maropost (Neto) is the only Australian-founded ecommerce platform on this list. Started in Brisbane in 2009 and acquired by Canada's Maropost in 2021, it is designed specifically for Australian retail, including native integrations with Australia Post, Sendle, and local payment gateways.

Pricing (AUD, as of August 2026):

• Plans start at A$199/month, which covers stores up to A$250,000/year in revenue
• A$789/month covers up to A$1 million/year; custom pricing above that
• Billed in AUD, tax excluded

Pros:

• Built for Australian commerce: native Australia Post integration, GST handling, local warehouse connections
• Combined POS and online store for omnichannel retail
• B2B and wholesale features included
• eBay and Amazon Australia marketplace integration

Cons:

• At A$199/month minimum, the entry price is the highest of any SaaS option on this list
• Smaller ecosystem than Shopify or WooCommerce
• Limited theme selection and design flexibility
• Less community support and fewer third-party integrations

Who it's for: Australian retailers running both physical and online stores who need native local integrations, particularly where eBay and marketplace selling is a large share of revenue. For a pure online store, the entry price is hard to justify against the other options here.

7. Custom-built (Next.js + Stripe)

This is the option that most "Shopify alternatives" articles leave out entirely. Instead of renting another SaaS platform, you build a store from scratch on a modern web framework.

Pricing:

• One-off build: $9,997 to $50,000+ depending on complexity
• Hosting: A$20 to A$50/month (Vercel or similar)
• Payment processing: Stripe at 1.7% + A$0.30. No platform surcharge.
• Maintenance: optional, scoped per project or hourly

Pros:

• No monthly platform fees. Ever.
• No transaction surcharges. You pay Stripe's standard rate and nothing more.
• No app subscriptions. Every feature is built in: reviews, upsells, email capture, loyalty, product bundles.
• Full code ownership on day one. Your GitHub repo, your Vercel account, your Stripe account.
• Near-perfect Lighthouse scores because the site is built to spec, not constrained by a platform's architecture
• No checkout limitations. Custom fields, custom flows, custom everything.
• Built-in image optimisation, code splitting, and edge caching

Cons:

• Higher upfront cost than any SaaS platform
• Requires a developer for changes (though many stores only need content edits, which can be handled through a headless CMS)
• Smaller pool of Next.js ecommerce developers in Australia compared to Shopify
• No built-in app marketplace. Everything is purpose-built.
• Not suitable for testing a new product idea. Use Shopify for validation, then migrate when the unit economics justify it.

Who it's for: Stores paying A$500+ per month in platform costs (subscription plus apps plus gateway surcharges), or facing a Shopify Plus upgrade at A$3,700/month for checkout control. The build eliminates those recurring costs; break-even is typically 12 to 24 months depending on the stack it replaces.

Three-year total cost of ownership

This is where the comparison gets real. The monthly subscription price is the least useful metric for choosing a platform. What matters is the total cost over three years, including hosting, transaction fees, apps, and maintenance.

The table below models a store doing A$30,000/month in revenue (A$360,000/year) with an average order value of A$75, processing roughly 400 orders per month. All figures computed from the platforms' published rates as of 16 August 2026, with USD converted at A$1 = US$0.71. BigCommerce is modelled on Scale because this store's GMV exceeds the Core and Growth caps.

A few things this table shows:

Payment processing dominates every column, and it is nearly identical everywhere. Shopify Payments on Basic (1.75% + 30c) and Stripe direct (1.7% + 30c) differ by A$540 over three years at this volume. Leaving a platform does not make card processing go away; the switchable costs are the subscription, the apps, and the surcharges.

At this revenue on Basic with a modest app stack, Shopify is the cheapest total package. That is an honest result and worth stating plainly: a A$30,000/month store on Basic with A$150/month in apps has little to gain from replatforming on cost alone.

BigCommerce's repricing makes it the most expensive option here. The GMV caps push this store onto Scale at US$299/month, and processing through Stripe adds a 0.6% platform fee on top. Using an embedded payment provider avoids that fee and brings the total to roughly A$40,000, still the highest column.

The economics turn when your Shopify overhead grows. Three common triggers: a heavy app stack (A$300 to A$500/month doubles the app line), a third-party gateway (the 2% surcharge on Basic is A$600/month at this revenue, or A$21,600 over three years), or a Shopify Plus requirement (A$3,700/month is A$133,200 over three years before processing). In any of those situations, a custom build's A$35,000 three-year total, with checkout control included, is the cheaper path, and WooCommerce makes a similar case at lower complexity.

How to decide

The right platform depends on where your business is and where it is going.

Stay on Shopify if:

• You are doing under A$10,000/month in revenue and the simplicity outweighs the cost
• You are on Basic with a light app stack and Shopify Payments; at that profile Shopify is usually the cheapest total package
• You depend heavily on Shopify's app ecosystem for features you cannot replicate elsewhere
• You have no access to a developer and need a fully managed platform
• You are testing a new product and need to be live this week

Move to WooCommerce if:

• You already have a WordPress site or a WordPress developer
• You want full ownership of code and data
• You are comfortable managing security updates and plugin maintenance (or can budget for it)
• Your Shopify bill carries a heavy app stack or third-party gateway surcharges that WooCommerce would eliminate

Move to BigCommerce if:

• You sell B2B or wholesale and need tiered pricing, customer groups, or purchase orders without apps
• You are comfortable using its embedded payment providers, which is the only way to keep the zero-transaction-fee benefit
• You have checked which plan your GMV puts you on and the price still beats your current bill

Move to Square Online if:

• You run a physical store with Square POS and want online ordering with inventory sync
• You have a simple catalogue (under 50 products) and straightforward fulfilment

Build custom if:

• You are paying A$500+/month in platform costs (subscription plus apps plus surcharges) and the economics no longer make sense
• You need checkout customisation that would otherwise require Shopify Plus
• You want to eliminate all platform dependency and own every line of code
• You are building something that does not fit into a template: subscriptions, configurators, custom pricing logic

Go headless (keep Shopify, replace the frontend) if:

• Shopify's admin, inventory, and checkout work fine but the theme is your ceiling: speed, design, or conversion rate
• You have a large catalogue and established operations you do not want to migrate
• You want a completely custom storefront without touching fulfilment, payments, or your team's workflow

This middle path gets less attention than it deserves. The storefront your customers see becomes a custom Next.js build, while Shopify keeps running everything behind it. You keep the app ecosystem and the checkout, and lose the theme limits. We cover when this beats both staying and leaving in our guide to headless Shopify storefronts.

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The migration question

Switching platforms is not trivial. Products, customers, order history, URLs, SEO rankings, and payment integrations all need to migrate cleanly. A botched migration can cost months of organic traffic and thousands in lost sales.

If you are considering moving off Shopify, plan for:

1. URL preservation. Every product, collection, and blog URL needs a 301 redirect if the structure changes. Google takes weeks to process URL changes, and broken links kill rankings.
2. Data export. Shopify exports products, customers, and orders via CSV or API. Make sure your new platform can import the data cleanly, including variants, images, metafields, and inventory counts.
3. Payment continuity. If you have active subscriptions or saved payment methods, the migration needs to handle those without interrupting billing.
4. Staging and testing. Build the new store on a staging domain while the old one stays live. Flip DNS when everything is verified. Zero downtime is achievable with proper planning.
5. Post-migration monitoring. Watch Google Search Console for crawl errors, 404s, and indexing issues for at least 30 days after launch.

The cost of migration varies: Australian agencies typically quote A$5,000 to A$15,000 for a Shopify-to-WooCommerce migration depending on catalogue size. BigCommerce offers migration tools. Custom builds include migration as part of the build scope.

What most comparison articles miss

Most "Shopify alternatives" articles are written by platforms competing for your business or affiliates earning commissions on signups. They compare features side by side without addressing the actual question: what will this cost me over three years, and what do I own at the end?

The answer depends on your cost profile. Shopify is the best platform for getting started, and for a Basic-plan store with a light app stack it stays cost-competitive. It becomes the expensive option when success pushes you into its upper layers: more apps, a third-party gateway surcharge, or a Plus upgrade for checkout control. Those costs rise with your growth even when the platform's cost to serve you stays flat.

Australians spent $82.6 billion online in 2025, up 14% year-on-year. If your store is growing at anything near that rate, check which of those upper layers you are heading into, because that is where the bill accelerates.

The alternative is not necessarily another SaaS platform with a different fee structure. It might be owning your own infrastructure, paying a one-off build cost, and keeping the margin that would otherwise go to platform fees.

Sources

All prices re-verified against the pages below on 16 August 2026. USD conversions at A$1 = US$0.71.

• Shopify AU pricing page - Plan prices in AUD, Shopify Payments card rates, and third-party transaction fee percentages
• Shopify Help Center: Third-party transaction fees - How the third-party fee is calculated and when it applies
• Stripe AU pricing - 1.7% + A$0.30 domestic card rate; further reduction announced for October 2026
• BigCommerce pricing - Core/Growth/Scale/Performance plans, GMV caps, and open-provider fee structure
• Square Online AU pricing - Free, Plus, and Premium plans with AU transaction rates
• Ecwid: March 2026 pricing changes - New AUD plan prices
• Ecwid: plans and features - Product limits per plan; all four plans now paid
• Maropost (Neto) pricing - A$199/mo and A$789/mo plans, AUD billing
• WP Engine AU plans - Managed WordPress hosting from US$30/month
• Australia Post eCommerce Report 2026 - $82.6B online spend in 2025, up 14% YoY (2024: $72.5B)
• Search Engine Journal: 2025 Core Web Vitals CMS Rankings - WordPress CWV pass rate data (HTTP Archive / CrUX)
• Maropost acquires Neto (press release, March 2021) - Neto founded 2009, Brisbane; acquired for $60M