You have 10+ products and standard checkout
If your business is "sell things online with a normal cart and checkout," Shopify solves it faster and better than any custom build. Use Shopify.
Custom-Coded vs Shopify
Custom PHP vs Shopify for an e-commerce site.
This comparison is the simplest of the five: for most small business e-commerce, Shopify is the right answer, not custom. The exceptions are narrow but real - and worth knowing before you commit either way.
Honest comparison
Shopify vs. custom-coded
Where Shopify genuinely shines, where it quietly costs you, and what a hand-coded subscription site does differently. Real tradeoffs, no strawmen.
TL;DR
Shopify is the right choice for the vast majority of small business e-commerce - payment processing, inventory, tax compliance, shipping integrations, and a thriving app ecosystem are all hard problems Shopify has already solved. Custom-coded e-commerce makes sense only when your business has specific requirements Shopify can't model: unusual pricing logic, deeply integrated B2B workflows, regulatory constraints, or a content-first site with light commerce attached.
Side by Side
Custom PHP vs Shopify on the things that matter.
| Dimension | Shopify | Custom-coded by Brattleboro Local |
|---|---|---|
| Payment processing setup | Built in - Shopify Payments, Stripe, PayPal, etc. | Custom Stripe integration; everything else needs build |
| Tax compliance (US sales tax) | Shopify Tax handles 50 states | Roll your own or integrate Avalara |
| Inventory management | Built in, with apps | Custom-built |
| Shipping rate calculation | Built in (UPS, FedEx, USPS) | Custom integration |
| App ecosystem | 10,000+ apps for any need | Build whatever you need from scratch |
| Site speed (mobile) | 65-90 (mobile, theme-dependent) | 95-100 (mobile) |
| Schema markup | Product schema built in, partial | Full custom schema graph |
| Theme/design constraints | Liquid templating, themed | Unconstrained design |
| Monthly cost | $29-$399/month + transaction fees | $179/month for the marketing site; storefronts are Shopify's lane |
| Total setup time for storefront | 1-2 weeks | Not our lane - use Shopify for storefronts |
| PCI compliance burden | Shopify handles it | You handle it (significant) |
Honest Assessment
When Shopify is actually the right choice.
We're not in the business of trashing other platforms. Here's where Shopify is genuinely the better fit.
PCI compliance scares you (it should)
Handling credit cards yourself triggers PCI compliance obligations that are expensive and risky. Shopify offloads all of it - you never touch card data. For 99% of small businesses, this alone justifies Shopify.
You need to ship and pay sales tax
Multi-state sales tax compliance is genuinely complex. Shopify's tax calculation and shipping integrations save thousands of hours of custom work. Custom e-commerce that handles tax correctly is a significant ongoing maintenance burden.
You'll want apps later
Subscriptions, gift cards, loyalty programs, advanced shipping, inventory sync, abandoned cart recovery - Shopify's app ecosystem handles all of these for $10-$50/month each. Custom would require building or integrating each one separately.
Where Custom Wins
When custom-coded is the better fit.
Where the trade-offs go the other direction - these are the situations where custom code outperforms Shopify.
You have 1-5 products attached to a content-first site
A Brattleboro artist selling a few prints, a Bellows Falls coach selling one course, a Newfane author selling their books - for very small product catalogs attached to a primarily content-driven site, Shopify is overkill. Custom integration of Stripe Checkout into a regular site is simpler and cheaper at this scale.
Your business logic is unusual
Custom B2B pricing tiers, conditional product availability based on customer attributes, regulated industries (firearms, alcohol, supplements), highly variable bundle pricing - Shopify's data model is excellent for normal retail but constrains unusual logic. Custom code shapes itself to your business.
You want one stack instead of two
A Shopify store next to a custom marketing site means maintaining two platforms, two design systems, two analytics setups. For some businesses, the simplicity of one unified custom platform outweighs Shopify's commerce features.
Performance is the absolute priority
Even well-built Shopify themes typically score 65-90 on mobile Lighthouse. Custom can hit 95-100 consistently. For a business where every millisecond costs sales (high-volume DTC brands), the Shopify performance ceiling matters. But this is rare for small businesses.
Real Scenarios
Concrete examples from southern Vermont.
Specific business types we work with, and which platform actually fits each.
A Brattleboro boutique with 200 SKUs
Shopify. No debate. The combination of inventory management, payment processing, shipping, and the app ecosystem makes this an obvious Shopify choice.
A Bellows Falls artist selling 5 prints
Custom or Shopify Lite. The product catalog is too small to justify Shopify's monthly fee for most artists. A custom site with Stripe Checkout buttons for each print is simpler and cheaper. Shopify Lite ($5/month) is an alternative if the artist wants Shopify-flavored backend without a full storefront.
A southern Vermont cidery with online sales + tasting room reservations
Shopify for the e-commerce, custom-built integration with whatever they use for reservations (Tock, Resy, custom). The custom marketing site can deep-link into the Shopify store. This is a common hybrid pattern.
A Londonderry wholesale food distributor (B2B)
Depends. Shopify Plus has serious B2B features but is $2,000+/month. Custom B2B e-commerce can be more cost-effective at that scale if the team has the technical capacity. Often a hybrid: Shopify for some workflows, custom integrations for the unique business logic.
What moving off Shopify actually involves
This one deserves a straight answer: if you are running a real store with meaningful order volume, inventory sync and payment processing, Shopify is the right tool and you should stay on it. We are not going to pretend otherwise to win the work.
The move makes sense when the store was never really the point. Plenty of service businesses ended up on Shopify because they sell one or two things occasionally, and are now paying for a full commerce platform plus apps to run what is essentially a brochure site with a buy button.
In that case products, descriptions, images and any blog content come across, and simple checkout is handled without the platform fee and the app stack around it. Customer accounts and order history stay on Shopify as a record; they are not migrated, because you should not be moving live commerce history around casually.
Product and collection URLs are mapped so existing rankings survive. Four to six weeks. And if it turns out during the consultation that you genuinely need Shopify, we will tell you that instead of selling you a rebuild.
There is a cost question worth doing honestly before you decide. A Shopify plan plus the apps most stores accumulate - reviews, upsells, email, inventory, page builder - lands well past the platform fee itself, and transaction fees apply on top unless you use Shopify Payments. For a business processing steady orders that is money well spent. For one selling a handful of items a month it is a large fixed cost for a checkout button.
If you do move, do it in a quiet trading period rather than heading into your busiest season, and keep the Shopify plan running for a month afterwards so order history stays reachable while anything outstanding is fulfilled. It is a small overlap cost that removes the only genuinely risky part of the transition.
Last reviewed: by Mike Ferreira.
FAQ
Common questions about Shopify vs custom.
If you're asking the question, the answer is usually Shopify. The exceptions (unusual business logic, very small catalogs, regulated industries) are narrow. Default to Shopify unless you have a specific reason custom is required.
Yes - this is actually a common setup. We build your marketing site, blog, location pages, and content infrastructure custom; Shopify runs your storefront. The two integrate cleanly (custom site has "Shop" CTAs that link to your Shopify store). Best of both worlds.
It's decent. Shopify generates product schema, sitemap, robots.txt, and supports custom meta tags. The ceiling is below custom code - limited URL structure control, slower per-page load times, less granular schema. But for product-driven SEO ("buy X online"), Shopify is fine.
Basic Shopify is $29/month, Shopify is $79/month, Advanced Shopify is $399/month. Most stores also pay 1-2% in transaction fees (waived if you use Shopify Payments) plus apps ($30-$200/month total typical). Real total cost: $80-$600/month for a typical small business store.
Yes, but it's a significant project. By the time a business outgrows Shopify, they typically have hundreds of products, established URLs, and rankings to preserve. Migration is usually 3-6 months and costs $20,000-$80,000. Realistically, most businesses never need to migrate off Shopify.
Shopify wins easily for most businesses. WooCommerce inherits all of WordPress's plugin overhead and adds e-commerce complexity. Shopify is purpose-built for selling online and does it better. We'd recommend WooCommerce only if there's a specific WordPress plugin you can't live without.
More Comparisons