We're big fans of Umbraco Commerce, but it has plenty of stiff competition when it comes to popular, approachable and affordable eCommerce platforms.

What we like about Umbraco Commerce

• No transaction fees - only an annual license fee
• Clean, modern UI with everying you'd expect from a modern eCommerce platform
• Built on some of the latest tech like REACT and VERCEL

And what don't we like?

• The roughly $2,600 annual fee is a bit of a barrier for smaller businesses
• Requires an Umbraco developer to deploy and maintain

Our competitors:

We chose four of the most popular eCommerce platforms for our comparison.

On the one end of things we have Shopify and Wix - both popular for their ease of use if you're just starting out, and not very technical. Both claim to "scale with your business", but only one of them really manages it. And with every "app developer" trying to get in on the action, it's easy to spend more than you should on plugins, apps, themes and transaction fees.

At the other end, Magento and WooCommerce offer greater flexibility, lower costs and a massive array of customization options, plugins and add-ons for growing businesses with complex needs. While their costs may be lower, it's easy to see why these more technical platforms come with a raft of different hidden costs.

How do they compare to Umbraco Commerce?

Umbraco Commerce's main points are summed up in our intro to Umbraco Commerce post, but in a nutshell:

• Costs around $2,600/year, but:
• doesn't charge a per-transaction fee, allowing you to potentially save on transaction costs if you do high volume online sales
• Needs a fair bit of technical know-how to set up, maintain, and improve

How have we made our comparison?

The main factors we tend to look at are:

• Set-up compexity (whether you need developers or youcan DIY it with a bit of tech savvy)
• Transaction costs (aside from what payment processors will charge you)
• License costs if any
• Ongoing costs.

Since most ongoing costs (hosting, domain names, SSL certificates, etc.) are similar across platforms, the main differentiator here is whether you need to pay a developer to keep the site updated, or your marketers can keep it going with only occasional technical help.

That's why we've grouped Umbraco's competitors according to whether you need a developer on hand or not. So without further ado:

Shopify and Wix

Shopify's dominance, ease of use and massive app marketplace make it a strong choice for small businesses, especially ones without their own web dev team. As you'll see, you pay for that convenience down the line, but for many small businesses that's money well-spent.

Wix gets in as an almost-honourable mention because it is often a starting point for small business owners trying to put their own site together. It's inexpensive, but if you're trying to put together anything more complicated than a brochure site or simple store, you may hit a wall without dev help.

Choosing between Shopify and Magento? Read our in-depth Shopify/Magento cost comparison to see which might be more cost-effective for your business.

What we liked

Shopify

• Easy to use and intuitive, making it very quick to set up a running online store.
• Good selection of free templates that are easy to customize, with paid templates offering great value and extended customization options
• Well-supported and has an enormous app marketplace that can provide just about any kind of functionality you can think of (for a price...)

Wix

• Easiest platform to use that we've tried so far
• Good for portfolio sites with a small store
• Affordable pricing

What we didn't like

Shopify

• Relatively high ongoing costs and transaction fees compared to others
• Often need a lot of apps and plugins that offer very little for free

Wix

• Page builder is limited and you may need to settle for what you can do with a specific template
• Sparse app marketplace with few options, and a few of the apps we tested were poor quality or not updated
• Cheap up-front, but costs grow quickly if you want to do anything more complicated than a brochure site

Where are the hidden costs?

With both platforms, the devil is in the app marketplace. To get much out of Wix you'll need a paid theme, some paid add-ons, and you'll need an expensive plan if you want to sell subscriptions.

Shopify's app marketplace is excellent, but most apps offer limited functionality for free.

This may sound obvious but it applies to both platforms: If there's a way you can use an app to make money on your website, you probably can't get that functionality for free.

Magento Open Source and WooCommerce

If Shopify and Wix take a Fisher-Price approach to building online stores, and charge you for doing your tech stuff in the background, Magento and WooCommerce are on the other end of the spectrum.

While WooCommerce can technically be set up by a competent WordPress user, it's definitely a couple notches above Shopify in complexity.

Magento Open Source needs to be implemented and maintained by a Magento developer.

What we liked

• Both are free(big asterisk) and open-source
• Extremely customizable and extensible

And what we didn't like

• Once again, you pay for everything else (plugins, processing fees, etc.)
• You'll probably need a developer - for Magento especially, but potentially for WordPress/WooCommerce if you have complex requirements
• PHP

Where are the hidden costs

With both platforms you'll probably need a developer. It's not recommended to jump into either Magento or Umbraco Commerce without at least some coding skill, or access to a developer.

You can get pretty far with WooCommerce without coding knowledge, but you're probably going to get frustrated at some point.

Paying a developer to get your online store the way you want it is probably going to be your biggest cost if you're going with either platform. The main difference is that with Magento (and Umbraco) you can often circumvent the cost of expensive plug-ins or apps by building it yourself.

With WordPress/WooCommerce development time is cheaper, and you can often get by with some cheap plugins - in this way it can work out cheaper

The Verdict

There's obviously no one platform that's "best" in this space. Only ones you'll like more than others for various reasons.

Since it boils down to technical complexity, licensing costs and ongoing costs/transaction fees the right choice for your business will depend on whether you'd prefer to spend your money on hiring a developer, or on paid apps and plugins that make your site work - or a combination of both. Here's how we see it, boiled down:

Still not sure which one to go for?

If you need help deciding, send us a message and let FreshConstruct evaluate your business and your needs, and we'll come up with a detailed cost/effort breakdown to help you decide amongst your best options