PORADA SOLUTIONSWe get asked “Shopify or custom?” a lot. The honest answer for most small stores is Shopify. Here is when that breaks down and a custom build starts making sense.
Start with Shopify if…
- You sell physical products, 5–500 SKUs, mostly to consumers.
- You don't have an engineer on staff and don't want one.
- You ship from one or two locations, no complex inventory rules.
- Your margins can absorb 2% in platform fees.
Shopify is the right answer for ~80% of small e-commerce stores. The product is mature, the ecosystem is enormous, and the cost of switching later is real but survivable.
Consider WooCommerce if…
- You already run on WordPress and the content is the main thing.
- You sell <50 SKUs and don't want monthly platform fees.
- You have someone on hand to keep plugins updated.
A custom build is worth it when…
- You sell configurable products — quotes, made-to-order, multi-step builders. Shopify can do this with apps, but the apps fight each other.
- You sell B2B: net-30 terms, customer-specific pricing, approval workflows.
- You sell services with scheduling, capacity limits, or staff routing.
- You have real integrationswith an ERP, warehouse system, or POS that don't have off-the-shelf Shopify connectors.
The trap to avoid
The trap is “custom” meaning “built from scratch on a framework I read about in 2026.” A custom storefront on top of Shopify's headless APIs (Hydrogen, Next.js, etc.) is often the right middle ground — you get a unique front-end and Shopify still handles checkout, taxes, and PCI.
If you're weighing this for your business, write us a paragraph about what you sell and we will tell you the honest answer — even if it's “just use Shopify, you don't need us.” Contact.