Shopify alternative
A Shopify alternative without the app stack and the transaction fees.
Shopify is the right answer for many e-commerce businesses — but the real cost isn't the monthly Shopify bill. It's the apps, the theme work, the transaction fees, and the ongoing operations. We handle all of that for one monthly fee.
No app subscriptions · Payment integrations included · One monthly bill
What Shopify is genuinely good for.
Shopify is the most-used e-commerce platform on the planet for a reason. For high-volume direct-to-consumer brands with a dedicated team, the ecosystem is unmatched. The asterisks are about scale and the gap between 'small store' and 'serious store'.
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DTC brands with a dedicated team
If you have a marketing team, a customer-service team, and a budget for the Shopify app stack, the platform is excellent. Shopify Plus serves businesses doing tens of millions a year for a reason — the underlying engine is genuinely industrial-strength.
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High-frequency catalogue churn
Stores with hundreds of SKUs that change weekly — fashion, fast-moving consumer goods, high-velocity boutiques — benefit from Shopify's catalogue management. The product editor and inventory tooling are genuinely good.
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Owners who already operate Shopify well
If you already know Shopify, have a Liquid-fluent developer or agency on call, and your current setup is working, switching platforms is rarely the right move. The cost of the migration outweighs the savings on app subscriptions.
Where it stops fitting a small store.
The Shopify monthly is small. Everything attached to it isn't.
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The app stack creeps to $200–600 a month
A typical small Shopify store ends up running 8–15 third-party apps — for reviews, abandoned cart, email, SEO, popups, shipping, tax. Each one is $10–50 a month, and the total often exceeds the Shopify subscription itself.
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Transaction fees on non-Shopify-Payments processing
If you use any payment processor other than Shopify Payments, Shopify charges 0.5–2% on top of your processor's fee. For a store doing R200 000 a month, that's R1 000–4 000 of pure platform tax.
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Theme customisation is a freelance project
Themes work out of the box and stop being enough by month four. Customising a Shopify theme means hiring a Liquid developer at $80–150 an hour, or living with the constraints. There's no path between 'theme as-is' and 'custom build'.
Shopify vs. a managed monthly service.
Where the total cost actually lands.
| Dimension | Shopify | Digital Serpents |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly cost | Shopify + apps + transaction fees + dev | One monthly bill, locked in |
| Apps to manage | 8–15 third-party apps typical | None — features included or built-in |
| Transaction fees | 0.5–2% extra on non-Shopify Payments | None — your gateway, your fees only |
| Theme customisation | Freelance Liquid developer at $80–150/hour | Email us, we ship the change |
| Multi-currency / multilingual | Add-on apps; configuration ongoing | Up to 10 languages on Commerce, hand-translated |
If you're on Shopify today.
We rebuild your store on our Commerce plan rather than running both side by side. Product catalogue and images come over from a Shopify CSV export; payment integration switches to your existing gateway directly (no platform-tax middleman); courier integration follows the rebuild. Old Shopify orders and customer accounts stay on Shopify if you need them for accounting.
Commerce plan handles full e-commerce. Plans start at AED 70 a month for non-store sites.
Migrating from Shopify.
- Will I lose my Shopify products and inventory?
- We migrate the catalogue from your Shopify CSV export — products, descriptions, images, variants, prices. Inventory levels migrate as a snapshot; ongoing inventory sync between platforms during a transition isn't supported, so you cut over to the new store on a chosen date.
- What about my Shopify customers and order history?
- Customer accounts and order history don't migrate — those stay on Shopify, which you'd typically keep dormant for accounting purposes. New orders flow through the new store from cutover day forward.
- Can I keep my Shopify Payments setup?
- No — Shopify Payments is exclusive to Shopify. We integrate Stripe, Square, Telr, PayFast, Mercado Pago, or whichever local gateway your market uses (the integration matches the region). The processor fees are the same; you just stop paying Shopify the extra 0.5–2%.
- What if I have hundreds of products and complex variant logic?
- Honest answer: if your catalogue is large and your variant logic is complex, Shopify's tooling may be the right answer and we may not be a fit. We're tuned for stores up to a few hundred SKUs with reasonable variant complexity. Email us; we'll look at your store and tell you straight.
Other comparisons.
Done managing apps on Shopify?
Two minutes to sign up. Full Commerce plan, no apps, no transaction fees beyond your gateway.