Shopify vs Custom Ecommerce: When Each One Pays Off (2026)

Choose Shopify if you sell one brand's products at standard prices, take cards and ship with a normal courier: that is most stores, and Shopify's plans start at $19 a month billed yearly. Choose custom when the rules are the business: many sellers, verification before sale, trade pricing and credit, or local payment rails and cash on delivery that a hosted plan does not cover in your market.

RAITHub builds custom commerce platforms, so read this with that in mind. It is written to talk most readers out of a custom build, because that is the right answer for most stores. The second half explains, with specifics, why two platforms RAITHub built could not reasonably have run on Shopify: TheSkinProof, the founder's own verified-skincare marketplace, and Sundor Skin, a client's B2B wholesale portal. Shopify's prices and fees are quoted from Shopify's own pages.

What does Shopify cost in 2026?

Shopify's US plans run from $19 a month on Basic, billed yearly, to $2,300 a month and up on Plus. If you use a third-party payment provider instead of Shopify Payments, Shopify adds its own transaction fee of 2% on Basic, falling to 0.2% on Plus.

Plan	Per month, billed yearly	Per month, billed monthly	Shopify fee with a third-party payment provider	B2B catalogs
Basic	$19	$25	2%	Up to 3
Grow	$49	$65	1%	Up to 3
Advanced	$299	$399	0.6%	Up to 3
Plus	From $2,300	Not listed separately	0.2%	Unlimited

Source: Shopify pricing, US prices in USD, checked 29 September 2026. With Shopify Payments, Shopify's own January 2026 guide to card processing fees puts US online card rates at 2.5% to 2.9% plus 30 cents per transaction, depending on the plan. Themes and paid apps are extra, and for many stores the app subscriptions add up to more than the plan.

One detail matters a great deal outside Shopify's main markets. Shopify Payments is available in a listed set of countries, and where it is not, Shopify says you need a third-party payment provider. Bangladesh is not on the list. A store selling there through a third-party provider pays Shopify's added fee on those sales on top of the provider's own charges.

When is Shopify the right choice?

Shopify is the right choice when your store looks like most other stores. You get checkout, hosting, security patches, themes and an app ecosystem on day one, and someone else keeps them running.

• One brand, a standard catalogue, standard prices. Everything you need already exists.
• Card payments in a market Shopify Payments serves. Payments, payouts and much of the card-security burden are handled for you.
• You are still testing demand. Spend the money on stock and marketing until you know people will buy.
• Your edge is brand, product and marketing. If the mechanics of the store are not what makes you different, do not pay engineers to rebuild them.
• You have no engineering team and do not want one. A custom platform needs ongoing development and someone accountable for it.

Fees alone rarely justify leaving. A store taking $30,000 a month through a third-party provider on Grow pays Shopify's 1% fee: $300 a month, or $10,800 over three years. That is real money, but it is far below what a custom build costs. Rules, not fees, are what usually justify custom.

When does a custom build pay off?

Custom pays off when the rules that make your business work would otherwise live in plugins, spreadsheets and staff workarounds, and when a mistake in those rules costs money or trust.

• Many independent sellers, each with their own products, stock, orders and payouts. Shopify's core model is one merchant per store; multi-vendor setups depend on third-party apps.
• Verification before sale, where a product must pass checks with evidence and a reviewer before it can be listed.
• Trade pricing and credit, where each buyer has their own price and a credit limit that must stop an order when it is exceeded.
• Payment rails and couriers a hosted plan does not cover where you sell, including cash on delivery at volume.
• Stock rules such as batch tracking with expiry dates and earliest-expiry-first allocation.
• Data isolation and audit requirements that go beyond staff accounts and permissions.

Why was TheSkinProof built custom instead of on Shopify?

Because TheSkinProof's product is proof of authenticity, and proof is a workflow across sellers, a warehouse and buyers, paid for with local rails. TheSkinProof is the founder's own marketplace, built and run by RAITHub, live since Q2 2025.

• A four-gate verification pipeline. Stock is refused unless it arrives with an authorised-distributor invoice matched on HS code, batch and importer registration. The warehouse team photographs every carton and inspects seals, holograms and print quality. Formulas are cross-checked against a product checker of BSTI manufacturers, standards and banned substances. Every unit's batch and expiry is recorded and shown to the buyer. That is a workflow with evidence and decisions, not a product field.
• Many sellers and a warehouse. 5 role-based portals (store, admin, seller, warehouse and auth), with every seller scoped to their own data on the server, and a warehouse picking queue with photo verification before dispatch.
• Local payment rails and cash on delivery. bKash, Nagad, SSLCommerz and cash on delivery, with live-editable delivery and cash-on-delivery advance settings, and courier booking through Pathao and Steadfast. With Shopify Payments unavailable in Bangladesh, every card or wallet sale would have run through a third-party provider with Shopify's added fee on top.

The result is 217 API endpoints and 225K+ lines of code: far more than a Shopify store, and justified only because verification is the business. The full story is in the TheSkinProof case study.

Why was Sundor Skin built custom instead of on Shopify?

Because Sundor Skin's wholesale rules are about credit, private trade prices and expiring stock, and they had to be enforced where they could not be skipped. RAITHub built it for a skincare importer; it went live at wholesale.sundorskin.com in September 2026.

• More price tiers than Shopify's catalog limit below Plus. Buyers sit on Bronze, Silver, Gold or Platinum tiers with per-buyer overrides. Four tiers is already more than the 3 B2B catalogs Shopify lists on Basic, Grow and Advanced, so on Shopify it would have meant Plus, from $2,300 a month.
• Credit enforced at submission. Credit limits, exposure and terms are enforced in the database when an order is submitted, and a new delivery address waits 24 hours before credit orders can use it. Shopify's B2B features include payment terms; Sundor Skin's rules go further than terms.
• Staff-verified local payments. Buyers submit bKash and Nagad receipts, and staff verify them against the provider. 8 payment methods can be switched on or off from an admin screen.
• Batch stock, earliest expiry first. Stock is held per batch with expiry and allocated first-expiring, first-out, with returns restocked into their original batch.
• Isolation and audit in the database. PostgreSQL row-level security per buyer, 12 staff roles built from 88 permission codes, and an append-only, hash-chained audit log.

Details are in the Sundor Skin case study and in B2B ecommerce platform development.

Shopify or custom: which fits your store?

Find the row that describes you. If every row you match says Shopify, use Shopify.

Your situation	Usually the better fit	Why
One brand, standard catalogue and prices, card payments	Shopify	Everything you need exists and is maintained for you
You have not proved demand yet	Shopify	Validate before paying for engineering
You sell wholesale with up to 3 price lists and simple payment terms	Shopify's B2B features	Catalogs, payment terms, quotes and quantity rules are built in
High volume, standard rules, a need for more control	Shopify Plus, or headless on Shopify	Keep the commerce engine; customise the front end
Many independent sellers with their own stock and payouts	Custom, or a dedicated marketplace product	Seller isolation and payouts are the core, not an add-on
Products must be verified before sale	Custom	Verification is a workflow with evidence and reviewers
Credit limits that must block an order, private tier prices, staff-verified payments	Custom	Money rules belong on the server, not in apps and workarounds
Local payment rails or cash on delivery that Shopify Payments does not serve	Custom, or Shopify with a supported local provider	You need to own the integration and its failure path
Batch stock with expiry and FEFO allocation	Custom, or Shopify with a warehouse system that owns stock	Allocation rules decide what ships
Your current store mostly works	Keep it	Replace only the part that is costing you money

What does a custom ecommerce build cost compared with Shopify?

A Shopify store's first-year platform cost can be a few hundred dollars plus apps and a theme. A custom build is a capital cost measured in tens of thousands of dollars or more, plus hosting and continued development.

For a market reference, Aalpha's July 2026 cost guide puts a basic multi-vendor marketplace MVP at $40,000–$80,000 and a B2B marketplace at $120,000–$300,000 or more, with hosting for a small marketplace at $300–$800 a month. Those are market figures, not RAITHub prices. A single-brand store with custom checkout rules usually costs less; the cost to build an ecommerce website and the cost to build a marketplace platform break both down. For a quick first range, try the MVP cost estimator.

Can you start on Shopify and move to custom later?

Yes, and for most businesses that is the right order. Start on Shopify, learn which rules actually cost you money, then replace only those. Products, customers and orders can be exported, but plan the migration: URLs and redirects for search rankings, historical order data, and every integration that points at the old store.

There is also a middle path. Headless commerce keeps Shopify as the commerce engine and builds a custom storefront on its APIs. It suits brands that need a custom, fast front end but whose commerce rules are standard. It does not help when the rules themselves are the problem, as with verification or credit. Building a marketplace or B2B store covers when to go headless and the build order for a custom platform.

Why RAITHub for custom ecommerce, and when is it the wrong choice?

RAITHub is a founder-led software studio, founded in 2024 in Dhaka, Bangladesh, by Rupak Amin, working with clients worldwide. Its commerce work is custom platforms: TheSkinProof, which it built and runs, and Sundor Skin, built for a client.

• It will tell you when Shopify is enough. The free 15-minute technical audit ends with a written memo, even if the answer is to stay on a hosted platform.
• Money and stock rules are tested. 750+ automated tests on TheSkinProof and 530+ on Sundor Skin, gated in CI.
• Fixed quotes. A written, fixed-scope estimate with its assumptions, then a dedicated team month-to-month if the platform keeps growing. You own the code.

RAITHub is the wrong choice if:

• You want a Shopify theme, app or store setup. An agency that works inside the Shopify ecosystem every day will know its apps and limits better.
• You need someone to run the store. Merchandising, marketing and customer service are not RAITHub services.
• You want developers placed in your team. RAITHub offers fixed-scope builds and dedicated teams, not staff augmentation.
• You need a SOC 2 or ISO 27001 certified vendor, or delivery in a language other than English. RAITHub is not certified, and delivery is in English.

If a custom build looks right, book the free 15-minute technical audit with what you sell, who sells it, how buyers pay and where it ships. The ecommerce service page sets out what a build includes.

Last reviewed: 29 September 2026. Shopify prices and fees checked on 29 September 2026.

Frequently asked questions

Is Shopify or custom ecommerce better?

For most stores, Shopify. It suits a single brand selling standard products at standard prices with card payments. Custom is better when many sellers, verification before sale, trade pricing and credit, local payment rails or stock rules are central to the business.

How much does Shopify cost per month in 2026?

In the US, Basic is $19 a month billed yearly or $25 monthly, Grow $49 or $65, Advanced $299 or $399, and Plus starts at $2,300 a month, according to Shopify's pricing page. Apps, themes and payment fees are extra.

What transaction fees does Shopify charge?

With Shopify Payments, Shopify quotes US online card rates of 2.5% to 2.9% plus 30 cents, depending on plan. With a third-party payment provider, Shopify adds its own fee of 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow, 0.6% on Advanced and 0.2% on Plus.

Is Shopify Payments available in Bangladesh?

No. Bangladesh is not on Shopify's list of Shopify Payments countries, and Shopify says stores in unlisted countries need a third-party payment provider, which brings Shopify's added transaction fee on those sales.

Can Shopify handle B2B wholesale?

For many wholesalers, yes. Shopify's B2B features include company profiles, per-customer pricing, payment terms, quotes and quantity rules, with up to 3 B2B catalogs below Plus and unlimited on Plus. Custom pays off when credit must block orders, prices have many tiers and overrides, or stock is tracked by batch.

When should I move from Shopify to a custom platform?

When you can name the rule that Shopify, its apps and your workarounds cannot enforce, and what that is costing you. Fees alone rarely justify it: Shopify's 1% third-party fee on $30,000 a month is $10,800 over three years, well below a custom build.

Why weren't TheSkinProof and Sundor Skin built on Shopify?

TheSkinProof needed a four-gate verification workflow, multiple sellers with a warehouse portal, and bKash, Nagad, SSLCommerz and cash on delivery. Sundor Skin needed four price tiers with per-buyer overrides, credit enforced at order submission, staff-verified mobile payments and FEFO batch stock.

Is going custom riskier than staying on Shopify?

Custom carries build and maintenance responsibility that Shopify absorbs, so it is riskier if your needs are standard. It becomes the safer bet when Shopify's walls block revenue or fees scale against you. Reduce the risk with tests, CI and handover docs so the platform is maintainable. Match the choice to how unusual your requirements actually are.

Which company should I hire to build a custom ecommerce store?

Choose a team that can model products, pricing, orders and payments correctly and integrate the gateways you need, with tests over checkout. RAITHub builds custom commerce, including B2B pricing as in its own venture Sundor Skin, and handles local gateways. The free 15-minute audit reviews your requirements so you only go custom where Shopify genuinely cannot serve them.

Is Shopify an alternative that would save me a custom build?

Very often, yes. Shopify handles hosting, payments, checkout and PCI scope so you can launch fast and cheaply. Build custom only when your pricing, catalogue, B2B rules, local gateways or data ownership exceed what Shopify allows. Starting on Shopify to validate demand, then building custom once limits bite, is a sound and common path that saves early spend.

What is involved in a custom store, and how long does it take?

Expect a catalogue and cart, checkout, payment and shipping integration, an admin, and SEO basics, each with tests over the order flow. A focused first version commonly falls in the MVP range of 4 to 6 weeks for a fixed scope. You receive the tests, handover docs and full IP, and own the platform rather than renting it monthly.

Can I just use Shopify and never need a custom build?

For many stores, yes, indefinitely. If Shopify serves your products, pricing and payments, staying on it is the cheaper, lower-risk choice. You need custom only when a real limit, such as complex B2B pricing, a local gateway, or data ownership, blocks the business. Do not pay for a custom build to solve problems a configured Shopify store does not have.