Tecof • September 9, 2026
Shopify vs WooCommerce vs Ikas: Full Comparison
In Brief
Short answer to the Shopify vs WooCommerce vs Ikas question: pick Shopify for a fast launch and cross-border reach, WooCommerce for code-level control and no per-sale commission, and Ikas if you sell mainly in Turkey and want local payment and shipping wired in from day one. Shopify prices in dollars and adds a transaction fee wherever its own gateway is unavailable. WooCommerce is free software, but hosting, security and maintenance sit with you. Ikas charges a flat lira subscription with no transaction fee. Revenue, technical capacity and target market settle the rest.
A brand's platform bill in year one is usually a few thousand lira. By the end of year two, that same brand can be paying 40,000 TL a year in transaction fees alone. The gap comes from the cost model chosen on day one. Platform selection is less a software preference than a two or three year contract.
The three names most often on the table in Turkey are Shopify, WooCommerce and Ikas. All three produce working stores. What separates them is which jobs they do for you and what they take away in return. One warning before the detail. Most of the cases in our guide to the five costly mistakes brands make choosing a platform came from week-one assumptions, not from a lack of technical skill.
Shopify: Fast Launch, Dollar-Denominated Cost
Shopify launched in Canada in 2006 and now powers more than four million active stores. Servers, updates, security patches and backups are Shopify's problem. You add products and sell.
What the daily work looks like
Opening a store really does take half a day. You add products from the Products screen, choose a theme under Online Store, then define shipping zones in Settings under Shipping and delivery. The App Store carries more than eight thousand apps, so email marketing, subscriptions and inventory forecasting all have mature options. When traffic jumps tenfold you do nothing; the infrastructure scales itself.
Where it gets awkward in Turkey
Shopify Payments is not available in Turkey. That single sentence rewrites your entire cost sheet. Connect a local provider and Shopify applies roughly 0.5 to 2 percent per sale on top of what the bank and the payment provider already take. Instalments do not arrive ready either. You connect Iyzico or PayTR through a third-party app, and getting the instalment table to render correctly usually means editing the theme. Aras and Yurtici barcodes run through apps too, and every app is another monthly subscription.
Pricing and who benefits
At the time of writing, Basic was around 39 dollars a month, or 29 billed annually. The mid tier sat near 105 dollars, Advanced near 399, and enterprise Plus started around 2,000 a month. Premium themes are a one-off 100 to 350 dollars. The exchange rate rewrites your budget monthly, so enter it as a variable line.
- If cross-border selling is the primary goal, nothing here is more comfortable.
- Dropshipping supplier tooling is the most mature of the three.
- With margins under 15 percent, the transaction fee genuinely hurts.
WooCommerce: Open Source, Unlimited Reach Into the Code
WooCommerce is a free, open-source commerce plugin for WordPress. It shipped in 2011 and runs on more than five million stores. The software costs nothing; every line you pay for is infrastructure or labour.
What you gain
The code belongs to you. Rebuild the checkout flow, write a custom cart rule, price by customer group for B2B buyers. Over 150,000 free plugins and themes are there to draw on, and no commission is taken per sale, an advantage that compounds as revenue climbs. SEO is a real strength too: you control the URL structure and the blog is already in the stack. Product schema, crawler rules for category filters, pagination changes, none of it needs permission.
What you take on
Your server, your problem. Shared hosting carries a 300-product catalogue comfortably, then falls over the morning 2,000 shoppers arrive at once. Security is yours too: SSL, a hardening plugin, daily backups, login limits. WordPress core, WooCommerce and thirty plugins update on separate schedules, and skipping one invites a break or a vulnerability. The honest budget line reads two or three hours of maintenance every month.
Annual cost lines
| Line item | Annual range | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Hosting | 1,500 - 25,000 TL | Shared through to cloud |
| Domain | 400 - 700 TL | Varies by extension |
| SSL | 0 TL | Let's Encrypt is enough |
| Premium theme | 0 - 3,500 TL | One-off |
| Paid plugins | 0 - 12,000 TL | Payments, shipping, B2B, speed |
| Developer maintenance | 15,000 - 60,000 TL | A few hours per month |
Do not leave the last row blank. Even when you do maintenance yourself, those hours cost something, and you pay for them out of the time you could have spent selling.
Ikas: A Package Built Around Turkish Operations
Ikas was founded in Turkey in 2018. The approach resembles Shopify's, the focus is squarely local, and the difference shows most clearly on the payment and shipping screens.
What comes out of the box
Iyzico and PayTR are integrated directly, with no intermediary app, no extra subscription and no theme surgery. The instalment table renders the way Turkish shoppers expect it. Under Settings, the shipping companies screen connects your Aras, Yurtici, MNG and PTT accounts, and a barcode comes off an order in one click. Support is in Turkish and reachable by phone, which buys back hours for a team without developers. Plans carry no traffic or product caps, so a post that takes off will not hand you a surprise invoice.
The limits
Cross-border depth is thin. Multi-language and multi-currency exist on higher plans, but market-based pricing, local tax rules and international shipping tariffs lag well behind Shopify's. The app ecosystem is small too, so a niche requirement often ends in custom development. Theme customisation stops at moderate. Bespoke product pages, multi-warehouse stock, layered campaign rules and B2B price lists all meet the ceiling earlier here.
Pricing
At the time of writing, Start was 299 TL a month, Grow 499 TL and Scale 1,199 TL. Scale Plus is quoted individually and annual billing carries a discount. There is no transaction fee. Negotiated shipping starts at 69.90 TL on Start and drops to 59.90 TL on higher plans. For a brand sending 400 parcels a month, that 10 TL gap is 48,000 TL a year, several times the plan difference. Confirm current figures before signing.
The Three Platforms Against the Same Criteria
The table below collects the lines that actually change your day. A cell reading limited is not automatically bad news; if you never need that feature it costs you nothing.
| Criterion | Shopify | WooCommerce | Ikas |
|---|---|---|---|
| Time to launch | Half a day | 1 - 2 weeks | Half a day |
| Customisation | Moderate, via Liquid | Unlimited | Moderate |
| Technical skill needed | Low | High | Low |
| SEO flexibility | Good | Very good | Good |
| Local payments | Third-party app | Official plugin | Native |
| Shipping integration | App required | Via plugin | Aras, Yurtici, MNG, PTT ready |
| Support language | English, 24/7 | Community or agency | Turkish, 24/7 |
| Scaling | Automatic | Depends on server | Good |
| Extensions | 8,000+ apps | 150,000+ plugins | Growing |
| Transaction fee | 0.5 - 2 percent | None | None |
| Currency | Dollar | Provider dependent | Lira |
Do not weight these rows equally. For a brand shipping 20 orders a day, the scaling row means almost nothing, while the shipping integration row decides how the first hour of every morning goes. For a brand whose traffic multiplies tenfold in season, those two rows swap places entirely.
Second rule: no single row decides anything. WooCommerce's unlimited customisation reads alongside the server responsibility next to it. Shopify's automatic scaling is balanced by its transaction fee. Ikas's native integrations come attached to a narrow app ecosystem. Buying the advantage means buying the constraint beside it. Print the table, mark the three rows that cost you the most hours each week, and write your monthly hours beside each mark. Multiplied by what your hour is worth, the subscription gap usually drops to second place.
Real Cost in Lira: Three Revenue Scenarios
The subscription is the visible part of the iceberg. The divergence shows up once commission and maintenance grow with revenue. Rerun the scenarios below with your own margin.
| Annual revenue | Shopify load | WooCommerce load | Ikas load |
|---|---|---|---|
| 500,000 TL | Subscription plus 2,500 - 10,000 TL fees | Setup heavy, low maintenance | Flat plan, no fees |
| 2,000,000 TL | Subscription plus 10,000 - 40,000 TL fees | Maintenance and plugin renewals | Flat plan, no fees |
| 5,000,000 TL | Higher tier or Plus | Cloud server and agency support | Scale plan, no fees |
500,000 TL a year
Subscription cost decides this band, because commission is still small. On Ikas Start or Grow your annual platform cost stays in the low thousands of lira. On Shopify Basic the dollar subscription and the per-sale fee stack up together. WooCommerce is free, but the one-off build fee pulls the first year up, and your time is worth more than your money here.
2,000,000 TL a year
Everything flips here. A 2 percent fee on two million lira is 40,000 TL a year, which covers the annual maintenance budget of a WooCommerce build. Move to a higher Shopify tier and the percentage drops but the subscription climbs. Ikas's flat, fee-free plan is at its most competitive in this band.
5,000,000 TL and above
Scaling and integration depth take over. Shopify Advanced or Plus absorbs traffic management. WooCommerce carries the same load on a cloud server, but a sysadmin or agency stops being optional. Ikas works here too, though a serious international push presses against its multi-currency limits. Past this point your warehouse and logistics setup starts to matter more than the platform does.
Local Criteria: Instalments, Shipping, KVKK and Marketplaces
International comparison articles go quiet right here. Yet these are the things that actually test a platform in Turkish operations.
Instalments and the payment flow
In Turkey, instalment payment is not a promotion, it is the expected default. The table has to render on the product page, calculate correctly in the cart, let you decide whether the provider's fee is reflected in the price, and flow into accounting. Ikas ships that chain built in. WooCommerce has mature official plugins from Iyzico and PayTR. On Shopify the app layer works, but the instalment display needs a theme change, so budget it as one-off development.
KVKK, IYS and shipping
Consent texts, retention periods, deletion requests and cookie management are on you under KVKK. Every number and email you send commercial messages to needs an IYS record, and an opt-in that never reaches IYS leaves you exposed. On the shipping side, barcodes, automatic dispatch, tracking codes and returns landing back in stock are the spine of the daily routine. For a team shipping 400 orders a month, leaving that chain manual is half a full-time role.
Running alongside Trendyol and Hepsiburada
Most brands here run their own store and the marketplaces together. The question is whether stock flows from a single source. Showing 12 units on your site, 3 on Trendyol and 7 on Hepsiburada ends in cancellations, delays and a damaged seller rating. Ask four questions before signing: how often does stock sync, do orders land in one panel, does a marketplace return come back into stock automatically, can prices be updated from one place. Without a clear answer to all four, that integration becomes your maintenance job. Open the integration catalogue and look for your own carrier and payment provider on the list.
Choosing: A Decision Frame and a Migration Plan
Three questions settle it: where are you today, where do you plan to be in two years, and who will do the maintenance.
By stage
- 0 - 500k TL revenue: Speed comes first. Shopify if you are aiming abroad, Ikas if you are focused on Turkey. WooCommerce adds weight you do not need yet.
- 500k - 5m TL revenue: Commission and customisation come to the front. WooCommerce if you have a developer, otherwise Ikas or a higher Shopify tier.
- 5m TL and above: Scaling and integration depth decide. Shopify Advanced, WooCommerce on a cloud server, or an enterprise commerce platform built for the job.
Patterns by sector
Fashion leans on visuals and a quick launch, favouring Shopify and Ikas. Electronics needs dense specification tables and real filtering, where WooCommerce pays off. Food and grocery live on carrier rules, so native shipping integration wins. B2B needs group pricing, credit limits and quote flows, pointing to WooCommerce or custom work.
If you are migrating
Changing platforms is doable, but it needs a calendar. Products, customers and orders export cleanly enough. The real risk is the URL structure: miss a batch of 301 redirects and you lose a slice of your search traffic. Payment and shipping connections are rebuilt and measurement revalidated, which takes one to four weeks. Schedule it away from campaign season.
What to do tomorrow morning
Open a one-page table. Down the left, your three most ambitious goals for the next two years: selling into Germany, growing the catalogue fivefold, opening a B2B channel. Across the top, the three platforms. In every cell write ready, possible with a plugin, or painful. Then build a demo store on the leading candidate and push one real order through: payment, shipping barcode, invoice, return. After that run, put the steps from our guide to raising your conversion rate on the calendar and start your first test the same week.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which is cheapest, Shopify, WooCommerce or Ikas?
WooCommerce looks cheapest short term because the software is free, but hosting, plugins and developer time push the annual total up fast. Shopify's subscription is predictable while its commission grows with revenue. Ikas bills a flat lira fee with no commission, usually the most predictable cost for mid-revenue Turkish brands.
Which is easiest for a first-time seller?
Shopify and Ikas are clearly easier, with a drag and drop editor, ready themes and automatic updates. WooCommerce asks you to install WordPress, pick hosting and manage plugins. Working alone, a hosted platform is the safer bet.
Which is most flexible for customisation?
WooCommerce, comfortably. Being open source, every layer including checkout is open to you. Shopify gives room through Liquid but restricts the payment step. Ikas sits at moderate customisation, so a bespoke experience points to Woo or custom work.
Can I move from Shopify to Ikas?
Yes, with a plan. Product, customer and order data export and import. The critical part is the URL structure changing and getting every 301 redirect in place. Payment and shipping integrations are rebuilt, and the process typically runs one to four weeks.
What kind of hosting does WooCommerce need?
Shared hosting can carry a launch, but response times degrade as traffic grows, so mid and high traffic stores belong on a VPS or cloud server. Location, cache support, PHP version and backup policy matter more than price. Add a load test before campaign season.
Can I sell internationally with Ikas?
You can. Higher plans include multi-language and multi-currency support. The international feature set is not as deep as Shopify's, particularly around market pricing and cross-border tax. If Turkey is your main market and export secondary, Ikas is sufficient.
Which platform is better for SEO?
WooCommerce is the most flexible, thanks to WordPress underneath: full control of URLs, mature SEO plugins and native blogging. Shopify and Ikas cover the fundamentals of meta tags, redirects and sitemaps. The gap opens once you treat content production seriously.
Which suits dropshipping?
Shopify has the most mature ecosystem here: supplier integrations, automatic order routing and bulk product import come ready. WooCommerce has comparable plugins, but installation and upkeep fall to you. Dropshipping features on Ikas are limited.
Should I build a mobile app?
All three give you a mobile-friendly store. For native apps Shopify offers the widest choice of builders, WooCommerce can produce one through similar tools, and Ikas has started offering integrated options. Settle the app versus mobile site question before you commit; most brands do not need an app in year one.