Shopify vs Custom Webshop: EU Costs and GDPR
Shopify vs a custom webshop for EU sellers: Shopify's euro prices and card fees, custom build costs, three-year totals and where customer data is stored.
Shopify vs custom webshop is mostly a question of when you pay: Shopify costs little to start and charges a monthly plan plus card fees, while a custom shop costs more upfront and, compared with Shopify’s smaller plans, slightly less per sale. On Shopify’s Irish price page, Basic costs €24 a month billed yearly (€32 paid monthly), before VAT, and online card payments cost from 2% + €0.25 per sale. A custom ecommerce website is a one-off project: US and UK guides put designer- or agency-built shops at roughly $5,000–$25,000 or £5,000–£20,000, and Irish firms’ own guides give starting prices of about €2,000–€5,000. Our custom webshop builds start at €7,900 excl. VAT on a fixed quote.
A fair comparison adds up what each model costs over three years and checks where it leaves your customer data. Shopify bundles hosting, SSL and PCI compliance into the subscription and stores new European merchants’ data in Europe by default. A custom shop gives you full control of code, hosting and scripts, and with it the job of keeping all of that maintained.
In short
- Shopify’s Irish pricing page lists Basic at €24/mo, Grow at €69/mo and Advanced at €289/mo billed yearly (€32, €92 and €384 paid monthly), all before VAT. Plus starts at €2,100/mo on a three-year term.
- With Shopify Payments there is no extra transaction fee, so the per-sale gap to a custom shop is small: about 0.5 percentage points on Basic and 0.2 on Grow, compared with Stripe’s standard EEA card rate. On Advanced the rate equals Stripe’s, and on Plus it is lower. A third-party payment provider adds a further 2% (Basic) to 0.2% (Plus).
- Custom builds cost more upfront: small agency-built shops start in the low thousands of euros and rise into five figures. Our Build plan starts at €7,900 excl. VAT.
- Shopify’s data processing addendum relies on Binding Corporate Rules, Standard Contractual Clauses and Canada’s adequacy decision, not on the EU–US Data Privacy Framework. Third-party apps come with their own terms.
- VAT and OSS rules are the same on both. Shopify includes VAT tools, and a custom shop builds what your accountant specifies.
Is it better to use Shopify or your own website?
It depends on whether your shop is short of time or of control. Shopify is a hosted platform: it includes “secure commerce hosting”, a free TLS/SSL certificate and Level 1 PCI DSS compliance, according to the FAQ on its pricing page. You rent the platform, choose a theme and add apps.
A custom webshop is one you own: an open-source platform such as WooCommerce or Medusa, a headless storefront or a fully bespoke build, on hosting you choose, with a payment provider such as Stripe or Mollie handling cards. That range is why quotes vary so much.
| Shopify | Custom webshop | |
|---|---|---|
| Upfront cost | Low: most plans cost €1/month for the first three months after a 3-day trial | One-off build, typically thousands to tens of thousands of euros |
| Running cost | Monthly plan, card fees, apps | Hosting, payment provider fees, maintenance |
| Hosting, SSL, PCI | Included in the plan | Your developer’s job; PCI scope is reduced by the payment provider’s hosted fields |
| Checkout | “Limited” customisation on Basic, Grow and Advanced, “Full” on Plus | Whatever you build |
| B2B price lists | Up to 3 catalogs on Basic to Advanced, unlimited on Plus | Whatever you build |
| Ownership | You can export your data, not the platform | You own the code and the data |
Choose Shopify if you want to launch quickly, sell a standard catalogue and have no developer on hand. Choose a custom build if you need logic Shopify can’t hold on your plan (configurators, unusual shipping rules, deep ERP or PIM integration), or if you want every script and every data store chosen by you.
How much does Shopify cost per month in Europe?
Shopify’s pricing page changes currency by visitor location, so we read the Irish version (shopify.com/ie/pricing, served in EUR) on 23 October 2026.
| Plan | Paid monthly | Billed yearly (per month) | Online card rate, Shopify Payments | Extra fee with a third-party provider |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | €32 | €24 | 2% + €0.25 | 2% |
| Grow | €92 | €69 | 1.7% + €0.25 | 1% |
| Advanced | €384 | €289 | 1.5% + €0.25 | 0.6% |
| Plus | from €2,100 | — | 1.4% + €0.25 | 0.2% |
Source: Shopify pricing (Ireland) and Shopify Plus pricing, seen 23 Oct 2026. The card rates are shown “excl. VAT”. The pricing page doesn’t say whether plan prices include VAT, but Shopify’s Terms of Service state that “All Fees are exclusive of” applicable taxes, and its billing help page says stores in Ireland are charged 23% VAT on Shopify fees. It doesn’t give a rate for stores elsewhere in the EU. Rates are for “standard” online cards; Amex and international cards cost 3.1% + €0.25 on Basic.
Three points the headline price leaves out:
- Card rates vary by country. The Irish page shows the rates above. Shopify’s own FAQ says “pricing and payment options can differ depending on where your business is based”, so check the page for your country before you calculate.
- Plus is a term contract. It starts at €2,100 a month on a three-year term or €2,250 on a one-year term, and “more complex, higher volume businesses switch to a variable platform fee based on their revenue”.
- Apps and themes cost extra. Shopify’s terms list apps and themes among the “Additional Fees”, and the total depends entirely on which features you add. The Theme Store lists 24 free themes and over 1,300 paid ones. The paid themes on its first results page were priced at $200–$380 (USD) on 23 Oct 2026.
Shopify Managed Markets, where Global-e acts as merchant of record for cross-border sales, isn’t an option for EU-based shops: Shopify says it is available to businesses in the continental United States and to certain stores in Canada and the UK (Managed Markets overview).
How much does Shopify take from a €20 sale?
On Basic with Shopify Payments, Shopify takes €0.65 from a €20 online card sale (2% + €0.25), before the subscription. Here is the same sale across setups, using standard European card rates:
| Setup | Fee on a €20 sale | Share of the sale |
|---|---|---|
| Shopify Basic, Shopify Payments | €0.65 | 3.25% |
| Shopify Grow, Shopify Payments | €0.59 | 2.95% |
| Shopify Basic, third-party provider at 1.5% + €0.25 | €0.55 + €0.40 = €0.95 | 4.75% |
| Custom shop, Stripe | €0.55 | 2.75% |
Stripe’s rate is 1.5% + €0.25 for standard EEA cards on Stripe’s Irish pricing page (2.8% + €0.25 for premium EEA cards), seen 23 Oct 2026. The third-party row uses Stripe’s rate as an example provider rate. Shopify shows its card rates excl. VAT; Stripe’s pricing page doesn’t mention VAT on card fees. Shopify treats cards issued in the EEA like domestic cards (Shopify Help).
The fixed €0.25 weighs most on small orders. Most of the gap in the third-party row is Shopify’s extra 2% fee; Shopify Payments on Basic costs €0.10 more than Stripe on this sale.
How much does a custom ecommerce website cost?
There is no official average, and published ranges depend on who builds the shop and where. These are figures from guides that rank for “custom ecommerce website cost” in Ireland (searched 23 Oct 2026):
| Source | What it says | Currency |
|---|---|---|
| Wix blog (11 Aug 2026) | An agency or custom build “usually costs $5,000 to $25,000 or more” | USD |
| GoDaddy UK (prices as of 12 Dec 2025) | A web designer charges £5,000–£10,000 for a small to medium shop and £7,000–£20,000 for a large one | GBP, VAT not mentioned |
| Irish web design firms’ own price guides | Online shops from about €2,000 to €5,000 as a starting price | EUR, VAT often not stated |
The Irish figures come from the firms’ guides we reviewed for our guide to what websites cost in Europe.
What moves the price is scope: the number of products and variants, custom checkout logic, integrations with accounting, ERP or warehouse systems, multiple languages and currencies, and how much of the design is bespoke. A WooCommerce shop on a stock theme sits at the low end. A headless build with ERP integration sits at the high end, wherever you buy it.
After launch, a custom shop has running costs too: hosting, the payment provider’s fees (for Stripe, 1.5% + €0.25 per standard EEA card), and maintenance, which covers security updates, dependency upgrades and fixes. If you want a feel for the maintenance side, see what website maintenance costs per month.
Custom webshops are part of our Build plan: €7,900+ excl. VAT on a fixed quote, agreed before we start. Build covers custom web apps and SaaS, e-commerce builds and mobile applications. Our Establish plan (€3,900 one-time, excl. VAT) is a bigger website, and e-commerce isn’t among its listed features. All our plans are on the pricing page. That puts us above the Irish starting prices and inside the range the US and UK guides quote.
Shopify vs custom: three-year costs side by side
As a worked example (the volumes are illustrative, not market data), take a shop with €100,000 a year in online card sales and an average order of €50 (2,000 orders), all on standard European cards:
| Cost over three years | Shopify Basic | Shopify Grow | Custom shop with Stripe |
|---|---|---|---|
| Platform plan (billed yearly) | €864 | €2,484 | €0 |
| Card fees | €7,500 | €6,600 | €6,000 |
| Build | Theme and setup (free theme possible) | Theme and setup | From €7,900 excl. VAT (our Build) |
| Not included | Apps, paid theme, your time | Apps, paid theme, your time | Hosting and maintenance |
Plan: 36 × €24 and 36 × €69. Card fees per year: Basic 2% of €100,000 + 2,000 × €0.25 = €2,500; Grow €2,200; Stripe €2,000. Same rates as the tables above, all before VAT. Amex and international cards cost more on Shopify; premium and international cards cost more on Stripe. Shopify’s pricing page also advertises “1% back on all sales”; under its promotion terms these are subscription credits for invited new merchants over six months, so they are left out.
At this volume, Shopify Payments costs €500 a year more than Stripe on Basic and €200 a year more on Grow, which won’t pay for a custom build on its own. The case for custom rests on other things: features you would otherwise rent as apps, logic Shopify can’t hold on your plan, and control over data and scripts. The exception is a Shopify shop that uses a third-party payment provider: on Basic, the 2% extra fee would be €2,000 a year at this volume, so switching to Shopify Payments or a higher plan is the first thing to check.
Where does Shopify store EU customer data?
For EU merchants, the contracting party is Shopify International Limited in Dublin (Terms of Service), and new European stores have their core data stored in Europe. Shopify’s help page on international data transfers says that “new merchants in Europe automatically avail of this new infrastructure and now have their store data, order data and customer personal data stored at rest in Europe by default”. The same page adds: “Even where merchant customer personal data is stored in Europe, we will rely on international data transfers for processing that personal data.”
The legal basis for those transfers is in Shopify’s Data Processing Addendum (last updated 7 July 2026). Shopify International Ltd. may transfer data outside the EEA. Transfers from the EEA to other Shopify entities follow “Shopify’s Binding Corporate Rules”, transfers to countries without an adequacy decision use the 2021 Standard Contractual Clauses, and Shopify may also rely on the adequacy decision for Canada, where its parent Shopify Inc. is registered. The DPA doesn’t mention the EU–US Data Privacy Framework. The help page says Shopify’s intra-group and subprocessor agreements cover privacy laws in Canada, the US and Singapore.
| Shopify | Custom webshop | |
|---|---|---|
| Who you contract with | Shopify International Ltd. (Ireland), plus each app developer | Your host, payment provider and each tool you add |
| Where data is stored | In Europe by default for new European merchants; processing may involve transfers | Where you choose to host it |
| Transfer safeguards | BCRs, SCCs and Canada adequacy (DPA) | Depends on your providers; an all-EU stack can avoid them |
| Your role | Controller; Shopify acts as your processor, except for some optional services | Controller |
If your stack does rely on the Data Privacy Framework, for example through a US email or analytics tool, know that it is still being challenged. The EU General Court upheld it in Latombe v Commission (T-553/23) on 3 September 2025, and the appeal, C-703/25 P, was still pending at the Court of Justice on 23 October 2026. We cover the background in EU hosting vs US cloud.
A custom shop moves this choice to you. Host in the EU and pick EU-based email and analytics, and you can avoid third-country transfers. Point the same shop at US tools, and you have the same questions as before.
Consent, apps and PCI: who is responsible for what?
On both platforms you are the controller of your customers’ data. Shopify’s GDPR help page says so directly: “You’re generally the controller of your customers’ data.” That affects cookie consent, your choice of processors and payment security.
Under Article 5(3) of the ePrivacy Directive, storing or reading information on a visitor’s device needs consent unless it is strictly necessary. Shopify has a cookie banner in its privacy settings and a Customer Privacy API that “is used to apply consent decisions to Shopify-managed surfaces, like pixels, audiences, and checkout”. Whether a script added by an app or a theme edit waits for consent depends on how its developer built it. On a custom shop, every script is one your developer added, so blocking non-essential scripts before consent is a build requirement you can check line by line. Our GDPR checklist for online shops covers the setup, and how cookie consent affects technical SEO covers the side effects.
Article 28 of the GDPR requires you to “use only processors providing sufficient guarantees”. On Shopify that means Shopify’s DPA plus a check of each app that handles customer data. On a custom shop it means your host, payment provider and every tool you connect. Either way, fewer processors means less to check.
For payment security, Shopify is “certified Level 1 PCI DSS compliant, and stores powered by Shopify are PCI compliant by default”, according to its pricing FAQ. On a custom shop, Stripe says PCI compliance “is a shared responsibility” and that its low-risk payment integrations send card data straight to Stripe “without it passing through your servers, reducing your PCI obligations” (Stripe security guide). The developer has to wire that correctly, and someone has to keep the shop patched.
Do VAT rules differ between Shopify and a custom shop?
No. EU VAT rules apply to the seller, whichever platform it uses. Once your cross-border sales to consumers in other EU countries pass €10,000 a year, VAT is due in the customer’s country, and the One Stop Shop lets you declare it in a single return. Shopify’s plan comparison lists automated tax calculations and “VAT validation, exemptions, and invoicing”. On a custom shop, tax rates, B2B reverse charge and invoice numbering are features to specify with your accountant before the build. If you are planning a custom build, our guide to what a GDPR-ready online shop needs covers the other requirements to settle at that stage.
Is Shopify still worth it?
For many small shops, yes. Most plans cost €1 a month for the first three months after a 3-day trial, which makes testing cheap, and you can launch without a developer.
It becomes worth questioning when:
- your app subscriptions keep growing because you need features Shopify doesn’t include on your plan;
- you need checkout changes that are “Limited” below Plus, and Plus at €2,100+ a month doesn’t make sense for your volume;
- you use a third-party payment provider and pay Shopify’s extra fee on every sale;
- you want a shop where every data store and every script is chosen and documented by you.
When a custom webshop is worth the money
A custom shop makes sense once your requirements are clear and stable: you know which features you need, you have outgrown what Shopify and a reasonable set of apps can do, and you have someone to maintain the code. Budget for a migration if you move from Shopify: exporting products and customers is the easy part, while URL redirects and keeping your search rankings take planning.
We build both, and for some shops Shopify is the better fit. We will tell you which one fits yours. Custom builds are priced through our webshop development service from €7,900 excl. VAT, fixed in writing before work starts. If you want a second opinion on which side of this comparison your shop is on, send us your current setup.