Shopify vs WooCommerce for a UAE online store

Shopify vs WooCommerce in the UAE is less a question of features than of responsibility. Shopify is a hosted platform. You pay a monthly subscription, and hosting is included in the plan. WooCommerce describes itself as a free, open-source ecommerce platform for WordPress. You choose the hosting, and you or your developer keep WordPress, WooCommerce and every plugin up to date.

Both can run a serious store in the UAE. The better choice depends on your catalogue, your payment providers, your team and who will look after the store once it is live.

We read both official pricing pages on 27 September 2026. Shopify quotes plan prices in US dollars on its UAE site.

Shopify's billing help says stores located in the UAE are charged 5 per cent VAT on their Shopify bill, unless they enter a valid 15-digit tax registration number and certify that they are a VAT taxpayer.

The cheaper platform on paper is not always the cheaper store. Add payment fees at your expected monthly sales, the apps or extensions you need, and the cost of maintenance.

Shopify Payments is available in the UAE for online sales, not for in-store payments. Shopify's help centre lists Visa, Mastercard, Maestro, Apple Pay, Google Pay and Shop Pay. To be eligible, the business needs a company registration number and a UAE bank account in dirhams with an IBAN starting AE. Shopify lists sole establishments, free zone sole establishments, LLCs and free zone LLCs as eligible business types.

Other providers on Shopify. When we filtered Shopify's payment provider directory to the United Arab Emirates, the list included Tabby, Tamara Split Payments, Telr, N-Genius Online by Network, Checkout.com and Amazon Payment Services, among others. Using any of them triggers Shopify's third-party transaction fee.

WooCommerce. WooCommerce lists the UAE as a supported country for WooPayments, for business accounts only. Tabby and Tamara each publish their own WooCommerce plugin on WordPress.org, and Network International publishes N-Genius Online as a free extension on the WooCommerce Marketplace.

Before you choose a platform, confirm that your preferred provider will onboard your business. Our guide to UAE payment gateways explains what providers ask for.

Shopify. Shopify's help centre says the latest themes in its Horizon family support right-to-left languages such as Arabic, and asks you to confirm right-to-left support if you use another theme. Its professional checkout translations cover 33 languages, and Arabic is not on that list. Plan to supply your own Arabic checkout and email wording, by importing translations or using a compatible translation app.

WooCommerce. WordPress can tell when the site language is right to left and load right-to-left styles. Whether the store actually looks right depends on the theme and on every plugin that adds something to the page, including the checkout and the payment step.

On either platform, test the Arabic cart, checkout and order emails on a phone before launch. Our Arabic and English website guide covers layout, type and translation.

The UAE Ministry of Finance gives the standard VAT rate as 5 per cent. Both platforms let you choose whether the prices customers see include tax.

• Shopify has a setting to include tax in product prices and shipping rates, and lets you set tax inclusion for each market you sell to.
• WooCommerce has three settings: whether prices are entered with tax, how prices are shown in the shop, and how they are shown in the cart and checkout. Its documentation warns that mismatched settings can cause rounding errors.

How you must show VAT, and what your invoices must contain, are questions for the Federal Tax Authority or your accountant. Configure the store once you have their answer.

On Shopify, hosting is part of the plan. Your ongoing work is apps, theme changes, product data and checking the store after each change. On WooCommerce, someone must also update WordPress, WooCommerce, the theme and every plugin, take and test backups, and look after the hosting.

If you have no one in-house to do that, include a maintenance plan in your budget from the start. Our website maintenance page explains what one covers.

Both platforms suit most retail stores. A custom build, where the storefront is written for your business, starts to make sense when you need trade pricing for different customer groups, tight links to an ERP or warehouse system, or a buying journey that neither platform's checkout can express. It costs more to build and depends on the developer who built it, so choose it for a clear reason, not by default.