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What sets Shopify and an open source platform apart
Shopify or Medusa: for an SME that sells products to consumers with a standard catalogue and standard journeys, Shopify is most often the right choice. You pay a subscription, and someone else looks after the servers, the security fixes and the payment. An open source platform like Medusa becomes interesting when the way you sell does not fit the boxes of a standard platform, and only if you have a team to keep it running.
We work with an online plush toy shop, which we are putting back on its feet on Shopify for its owner, and we would not advise it to migrate without a specific reason. That is the starting point of this article: migration is not a goal in itself. It is also the rule of our online store offer on Shopify or Medusa, which advises you on your needs and not on our preferences.
Two models, two ways of paying
Shopify is a hosted platform, billed by monthly subscription. Its pricing page displayed these prices in October 2026, in US dollars as seen from our connection:
a month for the Basic plan, on annual payment
a month for the Grow plan, on annual payment
a month for the Advanced plan, on annual payment
a month for the Plus plan
The same page states additional transaction fees when you use an external payment provider rather than Shopify Payments: from 2% on Basic to 0.2% on Plus. On top of these lines come the paid apps from Shopify’s app store, to be counted one by one.
Medusa is a commerce platform whose core is published under the MIT License, according to its official repository (an enterprise edition requires a commercial agreement). Its documentation presents it as a commerce platform with a framework for building custom features, and recommends its hosted offer, Medusa Cloud, for production. Self-hosting remains possible, and the page comparing Medusa Cloud and self-hosting says what then falls to you: server configuration, scaling, monitoring, backups. No licence to pay for the core, then, but no ready-made shop either: the storefront, the integrations and the operation are yours to build.
The three-year calculation
Comparing a subscription with a zero licence fee means nothing. You need two complete costs, over the same period. It is the same method as for leaving a SaaS by calculating the cost over three years, applied to commerce. Here are the items to count on each side:
On the Shopify side, over 36 months
The subscription for the plan you really need
The essential paid apps (customer reviews, subscriptions, translation, etc.)
Transaction fees if you do not use Shopify Payments, calculated on your forecast turnover
Development of the theme and of customisations
The yearly enhancements
On the open source side, over 36 months
Initial development: storefront, checkout flow, payment, delivery and ERP integrations
Hosting (servers, database, image storage, or the vendor’s hosted offer)
Operations: security updates, monitoring, backups, incident response, in hours per month multiplied by a real hourly cost
Enhancements, all of which have to be developed
The payment provider’s fees, which you pay in any case
The classic trap is to compare the Shopify subscription with nothing more than the hosting cost of the open source option. Start by putting a figure on the initial development and the operation, in real hours: without them, the open source column means nothing.
When Shopify wins
- A catalogue of a few dozen to a few thousand products, selling to consumers.
- No in-house technical team, or no wish to fund one.
- A need to launch quickly and focus on marketing and the product.
- A standard purchase journey: basket, payment, delivery.
In that case, the time saved on operations generally weighs more than the subscription and the fees: do the calculation to check.
When open source is justified
- B2B with commercial rules that go beyond what your Shopify plan offers: prices negotiated per customer, quotes, payment terms, recurring orders, a different catalogue depending on the customer.
- Deep integration with an ERP or an existing system, which has to remain the source of truth for stock and prices.
- Very specific journeys: product configuration, a marketplace with several sellers, a sale combined with a service.
- A volume at which fees and apps become a major cost item, to be checked by calculation and not by guesswork.
- A strong requirement for control over data or hosting.
Key takeaway
With open source, you always need a team to run the shop
That team can be in-house, or come from a service provider committed for the long term.
Questions to ask before migrating
- What does your current platform actually stop you doing? If the answer boils down to “it’s a bit expensive”, redo the full calculation first.
- Who will run the shop in three years? An open source project with no team behind it ages badly.
- What happens to the addresses of your product pages? A platform migration is also a URL migration, with the same SEO risks as a redesign.
- Is your product data clean? A migration is the right time to clean it, and the wrong time to discover that it isn’t. We detail what a catalogue must contain in our guide to a shop ready for Google Shopping and marketplaces.
Honest limits
We do not publish here a figure of the kind “X% more conversion after migration”: the migration cases announced by vendors and integrators are not comparable with each other, and we have no before/after measurement to publish. The only comparison worth having is your own calculation, with your volumes and your costs.
And the reverse exists too: a custom-built shop that has become too heavy to maintain can sometimes be better off moving back to a hosted platform.
Where to start
Do the three-year calculation with your own figures: your real plan, your apps, your volumes, and for open source, development and operations in hours. If the answer is “change nothing”, that is good news. If you are launching or rebuilding a shop, our e-commerce support starts with a review of your catalogue, your traffic and your site, before choosing between Shopify and Medusa. The other decisions for a shop are gathered in our e-commerce section.
Frequently asked questions
Is Medusa a good alternative to Shopify?
For a technical team whose needs go beyond the standard framework, yes: the core is open source and everything can be custom-built. For an SME with no developer, rarely: you swap a subscription for a project to keep alive, with its updates, monitoring and backups. The vendor’s hosted offer, Medusa Cloud, lightens the operations, not the development.
Is Shopify suitable for B2B?
For some needs. In October 2026, the pricing page mentioned Shopify B2B on all plans, with up to 3 catalogues on Basic, Grow and Advanced, and unlimited catalogues on Plus. Before concluding, check that these features cover your real rules: prices per customer, quotes, payment terms, recurring orders.
How much does a Shopify store cost in France?
The subscription is only part of the cost. Count the plan, displayed in US dollars on the pricing page checked in October 2026, the paid apps, the transaction fees if you do not use Shopify Payments, then the theme and customisations. Check the currency and the terms that apply to your account on the day you do your calculation.
Sources
- Pricing page (new tab)shopify.com
- Official repository (new tab)github.com
- Documentation (new tab)docs.medusajs.com
- Page comparing Medusa Cloud and self-hosting (new tab)docs.medusajs.com
Jim · founder of Brain Plus AI
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