The short answer
If you sell through a company registered in Turkey, Shopify’s real cost is not the monthly subscription. Shopify Payments is not offered in Turkey, so you have to use a local payment institution such as iyzico, and in that case Shopify takes a platform fee of up to 2% on every sale, on top of the payment provider’s commission. WooCommerce charges no such fee; instead, you carry the server, updates, security and backups yourself.
My summary: for a small shop with no technical team that wants to launch fast, Shopify is a sensible start, but as turnover grows the platform fee starts to cost more than the subscription. For a shop selling mainly to Turkish customers, with a lot of instalment sales and monthly turnover above a few hundred thousand lira, WooCommerce comes out ahead. If you plan to sell abroad, the picture changes again, and I cover that in a separate section. This blog runs on WordPress and I run a Shopify store through my UK company, so I know both admin panels from the inside.
Shopify’s 2026 prices and the extra fee for Turkey
These are the plans shown on Shopify’s Turkey pricing page on 24 October 2026. Prices are in US dollars. Shopify raised plan prices in some countries in mid-October, so check the page again before you subscribe.
| Plan | Billed monthly | Billed yearly (per month) | Third-party payment provider fee |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | $27 | $24 | 2% |
| Grow | $72 | $65 | 1% |
| Advanced | $399 | $359 | 0.6% |
| Plus | From $2,300 | 1- or 3-year contract | 0.2% |
Source: Shopify Turkey pricing page, 24 October 2026. New accounts get a 3-day free trial followed by $1 a month for 3 months.
The last column is the one that matters for a Turkish seller. Shopify charges this fee to any store that uses an external provider instead of its own Shopify Payments, and Shopify Payments is not available to businesses based in Turkey. In other words, every Shopify store selling from Turkey pays that column.
How do Shopify stores in Turkey take payments?
iyzico has a payment app for Shopify: you search for it as a provider under Settings > Payments in the Shopify admin and connect it with the API keys from your iyzico merchant panel. PayTR and Craftgate are among the other providers that connect to Shopify. Local habits such as instalments and BKM Express come through these providers.
The problem is that the commission comes in two layers. iyzico’s published single-payment rate for companies selling more than TRY 20,000 a month is 4.29% + TRY 0.25. That rate can come down with volume and negotiation, but Shopify’s 1% or 2% is added on top of it either way. On a TRY 1,000 single-payment sale, iyzico takes TRY 43.15 and, on the Basic plan, Shopify takes another TRY 20; the total deduction is over 6%.
The second limitation shows up when you sell abroad. According to Shopify’s help centre, showing prices and charging in the customer’s local currency is only possible with Shopify Payments or Adyen; with other third-party providers, orders are processed in the store’s default currency. A Shopify store set up with a Turkish company and iyzico therefore loses the flexibility to sell to a customer in Germany at a euro price.
Where does WooCommerce’s cost come from?
WooCommerce itself is free and takes no per-sale platform fee. WooPayments, WooCommerce’s own payment solution, does not support Turkey, but in practice that is not a problem because local payment institutions connect through plugins. iyzico’s plugin on WordPress.org is active on more than 10,000 sites and supports instalments and refunds. The same page shows a rating of 1.8 out of 5, with recent reviews complaining about bugs and slow support. Before going live, I recommend testing instalment sales, refunds and partial refunds one by one in the plugin’s sandbox.
WooCommerce’s cost is hidden not in an invoice but in the work itself:
- Hosting: The cheapest shared plan can take the shop down during Black Friday traffic. You need a server with enough resources allocated for e-commerce.
- Updates and security: Updating WordPress, WooCommerce, the theme and plugins, rolling back when something conflicts, and security scanning are your job.
- Plugin licences: Most functions such as shipping integration, e-invoicing, marketplace sync and advanced filters come as paid plugins, and licences usually renew every year.
- Speed: Page speed, which is the platform’s problem on Shopify, is your problem on WooCommerce. I covered it step by step in WooCommerce speed optimisation.
Same shop, three scenarios: TRY 300,000 monthly turnover
To make the numbers concrete, I took a shop with 300 orders a month and an average basket of TRY 1,000. All sales go through iyzico as single payments, Shopify plans are billed yearly, and the dollar rate is TRY 49.74 as of 23 October 2026.
| Monthly item (TRY) | Shopify Basic | Shopify Grow | WooCommerce |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plan / subscription | 1,194 | 3,233 | 0 |
| Shopify third-party provider fee | 6,000 | 3,000 | 0 |
| Hosting* | 0 | 0 | 1,500 |
| E-invoice integration** | 990 | 990 | 1,000 |
| Other apps / plugin licences* | 1,492 | 1,492 | 1,000 |
| Maintenance and technical support* | 0 | 0 | 2,000 |
| Total platform cost | 9,676 | 8,715 | 5,500 |
| Share of turnover | 3.2% | 2.9% | 1.8% |
| iyzico commission (4.29% + TRY 0.25) | 12,945 | 12,945 | 12,945 |
| Grand total | 22,621 | 21,660 | 18,445 |
* Assumption; replace with your own quotes. For other Shopify apps I assumed $30 a month. ** On Shopify, the Premium plan of the Paraşüt e-invoice app ($19.90/month); on WooCommerce, the plugin or integrator fee is an assumption.
In this scenario WooCommerce saves about TRY 3,200 a month against the Grow plan, more than TRY 38,000 a year. The gap is not huge, and the weakest row in the table is WooCommerce’s maintenance line: if you work with an agency, or a plugin update breaks the checkout in November, that TRY 2,000 is gone in a day. On the other hand, Shopify’s percentage fee grows with turnover; when the same shop reaches TRY 600,000 a month, the gap between Grow and WooCommerce approaches TRY 6,200 a month.
When to switch plans
If you decide to stay on Shopify, which plan is cheaper also depends on turnover. The subscription gap between Basic and Grow is $41 a month, about TRY 2,040; Grow’s 1-point-lower provider fee closes that gap from roughly TRY 204,000 of monthly turnover. Between Grow and Advanced the threshold is far higher: the $294 difference is only recovered by the 0.4-point fee gap above roughly TRY 3.66 million a month.
These thresholds depend on the exchange rate. The subscription is in dollars and turnover is in lira, so as the dollar rises, the threshold for moving up a plan rises too. Redo the calculation at least once a year, before your annual renewal.
If you sell abroad, the picture changes
If your target is cross-border e-commerce, the comparison can flip. You cannot open Shopify Payments with a Turkish company, but you can with a company set up abroad, such as a UK Ltd or a US LLC. A store using Shopify Payments pays no third-party provider fee, can sell in local currencies and can switch on fast checkout methods such as Shop Pay, Apple Pay and Google Pay from one panel. I compared the overseas company options in my dropshipping profit maths article.
You can sell abroad with WooCommerce too, but multi-currency, country-specific VAT display and foreign payment methods need extra plugins and more configuration. If you sell abroad as micro-exports through your Turkish company rather than through an overseas store, the customs and ETGB side is the same on both platforms; I covered it in the micro-export guide, and target market choice in cross-border market selection.
Obligations that stay the same on both platforms
Your platform choice does not change your legal obligations in Turkey; it only changes how you meet them.
- E-invoice (e-fatura): For online sellers, the e-invoice threshold is TRY 500,000 of gross sales revenue, and sales on your own site and on marketplaces are counted together. Those who crossed it in 2025 have had to use e-invoicing since 1 July 2026; for those crossing it for the first time in 2026, the date is 1 July 2027. The transition period in which simplified-method and small-business taxpayers may issue paper invoices up to TRY 3,000 also ends on 31 December 2026. Shopify has no built-in e-invoicing, so an app or integrator is required; on WooCommerce the same job is done with a plugin.
- ETBİS: You must register with ETBİS (Turkey’s e-commerce information system) through e-Devlet before you start selling, and registration is free.
- KVKK: If you choose Shopify, customer data goes to servers abroad, which means you need to set up the cross-border data transfer procedure under Turkey’s data protection law from the start. Hosting WooCommerce on a server in Turkey reduces this burden but does not remove it, because analytics, email and advertising tools also transfer data. I collected the details in no-code automation and KVKK.
Which one fits whom?
| Your situation | My choice | Why |
|---|---|---|
| New brand, no technical team, monthly turnover below TRY 200,000 | Shopify Basic | Fast to set up, no maintenance; the platform fee is bearable at this turnover |
| Domestic sales, monthly turnover above TRY 200,000, mostly instalments | WooCommerce | No percentage platform fee; savings grow with turnover |
| Already on Shopify and turnover passed TRY 200,000 | Move to Grow, then recalculate | Grow becomes cheaper than Basic; work out the cost of migrating to WooCommerce separately |
| Targeting foreign customers, with a UK/US company in place or planned | Shopify | No extra fee with Shopify Payments; local currencies and fast checkout ready to use |
| Many marketplace and ERP integrations, custom workflows | WooCommerce (or a Turkish platform) | You control the code and the data |
Checklist before you decide
- Monthly turnover for the last 3 months, average basket and share of instalment sales are known.
- Written rate quotes received from iyzico, PayTR or other payment institutions, with single-payment and instalment rates shown separately.
- Shopify’s provider fee calculated in lira by applying your plan’s rate to monthly turnover.
- Real quotes received for WooCommerce hosting, plugin licences and maintenance hours, not assumptions.
- E-invoice threshold checked with site and marketplace sales counted together; the integration route is clear.
- If you plan to sell abroad, it is settled which company and which currency will collect the payments.
- KVKK privacy notice and cross-border transfer procedure updated for the chosen platform.
- No platform change before the November campaigns; any migration is planned for January.
The last item is there on purpose. Moving platforms a few weeks before 11.11 and Black Friday, with SEO redirects, payment testing and product migration, is the most expensive timing possible. Do this year’s maths now and migrate after the season.
Frequently asked questions
Can a Shopify store in Turkey take payments in lira?
Yes. You can set the store currency to TRY and collect lira through a payment institution such as iyzico. The Shopify subscription itself is billed in dollars.
When will Shopify Payments launch in Turkey?
I have not seen any timeline announced by Shopify. As things stand, businesses based in Turkey cannot use Shopify Payments.
Is WooCommerce really free?
The software is free; the shop is not. Hosting, paid plugins, e-invoice integration and maintenance work come back as monthly costs. The difference is that they come as fixed amounts rather than a percentage of sales.
How long does a move from Shopify to WooCommerce take?
Product and customer data can be moved in a few days. What takes time is URL redirects, testing payment and shipping integrations, and moving order history. Do not schedule it during a campaign period.
Why are Turkish platforms such as Ticimax and ikas not in the table?
This article compares two global platforms. Turkish platforms use different package and commission models, so putting them in the same table would blur the comparison. You can fill in the scenario table above with your own quote to assess a Turkish platform the same way.
Sources
- Shopify Turkey: Pricing (checked 24 October 2026)
- Common Thread Collective: Shopify’s 15 October 2026 plan price increase (US)
- Shopify Help Center: Guidelines and restrictions for selling in local currencies
- iyzico Docs: Shopify integration
- WordPress.org: iyzico for WooCommerce plugin
- WooCommerce: WooPayments supported countries
- Shopify App Store: Paraşüt e-Fatura Entegrasyonu
- Mubido: iyzico virtual POS commission and payout schedule (October 2026, in Turkish)
- GurmeHub: 2026 e-invoice obligation, summary of Tax Procedure Law General Communiqués No. 535 and 589 (in Turkish)
- Nodusworks: Shopify Turkey guide to payments and legal requirements
- BloombergHT: Exchange rates, 23 October 2026 (in Turkish)
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