Ecommerce platform fee and migration calculator

The sticker price of a plan is the smallest part of what an online store actually pays. Per-sale transaction fees, payment processing and paid apps are where the money goes, and they scale with revenue. Put your real numbers in and this prices the all-in cost on Shopify, BigCommerce and WooCommerce, shows the revenue at which the winner flips, and tells you what you are overpaying. The math runs in your browser, nothing is stored.

Read the full breakdown: what 1M euro in online sales costs in fees

Your store

Payments

All-in fee check

You are overpaying ~$14,628/year

Versus moving to WooCommerce (Self-hosted ($20/mo hosting)). That is $1,219/mo in base plan, per-sale fees and apps combined. Migration is one-off work; this gap repeats every year.

All-in cost per platform

WooCommerceSelf-hosted ($20/mo hosting)cheapest
$2,120/mo
$25,440/yr
BigCommerceStandard ($39/mo)
$2,139/mo
$25,668/yr
ShopifyAdvanced ($399/mo)current
$2,799/mo
$33,588/yr

Each platform is shown on its cheapest plan for $60,000/mo of revenue. Figures = base plan + payment processing + any per-sale platform surcharge + your app cost.

Encodes your inputs in the URL. Nothing is stored on a server.

Our recommendation

WooCommerce

WooCommerce is cheapest on paper here because the platform is free and you only pay hosting plus processing. That assumes you are comfortable owning hosting, updates and security yourself, which is a real cost in time even when it is cheap in dollars.

The platform itself is free and open source, so you only pay hosting plus payment processing and any paid extensions. No per-sale platform fee, but you own the maintenance and the hosting bill is real.

No affiliate here. When a free, self-hosted tool is the honest answer, that is the answer we give.

Platform pricing moves. Get told when it does.

Transaction-fee percentages, processing rates and plan prices all change, and a single change can flip which platform is cheapest for you. Point this at a pricing page (Shopify, BigCommerce, your payment processor) and we will email you the moment the page changes, with a one-line note on what moved. One confirmation link, nothing else until you click it.

Get an email the moment that page changes.

Two quick fields: the page to watch and where to email you. Then confirm one link.

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The two programs behind the recommendation

When the calculator points you somewhere, those links are affiliate links. They cost you nothing extra and only a paid signup earns us anything, which is exactly why the WooCommerce pick carries no link at all: when the honest answer is the free, self-hosted one, we say so.

  • BigCommerce Partner Program rewards larger, enterprise-scale referrals (a bounty reported up to roughly $1,500 for qualifying enterprise plans). That fits the high-GMV store that BigCommerce is genuinely cheaper for, because it charges no per-sale platform fee.
  • Shopify Affiliate Program pays a fixed bounty (around $100) per new paying merchant. That fits the starter and SMB store, where Shopify plus Shopify Payments is usually the lowest all-in cost.

We have not joined either program yet, so every outbound link in the tool is a clearly marked placeholder until we are accepted. The recommendation is driven by the cheaper all-in number for your inputs, not by which program pays more.

How the cost is built

For each platform the all-in monthly cost is the base plan, plus payment processing (your processor rate times revenue, plus a flat fee per order), plus any per-sale platform surcharge, plus your paid-app total. The one difference that decides most comparisons is the surcharge: Shopify adds a per-sale fee (2.0% on Basic down to 0.5% on Advanced) unless you use Shopify Payments, while BigCommerce and WooCommerce charge no platform fee on any plan. Every plan price and rate is shown as an editable input pre-filled with a published mid-2025 US list price, so you can match the exact quote you were given and nothing is a number you cannot check.

Because each platform's cost is a straight line in revenue (a fixed monthly part plus a per-sale rate), the break-even is the revenue where two of those lines cross. Below it the platform with the lower base plan wins; above it the platform with the lower per-sale rate wins. That is why a high-revenue store on a third-party processor so often saves money on BigCommerce, and a small starter store usually does best on Shopify.

Who this is for

Store owners choosing a first platform, and established stores wondering whether a migration would actually pay off before they commit to the work. If you would rather keep an eye on competitor pricing and stock than your own platform fees, that is exactly what Mue Watch Business does for you, on a schedule, with the alerts handled.

Ecommerce payment fee questions, answered

How much does Shopify take from a $100 sale?

With Shopify Payments on the Basic plan the processing fee is about 2.9% plus 30 cents, so roughly $3.20 on a $100 online sale. Higher plans have lower processing rates, but if you use a third-party gateway instead of Shopify Payments, Shopify adds a per-sale transaction fee (2.0% on Basic down to 0.5% on Advanced) on top. The calculator lets you set your exact plan and rate.

How much is the PayPal fee on $1,000?

PayPal's standard online rate is commonly published at about 2.99% plus 49 cents per transaction, so a single $1,000 payment costs roughly $30.40. Spread across many smaller orders the flat per-transaction fee adds up faster, which is why average order value matters. Rates vary by country and account, so confirm yours and set it in the calculator.

What is a 3% processing fee on $100?

A flat 3% fee on a $100 sale is $3.00, before any fixed per-transaction charge. Most card processors also add a flat fee (often around 30 cents), so the real cost of a $100 sale at 2.9% plus 30 cents is about $3.20, not $2.90. The calculator includes both the percentage and the flat fee.

How do I lower my ecommerce payment fees?

The two biggest levers are using the platform's own payment processor to avoid an added per-sale platform fee, and raising average order value so the flat per-transaction charge is a smaller share of each sale. Above a certain revenue, a plan with a lower per-sale rate beats a cheaper base plan; the calculator shows exactly where that break-even sits for your numbers.

The data-story behind this tool

What 1M euro in online sales actually costs you in fees

A store doing 1,000,000 euro a year online hands over about 53,000 euro in platform and payment fees before a single app. Here is where it goes, and the line you can delete.

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