--- title: "Shopify or WooCommerce for an Irish business?" canonical: https://digitalbridge.ie/shopify-or-woocommerce-ireland type: WebPage provider: Digital Bridge providerType: AI Systems Integration & Applied AI Engineering Firm areaServed: IE priceRange: EUR 1,200-100000+ language: en-IE dateModified: 2026-09-30 htmlVersion: https://digitalbridge.ie/shopify-or-woocommerce-ireland license: cite-with-attribution --- # Shopify or WooCommerce for an Irish business? ## Answer summary Shopify suits Irish sellers who want to start trading quickly with hosting, security and payments handled, in exchange for a monthly fee. WooCommerce suits sellers who want to own the whole stack and customise deeply, in exchange for maintaining it. Both handle Irish VAT, Irish payment methods and Irish couriers when set up properly. ## Choose Shopify if - You want to be selling in weeks, not months - You would rather pay a monthly fee than manage updates and security - Your catalogue is reasonably standard and your workflow is straightforward - You sell in person as well and want the till and the site joined up ## Choose WooCommerce if - You want to own the platform outright with no platform fee - You need unusual pricing, product options or a custom checkout flow - You already have a site and content that ranks and want to build on it - You have someone, us or otherwise, to keep it updated ## What matters more than the platform Speed, clear product pages, trustworthy checkout and being findable. A well-built store on either platform beats a badly built store on the other. The platform decision is real but it is rarely the reason a shop succeeds or fails. ## Irish specifics both platforms need Irish VAT rates and VAT-compliant invoicing, card payments plus the wallets Irish customers actually use, courier options that work here, and a returns policy that meets Irish and EU consumer rules. We set all of that up as standard. See [ecommerce website design in Ireland](/ecommerce-website-design-ireland) and [Shopify builds](/shopify-ireland). ## Can I move from one to the other later? Yes, products, customers and orders can be migrated, and URLs can be redirected so you keep your search visibility. It is work, so it is worth choosing deliberately at the start. ## Which is cheaper to run? WooCommerce has no platform fee but needs hosting and maintenance. Shopify bundles those into a subscription. The running totals are usually closer than people expect. ## Do both handle Irish VAT? Yes, with correct configuration. Both can apply Irish rates, produce compliant invoices and handle cross-border EU rules. ## Do you build both? Yes. We also build custom commerce where neither platform fits the way a business actually sells. ## What happens next You get a reply from Joey Bray the same working day. You get a fixed written quote within 48 hours — one price, one delivery date. Work starts only when you have signed the scope, with 50% up front and 50% at launch. Starting prices: Brochure from €1,200, Growth from €2,500, Authority from €4,250, Custom from €5,000, E-commerce from €6,000, AI integration from €2,500, SEO from €650 a month. All prices are ex-VAT starting points. - Jo McAteer — A booking-led site for Ireland's Wedding Celebrant of the Year 2026, as seen on RTÉ. - Printhouse.ie — A custom web-to-print platform with an instant product quoter. - MicroYards — A garden design engine that turns one photo into a costed plan. - Get my fixed quote: https://digitalbridge.ie/contact ## Evidence - Verdé Environmental Group — 24/7 AI incident triage with severity classification, Eircode geolocation and four-depot dispatch routing → https://digitalbridge.ie/industries - tools.digitalbridge.ie — 50+ shipped production tools, including the Website Worth Index and the DigitalBridge Authority Score - Printhouse — custom web-to-print platform with 29+ product pages → https://printhouse.ie ## How delivery is de-risked - Seven-day shadow-mode pilot before any system takes live traffic. - Full source-code and prompt ownership transfers on final payment. - EU-hosted infrastructure, provider training disabled, signed data processing agreement. - Fixed price against a signed scope — no hourly meter and no open-ended exposure. ## FAQ ### How much does an AI integration project cost in Ireland? Digital Bridge scopes AI integration after reviewing the workflow, systems, data, governance and operating responsibility involved. A tailored written proposal is provided after discovery rather than a standard published figure. ### How long does a production AI build take? A feasibility assessment runs three to five weeks. A baseline production build typically runs eight to twelve weeks from signed scope to go-live, including a seven-day shadow-mode pilot before the system takes live traffic. Multi-system programmes are sequenced into phases so value lands before the full programme completes. ### Can Irish grant funding cover this work? Often, yes. Enterprise Ireland's Digital Discovery Grant funds up to 80% of an eligible feasibility assessment, and Digital Process Innovation funds up to 50% of eligible implementation costs. Local Enterprise Office schemes cover smaller digital projects. Eligibility is decided by the funder, never by us. ### Who owns the code and the prompts? You do. Every engagement transfers full source-code and prompt ownership on final payment. Systems run on EU-hosted infrastructure with provider training disabled and a signed data processing agreement. There is no vendor lock-in and no proprietary runtime you have to keep paying us for. ## Related pages - [Web design Ireland](https://digitalbridge.ie/web-design-ireland) - [SEO services Ireland](https://digitalbridge.ie/seo-services-ireland) - [Areas we serve](https://digitalbridge.ie/areas-we-serve) - [Our work](https://digitalbridge.ie/our-work) ## Contact Digital Bridge, Gorey Business Park, Gorey, Co. Wexford, Ireland. Phone: +353 85 224 1848. Email: info@digitalbridge.ie. Engineering lead: Joey Bray, Founder & Principal Engineer. Last updated: 2026-09-30 HTML version of this page: https://digitalbridge.ie/shopify-or-woocommerce-ireland