Shopify vs Shopware: Costs, B2B and Which Fits Your Store

What Shopware Is Today

Shopware describes itself as “an open-source ecommerce platform with flexible hosting options and an API-first architecture.” The same Shopware comparison page describes Shopify as “a cloud-based SaaS platform with fixed hosting.” That is the core of the choice: software you or your developer run, against a platform you rent.

The Community Edition is the free core. Shopware calls it “the open source, MIT-licensed core of Shopware that can be downloaded and used for free,” and it is the edition you run yourself: it “is not available in the Shopware Cloud – setup and maintenance are your responsibility.” If you are also weighing WordPress's open-source store, our Shopify vs WooCommerce guide covers that decision.

Above it sit three paid plans. On Shopware's pricing page, read on September 29, 2026, their prices are starting points in euros, excluding VAT:

Self-Hosted, Shopware SaaS or PaaS?

Shopware sells its paid plans in three hosting models, and its pricing FAQ settles what they cost relative to each other: “Shopware SaaS comes at the same price as self-hosted, thus providing you more value for money. As Shopware PaaS is tailored to your specific needs, we offer you individualized pricing for it.”

• Self-hosted — you or your agency run the servers, updates and security. It is the only way to run the Community Edition, and the only model in which you can book Rise yourself in your Shopware Account.
• Shopware SaaS — Shopware runs the hosting, at the same price as the self-hosted plan; Rise on SaaS is booked through Shopware's sales team.
• Shopware PaaS — hosting tailored to your needs, priced individually through sales.

For a merchant with no developer on staff, the practical line is that hosting run by Shopware starts with a paid plan. Shopware's comparison page, for its part, describes Shopify merchants as operating “within a fully managed environment” with no access to server configurations.

Why Shopware Quotes Only a Starting Price

Every paid Shopware price carries the word “From”, and the pricing page explains why:

Shopware's announcement on automated GMV reporting repeats the principle: pricing in Rise, Evolve and Beyond is based on GMV “so that costs remain in a fair relationship to overall sales volume and scale with the growth of each shop.”

Beyond shows no number at all; its card reads “Custom” with a “Contact Sales” button. For merchants moving up from the Community Edition, Shopware says its list prices “serve as reference points.” Budget with the starting price, then get a quote: the €600 and €2,400 figures are floors.

What Each Platform Costs a Running Store

The two price lists are not built the same way, so compare them line by line rather than as two totals. Shopify's figures come from its US pricing page in US dollars, as of September 2026; Shopware's come from its pricing page in euros, excluding VAT.

What the table cannot show is the cost of running the Community Edition yourself: hosting, updates and a developer's time are bills you set with your own providers, so this article gives no figure for them. For a store with no developer on staff, the fairer comparison is Shopify against Shopware's hosted route, which starts on Rise.

Does Shopify Charge a Fee for Your Own Payment Provider?

This is the line where Shopify costs more, and it belongs next to its lower entry price. Shopify's pricing page lists third-party transaction fees by plan, charged when orders are paid through a provider other than Shopify Payments. Here is what the fee comes to on €10,000 of monthly sales paid that way:

• Basic: 2%, or €200
• Grow: 1%, or €100
• Advanced: 0.6%, or €60
• Plus: 0.2%, or €20

Shopware positions itself against exactly this line: its comparison page says “Shopware does not impose additional charges for using third-party payment providers,” and that Shopify charges “additional transaction fees for external payment services.” On the Shopify side, the fee does not apply to orders paid through Shopify Payments, which a business located in Germany, Austria or Switzerland can use (see the DACH section). Manual methods such as COD and bank transfer, and POS orders, carry no fee.

On stores created on or after May 12, 2025, Shopify also charges the fee on the part of an order paid with store credit or a gift card, even when the rest goes through Shopify Payments. Plus stores that use Shopify Payments as their sole payment provider have that fee waived. If a third-party provider runs alongside Shopify Payments, transactions processed through Shopify Payments are charged at standard Shopify Payments rates plus a 1.25% premium.

If you must keep a provider that Shopify Payments doesn't replace, the fee is a recurring cost for as long as you stay, and it is one of the weaknesses our breakdown of Shopify's payment lock-in weighs against the rest of the platform.

The Community Edition's €1 Million Rule

For the free edition, the cost question changed in 2025. Shopware updated its General Terms & Conditions on March 24, 2025, adding a Fair Usage Policy for the Shopware Account and Shopware Store, and stated that the policy “does not impact the open-source license of the Community Edition.” Three dates frame it:

The threshold is the part that decides your budget. In Shopware's words:

The obligation is tied to the Account and Store, not to the software. Shopware says that if no agreement is reached, you are “free to continue using the Community Edition without access to the Shopware Store and Shopware Account.”

So an affected merchant has three moves: subscribe to Rise, from €600 a month excluding VAT, or a higher plan; keep the Community Edition without those two services; or leave the platform, which the migration section covers.

Who Has to Report GMV, and How Is It Counted?

Reporting reaches further than the threshold, but two Shopware pages draw its edge differently. The 2025 Fair Usage Policy FAQ is direct: “Yes, all Community Edition users must report their GMV to Shopware, regardless of whether their annual GMV is below or above €1 million.” The April 14, 2026 announcement on automated reporting says Shopware 6 Community Edition customers “who have connected their shop to a Shopware Account” are “contractually required to report GMV,” and that “CE customers who do not use the Account and Store are automatically excluded from tracking.”

How GMV is counted, per the Fair Usage Policy announcement:

• Returns are included and do not reduce GMV.
• Discounts are taken into account and reduce GMV.
• Taxes are not counted: GMV is calculated on net values.
• Shipping costs are included.
• For the €1 million threshold, only GMV generated through the Shopware online store counts.

B2B: From Shopify's Basic Plan, From Shopware's Evolve

B2B is where Shopware's comparison and Shopify's documentation disagree most. Shopware's comparison lists Shopify's B2B as “B2B functionality primarily delivered through apps.” Shopify's Help Center says: “You can use Shopify B2B on the Basic, Grow, Advanced, and Shopify Plus plans,” and adds: “Most B2B features are available on all plans, including companies, catalogs, net payment terms, self-serve ordering, and Shopify Flow automations.”

Shopify's own ceiling sits at Plus. Below it, you can assign up to 3 active catalogs across your B2B markets, and those catalogs need the new Shopify Markets; deposits, partial payments and payment requests per fulfillment are “available only on the Shopify Plus plan.” Assigning a catalog directly to a company or company location for customer-level pricing is also limited to Plus. If your wholesale model needs those, compare Plus with Evolve and Beyond, not Basic with Evolve.

What each Shopify plan below Plus can do for wholesale is laid out in our guide to B2B without Shopify Plus.

Still on Shopware 5?

Shopware ran Shopware 5 down in two phases, set out on its Shopware 5 to 6 migration page: “Until the end of July 2023, we're still making bug fixes, minor improvements, and legally necessary adjustments. From then on up until the end of July 2024, we'll only fix security issues.” Both dates have passed.

After them, support moved to a third party. Shopware announced that safefive would take over “further (commercial) support in terms of security fixes and legal compliance for the Shopware 5 project from July 2024 onwards.”

Shopware's own assessment of the platform, on its page about moving to version 6:

So the question is not whether to leave Shopware 5, but where to go. Moving to Shopware 6 keeps you on the platform; moving to Shopify is covered in the migration section.

Moving From Shopware to Shopify

Shopify offers no Shopware-specific route on the pages we read on September 29, 2026. Its Help Center migration hub lists general methods: copying content by hand, CSV import, “a migration app from the Shopify App Store,” a Shopify Partner and a custom migration solution built on the Shopify API. Its ten platform guides, for Amazon, Clover, eBay, Etsy, GoDaddy, Lightspeed, Square, Squarespace, Wix and WooCommerce, do not include Shopware.

Shopify's own Store Migration app doesn't name Shopware either: on the listing we read on September 29, 2026, its sources are Square, WooCommerce, Etsy, Wix, Amazon, eBay, Clover and Lightspeed R/X (Vend). Shopify's comparison page instead points to partners: “Shopify Partners provide you with all the support you need when making the switch from Shopware to Shopify.”

How the general methods compare, from a migration app to CSV to an agency, is covered in our guide to choosing a migration method.

Running a German-Language Store on Shopify

Shopify lists supported countries where you can use Shopify Payments “if your business is located in one of the supported countries,” and each of the three DACH markets has its own page:

• Germany: credit and debit cards, accelerated checkouts, local payment methods and cryptocurrency, per Shopify's German payment methods page.
• Austria and Switzerland: Shopify Payments accepts “a variety of payment methods at checkout” for businesses located there.
• Admin in German: the admin language list includes Deutsch (Deutschland).
• Storefront in German: publishing German as an additional language gives it URLs such as example.com/de.

Setting up the payment side is its own task, and our Shopify Payments guide walks through it.

What Shopify and Shopware Each Claim

Shopify's “Shopify vs. Shopware” page opens with: “Brands are choosing Shopify over Shopware to maximize return on their commerce investments, expand their business, and tap into new revenue streams.”

Here is what each vendor's comparison page claims, Shopify's and Shopware's, and what this article's sources show:

Which Platform Fits Your Situation?

The verdict at the top answers one profile at a time. This quiz answers by combination: where your store runs today, your GMV, who keeps it running, how much B2B you need and whether Shopify Payments works for you. Two answers route straight to their own result: running Shopware 5, and running the Community Edition above €1 million in GMV.

The Bottom Line

The two platforms differ less in what they can sell than in who does the work. Shopware gives a developer control and, once you leave the free edition, charges by GMV; Shopify charges a listed plan price, plus a fee on orders paid through a third-party payment provider.

Frequently Asked Questions