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Alien Web Design vs Shopify

Prices checked 2 September 2026. We re-check them when we update this page.

Shopify Basic is $42 a month on an annual plan in Australia, or $56 a month paying monthly, plus a fee on every sale. That is $504 a year before you have sold anything. Our online store build is $3,490 plus GST once ($3,839 including GST), and brochure sites start at $690 plus GST ($759 including GST). If you carry real inventory, Shopify is the right tool and we will build you one. Most people who land on this page do not carry real inventory, and the page is written for them.

What Shopify costs before you sell anything

Shopify prices are Australian list prices from shopify.com/au/pricing, checked 2 September 2026, and we print them as published. We quote plus GST and print the inclusive figure beside it, so you can read the two sides of the table against each other.

The subscription is the part everyone compares. The fees are the part that decides it. On Basic, every card payment costs 1.75 per cent plus 30 cents, and if you take money through a gateway other than Shopify Payments there is a further 2 per cent on every order. Shopify charges those percentages for as long as you trade, and they grow as you do. The $504 is the floor, not the bill.

We build on Shopify. Here is when we would tell you to.

If you run a real store, Shopify is the right tool, and we say so on the phone before anyone signs anything. Real inventory, with sizes, colours and other variants. Stock levels that have to stay accurate while the orders come in, shipping priced by weight or by zone, refunds and returns as a routine part of the week, and a checkout that has to work at 2am on a Saturday with nobody watching it. Shopify's checkout is excellent, and nothing we build replaces it.

What the subscription does not do is design your store, write your product pages, structure your categories or get any of it found. That work is the same job on every platform, and it is our job. So when Shopify is where you belong, we build there: you pay Shopify for the machinery and pay us once for the shop. Ask for the store quote and you get a fixed number in writing before work starts, the same as every other build we do.

Quote my store

The more common case runs the other way. A great many businesses sign up for a store because they sell three or four things, then pay $504 a year plus fees to run what could have been a page with a payment link.

Do you need a store? Four questions.

Answer these about your own business. They are yes or no, and the score decides it.

1. Do you sell more than about ten products, with sizes, colours or other variants? A cart earns its keep when a customer picks between things. Below about ten, a page that lists them does the same job with less to go wrong.
2. Do stock levels have to stay accurate as you sell? Selling the last one twice is a real cost and a real apology. Inventory tracking is the single strongest reason to be on a store platform.
3. Is shipping priced by weight or by zone? If postage to Perth costs a multiple of postage across Sydney, you need shipping rules, not a flat number typed into a form.
4. Are refunds and returns a routine part of the job rather than an exception? Returns mean order records, partial refunds and restocking. That needs a system behind it.

Two or more yes: you want a store, and we will build it, on Shopify or on a site you own. One or none: you would be paying every month for machinery you never switch on. Keep reading: the next section names what you need instead.

Not sure how you scored? Tell us what you sell and how many of it. We will tell you which shape you are, and what it costs, fixed, in writing. Send us what you sell and you get a straight answer, including the answer that you do not need a store yet.

The four shapes of selling online, and what each costs built

Most businesses that ask us for a store turn out to be one of four shapes. The shape decides the build, and the build decides the price. None of them is a monthly fee.

Services, quoted or booked. This is the biggest group on the list and the one most often sold a cart it will never use. A cart asks the customer to choose, add and pay. A service customer wants a number, and usually a short conversation before they commit to it. Select Coolrooms & Construction sell a built product that way. Their old site drew roughly three unpaid visits a month, so we rebuilt it around a live quote calculator wired into their CRM. It produced $299,521 in quotes in four days and took #1 for "cool room builders Sydney", a search that costs $14 a click. The full case study is here.

A handful of products. A page with a payment link takes money the same way a checkout does. Stripe or PayPal charges its card rate and nothing sits on top of it. There is no stock system to keep honest, no app subscriptions, and no monthly platform fee waiting on the first of the month.

A catalogue people browse before they call. The middle case: dozens of items that get specified, measured or asked about rather than dropped into a basket. That is a larger custom build. The range gets structured so search engines and AI answers can read it, and the enquiry goes to someone who will act on it.

Real inventory. The store, at $3,490 plus GST. It covers products, cart and payments, product schema so AI search can surface your range, GA4 ecommerce tracking, and twelve months of hosting, SSL and monitoring. If you want to own the store outright rather than rent it, that is a WooCommerce build on your own site. If your stock suits Shopify better, we build it there and tell you why before you pay anything.

At the entry tier you supply the words. The design, the structure, the hosting, the schema and the search setup are ours, and you get the price in writing before work starts.

What the fees add up to: a worked example

A percentage means nothing until it meets a month of takings. The numbers below are an example, and the assumptions are printed with them.

Say you sell $5,000 in a month across 50 orders on Shopify Basic. The card rate is 1.75 per cent plus 30 cents an order: $87.50 plus $15, so $102.50. If you take payment through a gateway other than Shopify Payments, add 2 per cent, another $100. That sits on top of the $42 a month.

Your own figures will be different. The shape will not. The fee scales with your success, so your best month is also your most expensive month, and it stays that way for as long as the store is open. On a payment link or a quote flow you pay your own gateway's card rate and nothing to us.

Three years, both ways

For a business selling a few products, or selling services, the honest comparison is Shopify against a brochure site with a payment link on it. Our store build is the wrong thing to hold it up against, because you would not be buying one.

Our $957 includes GST throughout: $759 to build, then $99 a year covering hosting, your domain name and ongoing SEO updates. Shopify's $1,512 is thirty-six months of Basic at the annual rate as published, and the fee column sits on top of it in both cases.

Now the other way, because it goes against us and you should hear it from us rather than find it later. If you do carry real inventory, that table is the wrong comparison. Our store build is $3,490 plus GST, $3,839 including it, once. Three years of Shopify Basic is $1,512 plus fees. Over three years Shopify is the cheaper way to run a real store, and we will not dress that up. What the difference buys is a store you own on hosting you own, with no platform slice taken out of each sale and no platform renewal that decides your costs for you. That is a real trade, and it is yours to make with the numbers in front of you.

When we built the tool instead of renting it

This page argues that a subscription is sometimes the wrong shape for what you sell. We have made that call with our own money. A client needed review automation and the platform that did it cost about $600 a month. We built it instead, it runs from $56 a month, and it is live. The question was never which platform is best. It was whether the thing being rented matched the job.

On the selling side, a Sydney coolroom builder takes enquiries through a quote calculator rather than a cart, and issued $299,521 in quotes in four days after the rebuild. Not every business that sells needs a checkout. The rest are on our work page.

Shopify questions

Do I need Shopify to sell online?

Only if you have real inventory. Shopify Basic is $42 a month on an annual plan in Australia as at 2 September 2026, plus transaction fees on every order. If you sell a handful of products or you sell services, a designed website with a payment link usually costs less and fits how those customers actually buy.

What are Shopify's transaction fees?

On the Basic plan the online card rate is 1.75% plus 30 cents, and there is an additional 2% third-party fee if you use a payment gateway other than Shopify Payments. The third-party fee drops on higher plans.

How much would I pay in fees on Shopify Basic?

Here is an example, with the assumptions stated. Say you sell $5,000 in a month across 50 orders on Shopify Basic. The card rate is 1.75% plus 30 cents an order, so $87.50 plus $15, which is $102.50. If you take payment through a gateway other than Shopify Payments, add 2%, another $100. That sits on top of the $42 a month. Your own figures will differ. The shape does not: the fee grows with your sales, every month, for as long as you trade.

Can you build a Shopify store for me?

Yes. If Shopify is the right platform for your inventory we will build on it. The subscription does not design or write anything, and that work is the same either way.

What does an online store build cost with you?

$3,490 plus GST, which is $3,839 including GST, once. It covers the store itself: products, cart and payments, AEO-ready product schema so AI search can surface your range, GA4 ecommerce tracking, and twelve months of hosting, SSL and monitoring. After that it is $99 a year including GST, which covers hosting, your domain name and ongoing SEO updates. You get a fixed written quote before any work starts, and you own the code, the domain and the hosting.

The rest of the set, one page each:

• Alien Web Design vs Wix: the month the lines cross, and what leaves Wix with you.
• Alien Web Design vs Squarespace: why year one is a wash and year three is not.
• Alien Web Design vs GoDaddy: the cheapest entry tier, the tier that is a wash, and the row that is not like for like.
• All four builders compared: all four in one table.

Tell us what you sell and we will tell you which one

If it is inventory, you want a store, and we will build it: ours at $3,490 plus GST, or Shopify, set up by us, when your stock suits it better. If it is a few products or a service, you want a page that takes the money or takes the enquiry, from $690 plus GST for one page and $1,490 plus GST for a business site of up to five (full package detail). Every build includes twelve months of hosting, SSL and monitoring, then $99 a year including GST for hosting, your domain name and ongoing SEO updates. The quote is fixed and in writing before work starts, and the code, the domain and the hosting are yours at the end of it.

So tell us what you sell and how much of it. If the honest answer is Shopify, that is the answer you will get, and we will quote you for building it there.

Tell us what you sell Quote my store

Or call 02 9161 8000. Sydney based, 18+ years.