I get asked this question almost every week, usually by someone who’s already spent a few hours going in circles on Google: “Should I build my site on WordPress, Shopify, or Wix?” And every time, my answer starts the same way — it depends what you’re actually trying to do, not which platform has the best marketing.

I’ve built close to 400 sites across all three over the last six years, for clients in Dhaka, London, Toronto, all over the US. None of them are “the best” in some universal sense. They’re just built for different jobs. Here’s how I’d actually walk you through the decision if you sat down with me.

If you’re mostly wondering about money

WordPress is the cheapest option once it’s set up right, but I want to be honest — “set up right” is doing a lot of work in that sentence. You’re not paying a monthly platform fee, just hosting (call it $5–$30 a month) and maybe a theme license. Over three years that usually beats Shopify’s $39/month-and-climbing, and it definitely beats Wix once you’ve added the apps everyone ends up adding. But if you build it badly, or hire someone cheap who leaves you with a mess, WordPress can end up costing more in emergency fixes than it ever saved you. I’ve inherited a few of those projects.

If ease of use is what actually keeps you up at night

Then Wix, honestly. Its editor is built for someone who’s never touched code and never wants to. Shopify is close behind — managing products and orders in Shopify’s admin is genuinely pleasant. WordPress can be just as easy for a client to update afterward, but that’s a function of how the developer builds it, not something WordPress gives you for free out of the box. I build my WordPress sites so clients can edit text and swap images without calling me, but that’s a deliberate choice, not the default.

Where WordPress wins outright: SEO

This is the one area I won’t soften. If ranking on Google matters to your business — and for most service businesses, it really does — WordPress gives you more control than the other two. Full control over URLs, page speed, schema, content types. Shopify’s SEO has gotten much better, but there are still structural quirks (like URL prefixes on products you can’t remove) that a WordPress site simply doesn’t have to deal with. Wix has closed most of its old SEO gaps too, but for anything content-heavy — a blog, a resource library — it still lags.

If you’re selling physical products

Then just use Shopify. I say this even though I build a lot of WordPress sites — there’s no point fighting it. Inventory, shipping, tax, abandoned cart recovery, hundreds of payment gateways, all working together out of the box. You can replicate most of this with WooCommerce on WordPress, and I do that often for clients who want more design freedom, but it takes more setup. Wix Commerce is fine if you’re selling under 50 products and don’t plan to scale hard.

The thing nobody asks about, but should: ownership

With WordPress, the site is genuinely yours. You can change hosts, swap themes, rebuild the whole design, and your content and SEO history come with you. Shopify and Wix are closed platforms — your store lives inside their ecosystem, and if you ever want to leave, it’s a real migration project, not a export-and-done. I don’t bring this up to scare people off Shopify or Wix — plenty of businesses never need to leave. But if you’re the type who likes optionality, it’s worth knowing upfront.

My honest recommendation

Service business, blog, content-heavy site, or you care a lot about long-term SEO → WordPress. Selling physical products and want the smoothest path → Shopify. Small brochure site you’ll edit yourself and just want it live fast → Wix. That’s genuinely how I’d answer if you called me right now.

If you want a second opinion before you commit to anything — and I mean an actual opinion, not a sales pitch for whichever platform I happen to build in most — send me a message and tell me what you’re building. I’ll tell you straight.