OutrightSite vs Shopify
Shopify is a serious platform for a serious store, and it is priced like one: a monthly plan, transaction fees on top, and paid apps and themes to fill the gaps. If your business is a service, a studio or a shop with a handful of products, that is a lot of rent for what you use. OutrightSite builds a fast site you own outright, for one payment.
Where the money goes
Shopify's monthly plan is the starting line. On top of it sit transaction fees on every sale unless you use their own payments, plus paid apps for the features the plan leaves out, plus premium themes. For a large store pushing real volume, that stack pays for itself. For most small businesses, it is rent you never stop paying.
OutrightSite is one payment for a site you then own. There is no monthly plan, no app store to keep buying from, and no platform taking a slice of your business.
Side by side
| OutrightSite | Shopify | |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly plan | £299 once, then nothing | From around £19 to £29 a month and up |
| Fees on top | None | Transaction fees, paid apps, premium themes |
| Who owns the site | You, in your own accounts | Shopify, on their platform |
| Move it elsewhere | Yes — it is standard code you hold | No; themes and checkout are Shopify-locked |
| Built for | A fast site you own | A large store with heavy inventory |
| Taking payments | Planned later tier, on your own Stripe | Built in, at a price |
| If you stop paying | It keeps running | The store closes |
Figures are typical market rates at the time of writing and change often. Check shopify.com for current pricing and fees.
Why businesses switch
You pay once for a site you own. No plan, no per-feature app charges, no premium-theme upsell.
Modern static code on Cloudflare loads quickly and needs no maintenance, so your shopfront is sharp without a stack of plugins.
Everything is deployed into your own accounts. You can move it, keep it or grow it on your terms.
Taking payments is a planned later tier that will run through your own Stripe. Today the build is a fast site plus a contact and enquiry flow.
Your site ships with a caretaker pack built into your code repository, so Claude Code already knows how it works. Ask for a change in plain English — a new product photo, updated details, fresh copy — and it makes the edit and publishes it.
Claude Code costs about £20 a month while you use it, billed monthly with no lock-in: pay for one month, make your edits over those 30 days, then stop whenever you like. If you are comfortable with code, the free GitHub editor is a no-cost alternative. And either way, it is a small, optional cost for a skill you keep, and no platform ever takes a slice of your sales.
Common questions
No. Today the build is a fast site with a contact and enquiry flow, not a large catalogue with live stock levels, shipping rules and hundreds of products. If your business is that kind of high-volume store, a dedicated commerce platform fits better.
Taking payments is a planned later tier that will run through your own Stripe, so payouts and payment data would sit with you and Stripe rather than a platform taking a cut. It is not part of the core build yet, and we will not pretend otherwise.
Unless you use Shopify Payments, Shopify adds a percentage on top of your payment processor on every sale, alongside the monthly plan and any paid apps.
Shopify themes are locked to Shopify, so they do not transfer. We build a fresh site as standard code from your brand and content, deployed into your own accounts, so this one you can host and move freely.
If you want a strong, fast site you own and sell little or nothing yet, OutrightSite is cheaper and it is yours. If you already need full commerce at volume today, a dedicated store platform is built for that.
One payment. Your accounts. Your website, for good. Founding price £299, going up to £399.
Build my siteShopify is a trademark of Shopify Inc. OutrightSite is an independent product and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Shopify. Comparisons reflect publicly available information at the time of writing.