Shopify vs a Custom Website in Pakistan: The Real Cost Comparison
Most sellers in Pakistan compare a Shopify subscription against a one off build price and stop there. That comparison is incomplete, because one number repeats every month in dollars and the other does not repeat at all.
This is the same comparison we walk clients through before they pick, with the figures set out over three years rather than one.
What Shopify costs a seller in Pakistan
Shopify is billed in US dollars, so your cost moves with the exchange rate rather than with your sales. The subscription is the smallest part of it for most stores. Paid themes, and the apps that add things a Pakistani store usually needs, such as cash on delivery flows, WhatsApp ordering, or local courier booking, are separately billed and mostly monthly.
Check the current plan and app prices yourself before you commit, because they change. The point is the shape of the cost, not a fixed figure: a recurring dollar amount that grows as you add features, plus card gateway fees on top.
- Plan fee, billed monthly in USD
- Paid theme, usually a one off in USD
- Apps for COD, WhatsApp ordering, courier booking, reviews, mostly monthly
- Payment gateway fees, and platform fees if you do not use the platform's own rails
- Your own domain, renewed yearly
What a custom store costs
Our online store package starts at PKR 19,999 as a one off. It ships with a product catalogue, cart and checkout, WhatsApp ordering, payment gateway setup, an admin dashboard, and up to twenty products loaded at handover. The advanced SEO and GEO version starts at PKR 29,999.
After launch the only recurring cost is domain and hosting renewal, paid once a year to the provider in your own name. There is no platform subscription, because you are not renting the store.
- Online store build: from PKR 19,999, one off
- With advanced SEO and GEO: from PKR 29,999, one off
- Domain and hosting: renewed yearly, billed by the provider
- Features like COD and WhatsApp ordering are built in, not rented per month
Where the three year difference comes from
Over one month the two options can look similar. Over three years the subscription plus apps is paid thirty six times, in dollars, whether you sold anything that month or not. The custom build is paid once.
That is the whole argument, and it is an argument about cash flow rather than quality. If your store makes reliable monthly revenue, a subscription is easy to absorb. If you are starting out, a repeating dollar cost is the part that hurts first.
Where Shopify is genuinely the better choice
We would rather tell you this than sell you the wrong thing. Shopify suits you if you need to launch this week with no help, if you have hundreds of variants and want inventory tooling maintained for you, if you sell mainly abroad and want card checkout handled end to end, or if you want an app store to bolt on features without a developer.
Where a custom store wins
A custom store suits sellers whose orders come through WhatsApp and cash on delivery, which most hosted themes handle awkwardly. It suits anyone who wants a design nobody else has, wants the domain and hosting in their own name, and cares about total cost across several years rather than the first month.
Every store we build works this way, and you can open any of them from the work page and check the checkout and WhatsApp flow yourself before deciding.
- Orders mostly by WhatsApp or cash on delivery
- Under a few hundred products
- You want a one off cost with no monthly platform fee
- You want ownership of the files, domain and hosting
Questions to ask before you pick
Whichever way you go, the same five questions protect you.
- What is my total cost in month one, and in year three?
- Whose name is the domain registered in?
- Which features are included, and which are rented monthly?
- Who loads the products, and how many are included?
- What happens when something breaks in month two?
If you want the numbers for your own catalogue rather than a generic comparison, send your product count and how you take orders on WhatsApp. You will get a fixed figure and an honest recommendation, including when that recommendation is a hosted platform instead of us.