Medusa vs Shopify
Medusa and Shopify are both E-commerce tools. Medusa is aimed at developers, while Shopify is aimed at small businesses and enterprise. Medusa costs less, from $29/mo versus $39/mo for Shopify. Only Medusa has a free plan.
| Pricing | Open source · $29 | Paid · $39 |
| Starting price | $29/mo | $39/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | No |
| Free trial | — | 3 days |
| Built for | Developers | Small businesses, Enterprise |
| Platforms | web | web, ios, android |
| Country | DK · 2021 | CA · 2006 |
| Rating | — | — |
Choose Medusa if
Developer teams building custom commerce.
- Open source
- Highly customizable
- Modern stack
Look elsewhere if: Non-technical merchants.
Choose Shopify if
Merchants of any size who want a managed, scalable store and are in a Shopify Payments country.
- Most complete hosted commerce stack
- Reliable checkout with high conversion (Shop Pay)
- Enormous app and theme ecosystem
Look elsewhere if: Digital-only creators (Gumroad, Payhip) or teams wanting full code control (WooCommerce, Medusa).
Medusa vs Shopify pricing
Medusa
- Open source$0MIT-licensed framework, self-hosted
- Developfrom $29/moMedusa Cloud; 1M edge requests, previews, 0% GMV fee
- Launchfrom $99/moAutoscaling, custom domains, 7-day backups
- Scalefrom $299/moBackground workers, priority support, semantic search
- EnterpriseCustomSLA, SSO, RBAC, BYOC, dedicated support engineer
Shopify
- Basic$39/mo$29/mo billed annually; 2.9% + 30¢ online card rate
- Grow$105/mo$79/mo billed annually; 2.7% + 30¢, 5 staff accounts
- Advanced$399/mo$299/mo billed annually; 2.5% + 30¢, 15 staff accounts
- Plusfrom $2,300/moEnterprise features, B2B, checkout customization
Medusa · Key features
- Modular commerce engine
- Multi-region and currency
- Admin dashboard
- Plugins
- Headless APIs
- Next.js starter
Cons
- Developer-required
- Hosting responsibility
- Smaller ecosystem than Shopify
Shopify · Key features
- Themes and a drag-and-drop online store editor
- Shopify Payments, Shop Pay and multi-currency with Markets
- Inventory, orders, shipping labels and POS
- App store with 8,000+ apps and Flow automation
- Checkout extensibility, B2B and headless (Plus)
- Shopify Magic AI and Sidekick assistant
Cons
- Transaction fees unless using Shopify Payments (not available everywhere)
- App costs add up quickly
- Theme customization needs Liquid knowledge
Medusa vs Shopify: FAQ
Which is cheaper, Medusa or Shopify?
Medusa starts at $29/mo and Shopify at $39/mo. Both prices are checked on the vendors' own pricing pages.
Do Medusa and Shopify have a free plan?
Medusa has a free plan. Shopify has no free plan, a 3-day free trial.
Which is better for small businesses, Medusa or Shopify?
Shopify lists small businesses as a core audience, while Medusa is aimed more at developers.