Shopify vs Shopware for a shop selling into the Netherlands and Germany
For a shop selling into the Netherlands and Germany, start from Shopify and make Shopware prove it is needed. A build with us sits at step 04, EUR 3.500 to 7.500, six to twelve weeks. Shopware earns its extra weight when your pricing rules, your catalogue logic or your German business customers need things a hosted platform will not bend around, and that scope either stays inside step 04 or moves to step 05, from EUR 7.500, planned after discovery.
The case for Shopify, made properly
Shopify is hosted. Patching the server, keeping the checkout compliant with card rules, staying online on a Saturday in December: none of that is your problem, and none of it is ours. That is the biggest invisible cost of running a shop, and Shopify absorbs it.
The checkout is also the piece you are least likely to improve on by building your own. iDEAL, PayPal, Klarna, SEPA direct debit, cards and wallets are there without anyone writing code, and the surrounding busywork is already solved: VAT handling, invoices, PostNL and DHL labels, returns.
You pay a monthly subscription, plus a cut of each order if you take payments through a provider other than Shopify's own. Those figures change, so read the current pricing page before you budget. If your shop is a catalogue, a cart and a checkout, Shopify wins and the comparison should stop here.
When Shopware earns its extra weight
Shopware is German, open source, and you can run it on your own server. The reasons to choose it are specific, and if none of them describe your business it is a more expensive Shopify.
- Selling business to business. Customer-specific price lists, quantity scales, quotes, purchase on invoice, VAT-exempt cross-border orders and net price display are part of how Shopware thinks, rather than add-ons stacked onto a retail platform.
- A catalogue with real logic. Large variant matrices, configurable products, property-driven filtering, and product data arriving from an ERP rather than typed in by hand.
- Rules nobody wrote an app for. Regulated goods, deposit schemes, per-country restrictions, unusual shipping maths.
- Control of where it runs. You pick the server, the country it sits in, and the day you apply an upgrade.
The bill for that control does not disappear, it moves. Hosting, a staging environment, security updates and a developer when a major version lands all become yours. Open source describes the licence, not the work.
Side by side
| Compared on | Shopify | Shopware |
|---|---|---|
| Who runs the server | Shopify | You, or a hosting partner you pick |
| Checkout and payment methods | Built in, iDEAL and German methods included | Built in, more configuration and more choice |
| Shape of the recurring cost | Subscription, plus a cut of orders on external payment providers | Hosting, maintenance and developer time |
| Business to business pricing and invoices | Possible, through apps | Native, and the main reason to choose it |
| Large or complex catalogues | Fine up to a point, then awkward | Designed for it |
| Leaving later | Export products and customers, rebuild the front end | You already hold everything |
| Build with us | Step 04, EUR 3.500 to 7.500 | Step 04, or step 05 after discovery |
What a Dutch and German checkout has to do
In the Netherlands, a checkout without iDEAL reads as broken. In Germany, buying on invoice is ordinary and expected, and its absence quietly costs you orders that never became orders. Add PayPal, SEPA direct debit and Klarna and you have covered the ground on both sides of the border.
German storefronts also carry duties a Dutch shop owner tends not to think about: an Impressum, a clear withdrawal notice with the model form, prices shown including VAT with shipping costs a click away, unit pricing where the law requires it, and an order button whose label states that the order obliges you to pay. Get these wrong and the letters arrive from competitors, not customers.
Then VAT. Once cross-border sales pass the EU-wide threshold you charge the buyer's local rate and report through the One Stop Shop. Both platforms handle it, and your accountant decides the setup, not your developer.
Last, language. German shoppers read German, and machine-translated copy shows. Budget translation as its own line.
What the build costs
Anything with a checkout is step 04: EUR 3.500 to 7.500, six to twelve weeks, covering design, the storefront, payment and tax configuration, the product data model and the integrations the shop needs on day one. A custom platform around the shop, with its own billing and admin built from scratch rather than configured, is step 05, from EUR 7.500, after discovery. You get a fixed quote once the scope is written down, never before, and how the work is done is described on design and engineering.
Monthly lines continue after launch if you want them. Care, EUR 100 to 300 a month, covers updates, monitoring, backups and small fixes, not a redesign and not new features. SEO growth, EUR 500 to 800 a month, covers technical and on-page work, service and location pages, internal links and reporting. SEO foundation is not one of them: it is a one-off, EUR 450 to 750, done once. The full list sits on the price list.
On a Shopware or custom build you own the code, the repository and the database, and we can host the shop where that suits the project, agreed case by case. On Shopify, Shopify runs the servers and holds the store data, and your theme code and your exports are yours.
How the work runs
- Scoping, then a fixed quote against a written scope.
- Product data and catalogue structure, before any design, because everything downstream is shaped by it.
- Design of the pages that actually sell: category, product, cart, checkout.
- Build, then payments, shipping and tax configured in staging and tested with real orders in both countries.
- Launch, with close watching of the first orders.
The stage that waits on you is product data and photography, plus legal text your own lawyer or accountant signs off. To keep the six to twelve weeks honest, start collecting those while the scope is still being written.
When to spend less
If you have not yet proved the product sells, do not build a shop at all. A single page at step 01, EUR 600 to 900, one to two weeks, with a form on it and you invoicing by hand, teaches you more about demand than a full catalogue does.
If you already run a working Shopify store and the complaint is that it looks tired, that is design work on the shop you have, not a replatform. Rebuilding a shop that converts is an expensive way to make things worse.
And if Germany is a trickle of orders rather than a market you are committed to, a German language version with correct legal pages beats a second storefront. In all three cases: do not hire us yet. Come back when the thing you want to scale is already working.
Common questions
Can we start on Shopify and move to Shopware later?
Yes, and it is a reasonable plan. Products, customers and orders export cleanly enough, and what you would repeat is the front end and the integrations. Build the first version on Shopify and move when you can name the specific thing Shopify refuses to do.
Is Shopware cheaper because it is open source?
No. The community edition licence costs nothing and everything around it costs money: hosting, upgrades, staging, and a developer who knows the platform. Choose Shopware for capability, never to save on a subscription.
Do we need a separate German shop or one shop in two languages?
One shop with two languages and the correct German legal pages is the normal answer, and both platforms do it. Two shops means two of everything, including two sets of mistakes. Split them only when the products, the prices or the legal entity genuinely differ.
Who is responsible for the legal text?
Your lawyer or your accountant, not your web studio. We build the pages and place the notices where the law expects them. Legal texts are part of a quote only when it says so, and your lawyer still signs them off.
If you know which way you are leaning and want the cost of it in writing, tell us what you sell and where.
Building something?
JP Studio designs and builds websites, storefronts and product interfaces.