SHOPIFY, COMPARED
Shopify runs a store better than anyone.Tome is for the business where the store is one part.
If you sell things, Shopify is probably where you started, and for a store it's hard to beat. This page is for the business where the shop sits next to courses, members, a directory or a CRM: what each side gives you, what a year costs when a professional does the work, what you keep if you leave, and when Shopify is the right answer. For a retailer, it is.
THE SHORT ANSWER
A store, or a store inside an operation.
Choose Tome
If the store is one part of the operation: a training organization selling courses and merch, a membership with a shop, a directory with paid listings. One database, one login, your own Stripe with nothing added to the rate, and a checkout page that's yours to change.
Choose Shopify
Retail belongs on Shopify. The store is the business: a catalog with variants and inventory, orders every day, selling in person, shipping and tax handled, and Shop Pay's buyers at your checkout. Basic is $29 a month billed yearly; Grow is $79.
Choose Shopify Plus
Changing the checkout steps yourself, or running many locations, is what Plus is for. It starts at $2,300 a month on a three-year term, $2,500 on one year.
THE TABLE
Three ways to sell from your site.
| Feature | Tome | Shopify Basic and Grow | Shopify Plus |
|---|---|---|---|
| What you get | A catalog with checkout and orders on your own site, next to the courses, members, CRM and content in the same database | The store: admin, themes, checkout, Shopify Payments, and 21,000+ apps for everything else | The store: admin, themes, checkout, Shopify Payments and 21,000+ apps, plus a customizable checkout, B2B catalogs, up to 200 POS locations and priority phone support |
| The plan | Commerce engine, $400 a year, set up with us; with the Craft Library, $650 | Basic $29 a month billed yearly ($39 monthly); Grow $79 ($105) | From $2,300 a month on a three-year term; $2,500 on one year |
| What a sale costs | Your Stripe's rate: 2.9% + 30¢ on US cards, nothing on top | 2.9% + 30¢ on Basic, 2.7% + 30¢ on Grow, with Shopify Payments; keep your own Stripe and Shopify adds 2% or 1% | 2.25% + 30¢; your own processor adds 0.2% |
| Courses, members, CRM, a directory | Engines: Learning $300 a year, CRM & Marketing $400 a year; members and a directory in a platform build | An app for each, with its own bill and its own data: courses from $29 a month, memberships at 13¢ a member a month, email around $100 a month at 5,000 contacts, a directory $15 to $60 a month | The same course, membership, email and directory apps, each with its own bill and its own data |
| Content pages | 161 blocks, no page cap, your design | A blog, pages built from theme sections, or a page-builder app at $29 to $199 a month | A blog, pages built from theme sections, or a page-builder app at $29 to $199 a month |
| The checkout page | Yours to change | The information, shipping and payment steps can't be customized; the old checkout.liquid is retired | Checkout UI extensions |
| Staff and logins | As many as you need; in a platform build, roles that follow your org chart | No additional staff accounts on Basic; up to 5 on Grow | Unlimited |
| What you keep if you leave | The code and the database | Products, customers and orders as CSV (product images aren't in the file); the theme is licensed to that one store; the checkout, Shop Pay and each app's data stay behind, and the store goes offline | Products, customers and orders as CSV (product images aren't in the file); the theme is licensed to that one store; the checkout, Shop Pay and each app's data stay behind, and the store goes offline |
| Year one, doing it yourself, $50,000 in sales | About $3,100: the engines and library, plus Stripe's fees on 1,000 orders | About $4,344 on Basic, $4,844 on Grow with a course app, email, a paid theme and a page builder; $2,566 to $3,066 lean | Plan alone from $27,600 |
| Built and kept by a professional, year one | A site with Stripe checkout: $5,000 plus Care at $100 a month; the whole operation as an MVP platform: $25,000 plus $300 to $700 a month | Roughly $12,000 to $45,000 on Grow, from the published ranges; a custom theme runs $8,000 to $50,000 and up | Roughly $12,000 to $45,000 on Grow, from the published ranges, plus the Plus plan itself; a custom theme runs $8,000 to $50,000 and up |
Sources for every cell are at the bottom of the page.
ONE ENGINE OF SEVERAL
Where the store stops being the site.
01
The store is one engine, not the whole building
On Shopify, everything that isn't the store is an app: the course app, the membership app, the email tool, the directory. Each has its own bill, its own admin and its own copy of your customer. On Tome the member who bought the course, placed the order and filled in the form is one person in one database, and the pages, the catalog and the CRM read from it. The running version of that kind of organization is on the Vanguard study.
See the Vanguard study →02
Your Stripe, and nothing on top
Shopify's pricing page states it: use a payment provider other than Shopify Payments and a fee applies, 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow, 0.2% on Plus, on top of that provider's own rate. Changing the checkout steps themselves is a Plus feature. On Tome the checkout is a page on your site, the money goes to your Stripe account at Stripe's rate, and the engine is priced by the year. Shopify Payments does include fraud analysis; on your side that's Stripe Radar, and you run it.
03
One account, one order history
Check out a free product on starter.wabbit.com, then open a course on the same account. One person, one order history, one login. It's the same foundation we build client platforms on.
Open the demo →WHERE SHOPIFY WINS
Retail first, Shopify first.
The store is the operation
The store is the operation. A big catalog, variants, inventory, orders every day. Shopify's admin and fulfillment are mature, and its shipping discounts run up to 87% off. A Tome catalog was built for a store that's one part of a business, not that volume.
You sell in person
You sell in person. POS Pro is $89 a month per location, in-person rates run 2.6% + 10¢ down to 2.3% + 10¢, and inventory stays in one place across the counter and the site. On Tome that’s a build, not a setting.
Shop Pay at the checkout
You want Shop Pay at the checkout. Shopify says its checkout converts 15% better and that Shop Pay has 250 million buyers. Those are Shopify's numbers, not ours, and a Stripe checkout on your own site doesn't come with that network.
Live this week, handled
You need it live this week, handled. Three days free, then $1 a month for three months, 24 free themes, and an app for every retail need a non-developer can install.
If the store is the business, Shopify is the answer and we'll say so on a call. Tome is for the store that has a course, a membership or a CRM next to it.
WHAT IT COSTS
The software by the year, the work by the job.
The blocks
Free
$0
Marketing Starter and Content Writer, 19 blocks. A free account, no card, no trial.
Craft Library
$250/yr
Every paid pack and theme. Stop whenever you like: what you've installed keeps working; you just stop receiving new releases.
The engines · added per project, on any plan
Commerce
$400/yr
Catalog and checkout, set up with us because it touches payments.
Learning
$300/yr
Courses, lessons, and progress.
CRM & Marketing
$400/yr
Contacts, pipeline, campaigns, and intake forms.
Agency
$4,800/yr
Every engine included, for studios running many client sites.
The plan, the fee, the apps, or one engine.
Tools only means you assemble the store yourself, app by app, on top of the plan. Built and kept means a professional builds it and stays on to keep it current.
About $4,344 a year on Basic, $4,844 on Grow
A course app, email for 5,000 contacts, a paid theme and a page builder, on top of Shopify Payments' fee on $50,000 of sales. Lean, it's $2,566 to $3,066; keep your own Stripe instead and Shopify adds $1,000 a year on Basic or $500 on Grow.Roughly $12,000 to $45,000 in year one on Grow
A freelancer theme customization from $3,000, agency work and app integration around $6,500, a custom design $10,000, with retainers of $350 to $2,500 a month. A theme built from scratch runs $8,000 to $50,000 and up.$5,000, and the site is yours outright
A Static site with a Stripe checkout, plus $100 a month for Care, which keeps it patched and current.$25,000 fixed, plus $300 to $700 a month
The retainer is roughly 15% a year and covers security patches, platform updates and backups.From $55,000
Always scoped first in a $5,000 Architecture Sprint that's credited to the build.For a retail store, Shopify's plan is the better buy and we'd tell you so. Tome's Commerce engine is priced by the year because the store here is one engine of several, and the business is the rest.
FIVE STEPS
From a Shopify export to a running platform.
- STEP 01
Export what exports.
Products, customers and orders come out of Shopify as CSV. Product images don't come with the product file, and each app holds its own data, so list the apps and what's in them.
- STEP 02
Model the operation, not the store.
The Architecture Sprint is two weeks and $5,000, credited to the build: the data model, the phases, the risks, and an exact price. If you don't build with us, you keep the architecture.
- STEP 03
Build it, or install it.
An MVP is $25,000 fixed; a full platform starts at $55,000. If you have a developer and a Payload project, the packs install with one npm install and a free account, and the Commerce engine is set up with us because it touches the payment path.
- STEP 04
Point the checkout at your Stripe.
The catalog imports, the checkout becomes a page on your site, and the addresses your products have earned rankings on redirect to their new homes.
- STEP 05
Launch, then keep it current.
Care is $100 a month for a site; the platform retainer runs $300 to $700 a month. Security patches, platform updates and backups are ours to do, and the code stays yours.
WHERE TO NEXT
Try the checkout, or plan the store.
Browse the blocks
All 161, with live previews.
Two packs are free with a no-card account.
Browse the blocks →See it running
One Tome install doing all of it at once.
starter.wabbit.com
Open the demo →Have it built
If the store is one part of a bigger operation, a platform shaped to it is what we do.
How we build platforms →Checked 25 September 2026.
If something here has gone out of date, tell us and we'll fix it.
Pricing · Plus pricing · POS pricing · Stripe pricing · Checkout UI extensions · checkout.liquid · Checkout upgrade deadline · JSON templates · Theme store · Terms of service (theme licence, termination) · Exporting products · Exporting orders · Exporting customers
Tevello courses · Bold memberships · Klaviyo · Omnisend's guide (5,000-contact price) · Webkul marketplace · GemPages · shopify.com (app count)
/blocks (the live block count) · /subscribe (plans) · /platform-builds (builds, Sprint, retainer) · /pricing