Shopify India vs KitCommerce
Shopify alternative in India: GoCommerce vs Shopify
In India, Shopify charges a plan and a cut of every prepaid order.
Shopify Payments is not offered in India, so an Indian store takes online payments through a third-party gateway such as Razorpay — and Shopify adds its own fee of 2%, 1% or 0.6% of each of those orders, by plan, on top of what the gateway charges. Run GoCommerce yourself and it talks to Razorpay directly, with the gateway’s charge the only one per order. A store hosted on kitcommerce.store pays 1% of every successful order, plus 18% GST on the fee.
- 2% · 1% · 0.6% Shopify’s cut of each prepaid order on Basic, Grow and Advanced
- No Shopify Payments in India, so nothing waives that cut
- 1% of every successful order on a store hosted on kitcommerce.store, plus 18% GST on the fee; nothing per order when you run GoCommerce yourself
KitCommerce is an open-source ecommerce platform. Its packages are GoCommerce, the backend and admin, and Svelte Commerce, the storefront — MIT licensed, used together or either one on its own. Run them yourself for free, or start a store hosted on kitcommerce.store for 1% of every successful order, plus 18% GST on the fee. On this page, each claim names the package it is about.
Shopify and GoCommerce, side by side
Only what changes when the store is in India. Shopify’s side comes from its pricing page and help centre, listed under Sources; ours from the GoCommerce modules named in each row.
| Aspect | Shopify | GoCommerce + Svelte Commerce |
|---|---|---|
| Plan | Basic ₹1,499, Grow ₹5,599 or Advanced ₹22,680 a month billed yearly (₹1,994, ₹7,447 or ₹30,164 month to month), or Plus from ₹1,75,000 a month. Indian stores are billed from Shopify’s Indian price list, before GST. | No plan. Run it yourself and the MIT software costs nothing; the server is billed by whichever host you choose. A store hosted on kitcommerce.store pays 1% of every successful order, plus 18% GST on the fee. |
| Shopify’s fee on a prepaid order | Basic 2%, Grow 1%, Advanced 0.6%, Plus 0.2% — worked out on the order total, tax and shipping included. Shopify Payments would waive it, and India does not have it. | None when you run it yourself: GoCommerce adds nothing to the cost of an order. A store hosted on kitcommerce.store pays 1% of every successful order, plus 18% GST on the fee. |
| Cash on delivery | A manual payment method, and Shopify’s help centre says the fee does not apply to it. | Built into the core: “cod” is the default payment method, with nothing to install. |
| Razorpay | Connected as a third-party provider: Razorpay’s own charge, then Shopify’s fee on the same order. | The payments-razorpay module calls Razorpay’s API directly. Razorpay lists 2% + GST as its standard rate, UPI included, and on a store you run yourself that is the whole payment cost. |
| Features tied to Shopify Payments | Shopify’s plan table marks showing prices in local currencies and accepting local payment methods through Markets as requiring Shopify Payments. | No feature waits on a particular gateway: price lists, discounts and channels behave the same whichever payment module you import. |
| Indian couriers | Shopify’s plan table lists live third-party shipping rates at checkout from Advanced upward. | Shiprocket, Delhivery and NimbusPost modules book shipments. The India Post module records the consignment number from the counter receipt, because India Post publishes no booking API. |
| Order SMS | Pay-per-send SMS campaigns sit in every plan’s marketing tools. | The MSG91 module texts customers when an order is placed, paid, shipped, delivered or cancelled, sent as DLT-registered templates as Indian rules require. |
| GST on the platform’s bill | Charged on Shopify’s fees to a store in India unless you register your GSTIN; GST on invoices issued before you do cannot be reversed. | No platform bill to tax when you run it yourself. Your host’s invoice carries whatever GST it charges. |
| GST invoices for your orders | Shopify says it does not create GST-compliant bills, and points to a local invoicing service or an App Store app. | A store with a valid GSTIN that sells in rupees issues a GST tax invoice for every paid order, with HSN codes, the place of supply and the CGST, SGST or IGST split from what checkout charged, and exports them to TallyPrime. No e-invoices or e-way bills. |
| Trying it | 3 days free, then a reduced price for the first 3 months on most plans. | Free for as long as you like: the one-command Docker stack runs the API and admin on your own machine. |
| Plus in India | A one- or three-year term, plus 0.2% of every order a third-party gateway takes — which, here, is every prepaid one. | The same software as any other GoCommerce store. The Shopify Plus comparison covers that side in full. |
What Shopify takes from an Indian store, charge by charge
Shopify’s fee falls as the plan price rises, and Shopify Payments, which would waive it, is not offered in India. So every prepaid order pays the plan’s percentage on top of the gateway’s charge.
| Charge | Shopify | GoCommerce + Svelte Commerce |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly plan | Basic ₹1,499, Grow ₹5,599 or Advanced ₹22,680 billed yearly; Plus from ₹1,75,000 | None |
| Fee on a prepaid order | 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow, 0.6% on Advanced and 0.2% on Plus, on the order total with tax and shipping | None when you run it yourself; 1% of every successful order on a store hosted on kitcommerce.store, plus 18% GST on the fee |
| Fee on a cash-on-delivery order | None — a manual payment method | None when you run it yourself |
| Gateway charge | Razorpay’s, before Shopify’s fee | Razorpay’s 2% + GST, or another gateway’s rate |
| GST on the platform’s bill | Charged on Shopify’s fees until you register your GSTIN | None when you run it yourself; your host’s invoice carries its own |
| Hosting and people | Included; no developer needed to launch | A server and a developer when you run it yourself |
On Basic, Shopify’s 2% of each prepaid order is as much again as Razorpay’s standard 2%, before the plan is counted. Each step up costs more a month and takes a smaller share of each prepaid order, so which plan is cheapest depends on how much you sell prepaid. Cash-on-delivery orders carry no Shopify fee, so a store that is mostly COD pays little beyond the plan.
Work out Shopify’s fees on your own sales, in your currency, against 1% of every order hosted, plus 18% GST on the fee.
Which one fits
Choose Shopify when
- Most of your orders are cash on delivery. Shopify’s fee does not touch them, so what you pay is mostly the plan.
- Your prepaid sales are modest, so 2% of them on Basic costs less than a developer’s time.
- Nobody on the team writes code, you need to be selling within days, and 24/7 support matters when something breaks.
- You also sell in person: Shopify’s POS takes casual sales on every plan.
Choose GoCommerce + Svelte Commerce when
- Most of your revenue is prepaid — UPI and cards through Razorpay — so Shopify’s fee lands on nearly every sale.
- Prepaid sales are large enough that 1–2% of them costs more than a server and a developer’s time, and you would rather run the store yourself.
- You want a store hosted for you: kitcommerce.store takes 1% of every successful order, plus 18% GST on the fee.
- You ship through Shiprocket, Delhivery or NimbusPost and send order SMS through MSG91 — each a GoCommerce module you compile in.
- You want to decide in code how your store treats COD — limits, extra charges, confirmation before dispatch.
- You want a GST tax invoice for every paid order, and files your accountant imports into TallyPrime, without an App Store app.
What you take on
- Run it yourself and you host it: a server, a PostgreSQL database, backups and upgrades are yours, or a developer’s you pay. A store hosted on kitcommerce.store pays 1% of every successful order, plus 18% GST on the fee, instead.
- No app store. What a module does not cover, somebody writes.
- GoCommerce has over 2,000 tests, but no store we know of runs it in production yet.
- Svelte Commerce reaches GoCommerce through an early connector, version 0.16.0: catalogue, cart, cash-on-delivery checkout and order lookup work; shopper sign-in, the address book and order history need GoCommerce’s identity module.
- GST invoicing stops at the tax invoice: no e-invoices, e-way bills or GST credit notes, and delivery is printed without GST, because checkout does not charge it.
- India Post shipments are recorded, not booked — the module stores the consignment number you read off the receipt.
FAQ
Questions about Shopify and GoCommerce
Is Shopify Payments available in India?
No. India is not on Shopify’s list of countries where Shopify Payments is supported, so an Indian store takes online payments through a third-party provider such as Razorpay, and Shopify charges its third-party transaction fee on those orders: 2%, 1% or 0.6% on Basic, Grow and Advanced, and 0.2% on Plus.
Does Shopify charge its fee on cash-on-delivery orders?
No. Shopify’s help centre lists manual payment methods — cash on delivery, bank deposits, cheques — among the payments the fee does not apply to, along with POS orders. It does apply to store credit and gift card payments on stores created on or after 12 May 2025.
Does Shopify add GST to its bill?
Yes, for a store located in India, unless you give Shopify your GSTIN. Shopify’s help centre says the exemption applies only to invoices issued after you submit it, and GST already charged on earlier invoices cannot be reversed or refunded.
Which Shopify plan is cheapest for an Indian store?
It depends on prepaid sales. Each step up costs more a month and takes a smaller cut of each prepaid order: 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow, 0.6% on Advanced. A store with small prepaid sales pays least on Basic, and the higher plans pay off only as prepaid sales grow — before GST, and before the gateway’s own charge.
Can I have a GoCommerce store without running a server?
Yes. A store hosted on kitcommerce.store pays 1% of every successful order, plus 18% GST on the fee. Running GoCommerce yourself stays free, and then the gateway’s charge is the only cost per order.
What does GoCommerce use for payments and shipping in India?
Razorpay through the payments-razorpay module, and cash on delivery in the core. Shipments are booked through the Shiprocket, Delhivery and NimbusPost modules, and the India Post module records consignment numbers. Order SMS go out through MSG91 as DLT-registered templates. Each module is compiled in only if you import it.
Does GoCommerce produce GST invoices?
Yes, for a store in India with a valid GSTIN that sells in rupees. The invoices module gives every paid order a GST tax invoice in a gapless series counted by financial year, with HSN codes, the place of supply and the CGST, SGST or IGST split, and exports the invoices to TallyPrime. It makes no e-invoices or e-way bills, and delivery is printed without GST. Shopify says it does not create GST-compliant bills, and points merchants to an invoicing app or service.
More comparisons: Shopify
The same questions, asked of the platforms Shopify is usually weighed against. Every comparison is on one page.
- Open-source Shopify alternative: GoCommerce vs Shopify A hosted platform you rent against an open-source one you run: fees per order, code ownership, and what each asks of you.
- A Shopify B2B alternative with credit limits built in Selling to dealers and wholesale buyers: Shopify’s B2B features by plan against GoCommerce’s trade portal, credit limits, statements and quotes.
- Shopify Plus alternative: GoCommerce vs Shopify Plus Enterprise Shopify against running your own: term contracts, revenue-linked fees, API budgets, B2B and checkout control — and where Plus is simply further ahead.
Sources
Shopify’s prices and features were checked on 26 October 2026 against the pages below. Prices change; when one here disagrees with the source, the source is right and this page is out of date. Shopify is a trademark of its owner, named here only to compare; no endorsement or affiliation is implied — see trademarks.
Run it before you decide
The backend + admin quick start runs GoCommerce’s API and admin on your own machine, without a storefront. Load a catalogue and judge it against Shopify yourself.