"What should we build the store on?" is one of the first questions clients ask us. There's no universal answer, but there are three proven paths. We work with all three, so this is a comparison without a sales pitch for any of them.
1. A SaaS platform
A store on a ready-made platform: hosting, updates, payments and shipping are already set up. You pay a subscription and focus on products and sales.
- Pros: fast launch, predictable costs, security and updates handled by the platform.
- Cons: platform limits, dependence on its pricing and rules, harder to implement non-standard processes.
- Best for: new stores, testing a niche, businesses without their own development team.
This is the scenario we cover with Storeforma: you can build a store together with AI, and a designer gets full access to the theme code — so the limits are much wider than usual for SaaS.
2. WordPress + WooCommerce
The most common option for small and mid-sized businesses. Thousands of plugins, a familiar editor and plenty of contractors on the market.
- Pros: low entry barrier, flexibility, convenient content marketing (blog, landing pages).
- Cons: plugin sprawl, performance issues on large catalogs, and regular security updates are a must.
- Best for: stores with up to a few thousand products where content and a fast launch matter.
The key to success with WooCommerce is discipline: a custom theme instead of a heavy page builder, a minimum of plugins, decent hosting and ongoing support.
3. A custom store (Laravel)
A store written for your business — for example, on Laravel with the Lunar e-commerce core. That's how we built the Ouroboros publishing house bookstore: pre-orders, exclusive bundles, several formats of the same book, WayForPay, Nova Poshta and eSputnik.
- Pros: no platform limits, logic built around your processes, performance, and you own the code.
- Cons: higher upfront cost, and you need a team for development and support.
- Best for: businesses with non-standard processes, large catalogs, and complex integrations with accounting and CRM.
How to choose: five questions
- How non-standard are your processes? If everything fits "product — cart — payment — delivery", don't overpay for a custom build.
- How many products and orders? Large catalogs and heavy traffic hit WooCommerce's limits sooner.
- Which integrations do you need? Accounting, CRM, warehouse, marketplaces, fiscalisation — the more there are, the more a proper API matters.
- What is the budget for launch and for the year? Count not only development, but also subscriptions, plugins, hosting and support.
- Who will develop the store further? Without a team or contractor, a custom build ages quickly.
Our approach
We don't sell a single platform. During discovery we look at your processes, estimate the cost of ownership over 2–3 years and recommend the option that pays off for you — even if it's the simplest of the three.
