Most platform comparison articles list features. That’s the wrong question. The question that matters is simple: which platform will make you more money?

For the vast majority of growing UK retailers stuck on an ageing, self-hosted or heavily-customised platform, the honest answer is Shopify — and not by a small margin. Here’s the commercial case, stripped of jargon.

1. Total cost of ownership

Older, open-source and self-hosted platforms sound cheap until you add it all up: hosting, security patching, extensions, and — the big one — specialist developers on retainer for even small changes. Those costs tend to rise as you grow.

Shopify rolls hosting, security, PCI compliance and updates into a predictable monthly fee. You spend less keeping the lights on, which means more budget for the things that actually grow revenue: traffic, conversion and retention.

2. Speed — and therefore conversion

Site speed isn’t a vanity metric. Every additional second of load time measurably reduces conversion rate, and Google uses Core Web Vitals as a ranking factor. Heavy legacy stores are notoriously slow and frequently fail these thresholds.

Shopify is fast by default and hosted on a global CDN. A faster store converts more of the traffic you’re already paying for — that’s found money.

3. The cost of every change

On most legacy platforms, a new landing page, a promo banner or a checkout tweak usually means a developer ticket and a wait. On Shopify, your marketing team ships those changes themselves, in minutes. Agility compounds: the brands that can test and react fastest win.

4. The checkout

Shopify’s checkout is among the highest-converting in ecommerce, refined across millions of stores and billions in transactions. With Shop Pay and accelerated wallets, you start with a conversion advantage that’s very hard to replicate on an older platform.

When does a legacy platform still make sense?

Occasionally. If you have genuinely unusual, deeply custom logic that can’t be replicated with Shopify Plus, Functions or apps, the flexibility of a bespoke build can justify the overhead. But that’s rare — and Shopify Plus closes most of the gap for high-volume and B2B stores.

The verdict

For most retailers turning over £250k–£20m+, moving to Shopify lowers costs, lifts conversion and frees your team to grow. The platform pays for itself.

The catch is the migration itself — done badly, you can lose rankings and revenue. Done properly, you keep everything and gain the upside. That’s exactly what our Shopify migration service is built for.

Planning a move? Start with our free Ecommerce Migration Checklist — or book a free migration audit and we’ll give you a straight answer for your store.