WooCommerce vs Shopify for a small Etsy seller – looking for advice

Hello everyone! I’ve been designing websites for about 5 years, but until recently most of my work consisted of informational/business sites. Over the past year, my customer base has shifted heavily to e-commerce, so I’m refining my workflow and platform recommendations.

I’m working with a client who is moving from Etsy to their own store. They have about 40 SKUs and their top priority is keeping monthly costs as low as possible. That’s why I recommended WooCommerce. I built their site on Cloudways using Elementor Pro, and the installation has been smooth so far.

Their estimated monthly cost for WooCommerce would be around $25-$27/month (Cloudways hosting + Elementor Pro average annual + domain). I also plan to keep plugins extremely minimal to avoid bloat and recurring costs.

One factor that influences my recommendation is that I have partnerships with certain merchant processors that offer lower transaction fees, specifically on WooCommerce. For this customer, the savings are not just on hosting; they also save per transaction compared to Shopify’s standard rates.

That said, they come from Etsy and are used to a simple, hands-off setup, so I try to make sure I’m really putting them on the best long-term platform, both financially and operationally.

My questions:

1. Is WooCommerce for a small catalog (~40 SKUs) really cheaper in the long run if plugins are kept limited and hosting is optimized?

2. Do your non-technical customers have difficulty maintaining WooCommerce compared to Shopify’s hands-off environment?

3. If we factor in hosting, maintenance, plugins, and payment costs, does Shopify become cheaper/easier in the long run?

4. If you were advising a small Etsy seller on a budget, which platform would you choose and why?

5. For those who regularly run WooCommerce stores, what’s your favorite plugin stack for a lean, reliable setup? (Curious what others consider essential versus excessive.)

I have confidence in both platforms, but as my work moves more and more towards ecom, I try to learn from the real-world experiences of other developers.

Thanks in advance for any insight?