Comparison · Shopify
TOWeb, the Shopify alternative for an online shop with no subscription and no commission
With Shopify, you rent your shop by the month; with TOWeb, you buy it once, and nobody takes a commission on your sales. Shopify is a very comprehensive hosted service, built for high volumes and multichannel selling. TOWeb is a Windows and Mac app that builds a complete online shop, prepared on your computer, even offline, and published to the host of your choice. For a craftsperson, a maker or a small business keen to keep costs under control, it’s worth doing the maths.
Updated 23 October 2026.
TOWeb or Shopify: the difference in one sentence
With Shopify, you pay a subscription for a hosted store, and some features come through apps, free or paid. With TOWeb, you buy software once with a built-in online shop, and after that you only pay for your hosting and your payment provider’s fees.
Can you manage a Shopify store offline?
No. The Shopify admin is online, in the browser or the app: without a connection, you can’t edit products, pages or collections.
With TOWeb, you prepare your catalogue wherever you are, even without a network: product pages, photos, prices. Everything happens on your computer, with an accurate preview of the shop, and you publish it all at once when you’re back online. Orders, for their part, arrive on your server and are tracked from the online dashboard, on desktop or mobile.
How much does a Shopify store cost over several years?
With Shopify, the bill has several lines. First, the monthly subscription. Then transaction fees, if you don’t use Shopify’s own payment solution. Sometimes a paid theme (there are free ones). And apps for what the store doesn’t do on its own, free or paid, sometimes billed monthly: customer reviews (Shopify retired its own reviews app in 2024), custom invoices, automatic translation beyond two languages, product personalisation fields.
With TOWeb, the online shop is a one-time purchase, with the e-Commerce edition. Lauyan takes no commission on your sales: you only pay the fees of the payment provider you choose (Stripe, PayPal, your bank), and nothing for bank transfers, cheques or cash on delivery. Edition details: see pricing.
A merchant thinks in years. On one side, twelve months of subscription, transaction fees, apps and the theme; on the other, software bought once plus hosting, with payment fees in both cases. Add it all up over the lifetime of your shop.
What the TOWeb online shop does with no apps to add
- products and variants (sizes, colours) with their own price, stock and images;
- selling by weight or by length, with the price per kilo or per litre displayed;
- selling files, with a download link for each buyer;
- card payments with Stripe, PayPal or other payment solutions, including French banks; bank transfer, cheque, cash on delivery, in-store pickup;
- shipping costs by zone, by weight or by order value, and pickup points;
- taxes calculated for the European Union (including the OSS one-stop shop), the United States and Canada;
- numbered PDF invoices, discount codes, customer reviews, wish list;
- orders tracked from an online dashboard, on desktop or mobile, with CSV export for your accountant;
- withdrawal form and legal guarantee notice in the buyer’s language.
All the details: create an online shop with TOWeb.
Who owns your shop?
A Shopify store runs on Shopify: you can export your products, customers and orders as CSV, but not the store itself, whose theme only works on Shopify. Without an active subscription, the store stops selling.
A TOWeb shop lives with your host, and its orders are stored on your server, not with a third party. Card payments take place on your provider’s secure page (Stripe, PayPal…): card numbers never go through your server, and the order scripts are provided and updated by TOWeb. The complete project stays on your computer: a backup is a folder copy, and switching hosts means republishing.
TOWeb vs Shopify, point by point
| Shopify | TOWeb | |
|---|---|---|
| How it works | Hosted store, rented on a subscription | Software bought once, shop published with your host |
| Commission on sales | Transaction fees if you don’t use Shopify’s payment solution | None: only your payment provider’s fees |
| Extra features | Discount codes and taxes built in; customer reviews through a third-party app; invoices, translation and downloads through Shopify apps, free in their basic version | Built into the software: numbered PDF invoices, customer reviews, discount codes, downloads, taxes, translation |
| Payments | Shopify’s solution or other providers | Stripe, PayPal, other solutions including French banks, and offline payments (bank transfer, cheque, cash on delivery) |
| Ownership | The store only works on Shopify | The project is on your computer, published wherever you like |
| Hosting | Included, at Shopify | Your choice, with a host that supports PHP |
| Working offline | No, the admin is online | Yes: pages and products are prepared offline; you publish when you decide |
| Website around the shop | Pages and blog, with a store theme | A complete website: pages, blog, bookings, documentation, multiple languages |
| High volumes and multichannel | A strength: in-store POS, marketplaces, social media, warehouses | Designed for the catalogues of craftspeople, makers and small businesses |
| Team editing | Online staff accounts | One person at a time, on their computer; orders tracked online |
When Shopify is still the better choice
Shopify is a better fit if
- you sell high volumes, with a team and several warehouses;
- you also sell in a physical shop with a POS connected to your online store;
- you sell on many channels at once (marketplaces, social media).
TOWeb is right for you if
- you’re a craftsperson, maker, producer or small business;
- you want an online shop with no subscription and no commission;
- you want a real website around your shop (pages, blog, bookings);
- you want to keep your shop with the host of your choice;
- you want to prepare your products anywhere, even offline.
Switching from Shopify to TOWeb
- Pick a style and turn on the online shop: product pages, cart and checkout are already in place.
- Bring your catalogue over. On trial in every edition, an AI assistant connected to TOWeb can read your live store and recreate pages and products in TOWeb; you check prices, variants and stock, and putting the recreated store online comes with the Studio edition. Otherwise, you create your products one by one.
- Choose your payment methods and shipping costs, then test an order on your computer before publishing.
- Keep your Google rankings: every product and every page has a “Former addresses” field where you paste the matching Shopify address; TOWeb sets up the permanent (301) redirect when you publish, so both your customers and search engines find their way.
FAQ: TOWeb or Shopify
Try TOWeb on your computer
Set up your shop in the Standard edition, free with no time limit: products, payments, shipping, everything can be built and tried out on your computer, in demo mode. To sell for real, you need the e-Commerce edition; the Standard edition also shows a “Made with TOWeb” notice and publishes a single site.
TOWeb has been developed for more than 20 years by Lauyan Software, a French company.
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