Cost comparison at $5M GMV — which actually wins?

At $5M GMV, Magento Open Source is usually cheaper, but the gap isn’t as wide as Magento marketers claim.

Shopify Plus 3-year TCO at $5M: ~$2,300/mo licence floor (or 0.4% of GMV, whichever is greater) → ~$240k licence over 3 years. Add ~0.15% per-tx fee on Shopify Payments (or ~2% if using a 3rd-party gateway) → another $22k–$300k. App stack typically $400–$1,200/mo → $14k–$43k. Plus dev work — assume $30k–$80k. Total: ~$310k–$660k.

Magento Open Source 3-year TCO at $5M: $0 licence. Hosting (Cloudways / dedicated) $400–$1,500/mo → $14k–$54k. Initial build $25k–$80k. Ongoing dev $1.5k–$5k/mo retainer → $54k–$180k. Search / monitoring add-ons $200–$600/mo → $7k–$22k. Total: ~$100k–$340k.

Adobe Commerce changes the calculus — its licence at $5M is roughly $40k–$80k/yr, putting it in Shopify Plus territory. So if you’d need Adobe Commerce features anyway, Shopify Plus is competitive on price and wins on operational cost.