Cost comparison at $1M GMV — which actually wins?

$1M is roughly the crossover point. Below it, Woo is clearly cheaper; above it, Magento amortises better. Numbers:

WooCommerce 3-year TCO at $1M: Woo plugin $0. WordPress hosting (Cloudways / Kinsta WooCommerce plan) $80–$300/mo → $3k–$11k. Paid plugins (Yoast Premium, ACF Pro, WPML, Wholesale Suite, AffiliateWP, payment add-ons) $300–$2k one-time + $400–$1.5k/yr renewals → $1.5k–$6.5k. Theme $80–$500. Dev work $5k–$25k. Total: ~$10k–$45k.

Magento Open Source 3-year TCO at $1M: Magento $0. Hosting (Cloudways Magento / dedicated) $200–$700/mo → $7k–$25k. Hyvä theme licence $1,000–$2,000. Dev build $15k–$45k. Ongoing dev $1k–$3k/mo retainer → $36k–$108k. Search / monitoring $100–$400/mo → $3.5k–$14k. Total: ~$60k–$190k.

So at $1M GMV WooCommerce is 4–5x cheaper. The crossover happens because Magento’s fixed dev cost (build + retainer) doesn’t scale up much from $1M to $10M, but Woo’s app/plugin / hosting cost does scale up sharply (especially when you add WPML, WP Rocket, ElasticPress, Wholesale Suite, etc.) by $5M. The two lines cross around $1M–$2M.