E-commerce

Hosted or self-run

Hosted platforms trade control for not maintaining anything. Self-run stores trade maintenance for owning the stack. Both are legitimate, and the wrong one shows up in year two, not month one.

Where the real cost sits

Platform fee plus payment fees plus app subscriptions plus theme work. Transaction fees for using an outside payment provider are the line people forget, and on volume they dwarf the plan price.

Catalogue and checkout

Variants, bundles, digital goods, subscriptions and tax rules. Check the awkward part of your catalogue first, because the simple part works everywhere.

Checkout is where conversion lives. Ask how much of it you can change, and on which plan.

Leaving

Products export easily from most platforms. Customers, orders and subscription state do not. Check all three before you commit a catalogue to a platform.