E-commerce
An e-commerce website in Morocco: Shopify, YouCan or WooCommerce, what each really costs and which to choose
Before the design, before the photos, the first decision for an online store in Morocco is the platform. It sets your monthly costs, what you can change on your own, and how easily you get paid on delivery. Three options come up in almost every project: Shopify, YouCan and WooCommerce. Here is how I compare them for my clients.
The three platforms in one sentence
- YouCan: born in Morocco, built around cash on delivery, the fastest way to test a product.
- Shopify: the most complete for building a brand, with the widest choice of themes and apps.
- WooCommerce: a free WordPress plugin, very flexible, but you handle hosting, updates and security.
What each one costs
YouCan: 29 to 187 dollars a month depending on the plan, with a 0.5% fee on orders paid on delivery and 1% on online payments. The smaller plans cap revenue and monthly orders.
Shopify: 39 dollars a month for Basic (29 paid yearly), with no fee on cash on delivery, set up as a manual payment. Shopify Payments does not exist in Morocco: card payments through an outside provider add 2% on Basic.
WooCommerce: the plugin is free, but you need hosting (a few hundred dirhams a year at least, more for a store with traffic), often a paid theme and extensions, and maintenance time. Cash on delivery is built in.
For the build itself, a serious store usually starts around 8,000 to 15,000 MAD with a provider, whatever the platform; the ranges are in how much a website costs in Morocco.
The criteria that actually decide
- Your stage. Testing a product: YouCan, or Shopify Basic with a free theme. Building a brand: Shopify.
- Who runs the technical side. On Shopify and YouCan, hosting, security and updates are included. On WooCommerce, it is you or your provider, every month.
- Design. A store that must stand apart from competitors needs layout freedom: Shopify and WooCommerce give the most.
- Selling abroad. Selling in France or elsewhere too (currencies, languages, delivery by country) is simpler on Shopify.
- Google. All three can rank well, as long as titles, descriptions, speed and redirects are set properly.
The rule: pick the platform for the next two years, not the first month. Switching later is possible, but it is a migration.
What sells, whatever the platform
- Your own photos, and the delivery time written on the product page.
- Cash on delivery visible from the product page, not only in the cart.
- Delivery fees shown before checkout.
- A confirmation call or WhatsApp message before shipping.
- A visible WhatsApp number for questions.
For the step-by-step Shopify launch, see launching a Shopify store in Morocco; for a detailed comparison of the two most used platforms here, see YouCan or Shopify.
My view
For most Moroccan brands that want to last, I recommend Shopify: no fee on cash on delivery, no technical maintenance, and the freedom to build a store unlike the others. YouCan remains a good place to test, and WooCommerce makes sense if you already run a well-kept WordPress site.
What next?
Your store, designed to sell in Morocco
The details are on the e-commerce websites page, and you can ask for a free demo of your store with your real products.
Sources: YouCan pricing (youcan.shop); Shopify pricing (shopify.com/pricing) and Shopify Payments availability (Shopify Help Center); WooCommerce documentation on payment methods, checked on 1 November 2026.
Hamza BenjaabaI design Shopify stores for Moroccan brands, and help choose the platform before drawing the first page.
How it works
From one link to a site that brings clients.
One link and one line on what isn't working. No call needed to start.
Within 24 hours: the three things I would change first, the scope, the timeline and a price.
New pages around the action you want, a clickable version to test, then development.
Online, Search Console set up, Google Business linked, and the first pages written for real searches.