Website & Ecommerce Lesgo Media · 2026
- RM139EasyStore entry plan per month
- 18.5%Shopee fees on a sale, with SST
- RM1.00toyyibPay FPX per transaction
Most comparisons of ecommerce builders written for Malaysia are really comparisons written for the United States, with the word Malaysia added to the title. The features they weigh are not the ones that decide anything here.
What decides it here is narrower. Which payment gateway connects without a developer. Whether the platform pushes a consolidated e-invoice to MyInvois before the seventh of the month. Whether courier rates appear at checkout. Whether it still works when the person who built it stops answering messages.
Prices below were checked in August 2026 and move often, so treat them as a starting point for your own quote.
The six routes a Malaysian SME actually picks between
Every real decision lands on one of six options, and three get ignored in most articles.
WooCommerce. A free plugin on WordPress, on hosting you rent. You own the database and files. You also own every update, backup and broken plugin.
Shopify. Hosted, foreign, priced in US dollars. Fastest route to a working store, strongest app ecosystem, weakest fit for Malaysian payment because Shopify Payments does not operate here.
EasyStore. A Malaysian platform priced in ringgit, with local gateways and MyInvois submission native rather than bolted on.
SiteGiant. Also Malaysian, built for sellers listing on Shopee, Lazada and TikTok Shop at once who need one stock pool behind all of them.
Wix. A website builder with a store attached. Fine for a brochure site selling five products, tight once you have variants, bundles and real inventory.
No website at all. Sell purely on Shopee and Lazada, take the traffic, pay the commission. For many sellers this is the right answer in year one, and nobody says so.
BigCommerce and Squarespace work technically, but Malaysian gateway support and local agency familiarity are thin enough that you pay for it later.
What each option costs per month in ringgit
Platform fees are what everyone compares and what matters least once volume arrives. Here is the honest floor for each.
| Option | Platform cost | Extra transaction fee | Realistic monthly total |
|---|---|---|---|
| WooCommerce | Plugin free, hosting RM20 to RM100 | None from the platform | RM50 to RM250 |
| Shopify Basic | USD25 monthly, USD19 paid yearly | 2% on third-party gateways | RM150 to RM400 |
| Shopify Grow | USD65 monthly, USD49 paid yearly | 1% on third-party gateways | RM300 to RM700 |
| EasyStore Standard | RM139 | 0% from the platform | RM139 to RM300 |
| EasyStore Business | RM279 | 0% from the platform | RM279 to RM450 |
| SiteGiant | Quoted, not published | No setup fee, no transaction fee | Ask for a written quote |
| Wix Core | USD29 billed annually | Gateway rate only | RM160 to RM350 |
| Shopee and Lazada only | RM0 | Commission plus 2.16% plus SST | Scales with sales |
Shopify and EasyStore prices come from their own published pricing pages. SiteGiant publishes none, which is itself a difference: you cannot compare what you cannot see, so get a written quote. Build cost sits outside all of this, and we break that down in the Malaysian pricing guide.
Payment gateways narrow the shortlist faster than features
Malaysian shoppers use FPX and e-wallets far more than cards. A checkout without FPX loses sales, so gateway support is the first filter, not the last.
| Gateway | FPX | Local card | Setup and recurring |
|---|---|---|---|
| toyyibPay | RM1.00 per transaction | 1.5% | RM100 card onboarding, RM100 a year from year two |
| Billplz | RM1.25 per transaction | 1.8% | None |
| senangPay | 1.5% or RM1.00 | 2.5% plus RM0.65 | From RM199 a year |
| iPay88 | Supported, quoted per merchant | Roughly 2% to 3% | Setup fee, quoted |
| Stripe | 3% plus RM1.00 | 2.9% | None, RM90 per dispute |
Ownership here moves. iPay88 operated as ADAPTIS after acquisition and was renamed NTT DATA eCommerce Solutions Sdn Bhd in 2025, so confirm the legal entity on your merchant agreement. That is the position as of checking in August 2026.
Stripe is the expensive way to take FPX and the cheap way to take foreign cards. If your revenue is mostly domestic FPX, a local gateway at RM1.00 flat beats 3% plus RM1.00 on every order above about RM70.
WooCommerce and EasyStore connect to the full local set without custom work. Shopify connects through apps and adds its own fee on top, 2% on Basic and 1% on Grow. Wix has the thinnest Malaysian gateway list here, which is why it drops off most shortlists.
Courier and shipping rates are close to a tie
Shipping used to separate these platforms. It mostly does not any more, because EasyParcel sits between the store and the couriers for almost everyone. It has an official WooCommerce plugin pulling live rates into checkout, EasyStore and SiteGiant integrate couriers natively, and Shopify connects through apps. The difference is how much you configure yourself.
- Decide the rate model first. Flat rate, free above a threshold, or live courier rates. Live rates cause the most support tickets because a quote can differ from the actual charge.
- Check East Malaysia separately. Sabah and Sarawak rates quietly kill margin. Test a Kota Kinabalu postcode before launch, not after.
- Test bulky and light items. Volumetric weight means a large light box can cost more than a small heavy one.
- Confirm tracking flows back. If tracking numbers do not sync into order emails, you answer that by hand daily.
If your catalogue is one product size, this barely matters. If you sell furniture, chilled food or anything oversized, it decides the platform, so test it during the trial rather than after paying a year up front.
SST and LHDN e-Invoice land differently on each platform
Service tax is 8% standard rate, and registration is required once taxable revenue passes RM500,000 in a rolling twelve-month period. That window rolls rather than following the calendar year, which catches more sellers than owners expect.
The e-Invoice timeline matters more. Under the current LHDN schedule, revenue between RM1 million and RM5 million came in from 1 January 2026, and up to RM1 million from 1 July 2026. Under RM500,000 is exempt for now. Consolidated e-invoices must reach MyInvois within seven calendar days after month end.
What this means per platform
- EasyStore has a direct MyInvois integration, including buyer requests at checkout and monthly consolidated submission.
- WooCommerce needs a plugin or middleware. It works, but somebody has to own it.
- Shopify needs a third-party e-invoicing app, since MyInvois is not part of its core product.
- On Shopee and Lazada the platform issues the e-invoice for sales made there, and you are exempt for that channel only.
That last point is the one people misread. The exemption covers the marketplace channel. If you also sell on your own site, through WhatsApp, or at a counter, those sales are yours to invoice.
Selling only on Shopee and Lazada, and what it really costs
Skipping the website entirely is a legitimate strategy and deserves real numbers. Shopee Malaysia commission rose as high as 15% in some categories from late 2025, with further adjustments in May and August 2026. On top sits a 2.16% transaction fee, and all of it carries 8% SST, so a seller in a 15% category gives up roughly 18.5% of order value. Lazada went to as much as 22.5% from 1 November 2025.
On a RM100 average order, a marketplace seller in a 15% category loses about RM18.50 in fees where an EasyStore seller on FPX loses about RM1.00. The RM139 plan pays for itself at roughly eight orders a month.
What that difference leaves out is traffic. Shopee and Lazada hand you buyers. Your own store does not, so you spend the saved commission on ads, SEO and content. Marketplace fees are a customer acquisition cost at a fixed price, and in year one most sellers cannot beat 18.5% of order value.
WooCommerce against Shopify, in short
WooCommerce wins on running cost and control. You pay hosting instead of a subscription, connect Malaysian gateways with no platform surcharge, and keep your data. You pay for that with maintenance that never stops.
Shopify wins on speed and reliability. Live in days, apps for almost anything, no 2am server problems. You pay a US dollar subscription plus a third-party gateway fee. The full version, with three-year cost of ownership, is in our WooCommerce versus Shopify breakdown.
Who maintains the store when something breaks
Maintenance ownership predicts better than anything else whether a store is still healthy two years after launch. On EasyStore, Shopify, SiteGiant and Wix the platform maintains itself. You rent stability.
On WooCommerce somebody must patch WordPress, update plugins, keep backups and fix the conflict two plugins cause when they update the same week. If that is you, budget the hours. If it is an agency, the retainer belongs inside your monthly comparison. A store with no clear maintenance owner ends up broken and unnoticed. Our business website checklist covers what to verify before launch, and the ecommerce design guide covers what the storefront itself has to do.
How hard each platform is to leave
Nobody plans to migrate, and plenty of stores do. Exit cost belongs in the decision.
| Platform | What exports cleanly | What you lose | Difficulty |
|---|---|---|---|
| WooCommerce | Everything, it is your database | Nothing structural | Low |
| Shopify | Products, customers, orders via CSV | Theme, apps, URL structure | Medium |
| EasyStore | Products, customers, orders | Theme, native integrations | Medium |
| SiteGiant | Products and orders | Marketplace sync setup, stock rules | Medium to high |
| Wix | Products and contacts, partially | Site design entirely | High |
| Marketplace only | Nothing usable | Your entire buyer relationship | Highest |
The marketplace row matters most. Shopee and Lazada do not hand over buyer contact details in usable form. Sell there three years and you have revenue history but no audience you can reach directly. That is the real cost of marketplace-only, and it appears on no fee schedule.
The recommendation by business type and order volume
| Situation | Monthly orders | Pick | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Testing a product, no brand yet | Under 30 | Shopee and Lazada only | Free traffic beats fee savings at this volume |
| Small domestic brand, wants own customers | 30 to 200 | EasyStore Standard | RM139, local gateways, MyInvois built in |
| Content-led brand, SEO is the plan | 50 to 500 | WooCommerce | Best control of URLs, content and cost, if maintenance is owned |
| Marketplaces and own site together | 100 plus | SiteGiant or EasyStore Business | One stock pool across channels stops overselling |
| Exporting, foreign card revenue | Any | Shopify Grow | 1% third-party fee and Stripe make sense once revenue is foreign |
| Five products beside a service business | Under 20 | Wix Core, or WooCommerce if you already run WordPress | Not worth a dedicated platform |
| Above RM5 million revenue | 500 plus | Shopify Advanced or custom | Compliance and integration needs outgrow SME tools |
People argue with the first row. Starting on marketplaces feels like giving up, and it is not. It is buying customer discovery at a known price while you find out whether the product sells. Build the site in year two, and read how long a build takes before promising yourself a launch date.
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Frequently asked questions about ecommerce website builders in Malaysia
Which ecommerce platform is cheapest for a Malaysian SME?
WooCommerce has the lowest platform cost, since the plugin is free and hosting runs RM20 to RM100 a month. That excludes maintenance. Once you add an agency retainer or your own hours, EasyStore at RM139 a month is often cheaper for a business without technical staff.
Can I use Shopify Payments in Malaysia?
No. Shopify Payments does not operate in Malaysia as of checking in August 2026, so merchants here use a third-party gateway such as Billplz, iPay88 or Stripe. Shopify then adds its own platform fee on those transactions, 2% on Basic and 1% on Grow, on top of the gateway rate.
Does EasyStore handle LHDN e-Invoice automatically?
EasyStore has a direct MyInvois integration supporting buyer e-invoice requests at checkout, status tracking and monthly consolidated submission. It still needs configuring with your TIN and business details, and accuracy stays your responsibility, but the plumbing is native rather than a plugin you maintain.
How much do Shopee and Lazada actually take per sale?
Shopee marketplace commission reached as high as 15% in some categories, plus a 2.16% transaction fee, and all fees carry 8% SST. That is roughly 18.5% of order value in a 15% category. Lazada raised commission to as much as 22.5% from November 2025.
Which payment gateway should a small Malaysian store start with?
toyyibPay or Billplz for a domestic store, because FPX at RM1.00 to RM1.25 flat beats percentage pricing on most order values. Add Stripe only if you take real foreign card revenue. senangPay sits in between, with an annual fee from RM199 and card rates around 2.5%.
Do I need SST registration to sell online in Malaysia?
Registration is required once taxable revenue passes RM500,000 in any rolling twelve-month period, at the 8% standard service tax rate. Because the window rolls rather than following the calendar year, check your trailing twelve months monthly instead of once at year end.
Is it worth building a website if I already sell well on Shopee?
Yes, once your fee bill exceeds what traffic would cost you directly. At a RM100 average order and roughly 18.5% in fees, 100 orders a month sends about RM1,850 to the marketplace. That is a real marketing budget, and the website also gives you a customer list.
Can I run one inventory across my website and marketplaces?
Yes. SiteGiant is built around exactly this, and EasyStore’s higher plans support multichannel sync. Without it you will oversell, because a marketplace order and a website order can claim the same last unit within seconds. Manual updates across three channels stop working past roughly 100 orders a month.
Conclusion: pick by order volume, not by feature list
Under 30 orders a month, marketplaces beat any website you could build. Between 30 and 200, EasyStore at RM139 gives you Malaysian payment and MyInvois without hiring anyone. Past that, it turns on whether you have someone to maintain WooCommerce or would rather rent stability from Shopify.
Whichever you pick, price the exit before you sign, and confirm gateway rates directly because they move. Versi Bahasa Melayu di sini: Platform Kedai Online Malaysia.
For a second opinion on your own numbers, tell us your order volume and catalogue and we will say what we would build.
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