Yes, you can dropship in the UK without Shopify, and this page is about how to choose what to run instead. It is written for someone starting or moving a UK dropshipping shop who wants the requirements first and the brand names second. Disclosure before anything else: we build Orbit Commerce, an ecommerce platform, so we have a stake in you opening a shop. Every price below is either from the company’s own page with the date we read it, or it is absent because we could not check it today. Shopify’s UK plan prices and fees came off shopify.com/uk/pricing on 15 September 2026.
Almost every “Shopify alternatives” article opens with a list of platforms. That is the wrong end. Start with what a dropshipping shop physically has to do, then see which platform does each of those without a paid add-on. The add-on layer is where the money goes.
What does a shop actually need in order to dropship?
Seven capabilities, and every one has to work without you touching it. Dropshipping only pays if the order flows to the supplier on its own, because the margin per order is too thin to fund manual work. Here is the checklist to score any platform against.
- 1. Supplier connection. A way to find a supplier and pull their catalogue, images, descriptions and wholesale cost prices into your shop without copy and paste.
- 2. Order routing. When a customer pays you, the order and delivery address go to the supplier automatically. If a human re-keys it, you have bought yourself a job.
- 3. Stock and price sync. Supplier stock counts and cost prices update in your shop on a schedule. Selling something the supplier ran out of last Tuesday is the fastest route to refunds and marketplace suspensions.
- 4. Returns handling. Return requests, refunds to the original card or to store credit, and return labels. Under UK distance selling rules the return is your problem, not your supplier’s, so the shop needs the machinery.
- 5. Channel feeds. A product feed to Google Shopping, and usually Microsoft, Meta, Pinterest and Snapchat too. Google’s free product listings cost nothing and show across Search, Images, Maps, YouTube and the Shopping tab from a Merchant Center feed (support.google.com, checked 15 September 2026), which makes the feed the cheapest traffic a new shop can get.
- 6. Marketplaces. Listing the same stock on Amazon and eBay from one stock count, with their orders landing in the same order list. Most UK dropshippers get their first hundred orders from a marketplace, not from ads.
- 7. Payments. Cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay and PayPal at a rate you can survive, with no platform fee stacked on top of the card fee.
Which of those are built in, and which are paid apps?
This is where platforms actually differ. Shopify and WooCommerce both cover requirements 1, 2 and 3 through third-party software you subscribe to separately. Orbit does them in the platform. There are no prices in the app cells because app pricing changes and most tiers scale with order volume, and we did not verify any of them today.
| What the shop has to do | Shopify | WooCommerce | Orbit |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Find a supplier, import their catalogue | App from the Shopify App Store, billed separately | Extension, and you find the supplier yourself | Supplier directory inside the dashboard, every plan |
| 2. Route paid orders to the supplier | Same app | Same extension | Included |
| 3. Stock and cost price sync | Same app | Same extension | Included |
| 4. Returns and refunds | Built in | Built in, refunds via your gateway plugin | Built in: requests, refund to card or store credit, prepaid labels |
| 5. Feeds to Google, Microsoft, Meta, Pinterest, Snapchat | First-party Google and Meta channels, others generally a feed app | An extension per channel, or one paid feed extension | Native feeds for all five, free, plus Performance Max management |
| 6. Amazon and eBay from one stock count | App, billed separately | Extension per marketplace | Free Amazon and eBay plugins, their orders land in your Orbit order list |
| 7. Payments | Shopify Payments at 2% + 25p on Basic, or another provider and pay Shopify 2% on top | Any gateway plugin, you choose and configure | Orbit Payments, Stripe-powered, 2% + 25p on Solo, no platform fee |
| Software cost | £25/mo Basic, £19 billed yearly | Free software, paid hosting, paid extensions | £25/mo Solo, £19 billed yearly |
WooCommerce deserves a fair word. The software is free and it will do all seven, because there is an extension for everything. What you buy instead is hosting, a stack of extension licences, and the hours to keep them compatible after each update. Some people should take that trade. We are not quoting extension prices because we did not check them today; the like-for-like build is in our Shopify vs WooCommerce comparison.
How much does Shopify cost in the UK, and what is the third-party gateway fee?
Checked on shopify.com/uk/pricing on 15 September 2026: Basic is £25 a month (£19 billed yearly), Grow £65 (£49 yearly), Advanced £344 (£259 yearly), and Plus starts at £1,800. If you take payments through anything other than Shopify Payments, Shopify adds a transaction fee: 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow, 0.6% on Advanced, 0.2% on Plus.
Shopify’s UK card rates on Basic are 2% + 25p for standard online cards and 3.1% + 25p for Amex. Here is the honest part: those are the same headline numbers Orbit publishes on Solo. Anyone telling you Shopify’s card processing is expensive is arguing about the wrong line. The line that hurts is the 2% third-party fee on Basic, charged on your whole order value on top of whatever your chosen provider charges. On £3,000 of monthly sales that is £60 for the privilege of not using the built-in processor. The full bill is in the real cost of Shopify in the UK.
What does the real monthly cost come to once apps are added?
Take a shop doing £3,000 of sales a month across 120 orders, so a £25 average order. Those are assumptions; change them and rerun the arithmetic. Every figure below is one we checked today. What we have deliberately not done is invent a number for the app stack, because there is no reliable public figure for it: prices move, and most dropshipping and marketplace apps charge by order volume.
| Line | Shopify Basic, Shopify Payments | Shopify Basic, other gateway | Orbit Solo |
|---|---|---|---|
| Platform, monthly billing | £25.00 | £25.00 | £25.00 |
| Card fees on £3,000 across 120 orders | £90.00 (2% + 25p) | Your provider’s rate | £90.00 (2% + 25p) |
| Platform transaction fee | £0.00 | £60.00 (2% of £3,000) | £0.00 |
| Supplier connection, routing, stock sync | App subscription | App subscription | Included |
| Amazon and eBay listing and sync | App subscription | App subscription | Included |
| Feeds to five shopping channels | App subscription beyond the first-party ones | Same | Included |
| Known monthly total | £115.00 plus apps | £85.00 plus apps and your provider’s card fees | £115.00 |
Read the bottom row carefully, because it is the honest headline: on platform and card fees alone, Shopify Basic with Shopify Payments and Orbit Solo both come to £115. The difference is not the subscription. It is the three app subscriptions in the middle of the table, and the 2% you pay if you ever want a different payment provider. At £25 a month of apps that is £300 a year; at £60 a month it is £720. Price the apps you will genuinely need before you pick a platform. Selling abroad? Orbit’s multi-currency is built in, with live rates and the currency picked from the shopper’s location, so that is not another app either. Plans are on pricing and the head-to-head is on Orbit vs Shopify.
Can you dropship on marketplaces alone, with no website?
You can, and plenty of people start that way, but you are renting the customer rather than keeping them. Amazon’s Professional selling plan is £25 a month excluding VAT, or the Individual plan charges £0.75 excluding VAT per item sold, and referral fees on most categories run between 8% and 15% (sell.amazon.co.uk, checked 15 September 2026). eBay business sellers pay a per-order fee of £0.30 on orders of £10 or less and £0.40 above that, plus a category final value fee (ebay.co.uk, checked 15 September 2026).
Stack that against a dropshipping margin. On a £25 order at a 12% referral fee you have handed over £3 before the supplier, the delivery and the ad. It can still work on volume. The catch: you cannot email those customers, one policy change can end the business overnight, and you cannot claim Google’s free product listings, because those need your own product pages to link to.
What we would do is run both. Open the shop, list the same stock to Amazon and eBay from one stock count, and let the marketplaces fund the early months while search and email build. That is the argument in multichannel selling for UK shops, with per-channel detail in our guides to selling on Amazon and your own website and selling on eBay and your own website. Orbit’s Amazon and eBay plugins are free on every plan for exactly this reason: see sales channels.
What do you give up by leaving Shopify, honestly?
Three real things, and anyone who says otherwise is selling you something. We are selling you something too, so here they are in full.
- The app ecosystem. Shopify’s app store is the largest of any hosted platform, and nobody publishes a like-for-like count, so treat that as a practical fact rather than a measured one. If your business depends on one specialist tool, a particular 3PL connector or a niche loyalty scheme, there is a decent chance it exists for Shopify and nowhere else. Check that first.
- Shop Pay. Shopify’s accelerated checkout recognises returning shoppers across every Shopify store and fills their details in. No other platform has a network that size. Orbit’s one-page checkout has Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, Link and Klarna, which covers similar ground, but it is not the same network effect.
- Familiarity. Every freelancer, agency and YouTube tutorial knows Shopify. When something breaks at 11pm you can search the exact error and find a forum thread. On a smaller platform you are asking support instead, which is fine when support is good and miserable when it is not.
What you get back is the app layer folded into the subscription, one published card rate with no platform fee stacked on top of it, and UK support in your timezone. Whether that trade is right depends entirely on which apps you need. For the wider field rather than just us, we keep a list of the best Shopify alternatives for UK sellers.
How do you move an existing store without losing orders?
Move in this order and nothing goes dark. A small catalogue is a short job; a big one is not, so plan the URL map first.
- Export everything first. Products, customers and orders as CSV, before you cancel anything. Keep that file forever.
- Build the new shop on a trial while the old one still trades. Import the catalogue, connect the supplier, rebuild the pages.
- Place one real test order through the new checkout, all the way to the supplier confirming despatch. Do not skip this. Order routing is the thing that breaks.
- Map your URLs. Every old product and collection address needs a 301 to its new address, or you lose the search traffic you spent a year earning. Do it before the switch. The method is in replatforming without losing your rankings.
- Relist the marketplaces last. Pause Amazon and eBay, reconnect them, confirm stock counts match, unpause.
- Point the domain, then watch orders for 48 hours before cancelling the old subscription. Keep it one extra month; cheapest insurance you will buy.
Orbit imports products, customers and orders, and we help with the migration itself. Step by step in moving from Shopify to Orbit.
Questions people ask about dropshipping without Shopify
Can you dropship in the UK without Shopify?
Yes. Nothing about dropshipping requires Shopify. You need a platform that connects to a supplier, routes paid orders to them, syncs stock and cost prices, handles returns, feeds the shopping channels, lists to Amazon and eBay, and takes payments. Several platforms do that, including WooCommerce with extensions and Orbit with those parts built in.
What does a shop need in order to dropship?
Seven things: a supplier connection that imports their catalogue, automatic order routing to the supplier, stock and cost price sync, returns and refunds, product feeds to Google and the other shopping channels, Amazon and eBay listing from one stock count, and card payments. Score any platform against that list before you look at themes or price.
How much does Shopify cost in the UK in 2026?
Checked on shopify.com/uk/pricing on 15 September 2026: Basic £25 a month (£19 billed yearly), Grow £65 (£49 yearly), Advanced £344 (£259 yearly) and Plus from £1,800. Using a payment provider other than Shopify Payments adds a transaction fee of 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow, 0.6% on Advanced and 0.2% on Plus. Dropshipping apps are extra.
Can you dropship on marketplaces only, with no website?
You can. Amazon’s Professional plan is £25 a month excluding VAT with referral fees mostly between 8% and 15%, and eBay business sellers pay £0.30 per order up to £10, £0.40 above, plus a final value fee (both checked 15 September 2026). But you cannot email those customers, cannot claim Google’s free product listings, and one policy change can end the business.
What do you give up by leaving Shopify?
Three real things: the largest app ecosystem in ecommerce, so check your must-have app exists elsewhere first; Shop Pay, whose cross-store checkout network nobody else can match; and familiarity, meaning every agency, theme and tutorial already knows Shopify. In exchange you stop paying separately for the apps a dropshipping shop cannot do without.
If dropshipping itself is still the open question rather than the platform, start with our UK dropshipping guide for the HMRC, VAT and returns rules, and check gov.uk before relying on any tax point in it. If you have already decided, and you want the supplier directory, the Amazon and eBay plugins and the five shopping feeds inside the subscription rather than on top of it, Orbit’s Solo plan is £25 a month (£19 billed yearly) after a 14-day free trial, no card required. Build the whole shop, route one real test order to a supplier, then decide: start free.