Mohammed Rizvi, MuscatFor most online stores in Oman the choice is between Shopify and WooCommerce. Shopify is the fastest to launch and needs almost no maintenance, but an Omani store cannot use Shopify Payments and pays an extra percentage on every sale through a third-party gateway. WooCommerce is free, works with Omani gateways through published plugins and costs the least to run, but it needs hosting and a care plan. Salla is the Arabic-first platform that dominates Saudi Arabia, and that is the problem: its own site lists only Saudi Arabia and the UAE as available markets and no Omani payment gateway. Here is each one in detail, with every figure taken from the platform's own pages on 17 October 2026.
Side by side
| Shopify | WooCommerce | Salla | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | Hosted platform, subscription | Free plugin for WordPress; you host it | Hosted Arabic-first platform, subscription |
| Platform cost | USD 19 / 54 / 299 a month on yearly billing (27 / 72 / 399 monthly) | Free; hosting from OMR 15 a month managed | Tiers Basic, Plus, Pro and Special; prices not on a reachable official page |
| Omani payment gateways | Third-party only: Amwal Pay plugin, Thawani by API | Amwal Pay plugin; Thawani by API; cash on delivery | None named; mada, STC Pay, Tabby, Tamara and cards listed |
| Fee on top of the gateway | 2% Basic, 1% Grow, 0.6% Advanced for third-party gateways | None | Not published on a reachable page |
| Arabic | Theme and translation apps; RTL themes exist | Full RTL with the right theme | Arabic-first by design; 40+ storefront languages |
| Markets stated | Global; Shopify Payments not in Oman | Any | "Available in Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates"; Oman as a shipping destination |
| Maintenance | Handled by Shopify | Care plan OMR 25 to 45 a month | Handled by Salla |
| Build price at rizvi.pro | From OMR 400 | From OMR 400 | Not offered |
| Time to launch | 1 to 2 weeks | 1 to 2 weeks | Depends on account eligibility |
Shopify: fastest, with an Oman-specific cost
Shopify's pricing page, dated 15 October 2026, lists Basic at USD 19 a month, Grow at 54 and Advanced at 299 on yearly billing, or 27, 72 and 399 on monthly billing, with Plus from 2,300. The page says prices can differ by where the business is based, so the figure you see from Oman is the one that counts.
The cost most Omani merchants miss is the gateway fee. Shopify's supported-countries page for Shopify Payments lists the United Arab Emirates as the only Gulf country. An Omani store therefore connects a third-party gateway and pays Shopify's third-party fee on every order, on top of what the gateway charges: 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow and 0.6% on Advanced. On OMR 5,000 of monthly sales that is OMR 100 a month on Basic before the gateway's own rate, which is more than the subscription itself.
Shopify is still the right answer when speed and simplicity matter more than running cost: a shop with a few hundred products, no technical staff and no appetite for updates. Amwal Pay publishes a Shopify plugin; Thawani is connected through its API.
WooCommerce: cheapest to run, needs looking after
WooCommerce's pricing page states the core plugin is free with no monthly subscription, 0% revenue share and no third-party payment fee. What you pay for is hosting, which WooCommerce puts at USD 25 to 350 a month for most stores, and paid extensions at USD 29 to 299 a year each. My managed hosting for a WooCommerce store is OMR 15 a month with CDN and monitoring, and a care plan for updates, backups and small changes is OMR 25 to 45 a month.
For Omani gateways it is the easiest platform: Amwal Pay publishes a WooCommerce plugin alongside Shopify, Magento and OpenCart, Thawani connects through its API, and cash on delivery is built in. There is no platform fee on each sale.
The trade-off is responsibility. WordPress and its plugins need patching, and a store that nobody maintains is the one that gets hacked or breaks at checkout. Budget the care plan from day one.
Salla: Arabic-first, but check it is open to Oman
Salla is the platform most Saudi retailers use, and its Arabic-first storefront, control panel and support are genuinely better than bolting Arabic onto Shopify. Its help centre lists four tiers, Basic, Plus, Pro and Special, with prices that "vary depending on the package and the duration"; on the day this was written Salla's pricing pages returned errors, so no figures are quoted here.
Two facts on Salla's own pages matter for an Omani business. First, its market pages say it is available in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and name Oman only under shipping coverage. Second, the payment methods it lists are mada, STC Pay, Apple Pay, cards, Tabby and Tamara, with no Omani gateway. A guide published by one Muscat agency recommends Salla as the default for small Omani retailers; Salla's own site does not support that yet. If Arabic-first tooling is what you need, ask Salla whether an Omani Commercial Registration can open a store and which gateway it would settle to, and get the answer in writing before anyone builds anything.
How to choose, in order
- Which gateway will you use? Thawani is the one Omani customers recognise; Amwal Pay has the broadest set of published plugins; a bank card gateway and cash on delivery cover the rest. The gateway narrows the platform.
- Who will maintain the store? Nobody: Shopify. A care plan or your own IT: WooCommerce.
- How much will you sell? Under about OMR 3,000 a month, Shopify's third-party fee is a few rials and convenience wins. Above it, WooCommerce's zero platform fee starts to pay for its hosting and care plan several times over.
- How Arabic-first is the business? Both Shopify and WooCommerce run proper right-to-left storefronts; I build the Arabic version for OMR 190 on either. Salla is better at it, if it will have you.
What it costs to build
Whichever of the two I build on, the store is from OMR 400, the gateway connection OMR 160, delivery zones OMR 140, products OMR 3 each and the Arabic storefront OMR 190, excluding 5% VAT. What an online store costs in Oman works through three budgets, and how to choose a web development company in Oman covers what to ask any developer before you sign. The estimator gives you the itemised number in a minute; the e-commerce websites in Oman page explains what is included. WhatsApp is +968 7111 0727.