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Own your store. Keep your margins.

Ecommerce in South Africa is growing at around ~30% per year, stop giving part of it away. We build feature-filled stores on solid, open-source foundations, flexibly priced to beat your current rate.
Book a fit call30 minutes • Free • Let's see if moving pays
A storefront product listing: interior pendant lights in a grid, each with a name, description and colour options
Custom Storefronts
Platform fee per order
R0
On Medusa. You pay your payment provider, nobody else.
A product page: a mustard boucle bean bag beside its fabric swatches and size options
Versatile PDPs
Local checkout
PayFastYocoOzowPeach Payments
Medusa admin dashboard: a product's pricing tableMedusa admin dashboard
Billing
Priced in Rand, not dollars.
Features include
  • AI ready
  • Tailor by region
  • Unlimited admins
  • Fully customizable checkout
  • Smart search
  • POS integration
Licence
MIT open source. The code is yours.

On Shopify, South African stores pay a tax on every sale.

With Shopify Payments not offered in South Africa, every order takes a %-based transaction fee. Add dollar-billed apps and a exchange rates, and your platform bill grows with your success.

Per-order fees

ShopifyUp to 2% to Shopify on every order, on top of your payment provider's own fee.

Custom BuildNo platform fee. You pay PayFast, Yoco, Ozow or Peach, and nothing else.

Monthly bill

ShopifyA plan plus a range of app subscriptions, all in US Dollars.

Custom BuildHosting sized to your store, from a lean server to Medusa Cloud. No per-feature apps.

Features

ShopifyRented from the app store: another subscription and more slowdown for your store.

Custom BuildFirst class integration, built into your store once, then owned outright.

Checkout and logic

ShopifyCustomisation highly restricted by your plan and theme.

Custom BuildEvery step of pricing, checkout and fulfilment is customisable.

Leaving

ShopifyMeans rebuilding from scratch.

Custom BuildOpen-source code in your own repository. Any developer can pick it up.

What Shopify costs you

Monthly online revenue
Your Shopify plan

Include the monthly subscriptions you pay for on Shopify. Prices are approximate Rand conversions of each app's entry plan.

Per month
R7 500
Per year
R90 000

R5 000 transaction fees + R700 subscription + R1 800 apps, per month

Shopify's fee for third-party payment providers by plan: Basic 2%, Grow 1%, Advanced 0.6%. Subscription prices are approximate Rand conversions of each plan's monthly-billed USD price. Base fees are excluded, since you pay those on either platform. Check current rates at shopify.com/pricing. Typical app spend is an estimate for stores at your revenue (usually 3-9 paid apps), based on 2026 Storeleads data. It rises with revenue, not plan tier. Picking your own apps switches it off.

When Shopify makes sense

If you turn over less than R50 000 a month online, or you need a store live right away with no developer involved, Shopify is hard to beat. Medusa pays off when fees, apps and workarounds start to cost more than owning the platform.

The fit call lets us work out you which side of that line you're on, using your own numbers.

We work with you through each stage of the build to ensure your store is the best it can be.

  1. Fit call and audit

    1 weekWe discuss your business, then assess how we can fit your requirements. You get a written cost comparison and a clear go or no-go.

  2. Blueprint

    1 weekCreate the Specs: what we migrate, how we implement your solution, which integrations you need. The price is fixed from here.

  3. Build in functional slices

    ~6 weeksCatalogue, cart, checkout, accounts: each ships end to end and is tested before the next begins. You review a working staging store every week.

  4. Migrate and run in parallel

    2 weeksProducts, customers and order history move across. Old URLs redirect, to maintain search rankings. Shopify stays live until you're satisfied.

  5. Switch over and hand over

    LaunchThe domain switches at a quiet time. The repository, hosting and documentation are in your name from day one.

Everything a serious, performant store needs.

A storefront that's yours

  • Next.js, fast on mobile data
  • No templates here - a custom design
  • CMS for pages, campaigns and lookbooks

Medusa admin

  • Catalogue, variants and inventory
  • Orders, returns and exchanges
  • Promotions, gift cards, customer groups

Local payment providers, built in

  • PayFast, Yoco, Ozow or Peach Payments
  • Card and instant EFT
  • Refunds from the admin

Couriers you already use

  • The Courier Guy integration
  • Live rates, waybills and tracking
  • Click-and-collect

You own your store

  • Code and accounts in your repo
  • Admin training for your team
  • Everything documented

Brands already using Medusa

  • Eight Sleep
  • Heineken
  • IPN
  • Redington
  • Mitsubishi Motors
  • Mandai Wildlife Reserve
  • SPAR
  • Material Bank
  • Makro
  • NIO

Our most recent project

Emerging Art - A consignment art store

Completely custom store using Medusa as the commerce framework. Custom commissions and shipping models created for a unique business. Designed from scratch as a gallery that stands apart. Infrastructure kept as efficient as possible for the use case, defined as code.

Medusa v2Next.jsTerraformHetzner VPS
96
Mobile performance score
8
Weeks to launch
R0
Per order platform fees + app subscriptions

Medusa is open source under the MIT licence, with an active community and a funded company behind its development.

Cheaper than Shopify from the day you launch.

No big upfront bill to earn back. We spread the build into your monthly costs and set the total below what you pay Shopify today, so you save from the first month.
Your monthly bill today, on ShopifyR18 500
Your monthly bill from launch, on MedusaR14 200
You keep the difference

Bars are illustrative. Your real figures come from the audit of your Shopify invoices and order data.

  1. We add up what you pay now

    Plan, every app subscription and Shopify's cut of each order, converted to Rand from your actual invoices.

  2. We set your new monthly below it

    Hosting, care and the build, spread over 12 months, agreed up front at less than that total.

  3. Then it drops again

    Once the build is paid off, you're left with hosting and care, and a store you own outright.

Fixed prices, in Rand. No surprises.

Migration auditKnow the numbers before you commit.
R4 500 once-off
  • Cost comparison from your real order data
  • App and feature inventory
  • Go or no-go recommendation in writing
Shopify to MedusaCore offerThe full move, done for you.
fromR85 000 fixed per phase
  • Everything in the audit
  • Storefront, commerce core and CMS
  • Local payments and shipping
  • Data migration with SEO redirects
  • Parallel run, launch and handover
  • Pay per phase, or monthly below your Shopify bill
Care and growthAfter launch, if you want us close.
R3 900 per month
  • Hosting, updates and backups managed
  • 6 hours of support and feature work a month, with expandable hours
  • Cancel with 30 days' notice
Your running costs afterwardsMedusa itself is free. You pay for hosting, around R450 a month for a typical store, or Medusa Cloud from $99 a month.