Search for an online shop builder and Shopify is the first name you meet. It deserves its reputation: it is polished, it is reliable, and millions of shops abroad run on it happily. The question for a shop in Nepal is narrower. Can it take the money your customers actually pay with, and what does the bill come to in rupees?
Everything below was checked on 27 October 2026, on each company's own pricing and help pages. Prices change, so check again before you pay anyone.
What Shopify costs from Nepal
Shopify bills in US dollars. Basic is 39 dollars a month, or 29 dollars a month if you pay for the year. Grow is 105 dollars a month, or 79 dollars a month on the year. At Nepal Rastra Bank's rate of NPR 155.08 to the dollar on 12 October 2026, that is about NPR 6,050 a month for Basic and about NPR 16,280 a month for Grow. A year of Basic paid upfront is 348 dollars, about NPR 54,000.
You also need a card that can pay in dollars, every month, and many shopkeepers here do not have one.
The bigger problem: getting paid
Shopify's own payment service, Shopify Payments, works in 41 countries. Nepal is not one of them, and neither is India. So a shop here has to use another payment provider, and Shopify charges its own fee on every sale taken that way: 2 percent on Basic, 1 percent on Grow, on top of whatever the provider takes.
On NPR 200,000 of online sales in a month, 2 percent is NPR 4,000 to Shopify, before the plan and before eSewa or Khalti take their share.
There is an eSewa app in Shopify's app store. It is made by a company in London, was listed in July 2024, had no reviews when we checked, and says its usage fees are billed in dollars without saying how much. That may work for you, but test it with a real order before you rely on it.
Cash on delivery and bank deposits are manual methods, and Shopify does not charge its fee on them. You then check every payment by hand, which you could do on any platform.
The alternatives, honestly
Pasal
Built for shops in Nepal, and yes, this is our own product, so weigh it accordingly. Pro is NPR 3,000 a month, or NPR 30,000 a year, paid in rupees through Fonepay, so no dollar card is needed. There is no commission on your sales: customers pay you directly, and the money never touches Pasal.
At checkout a customer scans your own eSewa, Khalti, Fonepay or bank QR and sends the transaction number with a screenshot. You check it against your account and mark the order paid. That is honest but manual: Pasal does not confirm the money arrived by itself. A QR made for each bill, confirmed by the provider, is available by arrangement. See Take payment by QR.
What you get beyond the website: the counter till, stock, khata, bookings, staff, Nepali beside English, Bikram Sambat dates and bills with your PAN on them. Pasal's IRD software approval is still pending, so it is not an IRD-approved e-billing system yet; here is what that means.
Where Shopify is better: thousands of apps, card payments for customers abroad, and years of polish that a younger product has not had time to build.
Blanxer
Blanxer is a commerce platform built in Nepal, and one of the strongest local options. It says it is used by more than 1,000 businesses here. Fonepay dynamic QR is built into checkout, so a payment is confirmed without anyone checking a screenshot. eSewa, Khalti and cards come through its payment integrations, cash on delivery is there, and it connects to couriers such as Pathao Parcel, Nepal Can Move, Pick & Drop and Aramex. On payment confirmation and couriers, it is ahead of Pasal today.
It is priced in rupees, by the year only: Basic is NPR 24,000 a year, about NPR 2,000 a month, and the plans go up to Platinum at NPR 48,000 a year. Each new store gets a free trial. Two things to weigh. QR payments carry a fee, 3.9 percent on Basic and 2.75 to 3 percent on the higher plans, so NPR 200,000 of QR sales on Basic is about NPR 7,800 in a month. And Basic is capped at 200 products, while the counter POS, advanced inventory and several outlets come only with Platinum.
WooCommerce on WordPress
WooCommerce is free, and a free plugin, Nepal Payments for WooCommerce, adds eSewa, Khalti, ConnectIPS and cards through NIC Asia. It is the most flexible route on this list. The catch is that you, or someone you pay, now looks after hosting, updates, security and backups. A developer-built site in Nepal usually starts somewhere between NPR 15,000 and 70,000 before any of that; this post breaks down the costs.
Daraz
Daraz brings buyers who are already there, which no website can do on day one. A commission comes off every sale, the customer is Daraz's rather than yours, and a salon or a cafe cannot list a haircut or a table. Many shops sensibly use both: Daraz for volume, their own shop for regulars and margin. What a marketplace takes, in full.
Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp
Free, and it is where your customers already are. But there is no stock count, no checkout and no record of who ordered what, and the shop lives in your chat history. It is a good place to start and a hard place to grow. Why WhatsApp is not a shop.
Side by side
| Monthly cost | Pays in rupees | eSewa, Khalti, Fonepay | Fee on each sale | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shopify Basic | About NPR 6,050 | No, dollar card | Through a third-party app | 2 percent, plus the provider |
| Pasal Pro | NPR 3,000 | Yes, Fonepay | Your own QR, checked by you | None from Pasal |
| Blanxer Basic | Yearly only, NPR 24,000 | Yes | Fonepay dynamic QR built in, eSewa and Khalti by integration | 3.9 percent on QR payments |
| WooCommerce | Hosting and upkeep | Depends on host | Free plugin | Provider only |
| Daraz | No plan fee | Yes | Daraz's own checkout | Commission |
| Instagram and WhatsApp | Free | Yes | You arrange it in chat | None |
When Shopify is still the right pick
If most of your customers are abroad and pay by card, for example a Patan handicraft workshop shipping to Europe, or if you already have a company in a country Shopify Payments covers, Shopify is a strong choice and the dollar price buys you a lot. If you need one specific app that only exists on Shopify, that settles it too.
For a shop whose customers are in Nepal, pay by QR and walk in as well as order online, the better question is which tool runs the whole shop, not only the website. See Pasal's current price, or open the demo and order from it before you decide.