Daraz vs Shopify in Pakistan: What Each Really Costs Per Order, and a Rs Calculation to Decide Where to Sell

Daraz vs Shopify: the question behind it

Daraz vs Shopify is the first big choice most Pakistani sellers face: list your products on Daraz and let the marketplace bring buyers, or run your own Shopify store and bring buyers yourself with Meta and TikTok ads. With 11.11 two weeks away, the question is sharper than usual. In October Daraz held a Seller Summit in Karachi with more than 1,000 sellers and its first Brands Summit in Lahore with representatives of 200 brands, both focused on 11.11, according to ProPakistani.

The honest answer is that neither is cheaper in general. Daraz takes a fixed bite of every order. Your own store has no commission but you pay for every buyer through ads, and you carry the returns yourself. Which one leaves more money depends on your category, your price and your ad cost per delivered order. This guide puts real fee numbers next to each other and shows a calculation you can repeat with your own figures.

What Daraz charges on each order

Daraz does not charge a listing fee, its Sell on Daraz page says. It earns from three deductions on each order, taken before your payout. The figures below come from Daraz University policy pages as reported by two seller guides in September and October 2026; Daraz sets commission down to sub-category level, so confirm your exact rate in Seller Center before pricing.

Two more costs are not in this table because no public figure exists for them: the shipping charge Daraz deducts from sellers, and sales tax on Daraz's own fees. Both appear on your Seller Center statement, so take them from there. Income tax withheld on sales applies on Daraz and on your own COD parcels through couriers alike, so it is left out of the comparison here; check your own rate with your accountant.

Daraz fees on a Rs 2,500 item, by category

Here is what commission, the 2.25% payment fee and the Rs 60 handling fee add up to on one item sold at Rs 2,500, using the 2026 commission rates reported for each category. Shipping and tax on fees come on top.

The spread is the main lesson. A phone seller gives Daraz under 8% of the price, while a clothing or jewellery seller gives close to a quarter before shipping. Categories where most Pakistani Shopify COD stores operate, such as fashion, beauty, home decor and accessories, sit at the expensive end of this table.

What your own Shopify store costs

Shopify's Pakistan pricing page lists the Basic plan at US$25 a month billed monthly, or US$19 a month billed yearly, with a trial of 3 days free and then US$1 a month for 3 months. At the interbank rate of about Rs 276.80 per dollar on 27 October 2026, US$25 is about Rs 6,920 a month. Your bank or card may add its own charges on a dollar payment.

Shopify does not charge transaction fees on manual payment methods such as cash on delivery and bank transfer, according to its Help Center. So on a COD store the Shopify plan is a fixed monthly cost, not a per-order cut. At 100 delivered orders a month, Rs 6,920 is about Rs 69 per order. At 500 orders it is about Rs 14.

The real per-order costs of your own store are elsewhere:

• Ads. Every new buyer usually comes from a paid ad, and the number that matters is ad spend divided by delivered orders, not by orders placed.
• Returns. When a COD parcel comes back you pay forward and return shipping and get nothing. On Daraz the buyer's trust in the marketplace usually does part of this work for you.
• Apps and your time: order form, pixels, courier booking, confirmation calls or WhatsApp messages.

Example: profit per delivered order, Daraz vs your own store

Example (illustrative numbers, not real store or Daraz statement data). A seller sells a women's kurta at Rs 2,500. Product and packing cost is Rs 1,000. Shipping is Rs 250 per parcel on both channels, and each return costs Rs 450 (forward plus return shipping). On Daraz the seller spends Rs 150 per delivered order on sponsored listings for visibility and 10% of parcels come back. On the own Shopify store, Meta ads cost Rs 700 per delivered order, 20% of parcels come back, and the store does 100 orders a month on the monthly Basic plan.

Return cost per delivered order is the return rate divided by the delivery rate, times Rs 450. On Daraz that is 10/90 x 450 = Rs 50. On the own store it is 20/80 x 450 = about Rs 113.

In this example Daraz wins on a first sale by about Rs 100, but a repeat buyer on your own store is worth more than double a Daraz sale. The own store matches Daraz when ad cost per delivered order falls to about Rs 597 (Rs 2,500 minus 1,000, 250, 113, 69 and the Daraz profit of 471). Above that, Daraz pays more for this product; below it, your own store does.

Change one input and the answer changes. For a phone at 3% commission, Daraz fees on Rs 2,500 drop to Rs 191, and Daraz profit rises to Rs 859, and an own store would need ads under about Rs 209 per delivered order to match, which few paid campaigns reach. For jewellery at 20%, the own store wins sooner.

Beyond fees: what each channel gives you

How to decide: a step-by-step method

1. List your top 5 products with price and product cost.
2. Find each product's exact commission in Seller Center, then add 2.25% of price and the handling fee for its price band. Add shipping and tax on fees from a recent Daraz statement if you already sell there.
3. From the last 30 days of your own store, work out ad spend divided by delivered orders, not orders placed, and your return rate per product.
4. Fill the example table above for each product. Work out the break-even ad cost: price minus product cost, shipping, return cost, Shopify share and the Daraz profit.
5. Products where your real ad cost is well above the break-even belong on Daraz. Products where it is well below belong on your own store. Products near the line can sit on both.
6. Count repeat buyers separately. If a good share of your own-store orders come from past buyers, your average own-store ad cost is lower than the new-buyer figure, so recheck the comparison with the blended number.
7. Repeat this every month and after any Daraz fee change or a big jump in ad costs, for example around 11.11 when many sellers bid for the same buyers.

Step 3 is the one most sellers skip, because the courier delivery data and ad data sit in different places. RabbitROI shows net profit per ad campaign after returns, ad spend, product cost and shipping, and return rates by product, which gives you the own-store side of this comparison directly.

Running both before 11.11

Many sellers end up using both: Daraz for buyers who search the marketplace and would never have seen their ad, and their own store for ad traffic and repeat buyers. If you do this, keep stock counts in one place so a Daraz sale and a Shopify order do not both promise the last piece, and put Daraz returns and own-store returns in separate columns, because the two return rates are not comparable. Before 11.11, recheck the break-even for the products you plan to discount: a 20% discount lowers the price, so the percentage-based Daraz fees fall too, but your own store's ad cost per order usually rises in sale week.

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