Medusa.js Ecommerce Development
Open-source commerce. Zero fees. Your code.
at any GMV, forever
Shopify charges you a percentage of every sale. That fee scales with you. At $1 million in annual revenue, you're handing Shopify $31,000–$55,000 per year in processing fees alone. Medusa.js is an open-source headless commerce engine. You host it. You own the code.
The Architecture
Headless commerce engine
Medusa is a Node.js and TypeScript commerce backend. "Headless" means the engine — products, orders, inventory, payments, fulfillment — is completely separated from the frontend. You build the storefront yourself.
MIT licence — genuinely yours
Open source under the MIT licence. The code is yours to read, modify, deploy, and walk away with. No vendor can change its pricing and force you to accept it or rebuild. You own the engine, not a subscription to it.
Production-ready at scale
30,970+ GitHub stars and active production use across hundreds of stores. Not experimental. Also not something you set up over a weekend — production builds start at $50,000 and require sustained TypeScript expertise to maintain.
API-first, every channel
Your storefront, mobile app, wholesale portal, and POS are all clients of the Medusa API. Omnichannel is the default architecture — not a plugin you add later when you've outgrown a single channel.
The Real Cost of Shopify
What you hand Shopify every year.
Medusa builds start at $50,000. The crossover is roughly $400,000–$500,000 annual GMV depending on your Shopify plan — earlier if you're also paying for apps Medusa handles natively.
Right for
- Custom B2B commerce Tiered pricing by customer segment, purchase approval workflows, quote-to-order pipelines, credit terms, net payment logic. Medusa handles this natively. WooCommerce approximates it.
- Multi-vendor marketplaces Multiple sellers, split payouts, per-vendor inventory and fulfillment. Medusa handles marketplace logic as a first-class use case — Shopify and WooCommerce don't.
- Non-standard subscription logic Usage-based billing, metered pricing, complex trial structures. Custom subscription logic needs a commerce engine you can code against, not a plugin approximation.
- High-GMV Shopify exits Above $400K–$500K annual GMV, the transaction fee savings begin to offset Medusa's build cost within 12–24 months. Above $1M GMV, it's not a question of if — it's when.
- Omnichannel builds Web storefront, mobile app, physical POS, and wholesale portal feeding the same catalog, inventory, and order management. API-first from the start.
Not for
- Standard DTC stores under $500K GMV Shopify's app ecosystem and managed infrastructure are genuine advantages at this scale. Evaluate Medusa at the crossover — not before.
- Businesses without dedicated developers Medusa requires TypeScript developers not during the build — but after it, indefinitely. Platform updates, integration changes, new features. The total cost of ownership changes significantly without them.
- Six-week timelines A production Medusa build takes 3–6 months. Backend, frontend, integrations, migration, testing, staging. If the timeline matters, say so at the start.
- Content-first commerce Medusa has no CMS layer. Page content requires a separate headless CMS — additional monthly cost and setup. If content-driven commerce is your model, WooCommerce gives you WordPress's full CMS alongside the commerce engine.
How We Build
Architecture & scoping
We map your commerce model before writing code. Payment flows, fulfillment logic, integration requirements, content strategy — all specified at this stage. Surprises in architecture cost more than surprises in code.
Medusa backend
Core installation, module setup, database schema, API design. Custom business logic — pricing rules, discount structures, order workflows — built at this layer.
Frontend development
We build your storefront in Next.js (our default) or another framework based on requirements. Full design implementation, performance optimisation, Medusa API integration. Lighthouse 90+ is a build standard.
Integrations
Payment gateways (Stripe, PayPal, Adyen, Klarna), shipping carriers, fulfillment platforms, ERP connections. Each integration tested against your real transaction volumes, not demo data.
Platform migration
Moving from Shopify or WooCommerce: product catalog, customer data, order history, URL redirect mapping to protect existing SEO. Migration testing runs in parallel with staging.
Handoff
Complete source code, deployment documentation, credentials, architecture notes. Nothing locked to our infrastructure or services after launch. You own it.
Integration Ecosystem
Payments
Stripe, PayPal, Adyen, Klarna — natively supported. Any payment processor with a REST API can be integrated as a custom Medusa module. Multi-currency and multi-region checkout handled at the backend layer, not hacked onto the frontend.
Fulfillment & shipping
Shippo, EasyPost, ShipStation, direct carrier APIs (UPS, FedEx, DHL). 3PL integrations (ShipBob, Deliverr) scoped per project. Split shipments, warehouse routing, and dropship logic built at the backend — not approximated in a frontend component.
ERP & inventory
NetSuite, SAP Business One, Brightpearl, and custom ERP connections via REST or webhook. Inventory sync, order writeback, and customer data flow scoped at the architecture stage — not retrofitted after launch when the cost is five times higher.
Content management
Sanity (our default) or Contentful for page content, collection descriptions, SEO copy, and editorial. The storefront fetches commerce data from Medusa and content data from the CMS — separate concerns, correctly separated at the architecture level from the start.
Customer authentication
Medusa's built-in customer auth for B2C. For B2B with SSO requirements — Auth0, Okta, or SAML integration scoped per project. Multi-account hierarchies (parent company / subsidiary buyer accounts) handled natively in Medusa's customer model.
The Honest Comparison
Medusa.js vs our WooCommerce builds
| Medusa.js | Custom WooCommerce | |
|---|---|---|
| Build cost | $50,000–$150,000+ | $15,000–$30,000 |
| Timeline | 3–6 months | 6–10 weeks |
| Transaction fees | Zero | Zero |
| Monthly platform costs | $29–$299/mo or self-hosted | $0–$50/mo hosting |
| CMS layer | No — headless CMS required | Full WordPress CMS included |
| Non-developer content editing | No — requires CMS setup | Yes — Gutenberg |
| B2B custom logic | First-class, native | Possible with extensions |
| Fee crossover vs Shopify | ~$400K–$500K GMV | ~$150K–$200K GMV |
| Developer talent pool | TypeScript specialists | Large global PHP pool |
For most growing stores, WooCommerce is the right answer. For stores with complex B2B logic, marketplace models, high GMV with Shopify fee pressure, or omnichannel requirements — Medusa earns the investment. We'll tell you which applies before we quote anything.
The Migration
Shopify → Medusa: the honest timeline.
A Shopify to Medusa migration — including frontend rebuild, data migration, and integration work — takes 5–8 months and costs $50,000–$150,000 minimum with a competent agency. Headless migration projects from large agencies have been quoted as high as $600,000. These numbers are real.
If you're on Shopify and primarily driven by transaction fees, run the math before committing to a headless build. A Shopify to WooCommerce migration typically costs $10,000–$30,000 and takes 8–12 weeks. If your Shopify fees are $2,000/month, WooCommerce pays back in under a year. If your fees are $500/month, Medusa pays back in a very long time. We'll tell you which path makes sense for your GMV. That calculation is free.
- Product catalog — titles, descriptions, variants, images, metafields
- Customer accounts and full order history
- Collections, tags, and product relationships
- URL structure with 301 redirect mapping — your SEO equity stays intact
- Storefront — new Next.js frontend built to your design
- All app functionality replaced with Medusa modules or custom code
- Checkout, payment flows, and tax configuration
- Transactional email and notification workflows
In Practice
A furniture retailer running Shopify Advanced at $180,000 monthly GMV was paying $3,900/month — $46,800/year — in platform fees before any development. Their B2B pricing rules were patchworked across two apps that didn't communicate cleanly. We quoted the Medusa build at $72,000.
Cash-positive on the switch inside fourteen months.
A wholesale distributor with 800 accounts needed customer-specific pricing, minimum order enforcement by SKU, and corporate buyer approval workflows. Their WooCommerce custom code was becoming fragile. We rebuilt the backend in Medusa while retaining their existing Next.js storefront.
All 800 accounts handled natively. Zero maintenance debt.
A software company running usage-based billing had outgrown Stripe's no-code billing tools. They needed metered pricing across three independent variables — API calls, user seats, and storage — feeding a single monthly invoice. WooCommerce couldn't model it. Shopify's subscription apps couldn't either. We built a Medusa backend with custom Stripe Billing integration: real-time meter ingestion from their product API, automated invoicing, dunning workflows, and a customer portal in Next.js.
Billing reconciliation: from 15 hours manual per month to zero.
Who Does The Work
Senior-only.
No handoffs.
A Medusa.js build at this scale — custom payment logic, multi-region support, B2B workflows, ERP connections — requires a developer who has done it before. Not someone learning on your project.
The developer who scopes your architecture builds it. Nothing gets handed to juniors after the kickoff. We take fewer projects than most agencies. The complexity Medusa requires is the reason.
FAQ
Does Medusa.js handle SEO well?
Yes, when built correctly. Because Medusa is headless, SEO is entirely a frontend concern. A properly built Next.js storefront serves fully rendered HTML to Googlebot — no client-side rendering issues, fast LCP, clean URL structures. We build to Lighthouse 90+ as a floor.
What payment gateways does Medusa support?
Natively: Stripe, PayPal, Klarna, Adyen. Custom integrations can be built for any payment processor with an API. Adding gateways is a development task rather than a plugin install — more flexibility, more dev time.
Can Medusa handle subscriptions?
Yes, with custom Stripe integration. Native subscription management is not included out of the box — it's a development task. This is one of the legitimate gaps compared to WooCommerce Subscriptions. We scope subscription requirements in detail before committing to a Medusa build.
How does content management work?
Medusa manages products, orders, customers, and fulfillment. For page content you need a headless CMS. We typically integrate Sanity or Contentful — both have editorial interfaces your marketing team can use without developer involvement. That integration adds cost and is factored into project scoping.
What does ongoing maintenance cost?
Expect 5–20 hours per month depending on store complexity — platform updates, dependency management, Stripe API changes, new feature development. We offer retained maintenance for projects we've built.
What if we outgrow your Medusa build?
You own the code. Take it to any developer, any agency, or build an in-house team around it. Nothing in our builds is proprietary. The architecture documentation describes every integration point and decision made during the build.
Evaluating a platform move?
Tell us what you're running, what it's costing you, and what it can't do. We'll give you a straight comparison — Medusa, WooCommerce, or stay where you are. That calculation is free.