For Salla vs Zid vs Shopify, where your customers are settles it. If you sell mainly inside Saudi Arabia, start with Salla or Zid: riyal plans, mada and Apple Pay through the platform, and an Arabic-first dashboard. Choose Shopify for a larger app ecosystem or several markets, though Shopify Payments is not offered in Saudi Arabia as of October 2026.
We checked every platform figure below on the platform's own pages on 21 October 2026. Platforms change prices and plan names often, so confirm them before you sign up.
Salla and Zid charge the same riyal prices for their paid plans on annual billing and both have free plans; Shopify bills in US dollars and has none. The bigger difference is payments: Zid publishes its rates, Salla does not on its plans page, and Shopify needs a third-party provider in Saudi Arabia.
| Feature | Salla | Zid | Shopify |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free plan | Salla Basic, free | Starter, free | No free plan; a short trial |
| Paid plans | Plus: SAR 990 a year. Pro: SAR 2,990 a year. Special: on request | Rise: SAR 990 a year or SAR 99 a month. Growth: SAR 2,990 a year or SAR 299 a month. Pro: on request | Basic: US$19 a month billed yearly (US$27 monthly). Grow: US$54 (US$72). Advanced: US$299 (US$399). Plus: from US$2,300 a month |
| Online card payments | Listed as a Plus feature | From Rise ("advanced payment methods"); Starter offers bank transfer and cash on delivery | Through a third-party provider, because Shopify Payments is not offered in Saudi Arabia |
| Payment fees | Not published on the plans page | Zid Pay on Growth: mada 1% + SAR 1, Visa/Mastercard 2.3% + SAR 1, excluding VAT | Provider's fees, plus Shopify's 2% (Basic), 1% (Grow) or 0.6% (Advanced) |
| mada and Apple Pay | Apple Pay activation guide in Salla's help centre; card rates not published | Both listed with their fees in Zid Pay | Depends on the payment provider you connect |
| Tabby and Tamara | Activation guides for both | Both listed in Zid Pay instalments | Official apps from Tabby and Tamara on the Shopify App Store |
| Arabic | Arabic first; free languages feature on supporting themes | Arabic first; English can be enabled as a second language | Admin available in Arabic; storefront translation on every plan |
| Apps | 550+ in the Salla app store | 400+ apps | Thousands of apps |
Sources: Salla's plans page, homepage and payment help centre; Zid's pricing and Zid Pay pages; Shopify's Saudi pricing page and Shopify Payments countries. All accessed 21 October 2026.
Plan fees are the smallest part of the bill for most stores. On annual billing, the first paid tier of Salla or Zid costs SAR 990 a year and the second SAR 2,990, while Shopify Basic costs US$228.
Salla. Salla Basic is free, with unlimited products, orders and customers. Salla Plus costs SAR 990 a year and Salla Pro SAR 2,990 a year on annual billing, which Salla shows as a 16% saving on paying monthly. Plus adds online payments, a custom domain, and local and international shipping. Pro adds staff accounts, CSS and JavaScript customisation of the store design, and links to accounting services. Salla Special is a custom plan for large merchants, with what Salla calls flexible payment fees.
Zid. Zid's Starter plan is free, with bank transfer and cash on delivery as its payment methods and one team member. Rise costs SAR 99 a month, or SAR 990 a year with the same 16% annual discount Salla shows, and adds a custom domain and advanced payment methods. Growth costs SAR 299 a month or SAR 2,990 a year, and adds live chat support and five team members. Pro is priced on request and allows twenty.
Shopify. Shopify bills in US dollars. Basic is US$19 a month on yearly billing or US$27 paid monthly, Grow is US$54 or US$72, and Advanced is US$299 or US$399. Plus starts from US$2,300 a month. There is no free plan, only a short trial and, on most plans, a discounted first few months.
Payment fees grow with every order, so model them against your expected order count and average basket. To put platform, apps and build into one number, start from an online store budget by platform.
Zid is the only one of the three that publishes its Saudi card rates per plan. On Salla you ask for the rates, and on Shopify you pay a third-party provider plus Shopify's own fee.
Zid Pay. On the Growth plan, mada costs 1% + SAR 1 per transaction, Visa and Mastercard 2.3% + SAR 1, and American Express 3.3% + SAR 1; Apple Pay is charged at the rate of the card used. All of these exclude VAT. On the entry plan, Visa and Mastercard cost 2.4% + SAR 1 and American Express 3.4% + SAR 1. On Pro, the rates are 1% for mada, 2.2% for Visa and Mastercard and 3.2% for American Express, each plus SAR 0.75. Zid caps the mada fee at SAR 200 excluding VAT, charges nothing extra for refunds, and pays out every two to three days for SAR 3 per deposit, with a SAR 100 minimum. Its pricing FAQ adds that paid plans carry no fee on sales.
Salla. Online payments are a Plus feature. Salla's help centre has activation guides for Apple Pay, STC Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, Tabby, Tamara, MISPay, Emkan and Madfu. The plans page does not publish transaction rates, so get them in writing and compare them line by line with Zid Pay. Our guide to setting up payments and shipping in Salla covers the activation order.
Shopify. Saudi payments need the most planning here. Without Shopify Payments, you pick a provider that works with Shopify and supports mada and Apple Pay, then pay that provider's fees plus Shopify's third-party fee of 2%, 1% or 0.6% depending on your plan. Test mada inside Shopify checkout before you commit, because Saudi shoppers expect to see it.
Yes, on all three, once the pay-later provider approves your store. Salla has an activation guide for each. Zid Pay lists Tamara, Tabby, MISPay, Emkan and Madfu instalments and says Zid adds no charge of its own. On Shopify, Tabby publishes the Tabby Pay Later app and Tamara publishes Tamara Split Payments; both are free to install, and Tamara's Saudi Shopify page explains partner sign-up.
The provider sets its own merchant fee, separate from the platform. Before you add one, read our notes on evaluating a BNPL provider.
Salla and Zid handle Arabic best out of the box, because Arabic is their home language in the dashboard and help centre. Shopify can run a good Arabic store, but the theme decides how well it reads.
Salla's languages feature is free on themes that support it (its help centre names the Numuw and Raed themes), and instant translation is charged separately. Zid lets you enable English as a second store language, and its help centre notes that enabling it translates nothing: you enter product data and pages again in English.
Shopify's admin is available in Arabic, and Shopify includes storefront translation on every plan. Test right-to-left menus, product filters, checkout and email notifications before launch. On all three, decide early who writes and checks the second language.
The clearest difference between Salla and Zid is payment transparency. Their annual plan prices match, SAR 990 and SAR 2,990, but Zid publishes Zid Pay rates for each plan and Salla keeps its rates off the plans page.
- Billing. Both show a 16% saving for paying yearly. Zid's site also shows monthly prices of SAR 99 and SAR 299, useful if you want to test a paid plan before committing for a year.
- Payment fees. You can model Zid's per-order costs before you sign up. With Salla, ask for the rates first.
- Support and team. On Zid, live chat support starts at Growth, which also allows five team members. On Salla, staff accounts come with Pro.
- Apps and themes. Salla says its app store has more than 550 apps and supports custom themes built with Salla Twilight. Zid advertises more than 400 apps and its own theme library.
- Customisation. CSS and JavaScript changes to the design are a Salla Pro feature. Check the plan before you budget for custom theme work on either platform.
Shopify's ecosystem of thousands of apps and themes is the largest of the three, which helps when you need a niche feature, though many apps bill monthly in US dollars. Custom work depends on the plan everywhere. On Salla, design code changes need Pro. On Shopify, custom apps get limited data access on Basic and full data access from Grow upwards.
Messaging apps are a common add-on on every platform. If you plan to send order updates on WhatsApp, read the WhatsApp template and opt-in rules before you install one, because Meta sets those rules for every platform.
Pick the platform that matches where you sell and how you want to pay for payments. Then walk one typical order through checkout, stock and delivery on your shortlist before you commit.
- Choose Salla if you sell mainly in Saudi Arabia, want to start free and move to an annual plan, and value a large local app store. Our Salla theme and app setup plans start from SAR 4,000.
- Choose Zid if you want payment rates you can model before you sign up, with the option to pay monthly. TecnoStack does not offer a Zid store package.
- Choose Shopify if you sell across several markets, need specific global apps, or already run Shopify elsewhere, and you are ready to arrange a Saudi payment provider. Our Shopify store development plans start from SAR 5,000.
- Consider WooCommerce if you want the store inside WordPress with control over hosting. Our guide to running WooCommerce in Saudi Arabia weighs it against Salla.
Not sure which one fits your products? Ask us which platform fits and we will reply with a recommended platform, a scope and a starting price.
Platform prices, fees and features in this article were checked on each provider's official pages on 21 October 2026 and are shown as of October 2026. Providers change them, so check before you subscribe. TecnoStack prices are the starting prices on our service pages, in SAR and before VAT where it applies.
