Salla vs Zid vs Shopify: choosing a Saudi store platform

For most new stores selling inside Saudi Arabia, the choice is between Salla and Zid. Both are Saudi platforms with Arabic dashboards, free entry plans and paid plans in riyals, and they connect to local payment and shipping companies. Shopify makes sense when you sell across several countries or need its larger app ecosystem, but Shopify Payments is not offered in Saudi Arabia, so you pay for a third-party gateway and, on most plans, an extra Shopify fee on each sale.

Last checked: 6 November 2026

Prices and plans on the day we checked

Plans change often, so treat this table as a snapshot. It comes from each platform's own pricing page. None of these pages made clear whether the prices include 15% VAT, so ask before you pay.

Salla shows its paid plans as annual prices, with 16% off compared with paying monthly. Shopify prices are in dollars; at the fixed rate of SAR 3.75 to the dollar, Basic billed yearly is about SAR 71 a month.

The free plans are useful for building your catalogue and testing, but read what they leave out. Salla lists online payments and a custom domain among the things Plus adds over Basic. Zid's Starter plan lists only basic payment methods (bank transfer and cash on delivery) and does not include linking your own domain. In practice, a store that takes card payments under its own name starts on the first paid plan.

Team size matters too. Zid's comparison table shows 1 team member on Starter and Rise, 5 on Growth and 20 on Pro. Salla lists staff accounts as a Pro feature. If three people will process orders, that alone can decide the plan.

Payments: the difference that decides most Saudi stores

Saudi customers expect to pay with mada, Apple Pay and often a buy-now-pay-later option such as Tabby or Tamara. How each platform handles this is the biggest practical difference between them.

• Salla and Zid are built for the Saudi market and offer payment options inside the platform. Check which methods your plan includes and what the fee per transaction is, because that fee is usually larger than the subscription once you have steady sales.
• Shopify lists the countries where Shopify Payments works. The United Arab Emirates is on that list; Saudi Arabia is not. A Saudi store on Shopify therefore uses a third-party payment provider.
• Shopify's extra fee. When you use a third-party provider instead of Shopify Payments, Shopify charges its own transaction fee on top of the gateway's fee: 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow, 0.6% on Advanced and 0.2% on Plus, according to its pricing page.

On a store selling SAR 50,000 a month, a 2% fee is SAR 1,000 a month before the gateway takes its share. That is why a Saudi-only store on Shopify Basic often costs more than it first appears. A company selling in the UAE as well may still prefer Shopify, because Shopify Payments works there.

For the gateways themselves, mada, Apple Pay, Tabby and Tamara, see our guide to payment gateways in Saudi Arabia.

Arabic, themes, apps and in-store sales

Arabic. Salla and Zid are Arabic-first: the dashboard and the default themes start from Arabic and right-to-left layout. On Shopify, Arabic and right-to-left support depend on the theme you choose. Test the checkout in Arabic on a phone before you commit, because that is where layout bugs show up.

Themes. All three have theme stores. Salla's Pro plan lists customising the store design with CSS and JavaScript; check how far you can edit the theme code on the plan you intend to buy.

Apps. Shopify has the largest app ecosystem, and most of it is built for international stores. Salla has its own App Store and Zid has its App Market, which Zid says holds more than 400 apps. Each paid app adds a monthly fee, so total the apps you need before comparing plans.

In-store sales. If you also have a shop, both Saudi platforms offer a POS. Salla lists Salla Point as free on Plus, and an offer on Zid's pricing page gives its POS system free with a subscription. One stock figure for the shop and the website prevents selling the same item twice.

What no platform does for you

Whichever platform you choose, some obligations stay with you as the store owner:

• Registration. Online stores register on the Business Platform (business.sa), which replaced Maroof. You need a commercial registration or a valid freelance certificate, plus a commercial bank account.
• Disclosure. The E-Commerce Law requires the store to show its name, contact details and commercial registration (Article 6) and to give the customer the contract terms (Article 7). Penalties under Article 18 range from a warning to a fine of up to SAR 1m, suspension or blocking of the store.
• VAT and invoices. Salla's plans page lists VAT support with ZATCA integration among its features. Whatever the platform says, confirm that the invoices it issues fit your own VAT position, because the obligation is yours, not the platform's.

This is general information, not legal or tax advice.

Leaving later: exporting your data

The platform you choose today is not always the one you will use in three years. Before you commit, check what you can take with you:

• Products. Shopify lets you export products to a CSV file from the admin. Ask Salla and Zid to show you the same during your trial.
• Customers and orders. These matter more than products, because they hold your sales history. Check that you can export them in a format another system can import.
• Your domain. Use a domain you own and control, not a subdomain of the platform, so your links and search rankings move with you.
• Images and content. Keep your own copies of product photos and descriptions outside the platform.

If an export is incomplete, moving later means paying someone to rebuild data by hand. Five minutes with the export button on day one avoids that.

Which one fits, and when to go custom

A quick guide

• Selling only in Saudi Arabia, small catalogue, one or two people: start on Salla or Zid. Compare the first paid plans and their payment fees side by side.
• A shop as well as a website: look at the POS each platform offers, so stock is shared.
• Selling in Saudi Arabia and the UAE or beyond: Shopify deserves a look, but price in the third-party gateway and the extra Shopify fee for the Saudi side.
• Products or pricing that do not fit a template: consider a custom app or a custom store, below.

A custom app on Salla or Zid

Both Saudi platforms publish developer documentation. Salla offers Merchant APIs for orders, products, customers and shipments, and webhooks that notify your server when something changes. Zid offers APIs and private apps that are installed only on stores that have been given access. A custom app makes sense when the store itself works well but you need it to talk to something else: your warehouse stock, your accounting, a cashier system in your branches, or a WhatsApp flow for order updates. You keep the platform's checkout and payments and pay only for the missing piece.

A fully custom store

A custom store costs more at the start and less each month. It makes sense when your products need made-to-order options, different prices for wholesale and retail customers, bookings or subscriptions, or when the platform's fees and apps add up to more than hosting and support for your own code. You also own the code and the customer data. Our guide to Shopify or a custom online store was written for Egypt, but the trade-offs are the same in Saudi Arabia, and our online store budget for Saudi Arabia puts numbers on each line. The things that break in practice, payments, delivery and returns, are covered in building an online store: payments and delivery.

Where KF Tech Solutions fits

We build custom online stores and web apps, and the integrations that connect a store to inventory, POS and ERP systems. For a store on Salla or Zid, that means working through the platform's published API. We work with businesses in Egypt and the Gulf, and we build in Arabic and English from the first design. See our web development service and what we do for businesses in Saudi Arabia.

Common questions

Is Salla or Zid cheaper?

On the day we checked, both had a free entry plan. Zid's first paid plan, Rise, was SAR 99 a month; Salla Plus was SAR 990 a year on annual billing. The subscription is rarely the biggest cost, though. Compare the payment fee per transaction and the paid apps you will need.

Can I use Shopify Payments in Saudi Arabia?

No. Saudi Arabia is not on Shopify's list of supported countries for Shopify Payments, so a Saudi store needs a third-party payment provider, and Shopify adds its own transaction fee on most plans.

Do I still need to register my store if I use Salla or Zid?

Yes. Online stores register on the Business Platform with a commercial registration or freelance certificate and a commercial bank account. The platform hosts your store; it does not register it for you.

Can I move from Salla or Zid to Shopify, or to a custom store, later?

Usually, yes, but how easy it is depends on what you can export. Test the export of products, customers and orders during your trial, and keep your store on a domain you own.

When does a custom app make more sense than switching platform?

When the platform works for selling but not for one specific job, such as syncing stock with your branches or sending orders to your accounting system. A custom app on the Salla or Zid API fixes that job without moving the whole store.

Tell us what you sell, where your customers are and which systems the store must connect to, and we will tell you whether a platform, a custom app or a custom store fits. Contact us or book a free call.

Sources

• Salla: plans and pricing
• Zid: pricing
• Shopify: pricing (Saudi Arabia)
• Shopify Help Center: Shopify Payments supported countries
• Shopify Help Center: exporting products
• Salla developer documentation
• Zid developer documentation
• Ministry of Commerce: online stores move from Maroof to the Business Platform
• E-Commerce Law, official translation
• SAMA: the riyal's peg to the US dollar