Kampe vs Shopify: which is better for selling in Uganda?

When someone asks me what Kampe is, the short version I give is a Uganda-first Shopify for small sellers. So the comparison people look for first is the obvious one. If Shopify is the biggest name in online stores, why not just use Shopify?

It's a fair question, and Shopify is the store builder I compare everything to. This page is my honest answer from the seat of a seller in Uganda, someone whose customers find them on WhatsApp and TikTok and pay with MTN or Airtel. I checked every Shopify number below on Shopify's own pages on 17 October 2026. Kampe's numbers come from our pricing page.

The short answer

Shopify is built for selling to anyone in the world, with card payments at the centre. Kampe is built for buyers in Uganda who pay with mobile money, or with cash when the boda arrives.

If most of your customers are here, I think Kampe gets you selling faster and costs less in your first months. If you sell abroad and depend on card payments, Shopify is the better tool, and I go into that properly further down.

What you pay each month

Shopify's pricing page showed Basic at $27 a month, or $19 a month if you pay for a year upfront. Grow was $72 a month, or $54 billed yearly. New stores get 3 days free, then $1 a month for 3 months. At the Bank of Uganda's rate of UGX 4,051.90 to the dollar on 16 October 2026, Basic works out to about UGX 109,000 a month, or about UGX 77,000 a month on the yearly plan.

The part most people miss is the payment fee. Shopify Payments, the option with no extra Shopify fee, works in 41 countries, and Uganda isn't one of them. So a Ugandan store uses a third-party provider, and Shopify charges its own fee on those sales: 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow and 0.6% on Advanced. The provider charges its fee on top. Flutterwave's Shopify app, for example, lists 1.4% to 3.8% per transaction.

Kampe starts differently. Launch is UGX 5,000 once, with no monthly fee until you reach UGX 1,000,000 in completed sales. We take 6% on mobile money sales, and that 6% already includes the mobile money provider's charge. Cash on delivery has no fee. After the first million you move to Pro at UGX 35,000 a month (UGX 28,000 a month billed yearly) with a 5% fee, or Max at UGX 70,000 a month (UGX 56,000 billed yearly) with 4%.

Here's how that plays out. Say you sell UGX 500,000 in a month, all paid by mobile money. On Kampe Launch you pay 6%, which is UGX 30,000, and that's the whole bill. On Shopify Basic, once the $1 months are over, you pay about UGX 109,000 for the plan, plus Shopify's 2% (UGX 10,000), plus your provider's fee.

I priced Launch this way on purpose. A seller who hasn't made their first sale shouldn't be paying us every month, so on Launch we only earn when you sell.

How your customers pay

On Shopify, mobile money comes through whichever provider you connect. Shopify's payment directory lists Flutterwave for Uganda, and Flutterwave's own docs cover MTN and Airtel mobile money in UGX. Pesapal also publishes a Shopify plugin that names MTN Uganda and Airtel. Each one is a separate account with its own sign-up and its own fees, so check exactly which payment options show at your checkout before you launch.

Cash on delivery works on Shopify as a manual payment method. Shopify doesn't charge its third-party fee on manual payments, but the order stays unpaid until you mark it paid yourself.

On Kampe, MTN and Airtel mobile money are part of checkout from day one. Your customer enters their number, approves the payment on their phone, and the order shows as paid in your dashboard. Cash on delivery sits right next to it, with no fee on any plan. I wrote about why getting paid is only half the job in this post on mobile money.

One honest gap: Kampe doesn't take card payments. If a big share of your buyers pay by Visa or Mastercard, that alone may decide this for you.

Delivery and pickup

Shopify's local delivery uses zones drawn by postal code or by a radius around your location, with up to 10 zones per location, and the customer's address has to be one Google can verify. Pickup in store is set per location. A radius around your shop works fine in Kampala. Postal codes are less useful here, because most Ugandan buyers describe where they are by area and landmark.

On Kampe you set up delivery zones the way you already talk about them, like "Central Kampala", each with its own delivery fee and delivery time. Customers pick their zone at checkout and see the fee before they pay. You can also add pickup locations: 1 on Launch, 2 on Pro and 5 on Max. Kampe doesn't run deliveries, so you still send your own rider or courier. I think delivery is where a lot of trust gets won, and I wrote about it in delivery is where trust gets won or lost.

Setup and running it from your phone

Shopify can do almost anything once you add the right theme and apps, and I think that flexibility is a big reason it's so popular. Some of those apps charge their own monthly fee, so the real cost depends on what you add.

Kampe is built for a seller doing everything from a phone. Your store goes live on its own link at kampestore.com, and you can connect your own domain on Pro (1 domain) or Max (up to 3). You get templates you edit visually, discount codes, automatic emails that follow up on abandoned checkouts, and payouts from your Kampe balance to MTN or Airtel mobile money, from UGX 10,000, with a UGX 1,500 charge on each withdrawal. In Uganda people buy from their phones first, which I wrote about in Uganda's ecommerce is still phone-first.

Kampe vs Shopify side by side

When Shopify is the better choice

If you sell to buyers in the UK, the US or Europe who expect to pay by card in their own currency, I'd point you to Shopify. Its whole system is built around that, and Kampe's checkout is built around Uganda.

Shopify also wins when you need a particular integration from its App Store that Kampe doesn't have, or when you run a physical shop and want one system for the counter and the website. Shopify sells its own point of sale for that. Kampe doesn't have one.

And if you already have a payment provider account set up and a developer you trust, Shopify's flexibility is worth a lot. I'd rather you pick the right tool than sign up with us and leave after three months.

What I'd do

If your customers are in Uganda and they pay with mobile money or cash, start on Kampe Launch for UGX 5,000, share your store link wherever you already sell, and move to Pro once you pass UGX 1,000,000 in sales. If you outgrow that and start selling abroad, you'll know, and Shopify will still be there. All our plans are on the pricing page.

Sources

• Shopify pricing, checked 17 October 2026 (prices shown in USD)
• Shopify Payments supported countries, checked 17 October 2026
• Shopify payment providers directory, checked 17 October 2026
• Shopify manual payment methods, checked 17 October 2026
• Shopify local delivery and pickup in store, checked 17 October 2026
• Shopify POS, checked 17 October 2026
• Flutterwave app on the Shopify App Store and Flutterwave Uganda docs, checked 17 October 2026
• Pesapal official extensions, checked 17 October 2026
• Bank of Uganda official exchange rates, US dollar rate for 16 October 2026 (the latest published), checked 17 October 2026
• Kampe pricing, checked 17 October 2026