I Put Shopify and GoDaddy to the Test: My Recommendations for Your Store in 2026

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Best for growth	Easiest to use
Best For Growing ecommerce businesses	Best For Setting up a simple store fast
Starting Price $29 $1/mo for 3 months	Starting Price $23.99
Transaction Fees 2.9% + $0.30	Transaction Fees 2.7% + $0.30
Free plan or free trial 3-day free trial	Free plan or free trial Free plan
Number of templates 1,000+	Number of templates 200+
Free custom domain	Free custom domain
AI website builder	AI website builder
Payment options 100+ including: Shopify Payments, Paypal, Klarna	Payment options GoDaddy Payments, PayPal, Stripe, Square
Number of products on cheapest plan Unlimited	Number of products on cheapest plan Unlimited
Standout features Sell unlimited products App market with 8,000+ apps Customizable checkout Multichannel selling	Standout features Social media calendar Built-in booking tools Quick onboarding Mobile app
Areas to improve Free trial length Restrictive editor Advanced AI tools	Areas to improve Customization Template options AI features
Try Shopify	Try GoDaddy
See our Shopify review	See our GoDaddy review

Who Do We Recommend Each Builder For?

Shopify is the best value for money. Though its three main pricing plans are more expensive than GoDaddy’s one ecommerce plan, you’ll receive the best built-in sales features for the higher price point, like significant shipping discounts and inventory management tools fit for larger online stores.

For your reference, I’ve outlined these key pricing differences in the table below:

However, if you need an ecommerce platform that’s simpler than Shopify’s, GoDaddy’s ecommerce plan for $20.99 per month (billed annually) is still a valid option. It’s about $8 less than Shopify’s cheapest plan and comes with an easy-to-use setup process and editor to help you quickly build an online store.

💰 For in-depth pricing information, refer to the following pricing guides: Wix pricing and GoDaddy pricing

The Winner

Shopify's ecommerce plans are better value than GoDaddy's

While Shopify’s pricing plans are more expensive than GoDaddy’s, they come with the best sales features on the market, such as money-saving shipping discounts and seamless in-person selling integrations. So, even though you’re paying more, you’ll get the best sales tools in return.

GoDaddy is the easier ecommerce builder to set up your online store with. Unlike Shopify, which doesn’t have an in-depth tutorial when you begin, GoDaddy will more closely guide you through the process – useful if you’re completely new to ecommerce website builders. Its set up process is also speedy, since I could create a fully functional website in under a minute.

Here are a few user-friendly features I noticed when testing GoDaddy’s set up process:

• Quick onboarding: I wasn’t asked too many onboarding questions, mainly my business name, my website category, and the features I wanted (e.g. an online store, bookings, etc).
• AI website builder: If I didn’t want to choose an ecommerce template, I could AI generate a tailormade design instead. All I needed to do was fill in a simple prompt about my business for GoDaddy to create my website.
• Mini editor tutorial: When I entered the editor, a tutorial appeared on screen that I could follow that familiarized me with the builder’s key features.
• Website checklist: GoDaddy’s built-in website checklist helped me tick off key tasks as I went along, like setting up-to-date contact information and adding links to my social media accounts

In comparison, I found Shopify slightly trickier to get started with. Though its interface is built with beginners in mind, it took me a little bit longer to find my way around. For example, I found Shopify’s dashboard fairly gray with little signposting, so it’s easy to get lost in its navigation menu when you need to find a specific feature.

However, like GoDaddy, Shopify does has a website setup checklist you can follow after onboarding. I found it particularly helpful, since its suggestions covered essential steps, such as setting up payment methods, organizing shipping rates, and placing test orders.

If you get stuck when creating your store, you can consult Shopify’s AI assistant for help. Named Shopify Sidekick, this feature was officially rolled out in December 2024, enabling you to get speedy answers to any burning setup questions you may have.

The Winner

It's easier to set up with GoDaddy

GoDaddy’s editor is user-friendly, making it ideal for website builder newbies or business owners that need an online store fast. Its AI website builder, built-in tutorials, and website checklist will help you create a professional website with little fuss.

According to our research, Shopify’s sales features are miles above GoDaddy’s since it has the best range of tools on the market. From your dashboard, you’ll find valuable tools helping you cover all aspects of your store, like its inventory, payments, shipping, and promotion.

What Sales Tools Does Shopify Offer for Growing Stores?

Below, I’ve listed Shopify’s standout features your business may find useful:

• Selling unlimited products – No product limit makes Shopify fitting for large inventories. GoDaddy has recently removed its product cap to match this.
• Shopify Shipping – I could use Shopify Shipping to manage my orders, access real-time shipping rates, and print shipping labels in bulk.
• Shopify Payments – This is Shopify’s native payment gateway that I could easily set up from my dashboard. The free tool helps you manage your store’s transactions in one place and removes transaction fees (though you’ll still need to pay a payment processing fee).
• Over 100 payment options – Alongside Shopify Payments, I could also connect over 100 other payment methods to my store, such as a PayPal express checkout
• Customized checkout page – Want to tailor your customer’s checkout experience? Shopify let me add a logo to the checkout page, or change the form fields shoppers must fill in to complete their order.
• Shopify POS – Shopify has a native POS system you can use to process in-person sales. If you’re paying monthly, the cheapest cost is only $5 per month on its Starter plan.

What Are GoDaddy’s Key Sales Features?

While GoDaddy’s sales tools aren’t as advanced Shopify’s, the builder now allows you to sell unlimited products, which is a huge improvement on its previous 5,000 product cap. You’ll receive essential sales features, such as responsive product listing pages, alongside other features like:

• GoDaddy POS – GoDaddy can accommodate in-person sales too, though it’s more expensive than Shopify’s offering. Monthly costs begin from $28.99 per month.
• Multiple payment methods – I could set up popular payment options on my GoDaddy store, such as Visa, MasterCard, Klarna, and PayPal (but this range wasn’t as vast as Shopify’s).
• Multiple shipping options – I could create shipping zones depending on where items were being sent to, and ship to customers via USPS or UPS.
• Abandoned cart recovery – You can send an automated email to shoppers if they’ve left an item in their cart.

The Winner

Shopify has the best sales features on the market

Unlike GoDaddy, Shopify is a dedicated ecommerce platform, which is reflected in the quality of its sales tools. You’ll have access to the best ecommerce features on the market, from a customizable checkout to its own built-in payment gateway.

If you want to promote your online store, Shopify’s built-in website features will help you get your business seen by more potential customers. You can create ecommerce blogs, set up email marketing campaigns, integrate your website with different social media channels, and edit your website’s SEO for better product visibility on search engines.

GoDaddy’s promotional tools aren’t as advanced, but there are some useful features to take note of. For example, I enjoyed using its AI-powered social post creator and editorial calendar. With these tools, I could quickly generate posts for social media accounts like Facebook and Instagram, or access unique content ideas for different days of the month.

To help you decide between the two, these are the key similarities and differences between Shopify and GoDaddy’s promotional features:

• SEO: Shopify’s built-in SEO is more advanced than GoDaddy’s. With GoDaddy, you can’t add canonical tags and schema markup, or get multilingual SEO support. However, GoDaddy does offer SEO website suggestions, helping you add keywords to your pages.
• Blogging: If you want to add a blog to your online store, Shopify is the better option. You can access blog-specific analytics and create author profiles.
• Email marketing: You can create professional email campaigns from your Shopify or GoDaddy dashboard. This includes customization options and setting up automations.
• Social media: Both platforms let you share your website across different social media channels, like Instagram, TikTok, and X. They also let you advertise with Facebook or Instagram directly from your account.

The Winner

Shopify has better promotional tools than GoDaddy

With advanced SEO features, more blogging options, and great social integrations, Shopify can help you boost your store’s online presence and acquire new customers.

Shopify offers more modern and responsive store designs than GoDaddy, featuring over 1,000 themes compared to over 200 on GoDaddy. Shopify’s editor also offers a wider range of content blocks to customize templates with, such as charts, maps, and additional tabs.

How Many Store Templates Can I Choose From?

Only 22 of GoDaddy’s 200+ themes are made for online stores, whereas Shopify provides more than 1,000 ecommerce templates. However, all of GoDaddy’s themes are included with your plan, whereas Shopify only offers 24 free templates, with the paid themes charging a one-off fee of between $100-$500.

Can I Create My Store With AI?

Shopify and GoDaddy enable you to create your website design with AI in under 30 seconds, but results do vary. GoDaddy’s AI website builder impressed me the least. When I used GoDaddy’s AI to generate multiple storefronts, I found the designs quite outdated and there was little variation between each of them. 

This year, Shopify released a new AI feature enabling businesses to generate a unique storefront from a simple AI prompt. I entered some information about my business and products and it created tailor-made themes to choose from. Overall, I found Shopify’s AI designs more modern than GoDaddy’s, with contemporary text, imagery, and color palettes.

The Winner

Shopify's store designs are modern and responsive

Shopify’s responsive template selection and AI theme builder give you plenty of choice when designing your online store.

In our research, we found that Shopify has the most comprehensive help and support options. This is partly down to its Shopify Help Center, offering detailed guides on important topics (like payments, products, and security) as well as additional video tutorials, webinars, and its community forums.

In our testing, GoDaddy’s resources were less comprehensive than Shopify’s, specifically lacking guides on advanced topics like writing alt text or mobile-specific UX editing.

However, both ecommerce builders come with key help and support features, which include:

• Live chats: Both Shopify and GoDaddy have a 24/7 live chat that you can access from their respective websites. Out of the two, I found Shopify’s live chat most convenient, since it responded to my questions in under 30 seconds.
• Phone chat: You can use GoDaddy’s support phone lines on all its plans. However, with Shopify, only Shopify Plus customers have phone support access.
• Social media channels: Shopify is active on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, X, TikTok, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. Meanwhile, you can contact GoDaddy via Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, X and TikTok.

The Winner

Shopify has the best help and support options

With Shopify, it’s easy to find quick answers to your questions. Its live chat response times are speedy and it has a vast Help Center with resources to help you get set up.

The information in this Shopify vs GoDaddy comparison was informed by our ecommerce website builder research. Updated for 2025, our in-house research consisted of over 300 hours of investigation. During that process, our team identified seven key areas that were most important to online store owners, which I’ve listed below:

1. Sales features (30%) – Key sales tools like inventory management and payment methods
2. Website functionality (15%) – Website features like built-in SEO, email marketing or blogging
3. Design features (15%) – The quality of a builder’s templates or AI generated designs
4. Help and support (15%) – If there are reliable contact options and resource libraries
5. User experience (10%) – How easy it is to complete tasks on the platform
6. Pricing (10%) – If an ecommerce builder is good value for money
7. Reputation (5%) – How customers perceive a platform online

So, when assessing Shopify and GoDaddy, I took these seven key areas into account. For example, closely comparing each platform’s sales features.

For this comparison, I also referred to my firsthand experiences testing each ecommerce builder. Because I’ve used both platforms myself, I can make clear recommendations to you based on my personal findings.

Out of the two ecommerce builders, Shopify is the clear winner – especially if scaling your store is your key goal. I recommend it if you need access to sales tools that can support your store’s continued growth, like the ability to sell unlimited products, increase brand awareness via multichannel integrations, and streamline your sales through its optimized checkout.

GoDaddy, however, is more suitable for building simple store quickly, allowing users to create a fully functional website in under a minute. Though its sales features are limited in comparison to Shopify’s, you have all the essentials, such as 22 ecommerce templates, easy product upload, and an integrated marketing tool allowing you to create professional ecommerce content for your social platforms.

For quick and easy guidance on the right ecommerce builder for your needs, take our quiz below: