I Put Shopify and GoDaddy to the Test in 2025: See Which Store Builder Wins

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If you’re comparing ecommerce website builders, you’ve likely come across Shopify and GoDaddy already – two popular choices in 2025. But which one is best? Based on our 2025 round of in-house testing and research, Shopify reigns supreme. Its powerful sales features, like invoice customization and streamlined CSV uploads, are difficult to beat.

Looking for a close comparison between both builders? You’re in the right place. Below, I’ll compare Shopify vs GoDaddy, analyzing each ecommerce builder on key factors that will be most important to your business, such as sales features, online store templates, and help and support.

💡 Key Takeaways

  • Shopify outperforms all ecommerce builders on the market due to the quality and scalability of its sales tools
  • GoDaddy’s dashboard and editor is easier to use, with built-in tutorials and checklists
  • Both platforms enable you to create a store design with an AI website builder
  • GoDaddy might be cheaper, but you get what you pay for with Shopify’s more expensive plans. It comes with increased functionality.
  • You can sell on all of Shopify’s plans ($29-$299/mo), but you can only sell on GoDaddy’s Ecommerce plan ($20.99/mo)
  • You can access a 24/7 live chat when using Shopify and GoDaddy

I’ve updated this article to reflect our latest round of website builder research for 2025 and help you choose the right platform for your online store. I’ve added news on the latest platform updates, fact-checked key template and pricing information, and shared my firsthand experiences after testing each platform myself.

A Quick Comparison of Shopify vs GoDaddy

Need to see the builders up close and personal? This table will help you compare both options:

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0 out of 0
Best For

Growing ecommerce businesses

Best For

Setting up a simple store fast

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

200+

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

5,000

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

Who Do We Recommend Each Builder For?

Shopify is better for scaling stores GoDaddy is better for creating an online store quickly
If you want to focus entirely on selling online and building a business from the ground up, Shopify is your best bet. Its ecommerce tools will be the best support as you grow your store (and margins) over time. GoDaddy is a suitable choice if you need to start selling as soon as possible, since its AI website builder and simple editor will help you set up fast.

1. Shopify Has the Best Sales Features

shopify
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.

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 Are Shopify’s Key Sales Features?

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

  • Selling unlimited products – GoDaddy’s ecommerce plan only lets you sell up to 5000 products, so Shopify is fitting if your store has a large inventory.
  • 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.
Shopify admin interface displaying a list of active products, including three candles with their statuses and inventory details.
I could easily upload mass products in bulk with Shopify's CSV import, then organize them from my dashboard. Source: Website Builder Expert

What Are GoDaddy’s Key Sales Features?

GoDaddy’s sales tools aren’t as advanced or scalable as Shopify’s, but they’re fine if you only need a simple store and are selling a limited number of items. 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.
Screenshot of the "Abandoned Cart Recovery" settings page for Cosmo Cosmetics, featuring options for email reminders and timing.
I could turn on abandoned cart recovery emails from ecommerce settings in the dashboard. Source: Website Builder Expert

2. Shopify Is Best for Promoting Your Store

shopify
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.

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.

Screenshot of a Shopify product page for the "Pink Gingham Milkmaid Dress," displaying SEO title and meta description fields.
I could change the product page meta titles and descriptions for each listing. Source: Website Builder Expert

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.

A colorful graphic promoting a "Treat Yourself" event for Mental Health Awareness Week, featuring playful ice cream illustrations.
When creating social posts via GoDaddy, I could also use its editor to tweak my design. Source: Website Builder Expert

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.
A blog post preview titled "Top 5 Fall Fashion Trends" featuring an announcement bar and content about chunky knits and seasonal style tips.
This is what a blog post looked like after I'd added a blog to my store. Source: Website Builder Expert

3. Shopify Has the Best Store Designs

shopify
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.

Shopify and GoDaddy offer polished store designs across various industries, though Shopify’s have the edge over GoDaddy’s. For example, in Shopify’s editor I could add a wider range of content to my store design – like charts, maps, and additional tabs – while our testing showed that Shopify’s designs are generally more responsive across desktop, tablet, and mobile devices.

How Many Store Templates Can I Choose From?

Shopify has the largest number of store designs to choose from, totalling in at over 250 themes. Unfortunately, only 23 of those themes are free to use, with the paid themes having a one-off price tag between $100-$500. In comparison, GoDaddy only has 22 online store templates that are included with your ecommerce plan.

💡 Did you know?

Shopify used to have only 13 free themes, but for Shopify Horizons (the builder’s biannual product update) it made 10 new free themes available. It also upgraded its editor, allowing you to AI generate new blocks of content and quickly edit text by clicking on it.
A selection of ten new Shopify themes titled "Horizons," featuring various design options for online shops.
I could browse Shopify's latest themes from its dedicated landing page. Source: Website Builder Expert

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.

A screenshot of a website builder interface displaying various options such as theme settings, custom domain, and information about marketing solutions.
GoDaddy's AI generated store designs were presentable, but not as eye-catching as Shopify’s. Source: Website Builder Expert

4. GoDaddy Has the Easiest Setup Process

GoDaddy logo black swirl
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.

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
Popup menu displaying sections options for a website builder, featuring "About Elevate Marketing" with colorful visuals for online and offline marketing.
When I entered the editor, a tutorial pop-up appeared to help me navigate it properly. Source: Website Builder Expert

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.

A screenshot of a computer screen displaying a web page for setting up a Shopify store. The content includes sections for orders, customers, setup guide, finance, analytics, and marketing.
Shopify's dashboard was the first thing I saw after completing onboarding, showing me what to do next. Source: Website Builder Expert

🆕 Since our last update...

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.

5. Shopify Has the Best Pricing

shopify
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.

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:

🛍️ Shopify 🛒 GoDaddy
Key pricing plans (billed annually) •Basic plan: $29/mo
•Grow plan: $79/mo
•Advanced plan: $299/mo
•Basic plan: $9.99/mo
•Standard plan: $11.99/mo
•Premium plan: $14.99/mo
•Ecommerce plan: $20.99/mo (you need this plan to sell!)
Key features on cheapest pricing plan •Sell unlimited products
•AI tools like a site theme generator
•Up to 77% shipping discount
•Sell from 10 inventory locations
•Multichannel selling on social media & marketplaces
•In-person selling integration
•Sell up to 1000 products
•22 ecommerce templates
•GoDaddy Airo’s AI tools for content generation
•Built-in bookings tool
•Multichannel selling on social media & marketplaces
•In-person selling integration
Can I sell for free? Doesn't have a free ecommerce plan Doesn't have a free ecommerce plan
Can I use a free trial? 3-day free trial 7-day free trial
Any special offers? Get your first three months for $1/mo N/A
Are there any transaction fees? Online transaction fees starting from 2.9% + 30¢ (but removed with Shopify Payments) Online transaction fees starting from 2.7% + 30¢

But you need an ecommerce platform that’s much simpler than Shopify, 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

6. Shopify Is Best for Help and Support

shopify
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.

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.

I found GoDaddy’s resources less helpful, since it didn’t cover important topics that businesses must know to get ahead, such as how to write alt text or edit a mobile website for an improved user experience.

A screenshot of a web page displaying the Shopify Community forum, featuring various discussion topics related to e-commerce, including questions and answers about Shopify apps, checkout processes, and pricing strategies.
I could look through forum posts via topic. I could ask for website feedback, or get dropshipping advice from other merchants. Source: Website Builder Expert

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.
A screenshot of a website displaying the option to continue chatting with GoDaddy.
I could also contact GoDaddy through Whatsapp. Source: Website Builder Expert

🆕 Since our last update...

You can no longer contact Shopify directly through in-bound emails. Instead, you need to use its live chat and ask to be forwarded to a support advisor.

How We Test

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.

My Final Thoughts on GoDaddy vs Shopify

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 a more suitable choice if you need to build a simple store in a few hours. Though its sales features are limited in comparison to Shopify’s, you have everything you need to set up fast, like 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:

What kind of online store do you want to create?

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Written by:
Holly Choules is a Writer at Website Builder Expert with a background in researching and crafting engaging content for digital platforms. In previous roles, she has demonstrated her wordsmith skills by writing for public facing brands in a range of industries. After gaining hands-on experience using leading website builders, like Wix and WordPress, she is now keen to share her findings through informative, easy-to-follow articles that help small business owners get online and grow their presence. Since joining the team in 2024 and transitioning into the tech sphere, Holly is passionate about applying her three years of content writing experience and upholding Website Builder Expert’s position as an authoritative source on website builders, ecommerce, and digital marketing.
Researched by:
natasha_willett
I love to understand human behavior and the cognitive biases that drive us to do what we do. For over nine years I have worked as a mixed method researcher – research using a mix of numerical data and personal experiences – across a range of sectors, from insurance and policy development to finally arriving at Website Builder Expert five years ago. Fascinated by consumer decision-making, I meticulously built our leading ranking methodology to explore where providers like Wix sit within a competitive industry and what value they truly bring to our audience.
As a member of the Market Research Society, I’m an advocate for high ethical, commercial, and methodological best practices. All of this combines to give you the most ethical recommendations based on real data.

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