Wix vs Shopify 2022 Comparison: Which Is Worth Your While?
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Shopify and Wix have been going head to head when it comes to earning the crown as best ecommerce website builder out there.
Both platforms impressively score above 4.5 stars out of 5 overall, but Wix tops our rankings with a 4.7 stars! While Shopify may be more powerful, Wix allows a lot more creative freedom when designing your site.
We recommend Wix over Shopify for small businesses and brand conscious entrepreneurs. Shopify is more scalable and better for larger stores, but it’s also more expensive and more clunky to get to grips with. While this is perfect if you’re after plenty of power, it’s less ideal if you need to get up and running quickly.
In this Wix vs Shopify comparison, we’ll help you choose the very best option for your online store.
Wix vs Shopify: Key Differences At A Glance
- Wix is easier to use than Shopify, and quicker to build your store with.
- Shopify is more powerful, which is why it takes longer to get to grips with.
- Wix is best for small businesses, freelancers, and individual sellers. Shopify is better for large businesses looking to grow.
- Wix is cheaper than Shopify. Wix’s ecommerce plans start from $23/month, while Shopify starts from $29/month.
- Wix provides more creative freedom than Shopify, but Shopify provides better sales tools than Wix.
- Wix is a website builder first and foremost, whereas Shopify is designed purely to help people set up their own online stores.
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Pros and Cons
| Wix | Shopify | |
|---|---|---|
| Pros | Really simple editing interface: Thanks to Wix’s drag-and-drop functionality, putting your own stamp on any of its 800+ templates is easy. Cheap ecommerce plans: Wix lets you get your store up and running for as little as $23/month. There are no hidden costs, and plans include everything you need to sell online. Useful apps: Apps such as Ecwid can be added and ‘plugged in’ to your store, empowering you with more ecommerce tools. | 24/7 support: Support is available round-the-clock via phone and live chat. You’re never left alone when running your store. Powerful ecommerce tools: Shopify is one of the market leaders when it comes to built-in ecommerce features. Over 100 payment options: Wide range of payment options available, including PayPal, Stripe, and Shopify’s own fully integrated payments system. |
| Cons | Too much creative freedom: It’s easy to get carried away with Wix’s large amount of creative freedom, and forget to follow ecommerce design best practices. | Can be expensive: Apps, premium themes, transaction fees, and your monthly subscription can add up. |
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Wix | Shopify | |
|---|---|---|
| Overall score /5 | 4.7 | 4.6 |
| Starting price /month | $28 | $29 |
| Value for money score /5 | 4.4 | 3.0 |
| Ease of use score /5 | 4.0 | 3.5 |
| Design score /5 | 4.0 | 3.9 |
| Number of ecommerce templates | 114 | 73 |
| App store | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Sales features score /5 | 4.4 | 4.5 |
| Payment options | Good | Really good |
| Inventory management | Good | Really good |
| Shipping options | Good | Really good |
| Abandoned cart recovery | Included on all plans | Included on all plans |
| Transaction fees | 0% | 0% - 2% |
| Marketing features | Really good | Good |
| Blogging | Good | Not great |
| SEO | Really good | Good |
| SSL | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| PCI compliance | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Customer score /5 | 4.0 | 4.7 |
| What did our users say? | “Wix is the perfect platform if selling online isn’t your sole objective. It’s a supplementary function to an already existing website” | “Shopify does well at preempting and predicting what a merchant might need next in all aspects of creating a website.” |
| Which one do you prefer? | Go to Wix | Go to Shopify |
#1. Ease of Use
| Wix | Shopify | |
|---|---|---|
| Ease of use score /5 | 4.0 | 3.5 |
| Coding knowledge needed? | ❌ | ❌ |
| Estimated building time | 1 day | 3 days |
| What did our users say? | “I found Wix so much easier to use, due to all the clickable elements. I was looking on the Shopify Sidebar and I couldn't tell you which part was which.” | “It’s as expected, it’s the inverse of Wix, where the inventory stuff is really good but the design is more difficult to do.” |
| Ease of use verdict | Winner! Wix’s drag and drop format makes it easy to build a store in no time and it’s perfect for beginners. | Loser Shopify’s store setup is a win with merchants but its clunky editor isn’t intuitive and lets it down. |
If you’re selling online, time is money. The easier it is to build and manage your store, the more time you can spend attracting and serving new customers.
While Shopify is extremely beginner-friendly, in user testing, our participants found Wix 14% easier to use than Shopify – making Wix the winner of this round!
Why Is Wix Easier to Use?
Shopify is a powerful ecommerce platform designed specifically for creating online stores, but this can sometimes work against it. Unlike Wix, its editor isn’t super intuitive and users need to swap between the front and backend to edit.
Wix, on the other hand, does everything in one convenient place. Although its editor can be a bit overwhelming, once you’ve got used to it, being able to simply drag and drop elements into place makes building your store quick and straightforward.
Even better, Wix is a What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) editor, which means that when you make changes to your pages, you can see exactly what they’ll look like in real-time.
When you start building your store, Wix will take you straight to your chosen template. From here, you can customize every element to reflect your brand with only the power of your cursor.
Every Wix ecommerce template comes with a store page already included. When you want to add your products, click on the demo listings to edit them. You can also easily add a collection too, grouping products together for a better user experience.
On the flip side, it’s worth bearing in mind that Wix might be easy for the majority of store owners, but if you have a bigger inventory, you’re likely to find yourself hitting some frustrating barriers.
Shopify is better equipped to deal with larger stores, and makes adding a large number of products much faster. This is because it’s a dedicated ecommerce solution that places the emphasis on selling and product management. However, its bulky editor comes with its own set of problems, letting it down overall.
This steeper learning curve is why Wix comes out on top, earning a 4.0 out of 5 for ease of use, while Shopify only earns a 3.5
Wix vs Shopify – Ease of Use: The Verdict
Wix wins for ease of use. Wix is known for its editing simplicity, meaning you can get your store up and running in no time. It might not have the same ecommerce functionality as Shopify, but using it will give you much less of a headache.
Further information:
- How to Start an Online Store – Our complete step-by-step guide to setting up your online store
- How to Start an Online Clothing Store – A closer look at the things to consider when selling clothes online
- 12 Best Drag and Drop Website Builders – Discover a dozen of the easiest-to-use platforms around
#2. Design Functionalities
| Wix | Shopify | |
|---|---|---|
| Design score /5 | 4.0 | 3.9 |
| Number of templates | 114 | 73 |
| Template price range | $0 | $0 - $180 |
| Mobile responsive designs | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Switchable templates | ❌ | ✔️ |
| Design verdict | Winner! Wider range of fully customizable free designs | Loser More expensive designs, less creative freedom |
Mobile Responsive Designs
First up, you need to know whether your store will look good on all devices. Mobile commerce is on the rise, with 45% of consumers saying they use their mobile phones more to shop online since March 2020. Both Shopify and Wix’s themes are mobile responsive, meaning your store will work just as well whatever device your customer is using.
Template Choice and Price
Independent designers ensure Shopify’s 73 themes are up-to-date and cover a range of industries. It’s worth mentioning that most themes come with multiple styling options, so you can pick the version that best suits your brand.
At $180, some of Shopify’s paid themes are on the expensive side, but it’s a one-off payment that you should see as an investment in your store. You get better design choices from paid themes, however, they’re still a little lacking in originality, as one user pointed out after testing Shopify:
“I found it really hard to feel I was able to create a brand which I was proud of.”
Wix, meanwhile, offers 114 ecommerce-specific templates, all of which are free. Wix actually has over 800 templates in total, but not all of them are designed for ecommerce. However, Wix’s templates are so easy to edit, you can turn any of them into an online store pretty easily.
Wix offers more freedom than Shopify thanks to its drag-and-drop editor. Shopify doesn’t let you drag anything anywhere like Wix does – this structure can be a plus if you need design guidance, or an annoyance if you want full control.
Because of this, Shopify only earned a 3.7/5 in our research for design flexibility, whereas Wix earned a 4.0.
If you want to take your customizations even further, you can make custom edits on Shopify and Wix using HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets).
Velo by Wix allows you to customize everything from web applications to page scrolling, and can be accessed by clicking ‘Code’ then ‘Developer Tools’ in the Wix Editor. After this, you’ll have total control over how your Wix website looks.
With Shopify, it’s really easy to make custom edits. Simply click ‘Edit HTML/CSS’ on the Shopify Admin page, and you’re ready to code.
Wix vs Shopify – Design: The Verdict
Wix just beats Shopify for design. Its simplicity in design makes it a great option if you’re a small trader. Wix’s templates are packaged to help you do the basics straight away, but if you want an online store that’s more optimized for sales, Shopify’s themes are for you.
#3. Pricing and Value for Money
| Wix | Shopify | |
|---|---|---|
| Value score /5 | 4.4 | 3.0 |
| Free plan or free trial? | Free plan | Free trial (14 days) |
| Number of plans | 3 | 3 |
| Cheapest plan (monthly cost) | $28 | $29 |
| Mid-tier plan | $33 | $79 |
| Advanced plan | $56 | $299 |
| Enterprise package | Custom quote | Starts at $2,000/month |
| Extra costs | Apps | Apps Domain name Transaction fees |
| Pricing & value verdict | Winner! Cheaper plans with fewer extra costs | Loser Plans are powerful, but also more expensive |
Is Wix or Shopify Cheaper?
Wix is the cheaper platform with prices starting at $28 per month, compared to Shopify’s starter price of $29 per month. If you choose an annual plan, then Wix also includes a free domain name for your first year.
Shopify charges transaction fees unless you use its in-house payment processor, Shopify Payments, whereas Wix doesn’t charge any extra fees. Neither platform will show adverts on your store, and both let you sell an unlimited number of products.
We recommend choosing one of Wix’s annual plans to get the most value for your money. This reduces your monthly cost to $23 per month and unlocks features that aren’t available on the monthly plan, such as a free domain and $300 ad vouchers.
Wix Pricing vs Shopify Pricing
The three Wix plans which let you sell online are:
- Business Basic – $28/month
- Business Unlimited – $33/month
- Business VIP – $56/month
These prices decrease the longer you sign up for. For example, the Business Basic plan only costs $18 per month if you sign up for a 36-month contract!
There’s also a custom-priced Enterprise plan designed to provide tailored support to much larger, already established businesses.
Shopify’s three main pricing plans are:
- Basic Shopify – $29/month
- Shopify – $79/month
- Advanced Shopify – $299/month
Like Wix, you can save money by choosing a longer-term subscription. For example, the Shopify Basic plan costs $26.10 per month if you choose to pay annually. Shopify’s plans are more expensive, but also more scalable for larger stores.
Cheapest Plan Features
| Wix | Shopify | |
|---|---|---|
| Cheapest plan: monthly price | $28 | $29 |
| Cheapest plan: monthly price, billed annually | $23 | $26.10 |
| Abandoned cart recovery | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Transaction fees | 0% | 2% |
| Free domain | ✔️ (annual plan only) | ❌ |
| On-site adverts | ❌ | ❌ |
| Number of products | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Sell on social media | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Sell on marketplaces | ❌ | ✔️ |
Overall, Shopify packs more powerful features into its plans, but Wix still wins because of its lower prices. Despite its cheap entry plan, Wix doesn’t hold back on its features, meaning you get great value for money even from its cheapest plan!
Wix vs Shopify – Value for Money: The Verdict
Wix offers better value for money than Shopify. The more advanced your store, the more you will appreciate being on a Shopify plan – but Wix eCommerce offers plenty of scalability for less cost.
More Pricing Information:
#4. Product and Inventory Features
Sales features is the area where Shopify flexes its ecommerce muscles, earning an impressive 4.5 out of 5 in our research. Wix isn’t quite as powerful as Shopify, but with a score of 4.4, it’s not far behind. You still have an impressive range of ecommerce features to work with.
Shopify is the clear winner for sales features, but context is key. Wix includes precisely what you need to sell online. If you don’t want to build a business or sell tons of products, you will enjoy the simplicity of Wix – but for more complex online stores, Shopify is best.
You can unfold the tabs below to learn about product and inventory features, or skip straight to the sales tools that interest you most:
Shopify gives you loads of freedom when it comes to how your products look. You can add unlimited items with multiple variants, which is a huge plus. However, you’ll need to install apps to enable product zoom functionality, as well as product videos.
Wix really lets your products shine. It offers a built-in product video function to improve your customer’s experience, and you can easily add a product zoom feature.
Building a distinctive checkout page is great for your brand and your bottom line, which is something Wix does well. Card details can be stored via the ‘My Wallet’ area of the checkout page, so Wix customers won’t have to go through the hassle of reentering information.
Both Wix and Shopify allow you to sell physical, digital, and service products.
However, with Wix, you will need an app to sell service products, while Shopify requires a third party integration to sell digital products. The ability to sell the other two product types is built into each platform.
As you’d expect, Shopify is the full package when it comes to inventory. You can upload single or multiple products, use stock management tools, get revenue reports, and navigate your way around easily.
Wix is designed for smaller online stores. This means the inventory management is more limited than Shopify, in that you need apps to help with things like revenue reports and visitor analytics. However, you can add multiple products, which is really useful.
Wix vs Shopify – Product and Inventory: The Verdict
Shopify has a much more sophisticated range of product features than Wix. Its inventory management is also a lot more powerful. Wix does a good job, but Shopify is designed for big businesses with a lot of stock!
#5. Payment Options
| Wix | Shopify | |
|---|---|---|
| PayPal | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Stripe | ✔️ | ✔️* |
| Square | ✔️ | ❌ |
| Apple Pay | ❌ | ✔️ |
| Amazon Pay | ❌ | ✔️ |
| Klarna | ❌** | ✔️ |
| In-house payment gateway | Wix Payments | Shopify Payments |
| Payment options verdict | Loser Limited selection of payment options | Winner! Offers a much wider range of payment options |
** If you choose Wix Payments and are based in Austria, Belgium, Germany, or Switzerland, then you can accept payments through Pay Now by Klarna
Shopify permits over 100 different payment gateways, but it doesn’t currently support Square. On top of that, you will have to pay transaction fees – unless you use its own gateway, Shopify Payments.
Plus, Shopify now allows merchants to enable tipping during checkout, or customize the text to ask for donations to your business or favorite charity.
Wix supports all the traditional payment options, including PayPal, Stripe, and Square, but doesn’t allow digital wallet payments like Apple Pay and Amazon Pay.
That said, it does have its own in-house payment option called Wix Payments, and doesn’t impose transaction fees no matter which payment gateway you choose. The lack of transaction fees means you get to keep more of your money compared to Shopify.
Wix vs Shopify – Payment Options: The Verdict
Shopify beats Wix with the sheer number of payment options it offers! While Wix supports Square and doesn’t charge transaction fees, which are two things we’d like Shopify to take note of, its small number of payment options lets it down.
#6. Shipping Options
Shopify is also helping merchants offer more flexible and contact-free shipping options, like curbside pickup and local delivery. In summary, you’re never left stranded when organizing shipping with Shopify.
With Wix, you can track orders, set tax rules for each product, and take advantage of dropshipping. However, you’ll still need apps to help with global shipping payments. That said, Wix also offers an app integration with ShipStation, a shipping solution that streamlines the process of sending products out to ecommerce customers.
Wix vs Shopify – Shipping Options: The Verdict
Shopify once again beats Wix, this time with its extensive shipping features. However you want to deliver orders to your customers, Shopify has the tools to make it happen – including curbside pickup, local delivery, or international shipping – while Wix is more reliant on apps.
#7. Tax Settings
As you’d expect, Shopify gives you tons of control over your tax settings – you can even set up Shopify to automatically handle common tax calculations to free up your time and reduce brain-ache.
Shopify Plus customers can also access Avalara AvaTax, which automates both your tax calculations and the tax filing process.
Wix vs Shopify – Tax Settings: The Verdict
Shopify has more built-in tax settings than Wix, which is why it wins this round. Small businesses will find Wix’s tax settings satisfactory, but Shopify gives larger stores a lot more control over their taxes.
#8. Marketing Features
| Wix | Shopify | |
|---|---|---|
| Social media integration | Good | Awesome |
| Email campaigns | Awesome | Good |
| Abandoned cart recovery | Included on all plans | Included on all plans |
| Blogging | Good | Not great |
| SEO | Awesome | Good |
| Analytics | Good | Awesome |
| Marketing features verdict | Winner! Wix goes the extra mile with its marketing tools | Loser Relies too much on marketing apps |
Shopify relies heavily on third party apps for marketing. While this does give you lots of flexibility, it’s hard to compare the two platforms fairly with so many apps flying around.
On the other hand, Wix has changed the ecommerce marketing game with Wix Ascend. An all-in-one marketing solution, Ascend is available as a separate subscription, letting you manage your marketing campaigns easily in one place.
It’s no surprise, then, that Wix wins the marketing features round. When we asked Wix users which features they found most helpful when building their site, marketing tools were the clear winner, with more than one responding with SEO tools.
One user praised Wix’s “blogging tools and SEO tools,” while another said it was Wix’s “social media integrations” they found most helpful.
If you want to read more about how each platform performs in particular areas, unfold the tabs below to see how Wix and Shopify compete for social media integration, email marketing, blogging, and SEO:
Shopify’s multi-channel integration lets you connect your store to social media accounts like Facebook and Instagram, as well as marketplaces like Amazon and eBay. Similarly, Wix supports the ability to sell on Instagram, so you can seamlessly transfer your ecommerce success to a whole new platform.
In 2019, 87% of shoppers said that social media helps them make shopping decisions, so integrating across channels is a great way to get a leg up on your competition.
As we mentioned earlier, Wix Ascend gives you control over all things marketing, all in one place. While you can still send three email campaigns a month without an Ascend subscription, you get premium features and a much higher campaign quota if you do subscribe.
With Shopify, you can create email campaigns from the admin page. However, for more flexibility, you can integrate a number of apps like Omnisend Email Marketing and Privy
By recovering lost sales, research claims you can increase revenue by 25%! Think of it like sealing the holes in a leaky boat. Take abandoned cart recovery, for example – this lets you email customers who have left your website with items still in their cart before checking out.
Both Wix and Shopify support abandoned cart recovery.
Wix lets you build beautiful blogs with ease. In reality, the only hurdle it stumbles over is archive functionality (saving old posts for users to read). If you really wanted this relatively unique function, though, you’re better off using a blogging specific tool like WordPress anyway.
Shopify does poorly in the blogging sphere. It has no built-in analytics features, no social bookmarking, and no blog specific search feature. Overall, its blogging offerings are bleak.
Search Engine Optimization is the practice of making sure your store appears in a strong position in search engine rankings.
Both Shopify and Wix make it easy to:
- Add and edit meta titles/descriptions – the headline and text that appears in Google
- Customize URL slugs – the text that comes after your domain, e.g. www.websitebuilderexpert.com“/ecommerce-website-builders/comparisons/wix-vs-shopify/”
- Attach alt text to images – text that Google reads to understand what your images actually depict
- Get further guidance with ‘SEO best practice’ prompts
However, Wix has the edge here. It offers keyword support, suggesting popular words or phrases worth using – something which Shopify does not offer.
Keeping track of your website’s performance is important. It helps you grow your business by showing you what is and isn’t working!
Both platforms provide access to Google Analytics, which gives you superb insight into what your customers are doing. This means you know exactly how to customize your website to earn more cash.
However, Shopify goes the extra mile with plenty of built-in analytics features, including customer behavior, stock levels, and conversion tracking. It doesn’t take much analysis to see which platform wins here.
Wix vs Shopify – Marketing Features: The Verdict
Wix wins the marketing round! It’s very close, but Wix simply offers more than Shopify – particularly when you consider the superior blogging features and the power and simplicity of Wix Ascend, offering all your marketing tools in one manageable place.
#9. App Stores
| Wix | Shopify | |
|---|---|---|
| App store? | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Number of ecommerce apps | 54 | 5,763 |
| Free apps | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Approx. price range | $10 - $100+ /month | $5 - $250+ /month |
| Standout app | Ecwid | Shop Channel |
| App market verdict | Loser Smaller range of ecommerce apps | Winner! Huge range of ecommerce-focused apps |
Shopify has a lot more apps to choose from than Wix, making it a great resource for scaling up your store.
Shopify’s App Store gives you huge scope to grow your store. Among other things, you can:
- Add a customer wishlist
- Set up dropshipping
- Add product reviews
- Use currency conversion
Plus, the recently added Shop App is a personal shopping app that lets customers view their favorite Shopify stores, get product recommendations, and track orders. It’s already being used by over 16 million users!
Within the Wix App Market, we thoroughly recommend Ecwid for all Wix online stores. Still, for ecommerce-specific apps, the Wix store cannot match Shopify.
Wix vs Shopify – App Stores: The Verdict
Shopify has a better app store than Wix in terms of ecommerce integrations, in that it simply has more to choose from. Wix is fine for smaller online stores, but for bigger and better ecommerce functionality (like global shipping payments), you can integrate the Ecwid app.
#10. Security: Can You Sell Safely?
The short answer is: yes. Both Wix and Shopify take security very seriously and have plenty of measures in place to protect both you and your visitors, so you can sell safely online.
- SSL security is included on every plan with both Wix and Shopify. This protects your visitors’ data when they submit information on your site (such as login or payment details) – and is also an important ranking factor for Google.
- Both Wix and Shopify are certified Level 1 PCI DSS compliant, which means that your store is automatically PCI compliant too. This is good news, as you must be PCI compliant if you’re selling online and accepting credit or debit card payments.PCI compliance is important for protecting payment information, business details, and reducing fraud.
- Viruses, malware, DDoS attacks, and other nasties are always a risk to any website or online store. Luckily, Wix and Shopify have built-in security measures to help protect their systems and your store.Neither platform lists the details of these protections, as that would make them easier to crack, but safe to say they’re working hard behind the scenes to keep their users safe online.
Wix vs Shopify – Security: The Verdict
It’s a draw – both Wix and Shopify provide plenty of measures to protect your online store, so you should feel safe no matter which platform you choose.
#11. Customer Support
| Wix | Shopify | |
|---|---|---|
| Support score /5 | 4.7 | 4.1 |
| Phone support | ✔️ | 24/7 |
| Live chat support | ❌ | ✔️ |
| Email support | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Help center | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Community forum | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Social media support | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| On-page help while you build | ✔️ | ❌ |
| Support verdict | Winner! In-editor support is especially useful and knowledge center is excellent | Loser Support is less user-focused but you can hire an expert if you need one |
On paper, Wix and Shopify are pretty much neck and neck when it comes to support. Shopify’s 24/7 phone support and live chat are huge perks, especially for users needing instant, round the clock support.
However, Wix’s Help Center is even better, with hundreds of articles and videos to support you. The layout is also clearer than Shopify’s Help Center – which doesn’t include videos – though Shopify’s customer service is still highly accessible.
Another massive point in Wix’s favor is its in-editor help. It can be frustrating having to click back and forth between a guide and your store, but with Wix, you can receive help directly within the editor.
Hover your mouse over the editor’s question marks and you bring up small speech bubbles, which answer common problems. In Shopify, this process is clunkier and requires you to visit a separate page.
Wix vs Shopify – Customer Support: The Verdict
Overall, Wix has better customer support than Shopify. Having around-the-clock support with Shopify is great, but it’s the quality of Wix’s customer service which makes it the winner. A more comprehensive help center and support directly in the editor mean Wix edges Shopify here.
Wix vs Shopify: Overall Winner
You should now know whether Wix or Shopify is a better choice for you.
We recommend Wix for anyone setting up a new, small business who needs an affordable entry plan without sacrificing features. It’s easy to use and gives you tons of creative freedom, making it perfect for brand-conscious entrepreneurs.
We recommend Shopify for larger businesses looking for a more powerful platform that can support long-term growth. You’ll need a larger budget to get started with Shopify, but it’s a worthwhile investment thanks to its impressive sales tools and huge app store.
| Wix | Shopify | |
| Ease of Use Winner: Wix | With Wix, editing the front end of your website couldn’t be easier, especially with its drag-and-drop editor | Shopify is easy to use, particularly when managing your inventory, but for minute details it can be rather clunky |
| Design Functionalities Winner: Wix | Over +800 beautiful templates which are really simple to edit | Offers templates designed purely for helping you sell online |
| Pricing and Value for Money Winner: Wix | Can build a store for free, while paid plans are affordable and feature-rich | Offers a 14-day free trial. For larger stores, advanced features can be worth the higher cost |
| Product and Inventory Features Winner: Shopify | Lets you sell physical, digital, and service products, but overall has pretty simple sales tools | The market’s best sales features, including excellent built-in analytics and inventory management tools |
| Payment Options Winner: Shopify | Wix offers all the normal payment options you would expect such as PayPal | Shopify has over 100 payment options, including its own in-house payment Shopify Payments |
| Shipping Options Winner: Shopify | You will need apps to help with global shipping if using Wix | Shopify helps you every step along the way and offers great tools such as curbside pickup and international delivery |
| Tax Settings Winner: Shopify | Small businesses will find Wix's tax options acceptable but Shopify is more comprehensive | Shopify offers a number of tax options designed for all businesses, including a feature that automatically handles all tax calculations |
| Marketing Features Winner: Wix | Outstanding marketing features, particularly with blogs | Great for social media integration and SEO, but lacking the overall power of Wix’s features |
| App Stores Winner: Shopify | Huge app store, but offers less ecommerce specific integrations than Shopify | Excellent app store, with endless ecommerce integrations to help boost your site’s sales |
| Security It's a Tie! | Wix comes with free SSL, Level 1 PCI DSS compliance and built-in security measures on top of that | Shopify comes with the same level of security across all of its plans as Wix. The PCI compliancy is especially important as you need it to sell and accept online credit and debit payments |
| Customer Support Winner: Wix | Email, social media, and phone support, plus an incredibly helpful forum | 24/7 phone and live chat support, but doesn’t have any onsite editor help |
| Are You Ready? | Try Wix For Free | Try Shopify For Free |
You Should Use Wix If…
- You’re starting or running a small online store
- You want lots of creative control
- You’re after a larger choice of templates
- You plan to run a blog alongside your store – Wix has better blogging features
- You’re on a budget – Wix has cheaper price plans, and you can start building for free
You Should Use Shopify If…
- You’re running a bigger business
- You need powerful features – Shopify has the best sales tools on the market
- You want a good suite of built-in analytics tools
- Your store needs a wider range of payment gateways
We know finding the right ecommerce platform is important, and we’re here to help you find your perfect fit. Check out these alternatives next:
- BigCommerce: Ideal for fast-growing businesses. Read review.
- Squarespace: Best templates on the market. Read review.
- Square Online: Best value for money (and you can build for free!) Read review.
Wix vs Shopify: FAQs
You can sell online with Wix at lower cost than with Shopify. With Wix’s Business Basic plan, you can sell online for as little as $23/month whereas Shopify’s cheapest plan is $29/month. Shopify do have a 14-day free trial though, so you can try before you buy.
Yes! Shopify has its own template language called Liquid which you can access to make advanced customizations to Shopify’s themes. Wix code can be accessed through Wix’s editor and also lets you make advanced changes to its templates.
Wix allows you to set up multiple versions of the same page in different languages – in fact, it makes it very easy to do so. You can translate text, links, SEO settings and Wix Stores with a click of a button. Shopify also offers multilingual apps, such as GTranslate, but they aren’t quite as user-friendly.
Yes! With both Wix and Shopify you can create discount codes for your customers. With Wix, this has to be a specific amount of money, though. Shopify is a bit more advanced here, in that you can offer percentage discounts.
Yes. While you can build your Wix online store at no cost, you’ll need to upgrade to one of the three ecommerce plans to sell products. These premium plans are: Basic ($23/month), Unlimited ($27/month), and VIP ($49/month).
Wix just edges it. Both platforms will allow you to edit meta titles, meta descriptions, and URL slugs – however, Wix goes the extra mile by offering keyword support. Wix also provides stronger blogging features than Shopify, which can help your site appear in more searches online.
Yes. Wix has 108 templates with ecommerce capabilities, while Shopify has 9 free themes and 60+ paid options which you can buy for $140 – $180. Every theme provided by each platform is mobile responsive, so your store will look good on any sized screen.
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