Shopify Review 2026: The Best Builder for Selling

Shopify

Best for selling physical products

Outstanding

4.8

out of 5

• For established stores
• For expanding businesses
• For complex inventories

Free trial available

Paid Plans: $29 - $299 / month

Pros

• Multichannel selling
• AI tools for product set up
• 100+ payment options

Cons

• Limited store customization
• Not for very new businesses
• Additional costs for apps

Shopify Review

Try Shopify

Need a quick summary of Shopify? I’ve collected Shopify’s best and worst features below:

Our Shopify review video gives you a clear summary of the builder’s key features, drawbacks, pricing, and more:

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Shopify’s pricing is split between three core plans, ranging from $29 to $299 per month (billed annually):

• Basic ($29) – For small businesses looking to grow
• Grow ($79) – For established online stores
• Advanced ($299) – For large-scale businesses

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Plan Name Basic	Plan Name Grow	Plan Name Advanced
Monthly price (paid annually) $29	Monthly price (paid annually) $79	Monthly price (paid annually) $299
Monthly price (paid monthly) $39	Monthly price (paid monthly) $105	Monthly price (paid monthly) $399
Online credit card rates 2.9% + $0.30	Online credit card rates 2.7% + $0.30	Online credit card rates 2.5% + $0.30
Third-party transaction fees 2%	Third-party transaction fees 1%	Third-party transaction fees 0.6%
Shipping discount Up to 77%	Shipping discount Up to 88%	Shipping discount Up to 88%
Recommended for For smaller businesses	Recommended for For established businesses	Recommended for For large-scale businesses

Pay $1 per month for first 3 months Try Shopify

Is Shopify Good Value for Money?

• Shopify’s plans are expensive – if you’re looking for a budget-friendly option, Hostinger is my top choice but it lacks the scalability and features of Shopify
• Shopify has additional costs to consider, such as a custom domain name (from $15 per year)
• Its three-day free trial is very short and there’s no free plan
• You can get your first three months for $1 per month

Author's Testing Notes

I recommend choosing the $29 per month Basic plan, especially if your online store is still finding its feet. The cheapest plan includes all of the essential ecommerce features, including abandoned cart recovery and discount codes. In comparison, you’ll need to pay more with other builders, like Squarespace, to unlock these tools.

You’ll only need the more expensive Grow or Advanced plan if you have a team of staff or if you need advanced analytics and additional inventory locations.

Emma Ryan Lead Writer

There’s no need to enter credit card details when signing up to Shopify – I could join for free with just an email address. After that, I found the onboarding process simple and really quick, asking three general questions about my business and website:

• Where would you like to sell? – I could pick all applicable answers, such as “An online store” or “Social media”
• Select your business type – to share if my business is new or already established
• What do you plan to sell first? – for example, products I make myself or digital products

The only variation in this onboarding journey will be if you select that you already run an existing business – Shopify will ask an additional question about where you’re currently selling (e.g. Wix or Amazon).

Author's Testing Notes

I was surprised to see no AI website builder or design support at this stage since this is a pretty standard feature on most platforms nowadays. Both Wix and Squarespace offer AI builders to help you get online quickly and easily, plus the onboarding questions are used to customize your site and backend experience.

With Shopify, I couldn’t see how my responses were applied or used in any way, which made the process feel fairly pointless.

Shopify has added an AI store setup tool so you can generate a custom template, but this feature is only available once you’ve finished the initial onboarding journey.

Emma Ryan Lead Writer

How I Added Products

Following the setup process, I was immediately launched into the Shopify dashboard, where I was presented with a 10-step checklist to help me finish building my online store. This put me at ease right away since I could follow the recommended steps to help me get started.

Shopify encouraged me to add my products first, putting customizing my website to the side for the time being. It’s an unusual switch within the industry, but one that makes sense considering Shopify’s focus on selling.

I had no trouble adding new products to my Shopify store – all I had to do was fill out a form, add product imagery, set variants, and assign categories where relevant.

I also used Shopify Magic, a built-in AI tool to help me generate and tweak my product descriptions. I could simplify or improve existing copy, and even change the desired tone of voice to something more “Expert,” “Playful,” or “Persuasive,” for example.

Customizing My Store

Once I added all of my products, I moved on to the next step: customizing my website. All new stores are given the “Dawn” theme as a default (which I found very basic), but I could switch to an alternative template if I wanted. I’ll discuss Shopify’s templates in more detail later.

Now, Shopify performs well in our ease of use tests, but Shopify isn’t as user-friendly as Squarespace or Hostinger. These builders use a drag-and-drop editor, whereas Shopify’s editor is designed around adding “sections”.

I found the section-based editor to be restrictive and I couldn’t get creative with my styles or designs – I could simply stack sections on top of one another. As a result, I had to put in a lot of time and energy to make my website look professional and polished.

That said, Shopify recently improved its editor with one-click text editing and the ability to create custom blocks with AI, so the builder is taking steps in the right direction.

Author's Testing Notes

Overall, the process of building an online store with Shopify wasn’t impossible, and it was pretty straightforward when I had to add products. However, Shopify’s editor left me frustrated and I found it a challenge to make anything look nice or unique.

In comparison, when I built a store using Squarespace, I found its editor much easier to use and the design process was stress-free.

Emma Ryan Lead Writer

Shopify only has a handful of free templates to choose from. At the time of writing, there are 1,1016 templates in total (it was previously less than 300) – 24 of these templates are free, and 992 have a one-time fee that ranges from $100 to $500.

All of Shopify’s templates are optimized for selling and will automatically update to include new features or tools, no matter what Shopify plan you subscribe to. Still, seeing so few free templates from a top website builder is disappointing, especially when Wix provides 2,000+ free templates to its users.

That said, Shopify’s templates (whether you pick a free or premium option) are expertly designed with online stores in mind. Shopify recently added 10 new free themes as part of its Horizon collection, giving businesses more flexibility and choice during the design stage.

Shopify offers the best sales features on the market, providing businesses with all of the tools they need to scale their store and engage with customers. The features are excellent in terms of both range and quality, and you can get all of the key ecommerce features, like abandoned cart recovery, from Shopify’s cheapest plan.

However, you’ll have to source a lot of functionality yourself through Shopify’s app store.

🛒 Multichannel Selling

Shopify lets you synchronize your online store with environments where customers are already scrolling and shopping, such as social media platforms or marketplaces.

To sell on socials, like Instagram and TikTok, I simply had to install the relevant app in the marketplace and connect my profile. I also recommend downloading the Shopify Marketplace Connect app to sync your product catalog with marketplaces, such as Amazon, Walmart, eBay, and Etsy. This makes it easier to manage and monitor your sales from Shopify.

💰 Payment Options

I could choose from over 100 payment options to add to my Shopify store, allowing customers to use popular payment methods, such as Apple Pay and PayPal.

However, I recommend using Shopify’s native payment processor, Shopify Payments – this is automatically installed with your account, you simply have to activate it. The added perk of using Shopify Payments is that it removes third-party transaction fees entirely, so you’ll only have to pay standard card rates when selling online or in person.

✅ Customizable Checkout

Shopify claims to have the world’s best-converting checkout, delivering a customized and easy process to help customers purchase products from your business. The checkout experience was improved in 2025, including faster load speeds and the ability to sell products on Roblox.

You can customize your checkout page from your Shopify settings to suit your business and customer needs, whether that means enabling local pickup, adding an express checkout option, or showing tipping options. Yes, this is another feature to design and customize, but it’ll streamline the checkout process and boost your conversion rate overall.

🔍 SEO Tools

I was happy to see that Shopify helps you optimize your site. It automatically creates canonical tags and sitemaps, plus I could easily tweak my meta titles and descriptions or add alt text to images within the editor.

Shopify also lets you set up translated storefronts to automatically redirect visitors based on their browser’s language, helping businesses engage with international markets, reach new customers, and increase site traffic.

Shopify has also partnered with keyword research tool Semrush to create the Ecommerce Booster app. This is a great feature, especially for smaller businesses, since it provides merchants with an actionable SEO plan to optimize your site effectively.

📨 Marketing Your Business

Shopify provides plenty of marketing tools and opportunities with its range of apps:

• Engage with customers via social media platforms, such as Facebook and Instagram – I recommend creating product-driven content to build hype around launches and to encourage customers to add items to their basket
• Show off your products in a dynamic way using Shopify’s 3D scanner
• Generate blog content to share your expertise and build brand awareness
• Use Shopify Email for personalized email marketing campaigns – set up automated workflows, personalize content (using Shopify Magic), and create customer groups to deliver targeted campaigns
• Answer customer questions with ease using the Shopify Inbox chat 
• Generate new leads and build your subscriber base using Shopify Forms

🚢 Shipping Products

Every Shopify store comes with Shopify Shipping included. This is built-in software that provides online stores with a suite of tools to support the shipping process, such as real-time shipping rates and label printing.

Shopify Shipping can only be used for orders shipped from the US, Canada, Australia, the UK, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. You’ll need to integrate additional shipping software if you plan on selling through social media platforms or marketplaces.

With Shopify, you also have the ability to offer split shipping at checkout. Split shipping supports Shopify merchants looking to provide more flexibility and choice to customers. For example, customers can choose shipping options, such as the fastest delivery or cheapest delivery.

Shopify’s no stranger to the world of AI, providing business owners with the impressive tool, Shopify Magic. I’ve already discussed the AI feature a little, but here’s how you can use it with your store:

• Generate, remove, or edit image backgrounds to create unique visuals
• Create product descriptions based on keywords and a desired tone of voice
• Personalize and streamline responses to customers to align with your brand – these can be incorporated into the Shopify Inbox feature
• Get email marketing support, from generating email content to providing the best times to send out newsletters or campaigns

Shopify Sidekick is also now available for merchants to use. The AI-powered assistant and expert advisor can help with everything business-related, from creating data reports to generating unique discount codes for your store.

There are also additional AI tools, such as Shopify’s Business Name Generator to help you find the perfect name for your brand.

Shopify provides a wide range of apps to choose from – there are over 8,000 in Shopify’s app store. I could filter these by category, such as “Finding products,” “Store design,” or “Marketing and conversion.”

Unfortunately, despite having the best sales features for an ecommerce website builder, Shopify relies heavily on third-party apps to complement its built-in tools. It forces business owners to waste time researching and installing the right apps for their website, when other platforms, like Wix, have the majority of these features ready to go from the start.

For example, you’ll need to download an app to schedule appointments or take bookings with Shopify since there isn’t an internal feature. I recommend choosing an app like Appointo or Appointly since these were built for Shopify and have a free plan.

All Shopify sites come with free SSL certificates and are supported by PCI-compliant servers, payment data encryption, and Transport Layer Security (TLS) to protect any traffic to your pages.

Shopify also carries out regular security audits and checks, leaving business owners with one less thing to worry about when it comes to running a company.

Shopify is our top performer when it comes to help and support, offering the best customer service for business and online stores. Here are Shopify’s customer support channels:

• 24/7 live chat – the virtual assistant resides in the Help Center and answers any queries you might have (I found the AI chatbot to be very responsive!)
• Help Center full of detailed guides and video tutorials
• Phone support – Shopify Plus customers get priority phone support
• Community forum so you can hear from other Shopify merchants and connect
• Social media channels – Shopify has profiles on Facebook, X, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, and Pinterest
• Shopify Sidekick – the new AI assistant can provide support, offer design guidance, create content, and more

Unfortunately, Shopify doesn’t include a tutorial when you first dive into the editor – something I was sad to see considering the editor is where I struggled the most. And, you also can’t contact Shopify via email, which is something other builders offer, such as Wix.

Shopify is our top-rated ecommerce website builder, and it’s a platform that’s trusted by millions of businesses and celebrities, including Beyoncé (for her haircare brand Cécred) and popular YouTuber MrBeast. In fact, tons of celebrities sell products via Shopify.

You can see how Shopify compares with other website builders in the table below:

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Shopify	Wix	Squarespace	Hostinger
Overall rating 4.8	Overall rating 4.8	Overall rating 4.7	Overall rating 4.2
Starting Price $29 $1/mo for 3 months	Starting Price $29 $26.10 with code “TAKE10”	Starting Price $16 $14.40 with code “WBE10”	Starting Price 84% off in the New Year Sale: $18.99 $2.99/month + 3 months for free
Free plan or free trial 3-day free trial	Free plan or free trial Free plan	Free plan or free trial 14-day free trial	Free plan or free trial 7-day free trial
Transaction fees 2.9% + $0.30	Transaction fees 2.9% + $0.30	Transaction fees 2%	Transaction fees 0%
Recommended for Businesses who want to easily scale their store as they grow	Recommended for Businesses promoting their online presence	Recommended for Creatives and service-based businesses	Recommended for Beginners and budget-conscious businesses
Try Shopify	Try Wix	Try Squarespace	Try Hostinger
See our Shopify review	See our Wix review	See our Squarespace review	See our Hostinger review

If you’re not sure about shelling out all that money for a Shopify plan, there are plenty of other options to get your online store up and running.

• Wix is our best website builder overall, sitting in second place for our ecommerce-specific testing – it’s a comprehensive platform with diverse and versatile features to cater to a wide range of users, plus there are 2,000+ free templates to choose from when designing
• Squarespace is the easiest website builder we’ve tested – its drag-and-drop editor is incredibly beginner-friendly and the stylish designs are ideal for creative businesses
• Hostinger is the most cost-effective way to start selling products – Shopify’s plans are expensive and Hostinger’s Business Website Builder plan starts from $3.99 per month (much cheaper than Shopify!)

To bring you fair and accurate reviews, we regularly test ecommerce website builders and put them through our rigorous research process. Our in-house research team has carried out over 300 hours of data collection, allowing us to create data-driven recommendations so you can find the right fit for your business.

I’ve also personally used Shopify’s website builder and tried its features so I can share genuine insights and tips with you.

This is why we can confidently say that Shopify is the best ecommerce website builder for businesses looking to get online.

Shopify is the best ecommerce website builder on the market. It helps you build a scalable online store thanks to its unbeatable sales features and large app market. Plus, you can connect your website with social media platforms and marketplaces to get your products seen by as many people as possible.

Shopify’s plans can be a little expensive, so I recommend Shopify for growing or large businesses as opposed to very small businesses only looking to sell a few products here and there.

And, don’t forget, you can get started with Shopify’s three-day free trial and get your first three months for just $1/month.