Shopify vs. Wix: Which Is The Better Platform?

If you're a small business owner looking to open an online store, you have two major options, Shopify or Wix. 

Both platforms are well-known eCommerce solutions that can handle most of the work of setting up and maintaining your website. They both have amazing features and toolsets and competitive prices. But which one is better suited for your business?

In this article, we'll compare Shopify and Wix head-to-head to help you decide between them and give tips on choosing the best platform for your needs!

What is Shopify?

Shopify is a SaaS (software-as-a-service) fully hosted eCommerce platform. This means that it provides everything you need to create and sell with your own online store—from the inventory management software to the checkout process, without having to worry about hosting or maintenance.

Shopify is great for small businesses or individuals who don't have time to learn how to code or build their infrastructure. The platform has a beautiful, easy-to-use user interface that makes it easy for anyone with minimal technical skills (or none at all) to build an online store from scratch in minutes.

One of their best features is their top-notch customer support. For most plans, you can get help from their team via live chat, email, and phone anytime.

What is Wix? 

Wix is an all-in-one website builder that allows you to create a website by selecting different themes and adding content. Wix's free version will enable you to use up to three pages, except for online stores. It has a drag-and-drop editor, so even if you don't know how to code or design, it won't be too difficult for you to make something beautiful!

Wix also has an easy-to-use mobile app called Wix Owner which allows users to manage and edit their live site from anywhere.

Round 1: Selling Products

Wix is more flexible, but Shopify is better for selling products.

Wix is more flexible because it has more features and can handle more traffic. While this flexibility does come with a steeper learning curve and higher cost, it's also very powerful if you have the time, money, and patience to learn how to use it well.

The trade-off may be worth it if you're interested in setting up a unique website or blog using Wix's advanced functionality.

Shopify is better for selling products because it is more user-friendly and has more features for eCommerce. Suppose your main goal is to sell products from your web store or blog. In that case, Shopify has an easier setup process that will allow you to get started quickly without having to worry about any technical details such as server management or security issues that could arise from running your own servers (which are required when using Wix).

For businesses that sell a lot of products, Shopify is a superior option because it's cheaper and provides more features like discounts, inventory management, and live chat support.

Round 2: Ease of Use

Shopify's interface is more intuitive. It’s easy to use and more modernized, making it much more fun than Wix.

Wix has a pretty basic interface, so if you know the basics of HTML coding, Shopify might appeal to you because it lets you do more things with less effort.

There are those who need a professional online presence but don't know how to code or design websites. Wix is made for people like this.

Wix has a lot of tools that make it easy for you to make website content, like "About Us" business descriptions, blogs, and articles for your site. When Wix was made, it was not meant to be used to run an online store. It's really for making a website.

Meanwhile, Shopify is and has always been a tool for building online shops. With Shopify, you can add additional tools like blogs and business description pages to your content.

In terms of how easy it is to use, both Wix and Shopify aren't bad. If you're creating an online store, Shopify is the best option, especially if you intend to expand it. You can use Wix if you want to build a content-heavy website that also has basic e-commerce functions, like collecting payment for services or selling a limited number of items.

If all you need is a website and not a store, Wix may be for you.

Round 3: Pricing

Shopify plans

Wix Business and eCommerce plans

Shopify is a bit more expensive than Wix. Shopify’s basic plans start at $19 per month, while the cheapest eCommerce plan on Wix is $17/month. However, when you compare the functionality of the two platforms for a small business, it’s clear that Shopify offers more value for money.

Wix has a free website builder that should be able to provide enough capabilities for those who are just starting out. But it does come with some limitations. For example, there will be ads on every single page, a limited bandwidth up to 500mb, and you won’t be able to accept payments.

If you want to build an online store from scratch and sell products, then Shopify is likely your best option as it offers unlimited pages and storage space.

There are three premium Wix plans for small businesses that want to take their business online or add an e-commerce element to their basic website plan.

Wix eCommerce and business plans (if you want to accept payments):

• Business Basic $27 per month
• Business Unlimited $32 per month
• Business VIP $59 per month

All Wix eCommerce plans come with the following features:

• Accept secure online payments (single payments and recurring)
• Customer accounts
• Free custom domain
• 20 GB to 50 GB of storage
• Unlimited products
• Abandoned cart recovery

Meanwhile, Shopify has 4 pricing plans in total, with the lowest plan starting at $9 per month and the most expensive one at $299 per month. The lowest-priced plan is called Shopify Lite and includes features such as a Buy Button that lets you sell products on your existing website. 

The next tier up is the Basic Shopify plan, which costs $29 per month. This plan includes all of the features of Shopify Lite plus a full e-commerce website (with a blog) and the ability to accept credit card payments online or in person (using Shopify POS).

The Shopify plan costs $79 per month and comes with everything included in Basic Shopify plus additional professional sales reports, abandoned cart recovery and the ability to provide customers with professional gift packaging during checkout.

The Advanced Shopify plan costs $299 per month. You get everything included in the previous plans, plus advanced report building (for larger stores), third-party calculated shipping rates at checkout and 15 staff accounts.

Here is a quick comparison of Shopify’s plans:

	Basic Shopify	Shopify	Advanced Shopify
Price per Month*	$29	$79	$299
Staff Access Number	2	5	15
Inventory Locations (e.g., warehouses, pop-ups, retail stores or anywhere else you store your goods)	Up to 4	Up to 5	Up to 8
Reports	-	Standard	Advanced
Third-party Calculated Shipping Rates	-	-	✔
Shipping Discount	Up to 77%	Up to 88%	UP to 88%
USPS Priority Mail Cubic Pricing	-	✔	✔
Online Credit Card Rates	2.9% + $0.30	2.6% + $0.30	2.4% + $0.30
In-Person Credit Card Rates	2.7% + $0.30	2.5% + $0.30	2.4% + $0.30
International Domains	-	✔	✔
International Pricing	-	✔	✔
International Per-Variant Pricing	-	-	✔

Design options

Shopify only has 8 free design themes which you can find on their Shopify store. The good thing is that each of those comes with two to three variations, giving you a little more room for design.

Another 100+ themes are available, but they come with a one-time price ranging from $150 to $350 (or more) to use.

Meanwhile, Wix has over 500 free themes available that you can also customize to make your own.

That means that when it comes to design options, Wix has a lot more options than Shopify does.

Wix's drag-and-and-drop editor makes it easy to customize your site to meet your specific business requirements. The platform has a Wix Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI) editor which can make a website for you based on your preferences.

However, it’s also worth noting that since Shopify 2.0’s release, the platform has been able to provide more flexibility than ever before so even if Wix has more free options, if you really want to make your website your own, then creating one on Shopify would be more ideal.

Round 4: Free Trials

Both Shopify and Wix have free trials. The Shopify one is really good, it lets you get started with a 14-day trial, and then pay for the account after that. It's also worth noting that they don't charge anything until the end of your trial to start charging you!

Again, Wix does have a free plan but with limitations. They give you access to some parts of the platform but not all. If you want to add on things like mobile apps or ecommerce functionality (to create an online store), then yes—you'll need to start paying money right away.

Round 5: Features and Traffic Handling

When comparing Shopify vs. Wix, you’ll find that Shopify is a better choice for most e-commerce businesses.

While Wix has more features than Shopify, it lacks the ease of use, advanced store management and customization options that help many online stores grow and thrive on Shopify.

Shopify can handle more traffic than Wix too! If you need to scale up quickly or want to sell products at an affordable price point then this is something you should consider before making any commitment with either platform provider.

Let’s take a quick recap of the two platforms and their capabilities:

	Wix	Shopify
Price	$14 to $49 per month*	$29 to $299 per month**
Free Plan	✔	-
Free Trial	14 days	14 days
Custom Domain Included	✔	-
SSL Certificate	✔	✔
Checkout on Your Domain	✔	✔
Abandoned Cart Recovery	✔	✔
Unlimited Products	✔	✔
E-Commerce Analytics	✔	✔
Accept Payments on Facebook, Instagram and Amazon	✔	✔
Customer Accounts	✔	✔
Gift Cards	Available through Gifted third-party app	✔
Discount Codes	✔	✔
Sell Digital Goods	1 GB file size limit	5 GB file size limit
Multilingual Capabilities	✔	✔
Real-Time Shipping (U.S.)	USPS only	USPS, UPS and DHL Express
Automatic Tax Calculations	On Business Unlimited and Business VIP plans	Built-in functionality for U.S., E.U., U.K. and Canadian users
Product Options and Variants	Six product options; 100 variants per product; manage 1,000 total variants	Three product options; 100 variants per product
Transaction Fees	-	Shopify Payments: none External payment gateways: 0.5% to 2%
Online Payment Processing Fees	Wix Payments: 2.9% + $0.30; other fees vary by region and payment gateway	Shopify Payments: 2.4% to 2.9% + $0.30; other fees vary by payment gateway
Dropshipping Options	On Business Unlimited and Business VIP plans	Extensive options via third-party apps
Mobile Apps	Wix Owner for iOS and Android	Shopify and Shopify POS for iOS and Android
Integrations	300+ (not all e-commerce-focused)	6,000+ (e-commerce focused)
Customer Support	Online help center, plus call-back and email Monday through Friday	24/7 online help center, chat, email and phone

Both systems look comparable, so you may question why they're suggested for small enterprises. Both accomplish most things similarly yet have unique strengths and weaknesses.

Shopify is a hosted ecommerce platform that enables you to construct an online store, while Wix is an all-in-one website builder. Each platform has something to offer if you want to set up an online business.

The main benefit of Shopify is that it focuses on selling products; compared to other e-commerce platforms like Big Cartel or Squarespace, it provides more functionality for managing inventory, processing payments, and shipping.

Why Choose Wix?

Probably the best thing about it is the mobile app. Its mobile app is also better than Shopify’s in that it allows users to see how their site will look on different devices and browsers without having to log into the main website builder platform itself.

We also have to note that its SEO features are slightly better than Shopify’s which is why we keep reiterating that if your focus is more on content, Wix would be the better platform.

Wix provides SEO guidance with their ‘SEO best practice’ prompts which gives them an edge over Shopify. It offers keyword support, suggesting popular words or phrases worth using which as of the moment, Shopify does not provide.

Why Choose Shopify?

From a design perspective, Shopify has a leg up on Wix. Shopify provides 60+ professionally-designed and customizable templates that include the ability to move, add, delete, or resize page elements to suit your needs.

The platform is also readily mobile-responsive, meaning it automatically adjusts to smaller screen sizes and is designed for mobile devices. When people browse your store on their smartphone or tablet, they can expect an intuitive shopping experience that's more enjoyable than the one you'd get from Wix.

Additionally, Shopify has some features that make shipping easy: You can print your own labels through the platform or connect it directly to your shipping provider if you prefer (and oftentimes pay less).

In addition to providing excellent customer service—something that's part of their DNA—Shopify offers analytics so you can track sales trends over time and understand what works best for acquisitions and conversions (i.e., when customers buy stuff).

Conclusion

When it comes down to it, both Shopify and Wix are great platforms for small businesses. Shopify does have some features that Wix doesn't offer, but Wix's flexibility makes it a good choice for those who don't need all those bells and whistles.

If you're looking for a simple option with plenty of potential for growth as your business grows then Wix may be just what you need! Shopify is still our top pick though because when it comes down to selling products online there's no stopping this bad boy.