Shopify vs Webflow: A Comprehensive Comparison

When it comes to creating an online store, two popular options on the market today are Shopify and Webflow. In this article, we will conduct a thorough comparison of the salient features between these platforms including key differences, pros and cons, selling features, etc. This will help you understand which platform is better suited to grow your business.

Key Takeaways

• Shopify is best for businesses of all sizes, from small startups to large enterprises, with its extensive features, scalability, and wide range of sales tools.
• Webflow is ideal for creative professionals, designers, and developers who value design flexibility and want more control over the customization of their websites.

Shopify vs Webflow: The key difference

The main difference between Shopify and Webflow lies in their nature and target audience. 

Shopify is a comprehensive e-commerce platform designed to cater to businesses of all sizes. It provides an all-in-one solution for building and managing online stores, with a focus on simplicity and user-friendliness. 

On the other hand, Webflow is a visual web design tool that offers an ecommerce functionality. It appeals to creative professionals who prioritize aesthetics and want more control over the look and feel of their websites.

Shopify vs Webflow: Pros and Cons

Let’s explore the pros and cons of both platforms to get a better understanding of their strengths and limitations.

Pros and Cons of Shopify 

Pros:

• Easy setup and user-friendly interface: Shopify is known for its intuitive interface, making it simple for beginners to set up and manage their online stores.
• Wide range of themes and designs: Shopify offers a vast collection of professionally designed themes that can be customized to match your brand.
• Extensive app store: With thousands of apps and integrations available, Shopify allows you to add various functionalities to your store.
• Powerful sales features: Shopify provides robust features for inventory management, order processing, payment gateways, SEO, analytics, and more.
• Scalability: As your business grows, Shopify scales with you, offering advanced plans and enterprise solutions.

Cons:

• Transaction fees: Shopify charges additional transaction fees for using external payment gateways other than its own.
• The learning curve for advanced customization: While Shopify is beginner-friendly, advanced customization may require some coding knowledge or hiring a developer.

Pros and Cons of Webflow

Pros:

• Design flexibility: Webflow provides complete design freedom, allowing you to create unique and visually stunning websites.
• Customizable interactions and animations: With Webflow’s visual editor, you can easily add interactive elements and animations to enhance user experience.
• Code export option: Webflow allows you to export your website’s code, making it suitable for developers who prefer to work with custom code.
• Hosting and CMS included: Webflow provides hosting and a content management system (CMS), eliminating the need for additional services.
• Collaborative features: Webflow offers team collaboration tools, making it easier for designers and developers to work together.

Cons:

• Steeper learning curve: Webflow’s advanced features may require more time and effort to master compared to Shopify.
• Limited e-commerce functionality: While Webflow has e-commerce capabilities, it is not as comprehensive as Shopify in terms of sales features and tools.

Shopify vs Webflow: In-depth Comparison

Pricing

Shopify

Subscription fees

Shopify offers various pricing plans ranging from $39 to $399 per month, depending on your business’s needs and size.

For new merchants, Shopify offers a special deal. For the next three days, you can dip your toes in the ecommerce world with Shopify for free, then continue your e-commerce journey for just $1/month in your first three months. You can click here to start your dream online store without breaking the bank.

Transaction fees

Shopify charges additional transaction fees for using external payment gateways, starting from 0.5% to 2% per transaction. However, this fee can be eliminated if you use their native gateway—Shopify Payments. 

Read more: Shopify Fees (2023): All The Expenses You Need To Know!

Webflow

Subscription fees

Webflow offers three-tier Ecommerce Subscription Plans: Standard, Plus, and Advanced.

• Standard Ecommerce Plan – $42/month, which is the perfect springboard for emerging businesses. 
• Plus Ecommerce Plan – $84/month is good for a higher volume business? Our Plus Plan, priced at $84 per month, allows you to scale up smoothly. 
• Advanced Ecommerce Plan – $235/month is designed to help you scale your business to new heights. 

Transaction fees

For those starting out with our Standard Ecommerce Plan, a 2% transaction fee applies. This rate provides a low-cost entry point for emerging businesses that are just getting their feet wet in the world of ecommerce.

As your business grows and scales, so too do your needs and demands. The Plus and Advanced Ecommerce Plans take this into account by eliminating transaction fees altogether. 

In general, when compared to Webflow, Shopify’s transaction fees tend to be more competitive for businesses starting out in the ecommerce world. Shopify offers a range of plans to suit various budgets and provides a robust e-commerce infrastructure.

Table comparison in terms of overall pricing:

As we can see, Shopify is generally cheaper than Webflow. 

As a result, Shopify emerges as the winner in terms of pricing, offering a flexible and cost-effective solution.

Sales Features

Let’s take a closer look at the selling features offered by Shopify and Webflow, highlighting their unique strengths.

Shipping And Fulfillment

Shopify provides a built-in shipping and fulfillment system that allows you to manage shipping rates, print labels, and track orders seamlessly. It can also be integrated with various third-party shipping apps, making it so convenient for you to pick one that best suits you. 

Webflow, on the other hand, doesn’t have native shipping and fulfillment capabilities. However, you can integrate third-party solutions to handle these functions.

Inventory Management

Shopify offers robust inventory management tools, enabling you to track stock levels, receive alerts for low inventory, and manage multiple warehouses. Webflow also provides the basic inventory management features like Shopify, but it may not be as comprehensive and intuitive as Shopify.

Order Management

Shopify offers comprehensive order management features. Its intuitive dashboard provides real-time information about orders, customer data, and sales statistics. Once an order is placed, Shopify automatically updates inventory and sales data.

Shopify enables you to:

• Fulfill orders directly or use a fulfillment service.
• Generate shipping labels and packing slips.
• Update customers with automatic notification emails when their order status changes.
• Refund orders or cancel transactions directly from the dashboard.
• View detailed analytics about your orders and sales to aid in decision-making.

Shopify’s order management system is robust and designed to handle high-volume businesses, making it a strong choice for ecommerce businesses that expect significant traffic and sales.

Webflow’s ecommerce platform, while younger than Shopify’s, also comes with solid order management features. Webflow’s interface is user-friendly and provides detailed information about each order.

Webflow’s order management features include:

• View, track, and manage all orders directly from the Webflow dashboard.
• Update inventory automatically with each order.
• Customize email notifications for customers based on their order status.
• Refund orders directly from the dashboard.
• Export order data for further analysis or accounting purposes.
• While Webflow may not yet offer some of the advanced features that Shopify does (like integrated shipping label creation), it provides all the essential order management tools needed for both new and growing ecommerce businesses.

Payment Gateway

Shopify integrates with various payment gateways, including its own payment system, Shopify Payments. This allows you to accept credit card payments securely. Webflow supports integration with popular payment gateways as well, but the options are more limited compared to Shopify (only Stripe and PayPal). This could be a huge disadvantage for businesses that want to scale up and expand their business. 

SEO & content marketing

Both Shopify and Webflow are designed to be SEO-friendly. Shopify provides built-in SEO features, such as customizable meta tags, URL structure, and alt tags for images. It also offers a blogging platform to support content marketing efforts. Webflow offers similar SEO capabilities and includes a powerful visual editor for creating SEO-friendly websites. In terms of SEO capabilities, we think Webflow may take the upper hand as it has an advantage in the way they design their site architecture to make it more SEO friendly.

Reporting and Analytics 

Shopify offers comprehensive reporting and analytics tools, allowing you to track sales, customer behavior, and other key metrics curated specifically for ecommerce purposes. 

Discover: Top 31 Best Shopify Reports Apps in 2023

Webflow provides basic analytics, but it seems to not offer the same level of depth as Shopify’s reporting features and less ecommerce-focused. 

Automated Email Marketing

Shopify offers built-in email marketing tools (such as Shopify Email) and integrates with popular email marketing platforms, allowing you to automate email campaigns, send abandoned cart reminders, and more. Webflow doesn’t provide native email marketing features but allows merchants to integrate with third-party email marketing services. However, the number of email marketing tools available in Webflow is pretty limited (only 6 tools).

Product Types Supported Gift cards + coupons

Shopify supports a wide range of product types, including physical goods, digital products, subscriptions, and gift cards. Webflow also offers physical and digital products. However, it doesn’t currently support subscriptions (like setting appointment and scheduling), which is crucial for service-based businesses.

The Verdict

Shopify takes the lead over Webflow in terms of sales and marketing features.

Apps and Integrations

Shopify 

Shopify has a vast app store with 8,000+ apps and integrations available. It allows you to expand the functionality of your online store with third-party apps for marketing, sales, customer support, accounting, and more. Additionally, Shopify can integrate with Webflow and other platforms, providing flexibility for sellers to choose the apps that best suit their needs.

Webflow

Webflow also offers integrations with various third-party apps, but the options are way more limited compared to Shopify’s extensive app ecosystem. While Webflow provides essential integrations, it may not have the same level of variety and flexibility as Shopify.

The Verdict

When it comes to app availability and integrations, Shopify surpasses Webflow with its vast selection of third-party apps and seamless integrations, giving sellers more options and flexibility.

Ease of Use

Shopify – User-Friendly and Streamlined

Shopify is known for its user-friendly interface and straightforward setup process. Its dashboard is intuitively designed, allowing even novice users to navigate and manage their online store with ease. Adding products, setting up payment and shipping methods, and managing orders are all simple processes in Shopify.

Moreover, Shopify has a vast app marketplace, where users can find many integrations and extensions to customize their store and add desired functionalities. This reduces the need for custom coding, making Shopify a very accessible platform for those without extensive web development knowledge.

Webflow – Flexible and Powerful

Webflow, on the other hand, offers a higher degree of flexibility and customization. It gives users the power to design their ecommerce website exactly as they envision, with a pixel-perfect design editor that gives full control over the look and feel of the site.

However, this added flexibility can come with a slightly steeper learning curve compared to Shopify. For those with web design experience or a willingness to learn, the creative possibilities with Webflow are virtually limitless. The platform also supports custom coding, allowing advanced users to create truly unique features and functionalities.

Webflow’s CMS for product management is also fairly intuitive, but it may require some getting used to, especially for those who are new to content management systems.

The Verdict

In terms of ease of use, Shopify takes the lead with its user-friendly interface, intuitive tools, and extensive resources for beginners. 

Scalability

Shopify 

Shopify is built with scalability in mind. Regardless of where you start – whether it’s Shopify Basic or a higher tier – you can seamlessly upgrade to accommodate growing traffic, sales, and product lines. Shopify’s infrastructure is designed to handle high volume traffic and transactions, which is ideal for businesses experiencing rapid growth.

Additionally, Shopify’s vast App Store offers a multitude of integrations and plugins to extend your store’s functionality. This means as your business requirements change and expand, you can adapt by adding new features without switching platforms.

One factor to keep in mind is that as you scale with Shopify and move to higher plans, your monthly costs will increase. However, these costs often come with added benefits like lower transaction fees, better shipping discounts, and more staff accounts.

Webflow

Webflow, on the other hand, offers robust scalability with a more design-centric approach. Its platform supports the growth of your business by allowing a high degree of customization and control over your website’s appearance and functionality. As your business evolves, you can continually refine and enhance your website to fit your changing needs without having to migrate to a new platform.

Like Shopify, Webflow also allows you to upgrade your plan as you grow. Whether you’re expanding your product range or your traffic is increasing, you can choose a plan that suits your current business size.

Webflow’s CMS is a strong point in its scalability, allowing you to manage and grow vast collections of products, blog posts, and more. However, it’s worth noting that unlike Shopify, Webflow currently doesn’t have an equivalent to Shopify’s extensive app marketplace. While Webflow’s platform is flexible and customizable, certain functionalities may require custom code, potentially limiting its scalability for non-technical users.

The Verdict

When it comes to scalability, Shopify’s wide range of pricing plans and enterprise solutions make it the optimal choice for businesses with ambitions for growth and expansion.

Help and Support 

Shopify 

Shopify offers multiple support channels, including 24/7 customer support via live chat, email, and phone. It also provides an extensive help center with documentation, tutorials, and a community forum. Shopify’s support team is known for its responsiveness and helpfulness.

Webflow

Webflow offers similar support channels, including email and a help center with documentation and tutorials. However, its support options may not be as extensive or as readily available as Shopify’s.

The Verdict

In terms of help and support, Shopify’s 24/7 customer support and comprehensive documentation give it an edge over Webflow.

Security

Shopify 

Shopify takes security seriously and provides robust measures to protect your online store and customer data. It ensures secure transactions, offers SSL certificates, and is PCI DSS compliant. Shopify’s infrastructure is designed to handle security threats and maintain data integrity.

Webflow

Webflow also prioritizes security and offers SSL certificates for secure website connections. However, as Webflow is primarily a web design tool, it may not have the same level of security features and infrastructure as Shopify.

The Verdict

With its robust security measures and PCI DSS compliance, Shopify is the more secure option for online store owners.

Themes and Designs

Shopify 

Shopify provides a diverse range of expertly crafted themes that can be tailored to suit your brand. These themes are responsive and optimized for mobile devices. The theme store offers a variety of free and paid options, catering to different industries and providing a wide array of design choices.

Read more: Shopify Themes 101: All you need to know

Webflow

Webflow grants users with absolute design flexibility, enabling them to craft one-of-a-kind and aesthetically captivating websites. The platform boasts a robust visual editor and an array of advanced customization features. Webflow’s design prowess is held in high esteem, which explains its popularity among designers and creative individuals. If you value aesthetics and crave creative freedom, Webflow is the better option than Shopify. With Webflow, you have complete control over your website’s design and can create a visually stunning and unique online presence.

The Verdict

When it comes to website design, Shopify offers a wide range of themes and customization features. However, 

Shopify vs Webflow: Table Comparison

Here is a comparison table of Shopify and Webflow, focusing on key elements:

In this comparison, it can be seen that Shopify has the edge in several key areas such as pricing, selling features, apps and integrations, scalability, and help and support. While Webflow has its strengths, especially ease of use and security, the overall comparison shows that Shopify is a better choice for most businesses thanks to its support options and commerce features. comprehensive electronics.

Who should use Shopify? And who should use Webflow?

Who should use Shopify? 

Shopify is ideal for:

• Small and medium-sized businesses looking to set up an online store quickly and easily.
• Retailers and e-commerce entrepreneurs who want a robust platform with a wide range of features and integrations.
• Businesses with high sales volumes can benefit from Shopify’s scalable infrastructure and advanced reporting capabilities.
• Industries such as fashion, beauty, electronics, and home goods that require a customizable and visually appealing online presence.
• Brick-and-mortar stores seeking to expand their reach and establish an online presence.

Who should use Webflow?

Webflow is ideal for:

• Designers and creative professionals who prioritize custom web design and want full control over the look and feel of their websites.
• Freelancers and agencies who offer web design services to clients, as Webflow provides a powerful and flexible platform for building custom websites.
• Businesses or individuals who need a visually stunning website with interactive elements and animations.
• Companies that require a content management system (CMS) to manage and update their website content easily.
• Startups or small businesses that prioritize aesthetics and want to create a unique and visually appealing online presence.

Shopify vs Webflow: FAQs

Shopify vs Webflow: Conclusion

In conclusion, Shopify and Webflow are powerful platforms catering to different needs. Shopify offers comprehensive e-commerce features, scalability, and user-friendly interface, suitable for businesses of all sizes. Webflow excels in design flexibility, customization, ideal for creative professionals seeking aesthetic control. Choose based on your requirements, considering business size, sales needs, design preferences, and technical expertise to align with your business goals.