Wix vs Shopify 2024: Comparing 6 key areas

Wix and Shopify are popular platforms in their respective markets. Wix is a versatile website builder with over 800 designs, while Shopify is an eCommerce platform that can boost sales. 

However, they have one thing in common – both Shopify and Wix platforms can help you build a unique website and sell online. 

But, if that’s the case – which one is better? 

In this Wix vs Shopify blog, I will use test sites to help you understand the differences between the two. By the end of the article, you will know which one is better. 

Wix vs Shopify: Quick Comparison

Before discussing the core differences between Wix and Shopify, let's take a look at the table below. You will give a rough idea on the aspects I'm about to discuss.

Now, you might be wondering how Wix is different from Shopify, apart from the website builder features. Let's talk about those aspects in detail.

Wix vs Shopify: At a glance

Wix is one of the most popular platforms. With over 10.8 million Wix websites worldwide, it's renowned for making the website creation more accessible to everyone. Even if you don’t have any coding experience, you can still create a fully functional and beautiful website in no time. 

Wix website builder has a drag-and-drop interface that helps you easily arrange elements. You don’t need to handle complicated coding algorithms. With a large gallery of templates, you can make your website relevant to your needs. 

These templates can be customized to a great extent. You can also integrate third-party services and applications to boost your eCommerce functionality. Once you build your website, you can promote it through SEO tools. 

On the other hand, Shopify is a dedicated eCommerce platform that can help you build a robust online presence. Similar to Wix, Shopify also uses drag-and-drop functionality to design your website. You can also choose any template and start designing your website right away. 

Apart from creating a functional online store, Shopify offers different features for your business management. From inventory management to payment processing, Shopify can streamline your business’s operations and boost your online sales. 

1. Ease of use

When choosing between two eCommerce website builders, simplicity will play a key role. You don’t need a platform with a steep learning curve, which will take much time and effort. 

I almost recommend that every developer use Wix business website builder just because of its ease of use. You won’t believe how simplified the process is until you create a free account and use the drag-and-drop editor. 

If you want any element or page, just click on it, and it will be added. Plus, you can access all the essential tools from the left side of the screen. Thus, you don’t need to hunt for them. 

Even if you’re not tech-savvy, Wix still has your back. For example, it lets you switch between different pages without any hassle. Whether you need templates to get started easily or want to create everything from scratch, Wix has everything you need. 

The Wix editor also looks super sleek and clean. If you want to edit something, just click on it, and the editor will open a side panel with the necessary information. Websites built on Wix will always look excellent on tablets, phones, and computers. 

When I tried Shopify to build an online store, I realized it functions differently. While no two website builders are alike, seeing such huge differences was confusing to me. 

For starters, I faced many problems while customizing the pages or elements. You won’t get any drag-and-drop editor. Instead, you must use Shopify templates that depend on a specific theme. 

Moreover, Shopify uses a markup language known as Liquid. Sounds fancy, right? But believe it’s not a walk in the park. If you want to tweak your store, you need to study markup language, or you may mess up your web design.

2. Templates and design

Building a powerful website means choosing eCommerce designs and templates and designs that meet your customers' expectations. After all, your customers will first look at your website's overall design before they engage. 

Wix has a vast selection of web templates (over 800 designs). Also, these templates are completely free to use. So, you don’t need to worry about spending money on any specific design. 

Remember that Wix has a relatively lower template option than WordPress, which I find a little disappointing. And WordPress website templates are more eye-catching.

Unlike free templates from Shopify, Wix templates are more aesthetically appealing and functional. Wix also offers more modern templates to help you find something suitable for your business’s needs. 

The platform's editing interface is super handy. The drag-and-drop feature makes it easy to customize templates. You can customize and arrange the layout of your website by dragging and dropping elements into your pages. 

Additionally, Wix doesn't limit you to the features of a particular theme. You can make significant modifications to the basic template. You may fine-tune your website by using the templates created explicitly for elements and section layouts, even when updating individual pages.

Then comes Shopify. I am super disappointed with the templates provided by Shopify. Not because they look unappealing but because most of them are paid. 

The paid templates start at a $190 one-time fee, which is not cost-effective. If you look at the above picture, you will see that Shopify only provides 13 free themes or templates. 

These themes may prove suitable if you’re on a tight budget. However, the customization options are quite low compared to the premium Shopify themes. 

Fortunately, the theme editor will let you change your store’s appearance and feel. However, remember that the editor doesn’t come with the drag-and-drop functionality. This means that you cannot achieve a superior level of customization. 

Each theme is crafted using the templates defining your online store’s structure and layout. You can create new templates, but it will require top-notch coding knowledge. 

3. Ecommerce features

Building a website isn’t all about creating a solid online presence. Your primary objective should be promoting and selling your products and services. Online selling is a crucial consideration for the best eCommerce websites, and your website builder should assist you with that. 

When you pay close attention to Wix’s eCommerce features, you will first notice its user-friendliness. By that, I mean how easily your customers can make payments for their purchases. Wix offers numerous payment options to ensure everyone worldwide can pay without restrictions. 

Moreover, the website owner can leverage some added advantages. Wix has a payment processing system called Wix Payments. It will ensure your customers have a smooth payment experience. 

The best part? Wix Payments won’t redirect your customer to any third-party payment gateway. This method will help you provide customers with a faster and more secure payment experience. 

Additionally, you can accept various payment methods, such as debit cards, credit cards, PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and the buy-now-pay-later option. As a result, your customers will have more flexibility while paying for your products and services. 

You don’t need to worry about transaction fees on credit card payments, which is undoubtedly a vast cost-saving opportunity for small businesses. You can offer more discounts without worrying about such fees affecting your profitability. 

With its integrated inventory management features, Wix is a good choice for startups or enterprises with a limited selection of products. For users with a greater inventory or more complicated demands, their app store offers programs that can enhance the system. 

Using Wix, you can track the amount of each product in stock. This keeps you from overselling and guarantees that clients won't order things that aren't available. You can update inventory levels manually or automatically upon a sale through Wix. 

This eliminates the need for regular manual adjustments. Finally, this platform can display an “Out of Stock” notice when a product runs out. This avoids misleading expectations and customer annoyance.

Shopify also offers numerous payment options. As Shopify is designed to help online stores, you will find the payment processing flexible and attractive. 

You can leverage the best benefits of an in-built payment gateway. Thus, you don’t need to rely on any different merchant account. It accepts all major debit and credit cards to provide a seamless checkout experience. 

I find Shopify’s payment integrations super helpful. For example, it integrates with Stripe and Authorize.net. Depending on the transaction amount, the fees will be relatively lower. 

Now comes an interesting part. You don’t need to be restricted by traditional credit and debit cards while using Shopify. This way, Shopify allows you to provide services to many audiences. 

To provide a faster checkout experience, you can integrate reliable payment methods such as Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Facebook Pay Later. Your customers can also pay you through cryptocurrencies. 

4. AI features

With integrated AI technologies, Wix and Shopify have helped customers create websites within minutes. While Wix is one of the best AI website builders, Shopify can also streamline the process greatly. 

The Wix ADI feature provides customers who want to develop their own websites with a smooth onboarding process. The AI interacts with you when you start the website development process, learning vital details about the goals and features you want for your site. 

Thanks to this approach, ADI can integrate these components automatically during setup, saving manual post-onboarding extra work. Wix ensures you spend more time improving your content and less time sifting through intricate design options. 

When you complete the initial setup, you can choose a template to use AI to create a personalized one. If you choose a template, the AI will suggest relevant steps based on your preferences. 

Alternatively, you can use AI to create custom templates. The AI will choose the base design from your preferred theme and create homepage templates, FAQs, a contact us page, a product page, and other important pages. 

Shopify only uses AI during the onboarding process. And I must say it’s much less effective than Wix’s ADI. 

When you first go through the onboarding process, the AI gets involved by asking you for basic information about your online store. This includes the name of the company, the features you would want, and your chosen sales channels. 

Shopify's artificial intelligence leverages this data to create a customized online store or website. This approach will reduce the manual tasks needed by the users. Thus, you can ensure a smoother website-building process. 

5. Marketing and SEO

Marketing and SEO are two of the most essential factors if you want your website to rank higher. A website builder with superb SEO features will boost your online identity, while one lacking robust SEO features can hold you back. 

One of its features is Wix Ascend, an integrated email marketing system. Users can develop and send personalized email campaigns depending on their membership level. 

Users can still send up to three monthly email campaigns even without subscribing. With Wix's robust email marketing tool, users can efficiently track their campaigns' efficiency and access specific insights and data.

Wix does a great job marketing, but it still needs to integrate properly with all social networking platforms. This constraint might disadvantage those who significantly rely on social media for their marketing activities. 

Wix compensates for this, though, by providing sophisticated SEO features that aren't available on platforms like Shopify. For example, Wix gives users more control over how search engines crawl and manage their website pages by supporting meta tags and schema data markup.

Wix simplifies handling technical issues like personalizing 404 error pages and managing robots.txt files. Wix offers an easy-to-use editing interface for these components and several templates to simplify the process. 

Furthermore, Wix allows customers to manage how their content appears on social media via Open Graph Meta Tags. This can enhance visibility and interaction on social media networks.

With its SEO Checklist and SEO Wiz tools, Wix significantly simplifies the SEO optimization process. Users can configure crucial SEO elements of their website with the help of the SEO Checklist. 

Additionally, Wix customers can tailor SEO settings for various content, allowing them to easily optimize individual sites to meet their needs.

Compared to Wix, Shopify’s marketing and SEO capabilities are less powerful. I’ve read numerous online reviews where users are complaining about this specific aspect. 

One of the most notable drawbacks is advanced features like meta tags and schema markup. Both of these are extremely important to optimize a website’s SERP visibility. While Wix provides these options by default, Shopify lacks them. 

To bypass these restrictions, users can incorporate third-party tools like Yoast. However, you must pay extra for basic and advanced SEO features. Nevertheless, this solution must incorporate more extensive features provided by rivals. 

Additionally, you need to understand Shopify's Liquid markup language to customize the robots.txt file, which presents a hurdle for users lacking technical know-how. Due to this restriction, hiring a Shopify Developer or Expert is required, which results in extra expenses.

Moreover, Shopify does not have user-friendly tools like Open Graph Meta Tags. These allow customers to manage how their content is displayed on Facebook and Twitter. 

Users cannot effectively increase interaction and visibility on social media sites without these features, which also provide them control over their social SEO approach. Additionally, Shopify's SEO setup leaves consumers to handle the intricacies of SEO on their own. 

You must also give more instructions on optimizing pages, goods, or blog articles. Users unfamiliar with SEO best practices may find this intimidating. 

6. Pricing

My Wix vs Shopify comparison won’t stay incomplete without discussing the pricing. As I’ve highlighted earlier, you need to choose a website builder with cost-effective plans. You don’t want something that puts your business in financial hardships. 

Wix provides different pricing options. The storage space will vary depending on your chosen plan, so you must ensure you choose the right one. 

Wix does come with a completely free plan. In fact, I have used that free plan to study Wix more thoroughly. While you will get only 500MB of storage on your website, creating a personal website is still suitable. 

However, your website will see ads. The domain will also have Wix branding. Upgrade to a premium plan if you want to use a custom domain or sell online. 

The basic plan is called Light, where you need to pay $17/month. It has 2GB of storage, a light marketing suite, two collaborators, and a free domain for one year. 

Now, what do you do when you need to sell something online? In such cases, you need to upgrade to the other premium plans. As Wix lets you add eCommerce tools like Stripe and PayPal, you have nothing to worry about. 

The transaction fee is also the same: $2.9 plus 30 cents. The primary thing you need to consider is how much storage and extra features you need. 

I recommend the Business plan for everyone as it provides a balanced feature set. Whether you have a small or large business, this plan would be suitable for you. 

On the other hand, Shopify plans are differentiated into four categories, including a free one. They vary depending on the transaction fees and shipping discounts. 

The higher the plan you choose, the lower the transaction fee. You can also use Shopify Payments to use credit card fees. Here’s the Shopify pricing structure:

While the Shopify plans are more expensive compared to Wix, they are designed for medium and large businesses. Small businesses or individuals will find Shopify pricing overwhelming.

Wix vs Shopify: Which one should you choose?

If you look at the results, Wix wins by a large margin. It can help you build a fully functional website without any huge investment. 

While Shopify website builder is more suitable for medium and large businesses planning to create an online store, Wix is the right choice if selling online isn’t your main goal. But, if you don't like Shopify, you can also use Big Cartel to open an online store.

Hopefully, this Wix vs Shopify comparison blog has answered your questions. Whether you choose Wix or Shopify, they can cater to your different needs.

Remember, choosing the right website builder will always be a daunting task. If you’re unhappy with your current website builder, you can easily migrate to a different platform. 

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