Shopify vs Wix: Which Is Best for Ecommerce in 2022?
Meaghan has provided content and guidance for indie retailers as the editor for a number of retail publications and a speaker at trade shows. She is Fit Small Business’s authority on retail and ecommerce.
Agatha Aviso is a writer of the Retail Section at Fit Small Business, focusing on retail software and ecommerce platforms.
This article is part of a larger series on Retail Management.
If you are comparing Shopify vs Wix, you are likely looking to build an online store for your small business. Both platforms provide beginner-friendly website builders and robust ecommerce tool kits at cost-effective prices. The biggest difference between the two is that Wix is an online store builder that expanded its offering to include ecommerce solutions, whereas Shopify is built specifically for selling products.
In general, we recommend:
- Shopify: Best for most small businesses or startups planning to scale (one of our top-recommended ecommerce platforms)
- Wix: Best for individual sellers looking for lots of design flexibility and quick setup with limited technical know-how
When to use an alternative: If you are looking for a free alternative, consider building your online store with Square Online. It doesn’t have as many robust features as Shopify or Wix, but it is an excellent low-cost option ideal for storefronts wanting to offer online ordering.
Shopify vs Wix Quick Comparison
 |  | |
Best For | Small businesses or growing startups that are planning to scale | Individuals who have a small inventory and need quick and easy setup |
Monthly Fees | Starts at $29; embeddable Buy Now button available for $9 (Shopify Lite) | Starts at $21 |
Additional Sales Channels | Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Etsy, and more | Facebook, Instagram, eBay |
Ease of Use | Excellent | Excellent |
Point-of-Sale-App | Yes; free and paid options | Yes |
Marketing Features | Excellent | Excellent |
Product and Order Management | Average | Average |
App Marketplace | Extensive | Average |
Customer Support | 24/7 email, live chat, and phone | 24/7 email and live chat; callback requests |
Best for Affordability: Shopify
| | |
Free Plan or Free Trial | Free trial (14 days) | Free plan (cannot accept payments; need to upgrade to an ecommerce plan) |
Online Store Plans | $29 to $299/month | $21 to $40/month |
Lite Plans (Add shopping cart functionality to existing site) | $9/month | None |
At first look, it might seem Wix has the edge over Shopify for pricing since it offers a free plan and lower monthly fees. However, to decide which of the two platforms provide more value from an ecommerce standpoint, we need to compare the available features in each plan. Wix and Shopify are close in pricing, but overall, Shopify’s plans provide more value per dollar, as you will see below.
Shopify vs Wix Starter Plans
Let’s compare Shopify and Wix’s basic plans.
Basic Shopify | Wix Business Basic | |
Monthly Fee | $29 | $21 |
Transaction Fees (if not with built-in payment provider) | 2% | None |
Number of Products | Unlimited | Unlimited |
Storage Limit | None | 20GB |
Abandoned Cart Saver | Yes | Yes |
Inventory Locations | Up to 4 | 1 |
Sell on Social Channels | Yes | Yes |
Sell on Marketplaces | Yes | No |
Multicurrency Support | Yes | No |
It is also worth highlighting Shopify’s Lite plan. For $9 per month, it doesn’t give you a fully functional standalone online store but allows you to:
- Use the Buy Now button to sell products and accept payments on existing websites, social channels, or blogs
- Sell in person using a mobile device
- Sell on your Facebook page
- Send invoices and accept invoice payments online
Want to learn more? Head over to our comprehensive guide to Shopify pricing.
Best for Payment Processing: Shopify
| | |
Built-in Payment Provider (optional) | Wix Payments | Shopify Payments |
Transaction Fees (for using built-in payment provider) | 2.9% + 30 cents (US); varies per country | 2.9% + 30 cents (online sales) 2.7% (using Shopify POS or a mobile card reader) |
Option to Connect to Third-party Processor | Yes, no fees | Yes, 0.5%–2% fee |
Apply Pay and Google Pay | Yes | Yes |
Payment Gateway Options | 80 | Over 100 |
Multiple Currency Support | No | Yes, with Shopify Payments |
Shopify and Wix have built-in payment providers and partner gateways. Wix has the advantage of not charging markup fees if you decide to go with another provider. However, Shopify gives more flexibility regarding which payment gateway to choose—providing more than 100 options. You can also display and charge customers in different currencies—but only if you go with Shopify Payments.
- Wix Payments supports traditional payment solutions, such as PayPal, Stripe, and Square. It lets you offer buy now, pay later options to your customers at no additional costs and can process recurring payments for memberships, subscriptions, and packages.
- Shopify Payments gives you the ability to set up a local currency on your checkout page and the Shop Pay feature—this is similar to Apple Pay and Google Pay in that shoppers can complete orders in one click.
Best for Ease of Use: Tied
| | |
Onboarding and Setup | Yes, easy-to-follow setup wizard | Yes, easy-to-follow setup wizard |
Store Management | Beginner-friendly | Beginner-friendly |
Onboarding & Setup
When we compared Shopify vs Wix on onboarding and setup, we found that it is faster to set up Wix since its website and ecommerce features are embedded in its website editor.
However, both are beginner-friendly (as you don’t need coding knowledge), provide setup wizards, and make it easy to search the help center if you are stuck with a step.
The Wix dashboard has the Help tab displayed prominently on its navigation bar, so you can easily search the Help Center with keywords. Results are displayed on an inlay window, allowing you to follow along with the guide while doing the steps.
Building an Ecommerce Store with Wix
Building an online store with Wix is very simple. Most users claim that it only took them an hour to set up their store, and when we tried it, it took us more or less the same time to set up a few products and the store’s front-end.
What we found interesting is that Wix also provides an option to build the site using artificial intelligence (AI) with its tool Wix ADI. It can produce a ready-made template in seconds.
Wix is the only website builder to offer AI to build your website.
If you are interested to learn more, follow our guide on how to build a Wix website in five steps.
Building an Ecommerce Store with Shopify
Shopify’s platform is one of the most user-friendly platforms we have encountered. Its dashboard is easy to navigate, and its features are very intuitive. You don’t really need to watch tutorials extensively to know what to do. However, if you have any trouble with any of Shopify’s features, its help center has many guides and videos to show you exactly how things are done.
Shopify’s setup wizard is easy to follow with prompts and help bubbles you can click on to take you to detailed step-by-step guides in the help center.
Follow our guide on how to set up your Shopify store.
Store Management
Wix and Shopify are easy to navigate. Both platforms have clear control panels, and help articles are easy to refer to within the dashboard through search features and callout boxes.
With Wix, you get a store page already included in every online store template you choose. To add products, you need to click on the store icon to access them. If you want to edit them or create collections (categories), the same thing goes.
This is a view of what a Wix dashboard looks like, specifically the ecommerce portion.
With Shopify, there is a clear distinction between your store’s frontend and backend. Most of its navigation panel includes links to ecommerce features.
While it was easy to be creative and design a website on Wix, it can be slightly confusing when adding products and creating categories compared to Shopify. We found Shopify’s structure easier to navigate for ecommerce features but liked Wix’s drag-and-drop interface for its website builder better.
Best for Design: Wix
| | |
Free Templates | Over 800 | 10 |
Paid Templates | None; all its templates are free | 71 (starting at $150) |
Editing Tool | Wix ADI (artificial intelligence) and Wix Editor (drag-and-drop builder) | WYSIWYG editor (for vintage themes); Drag-and-drop builder (for new OS 2.0 theme) |
Customization | Yes (CSS and HTML) | Yes (CSS and HTML) |
Templates
When it comes to comparing Wix vs Shopify in terms of website templates, both provide mobile-responsive ones and easy-to-use website building tools. However, Wix wins in this category as it provides over 800 free templates compared to Shopify’s 10.
Wix categorizes its template by industry. These are examples of what is available under the online store category. (Source: Wix)
Shopify provides 10 free unique templates that provide room for customization. (Source: Shopify)
Website Builder
Shopify recently came out with an improved website builder called Online Store 2.0 (OS 2.0), along with new themes, which offer more customization options than its version (which has the WYSIWYG editor). OS 2.0 introduces sections and blocks that provide modularity, flexibility, and, to some extent, drag-and-drop capabilities. It still doesn’t yet apply to all themes.
With the OS 2.0 update in Shopify themes, you can expect a more user-friendly setup with drag-and-drop building blocks. (Source: Shopify)
Meanwhile, Wix has a drag-and-drop editing tool called Wix Editor. When we were testing it out, we were reminded of how Wix’s editor gives plenty of creative freedom in customization without feeling we needed to learn how to code. It can get overwhelming at first because of the variety of sections you can add, but you will soon get the hang of it.
If you need to design a template with fewer sections, Wix provides a unique option to build your template using Wix ADI.
Wix has tools you can view to lay out your website better.
You can add many sections to your website, each with different styles and options.
However, there is a limitation with Wix’s templates. You cannot switch templates midway and carry over any content you have previously done with the current template—you would need to start from scratch.
Best Product & Order Management: Tied
| | |
Import/Export Products/Data | CSV | CSV |
Product Options | Up to 3 | Up to 6 |
Product Variants | Up to 100 | Up to 1,000 |
Product Categories | Manual and Smart/Automatic | Manual |
Custom Product or Work Order Tools | Only with add-on | Yes, only with text |
Digital Goods | Yes, but with an app | Yes |
Subscriptions | Yes, but with an app | Yes, with Wix Payments |
Online booking, ticket and event management | Yes, but with an app | Yes, built-in |
Real-time tracking in between locations/channels | Yes, but with an app | No |
Real-time Shipping Calculators | Available in highest plan, Advanced Shopify | Yes, but with an app |
Shipping discounts | Yes, with Shopify Shipping (discounts depend on plan) | No |
Wix and Shopify allow you to sell physical products, digital goods, and services. They also enable you to sell memberships, subscriptions, events, etc. However, Shopify requires the use of an app when it comes to digital goods, subscriptions, and events, which may or may not have added fees. Wix provides all these as built-in features and even offers built-in online appointment booking tools that Shopify doesn’t.
However, Shopify pulls ahead of Wix when it comes to tracking and managing inventory and shipping. So, the best one for your needs depends on what is most important to your business.
Wix gives more setup options when it comes to product listings—allowing you to configure more variants and custom work tools. However, Shopify does a better job of allowing you to easily categorize products into collections.
Product Categories
Shopify makes it easier for you to segment products into categories. You can do this manually by setting up collections or using tags. Wix doesn’t have tags but enables you to create categories manually.
Wix lets you create categories as collections and assign products to them manually.
Shopify’s smart tags helps your Shopify store be easily segmented into groups such as bestsellers or “on sale” products. This way, your catalog is easily searchable by customers.
Product Options
When it comes to product options and variants, Wix lets you configure up to six product options and 1,000 variants—better than Shopify’s limit of three product options and 100 variants.
Custom Product or Work Order Tools
If you want to offer customization for your products (like engraving and special delivery instructions), Wix lets you add a custom field to your product but limits it to just text. In Shopify, custom work order tools can only be activated using third-party apps.
You can set up custom text fields in your product pages with Wix.
Best Sales Tools: Shopify
| | |
Buy Now button | Yes ($9 monthly plan) | Yes, but with an app |
One-Click Checkout Link | Yes (Shop Pay) | No |
Social Media Integration | Yes | Yes |
Point-of-Sale (POS) Tool | Yes, native Shopify POS | Yes, native Wix POS and integration with Square |
Wix and Shopify extend your selling capabilities past your online storefront. Both provide integrations for social media and in-person selling (POS). However, Shopify has industry-leading partnerships with social channels like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. Go with Shopify if you want the ability to offer in-app social media sales.
Shopify also has an edge with its Buy Now button, which allows you to embed checkout buttons on existing sites, and one-click checkout link, Shop Pay, a customer-facing checkout that saves a buyer’s details so that they can quickly purchase items by clicking the Buy Now button. Wix doesn’t have a one-click checkout link, and its buy now button can only be added with the help of an app (PayPal button).
For in-person selling, Shopify has a free native POS app, Shopify POS, available on all ecommerce plans. Wix also has a built-in POS app, Wix POS, but it only supports certain business types and is currently available only in the US. POS retail hardware kits for Wix start at $630, while Shopify is only at $159. You can also get a card reader for $29 with Shopify, compared to Wix’s $69.
Best Marketing Features: Wix
| | |
Banners | Yes | No |
Gift cards, discount, and coupon codes | Yes, on all plans | Yes, on all plans |
Customer Reviews | Yes | Yes (but not Google reviews) |
Product Reviews | Yes, built-in | Yes, but with an app |
Email Marketing | Wix Email Marketing; Wix Ascend | Shopify Email |
Abandoned cart recovery | Yes, on all ecommerce plans (from the $23 tier) | Yes, on all plans (from the $29 tier) |
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Tools | Yes, excellent | Yes, average |
Blogging | Yes, more customizable (layouts and features) | Yes, limited with WYSIWYG editor |
Analytics | Yes, basic reports | Yes, advanced reports |
Shopify and Wix know how vital ecommerce marketing is for online stores, so both provide plenty of marketing features to promote your store, drive traffic, and close more sales. Wix wins this category because it offers more built-in features, such as banners and product reviews, and stronger SEO tools. Note, however, that all of these can be activated through an app with Shopify (which may or may not have added fees).
Abandoned cart recovery is a priority in ecommerce marketing. Customers who have abandoned their carts are more likely to finish their purchases if reminded, so customize your emails, set schedule triggers, and provide discount codes to entice them back to your store.
Read our article on shopping cart abandonment to learn more.
Wix and Shopify provide this feature across all their plans. Shopify allows you to send a singular email manually or after 1, 6, 10, and 24 hours, with 10 as the default, whereas Wix lets you send up to two automated emails on a custom schedule.
Setting up abandoned cart recovery in Wix requires you to configure automation. What’s nice about Wix is that it lets you choose a custom time to schedule the email out for delivery.
Email marketing gets you at least five times more buyers than social media marketing, so it should be part of your marketing strategy. Both platforms provide a built-in email marketing tool, Wix Email Marketing and Shopify Email.
Shopify Email, which is available on all Shopify plans, lets you send 10,000 emails per month. If you exceed the monthly limit, you just pay $1 for every 1,000 emails after. Email templates and a scheduled delivery feature are provided, but advanced email marketing features like automation and customer behavior segmentation aren’t.
Meanwhile, Wix Email Marketing, which is free, lets you send three monthly e-newsletters to 5,000 contacts. You can upgrade to a paid tier, Wix Ascend, and pay $12/month for its starter plan, Basic. With it, you can send up to five monthly campaigns to 9,500 subscribers, schedule delivery, and set up automation.
Wix’s email templates are colorful and graphic.
Shopify Email has templates for newsletters, announcements, and marketing emails.
Optimizing your online store’s SEO is one way to drive more traffic to your site, leading to more sales. Shopify and Wix provide basic SEO features to help your online store rank higher in search engine results.
To learn more, read our ultimate guide to ecommerce SEO.
Wix boasts of a great SEO tool kit that allows you to modify in detail how you would like to be found on Google.
Both platforms allow you to:
- Add and edit meta titles and page descriptions
- Customize URL slugs (storename.com/custom-slug)
- Add alt text to images (text description on images)
While Shopify and Wix come with almost the same SEO tool kit, Wix has a slight edge over Shopify with its keyword support feature.
Wix has advanced SEO settings that let you configure structured data markup and robots.txt in your pages. With Shopify, these aren’t available for modification.
Best App Marketplace: Shopify
| | |
App Marketplace | Extensive | Good |
Number of Available Integrations | More than 7,000 | Close to 400 |
Shopify is a clear winner in this category because of the sheer volume of available apps in its App Store and the variety of ecommerce integrations. Wix can provide small businesses with app choices, but some ecommerce features, such as global shipping payments, are only available if using the Ecwid app integration (which is another ecommerce platform).
However, both offer free and paid third-party integrations available in their app marketplaces. Their apps cover a variety of functions—from marketing, ecommerce to management—but we noticed that Wix’s apps are more industry-specific, related to restaurants, hotels, and event planning.
Best for Security: Tied
| | |
SSL Certificates | Free | Free |
PCI-Compliant | Yes | Yes |
Built-in Security Measures | Yes | Yes |
Wix and Shopify have security measures in place so you can sell online safely. Both provide free SSL certificates and are PCI-compliant. As a business owner, you should feel safe no matter which platform you choose.
Best for Customer Support: Shopify
| | |
Online Knowledgebase | Extensive | Extensive |
Community Forum | Yes, active and helpful community members | Yes, active and helpful community members |
Live Chat, Email, and Phone Support | 24/7 | Live chat and callback requests available in multiple languages; time depending on supported language; email support via support tickets |
Both platforms provide comprehensive help centers and active community forums. When we were trying them out, we usually found what we were looking for quickly by searching their help centers. Both providers’ help pages are automatically translated in multiple languages, too—Shopify is available in 21 languages, while Wix is available in 12.
They also provide live chat, email support, and callback requests. Live chat is available in multiple languages, but hours are limited if you need support in a language other than English.
How We Evaluated Wix vs Shopify
To help you decide which ecommerce platform is best for your store, we compared Wix vs Shopify on price, ease of use, store builder and design tools, and inventory management and sales features. We also added our own expert opinion based on years of experience testing different ecommerce platforms.
15%
Pricing and Payment Processing
30%
Store Builder and Design Features
30%
Inventory and Sales Features
15%
Ease of Use
10%
Expert Score
15% of Overall Score
We considered the price point of each base plan that offers a complete online store, the plans available as your business grows, and payment processing options—including fees, flexibility, and one-click checkout options. Although Wix offers a lower price point, Shopify provides more value in all pricing tiers.
30% of Overall Score
We considered how easy it is to build and maintain a professional and attractive online store, including available templates, customization options, free domain and SSL certificates, unlimited storage and bandwidth options, and built-in SEO tools and site analytics. Wix provides a more intuitive website builder and hundreds of free templates to choose from. Shopify recently upgraded its website editing tool, as well, and it will be interesting to see how it plays out once the update has been rolled out across all of its templates.
30% of Overall Score
We looked at what kind of product assortments and marketing features Shopify and Wix provide and if they offer tools for in-store and mobile selling. We also considered if they have built-in integrations for additional sales channels (such as social media and marketplaces), consolidated shipping options, and PCI compliance. Shopify wins here, providing better inventory and shipping tools for small businesses.
15% of Overall Score
Online stores operate 24/7, so we prioritized platforms that offer 24/7 customer support and have multiple customer touchpoints, such as phone, email, and chat. Both Wix and Shopify are tied in ease of use (building an online store and store management), but Shopify has an edge as it offers support to its customers.
10% of Overall Score
We considered overall value, quality of features, popularity/customer satisfaction, and ease of use. We also took into account our own experience working with each platform and feedback from businesses who use each system. Shopify beats Wix in our expert review because of its popularity and industry-leading innovations.
*Percentages of overall score
Bottom Line
Shopify and Wix are great choices if you want to build an online store. Both have their strengths and weaknesses, as outlined in this article. It boils down to what is your priority for your ecommerce business.
If you want to get a store done quickly and plan to sell a few items, Wix is the better choice. However, if you have serious plans of scaling and have an extensive catalog, Shopify can give you the tools you need to manage your online store better. It offers a 14-day free trial, no credit card required, so test it out today.
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