Wix vs Shopify (2023): Which is the Absolute Best?

If you're someone who has a wonderful idea for a product to sell online, or your current online (or offline) store could use a stronger presence, you are most likely in the market for a new ecommerce platform. Lucky for you, some high-quality options exist (hence this Wix vs Shopify comparison), allowing for you to play around with each and decide which one is right for you.

Shopify is the clear leader in terms of popularity, but Wix also tends to come up in the conversation, since over 68 million users are utilizing the Wix platform. That's not to say that all Wix users are selling items online, but it's worth noting that WIX does indeed provide ecommerce tools that compete with Shopify.

Shopify is a dedicated heavyweight in the world of ecommerce, designed to give businesses everything that they need to sell online. More than 600,000 businesses use Shopify globally. On the other hand, Wix is all about drag-and-drop simplicity and easy site building for beginners.

If you’re looking for a website builder that can help you to get started in a hurry, then Wix is likely to be the best option for you. On the other hand, Shopify can handle much larger sales, with access to everything from social media integrations, to dropshipping.

Although both Shopify and Wix have various features designed to help you get started in the wonderful world of website building, Wix is more likely to be the go-to choice if you’re a beginner, while Shopify will help you to expand.

Still not sure? You’re not alone. Choosing the right ecommerce platform can be tough.

That's why I'm going to give you an in-depth comparison of Shopify vs Wix, based on items like features, cost, and ease of use. Keep reading to find out whether Shopify or Wix is right for your online store.

Wix vs Shopify: The Main Features

The battle between Wix and Shopify is all about deciding what kind of store you want to build to rank on Google. While Wix is first and foremost a website builder, like WordPress, Shopify is a dedicated heavyweight in the world of eCommerce.

Basic online store functionality

While both Shopify and Wix have some quality basic features, in terms of selling online, Shopify is the clear leader with incredible store management features and super clean product pages.

Both Wix and Shopify come with a great range of free and paid templates to get you started. They’re also excellent for ease of use, with easy-to-use builders that will help you to get your website launched in no time. However, Shopify is more geared towards helping you sell than Wix.

Inventory management

Wix is quite clean when it comes to inventory management, but Shopify has it all so nicely organized in one area. Access a product creation page, inventory tab and an area for your gift cards right from the same module.

A recent update has made it even easier to find products, with a search bar at the top of the dashboard. You punch in whatever keywords you want (like for a collection, a piece of inventory, customer or discount,) and it delivers the results you need without having to search everywhere.

As you might imagine, Shopify is all about giving you the full package for inventory management. With Shopify, you’ll have everything you need to get customers to your shopping cart, including an inventory solution that allows you to upload multiple or single products, use tools for stock management and more.

Alternatively, Wix is intended for much smaller online stores. This means that everything from the app market, to the inventory management is more limited than what you’d get with Shopify.

Coupons and discount codes

Discounts and coupon codes are both included without any extra charge from Wix or Shopify. It's tough to distinguish between the two since you can specify which products are available for discounts on each platform and there isn't much work involved for either.

Product types

Both Shopify and Wix allow you to sell plenty of products online, just like Amazon. You can create an inventory that’s packed full of everything from digital products, to physical items and service products.

The main difference is that with Wix, you will need an app to sell your service products. On the other hand, Shopify requires a third party integration so that you can sell digital products. The good news is that you can access apps for everything from email marketing to digital selling on Shopify with ease, thanks to the app market

Product Presentation

The more amazing and captivating your products look, the more your sales figures will increase. Fortunately, Shopify gives you everything you need to make your products look amazing.

You can add unlimited items to your ecommerce store in real-time, and even implement variants of different items with the Shopify app too. You will need to add some plugin options to get business basic tools like product zoom and video, however.

You can also make your products shine on your Wix store too. Like some of the other leading tools, like BigCommerce, you can use built-in video functionality to improve customer experience, and there’s access to various product zoom features. This means in the battle of Wix vs Shopify, Wix has more out of the box.

Wix also brought new checkout customization options into their tools in 2018, so you can design a distinct and user-friendly checkout for your ecommerce website.

Payment gateway options

Over  70 payment gateways are available through Shopify , including PayPal, Stripe, Authorize.net and PayMill. Wix has improved over the years, and now offers around 50 payment gateways including PayPal, Stripe, Square, Wirecard, Braintree, and Authorize.Net.

In the battle between Wix vs Shopify, Shopify covers almost all areas with checkout solutions, with more than 100 different payment gateways to choose from. You can even access more advanced Shopify features like Shopify payments, which eliminates transaction fees.

Wix also supports a range of traditional payment options on the backend, including PayPal and Stripe. However it is missing some options compared to Shopify. Additionally, Shopify allows you to set tax rules and shipping rates for each product, while Wix doesn’t offer these features. You also don’t get global shipping payments.

Themes and templates

Since Shopify is targeted only towards ecommerce businesses, the themes are all built to cater to you. Shopify themes are also very flexible, since you can hide certain sections within the theme editor without having to remove them, opening up the possibility to customize certain sections without having to duplicate the theme, say, on a staging server).

Although Wix has quite a few online store themes, the quantity hasn't quite reached that of Shopify. However, the company is making some rather beautiful online store themes that focus on certain niches like jewelry and furniture.

Shopify has a bunch of themes created by independent designers, making the ecommerce functionality and appearance of these templates incredibly impressive. You can even make sure that all of your Shopify themes are responsive on mobile phones.

The downside with Shopify designs is that compared to options like Wix and Squarespace, the themes are quite expensive in some cases.

On the other hand, Wix has a lot of templates to offer in its own rights. There’s even a dedicated section for online stores. However, after you’ve chosen a template with Wix, you’re stuck with it. You can’t simply rebrand your store whenever you choose like you can with Shopify.

Abandoned Cart and Tax

Fortunately, both Shopify and Wix do offer industry-specific features with each template, which means designing your online store is a lot quicker and easier.

Shopify also comes with a bunch of extra features. Every plan, including the free plan trial comes with tools to update your Shopify POS, including discount code creation, abandoned cart recovery, and multi-channel integration. The tools available make you feel like a true Business VIP with your ecommerce site.

On the other hand, Wix only offers things like abandoned carts through a third party application. It’s much easier to get a high-quality tool from Shopify. You can also use Shopify plus to access tools like automated tax calculations and filing processes, whereas Wix doesn’t make it as easy to manage your taxes.

With Wix, you can enable and disable taxes, include tax in your product prices, and more. However, it’s best if you install an extra app like the Avalara app to help with your taxes.

Apps and add-ons

The Wix app store is packed with cool integrations, but once again, they aren't all catered towards online stores, so you have to sift through the ones that may be more useful for brick and mortar shops.

Shopify is the way to go if you're looking for targeted ecommerce apps.

It takes more than a basic domain name and point-of-sale technology to run a successful online store. Integrating apps with your store builder can make it easier for you to drive more sales from your target audience.

Shopify’s App Store comes with all pricing plans, and gives you the freedom to grow your store however you choose. You can add dropshipping, product reviews, and customer conversions.

On the other hand, Wix can’t match Shopify when it comes to ecommerce specific apps. Although the Wix Adi is a great tool, and it gives you a lot of building options, your extensibility is limited with apps.

Multilingual capabilities

Wix has a powerful multilingual app which turns your site into any language you want. Shopify struggles in this area, but a few themes are designed to support two languages. Wix is the clear winner here.

Marketing Features

Shopify relies very heavily on apps from third parties for marketing. Although this provides businesses with a lot of flexibility, it’s difficult to compare Wix and Shopify when you consider all the extra apps in the conversation.

On the other hand, Wix has something that takes it beyond other affordable tools like Weebly. Wix Ascend is an all-in-one marketing solution that’s available on subscription to help you manage all your marketing in the same place.

Social media integration

One thing that Shopify does do better than Wix, is that it allows you to sell your products on multiple channels. This means that you can combine your store with things like Facebook, Instagram, eBay and Amazon.

Email Campaigns

For email campaigns intended to support your sales and customer nurturing, Wix Ascend gives you control over all the marketing solutions that you need, with three campaigns a month in email without an Ascend subscription.

Shopify allows you to create email campaigns from your admin page, but if you want the best range of features you should probably consider integrating a third-party app.

SEO Tools

SEO settings are built into both Wix and Shopify, so it's tough to find a winner. Basically, you can let the systems automatically create metadata for you, or you can type it in yourself. Each of these systems ping the search engines when new content is created.

Search engine optimization is a pretty essential tool for any website builder. Fortunately, both Shopify and Wix make it easy to add SEO to your site. You can add and edit different meta titles and descriptions with both tools, and customize your URL slugs for ranking.

Wix and Shopify also allow for adding alt text to images, so Google can understand what your images are all about. You can also get further support with best practice SEO prompts.

Blogging Features

Even though I think Shopify has a cleaner content management area for your blog, both Wix and Shopify have integrated solutions for your blogging needs.

The main benefit to blogging in Wix is that it offers a true drag and drop design area.

Wix makes creating beautiful blogs as easy as possible. However, it’s hard to make the most of the archive functionality with Wix, which is a massive downside. Shopify doesn’t do very well in the blogging area, with no built-in analytics, or search feature.

Analytics and Reporting

Keeping track of website performance is crucial. It helps you to see what is and isn’t working on your website, so you can set the path for consistent growth. With Wix, you need an eCommerce level plan to use things like Google analytics.

However, Shopify gives you analytics on all plans

In the battle of Shopify vs Wix, Shopify goes a little further with built-in analytics tools. You can track everything from stock levels, to customer behavior and conversions.

Customization capabilities

Shopify has always been friendly to developers who want to get in there and implement their own code. The only problem is that you need to learn Shopify's Liquid programming language. So, basic HTML and CSS won't help you here. Most people end up hiring a Liquid developer. Wix, on the other hand, is designed primarily for basic webmasters who don't have much design experience. This means that the themes are cookie-cutter and you shouldn't expect much in terms of customization.

Wix, on the other hand, is designed primarily for basic webmasters who don't have much design experience. This means that the themes are cookie-cutter and you shouldn't expect anything too advanced in terms of customization.

Wix vs Shopify Pros and Cons

Sometimes, the easiest way to make a choice between two eCommerce giants, is to create a list of pros and cons.

Let’s start by looking at Shopify.

Shopify Pros 👍

• Exceptional range of eCommerce features, including abandoned cart recovery in each plan. 
• Excellent support for customers in need of extra guidance
• Brilliant knowledge base with tons of community support
• 100s of payment options to choose from
• Endless integrations with everything from social media to dropshipping tools
• Easy to use with a great interface
• SEO optimized Shopify store

Shopify Cons 👎

• Sometimes a little expensive
• Premium themes and extras add up

Wix Pros 👍

• Very easy to use for beginners
• Hundreds of templates to choose from
• Immersive checkout experience
• Affordable pricing
• Access to apps like ECwid
• Great customer support

Wix Cons 👎

• Only enough for small businesses
• Not a lot of extensibility

Wix vs Shopify: Ease of Use

This is where it gets interesting because Wix is absolutely built for non-developers who feel intimidated by messy interfaces and hefty coding responsibilities. Wix provides useful templates, add-ons and a decent drag and drop editor for making your pages look professional without much design experience.

However, part of this “ease of use” section also caters to developers or even people who want at least some sort of customization for their store. Since Shopify is built just for online shops, you can't beat it in terms of ease of use. Uploading products, managing inventory and handling customers is all rather simple. So although Wix is pretty easy to use, it may be too rudimentary.

Wix vs Shopify: Pricing

Wix Pricing

Shopify Pricing

One thing's for sure, the Wix pricing is more confusing than Shopify. However, that shouldn't make you rule it out.

Setup Fees

Neither WIX nor Shopify makes you pay any setup fees for your first online store.

Monthly Fees

Although WIX offers yearly plans for decreased pricing, I'm not a huge fan of this since you're stuck with one platform for some time. Therefore, let's stick to the monthly fees. It's impossible to start an online store with WIX unless you opt for the $17 per month ecommerce plan or the $25 per month VIP plan.

The Lite Plan from Shopify is $9 per month, and the Basic plan is $29 per month. I would argue that the Shopify Starter plan is best for those just getting started out, and since the Basic Shopify plan and eCommerce Wix plans have no transaction fees and unlimited products, Shopify has more templates, so it's a better deal.

However, the $17 WIX Ecommerce plan might serve you well if you're interested in a full online store (not available in the Shopify Lite Plan) for less than Shopify Basic.

Bandwidth Charges

No bandwidth charges are implemented from either solution.

Transaction Fees

Transaction fees are never charged from Wix, but you will have to consider credit card processing fees. With Shopify, if you choose to utilize the Shopify Payments processor, you don't have to worry about processing fees. But, if you go with an option like PayPal or Authorize.net, you can expect to pay a transaction fee that ranges from ranges from 0.5% to 2% depending on the plan you are on.

Free Trials

Both Wix and Shopify offer a  free 14 days trial , so if you're still not sure which way to go, I would strongly encourage you to quickly open a free account with both and see which UX you like most.

Wix vs Shopify: Customer Support

Remember, one important thing to consider when investing in any new tool, is how much support you need. Both Wix and Shopify deliver phone and email support, dedicated social media assistance, forums and help centers and more.

Shopify delivers 24/7 support, with live chat support — something you can’t get from Wix. On the plus side, Wix does offer a lot of in-editor help which can give you guidance when you’re building. When you hover your mouse over a question mark, you’ll get speech bubbles that allow you to access useful information.

Wix’s in-built help is great for getting answers to your questions immediately. This means that Wix does deliver slightly better customer support than Shopify in some areas. While Shopify does provide consistent help, Wix makes it easier to help yourself.

Wix vs Shopify: The Winner

The Wix Ecommerce plan is a pleasant surprise, but it's still difficult to recommend it over Shopify since the Shopify brand has been around for so long and they are focused directly on helping online stores. The themes are much better, and it's rather simple for a first-time developer to make a professional site on the Shopify platform. Not to mention, you don't save much money by going with Wix.

Let us know in the comments section if you have any questions about this Shopify vs Wix comparison.

Just before you go, you might want to take a look at our Shopify reviews and Shopify Pricing guide.

Btw, I've done a video version of the comparison for you in case you want to hear my voice 🙂