Wix is a better overall ecommerce website builder than Shopify, but Shopify may be the best choice for larger ecommerce businesses.

The two services are neck-and-neck when it comes to website features, but Wix has slightly better help and support options than Shopify, as well as better ease of use and value for its cost overall.

That said, Shopify's sales and design functions are slightly better than Wix's. Our extensive tests determined that both Wix and Shopify are the absolute best ecommerce platforms to consider — they aren't identical, but you won't go wrong picking one or the other.

Here, we'll stack Wix and Shopify against each other to give you a full picture of their features, prices, ease of use, and ecommerce benefits to help you make the most informed decision possible.

Wix vs Shopify: Head to Head

While Wix is traditionally thought of as a website builder rather than an ecommerce platform, it nonetheless performed more than well in our range of tests. It excelled in our ratings for ease of use, functionality, and value for money,

Shopify, too, scores strongly across the board, especially in the sales features and customer approval categories. Neither service did poorly in any of our testing categories. Our testers used a five-star rating across all categories — Here's which ecommerce platform was best in each.

• Wix has a better value for its cost than Shopify, with 4 stars to Shopify's 3 stars.
• Wix and Shopify have about the same number and quality of website features — both 4.1 stars.
• Wix is easier to use than Shopify, as Wix has 4 stars while Shopify has 3.5 stars.
• Shopify has better ecommerce features than Wix, with 4.6 stars to Wix's 4.4 stars.
• Wix has better support options than Shopify, with 3.8 stars against Wix's 3.6 stars.

As the star ratings reveal, the two services are comparable. But Shopify has a lower ease of use as well as better ecommerce tools, which makes it a better option for a larger operation, which can handle Shopify's more difficult learning curve while benefiting from ecommerce-specific benefits like Shopify's more complex inventory tools.

Wix, meanwhile, comes out on top overall and is an easier option for smaller operations that won't have time to waste on more complex interfaces, and can benefit from better help and support.

Wix Overview

Wix sits at the top of our recommended ecommerce solutions, thanks to robust features, great help and support, admirable ease of use, and great prices that start at $14 per month.

Even Wix's relatively lesser showings when it comes to server response time, limited SEO guidance, and the complexity of its website editor aren't large drawbacks. Wix does what you need, it's easy, and it's inexpensive — the holy trifecta for an ecommerce website builder.

We've rated Wix as our top recommended service overall, and it's a particularly good choice for those creating a smaller store. Thanks to its amazing templates and intuitive system, even a non-expert can create a professional-looking site with ease using Wix. The Wix platform gives you a helping hand right from the word go, drafting up a dummy-online store that will look good enough to publish, even before you adjust it with your own imagery, text and product database – all of which can be done with ease via Wix.

Shopify Overview

What makes Shopify best for larger companies? Shopify has more in-depth sales features than Wix, especially when it comes to accounting and shipping. The service's inventory tools are complex, which will be a boon for any ecommerce operation with a lot of quantities, suppliers, and locations to track and manage.

Shopify also allows you to sell across more sales channels and has a level of depth as an ecommerce platform that Wix can't quite match, like a slightly greater array of payment options — Shopify supports PayPal, Stripe, Square, Apple Pay, and Amazon, while Wix supports just the first four. Shopify also has more diverse multi channel integration options than Wix.

Plus, some of Shopify's downsides are less of an issue for a larger company that can afford a longer learning curve. Shopify has a more restrictive and less intutive design than Wix, but in time, workers will be able to figure out how to navigate it just fine.

In the end, however, the two services are so close in quality that your business will likely be happy with either one.

Best Value: Wix

When it comes to value, the amount of features you get for your monthly fee is just as important as the literal dollar amount you're paying for them. In this comparison, Wix has both lower prices and a better value for what you get.

Wix's plans start at a lower price point than Shopify, with simple website plans starting at $14 per month and ecommerce-equipped websites starting at $23 per month. In contrast, Shopify's comparable ecommerce plans start at $29 per month with Basic Shopify, while the Advanced Shopify plan costs $299 per month.

That said, we did find Shopify to surpass Wix when it comes to the quality of its ecommerce features in particular, such as the Shopify POS, which supports real-world selling, a range of customizable shipping rates, and granular reporting tools. Here's what to know about each service's price plans.

Wix Pricing

Wix has four Website plans — Combo, Unlimited, Pro, and VIP — and three Business plans — Basic, Unlimited, and VIP.

These two types of plans are separated by their intent: The Website plans are for businesses who just want a digital landing page to highlight basic information like their hours and location, while the pricier Business plans support the sales tools needed for any ecommerce operation.

Website plans

Combo costs $14 per month and comes with all of Wix's website building tools including the editor, templates, and third-party integrations. You'll get 3GB storage, a (low) 2GB bandwidth, and a free domain voucher with an annual subscription.

Unlimited costs $18 per month and comes with no bandwidth limitations and 10GB storage, as well as the Site Booster app for SEO improvement and the Form Builder app for creating forms to capture more audience data. Pro costs $23 per month and comes with another storage increase, to 20GB, as well as support for a professional logo and a free year of an events calendar app. The VIP plan costs $39 per month and includes 35 GB of storage along with priority support — up from the 24/7 support all other website plans receive.

Ecommerce plans

Wix's entry-level ecommerce plan is the Business Basic offering, available for $23 per month. The featureset is comparable to the Unlimited pricing plan: Unlimited bandwidth and 20GB of storage, plus the Site Booster and Form Builder apps. Ecommerce tools include inventory, sales, social channels, and abandoned cart recovery. Like all the other Wix Business plans, Basic won't take any commissions from your sales.

Next up is the Wix Business Unlimited plan, for $27 per month. New features include the Wix logo builder, a 35GB storage cap, and the ability to upload up to 10 hours of video. The big jump in functionality comes with the new ecommerce features: You'll get support for multiple currencies and subscriptions, Automated sales tax (for 100 transactions per month), and access to selling on other online marketplaces.

Finally, the Business VIP plan is available for $49 per month. New features include unlimited video uploads, 50 GB of storage, custom reports, and priority customer support.

Shopify Pricing

Shopify's three ecommerce plans are a break after dealing with all seven of Wix's plans. Here, you'll just have to worry about Basic, Shopify, and Advanced.

Basic

The cheapest ecommerce plan is Basic, at $29 per month. You'll get unlimited products, two staff accounts, sales channels for both online marketplaces and social platforms, up to four inventory locations, discount codes, abandoned cart recovery, and gift cards.

Transaction fees will be 2.9% + 30¢ for online credit cards, 2.7% + 0¢ for in-person or debit cards, and 2% if not using Shopify payments.

Shopify

Next up is the curtly named “Shopify” plan, which costs $79 per month. It comes with all the perks Basic has to offer, plus more: Five staff accounts, up to five inventory locations, standard reporting, and the ability to use custom international pricing and domains.

Transaction fees will be 2.6% + 30¢ for online credit cards, 2.5% + 0¢ for in-person or debit cards, and 1% if not using Shopify payments.

Advanced

Finally, there's the Advanced ecommerce plan, for a hefty $299 per month. Feature limitations are expanded again, to fifteen staff accounts, up to eight inventory locations, and advanced reporting. Other perks include calculated shipping rates, USPS priority mail pricing, and more complex international pricing.

Transaction fees will be 2.4% + 30¢ for online credit cards, 2.4% + 0¢ for in-person or debit cards, and 0.5% if not using Shopify payments.

Wix vs Shopify: Which has the best free plan?

Wix offers the best free plan by default — Shopify doesn't offer any ongoing plan for free.

Shopify does have a 14-day free trial, which is a useful way for interested parties to try out the service and all the features it has to offer. We'd recommend starting with the free trial first, though you may want to write a list of all the features to test-run beforehand, in order to get the most out of your trial period before you're forced to make a decision as to which plan you might actually pay for.

Wix offers a free plan that lets new users try out what the service has to offer. It's not a good choice for a permanent website, even though it could be one: Free Wix users will always have a branded domain, not one of their own, which means they'll have to direct all customers to a website named something along the lines of “username.wixsite.com/siteaddress,” which will do little to inspire professionalism and will drop your Google search rankings as well.

Other drawbacks include Wix ads, no analytics, and limits on site storage and bandwidth. Online payments are not included, either, meaning the free Wix plan won't support ecommerce efforts.

Best for Features: Both

Both Shopify and Wix logged 4.1 stars out of 5 in our testers' look at their overall website features, making this category a rare tie. And since both services offer more and better features than the industry average, we don't have any complaints to raise, either.

Here's a quick look at how the services compare when it comes to the top features for each.

Abandoned Cart Recovery

Both Wix and Shopify include an abandoned cart recovery function across all plans — this is a great ecommerce feature to have, as it reduces the possibility that someone will fail to checkout their cart once they've already started the process by reminding them through email.

Not every ecommerce platform includes abandoned cart recovery, so it's nice to see that both of these services do.

Page Security Features

Online security is more important than ever with the rise of threats like scammers and ransomware, and ecommere operations in particular will need to keep their customers' credit card details safe.

Wix and Shopify both support one of the biggest website builder security functions, password protection. This lets users set a sturdy password to ensure that only the right people can access their website's backend through either Wix or Shopify.

Wix also includes a members area, while Shopify supports a customer login option.

Payment Options

Shopify has a broader range of payment options: It supports PayPal, Stripe, Square, Amazon, and Apple Pay. In contrast, Wix supports PayPal, Stripe, Square, but not Amazon or Apple Pay.

Analytics

Users will get different reporting functions under different plans, but both Shopify and Wix grant users access to Google Analytics, a website tracking tool that logs page views and highlights which products are the most popular. Shopify also includes conversion tracking metrics outside of Google's analytics, something that Wix does not support.

Third-Party Integrations

Both services also offer extensive app stores, to allow users to fill in any gaps in their website's features through a (usually paid) third-party service.

Wix's store includes categories for Marketing, Sell Online, Services & Events, Media & Content, Design Elements, and Communication, while Shopify's app store comes with a similar array of categories such as Sourcing and selling products, Marketing, and Store design.

Best for Ease of Use: Wix

Shopify ranks 3.5 out of 5 stars for ease of use, compared to Wix's 4 stars. That makes Wix the clear winner (and second only to Squarespace's 4.2 stars in our ratings).

Wix has a straightforward drag-and-drop functionality that lets users build the website components they want without a lick of coding knowledge required, and Wix makes sure that the advanced features are just as easy. Newbies will be able to craft a website that works for them and will be able to wring the most out of the impressive array of features that Wix has to offer, with a minimum of technical effort.

Shopify uses a similar editor, and includes a nice setup tour to guide new users through the process.

Best for Ecommerce: Shopify

Shopify combines top class sales channel integration with a simple and intuitive UI, plus great reporting tools to help optimize your sales. Through its Shopify Payments system, you’re able to track everything from sales on Instagram through to Google Shopping, and even real-world point of sale transactions.

Shopify lets you sell your products and services through loads of different sales channels. For example, you can sell through social media sites such as Instagram or Facebook, or global ecommerce sites such as eBay or Amazon.

All the sales information from the channels is managed by Shopify, meaning that you can keep track of stock levels, and analyze the sales performance on these different channels. Wix, on the other hand, only allows you to sell products through its online store templates.

Shopify makes it super easy to add to and manage the products you sell. For a start, you’re able to add new products in bulk, rather than one-by-one. This is helpful if you’ve got a new line of similar products, for example. Shopify also has excellent product management features which make it easy to track and amend stock levels, as well as analyze the way customers interact with your products when they come to purchase them. What’s more, many of Shopify’s built-in inventory features are only available for Wix through third-party apps, which can vary in quality.

Another big ecommerce feature is accounting — tracking sales and logging data for tax season. Shopify nails this again: Its built-in invoice generator makes it super-easy to create invoices, but allows you the option to change and customize them without restraint.

Similarly, Shopify will automatically calculate the tax rates on your products. However, these automatic tax rates can be changed and customized, so you can ensure any quirks – such as state tax exemptions in the US, or VAT exempt items in Britain – don’t fall through the cracks. Any changes you make are applied to your online sales and any sales made with Shopify POS. If that’s not enough, Shopify also has a wide range of accounting apps available for installation.

Wix does offer some solid sales features, most notably the ability to sell unlimited products and advanced CRM functionality. As with most of the categories we compared Wix and Shopify in, both services are above average.

Best for Help & Support: Wix

Shopify nabs a total of 3.6 stars out of a possible 5 in our tests for the support options it gives its customers, but Wix tops it with 3.8 stars.

Wix has established itself as a popular ecommerce platform for a reason: It gives 24/7 support to all of the customers in its paid plans, and delivers basic support to its free users to boot. Online support options include a detailed knowledge base that customers can consult for text and video walkthroughs to common concerns.

The Shopify online knowledge base isn't bad, either — it's right around the industry average, with all the typical questions answered in detail. In the end, both services will give all their paying customers 24/7 support by email and live chat, which should be more than enough for most situations. While we give Wix the edge in this comparison, Shopify holds its own just fine.

Other Ecommerce Alternatives

While Wix is our top-rated ecommerce platform, and Shopify is our most popular option for larger businesses, they're not the only website builders out there. In fact, the market is filled with some of the best ecommerce builders out there depending on your needs — you just have to find the right one.

We've done tons of in-depth research to bring you all the information you need to make an informed decision about ecommerce website builders. Take a look at the table below for a snapshot of your options, and read on for more specifics about our top picks.

Squarespace

If you're looking for a well-designed website, your best bet is going to be Squarespace. It undeniably offers the most beautiful templates that will take your website from drab to fab in no time flat.

Squarespace is nothing to scoff at when it comes to website builders, either. In our scoring, it almost exactly matched Wix, with a wide range of features that are relatively easy to use. You'll also get some great social and email marketing features, along with the built-in capability to scale up the platform along with your business.

Check out our Squarespace review for more info

Square Online

Square Online is another worthwhile top ecommerce website builder that stands out for its above-average free plan — if Wix's free plan left you cold, but you're hoping to start small and save big, check out the Square Online free option.

Square's big appeal is that it focuses on the essentials for ecommerce, and won't charge more to cover any bonuses and frills that the average small business won't need. The downsides include high transaction fees and some limited design choices. But the service is fairly easy to use, with an intuitive website builder (although our testers found Wix to be even easier). Restaurant and hospitality businesses in particular should find Square fits their needs.

Check out our Square review for more info

BigCommerce

BigCommerce has better design functionalities than Wix and Shopify, and its terrific help and support is on par with Wix's. BigCommerce also does not charge transaction fees, putting it in rare terrority for an ecommerce solution.

So why isn't it higher in our ratings? BigCommerce doesn't have a large range of templates, and they aren't very customizable. It can also be overwhelming, with a tough learning curve, and the price plans are restrictive. It's still a good pick for anyone trying to set up an online clothing store, since it has unbeatable inventory tools and a sturdy backend, but most small businesses are better off with Wix or Shopify.

Check out our BigCommerce review for more information

Tom Fogden is a writer for Tech.co with a range of experience in the world of tech publishing. Tom covers everything from cybersecurity, to social media, website builders, and point of sale software when he's not reviewing the latest phones.