Shopify and Magento are popular eCommerce builders. (Note: Now Adobe Bought Magento & recently rebranded as Adobe Commerce. In this post we will talk about Open Source Adobe Commerce aka Magento)
Though Shopify has more stores than Magento it is famous for housing big enterprise businesses. In this comparison review we will test and analyze both platforms feature by feature and help you in finding the best platform for your businesses.
What is Shopify?
Shopify is an eCommerce platform that allows setting up & managing businesses online. Shopify makes online business easy with various built-in features and plenty of third-party integrations. The combination of quality Shopify apps can lead to plenty of innovations and growth in the business. Shopify houses businesses from smaller to larger scales and various categories.
What is Magento?
Magento is an open-source, freeware platform like WordPress. It needs to be self-hosted and developed manually. Magento’s themes, extensions, hosting, and domain needs to be purchased which can cost thousands of dollars per month. let’s discuss features and breakdown the pricing in the further review
#Quick Summary
Below are a quick summary of Shopify and Magento platforms.
Shopify
Easy to setup & use
A platform with builtin hosting
100+ themes (9+ free themes) and pricing ranges from ($180 – $350)
Shopify has a basic editor with limitations in customization.
Three fixed plans ($29 – $299) to assist small to large businesses and one enterprise plan.
Magento needs to be set up manually and it’s not easy to use & manage as user needs very good technical knowledge, whereas Shopify is easy to set up and use. Winner: Shopify
2. Pricing
Shopify Price ranges from $29-$299 & there might be additional pricing in form of apps & fees. Whereas Magento is free but its other charges can go well above thousand dollars. Winner: Magento
3. Themes & Editor
Shopify offers 13 free themes and 70+ paid themes with a good customization feature. Whereas Magento offers only a few themes with excellent customization features also themes can be created from scratch. Winner: Magento
4. Small businesses:
Shopify is easy to use and a ready-made platform that offers plenty of inbuilt features & apps whereas Magento can be very hard to set up & manage for small businesses with fewer human resources. Winner: Shopify
5. Domain & Hosting:
Shopify has good hosting with a fast server & provides a custom domain upon purchasing an annual plan whereas Magento doesn’t provide hosting for the first two plans & the domain needs to be purchased separately. Winner: Shopify
6. Payments and Charges
Shopify provides integrations with over 70+ payment gateways. Magento can also integrate with various popular payment methods. Shopify charges (0.5-2%) of sales value when payment is done through “Shopify Payments” Winner: Tie
7. App store
Both of the platforms have an app store. Shopify offers over 6000+ apps whereas Magento has 3500+ apps but the installation process of these apps is not easy. Winner: Shopify
Ease of Use
Shopify is moderately easy to get started but becomes very easy to use once after setting up a shop. here no credit card is required for signing up. It has provided a 14-day free trial to try out the platform and get used to its functions.
Magento doesn’t provide a free trial as it has a completely free plan. Once after signing up you will be asked about your contact, email address, and also website address. After submitting the above details adobe representative will approve. If you don’t provide a proper business email/address it will be not approved.
Magento inquiry
After providing the valid business email address they will set up a meeting with a commerce representative where the queries can be answered by the representative.
There is a setup guide Provided by Shopify for using the platform effectively. All of the Shopify key functions can be accessed from the right dashboard. Shopify has plenty of resources in the form of articles, tutorials, and dedicated support staff to help users in the process of getting started with Shopify. Magento is no not an easy-to-use platform. It has a steep learning curve that requires some time to learn and operate the platform. For most of the operations and maintenance developers need to be hired. The app integrations and theme customization also need developers to install and manage them.
Key takeaways: Magento is not easy to get started and its learning curve is very steep Whereas Shopify is easy to set up & use hence it’s a clear winner.
The winner of the Ease Of Use Feature: Shopify
Shopify: 1-0 :Magento
Themes & Customization
Shopify
Magento
Themes
80+
5
Free Themes
10+
3
Mobile-Friendly
Yes
Yes
Theme Customization level
Basic
Very Good
Prebuilt Sections
No
No
Shopify has various categories of themes. These themes are well organized in the theme library. They have offered 80+ themes out of which 10 are free and the rest of the themes range from $100 to $350. Magento has only five themes in its marketplaces. There are a few free themes and also some paid one which is expensive and costs $499.
The themes can be filtered by Catalog size, Industry, Features, etc. Every theme has 2-3 style variations. The themes can be customized for basic styles, colors, etc. Magento themes are more customizable than Shopify. The Magento themes can be built from scratch but need advanced coding skills or need to hire a developer to do that for you.
Shopify themes
Magento themes
Key takeaways: Shopify offers various themes but with good customization features, Whereas Magento offers limited themes but with greater customization features hence Magento is a winner.
Shopify has introduced a new plan “Shopify lite” which costs $9/month to facilitate selling a few bunches of products on other websites, fairs, and other offline events.
Adobe Commerce (Magento) has two plans.
Magento Open Source Plan
Magento Commerce Plan
Magento Commerce Cloud Plan
Magento Open source pricing
Magento Open source is free but is it really free? let’s find out.
As Magento platform is a complex online store builder, especially for a beginner. It needs to be handled Manually or by use of third-party services. If you can manage most of the operations then most of the expenses will be reduced or else need to rely on third-party service pricing.
Apart from fixed pricing for the 2nd and 3rd plans, there might be complementary pricing attached to it in the form of themes and apps. Themes whose price ranges from $150 – $300. Shopify has plenty of apps that will add extra functionalities to the store might cost an average of $0 -$20 this may vary as per the business requirements.
Pricing Breakdown in Magento
Hosting – Hosting prices also vary from user to user. If a business has plenty of visitors to handle then It needs powerful hosting and for a business with fewer visitors can cost less so hosting prices can vary by $150 – $10000 per year
Themes – Magento has plenty of themes but most of them are paid and they can range from $0 -$500 and additional costs can be applied for support service agreements.
Extensions – Magento has plenty of integration that ranges from $40- $1000. An average business use 2-3 apps for managing Magento. price totally depends on the number of apps for your need.
Development & Maintenance – Magento is a complex platform that demands proper coding skills to operate and maintain the platform. If you have a team that can handle & take care of the development & maintenance issues then it’s ok or else you need to hire people to do that for you. That can cost $5000-$10000 per year.
So when all this pricing is added we can estimate that the pricing may range from $10k -$20k per year this can be less or more for different businesses. The development & maintenance, and hosting prices can change from country to country as all of them have different labor pricing.
Enterprise pricing
Shopify Plus
Shopify Plus pricing starts from $2000/month but this can vary as per the volume and type of business, to know about the pricing you need to talk to Shopify plus support and they will reply to you instantly. You need to fill out the below details about the business and Shopify will reply with the pricing and details.
Magento Commerce
The Magento Commerce plan is for enterprise-level businesses. This plan includes all the features that were missing in the open-source platform. The pricing of Magento commerce totally depends upon the annual gross revenue business generates.
Annual gross revenue
Annual Magento Commerce Pricing
Less than $1,000,000
$22,000
$1,000,000–$5,000,000
$32,000
$5,000,000–$10,000,000
$49,000
$10,000,000–$25,000,000
$75,000
More than $25,000,000
$125,000
This is a license fee in addition to hosting, themes, extension, Development & maintenance pricing can be considered so the total cost for this plan can range from $32k – $145k/year.
Magento CommerceCloud
Magento Commerce Cloud is similar to Magento commerce in features. Magento commerce cloud is the only plan which offers hosting features. It provides cloud hosting to handle more sales. The data will be backed up regularly and real-time updating on-site can be done on this plan. The pricing for this plan also ranges from annual gross revenue.
Annual gross revenue
Annual Magento Commerce Cloud Pricing
Less than $1,000,000
$40,000
$1,000,000–$5,000,000
$55,000
$5,000,000–$10,000,000
$80,000
$10,000,000–$25,000,000
$120,000
More than $25,000,000
$190,000
Since hostings are provided the other pricing elements like themes, extensions, development & maintenance costs should be managed separately which in total can cost $50k -$250k/year.
Key takeaways: The Pricing of the magneto can be expensive while running & managing the store. Whereas Shopify has fixed plans with pricing & some additional charges but will be lesser as compared to Magento.
The winner of the Pricing & Plans Feature: Shopify
Shopify: 2-1 :Magento
Enterprise Features
Shopify and Magento both have plans for enterprise-level businesses. They offer various enterprise-level features. let’s discuss some of the key features offered by either of the platforms
Shopify’s enterprise plan has some features that are not available on the other plans.
Features
Shopify
Magento
Multiple Stores
In Shopify plus plan you can manage a maximum of 10 stores. No matter whichever location of the store. all stores users, analytics, accounts, automation, and customers can be accessed and managed from a single dashboard
There is no cap on the maximum number of stores that can be managed on Magento. The inventories & products can be shared among the other stores.
Localized pricing
Shopify Advanced and Shopify plus provide features to offer pricing by a different country
Magento has this feature to display localized prices by customer’s location.
CRM Integration
Shopify offers integration with CRMs like HubSpot, Salesforce, Agile, Zoho, etc.
Magento too integrates with CRMs like HubSpot, Salesforce, Agile, Zoho, etc.
Product Variations
In Shopify’s all plans, you can create up to 100 product variants.
In Magento, you can create unlimited product variants
Staff accounts
Unlimited
Unlimited
Fraud Analysis
Yes
Yes
Key takeaways: Upon head-to-head comparison of the enterprise feature Magento was the one which had more advanced features so Magento is a clear winner.
The winner of the Enterprise Feature: Magento
Shopify: 2-2 :Magento
Apps/Extensions
Shopify has 6000+ apps
Magento has 3500+ apps
Shopify is easy to install
Magento apps are not easy to install
Shopify has over 6000+ apps in their app store. These apps are easy to install once choosing an app just add the app to the store. Shopify has free & paid apps, Plenty of apps provide a free trial. Some of them have a separate free version.
Magento has over 3500+ extensions. These apps and themes can be accessed in the Magento marketplace. These apps are free as well as paid. These apps can be sorted by ratings, compatibility, pricing, versions, and more.
Shopify apps
Shopify Plus provides advanced apps which are not available on other Shopify plans. These apps are built by Shopify to facilitate the management of large businesses.
Shopify plus apps
Magento apps
Key takeaways: Both Shopify and Magento have plenty of apps in their app store. The installation process of Shopify is easy whereas Magento requires developer/technical knowledge.
The winner of the Apps/Extensions Feature: Shopify
Shopify: 3-2 :Magento
Flexibility & Scalability
Both Shopify and Magento offer greater flexibility in customization, scalability, deployment, etc.
Flexibility
Shopify’s first three plans don’t provide flexibility for advanced theme customization whereas Shopify plus plan provides various files, API, and freedom to change checkout files. You can create custom files with the help of HTML, CSS, liquid code, etc. It provides Shopify scripts and plenty of SDK files. In Shopify plus apps can be created.
Magento is open-source hence all files can be accessed and can be customized but the deployment of all of these codes, and files on Magento needs to be done by developers. As there are plenty of files it needs to be maintained. If you have a team of developers then Magento can be customized the way you want.
Scalability
Shopify is Scalable as it has provided various features and apps to facilitate scalability. For smaller to medium size businesses the first three plans are enough for scaling internationally advanced plans can provide all those features. If you want more freedom in designing, API communication, and interacting with multiple staff accounts and warehouses Shopify plus is best.
Magento has plenty of scalable options similar to Shopify. It can manage unlimited stores wherein Shopify has limitations. In Magento offering more product variations are possible but not in the case of Shopify. As Magento is self-hosted so while scaling up the hosting option has to be the best that needs to be managed separately but not in the case of Shopify.
Key takeaways: Magento provides better flexibility and scalability as compared to Shopify.
The winner of the Flexibility & Scalability Feature: Magento
Shopify: 3-3 :Magento
Marketing
Marketing
Shopify provides various inbuilt marketing features and also third-party integration. Shopify has its own email software Shopify email that allows sending emails, it also has various social media and ad campaign automation. There are plenty of third-party email marketing apps like Omnisend, MailChimp, Klaviyo, etc., and Social media apps like Outfy, social media booster, etc.
Magento doesn’t offer inbuilt marketing features like Shopify. For most of the marketing features Magento users need to rely on the Magento marketplace to access these features. The integration of these apps isn’t straightforward as Shopify. You need a developer to integrate these apps with Magento.
SEO
SEO is a crucial part of internal marketing. Shopify and Magento provide all the basic settings of SEO like editing titles, descriptions, URLs, etc. They also provide sitemaps, robots.txt, AMP pages, URL redirects, etc. They also provide inbuilt blogging features to write content and use it as a tool to promote goods and services. Magento offers better SEO features as changes can be done in the URL structure, hierarchy, server-level setting, etc.
Key takeaways: Both Shopify & Magento have great marketing features. Magento has better SEO features as compared to Shopify.
The winner of the Marketing Feature: Magento
Shopify: 3-4 :Magento
Support & Resources
Shopify
Magento
Email
✔
✔
Live chat
✔
❌
Phone
✔
❌
Shopify provides all forms of support in their plans. This plan provides 24/7 live chat, phone, and Email support. There is also an active community of Shopify where fellow Shopify users and support staff members will answer queries. There are plenty of sources available on Shopify in form of blogs, articles, and videos.
Magento from the start of the signup process provides support to get started with the platform. There is a chatbot that will help in getting started with the platform. Once after providing the business email is validated and then a meeting will be set with the representative.
Magento provides various support resources like in-depth user guides from the Magento developers. Plenty of knowledge base and a community form and plenty of videos. But Magento is an open-source platform like WordPress so there is no dedicated support provided by the platform.
Shopify support
If you shift to Shopify plus the support will be premium as there would be a dedicated support team for these members.
Premium support for Shopify Plus members
Shopify assigns a launch team that guides on setting up, and migrating the shop, recommends strategies, and roadmaps, and helps with integration and technical things. They will make sure you set up the store faster.
Shopify Plus offers membership to their Facebook community page where they will share key strategies and experiences with other Shopify plus users, They offer Shopify Plus academy training on key topics related to growing your business.
Get Exclusive beta programs to preview and influence the product roadmap.
Get technical and store-growing solutions with Shopify plus a partner agency.
Key takeaways: Shopify has dedicated support on all of its plans & special kind of support for plus members, Whereas Magento doesn’t have dedicated support hence Magento is the winner,
The winner of the Support & Resources Feature: Shopify
Shopify: 4-4 :Magento
Pros and Cons: Shopify vs Magento
Shopify Pros
Shopify Cons
Thousand of third-party Integrations
limitations in customization
Easy to setup & use
Sales Charge for Non-Shopify payments transactions
Theme & apps installations are easy
Minimum Caps on multiple stores, product variation, etc
Magento Pros
Magento Cons
Extensive customization of themes
Not an easy-to-use platform
Offer greater flexibility & Scalability
No dedicated support
Build and modify themes from scratch
No inbuilt hosting & the greater extent of the developer’s dependency
Declan Kingston mainly works around strong Data to create powerful visuals, complex graphs to make the right decision for companies. He has been working in this field for over 8 years, has a strong knowledge of eCommerce platforms and website builders. He has worked with Ethereum and Looker Data Sciences, Inc. (now part of Google Cloud).
