Shopify Review: Online Store Builder, Payments, and POS

We ranked Shopify as the best ecommerce platform for small businesses in our latest round of testing, but it’s held a spot as one of our top three ecommerce platforms for over four years.

Shopify is a great choice for ambitious retailers who want to grow their business through omnichannel selling. Besides its excellent online store tools, which include inventory and shipping management, Shopify also offers its own POS system, complete with software and hardware, as well as easy integration with online marketplaces and social media platforms.

That said, I did find Shopify slightly hard to use when I tested it for myself, which means it’s not the best platform for users new to website builders and ecommerce platforms.

In this review, I’ll go over not just Shopify’s ecommerce tools, but its payment processing service and POS system as well, so you can get a comprehensive assessment of Shopify’s most popular products. I’ll also go over Shopify’s pros and cons and its pricing. Here’s a quick summary to start you off.

Getting Started With Shopify

Signing up for a Shopify plan was a bit of a different experience compared with more traditional website builders I’ve tested. While competitors such as Wix take a website-design-first approach, directing users to use an AI website builder or pick a template, Shopify opts for a use-case-first approach.

Instead of being asked what design I wanted, I was asked what the purpose of my ecommerce was. For example, questions revolved around what I was selling (products, subscriptions, digital products), and where and how I wanted to sell it (online, in person, on marketplaces).

Once I was done, I was taken, not to a website template like most competitors, but to the main homepage of my Shopify store. This is your main hub, from which you can manage products, inventory, customer data, marketing, and of course, your ecommerce website.

To start designing an online store with Shopify, you need to go to the “Online Store” tab. From there, you’ll be given the option to create a store using Shopify’s AI website builder tool or to choose a pre-built theme.

I opted for the AI route, since this is a relatively new feature, only released in 2024. Blink and you’ll miss the AI option, since it’s a tiny banner above the much larger theme library. The only prompt required is to describe what your online store sells.

In a few seconds, Shopify’s AI website builder generated three different themes for me, although I had the option to relaunch the AI builder as many times as I liked. What impressed me the most was how diverse the website designs the AI builder generated were. I also liked the fact that I was presented with three options, whereas competitors Wix and Hostinger only show you one AI-generated design at a time.

That said, I did feel that Shopify’s themes weren’t quite as eye-catching as the ones created by competitors Wix or Squarespace. Shopify is definitely a sales-tools first, design-second platform.

My experience with Shopify’s backend and editor

Once you’ve chosen a Shopify theme, you aren’t immediately prompted to go to the editor, another quirk that sets Shopify apart from competitors. You have to scroll back up to the top of the “Online Store” tab and click on the “customize” button.

When it comes to using the editor to customize your Shopify website, I found that Shopify wasn’t the easiest platform to use. This is mainly because the menu isn’t very intuitive. It’s split into a sidebar menu that’s for editing the page you’re on, and a tiny top bar menu that’s almost hidden, which can be used to select or add other pages to edit.

Shopify definitely isn’t a beginner-friendly platform, and users with limited technical skills might prefer an easier option like Hostinger, where AI can essentially do most of the work for you.

It’s a similar experience when it comes to using the main dashboard in the backend. The plain design of the backend, with its absence of colour, minimal bolding and contrast, makes it difficult to find features, since nothing jumps out visually.

Shopify’s Pros and Cons

Here’s a quick summary of Shopify’s pros and cons:

✅Excellent sales tools for growing online

Shopify has better sales tools than other competitors we tested, making it the best option for ambitious businesses looking to grow an online store. For example, Shopify lets users sell an unlimited number of products on all plans, while Wix has a 50,000 limit, plus it’s one of the only platforms we tested that can generate packing labels for shipping, removing the middleman from the process.

Add to this the fact that Shopify integrates with several online marketplaces, such as eBay and Amazon, and offers a POS system for selling in-person, and it’s a one-stop shop for modern retail businesses.

✅Fully-fledged POS system

Shopify is one of the few ecommerce platforms, besides Square, to offer a fully-fledged POS system, which includes software and hardware. The POS system can be accessed from the same platform as the online store, allowing businesses to seamlessly manage in-person and online sales.

Using the same provider for in-person and online sales makes it easier to consolidate data on sales across platforms and reduce discrepancies in inventory tracking.

✅Large number of integrations

Expanding your toolkit is very easy with Shopify, since its App Store allows you to integrate with over 8,000 apps across a wide variety of categories, including bookings, shipping, email marketing, and loyalty.

To give you an idea of how impressive this is, the next best option is Wix, whose App Market features over 800 apps, 10 times less than Shopify.

❌One of the most expensive options on the market

With plans ranging from $29 to $2,300 per month, compared to the average $16 to $100 per month of most competitors, Shopify is one of the most expensive options on the market.

That said, its offers more powerful sales tools than cheaper competitors such as Wix and Squarespace, and can be scaled up to enterprise level, which isn’t the case for its competitors.

❌Can be difficult to use for beginners

Shopify can be a difficult platform to navigate, and that goes for its website editor as well as its main backend. This means it’s not the best option for total beginners to website building and ecommerce platforms, or users who aren’t very tech-savvy.

More user-friendly options that offer ecommerce tools to suit small businesses include Hostinger and Squarespace.

❌Limited number of AI tools

Shopify offers fewer AI tools than its close competitors, especially when it comes to AI content creation tools. For example, unlike Wix or Hostinger, Shopify doesn’t offer an AI image generator, or AI-powered SEO support. Shopify’s AI writer can’t write lengthy paragraphs, unlike Hostinger’s, and it doesn’t have a built-in spelling checker like Wix’s.

This means Shopify isn’t the best option for users looking to get online quickly by using AI to create most of their content.

How Much Does Shopify Cost?

Shopify has four plans, ranging from $29 per month to $2,300 per month for its most premium plan. Here’s a quick overview:

All of Shopify’s price plans come with:

• A website (you customize a template, and hosting is included)
• Access to POS Lite (an app that lets you take payments via iPhone)

Note that if you plan to use Shopify’s full POS software for in-person selling, you’ll need to upgrade to the $89 per month, per location POS Pro plan, paid on top the monthly fees for your ecommerce platform.

All this can add up, and Shopify is on average more expensive than its rivals, with Wix and Squarespace offering ecommerce functions for between $23 and $159 per month.

That said, Shopify’s cheapest plan, the $29 Basic plan, gives you access to a wide range of ecommerce tools from the jump, including shipping label printing, currency conversion, and abandoned cart recovery, features that aren’t offered on most competitors’ starting plans. Shopify’s $2,300 Plus plan is also designed to support very large companies, something rivals such as Wix and Squarespace can’t do, making Shopify worth the extra spend for ambitious businesses.

Does Shopify have a free plan?

Shopify does not have a free plan, but it offers a three-day free trial. This is much shorter than the standard two weeks most competitors offer, but Shopify somewhat makes up for this by letting businesses pay only $1 for their first month.

Other Shopify fees and charges

On top of your subscription, you’ll have to pay certain charges. For instance, unless you sign up for Shopify Payments, you’ll have to pay transaction fees per sale.

We’ve set out extra Shopify charges below:

• Website themes: Free options or $100-$490
• Shopify apps (optional): Free and paid options, pricing varies
• Hosting: No extra charge
• Custom domain: Free if you use “.myshopify.com”, custom costs $4-$40 per year (estimated)
• POS app (optional): $0 for tap-to-pay on iPhone, $89 per month for POS Pro
• POS hardware: $49-$459

For more details, head on over to our guide on Shopify pricing.

Shopify’s Key Ecommerce Features

Let’s take a look at Shopify’s key ecommerce features, from website design to sales to marketing and SEO:

Website builder and design

As I’ve noted in my overview of setting up a Shopify website, Shopify is a sales and business management tool first, and a website builder second. This is reflected in Shopify’s theme designs and its website editing tools, with the backend centered around managing products and sales channels.

That said, Shopify offers a decent 250 pre-built website themes in total, with overall modern and clean designs. Rival Wix offers more, with 900 unique designs covering a wider range of topics, while Squarespace offers more eye-catching themes. Shopify also allows for a good level of website design customization when it comes to element sizes, animations, and layout. That said, Wix allows for easier customization, since users can drag any element anywhere on the page.

Sales tools

Shopify is first and foremost an ecommerce platform, so it offers a wide range of advanced sales tools.

First of all, Shopify lets businesses upload unlimited products on all plans, unlike Wix, which has a 50,000 cap. It’s also one of the only platforms we tested that lets businesses import products via CSV, with no need to fix formatting so it matches Shopify’s. This isn’t something you can do with Wix or Squarespace, and it makes Shopify a better option for established businesses with a wide array of products.

Once products are uploaded in the backend, they’ll automatically appear on the product page in the frontend of your website, and you’ll be able to customize the page with filters and unique buttons such as “quick add”.

Shopify also allows users to sell a wide variety of items, including physical products, digital products, subscriptions, tickets, and bundles. Wix requires an add-on for product bundles, while Hostinger doesn’t allow users to sell subscriptions.

You’ll also get a lot of flexibility when it comes to setting discounts, with Shopify allowing businesses to schedule discounts, create unique gift card codes, offer free shipping on selected items, and more.

Shopify also has particularly great shipping features, allowing for shipping categories and regions, as well as automatic shipping cost calculations. It supports integrations with a wide variety of shipping apps, including regional ones, which makes international shipping easier.

It’s also possible to generate shipping labels directly in Shopify, making shipping extremely streamlined, something competitors Wix and Squarespace don’t offer.

Finally, when using Shopify, you’re not just limited to selling via your website. You can integrate with social media platforms and online marketplaces such as Amazon, sell products on them, and track sales via Shopify.

AI Tools

Shopify hasn’t made full use of AI for content creation the way rivals Wix and Hostinger have, only launching its AI website builder in late 2024.

As I noted in my overview of setting up a Shopify website, users aren’t pushed towards using Shopify’s AI builder, and it can easily be missed. In terms of results, I liked that the AI builder offered three very different themes based on the same prompt, even if the designs weren’t the most distinctive.

Other AI tools in the Shopify kit include an AI writer for product descriptions. I was quite impressed with this tool since all it needed was key information about the product to craft an enticing description, and I appreciated the fact that it gave clear instructions for what should be included in the prompt. The AI writer can also be used to craft headings, website content, and meta content.

Shopify is also one of the few platforms, besides Wix, to introduce AI to its image editing tools, allowing users to use AI to easily remove backgrounds. Unlike Wix, however, Shopify doesn’t offer an AI image generator.

AI also can’t be used to create email marketing templates, social posts, or logos, unlike with Wix and GoDaddy.

That said, Shopify does offer an AI Sidekick assistant that can help businesses think up FAQs for their website, and offer general advice on how to make the most of Shopify tools.

Marketing

Shopify offers built-in email marketing tools and integrates with a wide variety of third-party apps for both social media and email marketing.

All Shopify users get access to Shopify Email, Shopify’s native email marketing app, which comes with a set number of email sends per month and an email campaign creator. What Shopify is missing compared with platforms such as Wix and GoDaddy is native tools for designing and planning social media campaigns. However, it does integrate with third-party apps, such as Outfy that do offer these tools.

Shopify also integrates with various social media ad platforms and Google ads, and collects data from various campaigns into a unified dashboard, making it easy to see which strategies are the most successful.

SEO and globalization

Shopify offers comprehensive SEO (search engine optimization) tools, which are vital for getting your online store to appear high in search results.

It allows users to customize meta titles and descriptions, and URLs, so that they’re optimized for search engines. You also get access to in-depth help center guides on SEO best practices, and Shopify websites integrate with Google Analytics and Google Search Console so you can get an overview of your website’s performance. Rivals Wix and Squarespace offer similar tools, so Shopify’s SEO offering isn’t unique, but its language and globalization tools are more developed than competitors.

Shopify offers an automatic translation app, something also offered by Wix and Squarespace, and allows users to edit regional settings so currencies and dates change in line with the region.

Where Shopify goes one step further than the competition is that it offers a “localized selling” tool, available for three markets on its Basic to Advanced plans, or 50 on the Plus plan. This tool enables accurate SEO targeting for specific regions, ensuring success in local markets. Shopify also accepts more local payment methods than most competitors, and integrates with a larger number of local couriers, making it the best option for businesses looking to expand internationally.

Shopify Payments

Shopify Payments is Shopify’s proprietary payment processing service. Processing fees range from 2.9% + $0.30 to custom rates for online transactions, which is in line with industry averages.

It’s not the only ecommerce platform to offer this, with Wix and Squarespace offering their own equivalents. However, Shopify incentivizes you to use its native payment service, since it charges additional transaction fees for using a third-party service (this means you’ll pay these fees on top of the processing fees the third-party provider charges). They range from 2% to 0.2%.

Besides avoiding the extra fees, using Shopify Payments is convenient because it syncs with your Shopify dashboard, so you can track charges, refunds, and payouts more easily than alternative providers. Plus, it’s a payment processing service that can be used to process not just online transactions, but in-person ones too, if you use Shopify POS, which I’ll discuss in more detail in the next section.

Shopify Payments provides security benefits too, including 3D secure authentication, automated dispute management, and its Fraud Control app, which monitors activity that could signal fraudulent purchasing.

Shopify POS

Shopify is one of the few ecommerce platforms to offer a fully-fledged POS system, complete with software and hardware, for selling in person. That said, rival Wix has recently expanded its in-person selling tools beyond a simple card machine to now include a countertop register, but its POS software needs further development.

Shopify POS, on the other hand, made it onto our list of the best overall POS systems and best retail POS systems, thanks to its smooth integration of online and in-person sales data. The layout of Shopify’s POS software is also very modern and mirrors the layout of its ecommerce platform, making it easy to find your way around.

Shopify’s POS system is app-based, and the software costs $89 per month, per location. It requires minimal hardware purchases, since it works on an iPad. Shopify does, however, sell an iPad stand for $459, which includes a card machine. This is far cheaper than the $1,199 Wix is currently charging for its new countertop register, but a little more than the $149 Square charges for its iPad stand.

Square also offers a free POS software plan with far more functionality than Shopify’s Shopify Lite POS software, which is mainly for taking tap-to-pay on iPhone payments. This earned Square a top spot as the best overall POS system, even if its online store tool is far less developed than Shopify’s.

How Does Shopify Compare to Competitors?

Here’s a quick side-by-side comparison of Shopify to other top ecommerce platforms for small businesses.

• Wix: Wix is a great alternative to Shopify if you’re a small ecommerce business that’s looking for a more user-friendly platform with a wider range of built-in content creation and AI tools.
• Squarespace: Squarespace is a great alternative to Shopify for small businesses that value website aesthetics and want a website builder that can help them create a curated brand image.
• Hostinger: Hostinger is a good option for small online sellers who need to build a website quickly and want a lot of support from AI.
• Square Online: Square Online is a good alternative to Shopify for businesses that sell online and in-person, but find Shopify too expensive, since Square offers free ecommerce and POS software, and its paid plans are much cheaper than Shopify’s.

Although all of the above platforms have their strengths, if you’re an ambitious retailer that’s looking to grow and expand, I’d recommend you stick with Shopify. It’s the only platform on this list that can be scaled up to support large international businesses.

Our Methodology: How Did We Review Shopify