Ecwid is an e-commerce platform launched in 2009 to cater to small businesses. At first, it was only a plugin that would add e-commerce functionality to existing sites, and later on, it grew into a self-sufficient store builder.
Unlike many other platforms, it allows creating an online store for free (the free plan is naturally quite limited in functionality, but it still might be a valid option) and doesn’t charge transaction fees. While affordability is the first thing that distinguishes Ecwid from the competition, it offers a decent set of features (which we’ll cover in this post). Plus, you can integrate Ecwid into an existing site without building one from scratch.
At the moment, there are around 180,000 live stores powered by Ecwid, and the platform shows a 20% year-over-year growth. Most merchants using Ecwid come from English-speaking countries, namely the US. More than 60% of all stores sell less than 10 products, which goes in line with Ecwid being mostly targeted at small businesses.
Ecwid has been recognized as one of the easiest e-commerce platforms in use—in the easiest-to-use list on G2, it occupies second place, while Shopify is ranked third.
Compared to Ecwid, Shopify has a much wider reach. There are over 2 million stores currently running on Shopify, located all over the world (for instance, the platform powers almost a million shops in the US, over 80,000 in Brazil, and over 40,000 in India). Shopify has a subscription tier for any business size: from those only starting off to enterprise-level companies with the need for advanced customizations.
Shopify stands out by the widest set of features on the market, the biggest number of supported payment methods, and the highest level of localization options. While it lacks some capabilities, especially regarding SEO and merchandising, they can be easily enabled by one of the 8,000+ available apps.
According to the latest statistics,
The Shopify's GMV reached more than $197B in 2022
The basics offered by Ecwid and Shopify
Shopify and Ecwid allow you to set up a site and sell online. They cover hosting needs and use a CDN with globally distributed nodes so that website content loads fast regardless of location. The platforms also provide stores with a free SSL certificate and are PCI DSS certified to ensure data protection and security.
Unlike Ecwid, Shopify also sells domains so you can create a custom one directly through the platform. Ecwid only allows you to connect any domain you’ve bought somewhere else.
Both platforms allow you to sell internationally and support different types of products—you can sell digital items along with physical ones, and create subscription-based products. There’s a difference in the number of products: while all Shopify plans allow you to sell an unlimited number of items, Ecwid comes with limitations.
Speaking of multilingual store support, Shopify includes much more localization options. On Ecwid, you can only translate your site manually and add it to the editor, while on Shopify, you can also use translation apps and automate the process. Plus, Shopify offers advanced localization in some plans, letting you adjust the products and prices to each market.
Ecwid vs. Shopify: store design
Contrary to Shopify, Ecwid doesn’t have a theme store. It has dozens of industry-based templates that can be chosen in the site editor, but they only differ in the design of the homepage. Ecwid’s editor, Instant Site, offers design blocks that can be customized and placed in different sections of the website. The blocks you add can be rearranged and renamed for easier navigation.
Apart from content sections, the editor allows you to set up navigational elements and menus to structure your site. On top of customizing each chosen block, you can choose typography and colors, as well as upload your images to certain elements of the site. Plus, Ecwid enables the application of custom CSS.
Even though there are technically no themes on Ecwid, you can find compatible ones on external services like ThemeForest.
For extra customizations, Ecwid offers its own services: you can offer a custom integration or design tweak. For merchants on annual Business and Unlimited plans, the platform gives 2 and 12 hours of free customization development respectively.
In turn, Shopify offers a dedicated Theme Store with a selection of 100+ themes that require a one-time purchase of $100-300 (plus, there are 11 free ones). You can filter available themes by e-commerce category and preview all its features for free—you’ll have to pay only once the store goes live.
Shopify offers a significantly more diverse selection of templates that differ in layouts and functionality. You can even filter Shopify themes by a specific feature you’d like to have—for instance, color swatches or countdown timers.
You can always do more with your store’s design with the help of apps or by hiring Shopify developers. For instance, with landing page builder apps, you can easily find more content blocks and elements than you have by default with a chosen theme.
SEO features of Shopify and Ecwid
What Ecwid does automatically to ease search optimization includes:
- SEO-friendly URLs for products, categories, cart, and checkout
- sitemap with a list of site pages
- structured data to all pages
Plus, Ecwid creates a static HTML copy for every product and category URL, which makes it easier for search engines to crawl and understand the site if it has a lot of dynamically loaded content.
Shopify also automatically generates a sitemap file and uses structured data. With the latter, you’ll have more flexibility on Shopify as the platform allows you to add or edit the markup manually (which is currently impossible on Ecwid and might worsen the representation of content in search). However, Shopify has its issues: you can’t change the URL structure it creates by default, and in many cases, you’ll have to deal with duplicate content (when a product page is available under several URLs, for example).
Ecwid vs. Shopify: supported payments
Ecwid supports over 70 payment providers from all over the world and doesn’t charge any transaction fees, even on the free plan. (Note that you’ll still have to pay the fees charged by chosen providers themselves). On top of supported gateways, you can add a custom integration with a payment provider by using Ecwid’s Payment API.
Shopify is the industry leader when it comes to the range of supported payment gateways. You can integrate providers out of 100+ available ones that include a lot of local services and Shopify’s own system, Shopify Payments. The platform charges additional transaction fees on external providers (they range from 0.5% to 2% depending on your plan) but doesn’t impose fees on Shopify Payments. It also has its own POS system that you can connect to for free.
Analytics in Ecwid and Shopify
Ecwid offers several analytical reports to monitor your store’s performance:
- You can check the number of visitors in a given period
- You can view the number of completed orders and the amount of generated revenue
- You can compare started checkouts with completed orders
These metrics are surely vital for any store, but it’s still very little information that can arm you to understand your visitors, predict future sales, and improve your campaigns. Ecwid also integrates with the Kliken Stats app which sheds some more light on the store’s traffic sources, acquisition costs, conversion rates, top products, and other aspects.
Compared to Ecwid, Shopify provides you with more diverse and granular insights. There are 11 different types of reports (some of them are only available in higher-tier plans), from finances to inventory management to customer segmentation. Plus, you’ll have a live view of the store’s visits and actions, as well as the possibility to create custom reports (only in Advanced and Shopify Plus).
With Shopify reports, you’ll be able to analyze your sales by product, average order value, fulfillment metrics, sessions attributed to different marketing campaigns, and a lot more. On top of that, you can take advantage of one of Shopify reporting apps that will give you even more details or create helpful visualizations based on your store’s data.
Ecwid vs. Shopify: pricing plans
Unlike most e-commerce platforms, Ecwid offers a free-forever plan that allows you to sell 5 products and doesn’t include additional features like coupons or product variants. Paid plans are Venture, Business, and Unlimited which cost $19, $39, and $99 per month, respectively. With an annual subscription, you can save 25% on any plan.
Ecwid’s paid plans differ in the number of products you can sell, types of products (for instance, subscriptions are not available in Venture), localization (multilingual stores can be created on Business and Unlimited plans), support (the higher the tier, the more channels you’ll have to contact the support team), and additional features like POS integration.
Overall, Ecwid is an affordable solution, perfect for those who want to try their hand at online selling. The highest-tier plan is still comparatively cheap, but, to be fair, it lacks the capabilities that Shopify has to offer.
Shopify offers four major pricing plans tailored to different business sizes: Basic ($32 per month), Shopify ($92), Advanced ($399), and Shopify Plus (custom pricing that starts from $2,000). Most features are available under any subscription, and the plans namely differ in available reports, staff accounts, and transaction fees. If you pay for a year ahead, the subscription costs 25% less.
Besides that, Shopify has the Starter plan ($5 per month) for those looking to sell on existing websites or social media and modular pricing called Shopify Components where you pay only for the features you actually use.
Shopify might seem pricey, but it can be explained by the range of features you get. On top of the store functionality itself, you’ll get access to Shopify’s fulfillment network, discounts from major shipping carriers, 1,000 inventory locations, Shopify’s own payment system and POS.
Comparison table
basic overview
Starting price (per month)
$32 (varies depending on the region; costs 25% less if paid for a year ahead)
$0
Free trial
Duration varies
There’s a free plan, no free trial
Transaction fee
0.5-2% depending on the plan (no fees on Shopify Payments)
0
Unlimited products
Only in the Unlimited plan
Embedded payment gateway
24/7 free support
Number of apps
8,000+
100+
Migration from other platforms
Can be done manually or with the help of apps (both free and paid)
Can be done manually
Mobile app to manage stores
features
Blog
Built-in SEO
Global CDN
Hosting
SSL certificate
Subscription sales
(with the help of apps)
(Business and Unlimited plans)
Digital products
Social selling
Number of staff accounts
2-15 depending on the plan
Unlimited on the Unlimited plan
POS
Supports third-party POS providers
Inventory locations
1,000
No inventory tracking by location
Manual orders
(Business and Unlimited plans)
Automatically calculated shipping rates
Automated sales tax
Only for the US
Only for the US
Own fulfillment network
design
Drag-and-drop editor
Theme customizations
Number of themes
100+ (11 free themes)
80 (only homepage)
Unlimited pages
Possibility to add custom code
Smart search with autocomplete and error tolerance
Only with an app
Site backup
global reach
Multi-language stores
Multi-currency stores
(with an app)
Multiple inventory locations
Automated translations
Local payments
Automated domain redirection based on geolocation
Market-specific product selection
Analytics & reporting
Live view
Marketing reports
Finances reports
Inventory reports
Product analytics
Visitor behavior
Google Analytics integration
Payments
Number of supported gateways
100+
70+
PCI DSS compliance
Credit cards
Google Pay
Apple Pay
Amazon Pay
PayPal
Crypto
Installment payments
Klarna
Afterpay
iDEAL
Wire transfer
Cash on delivery
Accelerated checkout
(including its own solution Shop Pay)
With an app
Summary
Features
100%
70%
Design
90%
70%
Global reach
100%
70 %
Analytics & reporting
100%
40%
Payments
100%
90%
