Authorize.net vs. Shopify

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Authorize.net
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
Authorize.net is a payment gateway software solution offered by Visa featuring secure data processing and fraud protection.
$25
monthly gateway
Shopify
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
Shopify is a commerce platform designed for both online stores and retail locations. Shopify offers a professional online storefront, a payment solution to accept credit cards, and the Shopify POS application to power retail sales.
$29
per month
Pricing
Authorize.netShopify
Editions & Modules
All-in-One Option
25 & 2.9% + $0.30
monthly gateway/per transaction
Payment Gateway Only
$25
monthly gateway
Shopify Lite
$9
per month
Basic Shopify
$29
per month
Shopify
$79
per month
Advanced Shopify
$299
per month
Shopify Plus
2,000
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Authorize.netShopify
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Features
Authorize.netShopify
Online Storefront
Comparison of Online Storefront features of Product A and Product B
Authorize.net
-
Ratings
Shopify
7.4
131 Ratings
4% below category average
Product catalog & listings00 Ratings8.6131 Ratings
Product management00 Ratings7.2129 Ratings
Bulk product upload00 Ratings7.6110 Ratings
Branding00 Ratings8.4130 Ratings
Mobile storefront00 Ratings7.4126 Ratings
Product variations00 Ratings6.3123 Ratings
Website integration00 Ratings9.2124 Ratings
Visual customization00 Ratings7.5129 Ratings
CMS00 Ratings4.3105 Ratings
Online Shopping Cart
Comparison of Online Shopping Cart features of Product A and Product B
Authorize.net
-
Ratings
Shopify
8.1
125 Ratings
7% above category average
Abandoned cart recovery00 Ratings7.6116 Ratings
Checkout user experience00 Ratings8.5123 Ratings
Online Payment System
Comparison of Online Payment System features of Product A and Product B
Authorize.net
-
Ratings
Shopify
9.0
127 Ratings
8% above category average
eCommerce security00 Ratings9.0127 Ratings
eCommerce Marketing
Comparison of eCommerce Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Authorize.net
-
Ratings
Shopify
8.0
129 Ratings
7% above category average
Promotions & discounts00 Ratings7.2124 Ratings
Personalized recommendations00 Ratings8.432 Ratings
SEO00 Ratings8.5120 Ratings
eCommerce Business Management
Comparison of eCommerce Business Management features of Product A and Product B
Authorize.net
-
Ratings
Shopify
8.0
130 Ratings
2% above category average
Multi-site management00 Ratings6.719 Ratings
Order processing00 Ratings9.1128 Ratings
Inventory management00 Ratings8.8127 Ratings
Shipping00 Ratings8.2120 Ratings
Custom functionality00 Ratings7.1120 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Authorize.netShopify
Small Businesses
Apple Pay
Apple Pay
Score 9.1 out of 10
Ecwid by Lightspeed
Ecwid by Lightspeed
Score 10.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Apple Pay
Apple Pay
Score 9.1 out of 10
IBM Digital Commerce
IBM Digital Commerce
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Adyen
Adyen
Score 8.8 out of 10
IBM Digital Commerce
IBM Digital Commerce
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Authorize.netShopify
Likelihood to Recommend
8.3
(31 ratings)
9.0
(144 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.1
(2 ratings)
9.2
(15 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(3 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
5.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Authorize.netShopify
Likelihood to Recommend
Visa
Authorize.net is reliable and I feel confident that customers' information is protected. The security protocols used by Authorize.net appear to be as good, and probably better than many credit card payment processors. However, the initial setup process was very difficult. I distinctly recall getting up and running as being very cumbersome and time-consuming. I also was disappointed with how the processing and deposit of payments were not consistent. I distinctly remember regretting the decision to go with Authorize.net. However, as mentioned before, with the time and effort required to get the account set up and running, I refused to go through the process again and try a different provider.
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Shopify
Shopify is a great platform for small to medium-sized businesses looking to set up an online store. It's easy to use, offers a wide range of features and integrations, and is perfect for businesses in the retail and food industry. However, large enterprise businesses with complex and custom needs may find Shopify less suitable.
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Pros
Visa
  • Very smooth workflow to authorizing, capturing, voiding, and refunding charges. This can all be done via API calls, or through their online dashboard.
  • Their AVS settings for validating credit cards are substantial and have been reliable in ensuring that our customers cards are being used safely and properly.
  • Their uptime and response times are very good in general. The only issues we ever have communicating with their services is when our connection quality is compromised.
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Shopify
  • It is definitely easy to set up and get going. This does not take a lot of work or effort on the user end, especially if using templates.
  • Low code platform. You can. make customizations without code.
  • The integrations are diverse and increase functionality.
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Cons
Visa
  • The lack of data portability is a big issue for me.
  • Authorize.net uses the same $49.00 gateway setup fee to scam merchants out of money, which is no better than any of the other gateways out there.
  • Their customer service is not up to the mark. You can get stuck if you need any help from their end.
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Shopify
  • The main drawback that I am facing in Shopify for a long time is that their sales analytics system is not up to mark. As I am using Shopify to run different stores for my organization it does not get updated after-sales and does not provide the right analytics about the product strength and number of sales.
  • Secondly, Shopify has different apps which are best to run the store on max strength but they are very much costly like inventory management, generating multiple discount codes, and more robust customizable editing.
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Likelihood to Renew
Visa
Authorize.net has been a useful system for our Chamber. We appreciate the ease of use and access to our Main Frame. Connecting Authorize.net to our system for membership, event and other payment ease has been excellent and we have experienced no problems whatsoever.
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Shopify
Nothing we have used in the past or have seen thus far even comes close to offering what we get with Shopify Plus, especially for the price. You cannot even come close to getting what we are getting at the price we pay. We are beyond thrilled and Shopify Plus meets and exceeds all of our needs and expectations. We love it!
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Usability
Visa
No answers on this topic
Shopify
I think most people are able to suer Shopify that have used a computer. There are some features that take a bit longer to learn. If you are not a creative person it may be a bit more difficult to learn the website customization, but with a help guide or tutorial it will only take a few tries to understand how to work the interface
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Support Rating
Visa
I have no experience directly with the support offered by Authorize.Net.
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Shopify
In terms of support I give Shopify a 9 out of 10 because they're always very friendly and thorough, and they personally can't solve my problem for me they always point me in the proper direction with the proper information I need to move forward
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Implementation Rating
Visa
No answers on this topic
Shopify
Just start now and make the switch, the sooner the better. You will love it and it is really a simple process
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Alternatives Considered
Visa
Authorize.net is a reliable and affordable payment processing service that offers more robust security than other services, such as Stripe or PayPal with their monthly fees at $25 dollars month lot of people may be turned off by these high prices but you get what you pay for - protection against fraud in risky transactions so I would recommend using Authorize.net if this matters to your business!
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Shopify
The old platform that I used could not help us to meet our requirements. It was not helping us properly, then I got to know about Shopify and started using it. After 1 month [of] usage of Shopify we could understand that this is the best platform [for E-commerce] to make better sales and goodwill. Shopify helped us to get a proper idea of the analytics of the website. Shopify [supports] most of the [applications] and helps us to make better results.
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Return on Investment
Visa
  • Lets us charge cards so we can get paid on time, every time.
  • It was very difficult to setup the DocuSign integration the first time, but after we got it setup, it's made the onboarding process very easy. That probably saves about 30 minutes every time we get a new client.
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Shopify
  • It got the store up quickly so the client could start selling. She was previously selling products on Etsy and Facebook and wanted to consolidate everything onto one website, so the main thing Shopify solved was to reduce the store owner's time in managing all her products on multiple sites. Also, we had previously built a website on Wix with all the custom functionality and branding she needed - a truly great, high-end website - but it performed so slowly that it was unusable. So the speed at which Shopify can be set up and then works on the page is appreciable.
  • The website was manageable by the client - she could figure the system out herself after a while so she saved money on costs for hiring developers. She did have to hire developers to customize some of the plug-ins but costs are all relative; it wasn't a high investment compared to building a full e-commerce website. With the complexity and size of her product base and the functionality and branding she wanted to have in a website, and the potential of her business, she would have needed to invest well over $10,000 to get to where she really needs to be. In the end she kept the budget under $5000.00.
  • Costs kept climbing with plug-ins having to be added with everything. My client became more involved in building the website and began to try multiple plugins, and she did not have the skill base to evaluate the plugins functionalities so she chose plugins that did not do everything she needed, and then ended up paying the plugin developers to customize the plugins. So on one hand, it's pretty amazing to be able to bring up an e-commerce website as quickly as a week or so, but on the other hand if you need anything customized or deeper functionality in regards to product searching and filtering on the web page, and management on the backend, it quickly goes beyond the skills of the average person to manage, and above their expected budget as well. In the end my client really did not get anything close to the functionality for the website we had originally envisioned.
  • Shopify was the easiest way we could find to bring the client's products to a global market. We evaluated several other platforms and the functionality simple did not seem to be adequate, so Shopify seemed like the only solution that could do enough of what we needed and still stay within this client's budget. Really the problem in this project was not platform per se but that the budget wasn't large enough. Shopify managed to provide a solution for an ecommerce store with thousands of products on a tiny budget, so in the sense of pure functionality it provided the best value of all the platforms we evaluated. The solution still isn't big enough for this client's business though so, without having insights into this client's post-build sales results, my guess is that because her new website did not make her products easier to sort through, and she likely didn't have much more budget left to invest in SEO and other marketing of the website, her sales probably didn't increase substantially as a result of having built the website. So I think this project all in all did not likely have a high ROI.
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ScreenShots