Ecwid allows customers the ability to create an online store to any webpage or social media profile. Boasting hundreds of thousands of merchants in 175 countries as users, Ecwid aims to provide everything needed to reach customers wherever they are: in-person, through a website, Instagram, Facebook, Amazon, or Google Shopping. In addition, Ecwid’s point-of-sale integrations, email marketing integrations, and dedicated mobile app allow sellers to manage marketing merchandising, and sales - any…
$5
per month
Shopify
Score 8.6 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.
$39
per month
Webflow
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
Webflow is a Website Experience Platform for modern marketing teams, used to visually build, manage, and optimize websites that offer both the consumer experience teams expect and enterprise-grade performance and scale.
$18
per month
Pricing
Ecwid by Lightspeed
Shopify
Webflow
Editions & Modules
Starter
$5
per month
Venture
$30
per month
Business
$55
per month
Unlimited
$130
per month
Basic Shopify
$39
per month
Grow
$105
per month
Advanced
$399
per month
Shopify Plus
2,000
per month
Shopify Plus
2,300
per month
Basic
$18
per month
CMS
$29
per month
Ecommerce - Standard
$42
per month
Business
$49
per month
Ecommerce - Plus
$84
per month
Ecommerce - Advanced
$235
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Ecwid by Lightspeed
Shopify
Webflow
Free Trial
No
Yes
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
Yes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Yes
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
Optional
No setup fee
No setup fee
Additional Details
A 16% discount is offered for annual billing.
A 25% discount is offered for annual billing.
Up to a 22% discount available for annual pricing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Ecwid by Lightspeed
Shopify
Webflow
Considered Multiple Products
Ecwid by Lightspeed
Verified User
Professional
Chose Ecwid by Lightspeed
Ecwid is much more intuitive than Shopify and offers enough flexibility that you don't need a myriad of 3rd party add-ons. Super fast to start up. More offerings of payment processors. An easy way to try out a solution before being charged after a 14 day period.
Verified User
Administrator
Chose Ecwid by Lightspeed
Ecwid stacks up extremely well compared to the other products I’ve listed. Sure, there any some instances in which the other products may be better suited due to their very high level of customization. However, for the average business, Ecwid will not only meet their …
We sell a product that requires certain controls to sell and most of the companies we researched had specific policies preventing us from selling on their platform. We aren't selling anything dangerous, they are parts of ammunition (the shell casings) and not entire ammunition …
Shopify is so very affordable and cheap when considering competitors such as Webflow or Square Space. The fees associated with selling a product are the same as the PayPal processing fees and the monthly rate is just $29. It’s really a no-brainer for anyone that normally gets …
I personally prefer and use Wix, because of customization and it is a few dollars cheaper. But what Shopify offers in the Store package compared to Wix are the currencies accepted, being able to subscribe, automated sales tax, or SEO options. To get all that out of Wix you …
Compared to other closed platforms like Squarespace or Shopify, Webflow is much more developer friendly and customizable. The CMS is easier to use and much more flexible to design and develop in. Price points between the 3 are similar. Most of the 3rd party integrations for …
I would not say it has substitutes for all features of the other platforms, but overall it is better to use and implement. I would like to see Wix's user management, Shopify and WooCommerce's shop features, and WordPress' ability to host big enterprise blog management. The …
In my opinion, Webflow has the worst CMS I have used. All the other tools make it much easier to write, format, publish and organize content. There's a lot more flexibility and they have better UX. I would not choose Webflow if given the choice, I would only use it if the …
Ecwid is absolutely perfect for any business that is looking to start out with online sales and mobile point-of-sale. Many times, business owners may have limited experience in setting up a website or point-of-sale. Having to spend on this expertise with a limited budget can be frustrating. Ecwid allows you to have great results even if you are a novice.
Shopify allowed us to handle matrix items and combined listings. Both of which we could not do on our previous platform. There was some customization involved but overall, it did what we needed it to. The one downside was that if we want to change anything we would have to reload the entire set of matrix items manually.
Since the purpose in my case is to build a small professional looking site to present project outcomes and other research, I can create custom fields and design experimentations. Webflow builds sites that are super professional, with many amazing templates that don't look cheap. Additionally, I can test responsive layouts. Apart from this, I used 1-2 static pages to illustrate key findings for example what a multilingual site could look like with screenshots without needing CMS in free version, which are all the valuable skills to acquire. Compared to WordPress, Webflow is expensive with limited free features, although it has really cool additional features that will make the site I build stand out.
Clarity - there has been very little confusion and need to reach out to Customer Support for help
Consistency - no big, crazy updates or changes have been made to the format of Ecwid during my time using it, so I know when I log in to preform my business tasks I can always locate what I need and accomplish what is at hand easily
Simplicity - everything is so clear and straightforward. It's like e-commerce for dummies.
It's base security and integration with trusted security partners (such as NoFraud) is a game-changer when it comes to reliability and a "hands off approach" for our IT department. The up-time is also very good.
It offers a wide range of verified plugins that are (for the most part) easy to install and use for any specific scenario you're looking for.
It's Analytics area in the admin is actually nice and offers a wide variety of reports that you can run.
Saves time- because I don't have to do double entry of content.
It saves money. I like that it is an all-in-one system, so I don't have to host elsewhere.
Flexibility - Webflow provides me with a lot of flexibility in my webpage design, allowing me to adjust pages as needed, depending on the content types.
I would love it if Shopify built an in house app which helped us post UGCs and social proof from platforms such as Instagram, Youtube etc. more seamlessly on our website. Right now, we are able to do it through third party apps but the look and feel is just okay.
Brand recognition is still behind WordPress, which can make it a challenging sell for clients looking to play it safe in their CMS decision.
The CMS is ideal for smaller datasets, but higher content sites introduce some minor challenges.
Alignment between designers and developers is key prior to implementation. The flexibility of the platform requires careful planning to avoid over-engineering.
The value given by Ecwid is unmatched. When combined with the ease of use of the product, it is a no-brainer to continue to use the product. The only thing that could cause us to switch is if some feature we needed which is not available which is unlikely based on the feature list we reviewed when making the decision to go with them.
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!
I gave a 9 instead of a 10 only because I haven't figured out a function or two. I believe it has less to do with Ecwid's overall usability and more to do with my own understanding and skill level, but regardless, it may also have something to do with the limits of Ecwid's functions.
It is fairly easy to use Shopify regardless of what task you are attempting to perform. Most things are customizable to a degree without requiring coding ability. I have very limited coding experience and have still been able to navigate my way around changing features of the website that require edits to the code with the use of AI and trial-and-error. This previously wasn't possible with the WooCommerce platform.
Webflow is very easy for a beginner to get started with and achieve good results, but to achieve an expert level of understanding requires experience and some web development knowledge. HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript knowledge aren't required to use Webflow, but an expert will know BEM class naming patterns, be able to create reusable elements and design systems, and add 3rd party integrations that require custom code.
In my experience, their customer service is an absolute joke, I tried reaching out to them they took forever. I had to keep following up with them as if they never received it in the first place. It’s a new platform, so guidance is needed. Tried the university they offer, in my opinion, it is completely useless, I would just completely move on from this website.
In my opinion, it is horrible, the rendering takes forever. I have the newest MacBook and the platform will still lag and slow down on me. I’m not a developer, I am a designer which makes it worst because I am using the features they are providing not extra coding features. In my opinion, it is a horrible platform really, stay away.
I have always received the support I need in a timely manner. I enjoy receiving emails every week on trending business topics and new suggestions. They often serve as a reminder for me to include new e-commerce tools into our strategy. And I've always had great experiences with reaching out to the support team with specific questions.
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
I haven't had to engage them from a support perspective; however, there is a considerable user community for tips/ideas/troubleshooting and the like. I believe the Pro plan supports additional resources but we didn't find that the cost justified the outcome. Overall the need for support has been relatively minor.
Shopify offered us several trainings to setup a Shopify store, how to build a brand, SEO, product photography etc. All this content have been super helpful in our journey.
We sell a product that requires certain controls to sell and most of the companies we researched had specific policies preventing us from selling on their platform. We aren't selling anything dangerous, they are parts of ammunition (the shell casings) and not entire ammunition rounds. Most other vendors restrict the sales of firearms and ammunition, but even when just selling a part used to create ammunition, we were still restricted. I'm not really sure why they restrict sales of products like ours from different vendors. Ecwid had no such restrictions and were happy to confirm that for us.
Big Commerce and SAP Hybris are two other platforms we've investigated and Shopify is by far easiest to use and customize. While it doesn't do everything out of the box, the apps do fill in many gaps. The cost however, is probably the biggest selling point against these other two options.
A lot more design control and easier to create a custom site, and then also to scale that site going forward. There's a lot about WordPress I miss, though, when it comes to managing a blog—user permissions, SEO control, edit HTML version of posts.
I feel it doesn’t perform the way it’s supposed to and it doesn’t have any beneficial factors to it. In my opinion, there is no reason to use a platform like this when Wix and Shopify, and WordPress exist. I believe Webflow is a platform that shouldn’t exist and it’s only popular because of the hype it received. I tried it and hate it completely.
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.
