Unleash Your eCommerce with GPT-Based 11 Shopify Alternatives

Online shopping is the most lucrative business in the past decade, and that has led to an increase in the number of websites facilitating ecommerce.

That, in turn, has resulted in a flourish in the business of commerce platform providers. Shopify is one such ecommerce platform that enables businesses to set up a store online.

It would be impossible not to discuss Shopify when the discussion is about the ecommerce business.

Shopify helps users set up a business from anywhere around the world with the help of some of the best features that help improve sales, manage day-to-day operations, find customers, and much more.

The marketing tools in Shopify help create & execute marketing campaigns, the reporting & analytics tools enable to analyze the effectiveness of the marketing campaigns, and much more.

Shopify also offers a payment gateway that enables businesses to accept online payments. Shopify is easy to use and set up, making it the hot favorite among small and medium businesses.

Features

Shopify features help businesses set up the website in multiple languages, making it easy for customers worldwide to shop.

The Customization of the store, email templates, and branding enables them to create a professional image.

The payment gateways help customers to pay through various channels. The marketing features help businesses to create engaging content that plays a vital role in improving website traffic.

The other dropshipping features are easy to use and enable businesses to flourish with minimal risks.

The order fulfillment, refunds, and taxation help businesses manage unlimited products, abandoned carts, and much more, making it one of the best ecommerce platform.

 When running a Shopify store, business owners focus also on finding different ways to manage their finances. E-commerce checking accounts are an excellent solution for them since they streamline transactions, minimize fees, and allow access to funds that can be used for inventory management or other cost-related needs. They are designed with the business owner in mind and incorporate features like budgeting and expense-tracking tools that help keep track of incoming and outgoing payments.

The analytics feature helps business owners to get a better understanding of the customer requirements/ behavior.

Integrations

Disadvantages 

Shopify is the best ecommerce platform that enables business owners to manage their online stores with tons of exciting ecommerce features.

Email marketing, Shopify payments, and other user-friendly features help businesses to improve their website traffic.

However, like any other ecommerce solution provider, Shopify also has its own set of challenges.

1. Challenging to manage the conversion of a purchase order into a receipt.
2. Limited Customization and pre-designed templates make all the Shopify stores look the same.
3. Orders with different currency payments are difficult to be changed.
4. Shopify has control over the access, and that does not seem to change.
5. Designing pages other than your first page can get challenging if you do not have a technical background.
6. The pricing is not based on the volume of orders and makes it difficult for small businesses to survive the initial months.

What can I use instead of Shopify?

While Shopify offers various excellent features, there are quite a few challenges for businesses to manage.

It makes the business owners want to explore the other providers, referred to as Shopify alternatives.

Whether it is the ease of use, business plan, unlimited bandwidth, support, price plans, reports in real-time, or the payment gateways, business owners consider tons of factors as the vital feature they are keen to explore.

The market offers tons of providers that offer similar features to Shopify with a variety of pricing plans.

Sellfy, BigCommerce, Sam cart, Pay Hip, Selz, Square space, and a few others can be used instead of Shopify.

We can discuss the features, pricing plans, integrations, advantages, use cases, and how to get started with various Shopify alternatives.

Is there a free Shopify alternative?

Wix is an ecommerce platform that works well as a Shopify alternative that is available for free.

Wix offers a free drag and drop editor that helps business owners to create an online store. Wix does not require its users to code and choose their favorite theme from dozens of free themes.

Cart & Checkout, store management, store analytics, payments, Marketing, and mobile apps are a few features that work well for small businesses.

Is DashNex better than Shopify?

DashNex offers automatic security, updates, hosting, and backups and does not collect any transaction fees.

DashNex manages maintenance and website hosting with flexible pricing plans. DashNex works well for business owners with no technical knowledge.

DashNex is powered by Amazon cloud and enables users to build an ecommerce website without costing them a fortune with the order processing fees and recurring payments.

With DashNex, business owners can launch a customized ecommerce or a dropshipping store and a mobile responsive website effortlessly.

Check this web3 eCommerce solutions for your business.

Is Shopify better than Wix?

Both Wix and Shopify aims at offering to set up a website for business owners without any coding skills/ technical knowledge and sell products online.

Wix worked well as a provider to build a content-based website where content showcasing like news sites, blogs, brochures, and photography portfolios.

Shopify was built to offer solutions for businesses to create an online store.

Pricing – Wix offers a free plan, whereas Shopify offers a fourteen-day free trial.

Transaction fees: Both Wix and Shopify charge transaction fees of 2.4% to 2.9% for their in-built payment processors.

However, Shopify payments are not available in all countries, and this leads to the sites using third-party payment gateways and ending up paying two different sets of transaction fees.

But Wix does not charge its users for any third-party payment gateway usage.

Templates – With a Wix account, users can choose from more than five hundred templates.

Shopify offers about two to three variants in the entire bundle of up to nine themes. Shopify users can always purchase a premium theme for $100 – $180.

Payment gateway – Both Wix and Shopify offers a payment gateway to accept payments but are not available in all countries, and the users may have to use third-party payment platforms for the same.

However, Wix does not charge its users for any third-party payment gateway usage.

Still, Shopify charges transaction fees, which means its users may have to pay twice the transaction fees for the third party payment gateways that they use.

Point of Sales – The point of Sales feature enables its users to sell online, in a shop, or a stall. Both Wix and Shopify offer POS.

While Shopify offers POS in most countries, Wix offers it in countries like the US, Canada, Australia, and Japan.

POS Systems are a crucial feature with Shopify integrations, whereas, with Wix, users would be required to add Square to their platform if they would like to use the Point of Sale feature.

Some of the famous ecommerce websites that are built with Shopify:

Skinny Me Tea is a Shopify supported store through the shop with the messenger. The chatbot on the homepage enables to convert casual visitors into customers.

Beard Brand –Visual content is more powerful when compared with words. If you go to the Beard Brand website, the little red mail icon helped generate thousands of email subscribers for newsletters.

Adding images to the Shopify store through SEO best practices like optimizing file size, adding alt attributes to images, and using image sitemaps play a vital role in the success.

Taylor Stitch – Taylor Stitch is a mobile-friendly Shopify store that offers an excellent shopping experience from a mobile device.

Taylor stitch has a mobile-friendly website design with its landing page.

The landing page has an eye-catching image, a captivating CTA that emphasizes substantial promotion, and minimal design.

WP Standard – Whipping post or WP Standard is an online store that is balanced and beautiful.

The site has some stunning photographs and an outstanding balance of colors. The WP landing pages won awards.

The key factors that contributed are the typography, images, minimal and balanced color palette.

Simvoly : No-fail Alternative to Shopify

Simvoly is an excellent choice for small and medium business owners, freelancers, and agencies looking to build customized websites for their stores, funnels, and blogs without any hassle.

Simvoly does not require users to have any technical knowledge.

Customized templates and the drag and drop interface make website creation a breeze and a hot favorite among the Shopify alternatives.

Features

Advantages

• Variety of themes
• Ease of use
• Improves conversion rate

Use cases

• Marketing
• Website Builder
• White-labeled services

Getting started

1. Log in and choose a theme
2. Choose from the available containers
3. Select from the widgets
4. Add logo, products, and pricing.

Integrations 

Pricing  

The Personal plan costs $18 per month or $12per month when billed annually.

Five store products, one funnel, two website admins, twenty pages, and A/B split testing are the personal plan features.

The Business plan costs $32 per month or $24 per month when billed annually.

Unlimited pages, one domain connection, up to a hundred products, five website admins, bump offers, five funnels, sales funnels, and analytics are all a part of the business plan.

The Growth Plus plan costs $79 per month or $59 per month when billed annually.

Ten website admins, thirty funnels, unlimited products, thirty domain connections, and all the business plan features are included in the Growth plus plan.

The Pro plan costs $199 per month or $149per month when billed annually and covers sales funnel & analytics, unlimited – funnels, products, pages, domain connections, and website admins.

Selz : Valuable Alternative to Shopify

Selz is another Shopify alternative that offers various themes, integrations, drag and drop for a store building, and much more.

Easy to set up, 24/7 support, customized store themes, various payment gateways that accept all major debit and credit card, selling through various social media channels, and improving website traffic is all made possible with Selz.

Selz also offers features that enable business owners to manage marketing, shipping, orders, inventory, and customers.

Features

Advantages

• Ease of use
• Multichannel platform
• Digital product features

Use cases

• Writer
• Blogger
• Artist
• Ecommerce on external sites

Getting started

1. Add a button/ widget to your blog or website.
2. Add a bit of code to the page to enable customers to purchase.

Integrations 

Pricing  

The Basic plan costs $26 per month and covers two staff accounts, unlimited products, and 24/7 support.

The Standard plan costs $53 per month and includes five staff accounts, unlimited products, 24/7 support.

The Advanced plan costs $179 per month and covers all the Advanced features, fifteen staff accounts, unlimited products, 24/7 support, and the lowest fees.

Payhip : Brilliant Alternative to Shopify

Payhip helps users sell and promote design assets, eBooks, memberships, digital products, and much more to their customers.

Payhip is another excellent Shopify alternative that works like a complete package for ecommerce.

Features

• Selling digital products
• Earn recurring revenue.
• Memberships.
• Customers.

Advantages

• Responsive Checkout
• Sales from anywhere
• Improved conversion rates
• Instant downloads

Use cases

• Digital selling
• Membership selling

Getting started

1. Go to the “add product” page from the dashboard
2. Upload your product
3. Enter the price
4. Start selling on your website and social media

Integrations 

• Zapier

Pricing  

The forever free plan covers unlimited products & revenue, all features, and 5% transaction fees.

The plus plan costs $29 per month and covers all the forever plan features plus 2% transaction fees.

The Pro plan costs $99 per month and does not involve any transaction fees. The Pro plan covers all the features in the plus plan.

Sellfy : Accredited Alternative to Shopify

Sellfy enables users to create an online store for selling digital products and subscriptions. It can be embedded on any of the social media pages.

Sellfy enables effortless transaction and product browsing to your customers and improves sales due to better outreach.

The analytics tools help improve ROI and maximize the earning potential of businesses.

Features

• Customizable Online Storefront
• Digital Products & Subscriptions
• PDF Stamping
• Online Payment Gateways Integrations
• Embeddable Buttons, Products, Store
• Email Marketing Tools
• Analytics
• Integrations

Use cases

• Digital downloads
• Digital merchandise
• Subscriptions

Getting started

1. Create an account and verify email
2. Customize your store.
3. Add a payment method.
4. Upload the product.
5. Get the first sale
6. Learn about the tools used.

Integrations

Pricing 

The Pro plan costs $29 per month.

It includes 2% transaction fees, unlimited products, store customization, instant payouts, analytics, integrations, discounts, subscription products, and upselling.

The Pro Plus plan costs $99 per month and covers premium support, 0% transaction fees, and all the Pro plan features.

Gum road : Delightful Alternative to Shopify

If you are an individual with creative skills and are stuck in a nine to five job, then

Gumroad helps you step out of the routine and enable its users to get paid for their skills.

Gumroad helps you create, build your audience, start selling your products/ services, and improve ROI through analytics.

Features

Advantages

• Selling variants of the same product
• Shipping charges & shipping management
• Sell anywhere (multiple locations)

Use cases

• Content Creators
• Educators
• Filmmakers
• Software developers

Getting started

1. Create
2. Set up shop
3. Set up pricing
4. Market your product
5. Cash-out your sales

Integrations 

• Mailchimp
• Aweber
• Zapier

Pricing  

The getting started plan is for free and does not cost any monthly fees.

Unlimited products, real-time analytics, customer management, limited workflows, SD streaming, 5% transaction fees, and a 3.5% + 39 ¢ charge fee are part of this plan.

The creator plan costs $10 per month and covers up to a thousand customers, no Gum road branding, customized designs & emails, customized domain, Unlimited HD streaming, and unlimited posts.

The creator plan also charges 3.5% plus 30¢

Sam cart : Trustworthy Alternative to Shopify

Sam cart is another Shopify alternative that helps its users to showcase products to boost sales.

Features

• Shopping cart features like Abandoned Cart Saver, Credit Card Processing, Discount Management, Product Configurator, Refund Management, and tax management.
• Sales page design features like drag and drop builder, pre-designed templates, unlimited products, digital wallets, and customized domains.

Advantages

Use cases

• Personal training
• Marketing
• ecommerce

Getting started

1. Create an Account
2. Edit settings
3. Connect with a payment processor
4. And create a product page

Integrations 

Pricing  

The launch plan costs $49 per month, and users can save 20% when they pay annually. Unlimited – templates, pages, and products, advanced subscriptions, drag and drop template builder, customized domains, template library, smart pixel tracking, Free SSL certificate, tax support, Sam cart branding, and customized thank you pages.

The Grow plan costs $99 per month and covers all the launch plan features, custom check out fields, multiple payment options, and subscription cancellations.

The Scale plan costs $199 per month. All the Grow plan features are included in the scale plan. Admin user roles, cart abandonment, and CRM integrations are covered under the scale plan.

Thrivecart : An excellent Alternative to Shopify

Thrivecart is an ecommerce platform that helps users sell their products and services, market with affiliated programs, and bump offers.

Thrive cart enables users to create high converting checkout pages, sales funnels, upsells, and improve revenue.

Features

Advantages

• High converting checkout pages
• A/B testing for checkout pages
• Bump offers
• one-click upsells

Use cases

• Marketing
• Digital product selling

Getting started

1. Login
2. Connect additional platforms
3. Create the first product and create a funnel
4. Maximize revenue

Integrations 

Pricing  

• One time payment of $597 with no monthly fees.
• Add on for $195 will allow white-label.

Kartra : Bonus Alternative to Shopify

A cloud-based solution that helps small and large business owners to create and manage an ecommerce platform with its analytics, customizable templates, affiliate management, and in-built Checkout.

Kartra offers various modules that cover most of the requirements of a business ranging from payment processing to marketing strategies.

Features

Advantages

• Ease of use
• Drag and drop
• Email marketing

Use cases

• Email marketing
• Sales funnel

Getting started

1.  Create a profile
2. Make a list
3. Get paid
4. Put the product on paper(virtual)
5. Choose the opt-in form

Integrations 

Pricing  

The Starter plan costs $99per month and is annually billed at $240.

The plan includes one custom domain, up to fifteen thousand emails per month, fifty GB bandwidth, sell twenty products, host fifty videos, and a hundred pages. Users can build two membership sites and one additional team member.

The Silver plan costs $199 per month and saves $600 when paid annually.

The plan includes unlimited – helpdesks, team members, pages, videos, products, and membership sites.

Twelve thousand and five hundred leads, and three custom domains, are also a part of the silver plan.

The Gold plan costs $299per month and saves $840 when paid annually. The plan includes five custom domains, twenty-five thousand leads, and unlimited – videos, pages, products, membership sites, team members, and helpdesks.

The Platinum plan costs $499 per month and saves $1440 when paid annually. The plan includes ten custom domains and all the other gold plan features.

BigCommerce : Recognized Alternative to Shopify

BigCommerce is an ecommerce platform that is designed to suit businesses of all sizes.

Excellent page builder tools, customizable templates, features enabling inventory management, and store design are all a part of BigCommerce.

The SEO and social sharing features make it one of the best Shopify alternatives. The integrations enable customers to shop from third-party apps.

Features

Advantages

• Improves traffic
• Increases sales
• ecommerce management

Use cases

Getting started

1. Log in to the BigCommerce Control Panel
2. Launch and view storefront
3. Add partners, community, and blog

Integrations 

Pricing  

The Standard subscription costs $29.95 per month.

It includes unlimited – bandwidth, storage, products, does not charge transaction fees, Apple pay, sales channels, reporting tools, coupons, discounts, gift cards, and single-page check out, and shipping discounts.

Blogs, 24/7 support, product review, and dedicated SSL are also a part of the plan.

The Plus subscription costs $79.95 per month or $71.95 per month when billed annually.

All the standard subscription features are covered under this plan and segmentation, abandoned cart saver, and plan pricing features.

The Pro subscription costs $299.95 per month or $269.95 per month when billed annually.

Google customer review, customized SSL, product filtering features are a part of the plan, along with the Plus subscription features.

The enterprise subscription cost is by quote only and includes all the Pro subscription features, express routing, priority support, unlimited API calls, and strategic account management.

LemonStand : Certified Alternative to Shopify

Lemonstand is another Shopify alternative that offers an ecommerce platform for businesses of all sizes.

Lemonstand is famous for its Scalability and easy to use interface.

Business owners can use Lemon to sell digital products, set up an online store, and create & publish content.

Features

Advantages

• Integrations
• Flexible pricing
• CMS
• Customizable designs
• Optimized Checkout

Use cases

• Payment processor
• Personalized customer support
• Multi- app integration

Getting started

• Complete the basic setup
• Select themes pages and templates
• Add products and pricing.

Integrations 

Pricing  

The Starter plan costs $19 per month & covers up to seventy-five orders per month and standard email support.

The Growth plan costs $69 per month and covers up to three hundred orders per month and standard email support.

The professional plan costs $199 per month and covers up to a thousand orders per month and priority email support.

The Premium plan starts at $399 per month and includes an ecommerce success coach, credit card vaulting, higher API limit, white-glove support, higher API limit, and priority phone support.

Squarespace  : Risk-free Alternative to Shopify

Squarespace is an ecommerce platform that enables users to create a website with engaging and attractive themes and content.

It is a great fit for users looking to improve their online presence/ branding. Integrations, customizations, and the in-built templates help users to build online stores with multiple payment gateways.

Navigations, editing tools, and tons of other robust features with affordable price plans are a great fit for businesses of all sizes.

Features

Advantages

• Useful for individuals and businesses.
• Integrations
• Editing features are useful for content creators.
• Payment gateways
• Express Checkout

Use cases

• Art
• Fitness
• Gaming
• Design
• Magazine

Getting started

1. Choose template
2. Create an account
3. Set up basic information
4. Setup pages
5. Customize
6. Go Live

Integrations 

Pricing

Websites

The Personal plan costs $16/month when paid annually or $12 per month when paid monthly.

SSL security, website metrics, free custom domain, two contributors, unlimited – pages, blogs, and bandwidth storage are a part of the plan.

The Business plan costs $18 per month when paid annually and $26 per month when paid every month.

The plan includes all the Basic features plus $100 Google AdWords Credit, fully integrate ecommerce, 3% transaction fees, promotional popups, unlimited product selling, developer platform, and announcement bar.

Online stores

The Basic plan costs $30 per month when paid annually and $26 per month when paid every month.

The plan includes all the business plan features.

Free custom domain, no transaction fees, 24/ 7 support, mobile app, inventory, order, tax, and discounts are all a part of the plan.

The Advanced plan costs $46 per month when paid annually and $40 per month when paid every month.

All the business plan features plus label printing, commerce metrics, abandoned cart auto-recovery, gift cards, and automatic discounts are a part of this plan.

An overview of all the tools discussed in this post:

Conclusion

Shopify offers software that enables users to build online stores that are mostly suitable for ecommerce.

The Shopify features help businesses to build a stunning website with its pre-designed templates, blogging platform, payment gateways, integrations, and mobile apps.

The Shopify features help businesses to improve their website traffic, improve their sales, and increase revenue.

However, Shopify also comes with a set of disadvantages, just like any other provider. Multiple currency payments, limited Customization with the pre-designed templates, pricing, and a few other limitations lead businesses to explore other providers.

Payhip, Selz, Sam cart, BigCommerce, thrive cart, and a few others top the list among some of the best Shopify alternatives.

Sales funnels, popups, email marketing tools, coupons, gift cards, discounts, drag and drop features for website building, and many other features offered by these Shopify alternatives the best in their space.

Shopify and its alternatives enable businesses to create an online store with a shopping cart.

Payment gateways enable debit and credit card payments, integrations of third-party apps, drag and drop features, lesser/ zero transaction fees, and pricing plans that help improve revenue and drive more traffic to the website.

Shopify and its alternatives, like BigCommerce, offer everything you need to build a website.

The website builder features offer unlimited bandwidth, 3d cart, a price plan, and many add ons that make them a better choice when you do a bit of research on the pros and cons of using Shopify.

Many Shopify alternatives offer free plans, no transaction fee, and are simple and easy to get started.

However, choosing the perfect ecommerce platform might require you to consider many vital factors, along with critical business needs.

We have discussed the features, pricing, use cases, and advantages in detail. The pros and cons of all the Shopify alternatives can be easily analyzed to pick the most suitable provider.

Questions asked while looking for Shopify alternative: