Adobe Commerce vs Shopify Plus: Which Platform Should You Choose? 2024

When you are running a large-scale business, you need a platform that can handle high volume, complex needs, and ambitious growth goals. Between the two industry leaders – Adobe Commerce vs Shopify Plus, you may find it hard to decide which is the perfect fit for your business. Luckily, you have come to the right place!

In today’s blog post, we will break down all the details you need to know about Adobe Commerce vs Shopify Plus following these key points:

• Which platform is suitable for your business?
• An overall comparison between Adobe Commerce vs Shopify Plus;
• What are the key differences between the two solutions?

Not gonna let you wait any longer; here we go!

Shopify Plus vs Adobe Commerce: Which Platform is for You?

Both Adobe Commerce vs Shopify Plus are strong contenders for high-growth businesses. However, when we delve deeper into this eCommerce platform comparison, it becomes clear that each caters to a distinct audience. Ultimately, the best choice depends on your specific needs and requirements.

If you are still sitting on the fence about which platform to go for, the criteria below may help you decide.

Choose Adobe Commerce if you are:

• You prioritize customization and scalability. You need a platform that can grow and adapt to your business.
• You have an extensive product catalog or complex inventory management needs.
• You have the technical expertise to manage and maintain an Adobe Commerce store.

Choose Shopify Plus if:

• You want a platform that's easy to set up and use without requiring extensive technical knowledge.
• Your business doesn't require a high degree of customization.
• You're comfortable using apps and integrations to extend the functionality of your store.

Adobe Commerce vs Shopify Plus: Overall Comparison

Adobe Commerce (formerly Magento Commerce 2) is a paid, hosted version of the Magento platform built for large businesses with complex needs. It includes advanced scalability, robust security, and B2B functionalities that are not readily available in the open-source version.

At first, this platform was criticized for its deployments, environment stability, development practices, and support. However, significant improvements have been made, and we now witness more clients migrating to Adobe Commerce than before. Several outstanding names could be listed are Deloitte, Best Buy, Volkswagen, etc.

Similarly, Shopify Plus is the enterprise version of Shopify, released in 2014. It offers all the benefits of the standard Shopify platform but with additional features and support tailored for high-growth businesses.

Despite being relatively new to the enterprise market, Shopify Plus is rapidly gaining market share and continuously improving its offerings. Large retailers like JB Hi-Fi, Fashion Nova, Gymshark, and SKIMS already use Shopify Plus and hundreds of other major brands.

Before going into the details, let’s have a quick look at our overall comparison between Adobe Commerce vs Shopify Plus pros and cons:

Pricing (Shopify Plus wins)

Adobe Commerce offers two editions: Commerce Pro (on-premise) and Managed Services (cloud). The annual license fee for both versions varies depending on the revenue generated and the gross market value of your merchandise. In other words, you can estimate your Magento eCommerce pricing as follows:

Another thing to note is that the Commerce Pro fee does not include hosting. Meanwhile, this has been covered in the cloud edition—Managed Services. Thus, if you are signing up for Adobe Commerce Pro, you should be ready to pay this additional fee.

From our experience, an Adobe Commerce build typically starts at around $150,000, with the most expensive build reported to be approximately $10 million for a large multi-brand, high-volume retail group. The exact cost can vary significantly depending on the agencies or partners involved and the level of complexity regarding features, integrations, and customizations.

On the contrary, Shopify Plus starts at a flat rate of $2,500 per month (1-year term). This fee has already covered many core services, such as hosting, scaling, support, and upgrades, which would otherwise incur additional costs.

The exact pricing of the Shopify Plus plan is also based on your GMV. You can refer to the below breakdown of the Shopify Plus licensing fees according to GMV ranges:

On average, most businesses pay between $60,000 and $200,000 to run their Shopify Plus stores, depending on the project scope and website complexity.

Apps & Integrations (Shopify Plus wins)

You can easily extend your store functionality by installing apps from the Adobe Commerce Marketplace. There are a variety of selections for you to choose from, including payment gateways, shipping, marketing, fulfillment, etc.

Integrating with Adobe Experience Cloud products can also enhance the capabilities of your online stores. This is a powerful ecosystem of marketing, analytics, and personalization tools.

On the contrary, Shopify has already shone with its massive app store, which is available for merchants from all pricing plans. It offers 8000+ high-quality, advanced apps that can significantly enhance a brand's tech stack. Features like wishlists, loyalty programs, tracking, and personalization are readily available from numerous top-tier vendors, making implementation much quicker than Adobe Commerce. While Shopify's extensive app marketplace is a significant advantage, enterprise businesses often have specialized or unique needs that pre-built apps cannot address. This is where Shopify Plus's robust API excels, offering features such as:

• ERP integration allows you to connect your Shopify store seamlessly with your Enterprise Resource Planning system, synchronizing inventory, orders, customer data, and financial information.
• Shopify Flow enables the automation of complex business processes, such as tiered pricing logic or bulk order fulfillment.
• Shopify Function APIs create custom apps to meet the unique requirements of your enterprises.

eCommerce features (A tie)

You can’t skip out on the eCommerce features to get your businesses running smoothly. So, in the competitive race between Adobe Commerce vs Shopify Plus, which platform wins in this aspect?

Before going into the details, let’s take a quick overview of all the eCommerce features offered by both Adobe Commerce vs Shopify Plus:

Inventory & products

Adobe Commerce offers a more robust solution for businesses with complex product structures and data requirements. It boasts up to 6 native product types, including bundled products and grouped products. This allows for more extensive control over how products are presented and sold.

Additionally, Adobe Commerce offers greater customization capabilities, catering to businesses that need to store and manage a wider variety of product data points. However, this flexibility can come at a cost, as setting up and managing a complex product catalog in Adobe Commerce might require more technical expertise.

On the flip side, Shopify Plus offers limited product types, including simple, downloadable, and virtual products. However, you can still use product variants for configurable products and sell downloadable items with additional apps.

According to the latest update, Shopify Plus has decided to increase its variants limit from 100 to 2000 per product. If you want more product variants than the maximum number, you can request Shopify Plus support for help.

We must say that Shopify Plus’s native features, like easy CSV import/export, make adding and updating products a breeze. Hence, extending product functionality becomes much easier despite the fact that it only has one single product type.

Multistore management

Adobe Commerce excels at managing a vast network of stores, making it the winner in this round between Adobe Commerce vs Shopify Plus. This is the platform's core strength, allowing businesses like Warner Music (multi-brand) and Nestle (multi-brand) to operate over 100 websites under a single account.

To manage many stores at once, Adobe Commerce merchants can choose a centralized approach, similar to Shopify Plus, for streamlined operations and consistent brand experience. But where it truly shines is the ability to manage each store individually. This empowers businesses like Nestle to cater to regional preferences or manage separate storefronts for each brand under their umbrella, like Purina and Haagen-Dazs.

So what about Shopify Plus? Using this eCommerce solution, businesses can own one main store with 9 expansion stores. For any additional stores, there is an extra charge of $250 per month per store or a revenue share across all stores.

You can easily manage inventory, orders, customers, and content from a single admin panel for all your stores. This simplifies operations and ensures brand consistency across all your storefronts.

Internationalization

It is no exaggeration to say that Adobe Commerce is the top platform for internationalization. You can delve into the nitty-gritty of language translation, currency formatting, and regional tax regulations for each target market. This level of customization allows you to create unique experiences for each region, potentially boosting customer engagement.

However, this level of control comes with a price. Adobe Commerce requires a higher degree of technical expertise to configure and manage effectively. Moreover, the cost of additional licenses for each store can quickly add up for businesses managing an extensive network of localized storefronts.

For Shopify Plus businesses seeking to expand their reach beyond borders, Shopify Markets emerges as a game-changer. It empowers you to create and manage storefronts for up to 50 distinct markets, offering incredible flexibility to cater to a truly global audience.

Imagine seamlessly managing localized experiences for customers in France, Japan, and Brazil, all within a unified platform. Shopify Plus Markets allows you to translate content, configure local currencies, and tailor product offerings for each market.

But be aware of Shopify Plus's limitations. Accordingly, you can't assign products to specific inventory locations for different markets, nor can you use multiple business entities for complex financial management.

Headless commerce

Both platforms, Adobe Commerce vs Shopify Plus, are viable for established brands with large technical teams.

Adobe Commerce led the trend by introducing a headless solution called PWAStudio several years ago. However, widespread adoption and development haven't kept pace. While successful custom headless Magento stores exist, they often require a high degree of maintenance expertise, potentially becoming a burden for businesses.

At the same time, Shopify Plus has emerged as a strong contender in the headless commerce space. Their recently introduced Hydrogen framework has fueled a surge in headless store development, attracting major brands like Skims and Gymshark.

Beyond its own framework, Shopify Plus offers additional flexibility through third-party headless options like Nacelle and Pack, allowing for further customization.

Reports & analytics

While Adobe Commerce's native reporting capabilities haven't been its strongest suit, the platform offers a powerful add-on that transforms its reporting potential: Magento BI (now known as Adobe Commerce BI). This game-changer acts as a data warehouse, centralizing data from various sources within your business ecosystem.

If you sign up for the Adobe Commerce Cloud edition, you will have access to up to 100 pre-built reports covering various functions such as marketing, sales, and customer insights. Furthermore, you can even create personalized reports with custom metrics using the platform's built-in SQL report-building editor.

Shopify Plus takes a different approach, prioritizing user-friendliness and core metrics. Its clean interface makes navigating and understanding critical data points a breeze.

Out-of-the-box reports cover all the essential metrics you need to track your store performance, including sales performance, customer behavior, and inventory levels. Not to mention, you even have the ability to filter and edit data to create your own custom-built reports.

Payment gateways

Adobe Commerce offers a wide array of payment options, including built-in integrations with Braintree, Adyen, Stripe, and most major payment gateways. Additionally, the platform includes a variety of pre-integrated payment solutions within its core, minimizing the effort required for integration.

Regardless of the Adobe edition chosen, you must cover transaction fees for online payments, typically ranging from 2% to 4% of the transaction value. These fees cover credit card processing and payment platform costs. Popular solutions like PayPal and Stripe, which are easy to integrate and have no setup fees, charge transaction fees starting at 2.9%.

When talking about Shopify Plus, its key aspect lies in the in-house gateway named Shopify Payments, which offers competitive credit card processing fees starting at 1.6%. This means you don’t have to pay transaction fees, which are around 0.15%/transaction extra for third-party payment providers.

While it offers many benefits, it has some frustrations, including the requirement for a registered business and local bank account in each country of use. Shopify Payments isn't available in some regions (like European or ROW stores) and doesn't support several countries, such as France.

If Shopify Payments is not what you wish for, feel free to refer to 100+ other payment providers.  

Wholesale capabilities

Adobe Commerce establishes itself as a clear leader in B2B functionalities. It provides a powerful B2B suite packed with features specifically designed for B2B businesses.

Even without the B2B suite, Adobe Commerce offers core functionalities that are B2B-friendly from the start. Features like customer groups, tiered pricing, and customer-specific promotions allow you to effectively manage different B2B customer segments. This comprehensive approach makes Adobe Commerce a compelling choice for established B2B businesses requiring advanced functionalities.

For Shopify Plus, the platform also offers solutions like a dedicated wholesale channel and the option to set up separate stores for B2B operations. While these options provide some functionality, they lack features that are crucial for many B2B businesses. For example, advanced pricing rules might require workarounds, and functionalities like separate shipping rules for B2B customers might involve complex setups with scripts and tags.

Above all, Shopify Plus is trying its best to update with more robust B2B solutions to attract more businesses. This could potentially change the B2B landscape in the future.

Customization & Flexibility (A tie)

Adobe Commerce is renowned for its extensive customization capabilities. The platform retains much of the flexibility of the open-source version, allowing businesses to tailor the design, layout, and functionality of their online stores.

Custom themes and third-party extensions can be integrated to enhance user experience and performance. Adobe Commerce also offers robust APIs and developer tools for creating the most fulfilled experience.

Shopify Plus, in contrast, delivers powerful customization options with an emphasis on ease of use. Merchants can control the design, layout, and user experience through an intuitive theme editor.

The platform also offers custom checkout capabilities, enabling the addition of branding elements and custom fields for a seamless checkout experience. The Script Editor tool further enhances customization by allowing businesses to add custom scripts for dynamic pricing rules and custom promotions.

SEO Functionalities (Adobe Commerce wins)

Regarding SEO functionalities between Adobe Commerce vs Shopify Plus, Adobe Commerce offers more control, allowing you to customize URL structures and add technical SEO features. This flexibility, however, means you need to put in more effort and have technical know-how.

On the opposite, Shopify Plus focuses on ease of use, with some built-in SEO features that work well out of the box. However, its fixed URL structure and limited SEO customization options can make advanced SEO tasks difficult. The simplicity requires less setup initially but may restrict your SEO capabilities over time.

If you use Shopify Plus in a headless configuration, you will gain complete control over the URLs because Shopify doesn’t manage the front end. Many businesses choose this approach, which also provides server access. In this way, they can implement more advanced settings, such as visual merchandising,  without depending solely on JavaScript for the product grid.

Community & Support (Shopify Plus wins)

Adobe Commerce offers application-level support, meaning a team with technical expertise is readily available to assist with complex issues. However, this approach prioritizes developers, and readily available, user-friendly support options like phone or live chat are often absent.

You can find more support from the platform community. Historically, Adobe Commerce boasted a vibrant community of skilled developers who offered valuable support and expertise. This community is still present, but its size has declined as some developers moved to other platforms like Shopify Plus.

For a monthly license fee, Shopify Plus merchants can access 24/7 dedicated account management via phone, email, or live chat. These Launch Managers (CSMs) are highly knowledgeable and can assist with technical issues, platform-related questions, and bug fixes, as well as provide guidance on marketing and conversion rate optimization.

Adding to that, Shopify's developer community is growing rapidly and is fueled by initiatives like Hydrogen (an open-source project). They're continuously opening up their platform with new APIs, further solidifying their developer ecosystem.

Adobe Commerce vs Shopify Plus: FAQs

Final Thoughts

In the end, the choice between Adobe Commerce vs Shopify Plus boils down to your specific business needs. If you're still unsure, hopefully, our analysis of all aspects of both platforms has helped you to make the decision.

No matter which platform you choose, LitExtension – the #1 eCommerce Migration Service is here to provide a seamless migration service. With over 12 years of experience and a deep understanding of both Adobe Commerce vs Shopify Plus data structures, we guarantee you get the best experience. Contact us today for more information!

For more eCommerce insights, you can check out our LitExtension blog or join the community group.