Shopify vs Wix vs Squarespace – Which Is The Best Home for Your Website?

Currently, Shopify vs Wix vs Squarespace are among the most brilliant nominees for the best eCommerce website builders. In this article, LitExtension – #1 Shopping Cart Migration Expert will give an intensive analysis of the key features of these three platforms. Keep reading this till the end to get:

• Brief introduction of Shopify, Wix, and Squarespace
• In-depth analysis of website builder functionalities
• Shopify vs Wix vs Squarespace eCommerce features compared
• Advice on what eCommerce platform is for your business

Let's get right in!

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What are Shopify vs Wix vs Squarespace?

What is Shopify?

Shopify is a hosted eCommerce platform founded in 2004. Basically, Shopify is the most favorable option for beginners who know nothing about programming, coding, and web development to start and manage their own online store.

Currently, Shopify is used by over 4 million live websites in the world. Some of the most well-known Shopify websites: ColourPop, Jeffree Star Cosmetics, Gymshark, YEEZY SUPPLY…

Hey, you! We have a thorough analysis of Shopify so that you will know whether is Shopify worth it or not!

What is Wix?

Wix is a cloud-based platform founded in 2006, claiming itself as the leader in website creation with professional teams in various countries around the world. For website owners, Wix is a simple website builder with a drag-and-drop interface and a development wonderland for complete beginners.

It has been empowering about 8 million websites all over the globe in diverse aspects such as online stores, photography, music, design, food, fitness, event, blog, etc. While Shopify is a devoted eCommerce platform, Wix is a famous website creator. To give you an overview of both platforms, we have drawn a thorough comparison of Wix vs Shopify.

Some of the most well-known Wix websites: Core Commitments for Children, Yotpo – Help Center, Sharethrough Swag Store,…

Bonus resource: You can always pay a visit to our article on Wix eCommerce review to grasp all key features analysis and steal some ideas for selling on Wix!

What is Squarespace?

Squarespace is a hosted CMS solution to create and manage websites, blogs, portfolios, and online stores. Similar to Wix, this provider lets businesses of all types create professional websites with the drag-and-drop interface (you can read more to know the differences between Squarespace vs Wix, and don't forget that we also have a thorough Squarespace review!)

Currently, Squarespace hosts nearly 3 million live websites worldwide. Some of the most well-known Squarespace websites: Vagaro, Vimeo, Skillshare,…

Shopify vs Wix vs Squarespace are all heavyweight champions among website builders. All these three platforms are incredibly easy to use. You can effortlessly create and manage websites with them without any technical skills.

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Pricing Plans of Shopify vs Wix vs Squarespace

When searching for an eCommerce platform, pricing is the first thing you consider. Whether you’re a small business just getting started or an already established brick & mortar business moving online, you need to know exactly what you’ll be paying. Below, we will give you detailed pricing plans of Shopify vs Wix vs Squarespace so that you can have the very first glance at each eCommerce platform.

#1 Shopify pricing

Shopify users will be charged both the platform fee and payment processing fees. It offers 6 pricing plans: Shopify Starter, Shopify Lite, Basic Shopify, Shopify, and Advanced Shopify, and Shopify Plus. Currently, Shopify offers a 3-day free trial and you can try out this platform easily without entering credit card information.

Shopify pricing plans are defined by the range of features provided.

• Shopify Starter: Started at $5. This plan is for new eCommerce merchants who want to sell their products to social media channels or messaging apps without the need for an online storefront.
• Shopify Lite: It's the same as Shopify Starter but featured more eCommerce functions such as Buy Button sales channel, Shopify POS, Analytics page, and finance reports. However, it's not available for new merchants in Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, and the United States. 

• Basic Shopify Plan (most popular among new online store owners): started at $39/month. This plan provides users with all the basics for starting a new business. Now, you can build and customize an online store to showcase your products. In this plan, Shopify allows you to have 2 staff accounts, track business performance, and access the global market through Shopify Markets.
• Shopify Plan: This plan costs $105 and you can find more functionalities integrated into your store.
• Advanced Shopify with $399 per month which comes with advanced features for scaling business.
• The last plan is for enterprise-level business – Shopify Plus. It's featured all eCommerce functions with ultimate support for handling high-volume traffic on your website.

Please pay a visit to our article on Shopify pricing so you will know which plan is right for your business. 

#2 Wix pricing

Wix pricing varies slightly between its 2 options: Website and Business & eCommerce.

Website Plans

When it comes to creating a website, there are 4 pricing plans:

• The cheapest as well as the most basic plan – Connect Domain ($4.50/month) for connecting your own domain with your Wix site. Your site will still show Wix ads. (This plan is not available in all countries).
• With $8.50/month in Combo plan, customers can have an ad-free website which also includes hosting and a domain name for 1 year.
• Unlimited or Business VIP – the premium plans will be right for you if you need more professional and advanced features like your own domain name or eCommerce.

Business & eCommerce Plans

If you want to launch an online store and start selling online, you should definitely go for Wix Business & eCommerce plans. All Wix eCommerce plans provide you Customer accounts, secure online payments, recurring payments, custom domain,.. and especially free 1-year domain. There are 3 pricing tiers ranging from $17 to $35/month.

• With Business Basic ($17/month), you can upload unlimited products, sell on social media channels and send abandoned cart recovery to customer. However, you will not get access to ‘Automated sales tax‘ option.
• Business Unlimited (starting at $25/month) will help you automate sales tax of 100 transactions/month. You can sell in multiple currencies and especially start drop ship with Modalyst (up to 250 products).
• You will get access to full eCommerce suite with Business VIP ($35/month) with priority customer care.

If you want to select the right Wix pricing plan, you can check out our Wix pricing explanation to know which one suits your business well!

#3 Squarespace pricing

Squarespace pricing comes with 4 pricing plans (annual plans analyzed):

• The most basic plan costs $16 per month (Personal plan) which enables you to get a 20-page website. If you want to start an online store, you have to go for the other 3 plans.
• Business plan is $23 for a fully integrated eCommerce store with a 3% transaction fee.
• Both 2 eCommerce plans (Basic at $27 and Advanced at $49) do not charge any transaction fees along with more eCommerce functionality enhancements.

For more insights, let's visit our thorough analysis of Squarespace pricing to get the ultimate tips to save money!

Each platform comes with separate plans offering different sets of features. For a more in-depth look, let’s dive into the functionalities of Shopify vs Wix vs Squarespace.

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Shopify vs Wix vs Squarespace – Website Builder Functionalities

#1 Ease of use

When it comes to website builders, users always expect to launch and manage a website or online store as quickly and easily as possible. Shopify vs Wix vs Squarespace are absolutely easy-to-use solutions.

Shopify ease of use

When it comes to user-friendliness, needless to say, Shopify is one of the most outstanding names. You can try and create a whole new Shopify website with simple steps. To remove any difficulty while setting up a website, LitExtension has created this Shopify tutorial video:

Ease of set up and basic management. If you're new to e-commerce but still want a decent website, Shopify is simple enough to set up on your own.
– Jess Y., Social Media Content Coordinator

Wix ease of use

If you're a new Wix user, from Wix dashboard, you will have a very detailed guide on how to set up your business.

The Wix website provider will guide you to:

• Update your site type
• Add first product to the store
• Set up payments & shipping
• and so much more!

Having difficulties building a Wix store? This tutorial video will show you how to create a Wix website from scratch:

I like how easy it is to create and build a website. The templates save so much time.

– Lena V.

Squarespace ease of use

The dashboard of Squarespace is fairly simple for beginners and non-coders. Just like Wix, this website builder also offers a very detailed guide for your fresh start.

Wanna have an optimal Squarespace site? Access our resources Squarespace tutorial to know how to ultimately kick off your online business!

This product was really easy to use I had my website up and running in minutes an I would really recommend it to my clients.

– Verified Reviewer on Capterra

#2 Design flexibility

When picking a website builder, you have to consider both the quality and quantity of its templates & designs. It is of great importance to opt for a platform that offers multiple modern, mobile-friendly, customizable and functional designs. Squarespace, Wix and Shopify themes are all stunning and designed for diverse website types such as businesses, blogs, artists, tourists, portfolios, restaurants and more.

Shopify design flexibility

On Shopify theme store, there are 110+ Shopify themes (both free and paid). If you have yet found your desired Shopify theme, don't worry, we have compiled the best Shopify themes with full analysis. Like Squarespace and Wix, Shopify also comes as a drag-and-drop solution. In the below image, you can see that all basic website functions are displayed for you to customize.

Shopify also lets its users customize Shopify themes using CSS/ HTML languages. Unlike Wix and Squarespace or any hosted solution, Shopify develops its own templating language – Shopify Liquid (written in Ruby). Liquid is considered as the backbone of Shopify themes. With Liquid, you're able to render dynamic content for your storefront, including:

• Tags
• Filters
• and other objects for rendering specific content.

For detailed information, you can get access to Shopify Liquid reference.

Wix design flexibility

Wix owns the largest reservoir of templates with more than 700 templates, including 300+ free ones. Of all the three platforms, this platform is considered to be having the coolest drag-and-drop features.

Wix users can literally drag and drop any element and section to customize to their own taste.

Wix also allows their users to perform theme customization using CSS/ HTML languages. However, one of the drawbacks of Wix design flexibility is that it could be confusing for eCommerce newbies who don't have a clear idea of what features to add and how to organize content on their websites. Another thing is that once you have chosen a Wix theme, you will not be able to change it.

But don't worry! Here comes a list of the best Wix templates!

Squarespace design flexibility

The Squarespace website builder is a dominant name in top website builders for artists with beautifully designed templates. Currently, on Squarespace template market, there are 140 templates. Squarespace also offers drag-and-drop sections, but you are not given full control over website editing. There are still certain fixed regions for every element to be placed on Squarespace websites.

Squarespace also allows theme customization using CSS/ HTML languages. However, for Squarespace users, it is advised that custom codes should only be used to modify fonts, colors, and backgrounds. Using CSS to change other website elements could cause display issues due to the incompatibility with the existing template, and Squarespace gives no support for code-based solutions.

#3 Responsiveness

Wix automatically creates a mobile-friendly version of their sites. However, they are not fully optimizable. This is because Wix uses an absolute positioning approach for its pages. In this way, site elements are positioned by pixel rather than the user’s screen. Therefore, Wix users have to edit themes using the mobile editor to make them fully compatible with different screen resolutions.

Squarespace and Shopify templates are tailored to be responsive for mobile devices. Visitors can easily navigate your site on any devices they choose, from desktops to tablets to smartphones. This is a plus for Shopify and Squarespace because the majority of web traffic is now from mobile devices.

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Shopify vs Wix vs Squarespace – eCommerce Features

Besides creating regular websites, Wix, Squarespace and Shopify also come with eCommerce functionalities.

#1 Dropshipping

Recently, dropshipping is a growing trend in eCommerce. So that, when mentioning eCommerce functionalities, the list would be incomplete without dropshipping! Dropshipping is a business model which you leave inventory management and order fulfillment to a third party. If you drop ship, you will pass all order information to the dropshipping providers and let the products be shipped directly to your customers.

Shopify dropshipping

Generally speaking, Shopify has powerful features to support your dropshipping business. Shopify also partners with popular dropshipping providers, such as DSers-AliExpress Dropshipping and Spocket.

Wix Dropshipping

Before starting your dropshipping business on Wix, you have to connect your Wix store to dropshipping apps on Wix App Market. This platform partners with many popular dropshipping companies like Modalyst and Spocket to deliver a seamless selling experience.

With Wix, you can also sell print-on-demand (POD) products by integrating your Wix store to popular POD services like Modalyst print-on-demand, Printful or Printify.

Squarespace dropshipping

Due to the peculiarity of Squarespace, it's not really powerful in eCommerce. For that reason, Squarespace is not a leading name in dropshipping. If you want to start your dropshipping business on Squarespace, you still can connect your Squarespace sites to fulfillment extensions like Printful or Syncee. However, Squarespace does not support if the extensions don't work properly. So that, you will have to directly contact those third-party services for further information.

#2 Inventory management

Inventory management is an important part of running your store. Tracking inventory can help you avoid out-of-stock situations or let you know when you need to supplement your product. Luckily, all three platforms – Shopify, Wix & Squarespace and cover this area.

Shopify Inventory management

Shopify is a powerful eCommerce solution. When it comes to inventory management, Shopify is powerful when offering a full inventory package. Shopify’s inventory management solution helps you stay organized, avoid costly errors and track all inventory activities easily. With Shopify, you can perform various tasks including:

• Setting up and organizing products
• Managing product variations
• Assigning barcode, tracking stock counts
• and so much more.

Wix Inventory management

Wix allows users to keep track and modify their inventory. To be more specific, you can both automatically track the number of certain products in stock and manually set the inventory status for each. However, inventory, SKU and weight are the only information that you can fill in to keep track of the store inventory.

In the inventory panel and Squarespace Commerce mobile apps, users can search and manage the product inventory from a single location. Squarespace allows you to view, organize, search, and edit your inventory. Since Wix and Squarespace are designed for small and medium-sized online stores, inventory management capabilities are rather limited, thus requiring users to integrate additional apps to expand and facilitate this task.

#3 Point of sale (POS)

POS (Point of sale) function allows you to unify your online and retail stores by adding your offline sales to the online system.

Shopify POS

Shopify offers a built-in POS system and it is available for every Shopify plan. However, to unlock more features, like staff management and hardware integration, you need to be on 3 main plans of Shopify or Shopify Plus.

In general, Shopify POS features all functions that Wix and Squarespace offer but it's more innovative than Wix and Squarespace. This checkout system accepts all major credit and debit cards when it comes to gift cards that helps to ensure a smooth and stress-free checkout process for customers. Meanwhile, Wix and Squarespace POS only accept payment through credit cards, mobile payments, and cash. Furthermore, Shopify POS is available worldwide but the store needs to be on the list of over 175 countries that support Shopify Payment.

Wix POS

Currently, Wix POS solution is only available to select U.S. and Canada-based merchants. You can only use Wix POS when having a verified Wix Payments account.

Wix POS is featured with all functions that business needs, including:

• Creating a seamless retail experience 
• Accepting payments with Wix Mobile POS anywhere
• Selling at the door when having events 

Users can also take advantage of the platforms’ partnership with Square. However, Square is only available in certain plans of Wix (Business Premium Plan).

Squarespace POS

The Squarespace website builder has made a great effort to bring POS to it users. Squarespace POS is currently available on Commerce plans.

This website builder also partners with Square to bring a seamless experience for its users. Via Squarespace POS, you can:

• Accept offline payments in brick-and-mortar stores 
• Offer in-person discounts
• Deliver a beautifully designed experience…

Reminder: One downside of Squarespace POS is that it is impossible to set up a POS system in Squarespace outside the US.

#4 Apps & extensions

In addition to the core functionality, Wix, Squarespace and Shopify users can customize their stores to meet more requirements through the integration of thousands of apps available on their App stores.

Shopify Apps Store

A cool thing about Shopify marketplace is that it suggests some ideas for your business whether you're already on Shopify of a new Shopify user.

In total, there are more than 6,000 apps on Shopify App Store. Needless to say, Shopify definitely stands out from the eCommerce community with its wealth of apps. The majority of extensions are made for eCommerce, which is contrary to the Wix app store where you find plugins mostly for regular websites.

Wix App Market

Currently, on Wix App Market, there are over 250 apps both made by Wix and by third parties. Based on your business model, you can get access to many app categories, including:

• Marketing
• Sell online
• Communication
• and so many more.

Squarespace Extensions

Squarespace offers a limited number of extensions with only 32 apps and all of which come from third parties. If you only need basic apps for your website, you can still use Squarespace. Though the number is limited in Wix and Squarespace, you can still find apps with diversified functionalities, including shipping & fulfillment, finance, inventory & products, and sales & marketing. Many apps have both free and premium versions available.

#5 SEO & blogs

SEO is the process of optimizing your website for search engines. It makes your eCommerce store visible among the millions of sites that are competing for attention in the grand market. After all, the ultimate goal of SEO is to boost sales and revenue. SEO and Marketing features are all-inclusive in Wix, Squarespace, and Shopify. They make it possible for their users to easily perform SEO tasks so that your online stores could rank high in the search engines. Users can modify meta tags, URLs, keywords, anchor links, heading tags, alt text and more. Moreover, they also come with multiple built-in SEO features such as instant Google indexing, Google analytics, structured data, XML sitemap, Robots.txt file, and Canonical URLs.

To have an overview of SEO features of Shopify, Wix and Squarespace, let’s have a look at the table below.

Besides SEO setting features, Wix, Squarespace and Shopify all equip their websites with the built-in blogging engine. When it comes to blogging, categories and tags are of great significance to content organization and SEO of websites. Shopify blog posts only allow users to use tags to classify various articles. Wix, in contrast, just supports blog post categorization. While Wix and Shopify only cover one aspect, Squarespace surpasses these two competing platforms by supporting both blog post tags and categories.

#6 Support

Shopify vs Wix vs Squarespace all strive to bring the best support to their customers and all of these platforms are acclaimed for their high-quality support service. To give their customers a leg up when running a website or opening an online store, they provide a huge resource knowledge base including instruction tutorials and FAQs. In addition, each of these platforms is packed with its own forum and community where business owners and experts share their knowledge and support each other. Whatever website builder you will go for, you will surely get quality and professional customer support. In case knowledge base materials and their communities do not help with technical issues, customers can resort to direct support from these platforms.

• Shopify provides support via various channels: social media, email, live chat and phone.
• Wix and Squarespace are more restricted when it comes to support. Wix offers phone support (via callback).
• Squarespace only has chat support.

#7 Security

When running an eCommerce store, security should be taken into serious consideration. Wix, Squarespace and Shopify all commit to offering the highest level of security for storing data and customers' information. SSL is the standard security technology available to help with establishing encrypted links between browsers and web servers. You can use it to ensure that all of the data moving between a web server and a browser can stay private.

Wix, Squarespace and Shopify all get SSL certificate protection which helps safeguard both store and customer data. Moreover, they also equip their stores with PCI Compliance. The purpose is to increase controls around payment data to secure your orders and financial transactions from potential fraudulent actions.

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Shopify vs Wix vs Squarespace – FAQs

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Which Is the Best Home for Your Website?

Shopify vs Wix vs Squarespace all belong to the best eCommerce platforms on the market currently that come with a wealthy set of features to foster the development and facilitate the management of any website.

• Shopify is undoubtedly the champion as it offers advanced and powerful functionalities needed to design and promote online stores. Therefore, if eCommerce is the main focus of your site, you should go for Shopify.
• Wix and Squarespace are also integrated with eCommerce features along with a structured approach for creating web stores and content-based websites. If you expect to bring knowledge and information to viewers, we would highly recommend Wix and Squarespace.

Are you going to migrate your store?

If you are running your website on another platform and wish to migrate to another eCommerce platform, LitExtension – #1 Shopping Cart Migration Expert could help you with our automated data migration service. Besides these three, LitExtension also supports migrating data among over 200 shopping carts with a high level of security and accuracy. Here are some detailed migration guides for you:

• Wix to Shopify
• Squarespace to Shopify
• Shopify to Wix

To see the migration process in action, we provide Demo Migration with limited entities transferred. Should you have any questions, please contact LitExtension for help. All questions and recommendations from you will be responded to and answered promptly by LitExtension dedicated support team.

You can also visit LitExtension Blog to grasp more eCommerce insights and join our Facebook Community to get more eCommerce tips and news.