4.7
Excellent
The Best
Variety of Designs
Scaling your business
The Worst
Transaction fees
Creating regular content
Starting From
$29 / month
Shopify Review 2026!
Shopify has become some sort of 'rock star' in the world of online commerce. In 2006, they launched their platform with a simple purpose: to allow anyone, even without much tech knowledge, to open their own online store.
After extensively testing Shopify and comparing it with a dozen platforms, it has taken the #1 spot in our ranking. Let’s see why!
If you don't want to read this long Shopify review, watch this brief video I made to preview what you can expect.
Shopify Review: What to expect?
Shopify allows beginners (and pros) to create online stores without coding. No software installations or hosting services are required. Shopify features plans ranging from $39 - $399/month and there are no additional transaction fees if you use Shopify Payments.
Background check – What is Shopify?
Back in 2006, a German youngster living in Canada decided to sell snowboards online. He created his own ecommerce solution and soon realized others could also use it.
Fast-forward several years and Shopify has become the #1 tool for many (and that youngster is now loaded). Shopify is the leading ecommerce solution with thousands of online stores, offices around the globe, $63 billion worth of sales and over 3,000 employees.
How does Shopify work?
As I see it, Shopify is not only an easy way to launch and manage your online store. It’s geared towards supporting store owners in crucial aspects like opening additional channels (e.g. Amazon, eBay or Facebook), offering customer support tools (e.g. live chat) and by taking care of the technical hassles.
You can use Shopify without being an expert. Just like other platforms for creating online stores, Shopify has a visual interface that allows you to upload photos of your products and fill in the necessary information, such as prices and shipping costs.
In addition, Shopify takes care of any necessary updates, so you won't have to update plugins or worry about hosting or the security of your online store.
Shopify Pricing
We are showing costs for monthly subscriptions. You can save 10% on yearly plans and 20% on bi-yearly ones. Shopify are currently offering a free 3-day trial, plus $1/month for the first 3 months.
Shopify Review Conclusion: Is this tool for you?
Shopify is one of my favorite solutions to create online stores with.
It has many cool features and advantages, but also a couple of downsides you should consider before deciding. Keep on reading to find out.
What I like about Shopify
Shopify has many advantages and cool features, but here are my favorite ones:
Adding products, as well as managing payment, shipping options and orders is absolutely painless.
Their layouts (templates) can be modified to a large degree without any programming knowledge.
Shopify can help you with your content marketing too as it comes with a blog and more. Although with some limitations.
It’s possible to change your store’s look and add extra-functionality by installing new templates and apps in seconds.
If you are a programmer (or hire one), you can have complete control over your online store customization.
Having official 24-hour support is something I value a lot.
No matter how fast your business grows, Shopify can accommodate any size of ecommerce project – whether it’s small, big or colossal
If you are into dropshipping, Shopify integrates with several apps/providers (read guide).
A nice perk is that you can sell offline with their PoS solution.
Shopify’s flaws
But yes, there are also some things that could bother you. Let’s list them:
I think Shopify Prices are fair, but you’ll definitely need a budget as it starts at $39 per month. Alternatives like Ecwid can work out to be a lot cheaper.
I am not a big fan of their extra transaction fees if you don’t use Shopify Payments – they can add up quickly.
Setting up multilingual stores isn’t easy (nor cheap). A good solution for you could be this (paid) app. It looks like their new multilingual/multicurrency solution, Shopify Markets, will improve this, but carries an extra cost of up to 6.5% per transaction (Markets Pro).
Some of the coolest features are only included in the higher plans (e.g. the advanced report builder, third-party shipping rates).
As you can read above, it has a couple of SEO issues (more information). If you sell handmade or vintage goods, you might find that attracting customers is easier on a marketplace like Etsy (read more in our Shopify vs Etsy comparison).
Our recommendation: before going “big,” consider picking the “Basic” plan ($29/month). If you need more features you can always upgrade. WordPress users can integrate Shopify Starter for only $5/month.
