Overview
Shopify's entire product centers on e-commerce: checkout, inventory, shipping, tax, and point-of-sale are all handled natively, with thousands of apps available to extend it further. You can technically run a basic content site on it, but that's not what it's optimized for.
How it works
Shopify hosts and secures the whole store, including PCI compliance for payment handling, so there's no server management — your ongoing decisions are around theme, apps, and which payment gateway to use.
Key details
| Plans from | ~$29/mo |
| Transaction fees | 0% with Shopify Payments; added fee on third-party gateways |
| App store | Thousands of apps |
| Point-of-sale | Built-in, for in-person selling too |
Pros and cons
Pros
- Complete e-commerce toolkit out of the box
- Scales from a side project to a large store
- Huge app ecosystem for almost any extra feature
Cons
- Monthly cost stacks up quickly once you add apps
- Transaction fees apply unless using Shopify Payments
- Overkill if you just need a basic informational site
Our verdict
The default choice if selling products is the actual point of your site. If you just need a brochure or portfolio site with no store, it's the wrong tool — look at Wix or Squarespace instead.