Shopify vs. Weebly: Which One is Better For Your Business in 2024?

Finding the right website builder really depends on the needs and goals of your business. Whether your business is more ecommerce focused, service based, or you are a sole proprietor, finding the best platform can help you achieve the growth and reach you need.

Both Shopify and Weebly offer different price points and capabilities. This article examines Shopify vs Weebly and will compare their most common features and overall usability.

Before deciding, we recommend that you check out our Best Website Builder Review to find our top choices for creating a business site.

Shopify vs. Weebly

If you plan to start an online store, you’ll face a range of options for your ecommerce platform. Here, we've compared and contrasted ease of use, included features, pricing, customer support, analytics tools, templates, and other extensions.

For more information on ecommerce builders:

Shopify

Ease of Use

Regardless of if you have a brick-and-mortar, an online store, or both, Shopify has made a name for itself as the premier website builder to accommodate your needs in any of these places. In just a few hours you can have your shop’s website up and running through Shopify.

It offers a 14-day free trial with no pressure to choose a plan beforehand. All you need to do is just enter your basic contact and business information, and then log in via the confirmation email it will send you. After that, just begin building.

There are ways to connect your own personal domain, if you already have one, or you can purchase one from Shopify. If you’re not there yet and need to conserve a bit of your budget for other things, Shopify can always assign you a free domain until you’re ready.
Adding and listing products is intuitive and easy with the Shopify dashboard. This feature has menus, forms, and customizable options to help you grow and maintain your website and business. However, you must consistently save after you’ve made any changes. Shopify does not have an autosave feature, and forgetting this can lead to losing hours of work.

For a closer look at how to best set up your Shopify site, refer to our guide here.

Pricing

Shopify has three main pricing tiers, each with features for order management as well as inventory tracking and point-of-sale capabilities. Shopify also offers a 14-day free trial for you to check it all out before deciding which one is the right fit for you.

See which pricing tier fits best for you with our Shopify Pricing and Plans article.

Pros

Shopify is the whole package when it comes to ecommerce. It offers metrics to track business, inventory management, and the ability to accept international currencies.
Shopify themes are easy to choose from, with built-in desktop and mobile capacities.
Shopify offers hundreds of apps and plug-ins, and many are free or low-cost.
Its point of sale (POS) systems allow for easy transactions anywhere, and its unlimited storage space paves the way for your brand to grow.

Cons

Its lack of an autosave feature can cause frustration and disappointment when setting up your site.
Its pricing tiers start out fairly steep, and if you need to connect apps to your site those fees can add up quickly, making the overall price tag shocking.
Shopify Pay is the only way to avoid transaction fees, limiting your sales margin and perhaps causing you to pass the burden to your customers.

Ecommerce

Shopify has made ecommerce its whole platform. It offers simple ways to add products, customize each product listing, as well as add search tags and other functions to make a seamless shopping experience for your customers.

Shopify also prioritizes you, the business owner, by connecting your business cards and accounts to ensure you get your money quickly. You can accept all major credit cards, mobile payments like Apple Pay, and of course, PayPal payments. There’s even a way to add a “tipping” feature if that better fits your business model, and you can create customer accounts to encourage people to become repeat shoppers. It’s easy to add any of these features to your site, providing a sense of ease and comfort to the customer experience.

If your business relies heavily on shipping goods, Shopify offers outstanding shipping discounts to business owners, as well as offering local delivery options.

Templates and Themes

Shopify’s Theme Library has 70 templates to choose from. Some are free, but you must pay for others. If you can’t seem to find a good fit, there’s a feature where you can upload your own theme to connect to your site. Once you have your chosen theme, customization is easy. The Shopify Dashboard has intuitive tools to adjust your background color, font style and size, and arrange any images or content to your liking.

Shopify has streamlined how to add product listings, photos, detailed descriptions, and stock keeping units (SKUs), making your ecommerce site set up easy and pleasing to look at. On top of having a “save” button, there are also “undo” and “redo” options, allowing you to try out different features as you build your site. Again, you must remember to save after every change you want to keep.

Apps and Plugins

Shopify has its own App Store with over 1,000 different options to add to your website. Some of these are free, some are premium with full options and pricing, and others are limited-lite with reduced features for a smaller price tag. Keep an eye on your budget, as the apps that work best for you might either need a one-time purchase or may be billed on a recurring basis.

If trying before you buy is more your speed, many of these apps offer a free trial. Although, do read the fine print, as some of these apps will make you sign up with a third party, adding another layer to keep track of.

See if Shopify is right for you, read our Shopify Review and then get started building your beautiful ecommerce store with Shopify.