Magento vs Shopify

 Come 2022, Magento was named #8 on the “e-commerce platform used by the top 1 million sites” list, whereas Shopify held their place at the fourth position. In Spite of this, a fair amount of users have still opted for Magento - which can be mainly credited to its longstanding reputation.

Are you also stuck with Magento due to familiarity or some other reason? This part compares Magento vs Shopify, ranking them based on specific criteria such as pricing, themes and integrations, marketing and functional features, usability, security, and other related factors.

Thus, after reading through this article, you should ideally get a better grasp of the situation and be equipped to decide if using Magento still makes sense for your business, or if it’d be better to move to Shopify.

What is Magento?

 In 2008, Magento was created as one of the few open-source platforms that facilitates the digital operations of online stores. In 2018, Adobe made a game-changing purchase of Magento, Inc. for $1.68 billion, taking over ownership of the solution from its previous proprietors, eBay and Permira. Currently, the Magento platform is available in two variations: Magento Community, which caters to small-scale businesses, and Magento Enterprise, which is tailored to large-scale enterprises. Notable enterprises powered by Magento 2 include Land Rover, Timex, Sigma Beauty, Cox and Cox, Graze, Tennishub, Neom Organics, and many more. Clearly, Magento is the go-to platform for eCommerce shops of all sizes.

What is Shopify?

 Created in Ontario, Canada, Shopify was devised prior to Magento's foundation in 2006; however, it wasn't until the following decade that it truly soared. Much like Magento, Shopify provides two distinctive versions to choose from; Shopify and Shopify Plus. These two alternatives provide businesses of all sizes, ranging from smaller to medium sized, to even enterprise brands with something suitable. Furthermore, Shopify has widened its scope of assistance with last-mile logistics added to its list of services. Recently, the platform was reported to have over 1.7 million clients from 175 countries, and boasting a revenue of around 4.6 billion US dollars in 2021.

Magento vs Shopify: Pricing

Platform cost

 Shopify offers three great pricing options for its customers: Basic, Standard (otherwise known as Shopify), and Advanced. The Basic subscription is a steal of a deal at just $29 a month, the Standard plan will cost you $79 per month, and you'll have to cough up $299 for the Advanced version. Signing up for an annual membership will save you an additional 10% on the original price! 

For those who require advanced features, Shopify Plus is the perfect choice, but the subscription fee starts at an impressive $2000 monthly if your monthly revenue is up to $800,000. However, if you exceed this limit and make a million dollars each month, then that rate increases to $2500/month; it goes up to $12,500/month, $30,000/month and eventually $40,000/month if your income increases to 5, 12, and 16 million dollars (respectively) in any given month. 

Magento, however, offers the community version which is absolutely free, albeit users may require web developer assistance on setting it up - this fee may range from $25 to $200 per hour when you hire an agency, and from $20 to $200 per hour when you take on a freelancer. There is also the in-house option for which you must budget an impressive $60,000 to $120,000 yearly. 

The enterprise version of Magento will not come for free though and you'll have to dish out a yearly fee starting at $22,000 for income generated between $1 - $5 million. Further increases may include $32,000/year for $5 - $10 million income, $49,000/year for the $10 - $25 million bracket, and subsequently, $75,000/year and $125,000/year for $25 - $50 million and $50 million plus income respectively. If you opt for the cloud subscription, you can expect to pay between $40,000 to $190,000 monthly depending on your sales revenue.

Hosting cost

Did you know that web hosting is not included in Magento's basic offering? To use the online service, you will have to factor in additional budget for hosting. According to Cloudways, the typical fee for hosting services might be as high as $40 each month, but the price could go up significantly if you select the right hosting provider.

For instance, the plan offered by Digital Ocean comes with prices ranging from $12/month to a whopping $96/month (which is comparatively close to the pricey Linode's rates). Likewise, you can anticipate to pay between $13/month to $100/month for Vultr hosting. As for the costlier alternatives, AWS starts at $36.51/month, with a maximum cost of $274.33/month, whereas Google Cloud suggests monthly tariffs from $33.18/month, up to $225.93.

When it comes to Shopify, however, things are remarkably different! It doesn't hit its users with any extra cost for web hosting. It applies only to the Starter plan, otherwise, all other Shopify plans come with an unlimited hosting plan.

Themes and apps

Shopify offers a few free themes on its platform, but their range of paid themes can cost anywhere between roughly $180 and $350. If you're looking to use applications, the charges will be slightly varied (as there are more than 6000 applications available, the pricing is unclear — with most applications typically costing in the vicinity of $20 per month).

With Magento, however, users have a broader scope of options - in terms of costs, these themes range between no cost whatsoever to around $500 for more comprehensive projects. Extensions for this platform can – again – cost $0 or more than $700, so there is certainly no lack of options when it comes to pricing.

Setting up a store

Creating a Shopify store can be done either by yourself or by bringing in experts. One thing we highly suggest is to confirm that your professional is certified by Shopify, as either a partner (that’s us!) or as an expert on their marketplace. The cost of setting up your Shopify store may vary drastically, ranging from $100 to $27,000, depending on the complexity of the project, the degree of experience of your experts, and the part of the world the professionals are based in. If your site requires Magento, then the process should be led by a web developer. It will likely cost from $20,000 to $100,000 depending on how involved the project is. In regions such as India, Pakistan, or Vietnam the cost of services may be lower, but it is important to remember that you should pay for the talent, instead of the location. Migrating from Magento to Shopify may cost anywhere between $500 and $42,000 depending on the complexity of the task, the kind of data you have, and the magnitude of the infrastructure.

Credit card and payment processing fees

If you're a business owner looking forward to using Shopify Payments, the company promises there will be no transaction fees. But, in cases where a third-party payment provider is involved, then the Basic plan will impose a 2% transaction fee, the Shopify plan will charge 1% and the Advanced plan will have a 0.5% fee applied to each transaction. 

Moreover, credit card services like Visa or Mastercard will cost an extra 2.9% + 30 cents for the Basic plan, 2.6% + 30 cents for the Shopify plan and 2.4% + 30 cents for the Advanced plan. 

Just like Shopify, Magento also does not have any transaction fees that one must pay, with the caveat of incurring an additional fixed percentage of the fee if payments are made through a third-party payment provider (more commonly set at 2.9% and slightly more). And, it's important to remember that all payment providers, including Mastercard, require a minimum transaction amount each month. Since Magento connects to so many different providers, the minimum transaction amount can differ, but it's currently set to a £105 fee in the Magento marketplace.

Magento vs Shopify: Themes and Templates

Taking the next step in our Magento vs Shopify comparison, let's mull over themes and templates. As Shopify claims, Magento only has a handful of themes, and they must all be purchased. According to our own research, however, there are only five themes listed on the Magento marketplace, with price tags ranging from free to around $499. 

Shopify, on the other hand, surpasses Magento in sheer variety; offering upwards of seventy themes – a handful of which are completely free. Expenditures for the remaining themes won't exceed $350. Both Magento and Shopify have responsive themes that can fit any number of products. But when it comes to availability of niched industry specific options, Shopify takes the win here. 

On top of the options, Shopify's themes are all mobile-friendly and optimized as such (not all Magento themes have this feature). They also have a great myriad of customizations and the ability to integrate social networks. For these reasons, Shopify no doubt deserves an extra few brownie points than Magento in this section.

Magento vs Shopify: Apps & Extensions

To make the process of running businesses on the respective platforms easier and more effective, both Shopify and Magento offer a vast array of apps and extensions for users to take advantage of. Shopify has over 6,000 apps and add-ons in its marketplace, whereas Magento has about 4,000. However, the consensus amongst experts is that Shopify's apps and features are somewhat superior and are used more often. 

Another factor to consider is that Magento is an open-source solution, which means that users may be required to learn how to install their own add-ons and extensions. Yet again, Shopify has the very slight advantage here (at least in our opinion!). 

All in all, whether you choose Magento or Shopify, there are plenty of options out there when it comes to apps and plugins. Plus, an added bonus - both have both free as well as paid apps available for use. We recommend that you take the time to research both marketplaces, deciding which set of features suits your business the best.

Magento and Shopify marketing and functional features

Inventory handling

Customers of Shopify and Magento can rely on their respective solutions to effectively manage stock. In this regard, they both excel equally well:

• Allowing customers to look through a catalog at any time.
• Allowing users to keep an unlimited number of items in their storage.
• Making shipping a part of its service in full.
• Having on the platform extensions for fulfillment.
• The similarities, however, end here:
• Magento is more difficult to use than Shopify.
• Personalized product delivery support is not available on Shopify.
• Magento will have issues running if you don't use a server that can handle it (since Shopify hosts its own websites, they fix any issues themselves).

SEO

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a fundamental form of marketing activity that most businesses need to consider to remain competitive and increase their visibility to prospective customers. To this end, both Shopify and Magento offer different but effective options when it comes to leveraging SEO. Shopify's primary resource for SEO lies in its various apps, which makes it easy and straightforward for users to insert keywords in their webpages and form a successful SEO-driven marketing strategy. Furthermore, Shopify integrates features such as meta tags, improved on-page product optimization and readability, and fast load times in order to enhance users' SEO score. 

Magento likewise supplies users with a suite of SEO tools out-of-the-box, including a strong site structure, automatic sitemap generation, and particular URLs for specific products. Nevertheless, its performance may not be as good as Shopify's, and its SEO settings do not support blog or tag updating, which can be a serious detriment to users’ SEO score. Additionally, the platform does not provide an SSL certificate that furthers web security and increases the SERP position. Ultimately, the user must decide for themselves which platform may be more suitable for their requirements when it comes to utilizing the power of SEO.

Scalability

Shopify Surveying Shopify and Magento brings up a distinct battle: the former, an excellent platform that is geared up to get businesses going faster and cheaper, is more constrained in inventory locations and staff accounts open to be established. However, the latter requires more patience to build and requires knowledge in web development and support, but lures with its scalability. When contrasting Shopify and Magento Plus, then the possibilities become more far-reaching and the dialog differs substantially. It is indeed worth considering when launching a more considerable enterprise.

Magento vs Shopify Plus

When compared to the impressive Shopify Plus, Magento seems to pale in comparison to the immense capabilities of Shopify Plus. One of the advantages that Shopify Plus has is that restrictions (tied to account staffs and inventory locations) no longer exist with Shopify Plus as users are often provided with the ability to create near limitless staff accounts. 

Shopify Plus brings about the same level of convenience that their brand is renowned for, and it’s easy to get a Shopify Plus site up and running in no time. It’s important to note that Shopify Plus is closed source and thusly there are no worries or issues related to security. Moreover, Shopify Plus can be hosted on the cloud (albeit, the pricing for Magento Cloud hosting begins at an annual rate of $40,000, which is often deemed as an overly pricey investment - much more than what you’d have to pay with Platform.sh hosting).

On top of that, Shopify Plus has a more vast array of plugins, is highly reliable and has a knack for providing users with the ability to set up various kinds of stores - all while offering support for omnichannel strategies and taking mere seconds to develop or even upgrade, making it significantly faster than Magento in both regards.

Which has better support and security?

Shopify offers reliable 24/7 customer support so that users can get in touch with their team and ask any of their pressing inquiries. Not only that, but it is self-hosted, equipping it with the ability to anticipate and eradicate any potential issues independently, without having to wait until someone reaches out first. 

Magento, however, is supported by a broadly knowledgeable community because of its web developer background. This allows them to directly find solutions for any problems without having to reach out for customer support. Additionally, there is customer service available on the platform for their customers if needed. 

In terms of security, Shopify takes the lead. This is due to the open-source nature of Magento which can be a great bonus in terms of creativity but is somewhat problematic when it comes to safety precautions. Shopify, meanwhile, complies with numerous safety protocols, such as PCI DSS standards, PCI SSC standards, SSL certificates, among others, and in addition, they offer even more security methods such as 3D password protection and two-step authentication.

Shopify Magento comparison: Usability

One of the reasons that Shopify is the preferred choice for many businesses is that it's incredibly user-friendly. With intuitive drag-and-drop features to customize templates, a great selection of themes and apps, and its simple installation process, Shopify has gained a high reputation from audiences—earning it a 4.4/5 rating on G2.

Magento is a powerful solution with lots of opportunity for customization. However, because it has a steeper learning curve and necessitates the use of web developers to create the app, as well as offering fewer themes and plug-ins than Shopify, it still has lower user ratings than Shopify (with a G2 rating of 4/5).

Conclusion

For all the many reasons we discussed in this article, Shopify undoubtedly ranks as the better solution when compared to Magento. To briefly recap:

• It’s more affordable to develop, set up, and host.
• It has a wider variety of apps and extensions.
• The same is true for the number of themes and templates it offers.
• It even gave Magento a run for its money based on the marketing and functionality features.
• Plus, it also ranks better in ease of use.
• And it has better rankings from the same review site (G2).

Granted, Magento could hold its own in the area of scalability. However, when we factor in Shopify Plus, then Shopify again proves superior. If you are planning to shift your operations from Magento to Shopify, then this is your chance to make a switch. You can count on us to securely migrate without any data leaks, set-up a professionally optimized store online, and to help rank your website better on SERPs.