Best for
Best for merchants whose website is first and foremost a store, from a first product to a multi-channel brand.
- Freelancers
- Small and mid-sized
- Enterprise
Website Builders Comparison
Shopify vs. Webflow
At a glance
At a glance
Best for
Best for designers and agencies who want a visual canvas with real CSS control, a CMS and an export path out.
- Freelancers
- Small and mid-sized
- Enterprise
Cataleo does not name a winner. Both statements come from the vendors themselves.
Full Comparison
| Criterion | Shopify | Webflow |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | From $29 / month Basic plan, billed yearly; $39 billed monthly. Grow $89, Advanced $359 per month billed yearly, Plus from $2,300 per month. Prices in USD. | lower value Free; site plans from $15 / month Site plans are per site and billed yearly: Basic $15, Premium $25, Team $2,500 on an annual contract, Enterprise on request. Workspace plans are charged on top for staging, custom code and code export: Core $19, Growth $49. All prices in USD, before tax. |
| Free trial | 3-day free trial, then $1 / month for the first 3 months | Free Starter site plan on a webflow.io domain, plus a free Starter Workspace |
| Output | Hosted online stores and websites on a custom domain, plus in-person and multichannel sales | Hosted websites with a CMS, and exportable HTML and CSS |
| API | Yes, GraphQL Admin API, Storefront API, webhooks and Shopify Functions | Yes, REST Data and Designer APIs, SDKs, a CLI and an official MCP server |
| What it makes | Hosted online stores with their own website, blog and checkout, built from a theme or an AI-generated storefront | Responsive websites built on a visual canvas, with a CMS, hosting, site search, localization and SEO and AEO tooling |
| Styling and layout control | Section-based editor with theme settings for fonts, colors and styles across the site, free and paid themes, and the theme code itself editable in Liquid and CSS | Class-based style system with combo classes, breakpoints, variables and components, Shared Libraries that reuse components, variables and assets across every site in a Workspace, plus a template marketplace |
| CMS and dynamic content | Built-in blog and pages, plus metafields and metaobjects for custom structured content that themes display through Liquid or the Storefront API | Webflow CMS with Collections of structured items on a shared template: 50 items and 20 Collections on the free Starter plan, none on Basic, 20,000 items and 40 Collections on Premium. Premium adds scheduled and per-item publishing, RSS feeds and CMS data in custom code, and REST APIs manage CMS content |
| Hosting and domains | Unlimited hosting and a free SSL certificate on every plan. Domains can be bought inside the Shopify admin or connected by changing DNS settings | Hosted by Webflow on a global CDN, on a free webflow.io subdomain or a custom domain from Basic. Bandwidth runs from 1 GB a month on Starter and 10 GB on Basic to a selectable 50 GB to 2.5 TB on Premium, with automatic backups and a hosting uptime SLA of 99.00 % on Team and 99.99 % on Enterprise |
| SEO controls | Editable title tags and meta descriptions for pages, products, collections and blog posts, image alt text, an automatically generated sitemap, and URL redirects that can be imported in bulk from a CSV file | Title tags, meta descriptions, alt text and Open Graph settings for every page, plus canonical tags, an auto-generated XML sitemap, crawler access controls for search and AI bots, robots.txt and LLMs.txt, and schema markup. Some technical controls need a paid Workspace plan on a free Starter site |
| E-commerce | The core of the product: unlimited products, checkout, inventory across up to 10 locations, B2B catalogs and selling on social, marketplaces and AI chats. Shopify Payments card rates run from 2.9% + 30¢ on Basic down to 2.25% + 30¢ on Plus; third-party payment providers add 2%, 1%, 0.6% or 0.2% depending on plan | Separate ecommerce site plans, billed yearly: Standard $29 a month with 500 items and a 2 % transaction fee, Plus $74 with 5,000 items and Advanced $212 with 15,000, both without a transaction fee. Custom cart and checkout, Stripe, PayPal and Apple Pay, and automatic sales tax and VAT calculation |
| Publishing and code export | Publishes to Shopify hosting. A theme can be downloaded as a .zip file of its code, but the download leaves out products, collections, menus, pages, blog posts and images | Publishes to Webflow hosting on a webflow.io or custom domain. Code export produces clean, semantic HTML and CSS for a developer and is available on the Core and Growth Workspace plans, but dynamic CMS items and pages cannot be exported. Figma to Webflow and DevLink move designs and React components between tools |
| AI features | An AI store builder generates a personalised storefront from a prompt. Sidekick, the built-in assistant, writes store headlines, product descriptions, chat replies and blog posts, and AI image editing reworks product photos | An AI site builder starts a site from a prompt, and AI also modifies page designs, generates copy, generates React code components and turns sitewide SEO and AEO audits into actionable suggestions. AI credits are allocated per Workspace plan: 200 on Starter, 300 on Core, 400 on Growth |
| MCP-ready | Yes | Yes |
| Deployment | Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based | Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based |
| Support | more entries Chat, 24/7, Phone | Email helpdesk, Community forum |
| Onboarding | Documentation and knowledge base | more entries Documentation and knowledge base, Video tutorials |
| Company size | Freelancers, Small and mid-sized, Enterprise | Freelancers, Small and mid-sized, Enterprise |
| Integrations | Not stated | Figma, Zapier, Make, HubSpot, Slack, Algolia, Wistia, Adobe Marketo Engage, Microsoft Clarity, Unsplash, Memberstack, Claude, Google Gemini |
Add a tool
Adds a column to the table, from the tools in this category.
Row where the values differ The small markers point at the lower number, the longer list or the stated feature. They describe the data, they are not a verdict.
The short version
Key Differences
- Starting price Shopify From $29 / month Webflow Free; site plans from $15 / month
- Free trial Shopify 3-day free trial, then $1 / month for the first 3 months Webflow Free Starter site plan on a webflow.io domain, plus a free Starter Workspace
- Support Shopify Chat, 24/7, Phone Webflow Email helpdesk, Community forum
- Output Shopify Hosted online stores and websites on a custom domain, plus in-person and multichannel sales Webflow Hosted websites with a CMS, and exportable HTML and CSS
- API Shopify Yes, GraphQL Admin API, Storefront API, webhooks and Shopify Functions Webflow Yes, REST Data and Designer APIs, SDKs, a CLI and an official MCP server
Every line is one datapoint from the table above, picked automatically. Nothing here is written text.
The trade-offs
Strengths and Limitations
Shopify
Strengths
- Checkout, payments, inventory and point of sale run on the same catalog as the website
- Theme code is open for editing in Liquid and CSS
- Hosting and SSL are included on every plan
- Official APIs cover headless storefronts and custom checkout logic
Limitations
- Using a payment provider other than Shopify Payments adds a transaction fee on every plan below Plus
- A theme download excludes products, pages, blog posts and images
- Phone support is reserved for the Plus plan
- The free trial lasts three days
Webflow
Strengths
- Visual canvas writes real HTML and CSS, with a class-based style system rather than fixed templates
- Code export produces clean, semantic HTML and CSS instead of locking the markup in
- Official MCP server lets AI agents design, manage and analyse a site within existing permissions
- Deep developer platform: Data and Designer APIs, SDKs, DevLink, CLI and Webflow Cloud
Limitations
- Two separate plans to pay for, since site plans and Workspace plans are billed apart
- Code export is a Workspace add-on and cannot carry CMS items or pages
- The jump from Premium at $25 to Team at $2,500 a month leaves nothing in between
- The class-based style system expects an understanding of how CSS cascades
Plans
Pricing
Shopify
- Basic $29 Per month, billed yearly ($39 monthly). For solo entrepreneurs. Card rates from 2.9% + 30¢.
- Grow $89 Per month, billed yearly ($105 monthly). Up to 5 staff accounts, card rates from 2.7% + 30¢.
- Advanced $359 Per month, billed yearly ($399 monthly). Up to 15 staff accounts, live third-party shipping rates, card rates from 2.5% + 30¢.
- Plus From $2,300 Per month. Unlimited staff accounts, customizable checkout, unlimited B2B catalogs, priority 24/7 phone support.
Webflow
- Starter (site) $0 Webflow.io domain, limited CMS, 2 static pages, 1 GB bandwidth, 50 form submissions.
- Basic (site) $15 Per month, billed yearly. Custom domain, 300 static pages, 10 GB bandwidth, unlimited form submissions.
- Premium (site) $25 Per month, billed yearly. Adds the Webflow CMS, code components, site search and form file upload.
- Team (site) $2,500 Per month, annual contract required. Adds Webflow Localize, AEO agents, publishing workflows, activity log and governance.
- Enterprise (site) Custom Granular permissions, custom roles, advanced governance, dedicated account manager and enhanced SLAs.
- Starter (Workspace) $0 200 AI credits, 1 full seat.
- Core (Workspace) $19 Per month, billed yearly. 10 staging sites, 300 AI credits, custom code, code export and Shared Libraries.
- Growth (Workspace) $49 Per month, billed yearly. Unlimited staging sites, 400 AI credits, site password protection, 301 redirects and site-level roles.
What users say
Review Scores · opens after launch
Shopify
- Ease of use
- Not rated yet
- User interface
- Not rated yet
- Onboarding
- Not rated yet
- Support and service
- Not rated yet
- Value for money
- Not rated yet
- Features
- Not rated yet
No reviews yet. Nothing has been published here yet, and no score is shown. How a review is checked before it appears is described below.
Webflow
- Ease of use
- Not rated yet
- User interface
- Not rated yet
- Onboarding
- Not rated yet
- Support and service
- Not rated yet
- Value for money
- Not rated yet
- Features
- Not rated yet
No reviews yet. Nothing has been published here yet, and no score is shown. How a review is checked before it appears is described below.
How we check reviews
Reviews are not published yet. The form on a tool's page works and reaches us, but nothing from it appears on this site, so no score here is based on a review. The rules below are the ones that will apply once reviews go live.
Every review is read by a person before it appears. We require a working email address and use it to come back to the author, so a review has a reachable sender rather than being anonymous. We publish positive and negative reviews alike, we pay nothing and offer nothing for a review, and we accept none that was bought or incentivised.
What we cannot do is verify a purchase. There is no shop here and no account, so whether the author really used the tool rests on what they tell us, plus the plausibility of what they write. We say so rather than implying a check that does not exist.
A vendor cannot have a review removed, cannot buy one, and cannot have one changed. Paid placement and a paid listing have no effect on which reviews appear or on any score.
Where this comes from
Where this comes from
Shopify https://www.shopify.com · checked against the official source on 2026-10-15
Webflow https://webflow.com · checked against the official source on 2026-09-13
This table lists factual criteria taken from information the vendors publish themselves. For how we put it together, see the methodology.