For enterprise brands, the choice of ecommerce platform can make or break the business–impacting scalability, customer experience, and revenue. For larger brands, Shopify and Adobe Commerce (formerly Magento Commerce) are two heavyweight players.
Let’s dive into how these two options compare.
Pricing*
Starting with the bottom line, here’s a high-level look at Shopify pricing and Adobe Commerce pricing:
Shopify Pricing
Shopify’s Pricing Overview
Shopify's pricing is straightforward; there are four main plans: Basic ($39/month), Shopify ($105/month), Advanced ($399/month), and Shopify Plus (custom pricing). These plans include hosting and security, making it easier for brands to budget. Additional costs might come from app integrations and transaction fees, but the core pricing is refreshingly transparent and simple – particularly for enterprise-grade brands.
Adobe Commerce Pricing
Adobe Commerce’s pricing is less clear-cut. It operates on a custom pricing model that varies based on your business needs, size, and scale. Expect to spend more upfront compared to Shopify on items like five-figure annual licensing fees, hosting, and maintenance.
Total Cost of Ownership
When evaluating the total cost of ownership (TCO) between Shopify and Adobe Commerce, there are more factors than just the upfront costs. TCO covers software licenses, hosting, development, maintenance, and ongoing operational expenses.
Shopify offers a more predictable and lower-cost option. Adobe Commerce carries a significantly higher total cost of ownership due to its complex infrastructure and development needs.
*All pricing subject to change.
Customization
At Domaine, we talk a lot about custom Shopify builds and what that means to our clients. Broadly, we frame customization through the lens of doing what it takes to help a brand fully own its ecommerce experience. What it doesn’t mean is that we build everything from scratch. That said, here’s a look at the customization capabilities between Shopify and Adobe Commerce.
Shopify
Shopify App Store Home Page
Shopify is known for its variety of off-the-shelf themes and its App Store that features thousands of native integrations for functions such as marketing and conversion, store design, customer reviews and inventory notifications. Its drag-and-drop editor is intuitive enough that even those with little under-the-hood development experience can feel comfortable making edits and updates.
But few brands – especially those at the enterprise level – want to use an out-of-the-box experience that any other brand can replicate. And that’s where, with the right development partner, Shopify can support fully customized ecommerce experiences that do more than just sell products and instead, drive brand stickiness and loyalty that delivers more customer lifetime value (LTV).
One area where Shopify is somewhat restricted when it comes to customization is its checkout flow – and that’s on purpose. They’ve invested in significant research and testing to optimize checkout, giving brands the most effective way to convert those carts. With that said, Shopify Plus users can still customize many aspects of checkout to match their brand and incorporate a myriad of extensions and custom validation rules to meet their business needs.
Adobe Commerce
With Adobe Commerce, customization is a requirement. This can be a benefit to brands that need a blank canvas to meet specific business requirements. It also means that working on the platform requires not just a from-the-ground-up custom build, but specific knowledge and expertise.
Both platforms offer powerful customization and flexibility but in different ways. With Shopify, you can customize where it makes the most sense for your brand. With Adobe Commerce, you’re customizing from the start.
Payments and Transaction Fees
With any ecommerce platform, payment processors get a cut to process your customers’ purchases. Here’s the breakdown.
Shopify
Shopify features its own payment processor, Shopify Payments, while also allowing for third-party gateways. Using Shopify Payments means that there is nothing to integrate. For this basic plan, this amounts to 2.9% + $0.30 for domestic credit card transactions, 3.9% + $0.30 for international or American Express card sales, and 2.7% for in-store purchases. If you want to use a third-party payment provider, the fee is a flat 2% per transaction. Less than Shopify Payments? Yes. But brands need to balance that against the cost of integrating a third-party gateway.
That said, transaction fees are waived for all other payment methods used if Shopify Payments is the primary gateway. For enterprise-level brands, this is huge.
And then there’s Shop Pay, Shopify’s accelerated checkout functionality fine tuned for conversion. Shop Pay lets brands increase conversions across multiple channels including its Shopify store, in the Shop app, Facebook, Instagram and Google. Brands that use Shop Pay see a conversion rate of up to 50% higher, compared to guest checkout. Plus, “buyers using the Shop app have a 9% higher repurchase rate.” Shop Pay is quickly becoming a standard expedited payment method that brands really can’t go without.
Adobe Commerce
Adobe Commerce does not charge transaction fees directly, but you’re free to use your preferred payment gateways such as PayPal and Stripe. This flexibility can feel beneficial on paper, but it’s important to note that those gateways have their own transaction fees that fall anywhere between 2% and 4%.
Shopify’s transaction fee structure offers simplicity and predictability. With Adobe Commerce, you’re introducing more variables.
Tech Stack
The technology stacks of both products are robust and capable but can offer different benefits.
Shopify
Shopify has a frontend-friendly tech stack that doesn't require a tremendous amount of backend support. It’s a fully hosted, Ruby on Rails-based solution and uses a cloud-based infrastructure for scalability and security. Theme and checkout customization is very feasible for frontend developers, allowing developers familiar with JavaScript HTML and CSS to work with bleeding edge technology with which they’re already familiar.
Adobe Commerce
Adobe Commerce is a PHP-based, open-source or cloud solution that uses MySQL for database management that requires more technical expertise for hosting and maintenance.
Security
Shopify
Shopify takes care of security with its built-in SSL certificate, PCI compliance, and regular security updates. Since it’s a hosted platform, Shopify manages most of the security aspects, reducing your risk of not only spotting vulnerabilities but fixing them too.
Adobe Commerce
With Adobe Commerce, security is partly the responsibility of the brand. While it provides features like SSL support and security patches, you need to ensure your hosting environment is secure. This requires more hands-on management compared to Shopify’s all-in-one approach.
Third-Party Integrations
Shopify
Shopify boasts a vast App Store with thousands of integrations for various needs, from marketing tools to inventory management. Most apps are plug-and-play, and come with their own price tag.
Adobe Commerce
Adobe Commerce also supports numerous third-party integrations but often requires more complex setups. The open-source nature means you can integrate almost anything, but it might require more development work compared to Shopify’s streamlined app ecosystem.
SEO
Both Shopify and Adobe Commerce offer standard foundational search engine optimization (SEO) functionality: page titles and descriptions, WebP image format support, redirect creation, automatic sitemap generation, image alt tags, etc. Does using one platform or the other provide a search advantage? Unless you’re the Google algorithm, it’s tough to know for sure. It really comes down to a site’s content and performance. Brands that optimize for what their target audiences are searching and feature a fast and authoritative site will win.
It is worth noting that since so much of Shopify exists within a single ecosystem and therefore may be able to deliver a faster, cleaner user experience– providing an SEO competitive edge.
Innovation
Celebrating innovation at the Shopify Build Awards 2024.
New features. Product enhancements. Proprietary research. Documentation. Events. Experiments. Shopify has flipped ecommerce innovation on its head over the last few years. The reason why is simple: Shopify is solely focused on ecommerce.
Adobe is focused on a lot of areas. Based on our own experiences here at Domaine, Adobe Commerce currently carries a good deal of technical debt in which short-term efficiency has taken priority over long-term sustainability.
When it comes to ecommerce innovation that helps brands grow, Shopify is it.
Why Shopify Might Be the Better Choice
Shopify has emerged as the more attractive ecommerce platform for many businesses – and increasingly more so amongst mid-market to enterprise-sized brands. Its user-friendly interface, constant innovation, cohesive security, and extensive app marketplace make it a great choice.
