Shopify vs Snipcart: Which Ecommerce Platform Should You Choose?

Shopify and Snipcart are two ecommerce tools that approach online selling in very different ways. Shopify is a fully hosted, beginner-friendly platform that comes with everything included. Snipcart is a lightweight shopping cart you can add to an existing site, perfect for developers who want control over design and tech stack.

At a high level, Shopify and Snipcart serve the same purpose — helping you sell products online — but they go about it in totally different ways. Shopify handles everything from hosting to payments, while Snipcart gives you a checkout solution that plugs into a site you’ve already built.

So, which one should you use for your ecommerce store? Let this Shopify vs Snipcart breakdown help you decide.

Shopify

Starts at $29 per month

• Free trial – 3 days followed by the first 3 months at $1/per month

• Basic – $29 per month

• Grow – $79 per month

• Advanced – $299 per month

• Shopify Plus – $2,000+ per month

Basic Plan Features

• Unlimited products

• Two staff accounts

• 24/7 support (email, chat)

• Marketing tools

• Shipping tools

• 2.9% + $0.30 USD

• 2% transaction fee if you use a third-party processor

Snipcart

Starts at $0 per month (pay-as-you-sell)

• Free sandbox mode for development

• Live transactions – 2% per order

• No tiers — all features included

Core Features

• Add ecommerce to any site (static or dynamic)

• Full control over design and code

• API, webhooks, and developer-friendly docs

• Stripe, PayPal, Square integration

• Subscription support

• Fully customisable cart and checkout

Our bottom line: While Snipcart offers unmatched flexibility for developers, it can be limiting for beginners or store owners who want an all-in-one solution. Shopify impressed us with its ease of use, full feature set, and consistent updates — making it the better choice for most store owners.

Plans & Pricing

Shopify and Snipcart couldn’t be more different when it comes to pricing. Shopify uses a traditional monthly subscription model, while Snipcart only charges when you make a sale.

Shopify starts at $29/month, and that gets you a full ecommerce site with unlimited products, support, and basic marketing features. There are also higher plans with more powerful features like advanced reporting and international pricing.

Snipcart, on the other hand, doesn’t charge a monthly fee. Instead, you pay 2% per transaction when you go live. That means you can get started without paying anything upfront. This is great for developers building prototypes, side projects, or seasonal stores where monthly fees don’t make sense.

Winner: Snipcart wins for affordability, especially if you’re a developer and want to avoid a monthly fee. But Shopify offers better value for anyone who needs a complete, hosted ecommerce site with full features from day one.

Features

Both Shopify and Snipcart let you accept payments, manage orders, and handle customer transactions — but that’s where the similarities end.

Shopify is an all-in-one platform. It gives you everything: storefront builder, hosting, themes, checkout, SEO tools, email marketing, and an app store with over 8,000 plugins. There’s also built-in support for inventory management, taxes, shipping, and reporting. If you want a system where all your ecommerce needs are taken care of in one place, this is it.

Snipcart is much leaner. It doesn’t come with a storefront or site builder. Instead, it plugs into whatever site you already have — whether that’s a static site built with Hugo, a React app, or a basic HTML template. You use HTML data attributes to define products, then let Snipcart handle the cart, checkout, and payment logic.

Snipcart also offers:

• Subscriptions

• Multi-currency support

• Discount codes

• Webhooks and APIs for custom workflows

• Full styling control using your own CSS

But it doesn’t offer things like blog hosting, page templates, or marketing automation — you’ll need to bring in those tools separately.

Winner: Shopify wins the feature category by providing a full suite of tools out of the box. Snipcart is flexible, but relies heavily on you building everything else around it.

Security

Snipcart offers security on the ecommerce part of the stack — the cart and checkout. But because it doesn’t host your site, you are responsible for everything else, including your SSL certificate, site security, and uptime monitoring.

Shopify, by contrast, is a fully hosted platform that includes Level 1 PCI DSS compliance, built-in SSL, and fraud detection across all plans. Shopify stores are secure by default — no extra configuration or setup required.

Winner: Shopify wins for security. Everything is handled for you, making it ideal for non-technical users or teams who don’t want to manage infrastructure.

Customer Support

Shopify offers 24/7 live chat, email, and sometimes phone support, depending on your plan. While the phone option isn’t front and centre, it’s there. There’s also a huge help center, video tutorials, community forums, and a dedicated support team for enterprise plans.

Snipcart offers email support, a strong developer documentation portal, and a community Discord for dev discussions. Their team is small but helpful, and the docs are some of the best I’ve used.

But if you’re a business owner with no technical background, Snipcart’s support might not be enough — especially if you’re stuck on something unrelated to the checkout integration.

Winner: Shopify wins for broader and more accessible support. Snipcart’s support is excellent for developers, but lacks the hand-holding that beginners might need.

Recent Improvements

Shopify continues to push updates at a fast pace. In the past year alone, it’s rolled out:

• Shopify Magic, an AI tool for writing product descriptions

• Linkpop, a shoppable bio link tool

• Enhanced analytics and reports

• Centralised admin for multi-store owners

• Automation for international tax calculation

Snipcart’s updates are more developer-focused. They launched their V3 Checkout, made improvements to webhook reliability, and introduced new APIs for subscriptions and custom logic. However, their roadmap is smaller, and updates are less frequent.

Winner: Shopify wins for recent improvements. The platform evolves rapidly and adds features that matter to both beginners and growing businesses. Snipcart focuses more narrowly on developer needs.

Shopify vs. Snipcart — Who’s the Winner? Shopify.

Shopify and Snipcart both bring value to ecommerce sellers — just in very different ways.

Shopify is an end-to-end solution that gives you everything in one place: hosting, store builder, payments, analytics, security, and support. It’s beginner-friendly, scalable, and packed with features.

Snipcart is the go-to choice for developers building static or custom frontend sites. It gives you control, flexibility, and clean code — but also expects you to manage everything else.

Each platform has a clear audience. If you’re launching a traditional online store and want all the tools ready to go, Shopify is the better choice. If you’re a developer building your own frontend and just need a backend for ecommerce, Snipcart could be the better fit.

Basic Plan Features

Final Summary

Overall Winner: Shopify

While Snipcart is an excellent tool for developers who want to keep full control over their site, Shopify is the more complete ecommerce platform. It’s easier to use, evolves faster, and is a better fit for businesses that want to sell quickly without needing a development team.

That said, if your project demands a custom frontend or you’re building a JAMstack site — don’t overlook Snipcart. It may not have all the bells and whistles, but what it does offer, it does well.