Shopify Vs Godaddy [2023]: Which is Right For You?

Shopify or GoDaddy eCommerce, which one to pick for your online store in 2023?

Read this in-depth Shopify vs Godaddy comparison to make a smart choice.

When you set out to sell your products online, you meet with a lot of challenges, and thus, here is when you will need an eCommerce platform. They hold immense importance as they are the key in driving traffic to your store, multiplying the store’s speed, security as well as performance and even giving access to tools and impressive features that can make your business meet with success.

Trouble knocks on the door when eCommerce merchants like you start looking for the best eCommerce platform out there for their business amidst a crowd of eCommerce platforms.

So, we’re are going to make your life easier by comparing two solutions claiming to be the best of the best: Shopify and GoDaddy.

How do they compare on features? Which provides better value for money?  Which one of the two is easier to use? Thinking about which offers more integrations and add-ons?

So, We’re taking a deep dive into Shopify and GoDaddy comparison to find out.

In a hurry? Check out the summary below.

Comparison At a Glance

About Shopify

Shopify is a renowned eCommerce platform as it is an all-in-one solution that allows users to use a single service to design an online shop, manage products and handle payments. Shopify is flooded with numerous impressive eCommerce features and tools, provides cost-effective pricing plans, consists of a captivating template library, a huge app market so you can build any kind of website or store.

About GoDaddy

GoDaddy was once known as a hosting company but it has tremendously worked on its capabilities and now offers a website builder packed with eCommerce features and tools. GoDaddy is famous for its affordable pricing plans, excellent customer support and eye-catching templates.

1. eCommerce Features
Winner: Shopify. Shopify is far better than GoDaddy as it provides a complete suite of eCommerce features and tools to build a full-fledged eCommerce store.

2. Ease of Use
Winner: GoDaddy. The platform provides ADI technology, a simple interface, and an intuitive editor with less complexity enabling you to create a website efficiently with ease. However, it compromises on creative freedom.

3. Template Library and Customization
Winner: Shopify. Shopify provides enchanting templates, much greater creative freedom, and more customization tools. However, GoDaddy provides all free templates but basic editing options.

4. Pricing
Winner: Shopify. Shopify provides numerous pricing plans along with greater value for money whereas GoDaddy comes with only one eCommerce plan with lesser features.

5. Integrations
Winner: Shopify. Shopify offers a huge app center with almost every integration you need as opposed to no app store and few integrations with GoDaddy.

6. Customer Support
Winner: Shopify. This platform comes with a wide range of resources and 24/7 support options making it slightly better than GoDaddy in this aspect.

Shopify Vs Godaddy: Short Verdict

Shopify is the absolute winner of Shopify vs GoDaddy comparison as it prevails over its competitor in the majority of the categories. Shopify comes up with a wide range of eCommerce functions along with a huge app market, template library, amazing customer support, tons of customizability options, and scalable pricing plans.

All these impressive features enable you to make a full-featured online store with everything you need. GoDaddy lets you build a simpler site with lesser creative freedom and customization options. However, ease of use is pretty impressive.

1) Shopify Vs GoDaddy: eCommerce Features

A store must have sufficient eCommerce tools in its pocket as they are an important building block of an online store.

Shopify is the leader of eCommerce. It is not an exaggeration to say that Shopify provides you with sufficient tools and features needed to flourish an online store. Selling physical products is the main target when using Shopify but a bonus; as it also allows you to sell subscriptions, memberships, videos and digital goods.

Unlike GoDaddy, Shopify lets you list an unlimited amount of products in your store, along with multiple product variants at different prices. Moreover, it has satisfactory inventory management features coupled with the ability to add and manage videos and 3D assets on product pages. The best part is the fact that Shopify lets you sell your products at notable platforms like eBay and Amazon.

Adding more, Shopify has a full-featured content management system along with commendable blogging functionality which allows you to even host an entire business website on Shopify.

The store is fully customizable thanks to the plethora of customization and designing options. You can also connect to your retail stores via the Shopify POS feature. As a matter of fact, POS features at Shopify are many times better than at GoDaddy.

It also has a built-in abandoned cart recovery feature, which encourages customers to finalize a purchase if they’ve left your website before paying. Besides that, gift cards, discounts, creating interesting emails using templates, generating sitemap.XML or even selling at different platforms are just some of Shopify’s impressive and plentiful marketing features.

Shopify’s amazing analytics has played a really important part in making it an important name in the eCommerce world. Through these in-depth stats, you can keep a check of traffic, customer rate, top pages, conversion rate, visitor’s location etc. Reports regarding profit, customers, marketing are also available.

Not to forget, the mobile app is another impressive feature added to the list. It lets you manage your store anywhere and anytime with just the fingertip of your hand.

Shopify’s efforts to provide an opportunity to its users to sell internationally are worth talking about. The conversion of prices to over 133 more currencies together with its ability to translate the store into 50 different languages has definitely helped the users in expanding and flourishing their business globally.

Furthermore, it also offers amazing dropshipping features, a free SSL certificate, unlimited bandwidth, free shipping, options to set shipping rates, and automated tax handling. You can even add custom URLs, 301 redirects and much much more.

So what does GoDaddy brings to the table? Let’s take a look. 

GoDaddy provides a nice collection of eCommerce and marketing features enabling its users to design the store and start selling efficiently. You can sell both physical and digital products which can add up to a maximum of 5,000 product listing allowance. With that, you can add up to 10 images per product providing a closer view of your product to a potential customer.

When listing the product, add descriptions, prices, and post photos. That said, tracking your inventory and managing products is simple as well. Inventory management features are unblocked by integrating your platform with any online marketplace.

Even if you get out of stock, the customers can place orders by allowing you to manage backorders.  GoDaddy shines with a wonderful feature where it allows the user to fill in the information regarding personalised products- a definite advantage.

However, store management is hectic here than at Shopify as it does not provide a dedicated store management page. Moreover, there is no multilingual functionality here as well. When it comes to changing your prices into different currencies, it’s also not possible.

It provides 18 different currencies to choose from, but at a time only one can be used in the store, which makes it a non-ideal choice for expanding business in different regions.

Marketing tools play a major role in making you stand out from the crowd. For that, you can send SMS notifications, integrate with marketplaces and social selling platforms, use email marketing tools, and send free abandoned cart recovery emails where you can even send automated emails to remind customers.

In addition to that, it auto-optimizes your store. But it has to be noted that with Shopify, you get abandoned cart recovery features at a much cheaper plan. Shipping features at GoDaddy are also comparatively less flexible and come with many restrictions. GoDaddy analytics are useful in tracking different aspects of your business and website. Moreover, appointment scheduling is also possible.

Besides that, you can make use of its Mobile app to manage your store and even as a virtual terminal to accept card payments. Note that, GoDaddy’s POS features are limited while it does not offer any dedicated dropshipping features.

To cut the long story short, Shopify is far better than GoDaddy as it offers the best tools in the market providing you with everything you need to build a successful online store. GoDaddy has a decent collection but is much weaker in comparison to Shopify.

Winner: Shopify

2) Shopify Vs GoDaddy: Ease of Use

One of the most important things that merchants look for is how easy it is to use a store so that not much of their time and energy is wasted in trying to understand the functionality of the website.

Shopify is really easy to use. This statement is proved right by the fact that you are directed to the very well-structured dashboard with just a few clicks. It is also the best solution if you are worried about hosting your store, as it already is a notable hosted eCommerce platform. The dashboard also automates multiple time-consuming tasks making your work pretty efficient.

Landing in the dashboard might not be a pleasant sight in the beginning – may be a daunting one. However, you will, for sure, change your opinion once you start to use it as it is neatly structured with everything laid perfectly. This makes navigation easier and with this many options managing the store would turn out to be easier.

Shopify makes customizing your store feel seamless, and it has plenty of visual cues to help you from start to finish. You can choose any theme of your choice which catches your eye and then customize it using plenty of designing and customising options. The best part is that you don’t even need coding here to create an enchanting storefront.

Now let’s dive into GoDaddy’s ease of use.

GoDaddy makes the process of developing your website a piece of cake. It comes with a distinguished ADI technology, that will build a whole eCommerce store and website for you within minutes. All you have to do is to answer a few questions related to your business and based on those answers, you get a professionally designed website.

This Artificial intelligence technology builds a whole store within a few clicks, making it pretty simple. This, however, restricts your creative freedom. But this can turn out to be particularly advantageous for no-fuss store owners. So, if you are looking to promote your brand through your online store then Shopify provides you with the tools to do so.

GoDaddy’s editor is simpler than Shopify’s as it showcases lesser options making it clutter-free and user-friendly. Such an intuitive interface and editor enables the users to develop their stores and website with ease. All the controls and options are positioned on the right side of the interface to be able to make tweaks easily.

But this comes with a downside, that such a little room for creativity is not something that is going to appeal to creative store owners.

To sum it up, GoDaddy with its ADI technology lets you create a store within minutes while it also has a simple editor and interface. Shopify with its creative freedom and complexity of creating an advanced online store, can not match GoDaddy. Hence, GoDaddy is the winner of Shopify vs GoDaddy ease of use comparison.

Winner: GoDaddy.

3) Shopify Vs GoDaddy: Template Library and Customization

Templates and the creative freedom that you get from the platform you use, play a vital role in driving potential customers to your store by making it eye-catching. So, let’s take a look at who wins the Shopify vs GoDaddy template comparison.

Shopify’s template library is commendable. The captivating template library comprises 70+ perfectly designed templates that make your store beautifully different from others. 10 templates are absolutely free while the cost of the remaining templates differs.

However, what is really impressive is that you are granted a free trial with the premium templates. The defined categories and further subcategories, namely Sports, Health and Beauty, Arts, let the user easily find his desired template.

Added to this, you can preview these templates both on your desktop as well as your mobile phone. These templates automatically are also responsive meaning they will align themselves according to the different screen sizes.

Moreover, when it comes to editing the chosen template, Shopify has no restrictions. It is flooded with multiple impressive designing and editing options to let you customize each and every smallest possible detail of your template according to your own will.

The drag and drop editor assists you in designing your templates. Various elements like typography, logo, sections, homepage layout, colours, banners, slideshows can be edited.

You can even simply click on any element on the canvas, and modify it thanks to a plethora of customization options you get with it. It enables real-time editing of elements like fonts, colours, headings, checkout, shopping cart, header and footer, and much more. Therefore, the creative freedom that you get with Shopify is unmatchable.

Furthermore, Shopify provides built-in styles, free stock photos, drop-down navigation support, colour palettes, etc. To give its users a further free hand over editing, Shopify allows access to HTML and CSS. You may also hire a professional editor to design a creative, unique and eye-catching template for your store.

Will GoDaddy win this lap? Let’s see.

GoDaddy comes with a wide range of templates for a plethora of industry types including fashion and Beauty, Health and Fitness, Photography, Restaurant and Food, Real Estate, Blog, etc. And yes, these are all free and completely responsive so adjusting to any screen size would be seamless.

The themes are all attractive and professionally designed and once your website is created within minutes, you will surely be impressed by the results. The theme you go with will be based on your industry choice, so it automatically loads industry-relevant stock images, which can be changed if you wish to.

It allows you to preview the templates before selecting along with an option to switch anytime you want. GoDaddy’s theme editor lets you modify page layout, colours, typography, sections, settings, site navigation, header and footer, logo, promotional banner, images, background, and much more. With this simple editor, you can easily edit pretty much every facet of your site.

You just need to click on the particular element and then customise its colour, style, content, etc. Adding a section is also pretty simple but it does come with structural limitations and the options of elements to add. Although you can easily customise your template, the editing options are also limited with less flexibility and creative freedom.

In addition to that, GoDaddy only allows HTML access which will not give you styling options, however, typography options are better than at Shopify.

In short, GoDaddy does not come close to Shopify when it’s about creative freedom, template library, and customization options. It keeps you restricted with limited options and grants little creative freedom.

Winner: Shopify.

4) Shopify Vs GoDaddy: Pricing

Pricing is one of the most important categories which must be paid heed to when looking for an eCommerce platform. So let’s check who provides better pricing plans between GoDaddy and Shopify.

Shopify represents good value for money, offering some of the best eCommerce tools. It lets you start with a 2-week free trial so that you can get an idea of what the store has to offer without actually paying anything at all at first. After the trial is over, you need to choose one of its premium plans. The plans include the main plans (starting at $29) coupled with 2 more; namely Shopify Lite and Shopify plus.

Shopify lite is a fabulous option for just adding store functionality to an existing website. It comes with a buy button that you can embed into your website and is the cheapest option that gives you access to a lot of impressive eCommerce tools and features.

The cost-effective Shopify Plus for enterprises, high volume merchants and large businesses provides numerous important features including dedicated manager, high security etc.

So unlike GoDaddy, all of its plans offer a wide array of eCommerce features and tools with even its cheapest $9 Shopify Lite offering multiple eCommerce tools to start selling on an existing website.

The detail of Shopify’s pricing plans is as follows:

Moreover, as long as you use Shopify’s in-house payment methods you are not entitled to pay the transaction fees. However, when it comes to third-party payment gateways, you would be charged somewhere between 0.5%-2% transaction fees. Processing fees and credit card rates also apply.

But on the other hand, Shopify redeems itself by offering as many as 100 payment gateways easing things for its users. Furthermore, it even accepts cash-on-delivery and cryptocurrency. In addition to that, if you subscribe for a one-year plan you get a 10% discount, and on a biennial plan, a 20% discount is granted.

Now let’s take a look at GoDaddy’s pricing structure.

GoDaddy is not a dedicated eCommerce platform, instead, it’s a well-known domain registrar, website builder, and website hosting solution. Therefore, all of its pricing plans are not focused on eCommerce. It lets you build a website for free but again it’s of no use if you are interested in selling your products.

So to avail of any better features, you will eventually need to move on to a premium package. For that, GoDaddy provides four pricing plans. Each of its plans encompasses different website and marketing features. However, keep in mind that only one of these plans “The eCommerce Plan” allows you to create a standalone store, accept payments, and fulfill orders.

With all other plans, you do not get any significant eCommerce features to sell products while running an Online store is impossible. So as a store owner, the only option for you is its most expensive plan, but still, we will give you an overview of all its pricing plans.

The detail of GoDaddy’s pricing plans is as mentioned below.

<GoDaddy pricing structure>

You are free to go with either of the payment methods: monthly or annual. But on the annual basis, you will get a 30- 40% discount. For payment transactions, you can make use of GoDaddy’s built-in processing options.

But if you go for external payment gateways, you will find only three payment options – PayPal, Square, and Stripe. But it’s praiseworthy that it does not charge any transaction fee. Only credit card rates apply.

In conclusion, Shopify wins the race as it provides more flexibility and better value for money with the features it offers.

Winner: Shopify

5) Shopify Vs GoDaddy: Integrations

Integrations are meant to extend the functionality of your website and store unlocking dozens of helpful tools and features, therefore, making up an important part of our Shopify vs GoDaddy comparison.

Shopify has a humongous app store as it comprises as many as over 3000 apps, add-ons, and integrations that cover almost everything a user needs or can even think of.

The app store is very well organized since it is divided into categories, subcategories and even sections to assist the user in finding the targeted integration conveniently.  Categories are namely stored management, marketing, merchandising, conversion etc.

Every type of integration including taxes, accounting, and social media is available at this famous store. It has over 1,200 integrations from dropshipping apps to social media plugins, to allow you to have more power over your store and what you can do for a successful online business. Obelo, Sprocket, and many others are available for dropshipping.

Moreover, it offers MailChimp, Privy, Snapchat ads, Facebook channel, Google channel, Insta feed, Booster SEO, Shop Channel, and a handful of others for marketing and SEO. Apps like Printful and Printy serve the purpose of printing on demand.

Not only this but it successfully lets you integrate with big names including eBay, WordPress, Zapier, Walmart, Amazon etc. Store development, security, analytics, finances, customer feedback, advertising, product variation, navigation, images and media, upselling, promotions are only a few categories mentioned against which Shopify offers plentiful apps.

There is certainly a lot more to it in terms of both; diversity and number.

Now let’s move on to GoDaddy.

GoDaddy lets you integrate with a variety of third-party tools and apps, but it does not provide a proper App Store. It lets you integrate with well-known marketplaces enabling you to expand your market beyond your store at GoDaddy.

In addition to that, integrating with social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and others is easily possible, opening a new front in selling your products.

Such integrations will help you extend the store’s functionality and expand your market. But besides the absence of an app market, the unavailability important syncing tool, Zapier, is a great disappointment.

Briefly, Shopify offers an enormous app market containing thousands of apps and integrations whereas GoDaddy comes with no app store and with a limited number of integrations.

Winner: Shopify.

6) Shopify Vs GoDaddy: Customer Support

A helping hand is all you need when you meet with problems at your online store. Let’s see who between GoDaddy and Shopify offers better customer support.

Shopify pulls out all the stops in this regard. In terms of phone, live chat, and email support, Shopify is available 24/7. The support team will respond to you within a few minutes and help you deal with your issues as soon as possible. It also offers a highly interactive and useful call-back service. The availability of support options in different languages is a cherry on the top.

Additionally, the Help Centre is of great help and the first stop for anyone in trouble as it provides many articles on different important topics like Products, Payments, Sales Channels, POS, admin, analytics, etc. You are most likely to find the solution to your problem in these articles as they are comprehensive.

To fix your problems alone, Shopify never leaves you absolutely, and that is an important promise to have. The access to numerous self-help resources including video tutorials, FAQ’s, webinars, blogs, podcasts, guides, business courses, a business encyclopedia and different social media platforms not only answer any query or clear any doubt you might have but also provide vital information on multiple topics.

Moreover, an incredible community forum grants you the access to ask product experts and fellow users any query that you encounter.

Let us now jump on to what GoDaddy has to offer in this category.

GoDaddy has amazingly responsive customer service. They offer telephone support and web chat support. But note that the phone support is available Monday-Friday at limited timings while Live chat is available 24/7.

Moreover, GoDaddy has an extensive Help Centre that comprises numerous in-depth articles with videos on various topics including account management, domains and many more. These articles are really helpful and serve as a source of great useful information.

Furthermore, plentiful video guides in the How-To section on its website help you through things such as how to plan your online presence, marketing basics and a lot more. The community forum lends a helping hand by granting the user a platform where he can ask any type of questions and the community leaders as well as fellow users can answer.

In addition to this, it also has a dedicated account on Twitter that easily responds to queries within a few minutes. FAQ’s offered by GoDaddy are also quite useful to both beginners and experts using it.

In short, Shopify takes the lead owing to its multiple self-help resources along with 24/7 support options.

Winner: Shopify.

Final Verdict

Both Shopify and GoDaddy differ in many aspects. GoDaddy is easier to use and comes with an intuitive interface but it compromises on features. It is a better option for those looking to build a simpler shop in a short timeframe. The pricing is also cheaper which appeals to beginners and those with a small business.

Shopify on the other hand comes with a huge range of eCommerce functions and tools for those who want to build a full-featured high-end online store. Besides scalable pricing plans, the enormous app market, impressive template library, creative freedom, customization options are praiseworthy. In the end, Shopify comes up as an absolute winner of Shopify vs GoDaddy comparison.