Clickfunnels vs Shopify: Which Platform Should You Sell on?

You've made the exciting decision to take your business online or start a new online venture. Even with your business plan and product ready, you're still unsure where to sell. You're wondering which platform to choose between two major eCommerce giants: Clickfunnels vs Shopify. But how do you decide which one is best for your business?

In this Clickfunnels vs Shopify comparison, we’ll look at key factors to help you choose the right platform. By the end of this article, you’ll have a clearer idea of which option is best for you. Let’s dive in!

ClickFunnels vs Shopify: A Quick Breakdown

ClickFunnels was founded in 2014 by American entrepreneurs Russel Brunson and Todd Dickerson. It's a tool designed to help businesses automate their online marketing and sales processes. With ClickFunnels, users can build landing pages, sales pages, order forms, and membership sites, all aimed at turning visitors into customers.

Since its launch, ClickFunnels has grown rapidly, with over 100,000 users worldwide using the platform to market and sell their products. In 2021, ClickFunnels introduced 'ClickFunnels 2.0,' a new version of the platform with extra features like a website builder, a CRM system, and tools for selling online courses.

On the other hand, Shopify was founded in 2006 in Canada by Tobias Lütke, who originally built it to sell snowboards online. Unsatisfied with existing tools, he created his own solution, which later evolved into Shopify.

From the start, Shopify has been entirely focused on selling products. It offers store templates, a payment processor, a content management system, hosting, a blog, and an app store with integrations to extend its functionality. Shopify has helped generate over $1 trillion in sales and is used by millions of merchants across 175 countries, powering over 5.4 million online stores.

Now that we’ve covered the basics of ClickFunnels and Shopify, let’s explore how easy they are to use.

Features Comparison: ClickFunnels vs Shopify

Let's take a brief lock at this quick table of comparison to have a better overall view first:

1. User Friendliness

Based on our thorough testing of both platforms, Shopify is much easier to use than ClickFunnels. Its interface and content management system (CMS) are more visually appealing and simpler to navigate than what ClickFunnels offers.

Shopify User Friendliness

Shopify makes it simple to begin an online business without needing any coding skills. Its user-friendly templates and drag-and-drop builder allow you to set up a website quickly.

Shopify getting started is simple: after answering a few questions, Shopify customizes its features to suit your needs. From there, you can open your store, upload product images and descriptions, and set up shipping and payment options. The navigation is clear, with most sections accessible from the left-hand menu in your dashboard.

For instance, adding a new section to a Shopify page presents you with clear, straightforward options, making it easy to find and create the exact content you need.

ClickFunnels User Friendliness

ClickFunnels can be a bit complicated when you first create a new account. Unlike Shopify, which only requires basic information like your name, email, and phone number, ClickFunnels also asks for your card number. This might cause hesitation for some users, as they may not be ready to provide their payment details right away.

Moreover, ClickFunnels offers hundreds of options for adding sections, which can feel overwhelming. The experience is further complicated by the bold and somewhat harsh typography used in many ClickFunnels templates.

Additionally, Shopify’s interface is significantly faster than ClickFunnels. While building pages in ClickFunnels, it often causes frustration by how long it took for certain pages and tools to load.

In terms of the ease of use, Shopify is the obvious winner.

2. Design Capabilities

While both Shopify and ClickFunnels have some limitations in design flexibility, Shopify stands out because it offers many free modern themes and allows you to customize your store’s design.

Shopify Design Flexibility

With Shopify, you can choose from over 200 themes available in the Shopify themes store, both free and paid. The paid themes range from $150 to $480, and you can filter them by industry to find the best fit for your business. 

Shopify also offers better built-in template features. Its templates include options that ClickFunnels lacks, such as the ability to create 'mega menus' for your products, user-friendly navigation with 'breadcrumbs', age verification, and 'infinite scroll' capabilities.

All Shopify themes are specially designed to be SEO-friendly and work well on mobile devices. Switching between themes is easy, but you might need to reformat your content for some.

For an even easier way to personalize your Shopify store, you can use the Shopify apps, it allows you to customize your store without coding, giving you access to various integrations. 

ClickFunnels Design Flexibility

In ClickFunnels, you have only 8 website/store themes, and each one comes in just a single variation.

While opinions on quality may vary, Shopify’s store themes are far superior to those of ClickFunnels. Shopify’s templates are much more elegant and visually appealing compared to the more corporate look of ClickFunnels themes.

Since ClickFunnels was originally designed as a funnel-building tool rather than an eCommerce platform, its store templates and design features often resemble landing pages with additional pages, rather than fully developed eCommerce designs.

However, this can be both a strength and a weakness. For the type of selling that ClickFunnels users typically engage in—where an online ad directs visitors to a sales page encouraging a specific conversion—this focus on simple, distraction-free pages can be very effective.

Additionally, ClickFunnels offers more options for templates aimed at building sales funnels for your products than Shopify does.

ClickFunnels vs Shopify: Code Customization

Both ClickFunnels and Shopify allow you to add custom CSS and JavaScript code to your pages, but Shopify gives you full access to your theme’s code.

To modify a Shopify theme, you use a special programming language called ‘Liquid.’ This easy-to-use language works with HTML and CSS, letting you add tags, operators, and variables for dynamic content.

Being able to edit the theme code is significant because it provides more control over your store’s features and design. By adjusting Shopify’s code, you can improve your site’s loading times and overall performance, which can enhance user experience and boost conversion rates.

3. Sales Funnel Features

An online sales funnel builder is software that helps businesses create, manage, and improve sales funnels to guide potential customers towards different stages of the buying process.

ClickFunnels Sales Funnel Features

Given its name, it’s no surprise that ClickFunnels focuses heavily on sales funnel creation. The platform offers everything you need to build automated sales funnels right from the start. Key features include:

• 14 ready-made funnel templates: These templates cover various types of funnels, such as lead funnels, unboxing funnels, presentation funnels, storefront funnels, and webinar funnels.
• A drag-and-drop funnel builder: This tool allows you to edit funnel templates, create custom funnels from scratch, add different types of pages (like landing pages and checkout pages), and design lead capture forms.
• Upsells and downsells: This feature lets you encourage consumers to buy a higher version of a product or offer a cheaper alternative if they hesitate or decline the higher-priced option.

Each funnel template in ClickFunnels offers various styles, and the funnel editor makes it easy to personalize these templates to fit your brand and the products you want to sell.

Shopify Sales Funnel Features

So, how does Shopify compare when it comes to selling through sales funnels?

If you're looking for dedicated sales funnel-building features like those in ClickFunnels, you should know that Shopify doesn't offer any right out of the box.

To use tools similar to ClickFunnels on your Shopify store, you'll need to visit the Shopify app store to find and purchase a funnel-building app, and there are many options available.

Our recommendation is EComposer Page Builder (starting at $19 per month), it gives you all types of templates to create high-converting pages and create a comprehensive sales funnel, no code needed but lots of elements offering.

Interestingly, even though Shopify doesn’t have a specific feature for creating sales funnels, it does provide many of the key elements you need for a sales funnel.

For example, you can create blog posts, which are essential for inbound marketing. Plus, Shopify supports multiple sales channels like Facebook, Instagram, and Google, helping you attract potential customers and raise awareness of your products.

4. eCommerce Features

Both ClickFunnels and Shopify provide powerful eCommerce tools to help your business succeed. 

When comparing these two platforms, it’s essential to look at their built-in eCommerce features, and both Shopify and ClickFunnels have their strengths.

Shopify eCommerce features

Shopify offers a range of robust built-in features, here are just some of the highlight ones:

(Image Source: https://www.shopify.com/products)

• Product Management: You can easily include new products through the back-end interface or by importing CSV files. Entering product details is simple, and you can categorize your items easily.
• Inventory Tracking: Shopify helps you manage your inventory effectively, which prevents selling out-of-stock products. However, creating sub-categories requires additional apps. The default system allows a maximum of three product variants and up to 100 combinations.
• Abandoned Cart Recovery: All pricing plans have this feature. It helps you understand why customers didn’t complete their purchases and lets you send follow-up emails. Shopify also offers tools like automatic tax calculations, a logo maker, and a QR code generator.

ClickFunnels eCommerce features

ClickFunnels is also a great choice for beginners looking for an easy yet powerful platform to set up their store funnels. Here are some key features:

• Website Building Tool: You can choose to create a custom sales funnel from scratch, including opt-in forms, checkout carts, and payment integration, etc. However, it’s better suited for experienced users, so beginners should start with the available templates.
• Customer Relationship Management (CRM) System: This tool will help you gather valuable customer data, allowing you to tailor your strategies. You'll gain insights into social media profiles, spending habits, preferences, and locations.
• Action Funnels: Combine your sales and email campaigns with action funnels for a complete marketing approach. Use the If This Then That (IFTTT) feature to automate tasks, like adding customers to your mailing list and sending a thank-you email after a purchase.

5. SEO and Marketing

ClickFunnels vs Shopify: SEO

Managing key SEO tasks like changing page titles, editing meta descriptions, creating redirects, and adding headings or alt text is straightforward on both Shopify and ClickFunnels.

Regarding hosting, neither platform gives you direct control, but both offer reliable loading times since they have fast hosting and use a content delivery network (CDN). You can also connect either platform to Cloudflare for even faster loading speeds.

Shopify has an edge over ClickFunnels in helping you meet Google’s Core Web Vitals targets. It has many apps in its app store designed for this purpose, along with a dashboard report that lets you track how well your store is performing against these important metrics.

Shopify’s new web performance dashboard

In the end, both tools offer a solid amount of SEO features to help you optimize your eCommerce pages, so when it comes to SEO, they are likely equal.

ClickFunnels vs Shopify: Marketing  

Both ClickFunnels and Shopify offer built-in email marketing tools that allow you to create and grow mailing lists and send newsletters to your subscribers.

However, Shopify is more generous when it comes to email marketing. With the Shopify Email app, you can send up to 10,000 emails every month for free. After that, it costs $1 for every additional 1,000 emails, with discounts for high-volume users.

In contrast, ClickFunnels charges $0.67 for every 1,000 emails sent through its email marketing tool. So, while you can send 10,000 emails for free with Shopify, it would cost you $6.75 on top of your ClickFunnels subscription to do the same.

Both platforms let you verify email addresses on your contact list. ClickFunnels integrates with the ‘Emailable’ validation service, which costs $2.50 per 1,000 validations. Shopify offers various email validation apps in its app store, both free and paid.

Apart from email marketing, Shopify also works well with Google and Facebook, making it easy to create ads for these platforms. If these tools don’t cover everything you need, you can always find and add more marketing apps from the Shopify marketplace to enhance your marketing strategies.

6. Apps and Integrations

The features of an online store are crucial for sellers of all sizes because they impact customer experience and how you manage your store behind the scenes. 

This makes the variety of apps and integrations available on a platform a key factor in your decision. Shopify and ClickFunnels provide two very different options in this area.

Shopify Apps and Integrations

The Shopify App Store has over 8,000 free and paid apps that offer a wide range of features.

These apps allow you to add extra features to your Shopify store, such as store design, SEO improvements, dropshipping, and print-on-demand services. They also enable you to link your Shopify store to various important business applications, like Amazon, Facebook, or Tiktok.

This collection allows sellers to enhance their Shopify stores to meet changing needs, improve customer experiences, and streamline operations.

ClickFunnels Apps and Integrations

In comparison, ClickFunnels has a much smaller app store, featuring only 20 apps as of now. This limited selection includes popular integrations with email marketing platforms such as GetResponse, Mailchimp, and ActiveCampaign, as well as SMS tools like Twilio and collaboration tools like Slack.

However, ClickFunnels can connect with syncing tools like Zapier and Pabbly, allowing you to add thousands of extra integrations. However, the downside is that using these tools usually comes with extra monthly fees and requires some setup time.

7. Payment and Fees

A payment gateway is software that handles credit card payments for your online store.

For online sellers, having access to various payment gateways can make it simple for customers to pay. This flexibility can improve customer satisfaction and, in turn, boost sales by accommodating different payment preferences and regional options.

ClickFunnels Payment and Fees

With ClickFunnels, the only payment gateway you can use is called "Payments AI." This AI-driven solution improves transaction routing to boost success rates and revenue. It supports over 110 payment methods and multiple currencies, providing features like smart routing, automatic updates, and fraud detection to keep payments safe and efficient.

The typical transaction fee for Payments AI is 2.9% plus 30 cents for each transaction.

Payments AI can technically work with five other popular gateways: Stripe, Klarna, PayPal, NMI, and Coinbase. However, if you use Payments AI alongside one of these for your ClickFunnels sales, you'll incur an extra transaction fee of 1% for each transaction.

Additionally, there's a 0.5% fee on any recurring subscription sales for your ClickFunnels products.

Shopify Payment and Fees

Shopify provides much more payment gateway options. The platform connects with over 100 different payment gateways, including all the major ones like Stripe, PayPal, Worldpay, 2Checkout, and Braintree.

Depending on your Shopify plan, you’ll incur a transaction fee of 0.6% to 2% when using a third-party payment gateway. However, you can avoid these extra fees entirely by using Shopify's own payment gateway, called 'Shopify Payments.'

Depending on your Shopify plan, credit card processing fees for Shopify Payments range from 

• 2.5% + 30 cents to 2.9% + 30 cents for online sales, 
• And from 2.4% + 10 cents to 2.6% + 10 cents for in-person payments.

Keep in mind that Shopify Payments isn’t available in every country. If you live in a country that doesn’t support it, you'll need to use a third-party payment option, which may incur extra fees.

Overall, Shopify has an advantage in payment acceptance, as it offers many more payment gateway integration options than ClickFunnels, and its transaction fees can be lower depending on the plan.

8. Shipping & Dropshipping

ClickFunnels vs Shopify: Shipping

In ClickFunnels, you can handle basic shipping settings using the shipping dashboard in your workspace. This lets you:

• Set overall shipping rates
• Create specific shipping profiles
• Define shipping zones
• Filter products by different criteria to apply various rates
• Set specific rules for each shipping zone

You can also connect two shipping services, ‘Shippo’ and ‘Shipstation,’ to your account.

However, Shopify offers much more extensive shipping options. With Shopify, you can:

• Get discounts of up to 88% from major carriers like USPS, UPS, DHL, and Canada Post.
• Show real-time shipping rates at checkout, ensuring customers see accurate costs (available through the ‘Shopify Shipping’ service or with third-party carriers, depending on your plan).
• Enjoy free shipping insurance for shipments valued up to $200.
• Access significant discounts from USPS for small packages under 20 pounds and less than 1 cubic foot (through USPS Priority Mail Cubic® and USPS Parcel Select Ground programs).

In addition to these built-in tools, Shopify’s app store has nearly 3000 shipping-related apps, including official integrations with services like DHL, Shippo, Shipstation, and DPD, as well as apps for extra shipping services like exchanges, order tracking, and label printing.

Overall, Shopify's extensive shipping features give it the advantage here.

ClickFunnels vs Shopify: Dropshipping

Dropshipping is one of the popular ways for online sellers to do business. With dropshipping, you can sell products without needing to create or keep any inventory. When a customer buys something, your store orders it from a third-party supplier, who then packages and ships it directly to the customer.

Shopify is far superior to ClickFunnels for dropshipping selling, it offers access to more than 600 dropshipping apps. These tools let you easily connect your store with suppliers, automate order processing, and manage sales effectively.

You can use ClickFunnels for dropshipping, but it's not very easy. ClickFunnels doesn't directly connect with major fulfillment platforms, which makes it harder to sell these products.

However, you can use third-party syncing tools like Zapier and Pabbly, or create custom integrations to connect ClickFunnels with your suppliers.

For dropshipping, Shopify is the clear winner.

9. Community and Forums

ClickFunnels Community Spaces

One helpful feature in ClickFunnels that Shopify lacks is the ‘Community Spaces’ tool. This tool acts like a forum builder, enabling online sellers to create active digital communities for their products.

This feature is especially beneficial for ClickFunnels users who sell online courses and webinars. It allows them to set up interactive spaces where community members can have discussions, share resources, and access various media.

Forum administrators can set up and manage groups and topics, adjust privacy settings and permissions, and oversee the content.

Shopify Community 

To create a similar community space for a Shopify store, you'll need to add a community management app like ‘Shopical’ or ‘HouseParty’ from the Shopify app store. This will require extra fees and some setup time. So, ClickFunnels wins here.

10. Customer Support

Shopify Customer Support

Support is an essential feature available in all Shopify plans, and reaching out to their support team is easy. You can reach them out through email and live chat, and their support pages are available in 21 different languages. If you’re a ‘Shopify Plus’ customer, you also have the option for phone support.

Shopify provides excellent customer support. Like other eCommerce platforms, you can get help from Shopify experts and other users in the forum or find answers in their documents and video tutorials. The Shopify Changelog is also available for the latest updates.

You can access live support 24/7 through email, live chat, and phone via the Shopify Help Center, with typical response times of just a few minutes.

In addition to chatting with support staff, you can use the Shopify Chatbot for quick answers to your questions, as it can guide you through the help documentation while you wait for assistance.

ClickFunnels Customer Support

Both ClickFunnels and Shopify offer customer support through AI chatbots, live chat, and email options. However, ClickFunnels only provides live chat from Monday to Friday during office hours (8 am to 8 pm EST).

Both platforms also have extensive help centers filled with step-by-step guides on how to use their features. Shopify's help center materials are available in 20 different languages, thanks to a language dropdown menu at the top. In contrast, ClickFunnels' help materials are only available in English.

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Pricing Comparison: ClickFunnels vs Shopify

1. ClickFunnels pricing plans

ClickFunnels offers two pricing plans:

• Startup: $97 per month
• Pro: $297 per month

If you pay for a year upfront, you can get a 16% discount, which lowers the Startup plan to $81 per month and the Pro plan to $248 per month.

Both plans provide access to the same features, such as unlimited funnels, courses, pages, domains, contacts, and members.

The main differences between the two plans are:

• Brand workspaces: 3 for Startup and 10 for Pro
• Users: 3 for Startup and 10 for Pro

ClickFunnels also provides a free trial for 14 days, allowing you to test the platform.

2. Shopify pricing plans

Shopify has five pricing plans:

• Starter: $5 per month
• Basic: $39 per month
• Shopify: $105 per month
• Advanced: $399 per month
• Plus: custom pricing starting at $2,300 per month

You can save 25% on the Basic, Shopify, and Advanced plans by paying for a year upfront, which lowers the monthly costs to $29, $79, and $299, respectively.

Additionally, Shopify has a credits system that allows you to apply 1% of your monthly sales toward your subscription fees. This offer is temporary and may not be available everywhere, so check if it's an option in your country.

Shopify also offers a free trial, which usually lasts for 3 days, but there’s a current promotion extending it to 1 month for just $1.

The Starter plan at $5 per month lets you start selling online for much less than ClickFunnels’ lowest plan. However, it doesn’t provide a full online store. Instead, you can:

• Sell items on social media channels like Instagram and Facebook
• Use messaging apps like WhatsApp to sell products
• Add a “Shopify Button” to your existing website for a shopping cart
• Create a basic storefront with limited customization

The main differences between the other plans include:

• User access: Higher plans allow more users (1 for Basic, 5 for Shopify, and 15 for Advanced)
• Reporting features: Available on the Shopify plan and higher
• Third-party shipping rates: Available from Advanced Shopify plan and higher
• Ecommerce automations: Only available on the Shopify plan and above

The Plus plan is designed for large businesses, offering advanced features for security, APIs, fulfillment, and marketing automation. The fees for this plan are negotiable, but expect to pay at least $2,300 per month.

For more details on the differences between Shopify plans, check out our articles on Shopify pricing and Shopify Plus.

The Pros & Cons: ClickFunnels vs Shopify

For more details on the pros and cons of Shopify, click the link to learn more.

Final Verdict: Which Platform Should You Sell on?

Both ClickFunnels and Shopify are great for building a website, depending on your store’s goals. Each platform is suited for different types of entrepreneurs.

ClickFunnels is ideal for entrepreneurs focused on creating a sales pitch for a particular product or service, with options to upsell and cross-sell. Each product has its own sales funnel.

Shopify is suitable for entrepreneurs who want to create a store with multiple rows or pages of products. It includes everything you need, like a shopping cart and credit card processing, making it a complete solution for many online stores.

Ultimately, the choice is yours to make based on what suits your needs best. We hope this blog has provided helpful information into how Shopify and ClickFunnels function and how they differ from each other to make your best decision.

FAQs

1. What is the difference between Shopify vs ClickFunnels?

Shopify is mainly an e-commerce platform designed to help businesses sell physical and digital products online. It offers features like product catalogs, shopping carts, payment gateways, and order management.

ClickFunnels is a sales funnel builder. Its primary focus is on creating and optimizing sales funnels to optimize and convert website visitors into customers. It offers tools for building landing pages, sales pages, upsell pages, and more.

2. Does Shopify have a funnel builder?

Yes, Shopify does have a funnel builder. While it's not as robust as dedicated funnel builders like ClickFunnels, it offers a basic funnel-building functionality that can be useful for many online stores. Shopify's funnel builder is integrated with its other e-commerce features, making it easier for merchants to create and manage their sales processes.

3. What are the disadvantages of ClickFunnels?

While ClickFunnels is a powerful tool, it has some drawbacks:

• ClickFunnels pricing can be expensive
• Limited Customization compared to other website builders or coding platforms.
• The platform can be complex to learn
• Lack of Built-in SEO Tools