Shopify vs GoDaddy Website Builder: Which Is Better in 2024?

Shopify vs GoDaddy eCommerce is powerful web-built platform you can use to create an online store. Both platforms are potential names and give online retailers excellent opportunities and also considered nice out-of-the-box solutions. However, choosing an appropriate one is not that easy.

Nevertheless, there is no need to worry about it. To assist you to choose the platform that’s suitable for your online store, within this Shopify comparison series generally and in this article particularly, BSS Commerce Shopify will keep you informed with in-depth content about the two platforms to decide which one is suitable for your business. Therefore, you can make a comparison between Shopify vs GoDaddy eCommerce in many aspects including the cost, features, security, and even more, to be more confident when it’s come to make the final decision.

Let’s dive into it!

Shopify vs GoDaddy Website Builder Overview

Shopify

Shopify is an all-in-one solution that allows users to use a single service to design an online shop, manage products, and handle payments. The platform enables all sorts of online stores to be managed, ranging from small, medium ventures to large businesses with hundreds or even thousands of items in stock.

Shopify was developed in 2004 and has turned into a powerful and well-known solution used to launch versatile and multifunctional web stores. In terms of its capacity and laden features, there is hardly a solution that can be compared to Shopify in terms of eCommerce features.

Shopify also offers access to a myriad of unique resources and features to eCommerce that make it easy for users to get the most out of its features.

In recent years, Shopify has gained over one million active web stores. However, the total number of service customers now accounts for over 3 million users from all parts of the world.

GoDaddy

GoDaddy has been known as a hosting company, but they have extended their capabilities and now offer a website builder complete with eCommerce software over time, making it more of an all-in-one solution.

GoDaddy has gained immense user popularity for its multifaceted nature. The website builder enables all sorts of web projects to be developed and managed, and online stores are not an exception.

GoDaddy was launched in 1997, earlier than Shopify, owing to its web design focus and tool abundance offered, the solution has achieved worldwide prominence. In recent years, there are over 44 million GoDaddy-powered live websites and several more are currently under development.

Differences between GoDaddy vs Shopify eCommerce

Pricing Plan

Comparing GoDaddy vs Shopify pricing is tough because they have two very different products. This comes from the fact that Shopify focuses on online store owners whereas GoDaddy markets to everyone.

There is a 14-day free trial and four premium subscriptions to Shopify. It provides varying price levels and extra features, ranging from $29 to $299 a month based on the package you are on.

Basic Shopify: $29/month
Shopify plan: $79 a month
Advanced Shopify: $299 per month

Shopify Plus for enterprises, high-volume retailers, and big companies. For a personalized quote, you’ll have to email Shopify.

CHECK more about Shopify B2B features included in Shopify pricing plans NOW

A domain name, SSL license, and web hosting are already provided with both of these programs, unlike open-source platforms.

In case you are curious, Shopify offers users a $9/month Lite plan, however, it is not applicable because it is more of an inventory, software for payments than software for an online store builder.

In terms of price, GoDaddy eCommerce offers a one-month free trial that encourages you to try before you decide whether to buy it or not. If you want to see what all the fuss is about before investing a pretty penny, this is very helpful!

GoDaddy has just one price for users to sell online, which is its ‘Ecommerce Plan’ at $24.99 a month (when billed annually).

GoDaddy is one of the cheapest options out there when it comes to e-commerce. However, Shopify provides far more features on their cheapest package than GoDaddy even though it is clear that GoDaddy is definitely cheaper than Shopify. And it doesn’t even note that Shopify has additional levels for advanced stores with even more characteristics.

Shopify vs GoDaddy Payment options

Shopify is flexible with payment options. It accepts a wide range of payment gateways such as PayPal, ApplePay, Amazon Pay, COD (cash on delivery), and cryptocurrencies.

Shopify is less inclusive when it comes to transaction costs. Unless you use the platform’s own portal – Shopify Payments, you are demanded to pay processing fees on all payment gateways. However, there is a way to avoid transaction fees by using Shopify’s own payment gateway.

On the other hand, GoDaddy has three payment gateways, namely Rectangle, Stripe, and PayPal. The drawback to using GoDaddy, though, is that it does not accept payments made through digital wallets. Also, GoDaddy does not charge you transaction fees. The only fee you would be expected to pay is the credit card fee for any order.

Ease of use: Which has a friendly learning curve?

Shopify is indeed one of the most user-friendly solutions on the market in the eCommerce world. Shopify is, in fact, well-built for traders with very little technological know-how. Moreover, Shopify makes it simpler for users to set up an online shop, add items, and tweak the look and sound of users’ sites so that instead of building their own website, users can spend their attention on building the websites.

After users have signed up, the Shopify website building phase begins with a quick and easy free trial. In addition to detailed instructions, the platform boasts a pretty basic configuration. The method of editing is pretty fairly simple. In addition to CSS editing options for those who wish to benefit from more customization and editing capability, the website creator has a drag-and-drop feature.

GoDaddy eCommerce is designed to be convenient to use. In reality, users are in a safe environment from the very first move, since GoDaddy will ask them only to drop copy, accept an aesthetic, and price the goods.

There is no need for users to think about any coding or complicated web development. Start clearly by answering two questions: What are you selling? And what is it called your store?

From there, GoDaddy eCommerce constructs the entire user environment, and all they have to do is personalize it: upload photos of products and select colors and fonts.

After that, users are able to begin to build the site. GoDaddy eCommerce boldly proclaims that it is a “three-step” builder, so you know that there is nothing challenging involved. The dashboard is easy to use until the site is ready to go, and it is just as easy to edit any pages as the configuration.

Design of Shopify vs GoDaddy

Shopify comes with up to 60 exclusive themes to choose from. These themes are designed by independent Shopify web designers, many of whom have been designed by world-renowned creators. The cost of the themes ranges from $140 to $180, if you find it expensive, you can also choose from 10 free themes if you are on a tight budget. If you cannot find one of around 170 themes that suits your needs, you can either build your own.

In terms of functionality, Shopify’s themes offer a commodity zoom element that creates a greater experience for users. Installing and applying Shopify themes to customize the look of the store is also pretty simple for users. The owner of Shopify says that to create a beautiful online store, you don’t need any technical or design experience. In addition, the packaged themes are pleasing, and they are beautiful and simple too which ensures they can show well on all platforms.

Check out Top 15 Best Free Shopify Themes

The ADI of GoDaddy has the capacity to build over 1500 different kinds of unique websites. There are approximately 19 theme variants for each industry it caters to but bear in mind that once your site is generated, you cannot be able to customize freely.

GoDaddy has simple-designed templates, therefore, for those who are looking for catchy, stunning, and standing-out templates, GoDaddy would not be an appropriate choice.

Marketing Potentials between Shopify vs GoDaddy

Marketing tools

Shopify provides users a myriad of marketing resources that can be simply used, from built-in SEO tools to an easy-to-navigate blogging engine where store owners can keep their clients up to date. Shopify’s marketing functionality undoubtedly comes up trumps in terms of ease of use.

Shop marketing features include:

Campaign creation
Email marketing
Google Smart Shopping
Facebook Ads
Access a virtual assistant to whom you can delegate duties and receive marketing tips from

See more: Top 10 Best Shopify Apps For Email Marketing

GoDaddy has impressive marketing-tool resources. They allow users a wide range of useful, efficient, and powerful features to help them stand out in the eCommerce market, including:

Send email marketing without cost and abandoned cart recovery emails
Integrate with social selling and online marketplaces
Send SMS notifications
SEO tools
Enable customers to leave product reviews
GoDaddy has impressive marketing-tool resources

SEO

Shopify is known as an SEO-friendly platform that makes it possible to customize web stores created with it for search engines by using Analytic and statistical tracking tools to fill out special parameters.

Shopify allows users to set up and bring up-to-date simple SEO parameters for more efficient web store optimization. Eventually, this guarantees high positions in the search engines for their project. In addition, it enables simple SEO settings to be changed, such as meta tags for different web pages and categories, titles, descriptions, image ALT tags, and so on. Based on the project’s SEO criteria, it’s up to users to fill them out.

Shopify makes it easy for users to follow the statistics of their web store, evaluate its existing locations, traffic fluctuations, and sources, as well as other important factors impacting the development of users’ web stores in the search engines. Moreover, Shopify can create a sitemap for users’ online stores automatically, which matters a lot to first-timers.

You may also interest in Best SEO Apps for Shopify Site Optimization

In terms of SEO, GoDaddy provides an advanced SEO Wizard that allows to frame-up search engine parameters for users’ web store optimization. Filling in meta tags, setting up redirects for website pages and the whole website are all the things that users need to do.

The downside of GoDaddy’s service is the lack of integrated instruments for gathering data. Users need to incorporate Google Analytics to monitor the amount of traffic and origins, the number of active and returning users, common sites, and other criteria correlated with the web store.

Blogging

Shopify comprises a pretty good blogging engine that helps users to link and maintain a blog filled with laden-features. Also, The platform helps make the levels of customers’ interest better, keeping them aware of news and developments for store owners.

GoDaddy provides an advanced blogging engine that allows users to build and link their online shop to a blog. This is where posts can be inserted and handled, comments functionality activated, and blog templates chosen to draw clients’ attention.

Apps & Integrations

Compared to Shopify, GoDaddy lacks useful app integration, which is somehow their weakness. Not only does Shopify have more features built directly into their platform, but they now have a well-established app store that offers free and premium applications to expand the store with all the features you might need.

15+ Best Free Shopify Apps with Full Features to Boost Sales

Shopify has over 1,200 integrations from dropshipping apps to social media plugins, to allow you ever more power over your store and what you can do for a successful online business.

Security of Shopify vs GoDaddy eCommerce

Through its wide variety of anti-fraud and consumer security tools, Shopify has exemplified the standard in all of its online shop packages. While Shopify goes with a basic free SSL certificate, GoDaddy does not. Shopify composes a free SSL certificate guaranteeing that all consumer data is properly encrypted, including names, addresses, and credit card details. In addition, this credential serves as a promise to the clients, not a fake one, and ensures that they are shopping and buying in a legitimate store.

Shopify also implements a vulnerability detection policy for the entire network to meet PCI standards, as well as conducting periodic on-site audits to ensure consistent enforcement.

GoDaddy’s approach stems from protection from its main business as a web host. As so, ransomware and blacklisting services are built into their online shops. Besides, users can probably purchase an SSL certificate at checkout from GoDaddy for upwards of $49.99. GoDaddy comes with inbuilt malware and blacklisting services to make up for the absence of a free SSL license, it also has a defense portfolio that prevents DDoS and brute assaults.

Customer Services and Support

Shopify provides plenty of different platforms and opportunities to keep in touch with their support staff with respect to customer support. Users can choose any of the following methods: phone and live chat, forums and directories of information, beginner’s guide tours after signing up, pages of social media, and email. To fix your problems alone, Shopify never leaves you absolutely, and that is an important promise to have.

GoDaddy offers users with FAQ section, 24/7 live chat support, phone support, live-chat channels, extensive community, and knowledge base. It also has a dedicated account on Twitter that easily responds to queries. Users will have access to a knowledge base where the information available can be accessed.

Compare Shopify vs GoDaddy: Pros and Cons

Shopify’s Pros

Shopify is incredibly flexible, representing one of the best ways to start selling online using a hosted solution for its ‘Lite’ plan. Merchants can start with the simple plan of Shopify and upgrade quickly to technologies that fit even enterprise-level organizations.
Shopify has come with extensive online selling and store management tools.
The point-of-sale (POS) options are excellent and set Shopify apart from its rivals.
Shopify a nice option for anyone who is interested in dropshipping.
There are no transaction costs if you use Shopify Purchases, the built-in payment processing system.
It provides a wide range of free, responsive, and attractive templates.
Thanks to a wide number of third-party applications, you can quickly expand Shopify’s capabilities.
VAT MOSS rates are measured and added by Shopify automatically.
AMP versions of product pages can be generated (albeit with the support / extra expense of a third-party app).
Shopify offers great customer support, 24/7 live chat.
You can easily manage the store while using a mobile app
All the themes for Shopify are elegant and new. You can get a skilled store up and running in no time at all, even without construction experience.
To encourage you to control your store on the go, both iOS and Android apps are provided.

Utilizing Shopify Features to Build and Grow Your Online Store in 2024

Shopify’s Cons

To begin with, Shopify’s several features may also feel daunting. As such, while you familiarize yourself with what the app has to offer, there’s a bit of a learning curve.
If you use a third-party payment gateway, processing costs are inevitable.
Shopify Payments enable you to sell only from certain nations. You would need to use a third-party payment gateway if you wish to sell from a different region.
Professional reporting functionality is only given on more pricey plans.

GoDaddy’s Pros

GoDaddy is a reasonably-priced option for start-ups, easy web hosting, security, website building tools.
Website builders can easily make improvements quickly and post updates almost immediately.
Websites from GoDaddy come with trustworthy hosting and domain names.
Its delegation of account access with full control over hosting and DNS.
Because of its restrictive policies, it keeps your website out of spam and attacks.
There is a smartphone app available, so when you’re on the move, you can edit it with ease.
Users can have access to customer service 24/7. There are excellent hours of availability for customer service. It is good to have the chance to get in contact with the staff immediately when things go wrong.

GoDaddy’s Cons

The eCommerce capabilities of GoDaddy are much more constrained and limited compared to those of Shopify. For this platform, eCommerce isn’t a priority.
GoDaddy websites are not visually appealing as other website builders.
Changing to cPanel would enable the entire website to be downloaded and uploaded, a hassle for anyone who has big files.

Which is Better: Shopify vs GoDaddy?

	Shopify	GoDaddy	Winner
Price	Shopify has a 14-day free trial and other four premium subscriptions. Their prices begin at $9/mo, with the Lite plan.	GoDaddy provides users with a one-month free trial and four paid plans. Their pricing starts at $12.95/mo, while the eCommerce premium price is $29.95/mo.	Shopify
Ease of use	Shopify is considered as a quite simple platform that is easy to build. The system’s dashboard is intuitive and understandable, while the method of drag-and-drop editing helps produce great outcomes with minimal effort and time commitment.	GoDaddy is a DIY website builder that enables various types of projects to be launched, including small and mid-sized businesses. For newbies, the platform is very simple and convenient and it also provides options for hosting/domain name collection, which adds to its effectiveness and ease of use.	GoDaddy
Design	The system’s design set is not rich, but all of the templates are designed with high quality. Here, there are over 70 free and paid themes that are both adjustable and receptive.	About 305 templates are composed by the website designers. The designs are free of charge, responsive, and completely customizable.	Shopify
Marketing	Shopify is an SEO-friendly platform that makes it easy to customize the web stores. In addition, the platform provides a pretty good blogging engine, which allows a feature-laden blog to be linked and controlled. There are also an array of third-party apps with supplementary built-in plus features that can be helpful for businesses’ marketing campaigns.	GoDaddy provides an advanced SEO Wizard allowing frame-up search engine parameters for users’ web store optimization, therefore, users can go through all the stages of the configuration process with optimum usefulness and ease. Besides, there is an advanced blogging engine enabling users to build and link their online shop to a blog.	Shopify
Security	Through its wide variety of anti-fraud and consumer security tools, Shopify has exemplified the standard in all of its online shop packages.	Its approach stems from protection from its main business as a web host. The pre-installed security portfolio also protects against attacks by DDoS and brute force to keep your store safe from malicious factors.	Tie
Customer Services and Support	Shopify offers users excellent-fast support with Shopify Help Center, Rich Forum, eCommerce University, 24/7 phone and live chat support, among other channels like social media, email, and a forum.	GoDaddy offers FAQ section, 24/7 Live Chat, and phone support, email, extensive community, and Knowledge Base, but not as fast and efficient like Shopify.	Shopify

Wrapping Up

Is Shopify better than GoDaddy? Both GoDaddy and Shopify have nice features that can help eCommerce businesses succeed, but Shopify does better with eCommerce functionality after all. GoDaddy has competitive prices and a low learning curve, yet they are positioned on top by Shopify’s bag full of customized designs and protection.

There is an explanation of why Shopify is the best app on the market. It’s best to provide the tools you need to create an e-commerce empire with online shop aspirations of any scale. On the other hand, GoDaddy is perfect for users who want to easily create an online shop, and who don’t need too many complicated sales resources. Essentially, GoDaddy is a decent choice if you don’t have the patience to waste hours creating an online shop.

In all, it is recommendable that Shopify is suitable for almost any online store. It balances simplicity with complexity in all the right areas and it is easy to build a Shopify store, and you have access to some of the most powerful sales tools on the market.