The short version
Ecwid is the cheaper way to add a small shop to a website you already run: its Starter plan costs $5 a month for up to 10 products, and its Venture plan costs $29 a month billed yearly for up to 100 products, the same as Shopify's entry plan. Above 100 products Shopify's subscription costs less, because Ecwid prices its plans by catalog size while every Shopify plan open to new stores sells unlimited products.
Ecwid's Lightspeed Payments charges US accounts 2.9% + 30¢ per transaction, the same as Shopify Payments charges online for US stores on Shopify's entry plan, but that plan adds a 2% fee when orders go through another payment provider, and Ecwid adds none. Ecwid lists no free plan on the pages we read in September 2026, and no Shopify migration page we read names Ecwid, so a later move runs through CSV files or migration apps.
The Quick Verdict
Find your row; the sections below show the prices, limits and sources behind each answer. If your site runs on Squarespace or another builder, first check how Ecwid store pages get indexed there — see the SEO section.
Which platform, by store profile
| Your situation | Pick | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Your site already runs on WordPress or Wix, and you sell 10 products or fewer | Ecwid Starter | $5 a month, but digital products and CSV export, your exit route if you move later, start on Venture; Shopify's cheapest plan open to a new store is its entry plan at $29 a month billed yearly. |
| Up to 100 products on a WordPress or Wix site you want to keep | Ecwid Venture | The same $29 a month billed yearly as Shopify's entry plan, and it embeds in the site you already have. |
| More than 100 products, or a catalog that will keep growing | Shopify | Every Shopify plan open to new stores sells unlimited products; Ecwid's plans above 100 products cost $49 to $119 a month billed yearly, or $65 to $149 billed monthly. |
| You want to keep a payment provider other than the platform's own | Ecwid | No platform transaction fee on any Ecwid plan; Shopify's entry plan adds 2% on orders paid through a provider other than Shopify Payments. Above 100 products, weigh Ecwid Business at $49 a month billed yearly against that 2%, which is $20 per $1,000 of such sales. |
| You're already on Ecwid and outgrowing it | Move to Shopify with a CSV converter or migration app | None of the Shopify migration pages we read in September 2026 names Ecwid, and Ecwid's product export needs its Venture plan or higher. |
What Ecwid Is Today
Key takeaway
Ecwid belongs to Lightspeed Commerce, which is listed on the NYSE and the TSX. Lightspeed announced the closing of its Ecwid acquisition on October 1, 2021, and Ecwid's site now signs itself “Ecwid by Lightspeed.” If you are weighing Lightspeed's in-store side instead, our Shopify POS Pro vs Lightspeed Retail comparison covers that decision.
Ecwid's defining feature is that it doesn't need a site of its own. Its pricing page describes “adding an Ecwid store to an existing website built on WordPress, Wix, Squarespace, or any other platform.” For merchants with no site yet, its Instant Site builder is “a code-free website builder to set up your ecommerce site from scratch.”
If your site runs on WordPress, the other store you can bolt onto it is WooCommerce, and our Shopify vs WooCommerce guide weighs that route. Ecwid itself is sold in four paid plans; in the words of Ecwid's plan guide, “Ecwid offers four plans (Starter, Venture, Business, and Unlimited) to fit the needs of any business.”
Ecwid's Starter plan and Shopify's Starter plan are different products that share a name. Ecwid's is open to new accounts at $5 a month; Shopify's is closed to new stores, as the section on adding a store to your site shows.
If a comparison you read quotes a “Starter” price, check whose plan it means. If you are already on Shopify's Starter plan, our guide to the Shopify Starter plan covers what you keep.
Does Ecwid Still Have a Free Plan?
Key takeaway
Many older comparisons still describe a free Ecwid plan, so this is worth checking before you plan around it. None of the three Ecwid pages we read on September 28, 2026 lists a free plan for new accounts: not the pricing page, not the “Ecwid plans and features” help article, and not the Ecwid homepage. The pricing table there carries four plans, and all four are paid.
The lowest of them is Starter, at $5 a month whether you pay monthly or yearly, for up to 10 products. If a guide you are reading budgets for a free Ecwid store, check the date it was written against Ecwid's current pricing page before you rely on it.
Adding a Store to the Site You Already Have
Key takeaway
For a reader who already has a website, this is the question that separates the two platforms most. Ecwid's whole design assumes you keep your site and drop a store into it. Shopify can do the same, and the ways it does are laid out in our guide to the methods for adding Shopify to an existing website.
The difference is what the lightest option costs a new merchant. Shopify's Starter plan still serves merchants already on it, but Shopify's Help Center now says plainly that it is closed:
The Starter plan isn't available to new stores. If you're a merchant currently on the Starter plan and you decide to change your plan, then you can't revert back to the Starter plan.
So for a new merchant, embedding a Shopify store starts on the Basic plan at $29 a month billed yearly. Ecwid's Starter plan does the same job for $5 a month, and that gap is the clearest price advantage Ecwid has over Shopify, aimed at exactly the small catalog its Starter plan is built for.
What Shopify gives you on that plan is its Buy Button: Shopify's Help Center says “the Buy Button sales channel is included in all Shopify subscription plans,” so the same subscription covers an embedded button and a full store. What the embed can and can't do next to a full storefront is the subject of our Buy Button vs online store comparison.
Embedding or a standalone store, side by side
| What you want | Ecwid | Shopify |
|---|---|---|
| Add a store to a site you already have | The Ecwid store widget, on WordPress, Wix, Squarespace or any other platform | The Buy Button sales channel, included in every Shopify subscription plan |
| Build a standalone store | Instant Site, Ecwid's code-free website builder | Shopify's online store, listed as full-featured on every plan in its pricing table |
| Cheapest plan a new merchant can open | Starter, $5 a month (up to 10 products) | Basic, $29 a month billed yearly or $39 monthly (Starter is closed to new stores) |
Sources: Ecwid pricing page (US, read September 28, 2026); Shopify Help Center pages on the Buy Button and the Starter plan, and Shopify's pricing page, read the same day.
What Ecwid Costs Next to Shopify Basic
Key takeaway
Ecwid's plan ladder is a product-count ladder. Each step up raises how many products you can list, from 10 on Starter to no limit on Unlimited. Shopify doesn't price that way: its pricing page lists “Sell unlimited products” on all four of its plans, so the entry plan is the whole comparison on the Shopify side.
Ecwid's four plans and Shopify's entry plan
| Plan (US) | Billed monthly | Billed yearly, per month | Products |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ecwid Starter | $5 | $5 | Up to 10 |
| Ecwid Venture | $35 | $29 | Up to 100, plus digital products |
| Ecwid Business | $65 | $49 | Up to 2,500 |
| Ecwid Unlimited | $149 | $119 | Unlimited |
| Shopify Basic | $39 | $29 | Unlimited |
Sources: Ecwid pricing (US prices, tax not included, read September 28, 2026) and Shopify pricing.
If you already sell on Ecwid, your bill may have moved this year. According to Ecwid's pricing-change notice, prices for Venture, Business and Unlimited changed as of March 2, 2026, and the new price is charged from the first billing cycle after that date. Starter's price stayed the same.
Which Ecwid Plan Compares to Shopify Basic?
Key takeaway
At 100 products or fewer, the two platforms cost the same on yearly billing. Ecwid's Venture plan and Shopify Basic are both $29 a month billed yearly. Paid month to month, Ecwid's Venture plan is the cheaper of the two by a few dollars: $35 against Shopify Basic at $39 a month.
The picture changes at product 101. Ecwid's next plan, Business, costs $49 a month billed yearly or $65 billed monthly for up to 2,500 products, and Unlimited costs $119 a month billed yearly. A growing catalog therefore moves the Ecwid bill up a step at a time, while the Shopify subscription stays where it was.
What Each Ecwid Plan Unlocks
Key takeaway
Ecwid's plans differ in more than product count. Each feature below first appears on the plan named and stays on every plan above it, according to Ecwid's pricing page and its help center.
Which Ecwid plan each feature needs
| Feature on Ecwid | Lowest Ecwid plan | That plan, billed yearly / monthly |
|---|---|---|
| Digital products (e-books, audio, video classes) | Venture | $29 / $35 |
| Product export to CSV files | Venture | $29 / $35 |
| Advanced SEO tools (sitemap submission, meta name and description per product) | Venture | $29 / $35 |
| Selling on Amazon, eBay and Walmart (via third-party apps, additional fees may apply) | Business | $49 / $65 |
| Custom URL slugs for products and categories | Business | $49 / $65 |
| Staff accounts | Business (2); Unlimited (no limit) | $49 / $65 |
| Syncing with Lightspeed Retail POS (X-Series) | Business | $49 / $65 |
| Syncing with Square or Clover POS (available in limited countries) | Unlimited | $119 / $149 |
Sources: Ecwid pricing page and Ecwid Help Center articles on plans and features and on exporting products, read September 28, 2026 (US prices).
A small catalog can still need a bigger plan. A store with a handful of products and one downloadable guide already needs Venture, and a store that wants to list on Amazon needs Business however few products it carries.
Ecwid's pricing page is ambiguous on in-person selling. Its Unlimited plan card lists “Sell in-person (POS integration)” among Unlimited's additions, while the comparison table on the same page and the help center both tick Lightspeed Retail POS sync from Business. If POS sync is the reason you would pick Business, confirm it with Ecwid before you pay for the plan.
Staff access is one place where Ecwid's Business plan gives more than Shopify's entry plan, though it also costs more. Business lets you invite two employees or partners to manage the store with you, while Ecwid's Starter and Venture plans include no staff accounts. Shopify Basic includes no additional staff accounts beyond the store owner, and Shopify's staff accounts begin on its Grow plan.
Transaction and Card Fees
Key takeaway
Each platform runs a card processor of its own. On Ecwid it is Lightspeed Payments, which Ecwid's Lightspeed Payments page quotes as “flat-rate pricing” of 2.9% + 30¢ per transaction, as read on September 28, 2026. Ecwid's help article on Lightspeed Payments lists that rate for US accounts and says the fee “depends on the country where your Lightspeed Payments account is located,” so confirm the rate your own Ecwid admin shows for your country before you compare.
On Shopify it is Shopify Payments, at 2.9% + 30¢ per online card payment on the Basic plan in the US, falling on higher plans. For a US store at the entry level the two rates are the same, so the processor is not where these platforms differ.
Ecwid's pricing page says: “No, we don't charge any setup or transaction fees on any of our plans.” Its help center adds that Lightspeed Payments and the third-party providers Ecwid supports, such as PayPal and Authorize.Net, may charge fees of their own.
Shopify works differently. When orders are paid through a payment provider other than Shopify Payments, Shopify adds its own transaction fee: 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow and 0.6% on Advanced, per Shopify's pricing page as of September 2026. On Basic that is $20 on every $1,000 of such sales, before the provider's own charges. The plan-by-plan detail is in our breakdown of Shopify's third-party gateway fees.
Is Ecwid Good for SEO? It Depends on the Host Site
Key takeaway
A widget store is only as visible as the pages it lives on, and Ecwid's help article on SEO is specific about what it does on each kind of site. It “adds structured data to all store pages automatically,” in a format that depends on the host, and it adds a caveat: “As of now, it's impossible to edit or remove the structured data.”
What Ecwid does for SEO, by host site
| Where the Ecwid store runs | Structured data | SEO-friendly URLs by default | Static HTML copy for search engines |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ecwid Instant Site | JSON-LD and Microdata | Yes | Yes |
| WordPress | JSON-LD and Microdata | Yes | Yes, with the WordPress plugin |
| Wix | Microdata only | Yes | Yes, with the Wix plugin |
| Any other site builder | Microdata only | Ecwid's examples are “popular site builders like WordPress or Wix” | Not described for other sites |
Source: Ecwid Help Center, “What Ecwid does for SEO”, read September 28, 2026.
Two things follow for your choice. If your site runs on a builder other than Instant Site, WordPress or Wix, check how Ecwid store pages are indexed there before you commit, because Ecwid describes its static HTML copies only for those three. And the SEO controls themselves are plan features: sitemap submission and per-product meta tags start on Venture, custom URL slugs on Business.
A standalone store avoids the host question altogether, whether that is Ecwid's Instant Site or Shopify's online store, which Shopify lists as full-featured on every plan in its pricing table. This article doesn't rank the two platforms on SEO: a fair ranking would need a like-for-like test, and the page relies only on what each company publishes.
Can You Move an Ecwid Store to Shopify?
Key takeaway
Shopify has no Ecwid migration guide on the pages we read. On September 28, 2026, Shopify's migration hub listed ten migration guides (Amazon, Clover, Etsy, eBay, GoDaddy, Lightspeed, Square, Squarespace, Wix and WooCommerce), and none of them, nor the shopify.com/migrate page, nor the Store Migration app's listing, named Ecwid.
One entry on that list is easy to misread. Lightspeed owns Ecwid, but Shopify's guide to migrating from Lightspeed covers Lightspeed Retail's X-Series and R-Series, and as we read it on September 28, 2026 it doesn't mention Ecwid. The route that does exist runs through CSV files in three steps:
If you would rather hand the move to a service, two migration apps list Ecwid among their sources: LitExtension, free to install with pricing based on the data migrated, and Next-Cart, with a free demo tier and paid plans from $150 a month, as their Shopify App Store listings showed on September 28, 2026. How the methods compare on effort and cost is covered in our migration guide's comparison of methods.
If you start on Ecwid's Starter plan, remember the export rule. The product export that the CSV route depends on begins on Venture, so plan for that step before the day you decide to move.
When Ecwid Is Enough — and When It Isn't
Key takeaway
The numbers above favor Ecwid at the small end and Shopify as the store grows, so the decision comes down to where your store will be in a year.
Where Ecwid Is the Sensible Pick
Key takeaway
- Ten products or fewer on a site you already run: Ecwid's Starter plan costs $5 a month, and Shopify has no plan that cheap open to new stores.
- Up to 100 products and a site you want to keep: Venture costs the same $29 a month billed yearly as Shopify's entry plan and embeds where you are.
- A payment provider you want to keep: Ecwid adds no transaction fee on any plan.
Check the plan limits before you settle. Starter has no digital products, no CSV export and no advanced SEO tools, and that CSV export is also your exit route if you move later.
Where Shopify Earns Its Price
Key takeaway
- More than 100 products: Ecwid's plans above that cost $49 to $119 a month billed yearly, or $65 to $149 billed monthly, while every Shopify plan open to new stores sells unlimited products.
- A standalone store rather than a widget, built on Shopify's online store.
- Growth you would rather not re-platform for, since leaving Ecwid later runs through CSV files or third-party apps.
Shopify's side has costs of its own. A new store can't start below the Basic plan, Basic includes no additional staff accounts, and paying through a provider other than Shopify Payments adds a 2% transaction fee on Basic. Those trade-offs are catalogued in our honest list of Shopify's disadvantages, and they are worth reading before you commit either way.
The Bottom Line
Key takeaway
On yearly billing, Ecwid's and Shopify's subscriptions cost the same in the middle and differ at both ends: Ecwid's is cheaper for the smallest catalogs, Shopify's for the larger ones. Your product count and your site decide the rest.
Frequently Asked Questions
Front-end developer specializing in Shopify since 2017. Experienced in building custom Liquid themes, optimizing storefront performance, and integrating third-party apps. Directs the editorial process behind Shopify Ecom: sets each topic, and checks facts, links, and interactive elements before publication.
This article was written entirely by AI under human editorial direction. The editor sets the topic and structure, runs multi-stage validation on facts, links, and interactive elements, and verifies the output is useful from a business perspective. All claims are checked against official Shopify sources. Details may change — always confirm critical data at shopify.com.
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