So you have a business and you are just about ready to finally invest in a website and/or website designer. You have absolutely nooooo idea where to even begin – because in this world, there are basically limitless options.
In this post, I wanted to gather my thoughts on comparing the different platforms to my platform of choice, Showit.
Showit is not always the best option to go if you are a more established, e-commerce business. I always will recommend Showit to my newer small business owners who want to have great SEO and the ability to sell digital products as well. Now, let’s dig into the comparison of these platforms:
I’m starting with this comparison because I cannot tell you how many clients/inquiries ask “but what about WordPress”…
WordPress is an amazing platform and a powerhouse for established businesses that have the money to continually invest in revamps/maintenance of their sites.
If you are not tech savvy, I do not recommend WordPress unless you have the finances to invest in a website designer.
The learning curve of WordPress is intermediate to advanced. It will take time and focus to learn the platform. Most of the time with my past clients, they all have said “I have a WordPress website, but I’m too scared to even touch it.” — this is the exact opposite mindset that I want my clients to have.
Here’s a graphic for the WordPress to Showit comparison.
I had to do a little research to be able to expand on Squarespace, but I found that it’s much more “template” based than I thought.
A lot of testimonials I have read says Squarespace is labeled as “custom websites” but ultimately you still are limited with where you want specific elements to be.
I recommend Squarespace to those who are looking for a beginner e-commerce option. Maybe an Etsy shop owner?
Another part of my research on Squarespace discovered that a lot of people find it’s SEO hard to deal with. If you don’t care about SEO, it wouldn’t matter – however, if you are a SEO fanatic, I’d recommend something else that might be easier to learn for you! Here’s the graphic for the Squarespace to Showit mini comparison:
Oooooh okay. I’m a huge fan of Shopify for e-commerce businesses. I really don’t believe there isn’t a larger and more-advanced platform for online product businesses!
I do not recommend Showit for you if you are looking to have an online boutique, or something very product heavy.
Almost every widely used e-commerce business uses Shopify to an extent and I think it is great for what it’s worth — however, I do believe on Shopify SEO is not treated with much importance, which could be a problem in the long-term.
Here is a graphic to compare Shopify to Showit:
I’m just going to put it out there, I do notttttt like Wix.
First thing, Wix does SEO for you, which is a huge let down for me. I’m someone who wants to be able to manipulate and change EVERYTHING all the way down to SEO. Big hit for me!
Wix is a “drag and drop” platform, but after working on it, I still find Showit to be the better platform that enables elements to be put ANYWHERE.
One downside I see to Wix is that most people use the SAME fonts on each Wix website. About 95% of the time, I can tell if your website was created on Wix before even scrolling halfway down the page.
Lastly, I find Wix’s support to be very slow. This was just in my personal experience, but I thought this was another huge negative!
Here’s a graphic on my comparison for Wix to Showit:
After all that comparison, I wanted to do an additional comparison based solely on price.
Starting off with Wix, I think it compares the best with Showit. I’ll start off by attaching Showit’s price comparisons.
Showit can be pricier compared to other platforms, but in the longterm, I think you would not regret the money spent.
I can admit to you, Showit’s pricing shocked me a little at first and it made me doubt “is it actually worth it?”..
YES MA’AM it is.
I would never say to base your business-website decisions on price alone – that will be doing yourself a huuuge disservice. Instead, look at long-term quality and what you will get out a platform!
Here’s Wix’s price comparison:
As you can see Wix’s top-tier is the same amount as Showit’s top tier!
Here’s Squarespace’s pricing plans:
Squarespace’s basic commerce plan is more than Showit’s basic plan. It’s advanced commerce plan is right at $1 more, which isn’t that bad of a difference.
Here’s WordPress pricing plans:
WordPress.ORG is the self-hosted WordPress platform and it is completely free to users.
However, in order to make your website look amazing, you might need to invest into themes (if not getting a custom designer), plugins and tools to make your website operate the way you want it to.
The pricing varies on how you want your website to look!
Here’s Shopify pricing plans:
Last but not least, we take a look at the Shopify pricing plan comparisons. Here you will notice that Shopify’s pricing is wayyyy up there.
This is because your website has to be capable of huge traffic and lots of storage for products and more. If you are a well-established online product business, I don’t think this pricing would be too much for you!
Hopefully this blogpost was of some sort of help to those trying to look into other website platforms.
As I mentioned in the post above, I will always recommend Showit to small-business owners across the board that want blogging + digital product features! If you have any questions, you can always reach out at @chloecreativestudio on Instagram! 🙂
Chat soon,
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