Shopify vs Clickfunnels

In this post I’m going to put Shopify vs Clickfunnels to the test. So if you’re looking for a DEEP comparison of these two popular SAAS tools, you’ve come to the right place. Because in today’s post I’m going to compare Clickfunnels vs. Shopify in terms of:

• Dropshipping
• Building sales funnels
• Online stores
• Shopify and Clickfunnels integration
• Unique features
• And lots more

Let’s do this!

Shopify vs Clickfunnels 2023 TL;DR

The main difference between Clickfunnels and Shopify: Clickfunnels is used for building sales funnels and Shopify is for building online shops.

Here are a few more areas where these two software platforms differ:

• Learn how to send follow-up emails with Clickfunnels
• Find flexibility in plugins and templates with Shopify
• Clickfunnels is best for directing customers in a certain direction to encourage purchase
• Shopify is best for beautifying your shop as well as cataloguing your products

Introducing: The Two Competitors

Shopify

First, we have Shopify: arguably the most popular platform in which entrepreneurs make their first websites. With Shopify’s services, you are able to build a proper, scalable business with no inventory and very minimal starting cost. In fact, if we consider the free-trial session as the beginning of your business, on Day 1 of your entrepreneurship journey, there’s a total ZERO in cost! Needless to say, the entry barrier is super low, making starting a business that much easier for you.

We have to say, Shopify is easily one of the most convenient ways you can use to build a business. Because of how friendly the interface is, you don’t really have to know how to code in HTML or CSS. This might hinder your ability to fully customize your website, but it’s still good enough to the point where people have been generating six-figures just with the default options available on the platform. It is NOT a funneling service, but it’s still good enough of an online store builder. You can still convert your customer,  but maybe not as well as you could with a store that uses Shopify for its website and another funnel builder.

Clickfunnels

Clickfunnels is another thriving business thanks to the advancements made in technology and the Internet. Similar to Shopify, it does a great job of reducing starting costs for most businesses, whether it be online or offline. More importantly, it’s a great way for you to create an online presence and even generate revenue there, creating two sources of cash flow. With this, you shouldn’t have too much of an issue interacting with your potential customers on the Internet and making enticing landing pages.

As a funnel builder, Clickfunnels does a great job. It seems like the development team of this company knows exactly what a starting entrepreneur might be looking for, whether it be something as obvious as video hosting features to something more obscure like finding convenient ways to purchase SSL Certifications. All in all, this is a funnel builder that around 400,000 users (August 2020) have been super happy with. It has one of the most credible and cost-effective plans out there, making it a great buy!

Although we are comparing Shopify and Clickfunnels today, they ultimately provide two different services for two different aspects of a business. Shopify is more about building a website and organizing the sales after customers have purchased their products, hence the convenient sales management page. You have Clickfunnels taking care of what happens in between when customers first visit the page. Your funnel created via services provided by Clickfunnels will help you generate leads at the very least, if not sales. However, they do, mostly, provide similar services, so this comparison is more about which platform is a more complete platform!

Which Platform is Best for Dropshipping?

“Shopify vs Clickfunnels dropshipping?” is easily the question we get asked most.

Let’s see who came out on top!

Hands down, Shopify is the best platform for dropshipping. Not only are the websites prettier because of the custom templates available on the Shopify Marketplace, but you are also able to better manage your sales. The principle of dropshipping requires you to make orders on behalf of your customers, meaning having a set-in-stone accounting practice is key for organization and the success of your business. Shopify has that embedded into its services for you, making it just the right platform for dropshipping.

While Shopify’s management feature makes it good for dropshipping, a lack of one of the most important aspects of dropshipping in Clickfunnels actually makes it a poor platform for dropshipping: it doesn’t have that many plug-ins useful in dropshipping. Because your store is new and your advertisements are not as professional as established brands are, it is key for you to build trust between you and your visitors from the moment they click on your store. For this reason, many people emphasize reviews on products that you are going to sell as one of the most important factors that go into converting sales. Unfortunately, Clickfunnels doesn’t have the same plug-ins that Shopify has that makes its review look more legitimate and professional.  On the other hand, Shopify’s plug-ins allow for a more professional looking testimonials section, being able to connect with their customers and build trust.

In fact, you have plug-ins like Oberlo on Shopify that makes importing Aliexpress products super easy: all you need to do is click the Oberlo button on Aliexpress’s products and import them. In return, you will get everything you need from descriptions to images/videos. There are other plug-ins and extensions that are available for free on the marketplace for Shopify that makes your dropshipping experience so much smoother. This is another reason that makes Shopify a more desirable platform over Clickfunnels!

Which Tool is Best for Building Sales Funnels?

It’s an entirely different story if you are looking to simply build a sales funnel instead of building a dropshipping business.

First of all, a sales funnel is a multi-step process that ultimately has convinces your customers to buy your product. It’s generally believed that a sales funnel tends to be more effective than simply building a website and launching it, since it relies more on being tenacious with all visitors that visit your website. And, as the name suggests, Clickfunnels was built just for this. As a platform that provides tools for you to automate this process to be able to convert a larger percentage of your customers into buying your product, it is much better than Shopify in terms of converting sales through a funnel of marketing strategies.

The most advantageous aspect of using Clickfunnels for organizing funnels is the email follow-up function that you can use to stay in touch with customers even if they haven’t made any purchases. This way, if Clickfunnels identifies that some of your visitors left items in the cart before checking out, most likely because they weren’t too sure about the price, you will be able to follow-up with an email containing a discount code! Although not all customers might go back to your website to buy your product, you will likely have a higher conversion rate than if you had no method of following-up.

However, we do have to mention that this service is not available for the cheapest plan on Clickfunnels. This means that, if we were to compare the cheapest plans for Shopify and Clickfunnels, there isn’t too large of a difference between both services. A large part of being able to use a sales funnel is to connect with customers on and off the store. If you aren’t able to do that with Clickfunnels, we don’t really see a reason as to why you should choose Clickfunnels’ most basic plan over that of Shopify.

Which Platform is Best for an Online Store?

So Clickfunnels is the better sales funnel builder and Shopify is best for dropshipping – which should you choose for an online store?

This question really depends on what you are selling: if you are selling intangible products, Clickfunnels is the way to go. If you have to stay organized with your customer’s order, then Shopify is the right option for you.

Frankly, both platforms have very efficient website builders. You will be able to customize them if you have knowledge in HTML and CSS. On top of that, both allow you to choose custom templates that other people have built and uploaded onto the appropriate marketplaces. Writing in content, video hosting, and image hosting is quick and easy, and, overall, the utility is on par with each other.

So it all comes down to what kind of product you are selling.

We believe intangible products like online courses tend to require a lot more explaining than physical products. While you can play one video to give an idea of how the product works to your customer, they might look into what is provided in the online course that you are trying to sell. If you think it’s a bit too hard to demonstrate what your product is for with simple videos or images, then Clickfunnels’ funneling approach can really boost your sales.

On the other hand, Shopify is better for physical products because, first of all, their video hosting and image hosting services are great. You are able to upload images and play high-quality videos on your website, making it look professional and credible. Because you can let your media portions do most of your explaining to the customer, you won’t have to worry too much about having to direct customers in a certain direction to convince them to buy your product.

But we think it’s best if you are able to combine both of these aspects in your store. Yes, it’s possible to use Clickfunnels’ funneling strategies and organize sales/orders with Shopify’s dashboard! This way, you get to experience the best of both worlds.

(Why and) How to Integrate Clickfunnels with Shopify

By integrating Clickfunnels with Shopify, you get the funneling strategy provided by Clickfunnels and the organizational advantage with Shopify.

Let’s take a look at an example.

You are looking to sell yourself and your services as a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) agency. You would first have to explain what SEO is and why it’s so important instead of putting the “Buy Now” button at the center of the screen.

For this, Clickfunnels’ drag-and-drop funneling feature is perfect. Next, you convince your customers to buy your service as an order receipt ends up in your Shopify dashboard. Here, you have access to your customer’s contact information as well as special messages that they might have left for you to refer to.

If you find out that your customer ended up not buying anything from your store and instead left with their cart filled, you can use Clickfunnels’ follow-up services to be able to interact with them even after they’ve left the store. This way, you might be able to remind some to come back to your store to complete their purchase.

Now, you might be wondering how you can integrate Shopify with your Clickfunnels account. And, frankly speaking, integration is quite easily done thanks to Clickfunnels’ friendly interface!

• First, log into your Shopify account and keep the account tab open.
• Next, open up ClickFunnels, your Account Menu, and click on “Integrations.”
• From there, click “Add New Integration” and select Shopify.
• Copy and paste your Shopify Store URL into the submission field and click on “Connect Integration.”
• Once you click next, scroll down all the way down and click “Install unlisted app”

And your Shopify store should be connected to your Clickfunnels account, allowing you to follow-up with your customer while managing products through Shopify!

Which Company Has the Best Support?

Usually, both Shopify and Clickfunnels have great customer support.

Shopify’s customer support performs better than that of Clickfunnels. Mostly because of the larger workforce in Shopify’s customer support, they tend to reply a lot faster they are available 24/7!

Because of this, even if you might not be running your business in the U.S., if you find that you are experiencing problems with your website, you’ll still be able to get help.

In addition to the great official customer support team they have, it’s impossible to disregard Shopify’s community. It has one of the most vibrant FAQ sections. Clickfunnels’ Facebook support group is on par. If you have questions as a user for both of these platforms, you can always rely on the community experts as they are very willing to reach out and provide you with the help that you need.

If you are new to the e-commerce industry, perhaps it’s a better idea to stick with Shopify since they have professionals available at all times.

Which Tool Has Cool Unique Features?

Both Clickfunnels and Shopify have very unique features that make their services just that much more convenient.

For Shopify, the most unique feature is the product management dashboard, where you can see not only when the order has been made, but also the automatically generated order ID number, and, more importantly, your customer’s contact information.

You also have the option to write it in your task management dashboard whether or not the order has been completed, thus making sure that you haven’t skipped or missed any orders. This is especially useful if you expect a large volume of customers.

If you were to hire someone else to organize the orders for you as most large businesses do, they’ll instantly be able to pick up the task since the interface is so user-friendly. 

As for Clickfunnels, its most unique feature is, believe it or not, visitor tracking.

Although it seems like a must-have feature for all funneling services, Clickfunnels does visitor tracking the best.

As soon as someone visits your website, Clickfunnels automatically collects the time and contact information, thus making follow-ups super easy even if you were to do them manually.

Htarting from their Platinum Plan, they provide automated email follow-ups, so once you start to get more traction, we recommend that you consider an upgrade.

Which Platform Has the Best Templates and Add-Ons?

Templates

Clickfunnels has a marketplace for all Clickfunnels users where you can purchase various templates for your website if none of the free ones appeal to you. Although this store is rarely used since free ones suffice most of the time, there are situations where you can significantly boost your sales by changing the theme of your page so that it looks more professional. As such, templates do play a large role in being able to convert your visitors into buyers. At the same time, however, we are unsure of how helpful the marketplace actually is, as there aren’t that many templates available. 

On the other hand, thanks to Shopify’s large community, you’ll find lots of great templates on Shopify’s official store. These tend to be so much cheaper and better in quality compared to most of the ones posted on Clickfunnels. Also, Shopify requires sellers to include their contact information in case bugs arise as these templates are actually made by other users, potentially making it difficult to receive assistance from customer support. 

Just by looking at the number of templates, the support you can receive, and the cost of most templates, most users believe that Shopify is a better option when you are looking for a website builder with various templates that you can choose from.

Apps/Plugins

Again, Clickfunnels doesn’t really have apps or plugins that you can use to enhance your user’s experience on your website and the overall control you have over how your funnel behaves. There are, however, integrations which is a tool that you can use to connect Clickfunnels to other services like Shopify. The integration feature can be really useful if used correctly, but it usually comes at a pretty big cost since you have to subscribe to Clickfunnels and another service to really take advantage of integrating services. 

So instead of Clickfunnels’ CFPro Tools or integration feature, we recommend Shopify’s apps.

Since there are so many people using Shopify, there is an entire sub-industry where people code plugins that they think users might need and profit off of it. Inevitably, you are left with a ton of useful apps that you can connect to your website to make running your business just that much easier. The best example would be Oberlo, an app that is specialized for dropshipping as it automatically imports product information from AliExpress.

Although you have to pay for certain apps, it’s always nice to know that there usually are apps for anything that you might need that the vanilla version of Shopify doesn’t have.

All in all, Shopify has a wider range of plugins, definitely making it the better buy if you are thinking about really spending lots of time on your website to make it professional. However, if you think the basic tools are enough, choose either services and there won’t be much of a difference.

Which Tool Has the Best Overall Value?

Overall value really depends on what exactly you plan on using the service for, so we’ve prepared a few scenarios where one platform might perform better in value over the other!

Shopify Pricing

Clickfunnels Pricing

First, if you are planning to look for a way to start your business, Shopify is the best deal for you.

Priced at only $29 per month the starting cost is so much lower. On top of that, Clickfunnels doesn’t offer follow-up emails for its most basic plan, so their services are definitely not worth the price. 

If you are thinking about scaling your business, Clickfunnels’ higher tier plans work better than those of Shopify’s since you have access to email follow-ups. With those, you can increase your conversion rate and really grow your business!

Starting from Scratch: How Can You Make Money with Each?

“I’m starting from scratch so I don’t already have a product or business…can I still make money with Clickfunnels or Shopify?” 

Of course you can! Here are a few ways to make money with Clickfunnels and Shopify.

Shopify

With Shopify, you can make money without running a business or having a business idea at all!

First of all, you have the option to become a part of the affiliate program, where you get to make money by promoting Shopify’s brilliant services. According to their website, most affiliate marketers are paid $58 for each user that signs up and an extra $2000 for Plus referrals. Frankly, it’s quite difficult to compete with other YouTube entrepreneurs since so many of them are already using Shopify, but since its affiliate program is completely free to join, there is zero risk involved!

Secondly, you have the option to make money by selling your templates online to Shopify’s online store. Many people are on the lookout for templates since not all users are savvy with HTML or CSS. If you are familiar with either of the two coding languages (which are languages that Shopify primarily uses), you can make money by selling your services to other Shopify users instead of having to start a business yourself. There is already a plenty of people selling such services on not only Shopify but on freelancing websites like Fiverr or Upwork. 

Clickfunnels

Clickfunnels is on par with Shopify when it comes to making money without running a business yourself! Here are a few ways with which you can make money without actually selling anything online through Clickfunnels.

Like Shopify, Clickfunnels has an affiliate program.

Unlike Shopify’s program, you’ll find that there are multiple tiers as an affiliate marketer.

Everyone starts off by earning $100 through Clickfunnels’ independent products like books or presentations and a 20% monthly commission. As you refer more new customers to Clickfunnels, you become an approved affiliate which makes you around 30% in monthly commission. And once you get really good at this, you’ll start making 40% in commission after you convince 40 different people that Clickfunnels is definitely a great investment.

Although the market for templates or plugins aren’t that huge for Clickfunnels, you can still provide services related to the platform for the second way you can make money.

If you put yourself out on freelancing platforms knowing that you are proficient at funnel building, instead of having to brainstorm business ideas for yourself, you can provide services to other creative minds that are more willing to take a risk to launch their own business.

Either way, you get to make money without having to be an entrepreneurial prodigy!

The best part about these two platforms is that it creates an entirely new industry, which opens up jobs for various people including entrepreneurs and technicians related to building websites.

Clickfunnels vs Shopify: And the Winner is…

Shopify wins by a tiny margin in this comparison!

Thanks to its flexibility and the lower starting cost, Shopify is the best option for a wider range of audiences. Of course, email follow ups might be difficult, but you have apps to take care of that for you too!

As such, Shopify has more areas for application, giving it more value and utility.

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