ClickFunnels vs Shopify: Choose the Best Platform in 5 Minutes
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When choosing between ClickFunnels and Shopify, it's essential to understand their core differences. While both platforms enable online selling, they were built with distinct purposes in mind. In this article, Nextsky will compare ClickFunnels vs Shopify, examining their features, strengths, and weaknesses, to help you determine which platform aligns best with your business goals.
ClickFunnels vs. Shopify: Basic Information
ClickFunnels
ClickFunnels was launched in 2014 by Russell Brunson and Todd Dickerson as a sales funnel builder, designed to help businesses automate lead generation and conversions. The platform allows users to create landing pages, sales pages, order forms, and membership sites—all optimized for driving customers through a structured buying journey.
In 2021, ClickFunnels introduced ClickFunnels 2.0, adding features like a website builder, CRM system, and online course tools to compete more directly with full-fledged eCommerce platforms.
Shopify
Shopify, founded in 2006 by Tobias Lütke, took a different approach. Initially created to sell snowboards, Shopify has since evolved into a comprehensive eCommerce platform, powering over 5.5 million online stores in 175+ countries and facilitating over $1 trillion in sales.
From the start, Shopify was built for selling products and offers customizable store templates, built-in payment processing, a CMS, blogging tools, hosting, and an extensive app ecosystem.
Best pricing - Shopify
ClickFunnels
ClickFunnels has completely updated its pricing structure, moving from two plans to four more flexible options. Each tier expands the number of team members, workspaces, as well as the contact limits and monthly email sends you can use.
Detailed plans:
- Launch: $97/month or $81/month (billed annually) → Includes 2 team members and 1 workspace
- Scale: $197/month or $164/month (billed annually) → Supports 5 team members and 5 workspaces
- Optimize: $297/month or $248/month (billed annually) → Comes with 10 team members and 10 workspaces
- Dominate: $5,997/year → Approximately 20 team members and 20 workspaces
All plans include unlimited funnels, unlimited traffic/visitors, unlimited custom domains, full access to the AI tool suite, and onboarding support sessions.
Key differences between the plans:
- Team members: 2 → 5 → 10 → 20
- Workspaces: 1 → 5 → 10 → 20
- Contact/email limits: From 10,000 contacts / 50,000 emails per month up to 400,000 contacts / 1.2 million emails per month.
- Customer support: Standard → Priority + live chat → VIP support + dedicated onboarding
- Advanced features: Custom editor, API access, and webhooks (available from Scale tier and above)
ClickFunnels also offers a generous 14-day free trial, allowing you to test virtually all features before committing to a paid plan.
Shopify
Shopify offers 5 pricing plans optimized for different stages of business growth:
- Starter: $5/month
- Basic: $39/month or $29/month (billed annually)
- Grow: $105/month or $79/month (billed annually)
- Advanced: $399/month or $299/month (billed annually)
- Plus: Starting from $2,300/month and up
The Basic, Grow, and Advanced plans offer a 25% discountwhen paid annually.
Special offers:
Shopify is currently running a credits program that refunds 1% of monthly sales as credit toward your subscription fee (available only in select countries).
For trials, Shopify officially offers 3 days free, but there is a widely promoted special offer available right now: 3 months for only $ 1 per month.
Important note about the Starter plan:
Although it's only $5/month (making it $92 cheaper than ClickFunnels' most affordable plan), the Starter plan does not include a full, independent online store. It is designed for selling through:
- Facebook and Instagram
- WhatsApp and other messaging apps
- Shopify Buy Button (embed cart into an existing website)
- A very basic, limited-customization storefront
Main differences between the main plans (Basic → Grow → Advanced):
- Staff accounts: 1 (Basic) → 5 (Grow) → 15 (Advanced)
- Third-party calculated shipping rates: Only available on Advanced
- Advanced automation & reporting: Starts from the Grow tier and above
Shopify Plus is designed for large enterprises, providing powerful API access, advanced security, automation, checkout customization, and dedicated fulfillment management. Pricing is custom and typically starts around $2,300/month (but varies on a case-by-case basis).
Verdict: ClickFunnels is strong in “all-in-one” marketing funnels and emails, while Shopify is flexible, scalable, and suitable for multi-product stores.
Best design and template - Shopify
ClickFunnels
ClickFunnels offers only 8 templates, each with just one version. The designs are simple, leaning toward a corporate style and not as diverse as Shopify's. However, this is actually a strength of the platform because all templates are specifically optimized for sales funnels. They function like high-converting landing pages with minimal distracting elements, perfectly suited for direct ad-to-single-page sales models.
Shopify
Shopify stands out with around 985 diverse templates, including 24 free ones and over 900 paid themes priced between $100 and $500. Shopify’s themes are not only elegant, modern, and professional but also packed with useful built-in features such as:
- Mega menus for intuitive product organization
- Breadcrumbs for easy navigation
- Age verification for restricted products
- Infinite scroll to enhance the product browsing experience
In summary, Shopify offers a greater variety, higher aesthetic quality, and flexible customization, making it ideal for building a comprehensive, full-fledged e-commerce store.
Verdict: Shopify dominates in quantity, aesthetics, and feature richness for online stores, while ClickFunnels excels at its core purpose: creating highly effective funnels that maximize conversion rates.
Read more: Shopify vs eBay: Which Marketplace Fits Your Business?
Ease of use - Shopify
ClickFunnels
ClickFunnels offers numerous options when adding sections, but this abundance can be overwhelming and confusing for users. Many templates employ overly flashy typography and text-heavy designs, which can make pages look cluttered and aesthetically unappealing. Moreover, page loading speeds and editing tools in ClickFunnels are often slow, especially when working with multiple sections, making the building process rigid and frustrating.
Shopify
Shopify shines with a clean, user-friendly, and intuitive interface that is easy to grasp for both beginners and experienced users. When adding a new section, options are clearly presented, allowing you to quickly select and create exactly the content you want without wasting time searching. Additionally, page loading and tool response times in Shopify are fast, delivering a smooth and enjoyable website-building experience.
Verdict: In terms of ease of use, Shopify clearly outperforms ClickFunnels thanks to its intuitive interface, well-organized content management system, and fast, responsive performance.
Apps and integrations - Shopify
ClickFunnels
ClickFunnels has a relatively small app marketplace with only about 20 native applications, primarily focused on email marketing, SMS marketing, and team collaboration tools. That said, thanks to integration platforms like Zapier or Pabbly Connect, users can still connect to thousands of external apps and services, although this often comes with additional costs and extra setup time.
Shopify
Shopify offers a massive App Store with over 16,000 apps, covering virtually every need, including SEO, dropshipping, print-on-demand, marketing automation, analytics, customer support, accounting, and more. It also provides seamless, deep integrations with major enterprise tools such as Salesforce, Zendesk, Xero, Klaviyo, and many others.
Verdict: ClickFunnels is suitable for those who focus on marketing and sales funnels, while Shopify excels in expanding features and offering deep integration for comprehensive businesses.
Read more: Shopify vs GoDaddy: Which Website Builder Is Best?
E-commerce features - Shopify
Payment acceptance
- ClickFunnels: The platform uses its proprietary Payments AI gateway, which supports over 110 payment methods, optimized for routing and fraud protection. Fees are 2.9% + 30¢ per transaction plus 0.5% for recurring payments. Integrations with Stripe, PayPal, Klarna, NMI, and Coinbase incur an additional 1%fee.
- Shopify: The platform offers over 300 payment gateways, including Stripe, PayPal, and Braintree. Using Shopify Payments avoids extra fees, with rates 2.5–2.9% + 30¢, offering more flexibility and generally lower transaction costs than ClickFunnels.
Product options & variants
- ClickFunnels: Each product can have up to three options, with each option supporting up to seven attributes, resulting in a maximum of 343 variants per product. This provides sellers with significantly more flexibility for handling complex product variations.
- Shopify: Also offers three options, but limits the total variants to 100 by default. This limit can be expanded to 2,000 using third-party apps.
Selling digital products
- ClickFunnels: Supports digital products up to 3GB in size. Setting up digital product lists is relatively complicated and requires many manual steps.
- Shopify: Allows uploads up to 5GB and offers over 320 specialized apps (drip content release, PDF stamping, selling music, online courses, etc.). Much more scalable and feature-rich for digital goods.
Shipping
- ClickFunnels: Offers basic shipping settings, including flat rates, shipping profiles, and zones. Integrates with Shippo and Shipstation.
- Shopify: Offers discounted rates from USPS, UPS, DHL, and Canada Post, real-time carrier-calculated shipping, free shipping insurance, and over 500 advanced shipping apps.
Dropshipping & print-on-demand (POD)
- ClickFunnels: Currently supports dropshipping only through Zendrop. Expanding requires third-party tools or custom integrations, which can make order management less seamless.
- Shopify: Over 700 dropshipping apps and 650 POD apps with automated supplier connections and efficient order management.
Point of sale (POS)
- ClickFunnels: No built-in POS. Users must combine Payments AI, NMI, and third-party tools (e.g., Zapier), resulting in a complex setup.
- Shopify: Fully integrated POS system that manages inventory, orders, and customers across online and physical stores. Supports hardware (card readers, receipt printers, iPad stands). Optional POS Pro upgrade ($89/location/month) adds advanced in-person selling features.
International selling
- ClickFunnels: No multi-currency support. To display pages in multiple languages, sellers must create separate funnels for each language and manually translate everything.
- Shopify: Shopify Markets enables automatic multi-currency and multi-language display based on visitor IP (up to 20 language versions). Much more convenient for global expansion.
Tax calculation
- ClickFunnels: Automatic tax calculation only in the U.S. Outside the U.S., sellers must set up taxes manually. No EU VAT MOSS support.
- Shopify: Automatic tax calculation in 9 countries + free digital VAT MOSS compliance for EU via built-in tools/apps.
Management
User accounts
Shopify
Shopify allows multiple user accounts depending on the plan:
- Starter and Basic plans: 1 user
- Shopify plan: up to 5 users
- Advanced Shopify: up to 15 users
- Shopify Plus: unlimited staff accounts with customizable permissions This makes team collaboration and role-based access very flexible, especially for growing businesses.
ClickFunnels
ClickFunnels also supports multiple users, but with stricter limits:
- Startup plan: max 3 users
- Pro plan: max 10 users Larger teams or agencies quickly hit these caps, making collaboration more restrictive.
Media management
Shopify
- Unlimited image uploads with a 20 MB limit per file
- No extra charge for video hosting or video bandwidth
- Built-in powerful image editor: crop, resize, rotate, draw, add text, AI background removal, etc.
- Supports direct video uploads (up to 10 GB per file on higher plans) All of this saves significant time and third-party tool costs.
ClickFunnels
- Image upload limit: 10 MB per file
- Video hosting either limited or incurs additional fees (depending on the plan)
- Only basic image editing (crop/resize); no advanced or AI-powered editor Managing high-quality visuals is noticeably more restrictive and costly.
Editing code & customization depth
Shopify
- Full access to theme code using Liquid (Shopify’s templating language), HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
- Ability to completely modify layout, checkout flow, functionality, and performance
- Create custom features or integrate advanced solutions without limitations
- Full control over SEO markup and page speed optimization
ClickFunnels
- Only allows custom CSS and JavaScript injection
- No access to core template structure or backend logic
- Major design and functionality changes are essentially impossible without workarounds
Mobile Apps
Shopify
Comprehensive mobile ecosystem:
- Shopify admin app (iOS & Android): manage orders, products, analytics, marketing
- Shopify POS app: run in-person sales anywhere
- Shopify Inbox: live chat with customers directly from your phone
- Additional tools (Logo Maker, etc.) You can fully run and grow your store from a smartphone.
ClickFunnels
ClickFunnels 2.0 currently has no official mobile app. All management (editing funnels, viewing stats, adjusting offers) must be done on desktop/laptop. This is a significant limitation for entrepreneurs who travel or prefer mobile workflows.
Verdict: Shopify wins with its powerful mobile app that supports business management anytime, anywhere, suitable for modern e-commerce needs.
Read more: Shopify vs Big Cartel: Which Is Best for Small Businesses?
Marketing and sales funnel tools - Shopify
ClickFunnels
Excels with advanced, purpose-built funnel and marketing tools:
- Advanced funnel builder: Design complex, high-converting customer journeys
- Built-in split testing (A/B testing): Easily test multiple page variants
- Native email marketing integrations: Automate lead nurturing
- One-click upsells/downsells: Boost average order value directly in the checkout flow
Shopify
Offers basic marketing automation and some funnel capabilities through apps or built-in features, but lacks the depth and seamlessness of ClickFunnels. Achieving advanced funnel performance typically requires the use of additional third-party apps and custom setup.
Verdict: ClickFunnels excels when the goal is to optimize funnels and conversions, while Shopify is well-suited for stores that require extensive integrations but are not overly focused on funnel optimization.
Customer support - ClickFunnels
Support channels
- ClickFunnels: ClickFunnels offers support through AI chatbots, live chat, and email. However, live chat is only available Monday through Friday during business hours (8:00 a.m. – 8:00 p.m. EST). This can be limiting for businesses operating outside these hours.
- Shopify: Shopify provides 24/7 live chat, ensuring businesses across all time zones get timely assistance. Shopify Plus users also have access to phone support, making it ideal for enterprise-level businesses.
Help centers and language support
- ClickFunnels: ClickFunnels offers a help center with step-by-step guides, a knowledge base, and community forums; however, all materials are in English, which limits accessibility for non-English speakers.
- Shopify: Shopify also offers a comprehensive help center, but stands out with multilingual support in 18 languages, making it easier for global businesses to access guidance and solutions.
Tech support and uptime
- ClickFunnel: The platform offers 24/7 technical support through live chat and email, as well as a comprehensive knowledge base and community forums. The platform maintains solid uptime, minimizing disruptions to business operations.
- Shopify: Shopify offers 24/7 support through live chat, email, and phone, with consistently high uptime and regular updates to ensure smooth functionality. This makes Shopify more reliable for businesses that require constant, uninterrupted service.
Verdict: Shopify leads with round-the-clock live chat and phone support, ideal for businesses needing continuous assistance. ClickFunnels offers strong support during business hours but has more limited live chat availability.
Read more: Shopify vs Magento: Which Platform Is Right for You?
Ideal use cases for ClickFunnels and Shopify
When to choose ClickFunnels
ClickFunnels is the best choice for businesses that focus on sales funnels, lead generation, and conversion optimization. It’s a platform designed specifically for creating and managing sales funnels, making it ideal for marketers.
Pros of ClickFunnels:
- Purpose-built for sales funnels: Includes features like split testing, upsells, downsells, and email validation tools to maximize conversions.
- Multi-user access: Allows multiple users on one account, while Shopify has restrictions.
- Advanced funnel tools: Built-in forum tool for creating engaged communities around your products, courses, or brand.
- Product options: More flexible with handling products that have many variants compared to Shopify.
Best for:
- Lead generation, digital products, and online courses.
- Businesses looking to optimize conversions through sales funnels.
When to choose Shopify
Shopify is ideal for businesses that want to build and manage an e-commerce store, especially those selling physical products. It offers a comprehensive solution for product management and sales both online and offline.
Pros of Shopify
- User-friendly and cost-effective: Easier to use and more affordable to get started, especially for new businesses.
- Design flexibility: Offers a wide selection of customizable templates and a powerful store editor.
- Comprehensive product management: Handles large inventories and product variations well.
- Multiple payment gateways: Lower transaction fees and more options than ClickFunnels.
- POS system: Seamlessly integrates online and in-person sales.
- Mobile apps: Manage your store on the go.
- International support: Includes multi-currency and multilingual capabilities.
Best for:
- Physical products and businesses looking for a complete e-commerce solution.
- Stores that need flexibility in design, product management, and the ability to sell both online and offline.
