ClickFunnels vs. Shopify: Which Suits You More?

Starting a profitable online business isn’t as easy as it used to be, as there are no guarantees of success. However, with the right set of tools at your disposal, such as a great funnels software, your chances of success are more conspicuous. Today, it’s ClickFunnels vs. Shopify. Let’s find out which one suits you the most!

ClickFunnels vs. Shopify: Short Answer

Shopify is a great choice if you’re trying to run and manage an online store, thanks to its product management and delivery functions. However, it won’t really help you create landing pages, set up integrations, run email campaigns, or start an affiliate program the way ClickFunnels will!

ClickFunnels vs. Shopify: Summary

ClickFunnels	Shopify
ClickFunnels is an all-in-one digital marketing platform that allows you to create funnels that can help you sell and promote your products.	Shopify is an optimal software to use if you’re trying to establish an online market that hosts a range of different products and services.
Pros	Pros
Offers a two-week free trial periodOnboard A/B testing functionality Numerous pre-made sales funnelsIntegrates with plenty of servicesCreates your own affiliate programFeatures an email autoresponder	Cheap compared to ClickFunnelsDropshipping? Certainly ShopifyLots of free, responsive templatesHas built-in payment processing Superb product category creationHas a two-week free trial period
Cons	Cons
Not a very budget-friendly serviceCustomer support isn’t so reliable	Very limited customization options Not the best as far as integrations

ClickFunnels vs. Shopify: Overview

If this is your first time hearing about ClickFunnels or Shopify, this section of the article will help introduce you to both platforms as well as shed light on some of their most noteworthy features. 

Overview of ClickFunnels

ClickFunnels is an all-in-one digital marketing platform that enables you to establish a complete marketing system that’s capable of acquiring leads and turning them into sales by utilizing sales funnels. It’s an outstanding software to use if you’re trying to make more money quickly. 

ClickFunnels is equipped with an impressive array of services and integrations that will help you create a high-yielding business without the need to resort to other platforms. From its own email marketing solution, Actionetics, to its Backpack affiliate marketing, ClickFunnels has it all. 

The great thing about ClickFunnels is that it’s capable of promoting your products no matter the nature of the product or service you’re trying to sell. It can be a physical product, digital product, or even membership content, ClickFunnels’ pre-built pages and funnels will help you sell it. 

In a nutshell, ClickFunnels is a software that’s designed to acquire cold leads and convert them into paying customers. It’s also equipped with a built-in automation tool that allows you to follow up prospects that have used your sales funnels in order to ensure high rates of conversion. 

Most Notable Features:

• Visual Drag and Drop Editor: ClickFunnels’ intuitive drag and drop editor allows you to customize your landing pages and funnels to your liking. You can also use it to build your own sales funnels from scratch if you don’t want to use the pre-made ones. 

• Pre-Made Templates and Funnels: You don’t need to build anything with ClickFunnels if you don’t want to, as it’s equipped with a decent range of pre-made templates that you can utilize with ease and without the need for any coding or design background. 

• Actionetics Email Marketing: Even though ClickFunnels allows you to integrate with a wide range of email marketing providers, it features its own email marketing solution. But keep in mind that Actionetics can only be accessed if you subscribe to the top-tier plan. 

• Backpack Affiliate Program: ClickFunnels allows you to create and manage your own affiliate marketing program with ease. The program is equipped with numerous tools that will help you recruit affiliates that can promote and sell your products and services. 

• Integrated eCommerce Service: Utilizing ClickFunnels, you’ll be able to sell digital and physical products with ease. Not only that, but you’ll also be able to receive payments. In addition, you can integrate with ShipStation and have them take care of your shipping.

• Membership Sites: Another feature that sets ClickFunnels apart from other platforms is its ability to create membership sites with ease. In other words, it’ll allow you to create an area or more within your website that’s only accessible by subscribed members. 

• Analytics Functionality: This function enables you to keep tabs on the performance of your sales funnels. You can view a lot of useful stats using this function, from the number of conversions that the funnel yields to user behavior and the number of page views. 

• Webinar Funnels: As we’ve just mentioned, ClickFunnels is an all-in-one software that allows you to do anything digital, including hosting webinars using webinar funnels, be it service-based program webinars or product-related coaching webinars. 

• Tons of Integrations: When it comes to landing page integrations, ClickFunnels is just an outright powerhouse. From popular email marketing services such as Mailchimp and AWeber to other services such as WordPress. It can even integrate with Shopify!

Overview of Shopify 

Shopify is a web-based digital marketing software that allows you to create online stores. This is a platform that’s designed for seasoned entrepreneurs that know just how to integrate numerous services with their stores and that are capable of turning visitors into customers on their own. 

Put differently, Shopify is a tool that can only be employed for showing and selling products. You can’t utilize it to promote your products, create sales funnels, or do the majority of the things that ClickFunnels allows you to do. It’s not really for beginner marketers and business owners. 

Shopify is equipped with a massive host of themes that you can use to build and customize your store without the need for any design skills. The platform features everything you need to set up a business. Also, it’s backed by a knowledgeable community that will solve all your problems. 

One of the things that Shopify has in common with ClickFunnels is that it boasts free hosting, so you don’t have to worry about paying for a third-party hosting provider. If you’re looking to create an online store to showcase your products and only that, Shopify is an optimal choice for you. 

Most Notable Features:

• Online Store Builder: Shopify has a range of free and paid themes that you can utilize to build your online store. There’s also a drag-and-drop builder that allows you to modify the elements of your theme to your liking, from text and color to images and background. 

• Inventory Management System: Shopify allows you to keep track of current and new inventory using its management system. It’ll also track how many units you’ve sold. Not only that, but it’ll notify you when it’s time to order more. A reliable system, overall. 

• Analytics Dashboard: Using Shopify, you’ll be able to analyze various graphs of traffic, orders, and sales. Moreover, you’ll be able to see where customers are coming from and how much time they spend on your website with the aid of Google Analytics. 

• Customer Management System: Using this feature, you can keep tabs on customer’s shopping behavior. It also allows you to create membership sites. What’s more, you can organize customers in groups based on money spent, location, and purchases. 

• Sales Channels: With the aid of Shopify, you can set up stores within various networks like Facebook, Amazon, eBay, Pinterest, and even brick and mortar stores. This ensures that your products are always on display, which helps boost your conversion rates. 

• App Store: One of Shopify’s strongest selling points is the app store, with its extensive host of plugins and integrations that you can utilize to improve your site’s functionality. It can be used to create opt-in forms, receive additional analytics, and many more. 

• Shipping and Delivery: Thanks to Shopify’s partnership with DHL, USPS, and UPS, it enables you to give your customers low shipping rates. Further, it has a partnership with Oberlo, meaning you can buy, ship, and sell units without manually doing anything. 

• Payment Integration: Considering its a service that allows you to build your own store, it makes sense that it would allow you to accept payments. You can from Visa, Discover, American Express, Mastercard, and various online payment gateways such as PayPal. 

• Mobile App: Similar to a lot of online marketing SaaS, Shopify has a mobile app that’s compatible with both Android and iOS devices. It allows you to keep tabs on your sales and orders, get in touch with your customers, and manage your inventory and email. 

ClickFunnels vs. Shopify: Pricing

There’s a significant difference in price between ClickFunnels and shopify with the former being the more expensive option. Let’s take a look at the different subscription plans each tool offers. 

ClickFunnels

ClickFunnels offers two standard plans: the Start-Up plan ($97/month) and the Etison Suite plan ($297/month). Both plans share a lot of the same features, but the latter plan flaunts Actionetics, which is ClickFunnels’ email autoresponder, as well as the Backpack affiliate program. 

ClickFunnels’ StartUp plan offers you 20 funnels, 20,000 visitors, 100 pages, unlimited contacts, 1 SMTP integration, 3 custom domains, email integrations, A/B split testing, a membership area, ClickPops, ClickOptin, share funnels, advanced funnels, webinar funnels, FunnelFlix, and more. 

With the Etison Suite plan, you get all that’s included in the StartUp plan in addition to an in-built email autoresponder and the affiliate marketing management tool. It’s also worth noting that you subscribe to discounted ClickFunnels options. Learn more about ClickFunnels’ pricing here. 

We’d also like to point out that ClickFunnels offers a two-week free trial period, which helps you on your quest of pinpointing the right digital marketing platform for your business because you’ll be to test it out and see whether it works for you or not without any strings attached. 

Shopify

Shopify also offers a two-week free trial period, so you don’t need to worry about paying a single penny until you’re sure the platform is an ideal solution for your business. Shopify provides three different subscription plans, accommodating businesses of all scales and requirements. 

Basic Shopify: is the first pricing plan, and it provides 2 staff accounts, tons of themes, option to integrate with various payment gateways, blogging function, PayPal integration, discount codes, credit card processing, SEO function, printable labels, and more. This plan costs $29/month.

Shopify: is the second pricing plan it offers all of the features in the basic plan in addition to a lot more bells and whistles that will help you establish your business. To add, this plan offers lower transaction fees on third-party apps, which will help you set up payment gateways for cheap. 

The difference between the Shopify plan and the Basic Shopify plan is that the former offers 5 staff accounts, professional reporting, complete point of sale functionality, and gift cards. This is Shopify’s most popular plan, and it’s not hard to see why considering it only costs $79/month.

Shopify’s top-tier pricing plan, the Advanced Plan, which runs a sum of $299/month, capitalizes on the offerings of the two other plans by featuring 15 staff accounts, an advanced report builder that allows you to create custom reports, and access to real-time carrier shipping.

We also want to point out that Shopify offers a 10% discount on annual subscriptions and a 20% discount on biennial subscriptions. This will help save you a ton of money if you don’t want to go on a monthly subscription plan. Overall, we think all of the plans are very reasonably priced. 

ClickFunnels vs. Shopify: Integrations

When it comes to integrations, ClickFunnels and Shopify are compatible with a ton of third-party providers, which you can check out in the table below. You should also know that both tools can be integrated with one another, which is a very interesting dynamic that we’ll discuss shortly.

ClickFunnels	Shopify
MailChimp AWeber ActiveCampaign GetResponse WebinarJam GoTo Webinar Ever Webinar Constant Contact Maropost ShipStation Slybroadcast Twilio Sendlane Clickbank Stripe OntraPort Infusionsoft Zapier More	ActiveCampaign Bitium Bookeo Online Scheduling and Reservations Bookeo Appointments Constant Contact Campaign Monitor LiveChat LiveAgent MailChimp Post Affiliate Pro Shipwire ShipStation Stripe Tapfiliate Zendesk Zapier Zoho SalesIQ iDevAffiliate More

Integrating Both Platforms Together

Integrating ClickFunnels with Shopify or vice versa will let you send shipping information from an order form on ClickFunnels to your Shopify account for shipping. This is helpful for those that are interested in using their Shopify account to manage products created in ClickFunnels.

In order to do that, you’ll need a Shopify account, a ClickFunnels account, and a product you’ve created in Shopify. On ClickFunnels, go to Account Menu and select ‘Integrations.’ Now click on ‘Add New Integration.’ Now, you want to search for and select Shopify. 

After pinpointing Shopify, you want to copy the URL of your Shopify store and paste in the field that pops up when you add Shopify as a new integration and select ‘Connect Integration.’ You’ll be predicted to another page where you need to scroll down and press ‘Install Unlisted App.’

The next step is to connect a product in Shopify to your sales funnel. Head to your ‘Order Form’ page on ClickFunnels and select ‘Products.’ Then, you want to insert all of the vital data for your product. Head to ‘Product Settings’ and then to the ‘Shipping’ tab. Now, check the Shopify box. 

Under ‘Integration,’ you want to select your Shopify account and under ‘Product SKU,’ select the product itself. Finally, you just select ‘Create Product’ and voila, you’ve managed to integrate the product created on Shopify with the sales funnel created by ClickFunnels. Give it a try!

ClickFunnels vs. Shopify: Main Difference

There are a few minor differences between ClickFunnels and Shopify, but there’s one difference that we consider vital and that you need to grasp in order to pick the platform that works best for your platform. And please bear in mind that we’ll be talking from the perspective of eCommerce. 

The main difference between ClickFunnels and Shopify is that the former allows you to create a single product page, whereas the latter allows you to build an entire online store. This might not seem as major as we imply, but with closer inspection, a number of things are unraveled. 

With Shopify, a person clicks an ad and is then redirected to your Shopify store where they can see the product they’ve clicked on the ad for as well as other relevant products. In that scenario, the visitor will spend more than they intended simply browsing and contemplating their options. 

A couple of things can take place in that scenario. The customer either buys more products than they’ve planned to buy, or they can get totally overwhelmed by the barrage of products in front of them and end up leaving your store without buying anything, which isn’t a favorable outcome. 

With ClickFunnels, it’s the total opposite, as it’s like walking into a store that specializes in just a single product. In other words, the customer won’t be distracted by any other products, so they’ll either buy or leave the shop. After buying, the option to view commentary products will show up. 

Other Differences

One of the differences between ClickFunnels and Shopify is that the former features an A/B split testing functionality, while the latter doesn’t. In our opinion, A/B split testing is an integral part of any digital marketing software, and it bums us out that it‘s not existent within Shopify’s arsenal. 

A/B split testing allows you, as the webmaster, to understand the activity of your visitors on your website. Based on the information accumulated by this functionality, you’ll be able to identify the optimal design and page elements for achieving the highest conversion rates possible. 

If you’re wondering about templates and designs, we’re happy to tell you that both platforms are equipped with a wide host of free and easy-to-customize templates. They’re both equipped with drag-and-drop editors as well, so you don’t need to be a coder to customize them to your liking. 

Another minor difference between both tools is their payment gateway integrations. The reason we said minor is that both platforms can integrate with great payment processors, but Shopify is capable of supporting up to 70 processors, whereas ClickFunnels can support 13.

ClickFunnels can integrate with payment processors like PayPal, Stripe, Authorize, etc, so you won’t have any problems receiving payments online. Just remember to incorporate support for whichever gateway you choose to include on your website by verifying an account with them. 

The final notable difference between ClickFunnels and Shopify is automation, which is an angle that ClickFunnels excels in. Shopify doesn’t feature integrated automation support, but you’ll still be able to third-party extensions in order to gain all of the support you need.

ClickFunnels has its own email marketing solution, whereas Shopify will require you to integrate with a third-party provider such as Mailchimp or AWeber. The entire funnel management system that ClickFunnels boasts is automated, so it’s clearly the winner in the automation category. 

ClickFunnels vs. Shopify: Conclusion

If integrated for the right purposes, both ClickFunnels and Shopify can be of great use. If you’re looking for a tool that will help you build an eCommerce platform where you can showcase and sell multiple different products, we recommend opting for Shopify over ClickFunnels. 

If you’re searching for an all-in-one digital marketing system that can help you create funnels so that you can collect leads and turn those cold leads into paying consumers in a short amount of time, it doesn’t get better than ClickFunnels. With that, we can call today’s fisticuffs a draw.