clickfunnels vs shopify

Clickfunnels vs Shopify For Ecommerce and Dropshipping

Do you want to start an eCommerce business or a Dropshipping store, aka selling physical products? But the technical possibilities for software solutions are diverse and cause confusion before you even start to build your online business. Let’s break it down to the comparison: Clickfunnels vs Shopify for E-commerce. Why? 

The biggest 4 solutions to sell physical products are the Shopify shop solution, the WordPress plugin WooCommerce, the more complex programmer solution Magento or the sales funnel software Clickfunnels. WooCommerce has the danger to collapse if there is too much traffic and Magento isn’t very beginner-friendly.

First Things First…The Surprising Misconception

Let me clarify one thing right from the beginning. Shopify and Clickfunnels aren’t considered as competition actually…

Well, technically you can consider them as competition. But you shouldn’t… because to get the best of both worlds you need both softwares… AND what’s more important you will use them for different purposes and audiences even though they are both designed to sell products.

Let me explain…

Clickfunnels is a marketing tool, that’s highly focused on driving people into your sales funnels. That means it eliminates all distractions within a very clear sales or single product page with one single product that is designed to convert cold audiences into paying customers.

Shopify works as a full shop management system (or store builder) where you can shop between all kinds of multiple products but end up buying nothing because you can’t decide or you’re too distracted…But you can build your brand more easily.

So, what’s the point here? Use Clickfunnels for your cold audiences, because you will have a way higher chance of converting them through sales funnels.

So first create a landing page to funnel people into a product and upsells. Afterward, send them to your shop and connect your warm audience with your brand.

That’s all possible with a Clickfunnels Shopify Integration that connects those system seamlessly.

Main Differences – Clickfunnels vs Shopify

Before we take a more detailed look at these two Softwares, let’s take a short outlook at what to expect.

The main difference between Clickfunnels and Shopify.

  • Clickfunnels offers two main pricing plans, basic and Platinum (formerly Etison Suite), both are more expensive than Shopify’s three plans
  • Shopify provides a mobile app for Android and iPhone to make quick changes
  • Clickfunnels offers several extra features like ready-to-use sales funnels, streaming platform and many more, whereas Shopify takes the lead in inventory management

So, now you got three big differences, quick and easy. Of course, there are still more details to come…

Pros and Cons

Of course both of them have their pros and cons. Let’s see what you can do with each of them and what you should consider before you get into a subscription.

The biggest advantage with ClickFunnel in Ecommerce

With higher conversion rates, comes higher revenue, with the same amount of money for advertising and marketing. This means you should optimize your online shop for conversions, right? However, this isn’t possible with Shopify due to the rigid themes. 

clickfunnels logo

If you manage to increase your sales and conversion rate from 1% to 3% or maybe even 4%,  it means you multiply your income. However, this is only possible if you can split test your online store and your offers. One big score point for the marketing funnel builder in the Clickfunnels vs Shopify comparison.

Shopify is cheaper for beginners than Clickfunnels but doesn’t have the functionality by far. If you’re selling products on the internet, you’ll soon find out that upsells and product bundles are the key to higher average values in your buyer’s shopping carts

However, Shopify features don’t include upsells or bundles per default. It requires additional apps for this functionalities.

Apps are also needed to enable other features of Shopify, which usually can take around 5-10 installations. The good apps, however, cost extra and so you end up with a similar price like Clickfunnels. 

So again: Using Clickfunnels allows you to create a high converting sales funnel that focuses on one product, with multiple One-time-offers to convert a cold audience.

Then take those customers and drive them to your “inventory-stock” meaning Shopify.

100% Control with ClickFunnels

clickfunnels vs shopify

The absolute greatest strengths of Clickfunnels for eCommerce are 100% control over the design and look of your shop, as well as the construction of complete sales funnels with upsells, downsells, product bundles and one time offers.

First of all, Clickfunnels also run on their own servers, so the software and therefore your online store can withstand any amount of traffic. 

Other eCommerce Plugins for WordPress for example had some issues with rising traffic, which can lead to server breackdowns.

The software is very intuitive and user-friendly. 

You can use a drag and drop editor to put all together with the way you want. There are also ready-made templates that you can use for your shop. 

These are also 100% customizable and can be remodeled as you wish. Share Funnel function also allows you to import or share complete marketing funnels from other Clickfunnels accounts with just one click. 

This way you just have to add your product and description and you’re ready to go. Furthermore, you can test individual products quickly.

Just the possibility to customize everything is worth to have a look at Clickfunnels for eCommerce: You can optimize your online store for conversions.

You can change different designs, layouts, headings, descriptions and everything else and split-test them against each other. 

Check out this Free Clickfunnels Ecommerce Funnel and test for yourself!

Integrated A/B Split-testing

A very important strategy that you should use to optimize your online business is split testing.

The A/B split tests function is already included by default in the ClickFunnels software. 

You can remove all distractions during the purchase process, so the customer moves faster through the payment process and is not unnecessarily distracted by menus or related products.

Clickfunnels vs Shopify For Ecommerce and Dropshipping 1

This way you can find out which design converts best and you can double and multiply your revenue.

What also increases your average shopping cart is, that you have the option of selling more items through upsells and downsells with just one additional click from the customer.  

As far as the conversion optimization is concerned, Shopify can’t compete anyhow with Clickfunnels.

Especially dropshipping usually results in longer shipping times for the customer. But there is a trick how you can make that time more pleasant for your customers.

Additional upsells like ebooks, digital products or a video about the purchased product, can be send over immediately. Thus your customer can use the waiting time, for his package to arrive with digital bonuses.

You make money, and your customer is happier because he can already access digital features of his product until it arrives.

That can happen through an upsell with just one click, through the one-click-upsell Clickfunnels feature.

Further advantages of Clickfunnels are:

You can easily integrate payment forms and design them individually.

Furthermore, in Clickfunnels you can create landing pages and opt-in forms to collect leads, so you can build an email list, to send more offers or discount codes via email marketing campaigns, like for example an abandoned cart or cart recovery sequence.

In addition, you will be able to optimize your advertising campaigns and address your audience in a more targeted way.

Email Integrations

All common email marketing programs are quickly and easily integrateable into Clickfunnels. In the larger Clickfunnels package, the Platinum (formerly Etison Suite), Follow-Up Funnels an email software is already integrated.

Also, you get a system called Backpack, that can build your own affiliate marketing program.

What only a few people know, that you can also utilize email marketing in the basic Clickfunnels plan already, by integrating a free service like Mailgun.

What’s also very attractive: Clickfunnels allows you to create different pages for desktop and mobile traffic, to be fully mobile responsive, which is especially interesting for dropshippers, who get their traffic from Instagram.

clickfunnels vs shopify

Clickfunnels is also great if you have a smaller range of products or a smaller niche. 

If you don’t have a bigger product range yet, you don’t need a complete Shopify store to present just a couple of products, you just need a funnel. 

Just plug your product in a pre-built proven funnel and you are ready to go.

So when you’re just starting out and want to create one funnel to test one single product for Ecom and dropshipping, Clickfunnels gives you the ideal solution to test some products quickly.

Also when you have an established online store already and want to scale to the next level, you can try upselling with Clickfunnels.

Disadvantage of Clickfunnels

SEO and Blogging for organic traffic

However, ClickFunnels also has disadvantages. Unfortunately, it is not very SEO friendly. In this case, Shopify will perform better with it’s integrated blog.

However, the free CMS WordPress allows you to create a website with a subdomain and link it as a blog to your funnel or shop.

So when you’re planning to utilize organic traffic from SEO you should strongly consider building a WordPress website and blog, because that will give you way more options, than Clickfunnels OR Shopify although the latter has a content management system.

So you can only fully optimize your blog post by using WordPress.

If you aren’t familiar with website building you can let a freelancer for a couple of dollars set up your whole blog.

Lack in payment functionality

One more disadvantage that I really don’t like in Clickfunnels: You can’t integrate multiple payment gateway options into one order form.

That is something that still need a little workaround or an extension called CF-Pro tools.

But first the workaround… Even though you can design very well converting order forms, you need to duplicate them. That means first you can provide an order form for credit card payments.

If people prefer paying with PayPay you can just integrate a button that redirects your customer to another order form (just duplicate it) to be able to transfer money via Paypal.

Still kind of annoying but possible.

The Shopify Pros

You can use Shopify as a complete inventory management system or shop solution for eCommerce and online stores. If you’re a little bit tech-savvy,  you need only one day to build a complete store Shopify is that simple!  

There are already some pre-built templates for your online store available If you don’t like them, you can spend some money and buy a premium theme to make sure the store looks even more professional.

Clickfunnels vs Shopify For Ecommerce and Dropshipping 2
shopify vs. clickfunnels

In general, Shopify is very beginner-friendly easy to use software. If you’ve already experienced with a Content Management System like WordPress, you can quickly adapt to Shopify. 

Even if not, it’s really manageable and there are enough free tutorials on the Internet and on Youtube to get very quickly into it, even without experience.

Shopify runs on its own servers it can withstand any amount of traffic, unlike Woo-Commerce. There are a couple of store owners reporting issues with WooCommerce with increasing traffic. 

Also, the integrations on Shopify are great, you can easily sell your products on Amazon, Ebay and social media market places.

Also it has a full inventory management system to keep track of your product inventory easily.

Let’s get to the negative things with Shopify

Especially in comparison to Clickfunnels, there are some negative things. The storefront or the look of your shop depends on the themes included in Shopify, but they’re NOT fully changeable.

If you want to create and customize your shop in a way the theme doesn’t provide, you’ll need programming skills. Alternatively, there are apps for Shopify that allow you to do that, but they can cause bugs and you won’t end up with the result you originally intended to achieve. 

clickfunnels vs. shopify

You can also ask someone at Fiverr to create a design, but most of the time those guys are also dependent on using already existing store themes, so they probably won’t be perfect. Although a freelancer on Fiverr is always a great idea to save a lot of time.

This is also the biggest disadvantage in the duel of Clickfunnels vs Shopify. Ecommerce is a numbers game, where you have to keep an eye on your expenses, income and above all, the conversion rate…which depends much on your design.

Clickfunnels And Shopify Pricing Plans

What do both of them cost?

Clickfunnels Pricing:

There are basically two options you can choose from. A yearly payment plan and a monthly. Within the monthly plan, the standard Clickfunnels Plan costs $97 per month and the Platinum Plan $297 per month.

If you need more complex email marketing options and an affiliate marketing management system I recommend taking the Platinum plan. But usually, the basic plan is enough for most users.

But you can get 2 months free if you decide to get on the yearly plan.

If you would like to learn more about the option and especially discounts you can get check out this article: Clickfunnels Discount Codes

Shopify Pricing

Clickfunnels vs Shopify For Ecommerce and Dropshipping 3

Basically, you can choose between three options. But be assured that when you’re starting out, the basic Shopify Plan for $29 per month is enough to build your first online store.

The main difference between the $29,$79 and $299 per month plan is the reporting features of Shopify and fees for the payment options. So the higher the Shopify plan, the lower your credit card and transaction fees will be.

Also, you’ll have an advanced report builder and advanced shipping options in the highest plan. For example, third party calculated shipping rates are only available in the premium plan.

I would not advise to get into a Shopify store if you don’t have a full array of products yet. Also keep in mind that your conversions will be much higher when you’ll use Clickfunnels upfront.

So the price shouldn’t be the decisive factor here.

Clickfunnels And Shopify Features Comparison

To keep the overview I won’t compare every singly plan and option, that would take multiple sites. So let’s focus on the basic plan and see which features they’ll give you.

Features of Clickfunnels $97 Plan

  • 20,000 visitors
  • 20 funnels
  • 100 pages
  • 1 SMTP integration
  • Unlimited contacts
  • 3 custom domains
  • A/B split testing
  • Email integrations
  • Members area
  • ClickPops
  • ClickOptin
  • Upsells and downsells pages
  • Share funnels
  • Advanced funnels
  • Auto webinar funnels
  • Funnel Flix

Features of Shopify for the $29 Plan

  • Multiple Sales Channels
  • Accept Two or More Payment Options
  • Refunds and Store Credit
  • Gift Cards
  • Custom Payment gateways
  • Custom Receipts
  • Custom Sales
  • Set shipping rates for different products
  • Portable Registers
  • Product Management
  • Automatic Tax Calculations
  • Store Management
  • Inventory Management

Payment Integration

Shopify definitely wins the comparison with payment gateways. Shopify supports 100s of payment gateways, while Clickfunnels features only support a handful.

That’s not that big of an issue because most people will pay with a credit card or PayPal and you can cover both with Clickfunnels. But if you need more payment gateways or you’re in a country where people have another preferred payment solution, Shopify is the better choice.

So payment integration is easier with Shopify And you’ll get more options.

Sub-users and staff accounts

Assuming you have an established shop and you need staff accounts, you can add up 2 in the very basic version of Shopify. Clickfunnels lets you add one sub-user in the basic plan, and up to 3 in the Platinum.

If you run your business with employees already and really want to take it to the next level, the Shopify Premium plan allows up to 15 staff accounts.

By the way, if you want to leverage the software solutions through affiliate marketing, both have great affiliate programs you can join for free.

Check out more about one of them in this Article: Clickfunnels Affiliate Bootcamp

Conclusion:  Clickfunnels vs Shopify for Ecommerce and Dropshipping

Clickfunnels offers you all freedoms and possibilities for your Ecommerce Store and it can be easily designed without programming knowledge or complex plugins that often cause bugs. 

The simple drag and drop editor makes is easy to use and you find your way around very quickly. Otherwise, there are also lots of tutorials and training on Youtube. If you are unsure you can test the software for 14 days for free and see for yourself.

Having a full product range and knowing exactly what you want to build, I would recommend using Shopify.

If you want to test products like in Dropshipping, you can do it very fast with Clickfunnels, by just plugging your products in an be ready to start promoting.

Clickfunnels must first be optimized for sales, but then converts a lot better than Shopify. It contains the whole package and doesn’t need any further apps or plugins, except maybe an email software, if you need to build more complex email campaigns.

Last but not least, if you like to get the best out of marketing funnels and a full shop you can use the advantages of both programs and link them with each other with the Clickfunnels Shopify Integration instead of looking at them as alternatives.

If you sign up for Clickfunnels 14 day free trial you can create Funnels for Ecommerce or get free funnel templates and bonuses from this site.

Scroll to Top