vs
Framer vs Shopify
Framer is a website builder for design-led marketing sites. Shopify is a commerce platform built around products, stock and checkout. The choice comes down to what your site sells and how people pay for it.
The short answer
Choose Shopify if you sell products online and need a cart, checkout, inventory and order management. Choose Framer if the site’s job is to explain a product or service and send people to a call, a signup or your app. If you need both, keep the store on Shopify and link to it from a Framer site, or add a few products to Framer pages with Shopify’s Buy Button. We build in Framer and Webflow. We don’t build Shopify stores.
At a glance
Built for
Marketing sites, landing pages and content.
Online stores, from a few products to large catalogs.
Editing
A freeform canvas close to Figma. Editors update text and CMS items on the live page.
A theme editor with sections and blocks. How much you can change depends on the theme.
Selling
Products are sold through outside tools, such as an embedded Shopify Buy Button or a payment link.
Cart, checkout, payments, shipping, inventory and orders are built in.
CMS
Collections for blogs, case studies and similar content, with plan limits.
Products and collections, plus blog posts, pages and custom content through metafields and metaobjects.
Design control
High. Custom layouts, components, effects and animation.
Good within a theme. Deeper changes mean editing Liquid, Shopify’s template language, or a custom theme.
Integrations
Plugins, embeds and custom code.
A large app store for reviews, subscriptions, loyalty, shipping and more.
Typical fit
B2B software and service companies, launches and brands with a handful of products.
Brands where online sales are the business.
How to decide
What the site sells
Choose Framer if
You sell a subscription, a service or a demo, and payment happens inside your product or by invoice.
Choose Shopify if
You sell products that need a cart, stock levels and shipping.
How many products you have
Choose Framer if
You have a handful of products, and a Buy Button or payment link can handle each sale.
Choose Shopify if
You have a catalog with variants, collections and filters, and it keeps growing.
Who runs it day to day
Choose Framer if
Your team spends its time on pages and content, and orders are rare or handled somewhere else.
Choose Shopify if
Your team spends its time on orders, stock, discounts and customer accounts. Shopify’s admin is built for that work.
How much the design matters
Choose Framer if
The site has to explain something new with custom layouts and motion, and the design changes often.
Choose Shopify if
A strong theme gets you most of the way, and the effort goes into products, photography and offers.
Whether you need both
Use both if
You want a design-led brand site and a full store. The store can run on Shopify at a subdomain, such as shop.yourbrand.com, with the Framer site at the main domain.
What it costs
Shopify
Shopify charges a monthly plan plus payment processing on each sale. Using a payment provider other than Shopify Payments can add a transaction fee. Paid themes and apps add their own costs, and many apps bill monthly.
Framer
Framer charges a monthly plan per site, with add-ons for extra pages, CMS items, locales and editors. If you sell through Shopify’s Buy Button, you also need a Shopify plan for the products and checkout.
For a store, the costs that grow are apps and processing fees as sales grow. For a marketing site, the bigger cost is the time your team spends building and changing pages.
How we help
We design in Figma and build in Framer and Webflow. We don’t build or customize Shopify themes. If your site is mainly a store, a Shopify specialist is the better fit, and we’ll tell you on the first call.
When the brand site and the store are separate, we can design and build the brand site in Framer and link it to your Shopify store, or add products with the Buy Button when the scope includes it.
For brands that already sell online, we also run Social Media Management and Paid Ads.
Questions
Daniel G. Bright
Founder, BrightStudios
Still have a question?
Book a call with me to talk through your project and agree the next step.
Keep exploring
Framer vs Webflow
Fast design changes and easy publishing, or a bigger, more structured CMS.
Framer vs WordPress
A hosted design tool with little upkeep, or open-source software you can extend and host yourself.
Framer vs Wix
A custom product marketing site, or an all-in-one builder for running a small business.
Framer vs Squarespace
A site designed around your product, or a polished template with selling and scheduling built in.
Talk it through
Tell us what the site needs to do and who will run it. We’ll recommend one platform and explain why.