ClickFunnels vs Shopify: Ultimate Sales Platform Review

Finding the right sales platform for your business is important. Since most businesses are selling online, you’ll want the best tool available to you. That’s why I’ve created this review of ClickFunnels vs Shopify, to help you find the best sales platform for you! Since there are so many different tools out there, it may be overwhelming. That’s why I’m here, to help you and your business find the proper software.

A sales funnel helps guide your visitors into qualified leads, and eventually customers. Through a sequence of pages, automated emails, and actionable steps, you can turn cold prospects into paying customers.

For the lead generation aspect of a business, this is vital. You need to pre-sell the customer, provide value, and understand the psychology of the sale to have success! Without a sales funnel, you can’t automate the process.

This is where Shopify is lacking compared to ClickFunnels, but it also has a few key advantages over that platform. I’ll be going over everything you should know regarding these sales platforms!

In this comparison and review, we’ll be breaking down ClickFunnels vs Shopify. You don’t want to spend your time, effort, and money using a platform that won’t be the long-term business solution. Both Shopify and ClickFunnels are softwares designed around selling online.

These softwares are designed to help you convert sales for your products or services. That’s the whole purpose of using an online sales platform, now let’s find the best one.

I have experience with both of these software, and one of them definitely has the edge in my opinion. Let’s go over both of these phenomenal tools to help you make the right decision today!

What is ClickFunnels?

ClickFunnels is a funnel builder and website building tool that has been in the business since 2014. Founded by Russell Brunson and Todd Dickerson, the company has went from self-funded to worth over $500 million. Seriously, the company is legit.

At over 95,000 active members, it’s one of the industry leaders. Since no technical skills are required and the amount of training provided, it’s easy to learn for a beginner. It has great drag and drop technology to make this program extremely efficient for beginners out there.

FREE TRIAL: Try ClickFunnels FREE for 14 Days!

What is Shopify?

Shopify is an e-commerce platform used by many online stores, due to the cheap pricing and ease of use. With a ton of different plugins you can add, this is very popular for the business model of Dropshipping.

Since the beginner plan is very cheap, you can create a dropshipping store for next to nothing when starting out with Shopify. All you would need is a domain and to pay the monthly fee for Shopify.

Once you take into account the costs of ads and products, that’s where it becomes expensive. Regardless, this platform is powerful and a ton of huge websites use Shopify to run their online shops. From Kanye West, to Kylie Jenner, the list is endless.

I’ll even be going over a few more examples of popular stores powered by Shopify later in this article.

ClickFunnels vs Shopify: Benefits

ClickFunnels vs Shopify: Pricing Plans

ClickFunnels Pricing Plans

ClickFunnels offers two different pricing plans, which are the Startup Plan, and the Etison Suite Plan. Let’s go over which is best for you!

ClickFunnels Startup Plan ($97/m)

The ClickFunnels Startup Plan is $97 per month, and gives you access to all of the tools to build funnels, and the following features and limitations:

• 20 Sales Funnels
• 100 Landing Pages
• 20,000 Unique Visitors per Month
• 3 Custom Domains
• Unlimited Leads
• A/B Split Testing within Funnels
• Email Autoresponder Integration (Allows third-party email marketing software to be used)
• 14-Day Free Trial

ClickFunnels Etison Suite Plan ($297/m)

The ClickFunnels Etison Suite Plan is $297 per month, and gives you access to all of the tools to build funnels, and the following features and limitations:

• Unlimited Sales Funnels
• Unlimited Landing Pages
• Unlimited Unique Visitors per Month
• Unlimited Custom Domains
• Unlimited Leads
• A/B Split Testing within Funnels
• Email Autoresponder Integration (Allows third-party email marketing software to be used)
• 14-Day Free Trial
• Actionetics Email Marketing Software
• Backpack Affiliate Marketing Program

This plan allows you to host an affiliate program, and have internal email marketing automation using the ClickFunnels autoresponder, Actionetics.

There is a discounted way to get the Etison Suite Plan, called Funnel Builder Secrets.

Additionally, you can sign up for the 14-day free trial of ClickFunnels here if you aren’t looking to invest money in the software just yet.

Shopify Pricing Plans

Shopify has three different pricing plans, which have a variety of features. In addition to the features you gain access to, you also get charged fewer rates, and overall having a higher level plan can make your store more profitable when scaling. Due to how affordable it is to setup a Shopify store, a ton of beginners choose opening up a dropshipping business when starting out online.

Even I started doing this and was having okay success, but found it wasn’t really for me, which is why I now focus more on my affiliate marketing websites, like this one! This platform is really easy to understand and at the price it costs, you can see why it’s so popular!

Basic Shopify Plan ($29/m)

The basic Shopify pricing plan is all you will need when starting out. When it comes to Shopify’s basic plan, it has all of the features and capabilities to start your online business. While I don’t prefer how static the websites are, with little ability to customize in comparison to other softwares, including ClickFunnels, for $29/m you can host your website that sells goods!

• Online Store
• Unlimited Products
• 2 Staff Accounts
• 24/7 Support
• Discount Codes
• SSL Certificate
• Abandoned Cart Recovery
• Pay Shopify 2.9% + $0.30 per Sale
• Shipping Discount
• Fraud Analysis

Standard Shopify Plan ($79/m)

The standard Shopify Plan offers a few additional features in comparison to the basic plan, and slightly lower rates to pay Shopify on sales. This plan is great for anybody looking for more professional reporting and analytics, the ability to use gift cards, or anybody who is earning enough where it makes sense to purchase just for the difference in pay to Shopify.

• Online Store
• Unlimited Products
• 5 Staff Accounts
• 24/7 Support
• Discount Codes
• SSL Certificate
• Abandoned Cart Recovery
• Pay Shopify 2.6% + $0.30 per Sale
• Shipping Discount
• Fraud Analysis
• Gift Card
• Professional Reports

Advanced Shopify Plan ($299/m)

The advanced Shopify Plan offers a few additional features in comparison to the standard plan, and the lowest possible rates to pay Shopify. Since this plan is rather expensive, it should only be used if you are scaling a big business using Shopify. Examples would include https://yeezysupply.com, https://www.kyliecosmetics.com, or https://fullsend.com. If you have an operation where you are selling that much, this is definitely the plan for you.

• Online Store
• Unlimited Products
• 15 Staff Accounts
• 24/7 Support
• Discount Codes
• SSL Certificate
• Abandoned Cart Recovery
• Pay Shopify 2.4% + $0.30 per Sale
• Shipping Discount
• Fraud Analysis
• Gift Card
• Professional Reports
• Advanced Report Builder
• Third-party Calculated Shipping Rates

FREE TRIAL: Try ClickFunnels FREE for 14 Days!

ClickFunnels vs Shopify: Cons of Each Platform

ClickFunnels

There isn’t much I dislike about ClickFunnels, if anything. The pricing is expensive, but validates itself in the reliability and technology you’re getting.

Additionally, the email marketing not being included in the startup plan is a bummer, but using an autoresponder like GetResponse is easy enough.

I trust ClickFunnels for my affiliate commissions, and sales through their funnels. I don’t have to worry about losing a lead, or sale with ClickFunnels.

Shopify

Shopify is a great platform, primarily for businesses selling physical goods. With this platform, there are a few things that are holding it back, though.

To start, there is no funnel process like ClickFunnels offers. So you aren’t able to collect the email on the front-end, without integrating the two platforms. (I’ll go over this shortly…)

Aside from this, there isn’t much customization available after you choose the theme. It becomes somewhat static, and that holds me back from using this software like I once did.

ClickFunnels vs Shopify: Affiliate Program

Affiliate Marketing is a way of earning money online, that you may or may not be familiar with. To help you out, I’ve attached an infographic below to easily show how this works.

ClickFunnels Affiliate Program

ClickFunnels is clearly a great software, but how’s their affiliate program? Well, it’s just as great.

Whether you have an active membership or not, you have the potential to earn 40% lifetime recurring commissions on most of the subscription/membership based products. This includes the ClickFunnels Startup Plan, or the Etison Suite Plan. As of October 31st, it will be changing to 30% lifetime recurring commissions if you don’t earn $100 prior to that date. Which sucks for new affiliates, but protects older affiliates at the same time.

To recap that, you can earn $38.80/m for every active Startup plan member you have, or $118.80/m for every active Etison Suite plan member.

After October 31st, it will be $29.10/m for every active member and $89.10/m if they have the Etison Suite plan. If you are grandfathered in, it will be the higher amounts.

Additionally, you have the chance to earn your dream car from ClickFunnels. If you have 100 active members, they’ll send you $500 extra each month. If you have 200 active members, they’ll send you $1,000 extra each month. Pretty sweet, right?

You can also promote a ton of front-end offers on the software such as Expert Secrets, DotCom Secrets, or the Perfect Webinar Script. There is so much out there, and with the sticky cookie ClickFunnels provides, it’s an extremely lucrative affiliate program.

As an affiliate of ClickFunnels, you’ll get paid on the 15th and 30th using Tipalti.

You have ability to promote the software as an active ClickFunnels member (14-day trial) and can also promote ClickFunnels if you’re not an active ClickFunnels member. (Affiliate Bootcamp)

To learn more about this great affiliate program, check out my review here.

Shopify Affiliate Program

Shopify’s affiliate program is lucrative and a lot have earned a significant amount with it. The issue? Shopify doesn’t like to accept many affiliate marketers.

For example, I have a few sites built up and they didn’t accept me although I was actively writing articles around Shopify. This does not affect my reviews of the platform, but I have no reason to promote the software outside of reviews like this, where I give my honest comparison.

To apply to Shopify’s affiliate program, you can do that here. I won’t be speaking more about this affiliate program since I wasn’t accepted for bad reasoning in my opinion. Best of luck applying if you wish too though!

Conclusion: ClickFunnels vs Shopify

After using both of these software, ClickFunnels was miles ahead of Shopify in my opinion. Since switching to ClickFunnels, I haven’t had to look for a better software, since I’ve had zero issues so far.

Shopify is a great sales platform, but is limited in the funnel capabilities, where I think they lose a major opportunity there! Additionally, you always have the ability to integrate ClickFunnels with Shopify which I touched on before here.

There’s a new funnel builder in town…