Comparison

Netiva vs Shopify,
compared for selling online and beyond.

Shopify is built around selling; Netiva puts a store next to websites and web apps. We compare selling features, fees, content, code, hosting, mobile and price, with sources.

By Kelvin Çobanaj
Updated Pricing and features checked
Try Netiva free All comparisons

The short answer

Shopify is a dedicated commerce platform: an online store, payments, in-person selling, wholesale catalogs, selling in AI chats, more than 13,000 apps and a merchant mobile app, on plans that run from Agentic, which has no monthly fee, up to Plus. Netiva is an agentic workspace where one chat builds a website, a web app or a store, with a built-in CMS, hosted checkout, tax and shipping, plus code you can export. Pick Shopify if selling is the whole business and you need point of sale, B2B or a large app directory. Pick Netiva if the store is one part of a site or web app you want to build and change by chatting.

Netiva is best for

Businesses whose online store is one part of a bigger website or web app, built and changed by chat with a built-in CMS, checkout and shipping

Shopify is best for

Merchants whose business is selling — online, in person, to wholesale buyers and in AI chats — with room to grow through thousands of apps

At a glance

Netiva vs Shopify, side by side

Netiva compared with Shopify
Criterion Netiva Shopify
What you can build Websites, web apps (dashboards, portals and SaaS products) and online stores in one workspace A commerce platform: online store, payments, selling on social channels, in person and in AI chats; headless storefronts and custom apps via APIs[1]
How you build Chat with an AI agent and watch a live preview; annotate the preview, @mention files or edit the code yourself Store from a prompt or one of hundreds of themes; a no-code section editor plus Sidekick, Shopify’s AI assistant; CSS, Liquid and an in-admin code editor[1][2][3]
Content and CMS Built-in collections: any content model, nine field types, slugs and relations, bound to list and detail pages Built-in blogging engine on every store; metaobjects for custom structured content such as author profiles or size charts[4][5]
Commerce Built in: products and variants, orders, hosted checkout, automatic tax, multi-currency, warehouses and carrier rates Commerce-first: unlimited products on every plan from Basic up, Shopify Payments, B2B catalogs and a POS Pro add-on for retail; extra fee with other payment providers[1]
Code ownership Clean production code you own and can export; no proprietary runtime Theme code syncs with GitHub and themes can be downloaded; products export to CSV; Hydrogen storefronts can be self-hosted[6][7][8][9]
Hosting and domains Global hosting, automatic SSL and preview URLs; custom domains from the Starter plan Hosting and SSL included; connect your own domain or buy one typically from $9 a year; free myshopify.com address; up to 20 domains per store[1][10]
Collaboration Real-time collaboration: invite teammates into the workspace, see their cursors and comment on the preview Staff accounts by plan (no extras on Basic, 5 on Grow, 15 on Advanced, unlimited on Plus); collaborator accounts for partners[1][11]
Versioning and rollback Every change is checkpointed; branch, compare and roll back Past versions and revert for theme code files; Git branches connected to themes; duplicate a theme as a backup[3][6][7]
Mobile Web apps that open in the phone’s browser and mobile-first storefronts; no native iOS or Android builds Merchant mobile app included with plans; developers can embed Shopify checkout in their own iOS, Android or React Native apps[12][13]
Starting price Free plan; paid plans from $19/month ($16/month billed yearly) Agentic plan at $0 (builds a store but can’t publish it); Basic from $39/month ($29 billed yearly); 3-day free trial, then $1/month for 3 months on most plans[1][14]
Best for Teams that want a website, web app and store built and run in one agentic workspace Businesses where selling is the core: online and in-person retail, wholesale and stores that grow with apps from Shopify’s App Store
Details

Feature by feature

What you can build

A commerce platform versus a wider builder

Depends on your project

Netiva

Netiva builds marketing sites, online stores, booking systems, portfolios, docs and web apps such as dashboards, portals and SaaS products. A store can sit inside a bigger project: end users can sign in to see their own records, apps can send emails and run scheduled jobs, and they can call any REST API with the keys stored securely.

Shopify

Shopify describes itself as an all-in-one commerce platform for creating an online store, accepting payments and selling on social channels and in person. Every plan from Basic up lists selling online, in person and in AI chats. Developers can build headless storefronts (one on Basic, Grow and Advanced, 25 on Plus) and custom apps with Shopify APIs, with full data access from the Grow plan up.[1]

If you’re building a store first and last, Shopify is designed around exactly that. If the store is one piece of a site, portal or SaaS product, Netiva builds the other pieces in the same place.

How you build

Chat with an agent or start from a theme

Depends on your project

Netiva

In Netiva you describe the site or store in a chat, and the agent writes the pages, wires up the data and ships each change while a live preview updates. To steer it, you annotate the preview or @mention a file, then keep refining. You never have to write code, but you can open the editor, change files yourself and switch between the running app and its source in one click.

Shopify

Shopify can spin up a store from a simple prompt, and its AI store builder generates store designs from a description of your business. You can also pick one of hundreds of themes and change pages and layouts in a no-code editor built on editable sections. For deeper changes you can edit CSS or use Liquid, Shopify’s theme templating language, in a code editor inside the Shopify admin. Shopify’s plan comparison also lists AI features on every plan: an AI website builder metered in millions of tokens and Sidekick, an AI assistant for commerce.[1][2][3]

Both start from a prompt, and both keep an AI assistant on hand. The difference is reach: Shopify’s assistant sits beside themes and the section editor, while Netiva’s agent writes and changes the whole project from the chat.

Content and CMS

Blogs and metaobjects versus collections

Depends on your project

Netiva

Netiva’s CMS is called collections. You define content types with nine field types, from text and HTML to images, files and dates, plus auto-generated slugs, relations, required fields and default values. Records live in a grid that works like a spreadsheet, with saved filtered and sorted views. Bind a collection to your pages and list and detail pages render automatically, while an assistant reformats, translates or fills fields across many rows.

Shopify

Every Shopify online store comes with a built-in blogging engine. For other structured content, metaobjects let you define custom data structures with multiple related fields — Shopify’s own examples include author profiles and product size charts — so a store can model content beyond its products and posts.[4][5]

Shopify covers a blog on every store and models other content types with metaobjects. Netiva’s difference is the editing surface: a spreadsheet-like grid, saved filtered views and an assistant that edits or generates records in bulk.

Commerce

Selling is Shopify’s core

Edge: Shopify

Netiva

Netiva’s store covers products with sizes, colors, SKUs and per-variant pricing and stock, categories and merchandised collections, a Draft state until a product is marked Active and a low-stock flag. Checkout is a hosted one-page flow on Stripe with automatic tax and multi-currency, and orders move through fulfillment, refunds and customer notes. Shipping handles several warehouses, real carrier rates, labels and tracking. PayPal, product reviews and abandoned cart recovery start on the Pro plan, and product counts are plan limits.

Shopify

Every Shopify plan from Basic up can sell unlimited products. Online card rates with Shopify Payments run from 2.9% + 30¢ on Basic to 2.25% + 30¢ on Plus, and using a third-party payment provider adds a fee of 2% on Basic down to 0.2% on Plus. Shopify is certified Level 1 PCI DSS compliant. It also offers B2B wholesale catalogs (up to three on Basic, Grow and Advanced, unlimited on Plus) and a POS Pro add-on for physical stores.[1]

Shopify goes further for merchants: in-person selling, wholesale catalogs, AI channels and no product cap. Netiva covers the core of an online store — variants, stock, checkout, tax and shipping — inside a project that can also be a site or web app.

Code ownership

A full code export versus theme code and CSV files

Depends on your project

Netiva

Netiva writes clean, framework-standard production code that belongs to you. You can read it, change it in the editor and export all of it whenever you like. There’s no proprietary runtime and no lock-in, so the project’s code goes with you if you ever move on.

Shopify

Shopify themes are built with Liquid, and the Shopify GitHub app syncs theme code to and from GitHub repositories so developers can work on it together. Shopify’s help center describes downloading a theme before you delete it, and products can be exported to a CSV file, for example as a backup or to move them to another store. Headless storefronts built with Hydrogen can be self-hosted on other JavaScript runtimes instead of Shopify’s Oxygen hosting.[6][7][8][9]

Shopify gives developers Git sync for themes and CSV exports for products. Netiva’s export hands you the code for the whole project, which suits teams that want to take the entire build with them.

Hosting and domains

Hosting and SSL included on both

About even

Netiva

Netiva runs your project on global hosting with automatic SSL and preview URLs, and publishing takes one click. To go live on your own domain, which needs the Starter plan or higher, you add the DNS records Netiva lists at your domain registrar.

Shopify

Every Shopify plan includes secure commerce hosting, and domains you add get a free TLS/SSL certificate. You can connect a domain you already own or buy one through Shopify, typically from $9 a year, and every store also gets a free myshopify.com address. A store can connect up to 20 domains or subdomains, or up to 1,000 on Shopify Plus.[1][10]

Neither asks you to arrange hosting yourself. Shopify can also sell you the domain and handles many domains per store, while Netiva includes preview URLs as part of hosting.

Collaboration

Building together versus staff accounts

Depends on your project

Netiva

Netiva is set up for building together in real time. Invite teammates into the same workspace, see their cursors as they edit and comment directly on the preview. Role-based access for team members starts on the Pro plan; seat and workspace limits are on the pricing card below.

Shopify

Shopify’s plan table lists additional staff accounts by plan: no additional ones on Basic, 5 on Grow, 15 on Advanced and unlimited on Plus. Agencies and developers can get collaborator accounts that open only the sections of a store a merchant chooses, and these don’t count toward the staff limit. Developers can also work on theme code together through GitHub. We didn’t find live co-editing of a store described on Shopify’s site.[1][11][6]

For a team shaping the site together, Netiva’s live cursors and preview comments fit well. For a store with staff and outside agencies, Shopify’s staff and collaborator accounts set who can reach what.

Versioning and rollback

Project checkpoints versus theme file history

Edge: Netiva

Netiva

Netiva saves a checkpoint for every change. You can branch to try an idea, compare versions and roll back to any earlier moment without losing work, so a redesign or a new product page can be tried and undone without starting over.

Shopify

Shopify’s code editor keeps past versions of every Liquid file: you pick an earlier version, review the differences and revert its contents. Developers can connect Git branches to themes to build and test new features or campaigns, and Shopify suggests duplicating a theme as a backup copy before you customize it. We didn’t find store-wide history or rollback for products and content on Shopify’s site.[3][6][7]

Shopify’s history centers on theme files and theme copies. Netiva checkpoints each change to the project automatically, with branching and comparing built in.

Mobile

Phones: web storefronts versus native options

Edge: Shopify

Netiva

Netiva storefronts are mobile-first product pages on your own domain, and the web apps it builds open in the phone’s browser with nothing to install. Those web apps can scan barcodes with the phone’s camera. Netiva doesn’t produce native iOS or Android apps, and it doesn’t package anything for app stores.

Shopify

Merchants can run their store from the Shopify mobile app, which is included with a Shopify plan. For shoppers, developers can embed Shopify checkout in their own iOS, Android or React Native app with Checkout Kit. A first-party no-code builder for native shopping apps isn’t described on the Shopify pages we checked.[12][13]

If you want to manage the store from a native app, or your developers plan a native shopping app, Shopify has the pieces. Netiva keeps both the storefront and your web apps in the browser.

Starting price

A free plan versus a trial and an intro price

Depends on your project

Netiva

Netiva has a free plan you can start without a credit card. The paid plans — Starter, Pro, Business and Enterprise — add capacity and features, such as custom domain connection from Starter and advanced SEO tools from Pro. Store sales also pay card processing: Netiva’s checkout runs on Stripe, which bills at your Stripe account’s rates on top of the plan. Current prices are in the pricing section below and on Netiva’s pricing page.

Shopify

Shopify starts with a free 3-day trial with no credit card required, then $1 a month for 3 months on most plans. Basic, the entry plan with an online store, is $39 a month or $29 a month billed yearly, and no plan has a setup fee. The Agentic plan costs $0 a month for selling in AI channels, but it can’t publish an online store or sell through the online store checkout. At the top end, Plus is priced by term: from $2,300 a month on a three-year term, or $2,500 a month on a one-year term.[1][14][15]

You can try either without a card. Shopify’s Agentic plan has no monthly fee but no published storefront, so Basic is its entry point for a store. On Netiva, a custom domain starts with the Starter plan.

Pricing

Netiva vs Shopify pricing

Prices change often. Confirm the current numbers on each vendor’s pricing page before you decide.

Netiva

  • Free$0/mo
    5 seats, 1 workspace, up to 4 products in the online store
  • Starter$19/mo
    $16/mo billed yearly
    Up to 10 products in the online store, custom domain connection, up to 10 pages
  • Pro$49/mo
    $42/mo billed yearly
    Everything in Starter, up to 100 products in the online store, advanced SEO tools
  • Business$129/mo
    $110/mo billed yearly
    Everything in Pro, 250 products in the store, advanced analytics dashboard
  • EnterpriseCustom
    Everything in Business, 500 products in the store, single sign-on and two-factor authentication

USD per month. Yearly prices are per month, billed annually. Checked Sep 17, 2026. Current Netiva pricing

Shopify

  • Agentic$0/mo[1]
    For selling in AI channels: add your products to Shopify’s Catalog, choose which AI channels to sell in and pay only when you make a sale; card rates from 2.9% + 30¢ online
  • Basic$39/mo[1]
    $29/mo billed yearly
    Online store, unlimited products, Sidekick AI, no additional staff accounts; card rates from 2.9% + 30¢, 2% fee with third-party providers
  • Grow$105/mo[1]
    $79/mo billed yearly
    Everything in Basic plus 5 additional staff accounts; card rates from 2.7% + 30¢, 1% fee with third-party providers
  • Advanced$399/mo[1]
    $299/mo billed yearly
    Everything in Grow plus 15 additional staff accounts and live third-party shipping rates; card rates from 2.5% + 30¢, 0.6% fee with third-party providers
  • PlusStarts at $2,300[1]
    Unlimited staff accounts, a fully customizable checkout, up to 200 POS Pro locations and unlimited B2B catalogs; card rates from 2.25% + 30¢, 0.2% third-party fee
  • POS Pro (add-on)+$89/mo per location[1]
    Added to a plan for physical stores: unlimited staff roles and permissions, in-store inventory management, in-store pickup and flexible delivery

USD, US pricing. Monthly prices are billed monthly; yearly prices are shown per month, billed annually. Plus is priced by term commitment. Checked Sep 17, 2026.

Shopify prices plans per store; staff accounts are a plan limit. Each sale also pays processing: Shopify Payments card rates, or another provider’s rates plus Shopify’s transaction fee of 2% down to 0.2%. Plus is priced by term: $2,300 a month on a three-year term, $2,500 on a one-year term; its card advertises a $399 trial offer. New stores get 3 days free, then $1 a month for 3 months on most plans.

Decision

Which should you choose?

Choose Netiva if…

  • You want a website, a web app with user sign-in and an online store in one workspace, built and changed by chatting with an agent
  • Your store is one part of a bigger project, such as a booking system, a client portal or a content-heavy site
  • Editors need a spreadsheet-like CMS bound to your pages, with an assistant that cleans, translates or fills many records at once
  • You want the code for the whole project to read, edit and export, with no proprietary runtime
  • You want every change checkpointed so you can branch, compare and roll back, with teammates co-editing live in the preview

Choose Shopify if…

  • Selling is the whole business and you want unlimited products on every plan, from Basic to Plus
  • You also sell in person and need POS Pro for retail locations, or wholesale buyers need B2B catalogs
  • You want to sell in AI chats and list your products in Shopify’s Catalog, starting on the Agentic plan with no monthly fee
  • You’d rather start from one of hundreds of themes and extend the store with apps from a directory of more than 13,000
  • You want to run the store from a merchant mobile app, or your developers plan a native shopping app with Checkout Kit

Where Shopify is stronger

  • In-person and wholesale selling: a POS Pro add-on for retail locations, plus B2B catalogs on every plan from Basic to Plus — up to three on Basic, Grow and Advanced and unlimited on Plus[1]
  • More than 13,000 apps to extend a store, plus custom apps built on Shopify APIs with full data access from the Grow plan up, and headless storefronts: one on Basic, Grow and Advanced, 25 on Plus[2][1]
  • Sidekick, an AI assistant for commerce, comes with a Shopify plan, and the plan comparison lists an AI website builder metered in millions of tokens[1]
  • Shopify Payments takes cards on every plan, at rates from 2.9% + 30¢ on Basic down to 2.25% + 30¢ on Plus, on a platform certified Level 1 PCI DSS compliant[1]

What Netiva doesn’t do

  • No native iOS or Android apps: Netiva builds mobile-first storefronts and web apps that open in the phone’s browser. It doesn’t produce App Store or Google Play packages.
  • No point of sale, B2B wholesale catalogs or selling in AI channels; Netiva’s store is an online store with a hosted checkout.
  • No importer: a Shopify product CSV, theme or blog doesn’t move into Netiva automatically, so the agent rebuilds the store from your description.
  • Store size is a plan limit: each Netiva plan caps how many products the online store holds (see the pricing card). There’s also no app directory like Shopify’s App Store.
Switching

Moving from Shopify to Netiva

There’s no importer, so moving a Shopify store to Netiva is a rebuild led by the agent, not a file transfer. Start by saving what Shopify lets you export: your products as a CSV file and a download of your theme. Use them as a reference while you describe the store to the agent and recreate the catalog and your content. Plan ahead for anything Netiva doesn’t offer, such as point of sale or B2B catalogs.

  1. Export your products and theme

    Export your products to a CSV file and download your theme from the Shopify admin. Keep both as references, and list your pages, blog posts, images, apps and checkout settings by hand for the rebuild.

  2. Describe the store to the agent

    Tell Netiva’s agent what you sell, how the catalog is organized and which pages you need. Annotate the live preview or @mention files until the storefront looks right.

  3. Recreate products and content

    Add products with their variants, SKUs and stock. Model blog posts or size guides in collections; there’s no importer, but the collection assistant can generate records and clean them up in bulk.

  4. Set up checkout, tax and shipping

    Set up card payments (checkout runs on Stripe), automatic tax and multi-currency, then add your warehouses and parcel sizes so customers see carrier rates. PayPal alongside Stripe needs the Pro plan.

  5. Reconnect your domain and publish

    Custom domains are available from the Starter plan. Add the DNS records Netiva lists at your domain registrar, then publish in one click; hosting and SSL are handled for you.

  • Your product CSV and theme download are references for the rebuild. Netiva doesn’t import either one, so the agent recreates the storefront from your description.

  • Check each Shopify feature you rely on — POS, B2B catalogs, AI channels or App Store apps — and decide how you’ll replace it before you switch.

  • Run both stores side by side until checkout, tax and shipping are tested on Netiva, then point your domain at the new store so customers can always place orders.

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FAQ

Netiva vs Shopify: common questions

Is Netiva a good Shopify alternative?

It depends on how central selling is to what you do. If the store sits next to a website, a web app or a content-heavy site, Netiva builds all of it in one workspace by chat, with variants, stock, a hosted checkout, automatic tax and carrier rates built in. If selling is the whole business, Shopify offers more: unlimited products on every plan from Basic to Plus, point of sale, B2B catalogs, selling in AI chats and more than 13,000 apps. Businesses that rely on those are better served by Shopify.

How does Shopify pricing compare with Netiva?

Shopify’s Basic plan is $39 a month, or $29 a month billed yearly, and Plus starts at $2,300 a month on a three-year term. Its Agentic plan has no monthly fee but can’t publish an online store. Each sale also pays payment processing — Shopify Payments card rates, or your own provider’s rates plus Shopify’s third-party transaction fee of 2% down to 0.2%. Netiva has a free plan with no credit card, and its paid plans add capacity and features such as custom domains and a larger product catalog. Its checkout runs on Stripe, so card processing is billed by Stripe at your account’s rates on top of the plan.

Can I export my store or code from Shopify and Netiva?

Both let you take something with you. Shopify lets you export products to a CSV file, download your theme and sync theme code with GitHub, and Hydrogen storefronts can be self-hosted on other JavaScript runtimes. Netiva writes framework-standard code you own and can export at any time, with no proprietary runtime. Netiva can’t import a Shopify export, though, so treat your CSV and theme as a reference while the agent rebuilds the store.

Can Netiva or Shopify build a native mobile shopping app?

Shopify’s site doesn’t describe a no-code builder for native shopping apps, but developers can embed Shopify checkout in their own iOS, Android or React Native app with Checkout Kit, and merchants get a Shopify mobile app to run the store. Netiva doesn’t build native iOS or Android apps. It builds mobile-first storefronts and web apps that open in the phone’s browser with nothing to install, and those web apps can scan barcodes with the camera.

How do I move my store from Shopify to Netiva?

Export your products to CSV and download your theme from Shopify as a reference. Then describe the store to Netiva’s agent, add your products and variants and recreate blog posts and other content in collections. There’s no importer, but the collection assistant can generate and clean records. Set up checkout, tax and shipping, connect your custom domain (available from the Starter plan) and publish. Keep the Shopify store running until the new one is tested.

Does Netiva have point of sale or wholesale features like Shopify?

No. Netiva’s store is an online store: products and variants, a hosted one-page checkout, automatic tax, multi-currency, an order pipeline and shipping with warehouses, carrier rates and labels. Shopify adds in-person selling through a POS Pro add-on for retail locations, plus B2B wholesale catalogs: up to three on Basic, Grow and Advanced and unlimited on Plus. If you sell in person or to wholesale buyers, Shopify covers that directly.

Sources

  1. Shopify pricing — Shopify, accessed
  2. Shopify website builder — Shopify, accessed
  3. Shopify code editor — Shopify, accessed
  4. Blogs — Shopify, accessed
  5. Metaobjects — Shopify, accessed
  6. Shopify GitHub integration — Shopify, accessed
  7. Duplicating and downloading themes — Shopify, accessed
  8. Exporting products — Shopify, accessed
  9. Self-hosting Hydrogen — Shopify, accessed
  10. Shopify domains — Shopify, accessed
  11. Collaborator accounts — Shopify, accessed
  12. Shopify mobile app — Shopify, accessed
  13. Mobile storefronts — Shopify, accessed
  14. Shopify Agentic plan — Shopify, accessed
  15. Shopify Plus pricing — Shopify, accessed

Written by Netiva, so we’re not neutral. Shopify details come only from Shopify’s public pages listed above, checked on the dates shown; prices and features change, so confirm them on Shopify’s website. Shopify is a trademark of its owner, and Netiva isn’t affiliated with or endorsed by Shopify.

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