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Alternative / Shopify

Trouble customizing Shopify?

Shopify’s customization can be limited, but building a custom ecommerce platform as an alternative is time-consuming and expensive. Swell’s advanced personalization and features unlock custom shopping experiences that grow with your business—with no hidden costs.

SwellShopify Plus
  • Unlimited options variants and attributesvsLimit of 3 product options and 100 variants
  • Custom hosted checkout or build your ownvsLimited checkout customization
  • Advanced features out of the boxvsThird-party apps needed for basic features
  • Built-in subscriptions (with any gateway)vsRequires an app for recurring payments
  • No transaction fees on external payment gatewaysvsUnavoidable third-party transaction fees
  • Single source user supportvsRequires cross-app troubleshooting

How does Swell compare to other platforms?

Headless themesYesNo
Customizable with no appsYesNo
Unlimited product options, variants and attributesYesNo
Fully customizable checkoutYesNo
Code in any languageYesNo
Integration with any payment gatewayYesNo
Transaction fees on external payment gateways0%2%

See an error here?Let us know

3 reasons why Swell is better than Shopify

Fully customizable checkout

Fully customizable checkout

Swell

Swell’s storefront API allows you to freely customize and build completed checkout flows.

Shopify Plus

Limited checkout customization capability is across all Shopify plans, including Shopify Plus.

Unlimited product modeling

Unlimited product modeling

Swell

Swell offers unlimited variants with 4+ built-in product option types, all easily customizable with controllable variant generation.

Shopify Plus

Shopify is limited to 100 variants with only 3 product options. Advanced theme hard coding or costly third-party apps are required.

Built-in subscriptions

Built-in subscriptions

Swell

Swell’s native subscription billing is included on all plans, no external apps needed for recurring orders and flexibility.

Shopify Plus

Costly third-party apps needed to manage subscriptions with limited custom options.

Why you’ll love Swell

Get more out-of-the-box

  • Multi-level navigation menus (mega navs)
  • Subscription products for recurring orders and flexible checkout options
  • Order editing and flexible fulfilment options
  • Custom pricing for wholesale and retail

Build on your own terms

  • Design your storefront with customizable headless themes or build completely custom
  • Code in any language
  • Control conversion of multiple currencies and sell worldwide
  • Create as many products and variants as you want

Scale when you’re ready

  • Reduce external costs with built-in features and integrations
  • Add entirely new capabilities to your system with custom data models
  • Use an efficient workflow when changing live sites with Git-based hosting

When we made the decision to rebrand our website, we had a tight budget. For what Swell was offering compared to what Shopify was offering, Shopify was more expensive.

Christopher Puttnam - Founder and Director, Velobici

Take your store to the next level with Swell

Speak with sales →
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