Wix vs Shopify: which one fits a small store?

Wix vs Shopify for a small store: the plans cost almost the same, so the payment fees decide. If your customers pay with a local method such as iDEAL in the Netherlands or Bancontact in Belgium, Shopify is cheaper on every order. If your site is mainly a business site with a few products, Wix is the simpler tool. Wix Core costs 25 euro a month and Shopify Basic 24 euro, both billed yearly and without VAT, in October 2026.

This comparison puts both next to the same small store, works out months of 20, 200 and 500 orders, and says which platform fits which situation. What each costs in full is in how much does Shopify cost and Wix pricing.

We build stores from Ghent, Belgium, for businesses anywhere in Europe. How we work is on webshop development.

Wix vs Shopify on the same store

We price both for one small store: an average order of 50 euro, half paid by card and half with iDEAL, for a shop selling into the Netherlands. That split is an assumption for the example; your own checkout data tells you the real one.

The rates below are the ones Wix and Shopify list for a store based in Belgium. Card rates can differ in your country, so check your own pricing page; the logic of the comparison stays the same.

Wix is a website builder in which a store is one feature. From Core you can take payments and sell products; Light, at 14 euro, has no store. Shopify is built to sell: products, stock, orders and shipping are the core of it, and Basic is enough to start.

What one order costs by card and by iDEAL

Shopify Payments charges 2% plus 0.25 euro for an online card payment on Basic. iDEAL costs a flat 0.29 euro and Bancontact 0.39 euro, whatever the order value. Wix Payments charges 1.9% plus 0.30 euro for a card, 2.5% plus 0.30 euro for iDEAL and 1.4% plus 0.30 euro for Bancontact.

On a 50 euro order a card payment costs 1.25 euro on both. iDEAL costs 0.29 euro on Shopify and 1.55 euro on Wix. Because Wix charges a percentage and Shopify a fixed fee, the gap grows with the basket: on a 150 euro order iDEAL costs 0.29 euro on Shopify and 4.05 euro on Wix.

Use another payment provider on Shopify, such as Mollie or Stripe, and Shopify adds 2% per order on Basic. That makes Shopify Payments the default for most small Shopify stores. Selling in more than one currency? Shopify Payments charges 2% to convert.

EU VAT on your plan and on your sales

Both list their plans without VAT. Wix adds VAT by your billing address and charges none when you enter a valid EU VAT number. Shopify bills European stores from Ireland and asks for a VAT number that is valid for cross-border trade, which it checks in the EU's VIES system. Enter it before the first invoice.

On your own sales you charge VAT to your customers. Once your sales to consumers in other EU countries pass 10,000 euro a year, their country's VAT applies, and you can declare all of it in one EU country. Shopify offers automatic VAT collection on Basic; Wix calculates sales tax automatically from Business, capped at 100 transactions a month, or 500 on Business Elite. Your accountant decides how that lands in your books.

Three months, three volumes

Our own worked example: 50 euro orders, half paid by card and half with iDEAL, plans billed yearly, before VAT and without apps.

Each amount is the plan plus that month's payment fees, in euro: at 200 orders that is 25 plus 280 on Wix and 24 plus 154 on Shopify. Per order you pay 1.40 euro in fees on Wix and 0.77 on Shopify. If almost everyone pays by card the gap disappears; with mostly iDEAL or Bancontact it grows.

Which platform for which situation

Selling in several languages adds its own work, covered in multilingual website development. For a portfolio with a small shop, Wix vs Squarespace is the closer comparison.

And Squarespace vs Shopify?

Squarespace charges a 2% transaction fee on every sale on its smallest store plan, Basic at 12 euro a month billed yearly, on top of payment fees. From Core at 18 euro that fee drops. For a store with Belgian customers there is a bigger catch: Squarespace does not accept Bancontact, not through its own payments and not through Stripe. If many of your customers are Belgian, that rules Squarespace out.

Moving from one to the other later

Start on Wix and outgrow it, and you can take your products along: Wix exports them as a CSV file, up to 5,000 rows. The site itself, your design and your pages stay at Wix, so you rebuild in Shopify and redirect every old address to its new one, or you lose what those pages built up in Google. Shopify exports products, customers and orders as CSV as well; the store itself stays at Shopify. Moving is therefore mostly a rebuild, and the cheapest moment to choose well is the start. Before you choose, write down how many orders you expect in a year, which payment methods your customers use and which countries you sell to; those three answers decide most of the comparison above.

Rules that apply to both

Whichever platform you choose, EU rules stay with you. A consumer store must be accessible since 28 June 2025 (see the European Accessibility Act), a mandatory withdrawal button is coming, and small parcels from outside the EU face a customs duty. If your store does not sell, read why is my online store not selling.