Shopify vs. commercetools

Yes. A custom frontend can connect to Shopify through the Storefront API, which works with any framework and any host, or you can rebuild it as a headless storefront with Hydrogen and Oxygen, Shopify's official headless commerce stack.

You can also build with the Online Store and host it on Shopify. See examples of headless storefronts in the Hydrogen showcase.

Yes. Shopify maintains 99.9% platform uptime during the biggest flash sales and events of the year, and has processed more than $1.6 trillion in global commerce since inception.⁶

Shopify merchants accounted for 14% of US ecommerce in 2025,⁷ and Shopify’s global cloud infrastructure taps into 330 points of presence across more than 125 countries.

Yes. Shopify's built-in workflows cover common commerce needs, and you can override or extend them with Shopify Functions, custom apps, metafields, and APIs, or add any of the more than 21,000 apps in the Shopify App Store.⁶

Many of the same partners that commercetools lists on their site as MACH partners also work with Shopify.

No. Enterprise brands on Shopify can take a headless or composable approach for some projects and use Shopify's native front end and back end for others, depending on the complexity, uniqueness, and time constraints of each project.

Shopify isn't a monolith, either. It's a cloud-based SaaS platform whose Online Store, Oxygen, and back end scale independently, and you can extend it with Shopify Functions, custom apps, checkout extensions, and more.

Brands migrating to Shopify budget 8% less for implementation than brands migrating to commercetools, on average.¹ commercetools uses order-based pricing quoted by its sales team and doesn't publish list prices.²

Shopify Plus starts at $2,300 USD a month on a three-year term, or $2,500 USD a month on a one-year term, as of November 2026. If you use a third-party payment provider instead of Shopify Payments, Plus adds a 0.2% transaction fee.¹⁷

Developers on Shopify don't need to build and maintain low-level systems, which lowers maintenance and headcount costs. Research commissioned by Shopify found Shopify’s TCO is up to 36% better than the competition.*

Shopify Checkout also converts 15% better on average, and Shop Pay converts as much as 50% better than guest checkout.⁴

*According to research commissioned by Shopify and conducted November 2023 to February 2024 by a leading independent consulting firm to study TCO across major platforms in North America.

Shopify Checkout converts 15% better on average and up to 36% better than the competition, and it's built into every Shopify store.⁴ commercetools offers commercetools Checkout, a prebuilt checkout product, or you can build a checkout on its cart and order APIs.²

Shopify Checkout includes Shop Pay, which converts as much as 50% better than guest checkout and at least 10% better than other accelerated checkouts.⁴

Yes. Compared with migrating to commercetools, brands migrating to Shopify implement 10% faster, are 29% more likely to implement on time, and are 14 times more likely to implement on budget, on average, according to Shopify’s Time to Value report.¹

Yes. Shopify runs wholesale and direct-to-consumer businesses on one platform, and was named a Leader in the 2026 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Digital Commerce Platforms for the 4th consecutive year, positioned highest for Ability to Execute.⁵ Merchants see up to 33% more self-serve orders within 12 months after adopting B2B on Shopify.¹⁴ commercetools models B2B buyers with business units, associates, quotes, and approval flows.²

Shopify supports point-to-point, flat file, API, and app integrations, and the Shopify App Store has more than 21,000 apps as of December 31, 2025.⁶ commercetools connects to other systems through its REST and GraphQL APIs.²

Some of the largest ISVs work directly with Shopify to build bidirectional integrations, and Shopify provides a dedicated solution engineering team for enterprise technology partners.

Shopify is a commerce platform with built-in hosting and checkout, more than 21,000 apps, and APIs for custom and headless builds.⁶ commercetools is an API-first composable commerce platform with REST and GraphQL APIs that brands build their commerce stack around.²

For other platforms brands compare with commercetools, see commercetools alternatives.

Yes. On Shopify, you sell to customers in different countries and regions from one store, with currency, language, product availability, and pricing set for each market.³ commercetools sets countries, currencies, and languages per project and uses stores and channels for each market.²

To sell in more regions under the same brand, Shopify Plus includes up to 9 free expansion stores.¹⁷ Each additional brand needs its own Shopify Plus subscription, and you can manage them under one organization.³ Each product can have up to 2,048 variants and three options.³

Before replatforming from commercetools, map how you'll export your data, which integrations move with you, whether your custom frontend stays, and who will run the migration. commercetools has no dedicated Export API, so you export from its Merchant Center or query its HTTP API.²

On Shopify, you import data with CSV files or a migration app, can keep a custom frontend through the Storefront API, and can work with a Shopify Partner.³

Import products first, then customers, then historical orders, so each order links to the right product and customer. Migration apps and the Order API bring over historical orders. To keep search traffic, create URL redirects from your old commercetools URLs to the matching Shopify URLs; you can import redirects in bulk.³

Yes, including Daniel Wellington and BODi. Daniel Wellington moved from commercetools to Shopify Plus and, with their partner Woolman, consolidated 59 storefronts into 12 Shopify stores, integrating ERP, PIM, CMS, and personalization tools in five months. Their licensing costs fell by more than 50% compared with their previous ecommerce tools.

BODi also moved from commercetools to Shopify Plus, building in-house with Shopify Professional Services in under eight months. At launch, their checkout conversion rate rose 10 percentage points. They migrated more than 1 million payment methods and more than 800,000 active subscriptions, and moved five engineers from commerce maintenance to their streaming and app experiences.

In research commissioned by Shopify, brands migrating to Shopify were 14 times more likely to implement on budget than brands migrating to commercetools.¹

commercetools' own documentation notes that its versionless APIs can change in ways that might require adjustments, that it has no dedicated Export API, and that each cloud Region is isolated and needs its own sign-up.²

Compared with migrating to commercetools, brands migrating to Shopify implement 10% faster, budget 8% less for implementation, are 29% more likely to implement on time, and are 14 times more likely to implement on budget, on average.¹

Teams on commercetools also choose between commercetools Checkout and a checkout built on its cart and order APIs.² On Shopify, checkout is built into every store,⁴ and hosting and upgrades are included.³