Sellfy vs Shift4shop: guide for 2024

Final verdict

Sellfy and Shift4shop both offer valuable features for online store creation, but they cater to different user needs.

Sellfy (Overall Grade: 6.0/10)

is tailored for creators looking to sell a variety of products with ease. Its user-friendly interface and straightforward setup make it ideal for small businesses and individuals without advanced technical skills. When comparing Sellfy vs Shift4shop, Sellfy excels in ease of use and product testing options, making it a great choice for those who prioritize simplicity and quick setup.
Shift4shop (Overall Grade: 6.4/10)

provides a more comprehensive set of ecommerce features, making it suitable for businesses looking for advanced customization and scalability. Considering Sellfy vs Shift4shop, Shift4shop offers better design functionalities, website editors, and a wider range of plugins and integrations. It is ideal for users who need a robust platform with extensive ecommerce capabilities and are willing to invest time in learning the system.

	Overall grade: 6.0	Overall grade: 6.4
Design functionalities & templates	5.2	7.5
Ease of use	7.8	7.0
Ecommerce	6.8	7.6
Website Editors	6.8	7.2
Product testing options	7.3	5.0
Price	7.9	6.7
Hosting quality	7.3	7.8
Website speed optimization	5.4	6.3
Plugins and integrations	6.7	7.3
Marketing features	7.1	8.0
Customer support	5.8	7.9
Security	7.2	8.9
User Management	2.0	7.9

Best for ecommerce

6.8

7.6

Verdict

: Sellfy is ideal for creators and small businesses looking for simplicity, while Shift4shop offers a more comprehensive set of features for larger-scale ecommerce operations.

Sellfy

: Sellfy is tailored for creators who want to sell a variety of products, including digital, physical, and subscription-based items. Its user-friendly interface and quick setup make it perfect for those without advanced technical skills. However, in the Sellfy vs Shift4shop comparison, Sellfy’s ecommerce score of 6.8 indicates it may lack some advanced features needed for larger operations.
Shift4shop

: Shift4shop scores higher with a 7.6, offering a wide array of professional, customizable templates and robust ecommerce tools. It supports various business models and provides extensive payment gateway options, making it a better choice for businesses looking to scale. However, it might be more complex for beginners compared to Sellfy.

Best for informational & business websites

5.7

7.2

Verdict

: Shift4shop is the better choice for informational and business websites, offering more robust design functionalities and a higher ease of use score compared to Sellfy.

Sellfy

: Sellfy is tailored for creators looking to sell various products, including digital and physical items. While it offers a user-friendly interface and quick setup, it may lack the advanced design features and customization options needed for more complex informational websites. Its score of 5.7 reflects its limitations in this area.
Shift4shop

: Shift4shop provides a comprehensive set of tools for website creation, payment processing, and business management. With a score of 7.2, it stands out for its professional, customizable templates and ease of use, making it a strong contender for businesses looking to establish a robust online presence. When comparing Sellfy vs Shift4shop, Shift4shop’s extensive features and higher score make it the preferred choice for informational and business websites.

Detailed comparison

5.2

7.5

🏆

Winner: Shift4shop.

If you’re looking for a platform that offers more creative control and a wide array of design features, Shift4shop is the preferred choice.

Sellfy provides a collection of design templates through its theme store, located in the Store Customizer. Users have the option to preview these themes before applying them to their websites. As of the latest information, Sellfy offers five main theme options: Lumiére, Noir, Savant, Idée, and Mode. These themes cater to various aesthetic preferences and can be published to go live on a user’s website after selection and customization.

Compared to Sellfy, Shift4Shop provides a selection of over 100 free eCommerce templates, catering to a wide array of design preferences and brand identities. These templates are professionally designed with an emphasis on optimizing sales, employing the latest in technology and design trends. This variety ensures that businesses can find a design that closely aligns with their brand and aesthetic requirements.

Shift4shop Themes

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7.8

7.0

🏆 Winner: Sellfy

. With a score of 7.8, Sellfy edges out Shift4shop, which scored 7.0, in terms of ease of use. Sellfy’s user-friendly interface and straightforward website builder make it accessible for creators and small business owners without advanced technical skills. On the other hand, Shift4shop, while offering a comprehensive set of features and customization options, may present a steeper learning curve for beginners.

Learning Resources

🏆 Winner: Shift4shop

. Both platforms offer learning resources, but Shift4shop provides a wider range of materials, including articles, videos, and 24/7 customer support, making it easier for users to navigate the platform’s complexities.

Learn Sellfy

Learn Shift4shop

6.8

7.6

When it comes to ecommerce, both Sellfy and Shift4shop offer a range of features to facilitate online selling. However, Shift4shop scores slightly higher with a score of 7.6 compared to Sellfy’s 6.8.


Ecommerce themes and templates	7.0	6.5
Product page customization	6.5	7.8
Payment processing and commissions	8.0	8.4
POS capabilities	4.0	7.0
Payment gateways	6.0	9.0
Product numbers	7.5	7.5
Additional ecommerce features	6.5	7.2

Sellfy ecommerce features:

Product Listings
Payment Gateways integration
Product categories

Shift4shop ecommerce features:

Payment Gateway integrations
Inventory management
Abandoned cart recovery
Order management

Ecommerce themes & templates

Both Sellfy and Shift4shop offer templates designed specifically for online stores. This allows users to create a professional and attractive online storefront without needing advanced design skills.

Product page customization

Sellfy supports a diverse range of products including digital goods like music, videos, ebooks, and software, as well as physical products and print-on-demand merchandise such as t-shirts and mugs. The platform enables the sale of subscriptions, offering a means for recurring revenue. Sellfy provides tools for product protection and piracy prevention, ensuring secure file hosting and delivery.

On the other hand, Shift4Shop offers a variety of product page customization features to enhance the online shopping experience. These include advanced product options with inventory tracking, customizable product layouts, and the ability to showcase products through images, zoom, and video. Additionally, the Product Designer app facilitates extensive customization for personalized products.

Payment processing

Sellfy supports two primary payment gateways, Stripe and PayPal, allowing for various payment options including credit/debit cards and localized payment methods in Europe. The platform does not charge transaction fees beyond its subscription cost, though payment processors’ standard fees apply.

Shift4Shop supports over 200 payment gateways, including major providers such as PayPal, Visa, and Stripe, offering a broad range of options for global markets without charging additional transaction fees from the platform itself. However, merchants may incur standard fees from their chosen payment providers, typically ranging from 2-3% per sale. The platform also facilitates POS capabilities through third-party integrations, enabling both online and physical store sales.

In conclusion, while both platforms offer robust ecommerce capabilities, Shift4shop provides a more comprehensive set of features, making it a slightly better choice for ecommerce. However, Sellfy’s focus on simplicity and ease of use may make it a more suitable choice for creators and small businesses.

6.8

7.2

🏆

Winner: Shift4shop

. With a score of 7.2, Shift4shop offers a comprehensive website builder with a focus on e-commerce. It integrates advanced features for product management, payment processing, and SEO optimization, alongside marketing tools for social media and email campaigns. Despite some challenges with customer support and usability aspects, Shift4shop provides significant resources for store management and marketing.

Sellfy, scoring 6.8, offers a straightforward and user-friendly platform for creating online stores, focusing on simplicity over advanced customization. It supports the sale of digital, physical, subscription-based, and print-on-demand products, alongside integrated marketing tools for promotion and sales optimization. Despite some limitations in design customization and app integrations, Sellfy aims to provide a comprehensive e-commerce solution for entrepreneurs and creators.

Mobile editor/app

7.5

🏆

Winner: Sellfy

. Sellfy provides a mobile app that allows store owners to manage their online stores on the go. The app offers functionalities such as viewing store performance metrics, managing and tracking orders, and receiving customized notifications. Users can also access summary reports of their store’s performance on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. Designed as an extension of the Sellfy dashboard, the app ensures efficient store management and keeps users informed about important store activities and trends. However, it does not allow for changes to the layout or design of the website itself.

Shift4shop, on the other hand, does not offer a dedicated mobile editor app, which limits its flexibility for users who need to manage their stores from mobile devices. This absence makes Sellfy the more favorable option for users seeking mobile management capabilities.

7.3

5.0

Overall Result

:

Sellfy wins

. Sellfy scores 7.3, offering a 14-day free trial, the possibility to test premium features during the trial, and a 30-day money-back guarantee. Shift4shop scores 5.0, offering a free version but only for US customers, doesn’t have a trial version, allows testing of all features within its free plan, and doesn’t offer a money-back guarantee.


Free Plan	No	Yes, only for US customers
Trial Duration	14 days	No
Testing Premium Features	During the free trial	All the features within its free plan
Money Back Guarantee	30-day money back guarantee	No

7.9

6.7

Sellfy offers a range of pricing plans with a 20% discount on annual billing, while Shift4shop offers a free plan and a paid plan without any discounts.

	Offerings	Offerings
Free	No offering at this amount.	Free Plan ($0/month): Requires minimum $500/month processed payments with their Shift4shop payment with 2.90% + 30 Cents transaction fees. Unlimited Products, SEO & Marketing Tools, Unlimited Staff Users, Integrated Blog, Unlimited Bandwidth, 24/7 Customer Support, No Revenue Caps, API Access, Secure Online Payments. This plan allows to manage only 1 website and there is no limitation of number of pages offered.
$20-$30	Starter ($29/month): Ideal for growing businesses with sales up to $10k/year. Offers unlimited products, digital and subscription products, domain connection, and 2,000 email credits. Annual savings available. Value for Price: 7.5	Paid Plan ($29/month): All features of the free plan with support for other payment processors such as PayPal. This plan allows to manage only 1 website and there is no limitation of number of pages offered. Value for Price: 8.5
$70-$80	Business ($79/month): Targets businesses with up to $50k in yearly sales, offering everything in the Starter plan plus 10,000 email credits, product and store design migration, product upselling, cart abandonment tools, and Sellfy branding removal. Value for Price: 8.0	No offering at this amount.
$100+	Premium ($159/month): For businesses with up to $200k/year in sales. Includes everything in the Business plan plus 50,000 email credits, product migration, and priority support. Annual savings are also offered. Value for Price: 8.5	No offering at this amount.

In some cases companies have different prices based on various components like a
location. As a result in rare cases the prices displayed here can differ from the ones you see on their
websites.

7.3

7.8

Winner: Shift4shop

. Both Sellfy and Shift4shop offer hosting services, but Shift4shop edges out with its managed cloud hosting, unlimited bandwidth and storage, daily backups, and a 99.9% uptime guarantee. Sellfy, while offering a 99.99% uptime, does not provide an uptime guarantee or disclose its hosting type and data center locations. This lack of transparency gives Shift4shop a slight advantage.


Do they offer hosting?	Yes	Yes, with unlimited bandwidth and storage, daily backups
Type of hosting:	Not disclosed	Managed Cloud Hosting
Uptime:	99.99%	99.9%
Uptime Guarantee:	No	Yes, 99.9%
Data Centers:	Not disclosed	Not disclosed

5.4

6.3

🏆 Winner: Shift4shop

Both Sellfy and Shift4shop prioritize website speed optimization, but Shift4shop has a slightly higher score in this area.


Focus	Code Minification, Caching, Image Optimization	CDN, Code Minification, Image optimization, Caching
Performance Tools	Not specified	Not specified
Key Strategies	Code Minification, Caching, Image Optimization	CDN, Code Minification, Image optimization, Caching
Load Times	Varies depending on optimization and website complexity	Varies depending on optimization
Page Speed Scores Range	Not specified	Not specified
Core Web Vitals Improvement	Not specified	Not specified

Sellfy focuses on code minification, caching, and image optimization to improve website speed. However, the platform does not provide specific details about its load times, PageSpeed score ranges, or Core Web Vital improvements.

On the other hand, Shift4shop uses a combination of CDN, code minification, image optimization, and caching to enhance website performance. Like Sellfy, Shift4shop does not provide specific information about its load times, PageSpeed score ranges, or Core Web Vital improvements. However, its slightly higher website speed optimization score suggests that it may offer better performance overall.

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6.7

7.3

🏆 Winner: Shift4shop.

With a score of 7.3, Shift4shop offers a diverse ecommerce ecosystem with a wide array of plugins and extensions, catering to various online store enhancements from user experience improvements to sales boosts. The platform’s pricing structure for these add-ons ranges widely, offering both free and premium options.

Sellfy, scoring 6.7, also offers various integrations for its website builder, including Google Analytics, Facebook Live Chat, Zapier, and social media advertising tools, to enhance ecommerce functionality and automate workflows. However, the breadth and depth of Shift4shop’s offerings give it the edge in this comparison.

Shift4shop Applications

Shift4shop integrations

7.1

8.0

🏆

Overall Winner: Shift4shop

. Shift4shop has a higher marketing features score and offers a wider range of features, including blogging, which Sellfy lacks. Both platforms offer SEO tools, email marketing, social media integration, analytics and reporting, and ads and promotions.


SEO Tools	✓	✓
Email Marketing	✓	✓
Blogging	✗	✓
Social Media Integration	✓	✓
Analytics and Reporting	✓	✓
Ads and Promotions	✓	✓

5.8

7.9

🏆 Winner: Shift4shop

. In the comparison of Sellfy vs Shift4shop, Shift4shop takes the lead with its extensive 24/7/365 customer support. Shift4shop offers multiple support channels, including US chat support, US phone support, and European support, ensuring that users can get help whenever they need it. The availability of a dedicated eCommerce support team further enhances the user experience, making it easier to resolve issues promptly.

Sellfy, on the other hand, provides 24/7 support but lacks phone and live chat options, limiting users to email and possibly a knowledge base for self-service. While Sellfy’s support is available around the clock, the limited channels may not be as convenient for users needing immediate assistance. This difference is reflected in the customer support scores, with Shift4shop scoring 7.9 and Sellfy scoring 5.8.

7.2

8.9

🏆

Winner: Shift4shop

. Shift4shop takes the lead in security with a score of 8.9, compared to Sellfy’s 7.2. Shift4shop’s commitment to security is evident in its emphasis on PCI compliance, daily website data backups, advanced fraud protection, and use of Cloudflare for DDoS protection. It also supports ADA compliance, ensuring websites are accessible to individuals with disabilities, and integrates seamlessly with payment processing solutions for enhanced security.

Sellfy, on the other hand, also employs several security measures to safeguard sellers and their digital products from unauthorized access, fraud, and piracy. These measures include the use of secure payment processors like Stripe and PayPal, unique download links for each purchase, limited download attempts, and additional tools like PDF stamping to deter content sharing. However, it falls short in comparison to Shift4shop’s comprehensive security approach.


Personalized Design
SEO Optimization
Customer Behavior Analysis
Sales Predictions
Inventory Management
Content Generation

Neither Sellfy nor Shift4shop currently offer AI capabilities. Both platforms focus on providing a straightforward, user-friendly interface for setting up and managing an online store. While AI can enhance the user experience and provide valuable insights for business growth, it is not a feature offered by either of these platforms at this time.

2.0

7.9

🏆 Winner: Shift4shop

. When it comes to managing your online team, Sellfy and Shift4shop offer different levels of functionality.

Sellfy does not support adding multiple users or staff to a single account.
Shift4shop allows for multiple users to manage and edit a website, with the number of staff user slots varying by plan. Additional users can be added as needed through the purchase of extra Staff User seats at $10 per user per month.

Shift4shop User Roles and Access Levels:

Role	Description	Access Highlights
Admin	Full control over the platform, responsible for setting up and managing all aspects of the online store.	Complete access to all areas including configuration, order management, product listings, user management, and analytics.
Manager	Oversees day-to-day operations, including order processing, inventory management, and customer service.	Access to order management, inventory, reports, and limited settings for day-to-day operations. Does not have access to high-level configurations.
Sales Rep	Focuses on customer interaction, order entry, and sales tracking.	Access to customer information, order creation, and sales reporting tools. Cannot alter product listings or configurations.
Content Creator	Generates product descriptions, blog posts, and marketing material.	Access to content management systems, blog, and marketing tools. No access to order management or configurations.
Customer Service Rep	Handles customer inquiries, returns, and complaints.	Access to customer information, order status, and communication tools. Limited access to order modifications.

Additional Features


SSL Certificate	✓	✓
Custom Domain	✓	✓
Free Custom Domain Included	✓	X
International Domains	✓	✓
Mobile Responsive	✓	✓
Page Speed	X	✓
Website Builder Mobile App	X	X
Convert a Website To An App	X	X
Website Analytics	✓	✓
Multilingual Sites	✓	✓
Multiple Users	✓	✓

User Feedback

Sellfy

52 reviews

3.9 out of 5 stars

Shift4shop

34 reviews

3.9 out of 5 stars

The user feedback on Sellfy highlights its strengths in providing an efficient, compact online store setup that caters to specific needs with affordable pricing, including a 14-day trial period to familiarize users with the product. Many appreciate its user-friendly interface, internal marketing tools, and customization options, which enable sellers to tailor their storefronts to their brand, along with integrations for payment processing like PayPal and Stripe. However, criticisms include issues with mobile site speed, a desire for clearer insights, limitations on customization, and some customer service inefficiencies.

Shift4Shop reviews present a mixed but generally positive perspective from users. They appreciate the platform’s feature-rich storefront capabilities, ease of use, and versatility in integrating various services, which facilitates online sales and efficient eCommerce management. However, critiques focus on the less intuitive user experience, occasional technical issues such as slow site loading, and the perceived degradation of customer service quality since the Shift4Shop takeover. Additionally, some users find the setup process and system architecture to be overly complex and dated. Despite these criticisms, Shift4Shop is recognized for its cost-effectiveness, support for different customer types, and the ability to solve a variety of eCommerce-related problems, benefiting users by enhancing their online sales capabilities and operational efficiency.

The making of this blog

We followed a clear, step-by-step process to write and research this article.

Our Ranking Criteria

FAQ

Which platform is better for small businesses, Sellfy or Shift4shop?

– **Sellfy** is particularly suited for small businesses and individual creators who need a straightforward, easy-to-use platform that simplifies the eCommerce process. It’s ideal for those who are new to online selling.

Can I use both Sellfy and Shift4shop for selling digital products?

– Yes, both platforms support the sale of digital products. **Sellfy** offers specific tools for digital goods, including secure file delivery and piracy prevention. **Shift4shop** also supports digital products and provides extensive customization options for product pages.

How do Sellfy and Shift4shop compare in terms of customization and design flexibility?

– **Sellfy** offers a limited range of customizable templates, which are easy to use but may not cater to all design needs. It’s great for users who prefer simplicity over extensive customization.

What are the major differences in pricing between Sellfy and Shift4shop?

– **Sellfy** provides straightforward pricing plans with clear benefits, including a 20% discount on annual payments. It’s generally more cost-effective for smaller operations.