Business owners looking to add an e-commerce side to their brick-and-mortar stores may have heard of Ecwid and WooCommerce. Although perhaps not as popular as Amazon or even Shopify, these two platforms support thousands of digital ventures across the globe. Both are essentially software you can add to your existing website to give it e-commerce functionality. However, Ecwid is compatible with a number of CMS and social media platforms, while WooCommerce is exclusive for WordPress.
With the fundamental differences laid out, which one should you choose for your existing website? Keep reading to know more about the key features of both Ecwid and WooCommerce.
Ecwid vs WooCommerce Comparison Chart
| Name | Ecwid | WooCommerce |
 |  | |
| Price | Check Price at Ecwid.com | Try WooCommerce with DreamHost |
| Type | E-commerce plugin | Open-source e-commerce platform for WordPress |
| Payment Gateway | Third-party payment options including PayPal, Stripe, WePay, and Square | WooCommerce payments, 100+ third-party payment gateways |
| Payment Processing Fees | No transaction or monthly fees except for those charged by the third-party payment provider | 2.9% + 30¢ (US credit cards) +1% for non-US credit cards $15 USD/disputed transactions |
| App Integrations | Standalone Ecwid App store | Limited to WooCommerce marketplace |
| Fully Customizable | Yes, although customizations are limited and may require installing apps or using CSS | Yes, through third-party theme stores; requires technical skills to customize a theme. |
| Customer Support | For paid plans only; limited to chat support in Venture plans | None, except for online resources, WordPress forums, and WooCommerce community |
| Reporting | Available only on paid plans | Built-in WooCommerce Analytics |
| Shipping | Dimensional shipping rates only for Business and Unlimited Plans | Built-in WooCommerce Shipping |
Pricing
WooCommerce is free to use but online stores will have to spend on hosting and domain registration; on the other hand, Ecwid comes with more upfront pricing for its paid plans.
When you consider it, you’ll probably save more money with WooCommerce. After all, both the plugin and WordPress are free, open-source platforms. But it’s not as simple as it looks. WordPress, for instance, is self-hosted. This means you’ll have to spend on domain and hosting. With the former, you’ll probably spend $10-$15 to purchase and hold a domain name yearly. On the other hand, hosting can be as cheap as $20/month for entry-level plans, or as pricey as $100 if you need dedicated servers. Nonetheless, some mid-tier hosting plans are available, some of which have dedicated support for WooCommerce. If you’re a small or midsize business, consider opting for these hosting services before signing up with more premium subscriptions.
Ecwid’s pricing is a little more upfront. Basically, you get to choose from four different plans, one of which is free forever. With the Free plan, subscription fees are waived but the e-commerce features you get will be limited. With the paid plans, however, you get access to features that are actually useful in supporting a growing business. For instance, Venture, which costs $12/month, has a 100 product limit as opposed to the free plan’s 10 product limit.
If you do want more advanced features like dedicated email marketing or multi-lingual store fronts, you’ll have to upgrade either to Business or Unlimited — that’s $35 and $99/month, respectively. With these upper-tier plans, you get more e-commerce functionality on top of what is already offered under the free plan and Venture.
E-Commerce Features
Both Ecwid and WooCommerce offer a broad set of tools and app integrations to support your online store.
Ecwid packs a suite of e-commerce features at your disposal. For example, you get unlimited bandwidth, an online store, and promotional tools for social media channels. And even if you’re on the Free plan, you will have access to these three features. Ecwid also comes with multi-channel selling, as well as support for a number of payment methods including PayPal, Sage, and Stripe. Plus, if you opt for the Business or Unlimited plans, you get to unlock more advanced feature like wholesale pricing groups, abandoned cart emails, and dimensional shipping rates.
With WooCommerce, you also get a broad set of tools to turn your WordPress it into a dynamic, online store. From its excellent WordPress content integration down to tax and shipping calculation, almost all bases are covered. Major payment gateways are similarly supported, including Stripe, PayPal, and Amazon Pay. And just like Ecwid, WooCommerce will not charge transactions fees on top of what your payment provider is already charging.
Interestingly, the platform doesn’t come with built-in abandoned cart features, which is a bit of a bummer if you want to maximize sales. However, you can still integrate this functionality through third-party plugins like WooCommerce Abandoned Cart Recovery or Abandoned Cart Lite.
Customization
WooCommerce offers more customization features than Ecwid, but will require some coding experience to truly be maximized.
With Ecwid, customization is limited since you can only make changes via API. Once added to your CMS, your online store will largely reflect the existing design of your website. This should make brand integration hassle-free, especially if you’re not too keen on launching an online store from scratch. However, you can make some changes to your storefront, including the fonts and color palettes. Ecwid’s Decorator App makes this possible even without the use of CSS.
On the other hand, WooCommerce comes with 14 storefront themes, two of which are free while the rest can be purchased for $39. These themes can also be customized to fit your needs. In addition, storefront extensions —free and paid-for— are available for added functionality. Websites like ThemeForest.com and WooThemes also offer a seemingly endless supply of templates for any business. And while you don’t need to be a developer to leverage WooCommerce’s open-source nature, some coding skills will be needed for more advanced customizations.
SEO
Both Ecwid and WooCommerce support basic SEO functions.
Since WooCommerce runs on top of WordPress, you get a robust e-commerce platform that’s SEO-friendly, too. Moreover, WooCommerce lets you customize URL slugs and add detailed meta-descriptions for your content, too. Aside from the standard SEO functions, you also get access to powerful WordPress tools like Yoast. This plugin is recommended for on-page optimization and its XML sitemap feature. Keep in mind, however, that WooCommerce will not provide you SSL certificates.
Ecwid stores, on the other hand, are optimized for Google by default. You also get the standard SEO functions, like building backlinks, submitting sitemaps to Google, and editing page and meta descriptions. Plus, the platform uses Google’s AJAX indexing specification that allows Google — and even other major search engines — to crawl and index your site. However, you will not be allowed to manually edit the URL of a product—Ecwid will generate one for you.
Verdict
If your existing website is already on WordPress, opt for WooCommerce. If not, then Ecwid is more than capable of equipping your current site with an online store.
Combining ease-of-use and broad compatibility to a number of sites, Ecwid is ideal for businesses who have existing websites outside of WordPress. While it may not have the high-customizability of WooCommerce’s open-source nature, you do get basic customization features to tweak your online store. If you do opt for Ecwid, the assumption is that your existing website is ready for an online store. This means taking care of your website’s design and hosting.
On the other hand, if your existing website is on WordPress, you’ll be better off with WooCommerce. The program is specifically built for the CMS platform, with e-commerce tools and features that can be seamlessly integrated. Plus, you’ll get to leverage on both WooCommerce and WordPress’ open-source nature for a truly custom-built online store.
