Podia vs. Shopify Plus

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Podia
Score 7.0 out of 10
N/A
Podia in New York offers their ecommerce platform for managing memberships and selling courses online.
$39
per month
Shopify Plus
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
Shopify Plus is an eCommerce solution built for enterprise-level companies that enables them to sell online and offline across social channels like Facebook , Pinterest, and marketplaces like Amazon and eBay.
$2,300
per month
Pricing
PodiaShopify Plus
Editions & Modules
Mover
$39.00
per month
Shaker
$79.00
per month
3-year term
$2300
per month
1-year term
$2500
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
PodiaShopify Plus
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
PodiaShopify Plus
Considered Both Products
Podia
Chose Podia
It has all the same features of kajabi such as the website builder, email system, affiliate system, and course hosting . I believe they both now do quizzes and certificates too. Kajabi gets points for having a podcasting platform, a more full fledge community platform …
Chose Podia
Kajabi had lots of features all in one place. I liked their digital course creator program. I liked the ease of their their membership site program/host, too. It had an app for my clients to use. There were some problems with not being able to customize the look of pages, but …
Shopify Plus
Chose Shopify Plus
There are all good for business who are just starting but as the business grows the platform has to be able to scale with it
Chose Shopify Plus
Shopify is more robust and has more functionalities than its competitors like BigCommerce and Kibo. It offers the best UI in the business and the most exhaustive app marketplace ecosystem. It is more cost effective than big system and doe snot require large teams of developers …
Chose Shopify Plus
Shopify Plus is far more scalable and stable. It is much easier to implement, and the time to value is much shorter. Development resources are plentiful and skilled, and the product's user base is so massive that significant testing has been done prior to releasing any updates …
Chose Shopify Plus
Significant improvement. Magento did not have a B2B setting, so you needed to remember and alter the prices manually, and you could not create draft orders, so if you sent a customer a quote and they called up to pay, you then had to quickly create the order whilst the customer …
Chose Shopify Plus
Shopify Plus, once existing data imported awkwardly, handles so much of the basics of running an online shop in way that you know you can rely upon. It still requires many more third party tools to be able to use best-in-class analytics and AB testing.
Chose Shopify Plus
Shopify Plus is the best choice for DTC-oriented brands, especially if you are a leaner team and want more hands-on customization vs relying on an agency to manage your website backend.
Chose Shopify Plus
Shopify Plus is the most advanced and most widely accepted "DIY" website tool. While WordPress has some capabilities and is certainly cheaper, it is still a blogging platform with e-commerce capabilities added later, and you can tell that's what it is when you use it. …
Chose Shopify Plus
Shopify Plus's ease of use compared to Sticky.io was the biggest reason we had switched, and just the sheer customization and available apps allow you to adjust your store without needing to spend weeks custom developing tools.
Chose Shopify Plus
A far more professional approach to e-commerce in general. Servers and the core SSL are taken care of and you're left with a whole host of tools to sell, sell and sell.
Chose Shopify Plus
Shopify is a much easier and more intuitive platform to use.

The mobile focus is outstanding from the other competitors and the capability to modify the store without previous code or experience makes them the best e-commerce platform.
Chose Shopify Plus
Shopify Plus is better supported, more powerful, and has much more ability for customization. Shopify as a platform is also much more stable than others and offers excellent customer support. New features are constantly being rolled out and it has a very large community.
Chose Shopify Plus
Shopify Plus is an all in one service. You are able to keep track of invoices and payments. Shopify Plus also offers options for shipping and connects your tracking number to you order which allows for easy tracking. Your tracking number is also a link which makes it even easier.
Chose Shopify Plus
Shopify Plus has the most robust capabilities of the pure cloud plays and the app store ecosystem is the largest and best.
Chose Shopify Plus
Shopify Plus is the least expensive option.
Apps/plug ins are vast, inexpensive, and relatively easiest to integrate
Least amount of customization, but good for teams with small dev support
Chose Shopify Plus
Shopify had the quickest go-to-market and most robust API among the products we compared. CommerceCloud required a VERY LONG integration phase that we just didn't have time for. BigCommerce fell short on the number of features and API coverage that we needed. Overall Shopify …
Chose Shopify Plus
Netsuite SuiteCommerce, which has a very high cost of ownership, and Magento, which although powerful can be expensive and is too complex for the average eComm requirements. Too flexible can be bad in some cases.
Chose Shopify Plus
Shopify Plus offers a more robust solution than Woo commerce and is easier to train on than Big Commerce. Woo commerce is freeware with no support. Big Commerce offers more SEO features and is a more powerful solution, but harder to remote train users on - lots more …
Chose Shopify Plus
Shopify Plus is WAYYYYYY better than anything else that we have used, and it's not even close. The websites are faster and more reliable, both of which are critical to running an online business. The cost to run is way less. We are running five websites on Shopify Plus for less …
Chose Shopify Plus
I selected Shopify Plus because the clients found it easy to use to manage their website, whenever they needed an update of their website. Shopify Plus is great when it comes to e-commerce websites and should only be used for e-commerce.
Chose Shopify Plus
Our experience with SFCC was fairly poor. SFCC was very expensive, and the ecosystem of partners is very expensive. SFCC is a bit more mature but the time to execute is significantly slower.
Chose Shopify Plus
Shopify Olus is more of a SAAS than the self-managed Magento solution. With this comes a host of benefits such as hosting, security, updates, and new technology that you no longer have to worry about. Specifically, with Shopify Plus, scripts can be very powerful and when …
Chose Shopify Plus
Big Cartel, Magento, Squarespace, Wordpress, Wix, etc are all decent solutions for eCommerce, but none of them features the easy setup, ease of use, simple streamlined dashboard/interface, and customer website experience that Shopify Plus has. Shopify (non plus) alone is a …
Chose Shopify Plus
It doesn't. Shopify has some great features and add-ons. I particularly like the ability for customers to check out quickly with a text authenticator, the theme options, ability to customize the look and feel, and video integration but this is all surface matter. At its core, …
Chose Shopify Plus
While Squarespace has a more sophisticated site theme and template offering, the inventory management, and drop shipping options (while still not perfect, or ideal) makes Shopify Plus the right choice for powering e-commerce businesses.
Features
PodiaShopify Plus
Online Storefront
Comparison of Online Storefront features of Product A and Product B
Podia
8.1
Ratings
3% above category average
Shopify Plus
8.6
Ratings
9% above category average
Product catalog & listings8.00 Ratings9.50 Ratings
Product management9.00 Ratings8.40 Ratings
Bulk product upload8.00 Ratings6.50 Ratings
Branding8.00 Ratings8.20 Ratings
Mobile storefront8.00 Ratings9.60 Ratings
Product variations8.00 Ratings9.20 Ratings
Website integration8.00 Ratings8.90 Ratings
Visual customization8.00 Ratings9.20 Ratings
CMS8.00 Ratings8.20 Ratings
Online Shopping Cart
Comparison of Online Shopping Cart features of Product A and Product B
Podia
8.0
Ratings
4% above category average
Shopify Plus
8.4
Ratings
9% above category average
Abandoned cart recovery8.00 Ratings7.40 Ratings
Checkout user experience8.00 Ratings9.40 Ratings
Online Payment System
Comparison of Online Payment System features of Product A and Product B
Podia
8.0
Ratings
4% below category average
Shopify Plus
9.6
Ratings
15% above category average
eCommerce security8.00 Ratings9.60 Ratings
eCommerce Marketing
Comparison of eCommerce Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Podia
7.0
Ratings
10% below category average
Shopify Plus
8.3
Ratings
7% above category average
Promotions & discounts9.00 Ratings8.70 Ratings
SEO5.00 Ratings7.90 Ratings
Personalized recommendations00 Ratings8.30 Ratings
eCommerce Business Management
Comparison of eCommerce Business Management features of Product A and Product B
Podia
8.0
Ratings
0% below category average
Shopify Plus
8.5
Ratings
6% above category average
Order processing8.00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Custom functionality8.00 Ratings9.10 Ratings
Inventory management00 Ratings7.20 Ratings
Shipping00 Ratings8.60 Ratings
Best Alternatives
PodiaShopify Plus
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Ecwid by Lightspeed
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Score 10.0 out of 10
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Score 10.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Shopify Plus
Shopify Plus
Score 9.0 out of 10
IBM Digital Commerce
IBM Digital Commerce
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
IBM Digital Commerce
IBM Digital Commerce
Score 9.0 out of 10
IBM Digital Commerce
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Score 9.0 out of 10
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User Ratings
PodiaShopify Plus
Likelihood to Recommend
7.0
(0 ratings)
9.5
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(0 ratings)
9.5
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
PodiaShopify Plus
Likelihood to Recommend
If you are not techy want to create a course creation type of business then I think its really great. I have used a lot of programs and only a few are complete and Podia is there except for a full fledge blogging platform (you can do a version but it's not quite the same). It's probably the most user friendly email system I have used and the website builder is very user friendly as well. I think if you are a serious blogger and wanting seo traffic to drive to your site, this one thing to watch and consider not as competitive then vs Kajabi.
Read full review
Shopify Plus makes order management simple and less error prone. Connecting our ERP allows us to seamlessly manage our product listings, fulfill orders, and sync customer data. Limitations to the number of product variants requires attention from our staff to make sure our products sync without issue. Other than being arbitrary, there's really no need to limit the number of product variants.
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Pros
  • Emails
  • Course hosting
  • Website creation
  • Website chat
Read full review
  • Scales incredibly well. Forget about hardware concerns, load balancing, downtime, etc. and focus on eCommerce. We've seen merchants go from a few thousand dollars per month to having million dollar days, all on Shopify without having to worry about performance or scaling systems.
  • Great new features consistently being added, ahead of the curve on almost everything
  • Solid API to build on and work with, a few annoying quirks here and there for super complex use cases but overall very well documented and works well
  • Most Merchant Success Managers are good and genuinely want to be helpful
  • A fantastic user interface, very logical and easy to use
  • Tons and tons and tons of out of the box integrations. Easily the best integration marketplace of the e-commerce platforms. There's an app for that.
Read full review
Cons
  • I sometimes wish there was more that I could customize on my website and digital programs
  • I wish their email service (for broadcasts/group emails) had more features and customization
  • I would like to use my brand font
Read full review
  • The Account Managers/Reps have become more scripted and seem like they are busier and handling more clients than before. It doesn't seem as personal and special anymore like when we first upgraded to Plus.
  • Shopify still has missing features in their software that might not have an app in their app marketplace available that fills this void.
  • The 24/7 support doesn't seem as dedicated as they once were.
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Usability
It has a great user interface, it's fast to edit and create courses, to edit and create emails, to find chats, to develop the website. Support has been friendly and I haven't found anything that hasn't worked. It also has basically all the tools you need outside if a complete blog platform
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Shopify Plus is intutive as stated previously. It's easy to find what we want and edit (reports, products, online store theme, etc...) You dont need to have a ton of coding experience to be able to get a website up and running on Shopify Plus. The reason I wont give a 10/10 and gave an 8 is because I do think it is heavily realiant on app and it can open up a can of worms with the amout of apps that are out there, their costs, and which one to chose. There are also some internal limitations as stated previously with discounts and personalized message for different customer groups. But overall, it is a good platform that I recommend.
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Support Rating
No answers on this topic
Always are quick to answer our questions and help us find a solution
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Alternatives Considered
Kajabi had lots of features all in one place. I liked their digital course creator program. I liked the ease of their their membership site program/host, too. It had an app for my clients to use. There were some problems with not being able to customize the look of pages, but they allowed coding/programming if you had training, so I sometimes hired someone to do that for me. I couldn't figure out how to use their website builder, so I didn't do much there. When it came down to it, I could use Podia and it was cheaper and easier to use. GoDaddy was my website host for a few years. I did a lot on there. It was my website builder and host and I liked it. It was easy to use. My website looked great. It had more features than Podia with blogging and connecting to social media. I had a storefront but it wasn't great for selling digital products. Back then, it wanted to show my inventory and shipping options, which don't apply for services and digital products. I did a little with my digital courses on there, but in the end, I liked other sites better for this. It didn't work out. Weebly was just a starting point for me when I create my first digital course. I liked how it looked and it was easy to build, but there are better options for this sort of thing now.
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Shopify Plus is an all in one service. You are able to keep track of invoices and payments. Shopify Plus also offers options for shipping and connects your tracking number to you order which allows for easy tracking. Your tracking number is also a link which makes it even easier.
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Return on Investment
  • Increased sales by $8000 from January to June (Added 2 more programs quickly and easily)
  • Saved almost a thousand dollars in the first year in costs by switching to Podia
  • Improved customer satisfaction by using 1 site instead of 4
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  • Definitely makes selling on multiple platforms easy, saving us time and effort.
  • Keeps all of our business in one place, saving us money on other apps to manage each aspect.
  • Automatically flags potential fraudulent orders, preventing us from accidentally shipping to a scam.
  • During our busiest months, we don't see any slowdowns, which allows us to go full throttle with all ads and marketing without worrying about whether or not the software can handle it.
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ScreenShots

Shopify Plus Screenshots

Screenshot of The home screen of your Shopify admin, including proactive home cards and reporting and live view insights.Screenshot of Your Shopify Plus store is ready for mobile commerce. Customers can browse and buy from your store with an optimized experience on device.Screenshot of Editing products across sales channels.Screenshot of Easily edit colours, typography, settings, and drag and drop sections for each of your store's templates with the theme editor.