Portmoni vs. Shopify

You want to start your online store, and you are wondering which of Portmoni or Shopify is the best for you? In this guide, we compare both options in detail to help you make your choice.

To start your online store, you need to select an e-commerce platform to build your site. There are many choices available. All have their specificities, advantages, and drawbacks.

In this article, we compare two of these platforms: Portmoni and Shopify. We’ll look at their advantages and disadvantages, to help you choose the best one for you.

Want to jump straight to the answer? Portmoni is the best to get started quickly and is very affordable. Shopify is best if you need a lot of customization, but is quite expensive and more complex to set up.

Sounds like the simplicity of Portmoni could be a good fit for you? Portmoni’s 14-day free trial is the perfect way to give it a try. Start your store in a few minutes and see by yourself!

In this review we’ll look at the following:

• Portmoni vs. Shopify – Overview
• Ease of use
• Online Store Setup
• Templates
• E-commerce Features
• Pricing
• Conclusion

Let’s get started!

Portmoni vs. Shopify – Overview

Here is the overview of the comparison between Portmoni and Shopify:

	Portmoni	Shopify
Ease of Use	Very easy to use	Sometimes difficult to navigate
Online Store Setup	Easy to set up	High number of features
Templates	Free templates available, but fewer customization options	Free and paid templates available, can edit source code
eCommerce	All the features you need included, no add-on required	Many options, but add-ons required for many features
Pricing	Affordable, no transaction fee, no commission	Expensive (starts at $39/m), charge a commission on sales (min 2.5%)

 

Overall, Portmoni is easier and faster to get started, and has all the features needed to run your online store. Shopify has more customization options, but is also more complex to setup and requires plugins to add many features. It is also expensive: the basic package is $39 per month.

Sounds like the simplicity of Portmoni could be a good fit for you? Portmoni’s 14-day free trial is the perfect way to give it a try. Start your store in a few minutes and see by yourself!

And now let’s dive into the detailed comparison of Portmoni and Shopify!

Ease of Use

First, let’s have a look at the ease of use of each platform.

Portmoni stands out by its simplicity. Finding things when you want to use a specific feature is very easy. Everything is listed on a single page, which makes the features simple to find.

This navigation looks the same on both mobile and desktop. This makes it quick and easy for you to set up and change the features on your site.

On the other hand, Shopify has a lot of different menus, sectioning off features in sometimes hard-to-find places for new users.

This makes building your online store a more complicated experience. You might end up needing a lot of help guides and calls to support to get everything done.

If you want to start your online store quickly without a headache, Portmoni will be perfect for you.

Online Store Setup

Now let’s look at the setup of your online store.

Portmoni starts you off with a well-designed e-commerce website.

All the features you need are already packaged into the platform. Like Reviews, a feature other platforms often have to add on afterward.  Your online store also integrates with online payment options, to make it easy to start receiving payments on your store.

This makes it ideal for people who want to build something quickly and easily. It’s also great for people who want to avoid confusing customizations or coding.

Shopify is also a great option for many businesses.

But Shopify caters to both big and small businesses. This means that if you are not at the enterprise level, you might have to deal with a lot of unnecessary features during setup.

Shopify is also built around plugins, which means that you might have to install (often paid) plugins to get some of the key features for your store. If you want reviews, for instance, you’re going to have to customize your site with an app.

All this makes setup a lot more difficult on Shopify. If you want something faster and simpler, Portmoni would be a better choice for you.

Templates

Let’s have a look at the templates and customization options

True to its value of simplicity, Portmoni offers 5 professional-looking templates for all users. You can select one of them when you create your store, and change it later if you wish.

You can customize these templates a lot, adding or removing sections and changing the order of how sections appear on your home page.

You can feature a blog, highlight different products or categories, or add a photo gallery. Or you can go minimal and let your menu guide your visitors.

This means you can have a website set up in no time. You can then focus on other key things, like making sales.

Shopify goes in the other direction. It has a lot of templates, most paid and some free. There are 12 free templates available, and many more options are paid. Paid templates start at $140 for the cheapest one.

This gives you a lot of choices in how your website looks and feels. But many of the deeper customizations are still locked behind coding. This can take a lot of time and be daunting to many users.

While they say variety is the spice of life, too much choice can be overwhelming. And when you’re designing a business online, simpler is often better for everyone. It also comes at a cost, either by needing a developer to assist you with the setup, or by having to buy a paid template.

Lots of templates are great, but what you need is a well-designed site. Both platforms allow you to build that.

e-Commerce Features

Now let’s take a look at the e-commerce features available for the online store itself.

When it comes to eCommerce, Portmoni stays true to its value of simplicity.

Portmoni integrates with Stripe, one of the most trusted international payment providers. And if you are in a region where Stripe is not available, Portmoni connects with the leading payment gateways in that area. In South Africa for instance, Portmoni integrates with Yoco and Payfast.

You can add and design your products and categories, and how they feature on your website.

And you can also create discounts, add shipping rates for different countries, and feature reviews on your products. These are all key marketing tools for your business.

You have everything you need out of the box with Portmoni.

Shopify also has everything you need. But its features take more work to set up.

For instance, Shopify integrates with a lot of payment gateways. But it means you’ll need to do research to find out which one will be best for you. Options are always great, but they can also be daunting. Users can get stuck comparing the pros and cons of options they’ve never heard of.

You’ll also need to find apps to customize the features your templates can’t quite do on their own. And you’ll need to dig into help guides to get the most out of your eCommerce experience.

Shopify is a juggernaut of eCommerce, but it’s also a lot more complicated. If you want a simpler solution with everything you need, Portmoni offers just that.

Pricing

Finally, let’s have a look at the pricing options.

Portmoni is very affordable, with packages starting at $6 per month. Want your own domain for your store? Then it’s included in the $15 per month package, nothing to pay extra.

Portmoni also does not charge any commission on your sales. There is no transaction fee, everything is included in your package.

Portmoni even offers a unique three-month payment option, with a 10% discount on pricing. This can be very useful if you want to test the waters for a few months at a discount.

And Portmoni offers the option to pause your site and restart later, for free.

Shopify starts at $39 per month for the Basic option. This makes it a very expensive solution. The standard package even starts at $109 per month, and the advanced package is $399 per month.

In addition to this, Shopify charges a fee on all your transactions, which costs between 2.9% and 2.5% + $0.30 per transaction. This adds up pretty quickly once you start making sales!

Portmoni is a much more affordable option to start your site quickly and easily.

The Bottom Line

Portmoni and Shopify are both great platforms to start your online business.

Shopify offers a lot of features to its users. But this comes with added complexity. Some will find these features useful, but others will find them confusing. They also come at a cost: Shopify packages are quite expensive.

On the other hand, Portmoni makes eCommerce a lot simpler and affordable. Everything most users need is already there. No need to install and pay for add-ons. It is great for anyone who wants to build an online store but also wants to avoid frustration and confusion.

If that sounds like you, check out Portmoni to start your 14-day free trial now!