Versus · verdicts, not feature tables
This comparison is usually written as features versus features, by someone paid by one of the two. Strip the commissions away and the difference is one sentence: Etsy rents you a shelf in a busy market; Shopify rents you a shop on an empty street and wishes you luck with the traffic. Neither is a trick. They are different products for different beginners.
| Your situation | The verdict | Why |
|---|---|---|
| You have no audience | Etsy | Your first problem is visitors, not branding. Etsy's search is your traffic while you have none of your own. |
| You have an audience (social, list, community) | Shopify becomes real | Free traffic you own is the one asset that flips this verdict. Run it through the traffic reality checker with your real numbers. |
| You sell digital files | Etsy | Native digital delivery and buyers already searching for exactly files. A store can work later; the shelf works now. |
| You hate per-sale fees | Shopify, at volume | Etsy's stack is roughly 10–12% of a typical sale; Shopify's card fee is 2.9% + $0.30 — but the $39+ monthly stack means Shopify only wins once sales are steady. Break-even is a few hundred dollars of sales a month. |
| You want to start this week, under $50 | Etsy | $19–$33 opens it fully. Shopify's first month plus domain plus any traffic at all starts around $154 in our worked basket. |
| You want no rules about what you can sell | Shopify | Your store, your rules (within the law). A marketplace can delist you; a storefront cannot delist its owner. This matters more after you have something worth protecting. |
Neither, if what you have is a houseful of used goods — resale apps beat both for that starting point, at $0. And neither is a plan by itself if the product is undecided: pick the product's door, not the platform's marketing.
Default beginner answer: Etsy first, Shopify second. Earn the audience where the shoppers are; buy the storefront when you can feed it. The gurus who start you on Shopify are paid when you start on Shopify — remember that the traffic line is the one their math leaves blank.
Etsy digital cost page · Own store cost page · Traffic reality checker · Or let the finder decide from your answers
The First Door Kit's door-comparison worksheets take the pair you're stuck on and run both doors' real first-90-days numbers side by side — fees, basket, and the trap that applies to your starting point.
Included in the $39 First Door Kit