Most Stores Should Use Shopify

If you sell at volume, in several countries and across channels, Shopify is the default for good reasons. This page is for a narrower case: a developer-built Next.js store where content matters as much as checkout, the catalogue is modest, and you want an agent to handle the back office.

Where Shopify Is Clearly Better

Payments - Shopify Payments is built in, behind a checkout Shopify calls the world's best-converting. Cmssy never touches money: it records payments, and you integrate a provider such as Stripe.
Markets - Shopify shows prices in local currencies and sells internationally with Shopify Markets from one store. Cmssy prices each cart in one currency and does not do regions.
Tax and shipping - Shopify lists automated sales tax calculation on its plans and sells discounted carrier labels from the admin. Cmssy has tax rates you set and shipping methods with rules - no carrier rates, no labels.
Channels - Shopify sells on social and marketplaces, and in person through POS, with an app ecosystem around it. Cmssy has webhooks and an API.
Its own headless option - Shopify's Basic plan includes one headless storefront.
Its own assistant - Sidekick is included on Shopify's plans, takes action inside the admin and can help set up discounts.

What Cmssy Does Differently

Content and commerce share one workspace and one API. Pages, blocks, forms and products are read by your app over the same GraphQL delivery API and rendered through SDKs for Next.js, React, Astro and Remix. Editors compose pages visually on your live site, and fields are multilingual by default. On a headless Shopify build, page content often lives in a separate CMS next to the store. Here it is the same workspace. Cmssy does not host the site - your app does.

The store side covers:

products with variants, and stock reserved by open carts
discount codes and shipping rules by country and subtotal
tax and totals computed on the server
guest checkout, with order tracking by token
customer accounts and B2B companies
price tiers, quote requests and PO numbers

After checkout you get manual orders, line edits, partial payments and refunds, fulfillment states, invoices, a configurable pipeline and ten order.* webhooks.

An Agent on Your Key

Sidekick runs inside Shopify's admin. Cmssy exposes its tools over an MCP server, so Claude or any other MCP client can work on pages, products, discounts and orders. The same tools run in the admin's built-in assistant on a key you bring - Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Mistral or Groq - and the provider bills you directly. Both are on every plan.

Refunds, order cancellations and page deletes wait for a human yes. The first call returns a summary and a one-time reference, and nothing changes until the call is repeated with it.

What It Costs

Shopify's pricing page shows prices in your local currency, so check it from where you sell. On Basic, Shopify lists a 2% fee when you use a third-party payment provider instead of Shopify Payments.

Cmssy Pro is $15/month, or $12.50/month billed annually, and takes no cut of orders - Cmssy never processes payments, so you pay your payment provider's fees directly. The free Hobby plan does not include the cart.

Comparison

Feature	Cmssy	Shopify
Site hosting	Your app, your hosting	Shopify themes or your headless app
Payments	You integrate, Cmssy records	Shopify Payments built in
Currencies	One per cart	Local currencies with Markets
Tax	Rates you set, server-side totals	Automated sales tax calculation
Shipping	Methods with country and subtotal rules	Discounted carrier labels
Content and products	One workspace, one API	Store, plus a CMS of your choice
AI agent	MCP server and admin assistant, your key	Sidekick in the admin
Third-party payment fee	None	2% on Basic
Plan needed to sell	Pro, $15/mo	See shopify.com/pricing

Choose Shopify If

You need several currencies, automated tax or carrier labels, POS or sales channels, or a checkout you do not have to build.

Choose Cmssy If

you are building the storefront in Next.js anyway
you sell in one currency
you want content and products in one model that your editors and an agent both work on
you are fine wiring up Stripe yourself - the next-storefront example does it with one webhook route

Try It Without an Account

Open the live storefronts at cmssy.com/demos. Or clone github.com/cmssy-io/examples and run next-storefront against the public demo workspace.

Shopify details checked 13 October 2026 on shopify.com - verify before you decide.

Next Steps

Read how commerce works in Cmssy
Set up the MCP server and see its confirmation step
Try the in-admin AI assistant
Compare Cmssy and the Payload ecommerce plugin

Shopify Alternative for Headless Next.js

A Shopify Alternative for Headless Next.js Stores