Sanity vs Shopify
Structured content platform — headless CMS with real-time + GROQ
vs. Dominant SaaS commerce platform — Online Store + Hydrogen headless
Pricing tiers
Sanity
Free
20 seats. 2 public datasets. 10K documents. 250K API req + 1M CDN req/month. Content Agent + live preview + visual editing.
Free
Growth
$15 per seat/month. 50 seats. 2 datasets (public or private). 25K docs. Same API limits + pay-as-you-go overages.
$15/mo
Enterprise
Custom. SAML SSO, Media Library, dedicated support, 99.99% SLA.
Custom
Shopify
Starter
$5/mo. Sell via social/chat links. No checkout site. Basic.
$5/mo
Basic
$29/mo ($19 annual). Full store. 2.9% + 30¢ online. 2 staff.
$29/mo
Shopify
$79/mo ($49 annual). 2.7% online. 5 staff.
$79/mo
Advanced
$299/mo ($229 annual). 2.5% online. Custom reports. 15 staff.
$299/mo
Plus
$2,300/mo (starting). Enterprise features, checkout customization, unlimited staff.
$2300/mo
Enterprise
Custom. For $1M+ GMV merchants. Dedicated support, Checkout Extensibility.
Custom
Free-tier quotas head-to-head
Comparing free on Sanity vs starter on Shopify.
| Metric | Sanity | Shopify |
|---|---|---|
| No overlapping quota metrics for these tiers. | ||
Features
Sanity · 16 features
- Agent Context — Expose your content schema + docs to LLM agents.
- Content Agent (AI) — AI assistant inside Studio for generation + translation.
- Content History — Every change versioned. Rollback + diff.
- Content Lake — Distributed real-time DB for structured content. Multi-region replicas.
- Datasets — Logical content partitions (stage/prod/etc.). Easy cloning.
- GROQ — Graph-Relational Object Queries — JSON-native query language.
- Image CDN — Smart transforms (crop, format, quality) via URL params.
- Internationalization — Multiple locales per document with native i18n plugins.
- Live Previews — Draft previews with stega-encoded content.
- Media Library (Ent) — Org-wide media with DAM features.
- Portable Text — Structured rich text format (JSON). Portable across channels.
- Real-Time Collaboration — Live presence + collaborative editing.
- Sanity Studio — Open-source React editor — customize with your own components + workflow.
- Scheduled Publishing — Schedule content to publish at a future date.
- Visual Editing — Click-to-edit inline on your Next.js/etc. website.
- Webhooks — Events on create/update/delete with GROQ filter.
Shopify · 22 features
- Admin APIs — REST + GraphQL for management.
- App Store — 8,000+ apps.
- B2B (Plus) — Company accounts + catalogs.
- Checkout — Shopify-managed checkout (PCI-compliant).
- Checkout Extensibility — UI extensions in checkout (Plus).
- Collections — Manual + smart grouping.
- Customers — CRM-lite + B2B (Plus).
- Discounts — Automatic + code-based.
- Hydrogen — React/Remix headless framework.
- Inventory — Multi-location stock.
- Markets — Multi-region selling (currency, language).
- Online Store — Default Liquid-based storefront.
- Orders + Fulfillment — Multi-location fulfillment.
- Oxygen — Edge hosting for Hydrogen (Plus).
- Products + Variants — Full PIM.
- Shipping + Rates — Carrier integrations.
- Shopify Functions — Rust/WASM backend extensions.
- Shopify Payments — First-party payment processor.
- Shop Pay — Accelerated checkout with saved payment.
- Storefront API — GraphQL for custom storefronts.
- Theme Store — First-party + paid themes.
- Webhooks — Event subscriptions.
Developer interfaces
| Kind | Sanity | Shopify |
|---|---|---|
| CLI | Sanity CLI | shopify CLI |
| SDK | @sanity/client, sanity-python, @sanity/ui + next-sanity | @shopify/admin-api-client, @shopify/hydrogen |
| REST | Image CDN, Sanity HTTP API | Admin REST API |
| GRAPHQL | — | Admin GraphQL API, Storefront API |
| MCP | Sanity MCP | Shopify MCP (unofficial) |
| OTHER | GROQ Query Language, Webhooks | Liquid Templates, Shopify Admin, Shopify Webhooks |
Staxly is an independent catalog of developer platforms. Outbound links to Sanity and Shopify are plain references to their official websites. Pricing is verified against vendor pages at publication time — reconfirm before buying.
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