Shopify vs PostHog
Dominant SaaS commerce platform — Online Store + Hydrogen headless
vs. Open source product analytics — all-in-one dev tool
Pricing tiers
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
PostHog
Free (generous)
No credit card. Each product has its own free monthly quota. Great for startups + OSS.
Free
Paid (usage-based)
Pay only what you use, after free quotas. Volume discounts at higher tiers. 6 projects, 7-year retention.
$0 base (usage-based)
Self-Hosted (OSS)
MIT-licensed. Run on your own infra via Docker/k8s. Zero vendor lock-in.
$0 base (usage-based)
Enterprise
Custom. SAML SSO, dedicated CSM, custom SLA.
Custom
Free-tier quotas head-to-head
Comparing starter on Shopify vs free on PostHog.
| Metric | Shopify | PostHog |
|---|---|---|
| data warehouse rows | — | 1000000 rows/month |
| error tracking exceptions | — | 100000 exceptions/month |
| feature flags requests | — | 1000000 requests/month |
| llm analytics events | — | 100000 events/month |
| logs gb | — | 50 GB/month |
| product analytics events | — | 1000000 events/month |
| projects | — | 1 projects |
| retention years | — | 1 year |
| session replay recordings | — | 5000 recordings/month |
| surveys responses | — | 1500 responses/month |
| team members | — | unlimited members |
Features
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.
PostHog · 14 features
- A/B Testing — Experiments with significance analysis.
- Data Pipelines — Export events to BigQuery, Snowflake, S3.
- Data Warehouse — Query external sources (Stripe, Hubspot, S3) alongside events with SQL.
- Error Tracking — Sentry-style error tracking in same platform.
- Feature Flags — Rollout flags with targeting, A/B testing, JSON payloads.
- LLM Analytics — Tracing + cost tracking for OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, etc.
- Logs — Centralized log ingest with free 50 GB/month.
- Product Analytics — Events, funnels, trends, retention, paths. SQL insights available.
- Revenue Tracking — Integration with Stripe for revenue + churn metrics.
- Self-Hosting — Docker/Helm. Full feature parity with cloud.
- Session Replay — Watch user sessions. Privacy controls, masked inputs, JS errors.
- SQL Query API — Run ClickHouse SQL over your events via API.
- Surveys — In-app surveys + feedback widgets.
- Workflows — Trigger emails/webhooks on events.
Developer interfaces
| Kind | Shopify | PostHog |
|---|---|---|
| CLI | shopify CLI | — |
| SDK | @shopify/admin-api-client, @shopify/hydrogen | posthog-android, posthog-flutter, posthog-go, posthog-ios (Swift), posthog-js, posthog-node, posthog-php, posthog-python, posthog-react-native, posthog-ruby |
| REST | Admin REST API | PostHog REST API |
| GRAPHQL | Admin GraphQL API, Storefront API | — |
| MCP | Shopify MCP (unofficial) | PostHog MCP |
| OTHER | Liquid Templates, Shopify Admin, Shopify Webhooks | Webhooks + Actions |
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