Is Cardel an alternative to Lemon Squeezy or Shopify?

Cardel is a home for your craft: a site of your own with a blog, newsletter, shop, community, and one inbox. It can replace Lemon Squeezy or Shopify when you want your work, audience, and sales in one place. The feature list on this page shows where Lemon Squeezy and Shopify are marked.

Can I use Cardel with Lemon Squeezy or Shopify?

Yes. Cardel pages can link out to other products, so you can keep Lemon Squeezy or Shopify for what it does best and bring the rest of your work to Cardel.

How much does Cardel cost compared with Lemon Squeezy and Shopify?

You don't pay for Cardel until you publish. Choose Starter, Pro, or Studio when your site goes live. Lemon Squeezy and Shopify set their own prices, so check their pricing pages on this page for current plans.

How do I switch from Lemon Squeezy or Shopify to Cardel?

Start with Build Your Site, set up your home, and bring your work over at your own pace. You do not have to move everything on day one.

Compare

Lemon SqueezyvsShopify

Lemon Squeezy is a merchant of record for software and digital goods with tax handled. Shopify is the commerce platform: storefront, checkout, inventory, POS, email, and inbox.

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How Lemon Squeezy and Shopify compare

Lemon Squeezy takes the hard parts of selling software off your plate. As merchant of record it handles global tax, fraud, and compliance, while you get hosted checkout, subscriptions, license keys, a storefront, customer email, affiliates, and a clean API. Developers and digital product makers choose it so they can ship instead of file returns.

Shopify is what you use when the store is the business. World-class checkout, inventory and shipping, taxes, POS, thousands of apps, Shopify Email, Shopify Inbox, and a theme store make it the standard for merchants of every size. It scales from one product to a warehouse without changing platforms.

Where they are different

Lemon Squeezy

Lemon Squeezy is the checkout behind your product.
Lemon Squeezy emails customers.
Lemon Squeezy has no inbox or bookings.

Shopify

Shopify's blog and pages serve the store.
Shopify Inbox handles chat.
Shopify doesn't manage scheduling natively.

Choose Lemon Squeezy when you sell software or digital goods globally and want tax and licensing handled.

Choose Shopify when you sell products at volume and need inventory, shipping, tax, and apps.

Compare features

What's on Lemon Squeezy and Shopify

A check means that capability is available. Lemon Squeezy and Shopify are marked only when the offer is comparable, not the same product.

Site and brand

Workspace site
Lemon Squeezy: Included
Shopify: Included
Custom domain
Lemon Squeezy: Included
Shopify: Included
Theme and fonts
Lemon Squeezy: Included
Shopify: Included

Public content

Blog
Lemon Squeezy: Not included
Shopify: Included
Reader engagement
Lemon Squeezy: Not included
Shopify: Included
Shop pages
Lemon Squeezy: Included
Shopify: Included

Audience and email

Audience
Lemon Squeezy: Included
Shopify: Included
Email templates and From addresses
Lemon Squeezy: Included
Shopify: Included
Marketing emails
Lemon Squeezy: Included
Shopify: Included
Campaign workflows
Lemon Squeezy: Included
Shopify: Included

Messaging

Messaging Center
Lemon Squeezy: Not included
Shopify: Included

Commerce

Shop payments
Lemon Squeezy: Included
Shopify: Included
Orders and fulfillment
Lemon Squeezy: Included
Shopify: Included

Team

Admin users
Lemon Squeezy: Included
Shopify: Included
Per-admin permissions
Lemon Squeezy: Included
Shopify: Included
AI Assistant
Lemon Squeezy: Not included
Shopify: Included

Feature comparison for Lemon Squeezy and Shopify
Feature	Lemon Squeezy	Shopify
Site and brand
Workspace site	Included	Included
Custom domain	Included	Included
Theme and fonts	Included	Included
Public content
Blog	Not included	Included
Reader engagement	Not included	Included
Shop pages	Included	Included
Audience and email
Audience	Included	Included
Email templates and From addresses	Included	Included
Marketing emails	Included	Included
Campaign workflows	Included	Included
Messaging
Messaging Center	Not included	Included
Commerce
Shop payments	Included	Included
Orders and fulfillment	Included	Included
Team
Admin users	Included	Included
Per-admin permissions	Included	Included
AI Assistant	Not included	Included

* Note: This table does not capture every feature of Lemon Squeezy or Shopify, and is not intended as a comprehensive list. We keep this page current, but Lemon Squeezy or Shopify may add or remove features that are not shown here.