Is the website an asset, or the work you want to replace?
Keep an existing website when its articles, portfolio, and editing workflow still serve the business. A useful making guide can explain the difference between two pieces and lead naturally to the one a reader wants to buy. Ecwid can add selling to those pages. But if you are rebuilding the homepage, product presentation, and navigation anyway, preserving the website may preserve the work you wanted to remove. That is where a generated Setka store belongs in the decision. Setka includes a built-in blog, so guides like that can move into the store instead of sitting beside it.
Setka is our product. We recommend it when you want the storefront built around your products and brand direction, with later changes guided inside the commerce platform. You provide the catalog, describe the result, edit exact wording, preview, and publish without maintaining a theme codebase.
Ecwid gives you two ways to present the store
Ecwid documents adding commerce to an existing website, including a full catalog, a category, a product card, or a Buy Now button. The integration method depends on the website platform. You keep its content and editing workflow alongside Ecwid’s commerce settings.
Its Instant Site is a hosted, code-free website builder included in every plan. It has its own themes, sections, and editor. Custom domains, additional pages, and other capabilities depend on the plan.
| Decision | Ecwid | Setka |
|---|---|---|
| Preserve an existing website | Add Ecwid commerce through the supported integration | Move the articles into Setka’s built-in blog, beside a new store |
| Start without a website | Configure a hosted Instant Site | Generate storefront pages from a brief and catalog |
| Change the presentation | Use site/store design controls; deeper customization can use code | Describe changes, edit copy directly, preview, and publish |
| Own the implementation | Depends on the hosted or embedded approach and customization | Setka owns the storefront implementation; you direct and approve it |
Ecwid’s customization guide covers built-in controls and code-level options. Code is not required for every change. The useful question is whether the presentation you want fits the editor or becomes a separate customization project.
Test a change that matters to your brand
Use a small homeware collection with real photos, dimensions, and a short account of how the pieces are made. Pick a task you will repeat: introduce a new collection, feature three pieces, and make the dimensions prominent on each product page.
If keeping your website is the goal, add the products to an actual article or collection page. Keep the connection specific: a guide to choosing a vase for a small dining table should lead to suitable pieces with their dimensions, rather than leave the reader to search the entire collection again. Check the route from that page to a product, cart, and checkout on a phone and desktop. Note which changes happen in the website editor and which happen in Ecwid; both need an owner.
If you are choosing a new store, compare Instant Site’s sections with the result you can direct in Setka. Give Setka the collection story and product facts, then ask for a revision such as “shorten the introduction and bring the dimensions closer to the product description.” Preview the page and mobile layout, then publish, place a real order through cart and checkout, and refund it before launch.
Then rehearse the next collection update. Replace a featured piece, revise its explanation, and check that the recommendation still fits the products available. The merchant owns those facts and decisions. In an embedded setup, someone also owns the article around the store; in Setka, you direct the storefront changes while the platform owns their implementation. You are choosing how future collection updates will happen, as well as the first design.
Setka saves every storefront version, and you can return to an earlier one.
Compare the plan your catalog actually needs
Ecwid’s pricing page and plan documentation, checked on 28 September 2026, list these USD prices and product limits:
| Plan | Monthly billing | Monthly equivalent with annual billing | Product limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | $5 | $5 | 10 |
| Venture | $35 | $29 | 100 |
| Business | $65 | $49 | 2,500 |
| Unlimited | $149 | $119 | Unlimited |
Taxes are excluded; billing country and app-store billing can change the price. Ecwid charges no platform transaction fee, while payment-provider charges remain separate. Its 2026 pricing update explains the changed Venture, Business, and Unlimited rates.
Product count is only one gate. For example, the current Instant Site documentation places custom domains on Venture and above. A store that needs a branded domain should not budget from the Starter price alone.
If you keep a website, its subscription and upkeep belong in the Ecwid budget. If Instant Site’s sections already present the collection, Ecwid’s lower plan wins. If each collection means paying for design or code work, that work is the larger cost, and Setka builds it into the platform. See Setka’s current pricing.
Choose the workflow before planning the transfer
Ecwid is a strong candidate when keeping an existing site is central to the decision, or when its hosted editor gives you the control you want. Choose Setka when your priority is directing a generated store without maintaining its theme implementation. If a catalog, payment, or integration requirement is launch-critical, tell us at [email protected] before you move: requests go straight to the people building Setka.
Ecwid documents catalog export and separate order and customer exports on Venture and above. If you move to Setka, we run the migration for you: tell us at [email protected] what you have, and we’ll work out the move with you.
Before moving, mark which pages will remain, which will be replaced, and which URLs customers already use. Assign a destination to each important page and verify the data, integrations, and settings needed for the replacement. Setka doesn’t set up redirects from old URLs yet, so if customers or search traffic depend on those URLs, tell us before you move.
If you want to keep the website, use the embedded-commerce guide to plan that route. If the storefront itself needs rebuilding, start with Setka and bring the collection brief above. Put the design work into a store you can direct and approve inside the same platform that runs its commerce.