Oberlo vs AliDropship: Which Is Better?

Oberlo or AliDropship? Which is the better choice for your dropshipping store with all the various platforms to choose from?

Maybe you want to start a new dropshipping business or try a new tool.

AliDropship on WordPress and Oberlo on Shopify in Comparison

A lot of dropshipping stores use Oberlo because this solution is popular among newbies, and those who decided to use Shopify.

Oberlo and Shopify are well known due to their excellent marketing strategy and product experience which has led to its popularity. In most cases, you may not even familiar with other solutions available to make your own choice.

It’s obvious why people choose Shopify. It’s a powerful platform made for eCommerce businesses with nice designs and easy to use customizations.

Although AliDropship is less popular than Shopify, it has its advantages which you may love more.

Oberlo vs AliDropship Pricing

Dropshipping Tool	AliDropship	Oberlo
Platform	WordPress	Shopify
Platform Pricing	$0 – WordPress.org is free $3.95/month hosting with BlueHost	$29/month – Basic Shopify Plan $79/month – Shopify Plan $299/month – Advanced Plan
Plugin/App Costs	$89 – one-time payment $48 – yearly hosting payment (for hosting with AliDropship)	$0 – Starter $29.90/month – Basic $79.90/month – Pro

Both platforms do have credit card or PayPal transaction fees as well for accepting payments on your online store. This is for your payment gateway and they charge anywhere from 2 to 3% normally. This is the way banking systems operate.

For the different Shopify payment gateways, they have different plans with various fees and restrictions.

Do you see the enormous difference in cost?

One time payment without recurring fees versus monthly payments. Oberlo and Shopify cost a fortune in the long run. Why do people still continue to use it then?

Technical Setup

With Shopify, you’re already provided with hosting. Whereas with WordPress, you choose and pay for your own domain name and hosting provider yourself.

However, you don’t need any special technical knowledge if you use Shopify. Shopify relieves you from choosing your hosting provider because hosting and payments for it are already included in your plan.

A domain is not included, so you can buy a domain through Shopify ($14 per year) or redirect an existing one.

However, buying a domain name and choosing your provider is not as difficult as you could imagine. You can do it yourself in a few minutes using AliDropship instructions.

Regardless, the offer with no headaches of buying and setting up everything yourself is quite appealing.

Control and Ownership Issues

Your dropshipping website based on Shopify and Oberlo is kind of owned by Shopify. You are like renting space while paying monthly fees. There is always a risk that someday your online store could be shut down without any reason according to the Shopify terms of service.

They could just close it and text you that your business presents a level of risk that they will be unable to support with Shopify. People have lost their stores, time, and money. Most likely you will be fine, and I’ve never personally had that issue using Shopify, but it’s important to be aware and warned this might happen.

However, when you use WordPress, it’s under your control because it’s a standalone website. You own 100% of your business because you are the only one who has access to your data. You install AliDropship or WooCommerce with AliDropship Woo and work with your dropshipping store any way you want. Nobody will take it away from you.

Product Customization, Shipment Tracking, Filtering Products with ePacket

Both solutions have similar functionality to be successful in a dropshipping business. They allow you to import products from AliExpress, add customizations, track shipments, and filter products with ePacket. There is little difference in functionality.

AliDropship and AliDropship Woo (the WooCommerce version) do not have a wishlist feature and Oberlo alone does not support importing reviews from AliExpress.

If you use Shopify, your business has to be registered in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, or Singapore. AliDropship doesn’t make you do it.

All solutions help you import products from AliExpress which is essential for this business model. However, Oberlo has limits on the number of products you import to your store and the number of orders per month depending on the plan you choose.

When you use the AliDropship plugin on WordPress you don’t have to worry about the number of products or orders as it is not limited.

Theme Selection

Shopify provides you with both paid and free themes, so you can pick any of them to see which design fits your store the best. Their price range varies from free to $180. It’s always better to choose best-sellers or best-rated ones to get the most user-friendly designs.

There are three built-in themes for AliDropship’s original plugin. These are always free. All of the themes are mobile-friendly and integrated for the AliDropship plugin. You can switch between themes without losing your data.

You can also download the AliDropship Woo plugin in if you use WooCommerce on WordPress. There are plenty of themes for Woo and many WordPress themes come with WooCommerce compatibility and functionality.

Add-ons for Additional Functionality

To increase conversions in your store you may want to add more functionality by setting up different add-ons. All solutions have their own add-ons, some of which are free. They can help with your integration with other services such as search engines or to encourage visitors to make more orders with cart abandonment technology.

Another popular function is to have visitors sign up for your email list with a pop-up form offering a discount.

Shopify makes you pay around an extra $10 per month for almost any solution, although they have a lot of options with third-party developers that create add-ons. This is an advantage of the Shopify platform. However, these add-ons can get quite expensive depending on what you want to use in your store.

For example, this is a list of business expenses from a Shopify store listed for sale on the Exchange Marketplace:

AliDropship has 7 essential add-ons with most of them also working with the WooCommerce version. Some of them are free, while others require a one-time payment.

In general, most plugins and add-ons for WordPress tend to be much cheaper in the long run.

Product Suppliers

Oberlo gives you an opportunity to choose products from selected suppliers proven to be trustworthy, but they have a bit higher prices. This marketplace is called Oberlo Supply.

If you use the AliExpress marketplace, this option isn’t really needed. You can still find reliable suppliers on AliExpress with AliDropship extra features showing the ratings of all the suppliers. Plus you can also check the AliExpress reviews or by checking for similar products.

Learning Curve

You don’t need to know a lot about the technical part of running an online store when you use Shopify. It’s really easy to customize. If you are afraid of the technical part, it’s worth paying.

However, you won’t need much experience to set everything up on WordPress. All you need to do is follow instructions from the knowledge base or ask AliDropship support to help with some of the settings.

Turnkey Solutions for a Dropshipping Business

If you’d like to launch your online store, but don’t want to spend loads of time manually uploading products there are some turnkey solutions for you. You can always buy someone’s store in the marketplace if you want to use Shopify.

Or you can get a custom store which the AliDropship team will build for you. There are three packages to choose from. The price depends on the number of products and other features you might need. You’ll still be able to import more products by yourself. The price starts at $299.

They have created over 7,000 dropshipping stores for people looking to get started.

Final Thoughts

As you can see both systems are worth trying. They both have nice features and you can make a decision based on your personal needs. The key differences include price, design, functionality, and learning curve.

Ultimately the system that performs the most financially effective way is the best. The time spent to learn WordPress isn’t too much and it can take less than a week to learn the basics and to start operating a store.

Most people can do the same if you want to save your money and maximize the profit you make. If you don’t want to spend time on it, then you can always take another option and get a ready-made store.

Which platform do you prefer?