Moat Index
Companies· Fintech & Commerce

ShopifySHOP

Moat score

The operating system for independent merchants; the store is expensive to leave and the ecosystem keeps growing.

MOATE3.3Deep
3.3 Deep
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DimensionMOATECommunity
Switching costsweight 15Migrating a live store — theme, apps, payments, data — is a project merchants avoid.8
Network effectsweight 15Apps attract merchants, merchants attract apps; Shop Pay compounds across stores.7
Scale & cost advantageweight 12Large in its category, small next to Amazon.6
Brand & pricing powerweight 12Merchants pay rising subscription and payments take-rates without leaving.7
Cornered resourceweight 12Shop Pay, merchant data, and the app ecosystem.6
Distribution controlweight 12Owns the merchant surface and the Shop app; the buyer relationship is weaker.7
Disruption resilienceweight 12Buy with Prime and agentic commerce could bypass the storefront entirely.6
Independenceweight 10Stripe underneath payments; app stores and platforms in the path to buyers.5

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How strong is Shopify's moat?

Question 1 of 8

Switching costs

Switching costs · weight 15

How painful — in money, time, risk, retraining — is it for a customer to leave?

5