Which one fits a golf cart dealership better? Below: real pricing, what each tool gets right, where each falls short, and what switching from Shopify actually looks like.
Shopify is the biggest e-commerce platform on the planet. Millions of merchants. Great product for retail brands. Plenty of golf cart dealers start here because they already know the brand, then hit limits about six months in.
Customer base: Millions of merchants
The patterns that come up over and over in our calls with new customers leaving Shopify:
Shopifydoesn't publish pricing on their site. Here's what dealers actually pay:
How Powerdash and Shopify actually stack up on the things golf cart dealers care about.
| Feature | Shopify | Powerdash |
|---|---|---|
| Made specifically for golf cart dealers | No. Generic powersports. | Yes. That's the only kind of dealer we work with. |
| Website included | Sold separately. | Yes, in every plan. |
| Subdomain like yourshop.powerdash.io ready day 1 | Custom domain only, takes a week to set up. | Live in minutes. Custom domain whenever you're ready. |
| How long until you're up and running | Two to six weeks with an implementation team. | An afternoon. No implementation team. |
| Rental fleet | Either missing or an add-on. | Built in. Daily and weekly rates, deposits, delivery fees, conflict detection. |
| Parts shop with real checkout | Usually a separate Magento install. | Native. Stripe handles payment. |
| Multiple locations | Higher plans only. | Included from day 1. |
| Lighthouse / PageSpeed score | Mid-40s on most sites we've audited. | 95+. Built on Next.js 16. |
| Free trial | No. They want a sales call first. | 90 days. No card. |
| Setup fee | Usually $2,500 to $10,000. | $0. |
| Trade-in valuations | Not supported. Manual workflow only. | Built in. Customers submit details, you respond with a quote. |
| Unit-by-unit (VIN-style) inventory | Product variants only. Fights the model. | Each unit is a first-class object with photos, accessories, status. |
| Multi-location with cross-location reservations | Yes, but no reservation workflow. | Yes, with reservations. |
| Transaction fees on top of payment processing | 0.2% to 2% depending on plan. | Zero. |
Inventory and customer imports run in about 30 to 60 minutes. Storefront customization takes another hour or two. Then you flip DNS and Shopify is done. We help with the migration for free in the first 30 days of your trial.
Start free trialSome dealers do this during migration. Shopify for parts orders, Powerdash for inventory + rentals + leads. Most consolidate to Powerdash eventually because the parts shop is included in every Powerdash plan and you stop paying Shopify the percentage on each sale.
They handle calendar booking. They don't handle the rest: deposits, vehicle inspection at pickup, fleet status, conflict detection across overlapping bookings on the same unit, rental pricing tiers. And they don't integrate with sales, so a rented cart still shows as 'available' to buy on your store. Customer confusion guaranteed.
Stripe checkout under the hood. Abandoned cart, promo codes, shipping rules, tax calc, refunds. Yes.
No credit card. No multi-year lock-in. If it isn't a better fit than Shopify, walk away. We'll help you do that too.
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