Flow or Shopify? Built for how Europe sells.
Flow is an online store platform made for selling in the EU. The legal parts, the extra ways to sell and the numbers you steer by are part of the product, not a list of apps to find and pay for one by one.
Why store owners choose Flow
Eight reasons, each one something you can look for in the admin. Where a comparison with Shopify is fair, it says what Shopify offers natively and what comes from an app.
The legal side of EU selling is built in
VAT follows the buyer's country, with OSS and IOSS figures ready for your accountant. Legal invoices and credit notes come in a gap-free series. You also get the 14-day withdrawal function, the 30-day lowest-price indication, product safety information, and customer-data export and erasure. On Shopify, several of these come from apps.
Sell more than parcels
Appointments, stays, rentals, subscription boxes and downloads share one catalogue, one cart and one checkout with ordinary products. Let outside hosts list their own stays and rentals for a commission, with the DAC7 report included. Shopify offers booking through apps.
An AI manager that works from your own data
Ask about orders, stock or sales and it answers from your store's numbers, with the arithmetic done in code. It drafts product texts, translates the whole store and builds pages from a short interview. Anything that changes your shop, emails customers or spends money waits for your yes. Use Flow's AI or bring your own provider.
Know why your numbers move
Profit by order and product, customer lifetime value, cohorts and a monthly forecast, with alerts and a plain-words account of what changed. Send reports to your accountant on a schedule. On Shopify, explaining a change in sales and scheduled report emails come from apps.
Made for Nordic shops
Book and print labels with Bring, Porterbuddy and Helthjem, offer pickup points from Bring, PostNord and Helthjem, and let customers pay with Vipps and MobilePay. Look up a Norwegian company in Brønnøysundregistrene and send your books to Tripletex. Shopper-facing texts are written by hand in Norwegian, Swedish, Danish and English.
Your data stays in Europe
Your store's database and servers are in Dublin, and every service we add is chosen to keep customer data in the EU. Staff sign in with two steps, roles limit who sees what, and an activity log records who changed what.
Grow without an app bill
Wishlists, refer-a-friend rewards, loyalty credits, product reviews, back-in-stock emails, pre-orders and tiered or volume discounts are part of the product. On Shopify each of these comes from an app, and apps commonly bill monthly.
Run several stores, and move in easily
See every store you own in one control center, copy a store with its content, and show your products inside a WordPress site while checkout stays in Flow. Bring your products over from Shopify's CSV files and keep old links working with redirects. On Shopify, managing several stores centrally is part of Plus.
Flow and Shopify, line by line
Where Shopify needs an app or a higher plan, the right-hand side says so. What we say about Shopify comes from Shopify's own help pages and from app listings.
Selling in the EU
Legal invoices and credit notes
Flow. Issued for every paid order and refund, in a gap-free series, as PDF and on a page the customer can open.
Shopify. From apps. Shopify's free Order Printer app has no credit notes.
30-day lowest-price indication
Flow. Kept for every price and shown only on a real reduction.
Shopify. Not built in. Apps save prices daily and show the lowest one.
Right of withdrawal, with exclusions and a digital-content waiver
Flow. A two-step function for customers, the 14-day clock from the recorded delivery, refunds and returns in one queue.
Shopify. Its withdrawal page does not cover exclusions or a digital waiver. Apps add them.
Product safety information (GPSR)
Flow. Fields on the product, shown on the product page.
Shopify. From an app.
DAC7 report for hosts and sellers
Flow. Built in, with a CSV for the owner.
Shopify. No tool found. Merchants export order data for their accountant.
Selling more than goods
Appointments, stays and rentals
Flow. Part of the catalogue, with opening hours, capacity, seasons, deposits and calendars.
Shopify. From apps. Appointo, for example, starts at 14 USD a month.
A marketplace with outside hosts
Flow. Hosts list stays and rentals, get paid through their own Stripe account, and you take a commission.
Shopify. No built-in multi-vendor function. Apps provide it.
Several stores under one owner
Flow. One control center for every store you own.
Shopify. Organisation features come with Shopify Plus.
Growing and understanding the shop
Loyalty and rewards
Flow. Credits that customers earn and spend, with expiry reminders.
Shopify. No native loyalty programme. Apps provide it.
Refer-a-friend
Flow. Customers refer customers, with a welcome discount and a reward in credits.
Shopify. No native feature. Apps provide it.
Wishlists
Flow. Built in, for signed-in and guest customers.
Shopify. No native wishlist. Apps provide it.
Product reviews
Flow. Verified-purchase reviews with moderation and structured data.
Shopify. Shopify's own reviews app was discontinued in 2024. Apps provide reviews.
Back-in-stock emails and pre-orders
Flow. A notify-me list on sold-out products, and pre-orders with a release date.
Shopify. Both come from apps.
Tiered and volume discounts
Flow. Part of the discount rules.
Shopify. Not native: they need an app, or custom code on Plus.
Scheduled report emails
Flow. Reports sent to you and your accountant on a schedule.
Shopify. Reports are exported by hand. Apps schedule them.
Why did sales change?
Flow. A plain-words explanation, worked out in code from your own orders.
Shopify. From analytics apps.
Vipps and MobilePay
Flow. Offered at checkout.
Shopify. A Shopify-listed integration, not part of Shopify Payments.
Where Shopify is the better fit
Flow is not the right choice for everyone. Choose Shopify if:
- You need point-of-sale hardware for physical shops.
- You depend on a particular app from Shopify's much larger App Store.
- Most of your sales are outside Europe.
- You need enterprise features from Shopify Plus and a long public track record.
If your customers are in Europe and you want the legal parts, the extra ways to sell and the numbers in one product, Flow is built for you.
Who Flow is for
Shops selling in the EU
You sell to consumers in more than one EU country, you carry the VAT, invoices and withdrawal rights yourself, and you would rather have them handled in the product than in five apps.
Businesses that sell time, space and subscriptions too
Salons and studios with a booking calendar, a cabin or a bike rental, a farm with weekly boxes, a shop that also sells downloads: one store, one checkout, one set of figures.
Agencies and owners of several stores
One control center, copies of a store, roles with per-section permissions, two-step sign-in, an activity log, and collaborator access that ends on a date you set.
Moving over from Shopify
- Import your products from Shopify's CSV file. A dry run shows what will be created and what is wrong before anything is saved.
- Bring your old addresses over as redirects, so links and search rankings keep working.
- Use your own domain when you are ready. Nothing you export from Flow is locked in: orders, customers and reports download as files.
Questions
Can I move my Shopify store to Flow?
Your products and your old addresses, yes: import Shopify's product CSV and its redirects, and read the dry run before you apply it. Your theme does not move, because Flow's pages are built in its own page builder.
Do I need apps?
Flow has no app store. What this page describes is built in, and Flow connects to Slack, Zapier, Make, Tripletex and the carriers named above.
Where is my data kept?
The database and the servers are in Ireland, and every service we add is chosen to keep customer data in the EU.
Does Flow give legal advice?
No. Flow provides the tools, and starting texts for terms, privacy, returns and shipping pages in Norwegian, Swedish, Danish and English, each marked for review. Have a lawyer read them before you publish: you are responsible for what your shop says.
How does the AI manager treat my data?
It reads only your own store. It answers from your figures, never invents a price or a stock level, and anything that publishes, emails customers or spends money waits for your approval. You choose the AI provider in your settings, and its key stays on the server.
What does it cost?
The plans and the fee per sale are on the pricing page. There are no separate app subscriptions for what this page describes.
Try Flow with your own products
Shopify's features, plans and prices change. What this page says about Shopify comes from Shopify's own help pages and from app listings, last read on 2 and 3 October 2026. Check Shopify's pages for today's.