Describely.ai vs ShopifyMagic: Which One Is Better for Product Descriptions?

If you’re looking for a Shopify Magic alternative or considering using it, then you’re in the right place.

Shopify now has its own AI toolkit designed for eCommerce. It covers everything from images to chatbots, but is it enough to manage product content at scale effectively?

In this guide we’ll compare Shopify Magic and Describely when it comes to AI product descriptions, meta descriptions, keywords, tags, and more.

We’ll also share examples to see how each tool performs in different situations, such as having sparse product details or too many variations.

As you’ll see on later tests, Describely makes it easier to adapt mass product descriptions to your brand voice and guidelines (especially in bulk)— which is why we recommend you sign up for Describely here if you want to decide right away.

AI Copywriting Tools for eCommerce: Describely or ShopifyMagic?

Before diving deep into the details, let’s start with what the ideal eCommerce AI tool should have.

AI is changing fast, with many new fancy features that add complexity to your eCommerce workflow. But what if you have hundreds of products that need to be ready within days?

After working with many eCommerce teams, these are the most common issues they encounter:

• There’s no bulk generation for product descriptions
• There aren’t enough options to adjust for brand guidelines
• The AI sounds robotic or repetitive, or the tone of voice is generic
• The prompt that worked for one product doesn’t work for another
• The AI only covers descriptions. They still need to write titles, bullet points, and tags
• They still need to research missing product details
• Some tools are too complex to learn for the whole team
• There’s no easy way to import and export product descriptions within the AI tool

Now that you know the common issues, let’s see if Shopify Magic and Describely can overcome them.

ShopifyMagic Overview

ShopifyMagic is a built-in AI extension of Shopify— which is the most popular platform to manage your own online store. It’s instantly available “for free” to anyone who’s subscribed to any Shopify plan. It has no generation limits and covers a lot of content formats.

One way to find Shopify Magic is from the dashboard and Products page:

Start by creating a new product, and the star icon is the Shopify Magic AI:

Above you can see a short description example for “dimmable candle warmer lamp with 2 bulbs, color black and gold.”

This is the main use case of Shopify Magic, but there are many more. To go through them quickly, we have:

AI headlines for eCommerce pages…

AI copywriting for any page element…

AI generation of entire pages (e.g. About Us) and blog posts…

Auto-generated product FAQs from your saved product descriptions:

AI-generated image backgrounds…

And even AI chatbots.

If that’s somehow not enough for you, there’s an app marketplace to install more AI tools.

Shopify Magic is a great example of “jack-of-all-trades, master of none.” It sure covers every aspect of eCommerce AI, but as you’ll see in the examples it falls short on the basics. If you’re looking for bulk generation, data enrichment, or AI customization, you won’t find that here.

Describely.ai Overview

Describely is a complete AI eCommerce solution for product descriptions at scale, including headlines, tags, SEO tools, data enrichment, and more. Stores like TargetAU and Borsheims use it to write and update 1,000+ product descriptions per month within minutes—with little to no revisions.

Describely excels at content speed, brand adherence, and accuracy. You can use it as a Shopify product description generator that’s integrated into your store.

Here’s the simplest way to try Describely:

From the dashboard go to Generate Content and then Create Product With AI:

Then, describe your product below:

And you get a result like this:

It’s that simple!

Here’s another way if you choose “Add Single Product Without AI:”

When you click Refine, Describely will generate product content based on the information you wrote.

And if you want a specific style, go to Number 3 to customize your AI:

Or you can leave it by default since Describely already follows all of the best practices for eCommerce copywriting.

Now that you see the potential, let’s put them to the test!

Describely vs ShopifyMagic: eCommerce-Focused Use Cases Put to the Test

Before comparing features, let’s test the actual AI writing quality of Shopify Magic and Describely:

• Does it closely follow your instructions?
• Does it sound human-written and avoid repetition?
• Does it require revisions, or is it ready to publish?

We’ll be using simple prompts and keeping most settings untouched just to see what the AI can do by default. In particular, we’re testing the following:

1. Simple product descriptions
2. Bulk product descriptions
3. Product description data enrichment
4. Product description SEO optimization

Let’s begin!

AI Copywriting for Product Descriptions

The first test is about simplicity. We’ll just use a specific product keyword and see what comes out:

Example Product: Hanging travel garment bag with pockets

On Shopify Magic we create a new product, add the title, and click Generate. Here’s the result:

It’s hard to judge with so little text. With that said, this generation does a good job when describing the product, except for the first sentence:

“This hanging travel garment bag organizes your clothes and accessories with its multiple pockets.”

It sounds generic and doesn’t fit the other content.

As for longer descriptions, you’d need to do one paragraph at a time.

Using the same keyword on Describely, we got:

You can see it’s more detail-rich despite only giving it six words (“Hanging travel garment bag with pockets”). It sounds natural and benefit-oriented. If you publish this without editing, it would likely perform well.

Based on the test above, we can say that Describely generates better product descriptions with the fewest inputs.

AI Copywriting for Generating Product Descriptions for a Large Backlog of Products (bulk generation)

Now, suppose you have a group of five nearly identical products.

Example Products:

• 2-tier farmhouse coffee table
• Coffee table, black, 3-tiers
• low-height wooden coffee table
• Round coffee table, black, 2-tiers
• Round coffee table, white

Manually it’s very difficult to make them stand out without repeating. But with the right AI, it’s easier.

On Shopify Magic, you’d need to individually create pages and descriptions for every product:

This isn’t efficient if you have 500 products instead.

But if you import the same products to Describely, you just do this:

Start the bulk generation and, within minutes, you get unique product descriptions for every item:

And if you choose meta-descriptions instead, it generates them in bulk too:

Describely even came up with names for every variant to stand out. You can approve them all at once or review them individually. Editing is easy too:

Applied to hundreds of products instead, it’s clear that Describely outperforms Shopify Magic at bulk generation.

AI for Enriching Products With Sparse Details (product data enrichment)

For the third example, let’s say you’re selling this item.

Example Product: “Airy Coffee Table”

You don’t have any data other than the supplier (Muuto.com) and product name.

On Shopify Magic, there are no tools to fix this. You’d have to waste time browsing online to find product details. Imagine doing this for hundreds of products.

But on Describely, there’s a Data Enrichment tool:

To use it, you create a blank product with the official title name. Then on Data Enrichment, you select the title checkbox (or SKU if you have it). For better results, write the attributes to find as well as the supplier website.

For reference, the official page shows this:

And Describely returned this:

You can see it retrieves all the details accurately (with dimensions converted to inches).

If you paste this data in the description and click Refine, it makes a big difference:

So unlike Shopify Magic, Describely offers accurate data enrichment.

AI for SEO-Optimized Product Meta Descriptions and Keywords

For the last test we’ll use an earlier product.

Example Product: Hanging travel garment bag with pockets

As an eCommerce tool, remember that neither Describely nor Shopify Magic are a replacement for keyword research tools. Frase.io and such will work better for long-form eCommerce content generation (blog posts, stories, reviews…)

As for product description SEO, Shopify Magic is very limited:

For example, there’s no AI generation for meta descriptions (only manual).

As for keywords, you could try adding a list in the product description generator, but there’s no room to customize. Even without these character limits, Shopify Magic doesn’t listen to complex prompts.

Now, let’s compare Describely:

Describely products have another tab called SEO Tools, and when you scroll down you can generate meta-descriptions in one click!

As for keyword optimization, you have more options too:

The blue labels (3) appear when you search for a target keyword (2). Describely detects these on online products that already rank well. You can then select the good ones and click Generate (4) to create content that includes those keywords.

That’s why Describely also outperforms Shopify Magic in SEO — You can try Describely here.

Describely vs ShopifyMagic: Side-By-Side Comparison

You’ve seen how both tools perform by default, but how do they compare overall? Below are the seven key differences between Describely and Shopify Magic.

Tone of Voice

A big part of product descriptions that sell is sounding different. That’s why we also tested if Shopify Magic can contrast different tones of voice:

Above are two tone examples (luxurious and aspirational). It’s hard to see because of the short length, but the AI does differentiate both.

On Describely it’s a lot clearer:

Each version tells another story, attracting different customers.

Another advantage over Shopify Magic is the brand tone detector:

It converts your description sample into a prompt that will generate more content like this.

This makes Describely a better tool to write in your voice.

Adherence to Brand Guidelines

Here’s the customization potential of Shopify Magic vs Describely:

In Shopify Magic, you get two short text boxes and a tone selector.

In Describely, you get 10+ AI commands (including custom tones), unlimited rules per ruleset, and unlimited rulesets. For example, you can add all negative keywords to avoid on Amazon in one click:

All these give you more precision over your content and prevent revisions.

The same goes for outdated products. Simply create a new ruleset, apply it in bulk, and within minutes they will be optimized in your live store.

That’s why Describely is more accurate than Shopify Magic.

Product Description Quality

To confirm this with a quick test:

You can see that Shopify Magic is generic, short, and not so scannable. It’s better than an empty product description, but it’s not going to stand out above competitors.

On Describely, you get what you’d expect from hiring an AI eCommerce copywriter:

The content is more compelling and covers all the elements, including keywords. It works with five-word prompts, and it works with five hundred.

Describely achieves consistently higher quality than Shopify Magic.

Ease of Use

Shopify isn’t just for product content but for everything eCommerce, which makes it complex. Shopify Magic itself is easy to use. You just go to the star icon and add simple prompts:

It’s limited, but it’s easy. And what if you want to use the other use cases (images, FAQs, chatbots…)? That’s where it gets confusing.

Especially because the dashboard doesn’t have a page called Shopify Magic. You have to memorize where the star icon will appear or else write manually.

Instead, using Describely is easy:

Above is one of many methods: write a few words and your description is ready to publish.

So Describely is easier to use than Shopify Magic.

Accessibility

As a built-in feature, you can use Shopify Magic wherever Shopify is integrated:

The platform can connect to five major marketplaces so you can generate content on Shopify and publish it everywhere else.

Shopify is available on mobile too, but Shopify Magic isn’t fully supported.

As for Describely, it’s an all-in-one web platform where everyone in your team can work on content at once. Without even leaving the page, you can manage hundreds of products from different marketplaces:

This includes one-click integrations with your Shopify store. Once connected, the AI also pulls context from your store so that new generations are consistent with your other products.

Describely is an easier way to extend the product description AI to Shopify without installing more plugins. And if you like to keep everything in one place, there’s also a Describely Shopify app here.

Languages

Given how popular Shopify is, it supports almost every language in theory:

But how accurate is it? Currently the only tested languages are: English, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese (Brazilian), and Chinese (Simplified).

Describely now supports over 12 languages, whether you want to translate or write from scratch:

Shopify Magic barely has any content rules, so you’ll need to translate the text to see if it’s accurate. With Describely, translated AI descriptions are more reliable.

Pricing

While Shopify Magic advertises as “free,” it requires one of the Shopify plans below:

There’s also a three-day free trial to try the AI, including: product descriptions, on-page AI generation, images, auto-generated FAQs, and chatbots. It’s possible to get some of the Describely features if you get third-party apps for an extra cost.

But what do sellers think about Shopify Magic? It’s hard to tell:

– It scores 1.5 out of 5 after 3,000 Trustpilot reviews, including sellers and customers

– It scores 4.5 out of 5 after 4,500 G2 reviews, but none of them mention the Shopify AI

The main complaint is the complexity and price not being worth the features.

On Describely, you have a quantity-adjusted pricing with almost everything unlimited.

The eCommerce teams that used Describely rate it at 4.3 on Capterra and 5 on ProductHunt — and it’s used by large retailers like Target AU

The Verdict: Which One Is the Best for eCommerce Copywriting & Product Descriptions, Describely or ShopifyMagic?

This guide shows the difference between eCommerce AI and product description AI. While both are useful, most teams have a product content problem, not an automation problem. Currently, Shopify Magic doesn’t have the tools to solve it: data enrichment, bulk generation, and AI rules…

This is why Describely is the real time saver.

So if you already sell on Shopify, we recommend you use both. For every other marketplace, Describely alone is the best choice for product descriptions at scale. Try it here and discover an effortless way to save months of product content work.