Choosing an ecommerce platform

An online store needs more than product pages. Someone has to host it, take card payments safely, calculate shipping and sales tax, and keep stock counts right. Ecommerce platforms split into two groups by who carries that work.

Hosted platforms (Shopify, Wix, BigCommerce and the like) run the servers, apply security updates and handle most of the card compliance for you, in return for a monthly fee and sometimes a cut of each sale. Self-hosted, open-source carts (WooCommerce, PrestaShop, Magento Open Source, OpenCart) cost nothing to download, but you pay for hosting, extensions and whoever keeps the site patched.

What to compare before choosing

• Total fees: add the monthly plan, any platform transaction fee and the card processing rate. Some platforms charge an extra percentage if you use a payment gateway other than their own.
• Payment options: check that the gateways you want (Stripe, PayPal, Square, Apple Pay and so on) work in your country on that platform.
• Card security: anyone who accepts cards falls under the PCI Data Security Standard. Hosted checkouts take most of that burden off you; on a self-hosted store, more of it is yours.
• Catalog size: free tiers often cap the number of products, and some platforms move you to a pricier plan once yearly sales pass a threshold.
• Shipping and tax: look for live carrier rates, label printing and automatic sales tax calculation, which in the United States now depends on where the buyer lives in most states.
• Selling elsewhere: many platforms push products to Facebook, Instagram, Google and marketplaces such as Amazon and eBay from one catalog.
• Leaving later: find out whether products, customers and orders can be exported as CSV before you commit. Moving a store is always more work than setting one up.

A simple way to compare is to price one ordinary month. Take the plan fee, add the platform’s percentage and the card rate on a realistic sales figure, and add any apps or extensions you would need on day one. The cheapest headline plan is often not the cheapest store.

Hosted builders for most small stores

Shopify

The most widely used dedicated store platform, and the default choice for a business whose main job is selling online. Every plan allows unlimited products, the app store covers almost any extra feature, and a 14-day trial lets you build before paying. Plans run $29, $79 and $299 a month. Shopify Payments carries no extra transaction fee; using another gateway adds 2%, 1% or 0.5% depending on the plan. Support runs around the clock, and the Shopify POS app covers in-person sales at markets and pop-ups. The main catch is that many useful features, from subscriptions to advanced filtering, come as paid apps whose monthly fees add up.

Wix

A general website builder with a solid store attached, on its Business plans. Wix suits someone who wants a brochure site, a blog and a shop in one editor. It offers abandoned cart recovery, customer accounts, discount codes and its own Wix Payments alongside PayPal and Stripe, and the store plans cost roughly the same as Shopify’s entry plan. The drag-and-drop editor gives more design freedom than Shopify’s themes. Large catalogs and complex product options are where it starts to feel limited.

Squarespace

Known for polished templates, which makes it a good fit for products that sell on looks: prints, clothing, homewares. The Business plan, at $23 a month billed yearly, takes a 3% transaction fee; the Basic and Advanced Commerce plans do not, and the Advanced plan adds abandoned cart emails and subscriptions. Online payments go through Stripe or PayPal. A 14-day trial is available. It suits stores with tens or hundreds of products better than thousands.

BigCommerce

Aimed at stores that expect to grow. BigCommerce charges no transaction fees on any plan and includes many features other platforms sell as apps, such as product reviews and real-time carrier shipping quotes. Each plan has a yearly sales ceiling that moves you up a tier: $50,000 on the $29.95 Standard plan, $180,000 on Plus. The admin panel has more settings than beginners usually want.

Square Online

The natural pick for a business that already takes payments with Square in a shop or at markets, since products and stock sync with the point of sale. Its free plan runs on a Square address and pays for itself through processing fees; paid plans from $29 a month add a custom domain, remove Square branding and unlock features such as abandoned cart emails. Restaurants and cafes get order-ahead pickup and delivery tools that most store builders lack.

Zyro

A budget builder from the hosting company Hostinger, with a simple drag-and-drop editor and low monthly prices. It covers the basics of a small store without much depth. Since then, Hostinger renamed Zyro as Hostinger Website Builder in 2023.

ShopWired

A United Kingdom platform built for British merchants, with UK payment gateways and couriers. It stands out for trade features such as wholesale accounts, quote requests and bulk pricing, which suit businesses that sell to other businesses.

Shift4Shop

The platform known as 3dcart until its 2021 rebrand, one of the oldest hosted carts. Merchants in the United States who process payments through Shift4 can use the full plan without a monthly fee. It has a steeper learning curve than Shopify or Wix, and template changes often need some code.

Volusion

A long-running hosted platform with a straightforward admin, suited to small catalogs of physical goods. Integrations cover PayPal, Stripe and Amazon Pay. Features such as abandoned cart reports sit on the higher plans, and its app ecosystem is far smaller than Shopify’s.

Small catalogs and digital products

Big Cartel

Made for artists and makers who sell a handful of items. The free Gold plan allows five products, and Big Cartel itself takes no transaction fee. Paid plans at $9.99 and $19.99 a month raise the limit to 50 and 500 products. It is not built to grow into a large store, which is the point: fewer settings, fewer decisions.

Sellfy

A storefront for creators selling digital downloads, subscriptions and print-on-demand goods, running since 2011. Setup takes minutes and needs no technical skill, and a store can be embedded in an existing site or linked from social profiles. Files are delivered automatically after payment. Sellfy does not charge a transaction fee on its paid plans, but it is a poor fit for a large physical catalog.

Open-source carts you host yourself

WooCommerce

A free plugin that turns a WordPress site into a store, and the right choice if the site already runs on WordPress. You supply hosting that meets the WooCommerce server requirements, plus any paid extensions and themes. It connects to PayPal, Stripe and its own WooCommerce Payments, and gives you full control of the code and data. Thousands of free and paid extensions cover subscriptions, bookings and memberships. The flip side is maintenance: WordPress core, the theme, WooCommerce and every plugin need updating, and a plugin conflict can take the checkout down.

PrestaShop

A free, open-source cart that is popular in Europe and available in dozens of languages. Its Addons marketplace sells modules and themes, and the community forum is active. Expect to need a developer for anything beyond the defaults.

Magento Open Source

The free edition of Magento, whose paid edition Adobe renamed Adobe Commerce in 2021. It is powerful and highly customizable, with support for multiple stores and complex catalogs, but it is not a beginner’s tool. Hosting and development costs make it a fit for mid-sized and larger merchants with a technical team.

OpenCart

A lightweight, free PHP cart with a large marketplace of extensions and themes and a simple admin panel. It suits someone comfortable managing their own hosting who wants a straightforward store without WordPress.

Picking between them

For one person selling physical goods with no developer, a hosted builder is the lower-risk start: Shopify if selling is the business, Wix or Squarespace if the shop is one part of a wider site, Square Online if sales also happen in person. A few items sell comfortably on Big Cartel, and digital files on Sellfy. WooCommerce makes sense on an existing WordPress site. PrestaShop, OpenCart and Magento pay off when someone on the team can maintain them.