Shopify Alternatives: BigCommerce, WooCommerce, Square Online, Ecwid, Wix and Squarespace

Shopify is the default choice for an online store, but not the only sensible one. Some stores leave because of the 2% fee Shopify adds when you use another payment processor, some because the store is a small part of a website that already exists, and some because the business already runs on Square at the counter. Each of those has a better-fitting alternative.

We compare the alternatives on the three costs that make up a store's bill: the monthly plan, any platform fee on sales, and the card rate you pay to take payments. All prices are US dollar list prices from each vendor's own page. For Shopify's own plans in detail, see our Shopify pricing guide.

Shopify alternatives at a glance

BigCommerce: best for a growing store that wants its own processor

BigCommerce is the closest like-for-like Shopify competitor: a hosted store with themes, checkout and an app marketplace. Its pricing page is in US dollars and lists four plans:

The fee rule is the main reason to switch. BigCommerce charges no fee on orders through its embedded payment providers, a list that includes BigCommerce Payments, Stripe, PayPal Braintree, PayPal Complete Payments, Adyen, Worldpay, Klarna, Affirm and Afterpay. Only orders through other ("open") providers carry the 2%, 1% or 0.6% fee. On Shopify, by contrast, any processor other than Shopify Payments triggers the fee. BigCommerce says card processing with PayPal Braintree begins at 2.89% + 29¢; the published rate is for US-based businesses on Growth, Scale or Performance.

The sales caps are the main catch. Core covers up to $30,000 in sales over the trailing 12 months, which is about $2,500 a month. Above that, BigCommerce upgrades you automatically to Growth, and above $100,000 to Scale. Scale charges a 0.9% overage on sales above $33,333 a month instead of a jump, and moves you to Performance at $2 million a year. Shopify's pricing page lists no sales caps on its plans.

What to watch:

• Core leaves out cart tools. The abandoned cart saver, persistent cart, stored credit cards and customer groups start on Growth.
• Faceted search starts on Scale. Product filtering is not on Core or Growth.
• Phone support is extra on Core. BigCommerce lists it at $29 a month on Core, and express routing at $99 a month on Growth and Scale.

BigCommerce offers a 15-day free trial.

Choose it if you sell more than Shopify Basic suits, want to keep Stripe or PayPal as your processor without paying a platform fee, and expect to be on Growth anyway.

WooCommerce: best for a store you own on WordPress

WooCommerce is a free, open-source plugin that turns a WordPress site into a store. WooCommerce describes the core platform as "free, with no monthly subscription", and it takes no share of your sales. You pay instead for the pieces a hosted platform bundles:

WooCommerce's own processor, WooPayments, has no setup or monthly fee. In the US it charges 2.9% + 30¢ on domestic cards online, plus 1.5% on international cards and 1% when currency is converted. In person, it charges 2.7% + 10¢, and $5 a month per active card reader (one with 3 or more transaction attempts in the month); Tap to Pay on a phone has no reader fee.

What to watch:

• You run the site. Updates, backups, security and speed are your job or your host's, not WooCommerce's.
• Extensions add up. Subscriptions, bookings or advanced shipping are often paid extensions billed every year.
• Hosting is the real price. A cheap shared plan will struggle with a busy store; budget for proper hosting.

Choose it if you already run a WordPress site, want full ownership of the store and its data, or need customizations a hosted builder won't allow.

Square Online: best if you already sell in person with Square

Square Online is the website and online store that comes with every Square plan, sharing one item library and inventory with the Square point of sale. Square's US plans:

Square charges no platform fee on top: online card payments run through Square's own processing at the rates above. Businesses processing over $250,000 a year can ask Square for custom pricing.

What to watch:

• Free has no custom domain. Square's plan comparison lists custom domain connection only on Plus and Premium, so a free store lives on a Square address.
• The free plan's card rate is higher. 3.3% + 30¢ online, against 2.9% + 30¢ on Plus. On $5,000 a month of online sales, that 0.4-point gap is $20, so Plus at $49 pays for itself through the rate only at about $12,250 a month.
• It's priced per location. Plus and Premium charge their fee for each location you run.

Choose it if the business is a shop, cafe or salon already on Square and the online store is a second channel, not the whole business. Our POS systems guide compares Square with Shopify POS for the counter.

Ecwid: best for adding a store to a site you already have

Ecwid ("Ecwid by Lightspeed") is a store you drop into an existing website, whether it's built on WordPress, Wix, Squarespace or anything else, or run on its own Instant Site. Its pricing page shows US dollars and no transaction fees on any plan:

Starter puts the store on a free company.site address and can add it to any site. Venture adds selling on Instagram and Facebook, discount coupons, automated tax calculations, access to Ecwid's App Market and the option to buy a custom domain. Business adds selling on marketplaces, subscriptions, abandoned cart recovery, wholesale pricing groups and phone support. Unlimited adds POS integrations and unlimited staff.

Ecwid works with over 70 payment providers, including PayPal and Stripe, so your card rate is that provider's rate. Ecwid says yearly billing saves 16%, and it offers nonprofits 6 months of Venture free.

What to watch:

• Product limits are tight on the cheap plans. Starter stops at 10 products and Venture at 100.
• No processor of its own in this comparison. Check your provider's rate before you compare Ecwid's lower plan prices with Shopify's.

Choose it if you already have a website you like and want to sell a modest catalog on it without rebuilding the site.

Wix and Squarespace: best if the store is part of a website

Wix and Squarespace are website builders first, with selling built in. They suit a business whose site does several jobs, such as a portfolio, bookings, a blog and a small shop. Both show prices by location, so we don't repeat their dollar prices here; our Wix vs Squarespace guide and our website builder for small business guide list them plan by plan.

The selling rules, from their own plan pages:

• Wix: payments and the online store start on the Core plan ("Basic eCommerce"); Business and Business Elite add standard and advanced ecommerce.
• Squarespace: every current plan sells. Basic charges a 2% transaction fee on online sales; Core and Advanced charge 0%.

Choose one if you want a polished website with a store on the side and a single tool to manage both. If the store is the business, Shopify, BigCommerce or WooCommerce will scale further. Webflow is the other option if design control matters most.

What $5,000 a month in online sales costs

Plan prices only tell half the story, because card fees on even a small store are larger than the plan fee. Here is one month for a store selling $5,000 online in 100 orders of $50, paid by domestic cards through each platform's own processor:

At this size the four cheapest options are within $29 of each other, so the decision is about features, not price. BigCommerce costs more here only because its Core plan is capped at $30,000 a year; below that cap, Core costs the same $29 as Shopify Basic. Ecwid is left out because its card rate depends on the provider you connect. Every figure excludes apps, themes, shipping and taxes.

Platform fees when you use another processor

If you want to keep a processor you already use, such as PayPal or Stripe, the platform fee matters more than the plan price:

On $10,000 a month of sales through Stripe, Shopify Basic's 2% is $200 a month, more than BigCommerce Growth's whole plan fee.

How to choose

1. Store is the business and you're happy with Shopify Payments? Stay on Shopify; nothing here beats it on breadth of apps and themes.
2. Want Stripe or PayPal with no platform fee, on a hosted store? BigCommerce, on Growth once you pass $30,000 a year.
3. Already on WordPress, or want full control? WooCommerce, with a realistic hosting budget.
4. Shop or cafe already using Square? Square Online, moving to Plus when you want your own domain.
5. Happy with your current website? Ecwid adds a store to it from $5 a month.
6. Want a website first and a shop second? Wix or Squarespace; compare them in our Wix vs Squarespace guide.