9 Best Ecommerce Platforms of 2026

Shopify is the most complete hosted option for a small brand that expects to sell in several places. The Basic plan already covers unlimited products, 10 inventory locations, 200+ real-time reports, email campaigns, abandoned checkout recovery and 24/7 live chat support, and Shopify B2B with up to 3 catalogs. Selling in person works from a phone or a card reader, and a POS Pro add-on adds staff roles, in-store inventory and pickup for physical shops. The app store and APIs cover almost any gap, and the Agentic plan lists products in AI chat channels. The catch is cost structure: if you use a payment provider other than Shopify Payments, Shopify adds a 2% third-party transaction fee on Basic, and live third-party shipping rates wait until the Advanced plan. Staff accounts also scale by plan, up to 5 on Grow and 15 on Advanced. The pricing page showed local currency from our location, so we list the USD price as pending.

WooCommerce suits a small brand that already runs WordPress or wants to own every layer of its store. The core plugin is free: WooCommerce lists a $0 platform fee and says the free core includes unlimited products, orders and APIs, with no revenue share and no features held back for higher tiers. Payments are open, so you can use any gateway or buy now, pay later provider, run several at once and negotiate rates as you grow; with WooPayments, WooCommerce quotes about 2.50 to 2.90% plus 30 cents per transaction. Product variants are unlimited and selling in more countries adds no platform fee. The trade-off is that you are the operator. WooCommerce estimates hosting at $25 to $350 per month for most stores and extensions at $29 to $299 per year each, and you handle updates, backups and security, or pay someone who does. That makes it a strong second choice rather than the simplest start.

Squarespace is the pick for a small brand whose site needs to look polished before it needs advanced commerce. Every plan lets you sell physical products, services and digital products with no limit on how many you list, and branded invoices are free on all plans. Built-in AI tools help write site content, and annual plans include one year of free domain registration. The plan you choose matters for fees: Basic charges a 2% online store transaction fee and 7% on digital content and memberships, and allows 2 contributors. Moving to Core removes the online store transaction fee, opens unlimited contributors, adds advanced website analytics and allows custom CSS and JavaScript. Squarespace can also sell courses and memberships, which suits brands that pair products with content. It has fewer commerce extensions than Shopify or WooCommerce, and its pricing page showed local currency from our location, so the USD price is pending.

BigCommerce gives a small store many tools that cost extra elsewhere. Its Core plan, at $29 per month billed annually or $39 monthly, includes single-page checkout with Apple Pay, Google Pay and Amazon Pay, more than 70 discount options, real-time shipping quotes from UPS, USPS, FedEx and other carriers, multi-currency payments in 100+ currencies, a built-in blog and product reviews. Support on Core is 24/7 by chat and email, with phone support for $29 per month. The pricing model is tied to sales. Core covers up to $30K in trailing 12-month GMV, after which BigCommerce moves you to Growth at $79 per month annual, and on Core a 2.0% fee applies to eligible orders processed through open payment providers rather than its embedded ones. For a brand selling steadily, that is predictable; for one expecting a fast spike, the automatic upgrades raise the bill quickly. Theme design is less flexible than Squarespace or Wix.

Wix fits a first-time seller who wants to design every pixel of the store without code. Payments and basic ecommerce start on the Core plan, which also includes a free domain for one year, 50 GB of storage and 5 site collaborators. The Business plan moves to standard ecommerce, 100 GB and 10 collaborators, and Business Elite adds advanced ecommerce, unlimited storage and a developer platform. Wix covers point of sale, dropshipping, custom merch and international selling from its ecommerce pages, and it can sync a store with a Square catalog so inventory, orders and discounts match across channels. Plans come with a 14-day money-back guarantee. The free and Light plans do not accept payments, so a store needs Core at least, and stores that need deep catalog tools may outgrow the lower tiers. The Wix pricing page showed placeholder figures from our location, so we list its USD price as pending.

Square Online makes most sense for a shop, cafe or maker who already takes payments with Square in person. Every Square plan includes the online store, and Square Free has no monthly subscription cost: you get a website builder with SEO tools, pickup, local delivery and shipping, and selling on search and social, paying 3.3% + 30¢ per online card payment. Square Plus, at $49 per location per month, lowers that to 2.9% + 30¢ and adds expanded site customization, advanced item settings, QR code ordering and subscriptions; Square Premium, at $149, adds real-time shipping rates, advanced reporting and 24/7 phone support. Plus and Premium include a 30-day free trial. Because the catalog and discounts come from the same Square account, items and promotions match across the counter and the website. The trade-off is depth: design options and integrations are narrower than on Shopify or Wix, and paid plans multiply with each location.

Ecwid is the low-cost way to bolt a store onto a website you already have. Its widget adds a shop to sites built on WordPress, Wix, Squarespace or any other platform, and one account can feed several sites, while the Instant Site builder with 70+ templates covers owners who start from scratch. Ecwid charges 0 transaction fees on every plan. Starter costs $5 per month but limits you to 10 products and a default company.site domain. Venture, $29 per month billed annually or $35 monthly, raises the limit to 100 products plus e-goods and adds Instagram and Facebook selling, automated tax, discount coupons, custom checkout and live chat support. Business, $49 annually, allows 2,500 products, marketplaces, subscriptions, 2 staff accounts, abandoned cart recovery and wholesale pricing groups. The product caps are the main limit, so count your catalog before you pick a tier.

Big Cartel is built for artists, makers and musicians who want a store without running a platform. A free, limited Gold plan lets you start, and Platinum costs $15 per month after a 7-day trial with custom domains, physical and digital products, shipping label printing with up to 90% off shipping, order tracking, design customization and easy-install apps for print-on-demand. Sales tax autopilot, inventory tracking, bulk product edits, a Google Shopping connection and the iOS and Android app with in-person payments round out the base. You can also import products from Etsy, Squarespace and Shopify. Diamond, at $30 per month, adds abandoned cart recovery, scheduled product drops, password-protected products, Zapier connections to 7,000+ apps and priority support. Big Cartel takes cards, PayPal and Afterpay. It is not meant for large catalogs or multi-location retail, so brands with wholesale plans or many SKUs should start elsewhere.

Sellfy is aimed at creators whose catalog is mostly digital: ebooks, presets, courses, music, plus print-on-demand merch. Every plan includes digital and physical products, subscriptions, print-on-demand products, unlimited products, email marketing, coupon codes, store themes, custom code and your own domain, and Sellfy charges 0% transaction fees. Starter costs $22 per month billed yearly or $29 monthly and covers up to $10,000 in sales per year with 10 GB product files. Business, $59 per month yearly, raises the cap to $50,000 and adds product upselling, cart abandonment, affiliate marketing, custom fields, migration and removal of Sellfy branding. Premium, $119 yearly, reaches $200,000 with priority support. A 14-day free trial and a 30-day refund after upgrading lower the risk. The sales caps are the main limit: a brand selling physical goods at volume will hit them quickly and gets more from Shopify or BigCommerce.