9 Best eCommerce Platforms In 2023

Shopify offers eCommerce plans ranging from $39-$299/month that let you build a full online store. There’s also a “starter” plan for $5/month that lets you sell through social media and messaging apps. Shopify also offers an enterprise plan that starts at $2,000/month.

Pay for a year in advance and you’ll receive a 10% discount. A new subscription offer called Commerce Components offers modular pricing based on the components you use. Contact Shopify directly for pricing.

Shopify is one of the few eCommerce platforms charging transaction fees on the sales you make. These fees range from 0.5% to 2%, depending on your subscription level. You can avoid transaction fees entirely by using Shopify Payments as your sole payment processor.

Screenshot of Shopify webpage

Shopify operates on a core+extensions model. You’ll find all the basic features you need out of the box, and then you can round out your store by visiting the well-stocked app marketplace. The higher your subscription level, the more features come built-in. Here are some notable features you’ll find:

• Fully hosted platform with unlimited products, storage, and bandwidth
• Beautiful themes, including free options
• Sell subscriptions, memberships, digital items, and physical products
• Sell on social media sites and major marketplaces
• Strong inventory management tools
• Sell in person with a built-in POS system
• Discounts, gift cards, and coupons
• Large app marketplace
• International sales supported
• Shipping and fulfillment

Until recently, Shift4Shop offered four subscription levels. Now, you’ll have just one choice: the completely free End-to-End plan costs $0 and requires the use of Shift4 Payments. You can want to add PayPal as a payment option for a $29/month surcharge.

Screenshot of Shift4Shop webpage

Shift4Shop’s fully hosted online stores come with unlimited bandwidth, products, security, and storage. You’ll also get significant advanced features, all for free. Here’s a sampling:

• Free themes
• No transaction fees
• Social media and marketplace integrations
• Coupons, discounts, group deals, and daily deals
• Wish lists, gift registries, and gift certificates
• Abandoned cart tools and saved carts
• Customer questions and reviews
• Waitlist and back-in-stock alerts
• Digital and subscription sales
• Automatic stock tracing and low-stock alerts
• Real-time shipping
• Built-in blog
• FedEx Advantage Program
• Web migration services

Square Online offers three subscription levels, ranging from $0-$79/month. As you go up in plan level, you’ll unlock more advanced features.

Notably, the free plan includes some sophisticated features that allow you to start selling online quickly and without monthly fees. Of course, as your online sales grow, you’ll have the option of upgrading to a paid plan and accessing more of the features a larger store needs.

Screenshot of Square webpage

All Square Online plans, including the free one, include free web hosting, security, and unlimited bandwidth. If you use the free plan, you’ll have limited storage and Square branding and ads on your site. Here are some of Square Online’s best features:

• Easy-to-use site builder that guides you through the process
• Customizable look for your store (logo, brand assets, colors, fonts)
• Unlimited physical and digital products and services, including tickets and reservations
• Take orders for local delivery, curbside and in-store pickup orders, and donations.
• Automatically inventory syncs in-person and online sales
• Text alerts to customers about their order status
• Social media integrations
• Coupon codes, Square gift cards, and free shipping
• Square’s email marketing service
• Age-verification popup

Related: Read our post, How To Start Selling Your Products On TikTok & Skyrocket Sales, for a full guide on adding shopping to your TikTok account using Shopify or Square.

Helcim is free to use for online and in-person selling. You will pay only payment processing charges. Helcim uses transparent interchange-plus pricing, with your fees for in-person and online transactions depending on your monthly payment processing volume.

Screenshot of Helcim webpage, captured 5/10/2023

In addition to using Helcim’s point-of-sale system for in-person selling, you can choose among several methods for setting your business up for online selling.

The first choice is to use Helcim’s hosted payment pages to take payments on your existing site. You won’t need to do any coding, but you can customize the template to add the fields you need.

You can also add buy-now buttons to sell online anywhere your customers visit, including your website, blog, email, and social media.

You can also use Helcim’s Online Checkout to set up a full online store. This option costs $0/month and delivers the following features:

• Product and inventory management
• Shipping and pickup options
• Stored customer information and login
• Quick guest checkout
• Tipping
• Discount codes
• Custom checkout options, including delivery
• Customized store with your business logo, colors, and product images
• PCI compliance

Lightspeed offers four subscription levels, ranging from $0-$99/month. Discounts are available for those willing to pay for a year in advance.

Screenshot of Lightspeed eCommerce webpage

Lightspeed’s free plan allows you to list up to five products on an online store called an Instant Site. You’ll get a mobile responsive shopping cart with basic features built in, including social media advertising, one-tap checkout, and GDPR compliance.

Upgrade to a paid plan, and you can list more products, depending on your subscription level. You’ll also unlock additional features like the following:

• Social media sales
• Digital products
• Multi-store management tools
• Automated taxes
• Coupons, discounts, and gift cards
• Customized checkout
• Mobile POS
• Pre-orders
• Inventory tracking
• Connect your own domain

WooCommerce is a free plugin for WordPress users. However, because you have to manage your WooCommerce-powered store on a WordPress site, you pay for site hosting and security. You might also need to purchase an add-on WooCommerce feature to offer subscriptions, one-page checkout, etc. Extensions can cost between $0 and $300.

Screenshot of WooCommerce webpage

WooCommerce works with most WordPress sites, themes, and page builders. Remember that WooCommerce is open-source software, and you can use it to design your online store to your exact preferences, so long as you have the technical know-how to do so. Built-in WooCommerce features include:

• Free themes
• Unlimited products, including digital
• International sales and currency conversion
• Shoppable social posts
• Marketplace selling
• Inventory controls
• Gift cards
• Customer loyalty
• Marketing tools
• Staff accounts
• Shipping tools

BigCommerce pricing is competitive, with plans running from $39-$299+/month. There’s an enterprise plan, with custom pricing. You can enjoy a significant discount by paying for a year upfront.

BigCommerce does not charge any transaction fees at all, however, it’s important to note the revenue caps attached to each plan. BigCommerce tracks your sales on a 12-month trailing basis. If your revenue exceeds the limit for the plan you’re on, you will be bumped automatically to the next pricing tier.

You can test BigCommerce with a 15-day free trial, no credit card needed.

Screenshot of BigCommerce webpage

BigCommerce is a fully hosted platform, and all plans include unlimited products, storage, and bandwidth as well as free sitewide security. Here is a rundown of some notable features:

• Free and paid mobile-responsive themes
• Multiple payment processing options
• No added transaction fees
• Single page checkout
• Mobile app
• Coupons, discounts, and gift cards
• Product ratings and reviews
• Support for international sales
• Marketplace and social media integrations
• Subscription sales supported
• Some high-risk sales (such as vape sales)
• Migration assistance

Wix pricing is a little complicated, at least at first glance. Although you’ll see that you can build a Wix website for free, if you want to accept online payments, you’ll need to subscribe to a business plan. There are three available, costing between $27 and $59/month.

Screenshot of Wix webpage

Wix stores come with unlimited bandwidth and a free custom domain for the first year. Some features will vary according to your subscription level, but here’s a fair rundown of what you can expect:

• Easy drag-and-drop page editing and AI design assistance
• Beautiful free templates
• Sell physical items, digital downloads, tickets, reservations, and food orders
• Automatic page optimization
• Social media advertising
• Automated email marketing
• Shipping discounts with USPS
• International sales, with multiple languages and currencies
• Apps available to customize your site.

If you want a portfolio site but don’t need to sell online, you can get a Squarespace subscription for $16/month. If you want to sell online, you can choose between three plans, ranging from $33 to $65/month, or set custom pricing for enterprise-level operations.

Discounts are available on annual plans. The lowest level eCommerce plan comes with a 3% transaction fee that you won’t find on other subscription levels.

Screenshot of Squarespace webpage

All Squarespace eCommerce plans include an SSL certificate and unlimited storage and bandwidth. Squarespace also offers these features:

• Free, beautifully designed, SEO-focused, and mobile-responsive templates
• Easy-to-use dashboard
• Image optimizer
• Scheduling tools
• Blogging
• Sell digital subscriptions, files, and images
• POS for in-person selling through a partnership with Square