Best Etsy Alternatives For Sales In 2023

Shopify is an eCommerce store builder that allows you to build and maintain an online store for one monthly fee. We appreciate that Shopify is easy to use, allows you to sell virtually any type of item, and that you can create the online store of your dreams. Plus, Shopify has excellent shipping and delivery settings, so you can easily provide excellent shipping services.

Also, you can connect your Etsy shop to your Shopify store and even your social media channels, so you can reach potential buyers in a number of different online locations.

Note: Shopify offers a free three-day trial period, no credit card required.

• Starter: $5/month
• Basic: $39/month ($29/month with annual plan)
•  Shopify: $109/month ($79/month with annual plan)
• Advanced: $399/month ($299/month with annual plan)

Note: With the Shopify Starter plan, you won’t get your own website, but you can sell through your social media profiles, chats/DMs, checkout links, and in person with a Shopify card reader.

The main difference between Etsy and any online store builder that allows you to create your own independent website is that with Etsy, you’ll have a built-in audience. With a Shopify store, you’ll have to draw people to your site using marketing tactics like social media marketing and eCommerce SEO to increase your likelihood of being found online.

There are many advantages to having your own Shopify store over an Etsy store, including:

• No Listing Fees: Shopify does not charge per listing. Etsy, on the other hand, charges $0.20 to list an item for four months, whether or not you sell that item. After four months, you pay the listing fee again.
• Lower Transaction Fees: Etsy charges a 6.5% transaction fee for every item sold. With Shopify, you can avoid transaction fees altogether by using Shopify’s in-house payment processor, Shopify Payments.
• Better Shipping Features: With Shopify, you can offer customers real-time package tracking, communicate better with them, print labels for free, and even get shipping discounts with major third-party carriers. If you allow customers to pay with Shop Pay, they can offset the carbon emissions from delivery.
• Custom Storefront & Branding: It’s hard to make an Etsy shop stand out from the competition. However, with Shopify’s beautiful themes and add-ons that look great on desktop and mobile devices, you’ll have complete control over the look, feel, and functionalities of your online store.
• Better Understanding Of Search Rankings: In mid-2021, Etsy released their new search ranking algorithm, one that favors longtime sellers as well as newer product listings (to get people to relist their items and pay the listing fee again.) The company has not explained exactly how its algorithm works, leaving many sellers in the dark. Google’s SEO ranking factors are much clearer, and you have a better chance of being found in search if you can design your own store according to those specific SEO ranking factors.
• More Selling Tools: From inventory management to marketing campaigns, your paid Shopify plan unlocks a wealth of tools you can use to develop a plan to build sales as high as you want.
• Omnichannel Sales: You can still sell on Etsy, plus other platforms like Amazon, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook by syncing your Shopify store with these online sales platforms.

There’s a lot more to consider than this, though, so check out our Shopify vs Etsy comparison to help you decide which online selling solution is right for you.

Shopify’s best features include its online store builder, omnichannel sales features, shipping suite, and customization capabilities.

With the Shopify online store builder, you can:

• Choose one of hundreds of website templates to create a custom-branded website
• Ask people to subscribe to your newsletter or email list to receive discounts (and so you can start your own marketing campaigns)
• Offer a one-click checkout function to speed up a customer’s purchase and reduce cart abandonment
• Start your own blog to get discovered online and use content marketing to sell your products
• Sell physical items, digital products, print-on-demand items, subscription products and memberships, take donations, and more

Shopify’s omnichannel sales capabilities allow you to sell items on: your own website, marketplaces like Etsy and eBay, social media apps like TikTok, Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook, and Snapchat, and anywhere you can link to a URL. With all these places to get found, you won’t need to rely as heavily on the Etsy audience to get sales.

With Shopify Shipping, a free feature included with every Shopify subscription, business owners can:

• Get discounted shipping rates from major carriers
• Show exact real-time shipping costs to customers at checkout
• Offer free shipping using pricing rules or with free shipping coupon codes
• Calculate duty and import taxes for international orders
• Offer real-time tracking numbers to customers so they can get the most up-to-date information on where their package is

Finally, unlike Etsy, there are numerous integrations you can add to your Shopify store and backend user dashboard. You can use a Shopify-powered link in bio tool to drive people to your Shopify store, YouTube channel, or other sales platforms. You could integrate accounting software to get insights into the state of your business. You can even integrate your store with popular email marketing software to make marketing efforts way easier.

With Shopify, there are very few limits to what you could do with your online presence and your business in general.

Square is a company that provides several software products (many of them at no cost to creative business owners) that all integrate nicely with Square Online, the company’s online store builder. The online store builder is free to use, and includes paid tiers with more features such as customer accounts and discounted payment processing fees that will help reduce your overall expenses as you make more sales.

The company also offers other free products like Square POS (point of sale) to help you sell items in person at popup events or your own booth/store, Square Invoices to charge people for custom items, and Square Appointments to help you take appointments for things like consultations or photoshoots, depending on your product offering.

Square is versatile, easy to use, and completely free in most cases, making it an excellent Etsy alternative.

• Free: $0/month
• Plus: $29/month, billed annually
• Premium: $79/month, billed annually

The free plan does include Square branding and a Square subdomain. To improve your brand authority and make it easier to find your store in search results, we strongly consider upgrading to the Professional plan, which will remove all Square-related branding.

Here’s a bit of what Square Online Store offers over Etsy:

• Affordability: Square has substantially lower payment processing fees than Etsy, as well as no listing or transaction fees. Plus, there is no paid subscription required, making Square one of the least expensive alternatives to Etsy.
• Expanded Business Offerings: Eventually, you may want to branch out from selling your physical/digital items, and Etsy isn’t built to do that. With Square, you can sell subscriptions, sell tickets to events, accept donations, charge for appointments or consultations if you make highly custom pieces, enable pay-what-you-want pricing, and more.
• Sell In Person: If you want to take payments from physical locations like farmers’ markets, artisan events, and pop-up shops, it’s easy to integrate Square POS hardware into your business. Etsy does not support in-person sales and actually connects with Square so that you can sell in physical locations.
• Branded Website Builder: One of the draws of Etsy is how easy it is to use. Square Online’s website builder makes it very easy to build your own branded website, which will definitely stick out more than an Etsy storefront.
• More Marketing Tools: Square offers several add-on products to its main online and in-person sales software packages. This includes Square Marketing, which includes email and SMS marketing, plus a loyalty program builder. Etsy’s marketing tools are not as comprehensive and definitely don’t integrate as well as Square’s ecosystem of business management products.

Square’s best features are its free online store builder, omnichannel marketing and sales capabilities, in-person sales features, and connection with other Square products.

With Square’s free store builder, you can sell several types of products and services, embed a contact form on your site, collect emails for an email newsletter, and set up ordering for pickup, local delivery, or shipping. On paid plans, customers can create an account for quick reordering and personalized product recommendations. Also, on paid plans, you can offer gifting options and schedule pricing updates to minimize the busy work of changing prices.

Like Shopify, Square allows you to sell on multiple platforms. You can remain on Etsy, plus sell on TikTok (directly on product posts, not through redirecting users to a website), Instagram, Facebook, and more.

Using just a smartphone or tablet and the $49 Square card reader, you can take sales from any physical location. All in-person sales sync up with your inventory and will update item availability on your online sales platforms, too. Square is a very recognizable point of sale software, and it’s easy to use, so buyers will feel comfortable paying you through Square.

As mentioned, Square connects with several other of the company’s apps, plus third-party software for things like accounting, advanced shipping configurations, automated website translation into other languages, and even print-on-demand services like Printful.

Big Cartel is an eCommerce store builder that stands out as an excellent Etsy alternative because it focuses on smaller, more artistic stores. Big Cartel may not be a great choice for a large vendor with extensive growth plans. However, it has some truly excellent options aimed at small, independent, artistic merchants — in other words, just the type who are likely to gravitate toward Etsy. The low monthly cost (and yes, there is a free plan) and ease of use make Big Cartel worthy of a closer look if you’re considering moving your store from Etsy.

The one big drawback of Big Cartel is that you can only list a limited number of products per subscription plan. For example, the free plan only allows you to list five products at a time. So, if you’re just starting out, or if you’re selling your items on the side, then Big Cartel is a great Etsy alternative.

• Gold: $0/month; list up to five products
• Platinum: $9.99/month; list up to 50 products
• Diamond: $19.99/month; list up to 500 products

If you choose Big Cartel as your shopping cart platform, here are some of the benefits you’ll see:

• Affordability: Big Cartel’s free Gold plan allows you to list up to five products and does not even require a credit card to sign up. There are no listing or transaction fees, which makes this a way more affordable alternative to Etsy.
• Visual Appeal: Aimed squarely at artists and creators, Big Cartel offers a selection of colorful mobile-responsive themes to choose from. While they’re not the most sophisticated themes you’ll ever see, they look great when filled with beautiful, high-resolution photographs. Most importantly, you can customize your site to suit your own style and taste, which is a huge advantage over Etsy’s storefront builder.
• Omnichannel Selling: Want to sell on Facebook or Instagram? Etsy is not made for social selling, but you can definitely sell on social media with Big Cartel.
• In-Person Selling: If you want to sell your products at craft shows, from your home, etc., you can connect your Big Cartel account with PayPal and Stripe.
• Simple Store Management Tools: Big Cartel includes useful tools, from inventory tracking to automatic tax calculations, which rivals Etsy when it comes to the administrative parts of running a small business.

Big Cartel is made by and for artists, which is why the eCommerce solution strips away most of the difficult parts of building and operating an online store.

All Big Cartel subscription plans have sales-tax autopilot, shipping tracking, easy-to-use themes, and a simple way to connect your online store to your social media profiles to sell from there. You can also generate promo codes as a way to entice store visitors to complete their purchases. All stores can incorporate their own custom domain name.

Big Cartel sellers can accept PayPal or Stripe for payment, and since there are no transaction fees, you only have to pay for payment processing. PayPal has recently created their own buy now, pay later service called PayPal Pay In 4, so you can offer BNPL for your customers.

The free plan only allows you to list five products, with one image per product listing. With paid plans, you can add up to five images per product listing. While this does seem limited, it also means that you don’t have to spend forever taking product images and agonizing over which images to include and which to leave out.

Paid plans also include the ability to bulk edit product listings, list items as “sold out” or “restocking soon”, and you can easily track your inventory. You can also use Google Analytics, which is a fantastic way to create marketing campaigns and find out which selling tactics work, and which ones don’t. You can also edit your theme’s code if you want to.

Many shops also connect services like MailChimp to reach customers in different ways.

We like that IndieMade is a simple, clean store builder and that you can easily connect your Etsy store to your own branded store. There are lots of ways to use content marketing to get found online, especially since every IndieMade page is automatically optimized for SEO purposes.

Additionally, IndieMade is one of the most affordable eCommerce store builders on this list and includes no listing or transaction fees. While there are listing limits on lower-level plans, the max number is very generous, and the most expensive plan (which is only $19.95/month) allows for unlimited listings.

Note: IndieMade offers a 30-day free trial, so you can try it before you buy it.

• Basic: $4.95/month, up to 10 listings
• Standard: $12.95/month, up to 250 listings
• Pro: $14.95/month, up to 500 listings
• Plus: $19.95/month, unlimited listings

IndieMade’s advantages over Etsy include:

• No Fees: Beyond the monthly subscription plan, IndieMade does not charge any fees for listing or selling products. You won’t even have to pay for site security or a domain name unless you want to.
• Affordability: IndieMade plans are very affordable for sellers of all sizes, and do not include any listing/transaction fees.
• SEO: All products and pages on IndieMade get metadata auto-generated. Metadata helps your site get recognized by Google and get your listing ranked higher in search results, which often leads to more buyers landing on your pages and buying your products.
• Content Marketing: All IndieMade plans include unlimited blogging, a calendar page, and a news update page. This allows you to easily produce content marketing materials.
• More Payment Methods: With IndieMade, you can accept payments using Stripe, Square, PayPal, or a custom method (money order, Zelle, Cash App, etc.)

The IndieMade customer experience is similar to Etsy in that they can view and “heart” product listings, choose product variations and customizations, leave messages for sellers, create accounts, and use discounts/coupons.

All IndieMade users can create a blog, event calendar, news section, and personalized contact form to keep in touch with current and potential buyers. You can also add services such as MailChimp to send out discounts and promo codes. A lack of communication with sellers is one of the biggest pain points of Etsy buyers. With these communication tools, you can alleviate their pain and ease any worries about their purchases.

IndieMade sites are automatically optimized for SEO purposes, which makes it easy for human users, and Google’s search-and-index bots to read through your site. (It’s important for Google bots to “read through” your site so that you get listed by Google and your site can get found organically in search engine results.)

You can import your entire Etsy store to your IndieMade store with a single click, and once you sell on either platform, your inventory will adjust automatically.

Bonanza is an online marketplace for selling unique items, much like Etsy, Amazon Handmade, and eBay. You can easily import your items from all these platforms to Bonanza.

What really makes Bonanza better than Etsy is the option to advertise your products in different places. For a price, Bonanza will boost your product visibility by featuring them in Google Shopping search results, on Bonanza’s featured page, and through Bonanza’s affiliate program participants.

• Transaction Fees: $0.25 plus 3.5% of the purchase price (under $1,000 sale); plus an additional flat 1.5% fee for any amount over the $1,000 mark on larger purchase
• Advertising Fees: Paid in the form of commission on top of transaction fees and can range from 9-30% of sales
• Webstore Builder: $25/month (billed annually) to create a fully functional online store

Here are a few prominent ways in which Bonanza is better than Etsy:

• Focused Advertising: Let Bonanza take care of getting your products seen, specifically on Google Shopping. As of 2021, Google Shopping ads account for 65% of all ad clicks. You only pay for ads if you make a sale.
• No Listing Fees: You can list as many products on Bonanza as you want without any listing fees or limitations.
• Lower Transaction Fees: The most simple Bonanza pricing plan (i.e. no advertising) charges a 3.5% transaction fee plus a $0.50 flat fee.
• Transaction Fees Do Not Include Shipping: Etsy’s 5% commission also applies to whatever you charge customers for shipping. If you charge less than $10 for shipping on Bonanza, the transaction fee does not apply to shipping. If you charge more than $10 in shipping, Bonanza will only apply the transaction fee on any shipping fee past $10. For example, if you charge $12 for shipping, then the transaction fee only applies to $2.
•  Freebies, Discounts, Combined Item Discounts: Bonanza allows you to offer customers an array of enticing deals that will motivate them to buy.
• Webstore Builder: You may opt into building your own branded website with Bonanza for a monthly fee. Your website gets connected to your Bonanza marketplace booth and you can easily batch edit items that sync across both shops.

Bonanza has a lot more to offer than Etsy, which also means that it’s a little more complicated. Get a firm idea of what you can do on Bonanza before you commit.

Bonanza is similar to Etsy in that you create an online store, or a booth, and fill it with a banner, store description, shipping and return policy, and products, which can be grouped into categories or collections. Customers can leave product reviews, which help build your authority in this online marketplace.

Like Etsy, you can create discount and promo codes, free shipping, and discounts on minimum purchase amounts. With Bonanza, you can also create freebies, which will further motivate customers to buy. Unlike Etsy, you do not have to pay any listing fees when you list new products.

One of the most interesting features of Bonanza is the ability to easily advertise on places such as Google Shopping. This optional paid advertising feature is built into commission rates, which ensures that you never pay for advertising unless you actually make sales.

It works like this: If you decide to increase Bonanza’s fees from your 3.5% base transaction fee to a 9% commission fee, Bonanza pays for advertising on several online sources and takes that payment out of whatever commission they get from the added 5.5% commission. The higher the commission fee you set, the more money goes toward your paid advertising efforts.

You also have the option to create your own branded webstore with your own custom domain on a monthly subscription basis. You’ll drive traffic to your store outside of Bonanza, and you do not have to pay any commission fees for sales you make from your store. Your inventory also syncs between both your Bonanza booth and your independent webstore.

Sellfy is an easy-to-use eCommerce store builder that focuses specifically on selling digital products, subscriptions, and print-on-demand merch. Creatives who want to sell anything from Adobe fonts to video-on-demand to Patreon subscription plans can do so with Sellfy’s platform. You can send small and very large files to buyers, with individual watermarking unique to each customer and a limited number of downloads or streams available.

The platform integrates with popular content platforms like Patreon, Twitter, and YouTube to help you sell digital products on the platforms. You can even embed buy links in your videos, which is great for content marketing.

Note: Sellfy offers a free 14-day trial, no credit card required.

Sellfy offers the following pricing plans:

• Starter: $29/month ($22/month billed annually)
• Business: $79/month ($59/month billed annually)
• Premium: $159/month ($119/month billed annually)

While you can sell items like PDFs, images, and design templates on Etsy, the platform wasn’t really built for digital item and subscription sales. This is one reason why Sellfy is a natural alternative for selling these types of products.

With Sellfy, you’ll have these benefits over an Etsy storefront:

• More Product Types: With Sellfy, you can sell more types of products. This includes music (on your own store and on SoundCloud), video-on-demand, paywalled content, subscriptions, and digital files in just about any format (tiff, mogrt, mov, epub, jpeg, png, etc.)
• Large Products: An individual file on Sellfy can be up to 10GB, while the max file size on Etsy is only 50MB.
• Digital Product Protection: Sellfy has many built-in ways to protect digital files from piracy, while a product sold on Etsy can be distributed any number of times since the seller doesn’t have much control of the item post-purchase.
• Patreon Integration: Sellfy has a unique integration with Patreon, making Sellfy an excellent sales platform for content creators.
• Built-In Email Marketing: Sellfy offers built-in email marketing capabilities, which Etsy (and several other options on this list) either don’t have or charge extra for.

Sellfy’s biggest selling points are its digital content management abilities, subscription management, and different revenue streams for content creators.

Sellfy allows you to sell very large files in virtually any downloadable or streamable file format. You can bundle up to 50 individual files in one product, and create ZIP files to package even more files if needed. You can also sell physical and print-on-demand products, making the platform an excellent option for content creators who want to sell merch in addition to digital content.

Your content is also much better protected from piracy with Sellfy, as the platofrm includes features like limited download numbers, file stamping, and download attempt records. Each customer also gets their own unique download link and you can stamp content with their name on it, so you can be sure that the product is uniquely theirs.

If you want to sell digital subscriptions, you can bill individuals on a weekly, monthly, or annual basis. Existing accounts are grandfathered in for the duration of their subscription if you change the pricing structure of a subscription, which your current subscribers will appreciate. Customers can only download products with an active subscription, so your subscription-based content will remain secure.

Content creators will appreciate the ability to embed a single product, category of products, or their entire store to virtually any online place, whether that’s on a blog, social media profile, affiliate post or press release, Google shopping, or anywhere else.

We like that Redbubble is a popular marketplace like Etsy, and that it’s relatively easy to figure out what types of items will sell well and hop on trends. Unlike Etsy, you don’t have to keep any inventory, so there’s no upfront investment required. All you need is your own imagination and some designs to upload.

We also like how easy it is to set up your storefront, upload your images, and set your prices. Plus, Redbubble makes it easy for you to put a single design on all kinds of items, from stickers to shirts to bags, so with one design, you can reach several audiences looking for certain items.

Currently, you don’t have to pay anything to set up a Redbubble shop. There are flat monthly fees you pay based on your sales earnings and are only charged once sales are made.

For example, if you earn $75 in one month, you are charged a flat $28 fee.

Due to the earnings-based fees that eat at your profit margin, we definitely recommend Redbubble as a form of passive income and as a way to get found online (and then move people towards your own website.

With Redbubble, you’ll have these advantages:

• Print-On-Demand Service: Redbubble does the entire printing, shipping, and delivery process for you, so there’s no need to arrange shipping the way you have to on Etsy.
• Multiple Products With One Image: Redbubble assists with placing an image on multiple different physical items, making it faster and easier to sell print-on-demand items.
• No Return/Exchange Hassles: Since Redbubble prints and ships products, you don’t have to worry about customer service issues like returns and exchanges. You also don’t carry any of the costs of returns or exchanges, so you can only profit from Redbubble.

These are the best Redbubble features for designers looking to get their work on physical items:

• No Startup Costs: There are no fees to start your own Redbubble shop or list any of your designs.
• No Need To Maintain Inventory: Since you don’t have to make or ship any items, you can post your designs and focus on marketing the items, rather than making them.
• Set Your Own Profit Margin: Where other print-on-demand platforms predetermine your commission rate, Redbubble allows you to set your own profit. For example, you can choose whether you want to make a 10% commission or a 30% commission on purchases from customers shopping on the platform.
• Redbubble Uploader: The Redbubble Uploader makes the design uploading process very easy. You only need to upload one file, and the Uploader will decide which products it will look best on. If a file doesn’t look great on one medium, like a clock, you can use a different photo for that product without altering any other product.
• Promotional Assets: Instead of spending time photographing products in real use, use one of Redbubble’s promotional asset templates to stick your design in a real-life scene. You can easily upload those promotional assets to your social media profiles to promote your designs.
• Niches, Trends, & Fandoms: Redbubble products are typically very unique, interesting, and/or funny, with lots of pop culture references across all product categories. You follow the trends, and you’re following the money.