The 10 Best Free Online Stores For 2023

A longtime champion in the payment processing arena, Stripe takes on another element of eCommerce with the introduction of STORES, a partnership with OmtrekSoft. STORES is billed as M-commerce, or mobile commerce, and it enables online selling without requiring the buildout of a complete online store. And you can add other elements that help you track inventory and delivery as well as enable your customers to track their orders in real-time. This requires the use of three separate free mobile apps: SHOP, SHOPPER, and SHIPPER. Here's what SHOP itself allows users to do:

• Build a simple online store
• Invite customers to buy
• Receive orders as they're placed
• Manage orders all the way through the process
• Automatic order updates via email and SMS
• Track and optimize field operations
• Monitor deliveries on GPS map
• Promotions and daily deals
• Integrated rewards program

Payment Processing Costs

When you use the SHOP app from Stripe, you'll be locked into using Stripe for all your payment processing on sales made through SHOP. But don't worry, you won't have to pay a premium for the service. Stripe will charge its standard 2.9% + $0.30 fee per transaction made via credit or debit card. That's probably similar to what you pay for card processing in your brick-and-mortar store and comparable to what you'd pay for online sales with most processors.

What To Consider About Stripe

We included this option from Stripe in the list of the best free online stores, even though it's technically not a store because we think it fills an important niche.

If you've found success selling at a physical location, these days your customers may be clamoring for a way to order online and even to have their purchases delivered. Through the SHOP app, Stripe has found a way to meet those customers' demands without requiring busy business owners to find time to build and maintain an online store. Even if you'd like to someday make eCommerce a part of your business plan, Stripe and SHOP may be just what your business needs right now.

Already using Square's point-of-sale payment processor, and looking to add online selling to your mix? If so, you may not have to look far to find the best free online store. Square Online is an easy-to-use website builder that lets Square customers create a complete online store for free with site hosting, security, and customer support.

Here's a sample of what Square Online includes:

• Unlimited digital and physical products
• Sell services, tickets, and donations
• Sync with Square POS
• Automatic tax calculator
• Create coupons and discounts
• Sell and accept gift cards
• Unlimited products
• Automatic inventory, orders and items sync with Square POS
• Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest integrations
• Free SSL security
• Inventory management
• Order status text alerts
• In-store & curbside pickup
• Third-party delivery
• Automatic tax calculator
• Coupon codes
• Square gift cards
• SEO features
• Order customization

Payment Processing Costs

Use the free Square Online store, and you have just one choice of payment processor: Square. You'll pay the typical Square processing fee of 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction. You can enable Google Pay, Apple Pay, and Square Payments as well.

If you decide you want a little more from your Square store, you might consider signing up for a paid plan, reasonably priced at $12/month and up. In that case, depending on your plan level, you will pay a slightly lower percentage, at 2.6% + $0.30, and gain the choice of adding PayPal as a payment option for your online store.

What To Consider About Square Online

Square is one of the leading payment processors aimed squarely at small businesses. If you're leaning toward Square or already use it to process your payments, Square Online could make the step up to a free online store an easy one for your business. As you continue to see growth, you may decide to take advantage of other Square offerings, like scheduling, invoicing, and banking, among others.

Shift4Shop is an eCommerce platform that offers a range of paid plans in addition to a forever free plan. Unlike other companies that offer a free plan that's bare-bones only, Shift4Shop's free End-to-End plan lets users build a fully hosted and completely free online store, with premium features and no limits. And this is a fully hosted platform, not open-source software. Shift4Shop software is very user-friendly, making it possible to build a free eCommerce website that works, even if you're not a tech pro. The only catch is you must use the in-house payment processor, Shift4Payments. Here's what you can expect from the free plan:

• Unlimited orders
• Real-time shipping
• Single-page checkout
• Advanced reporting
• Product reviews
• Purchase orders
• Shipping labels
• Unlimited product images
• Unlimited product variants
• Inventory control
• Digital downloads
• Giftwrapping
• Registry and wish lists
• Gift certificates
• Email marketing
• Store credits
• Daily deals
• Promotions scheduler
• Saved carts
• Customer-relationship management tools
• Tax rate features
• Upsell and cross sell features
• Blog
• Google Pay and Apple Pay
• Financing solutions offered at checkout

Payment Processing Costs

If you use Shift4Shop's $0 End-to-End plan to build a free online store, you will need to use Shift4Payments as your store's default payment provider. Expect to pay the typical transaction fee of around 2.9% + $0.30 on each sale as your payment processing fee. Shift4Shop does not charge additional transaction fees on top of payment processing charges.

What To Consider About Shift4Shop

Among free online selling platforms, it's hard to find one that combines such generous access to advanced features with extreme ease of use. Shift4Shop is not an open-source software solution that requires coding and web development knowledge. If you're looking for a fully functional and fully free online store, and if you don't mind limiting your payment options to Shift4Payments, this could be a good option for you.

Incredibly easy to use, BigCartel is a cloud-based, fully hosted website builder designed with artists, not tech experts, in mind. That means you don't have to download any software, take care of your own site security, or learn complicated operations to use BigCartel. You just have to answer a few easy questions to open a free online store, list up to five items, and start selling almost immediately.

• Free plan allows up to 5 product listings
• Can upgrade to paid plan, reasonably priced at $10-$20/month
• Custom domain
• Free themes to customize your store's look
• Sell online and in-person
• Discounts and promo codes
• Sell digital products only on paid plans
• Shipment tracking
• Automatic sales tax calculation
• Sell on social media
• Sell internationally, with up to 20+ currencies
• Search engine optimization (SEO) tools
• Integrations with print-on-demand services

Payment Processing Costs

Building your online store and connecting with customers is just the beginning. You also need to be able to take payment from them when they want to buy. BigCartel makes it easy, offering several good choices for processing customer payments. You can start with two well-known payment processors, Stripe and PayPal, and then add ePay for instant checkout and Venmo payments. You can also offer your customers a buy now, pay later option (BNPL) that lets them spread their payments out over time at no risk to you.

Unlike some eCommerce platforms, BigCartel does not take a portion of each sale you make in the form of transaction fees. However, the payment processor you use almost certainly will. These processing fees are unavoidable and fairly standard among processors. Once you decide on how you'd like to accept payment in your online store, be sure you understand the payment processing fee structure for that provider.

What To Consider About BigCartel

We think BigCartel is a good option particularly for artists and makers who want to build a free online store that's easy to use and maintain. Of course, the flip side to that ease of use is this platform's limited features and customization options. If you're going for eCommerce in a big way, BigCartel may not suit you. But if you're looking for a simple and free online store platform, and if you plan to list no more than five products at one time, BigCartel should suit you just fine.

WooCommerce isn't really a platform; it's simpler than that. It's a plugin — a piece of code — that you add to an existing WordPress website to add eCommerce capabilities. (You'll need a paid WordPress account to make the plugin work.) WooCommerce is open source, and that means it's entirely free to download and use. It also means you will need to handle the work of coding and building your online store on your own. Here are some highlights:

• Unlimited customization
• Free themes available
• Works exclusively with WordPress sites
• Sell physical and digital products
• Guest checkout or customer account
• Shipping calculator
• Delivery options include pickup, local delivery, and shipping
• Inventory management
• Coupons and discounts
• Product reviews
• Built-in SEO best practices
• Google Analytics integration
• Mobile friendly
• Geo-location support for shipping and tax calculation

Payment Processing Costs

WooCommerce comes with eight built-in payment processing options, including WooCommerce Payments, Stripe, PayPal, and BNPL option Klarna Payments. If you don't like the built-in payment choices, you can add one or more of the dozens of payment extensions available.

Although you can't escape paying a percentage of sales to your credit card processing provider, WooCommerce is also set up to allow you to accept check payments, direct bank transfer, and cash on delivery. WooCommerce itself does not charge any transaction fees.

What To Consider About WooCommerce

We rate WooCommerce as one of the best free online store options, but that doesn't mean it's the right choice for every user. For one thing, this plugin works only on paid WordPress accounts, so while the eCommerce plugin itself is 100% free you'll have to budget for a WordPress subscription. Furthermore, if you don't have coding experience, you may find the software frustrating. However, if you're already using a WordPress site, you'll find yourself ahead of the curve when it comes to using WooCommerce to add a free online store.

An open-source eCommerce solution with an international reach, PrestaShop helps users sell their goods across the globe. It's free to download and use, although you'll still pay for web hosting, support, and any extensions you add. PrestaShop is a technically complex option and to get the best experience, you need a solid understanding of code or the resources to hire someone who can manage the technicalities for you. In exchange for this complexity, however, you gain access to robust features and endless customization. Here's a summary:

• Multiple available currencies, languages, and international payment processors
• Multi-currency checkout
• Automated exchange rates
• Inventory, supplier, and manufacturer checkout
• Product variants and bundles
• Digital products
• Social media sales
• One-page checkout
• Giftwrapping option
• Tax calculation
• Create coupons and discounts
• Reports and analytics
• Abandoned cart recovery tools
• Coupons and discounts
• Customer engagement tools

Payment Processing Costs

PrestaShop is free to download and use, but if you want to process credit and debit card payments, you'll need to add a merchant account or a third-party payment processor. That's not free. PrestaShop partners with ViaBill and Stripe and you can add an integration with PayPal, Amazon Pay, Apple Pay, Klarna, Skrill, Authorize.net, GooglePay, Square, and more. Each processor will charge a set percentage of the sale as a transaction fee.

PrestaShop itself will not charge any transaction fees on the sales you make.

What To Consider About PrestaShop

Keep in mind that while PrestaShop is free to download, you'll still bear the cost of hosting and integrations, as well as expenses related to hiring a developer if you don't know how to code. To get support from PrestaShop, you'll pay an additional cost. Overall, while this may not be the easiest solution, its extensive features and international reach mean PrestaShop earns its place on the list of the best free online store platforms.

It won't get you a complete free online store, but sellers who want a simple solution that lets them sell up to 10 products online will like what Ecwid has to offer. It's not a platform but a widget: a simple, easy-to-use software application anyone can activate by copying and pasting just a couple lines of code into an existing website. The free plan includes an instant one-page website with your products listed. Here's what else the free plan delivers:

• Sell on any website or social media feed
• List digital goods
• Unlimited bandwidth
• Social media advertising
• One-tap checkout with Apple Pay
• POS options
• GDPR compliance
• Self-help support options
• Gift cards

Payment Processing Costs

Payment options are somewhat limited with Ecwid. The free plan lets you connect with three point of sale options: Square, Clover, and Alice. More than 40 payment gateways are supported, including Stripe, PayPal, 2Checkout, and Authorize.net.

You can expect to pay the usual transaction processing fees to your provider. Ecwid does not add any fees on top of that.

What To Consider About Ecwid

We think Ecwid's free plan is best suited to very small online sellers, those who are just starting out, or artists who sell their pieces and want a free online store that lets them reach more customers. In that capacity, Ecwid can give a great start to sellers looking for an easy way to take a limited number of products online. As you find success, you may discover that you are ready to transition to a paid plan, starting at $15/month.

Unlike other software you can use to build a free online store, Magento Open Source software comes loaded with a ton of advanced features and built-in functionality that will meet even the biggest companies' needs. And it's completely free to download and use. The catch: Magento is not known for user-friendliness. In fact, you need a good amount of experience with software development to implement this platform. With that in mind, we recommend Magento primarily to larger businesses that have a team of software pros on hand. Because you use Magento to build a free online store that meets your exact needs, it's fully customizable. Still, an impressive number of features are built-in:

• Integrated checkout, payment, & shipping
• Mobile optimized website
• Global selling
• Multiple store capabilities
• Catalog management
• Instant purchase
• One-page checkout
• Inventory management
• Coupons and discounts
• Share on social buttons
• Sell digital products and bundles
• Multi-site capabilities
• Advanced SEO tools
• Permissions
• Print invoices, packing slips, and shipping labels from your admin
• Advanced pricing rules
• Order tracking
• Filtered search

Payment Processing Costs

Build a free online store with Magento, and you'll immediately be able to accept purchase orders, checks, and money orders. To accept card payments, you'll need to integrate a payment processing service. You'll find prebuilt integrations for Square, PayPal, Stripe, Braintree, and other popular options. Your transaction fees will depend on which processor you choose.

You don't have to worry about anyone else taking a cut of your sales, because you will pay $0 in transaction fees to Magento.

What To Consider About Magento

If you have the technical know-how to make Magento work, you won't find a better software for building a free online store. However, if you're just getting started selling online, Magento may be more powerful than you are ready for. In general, Magento is a good solution for mid-size to large businesses that need customizable and feature-rich selling software. Magento is only a good option for smaller businesses if they have the resources to hire a developer.

After years atop the list of best free email newsletter software, MailChimp decided in 2020 to dip a toe into eCommerce. The result is a free plan, in addition to paid plans, that lets users build sites with unlimited pages and bandwidth and enough features and tools to run a functional free online store. Though the paid plans, at $10-$29/month offer more tools, the free plan still boasts an impressive number of features:

• Online store with unlimited pages and products
• SEO tools
• SSL certificate
• Site visit analytics
• Unlimited products
• Payment processing
• Abandoned cart emails
• Order and shipment confirmation
• Sales reporting
• Basic appointment scheduling
• Free stock photos
• Pop-up forms

Payment Processing Costs

MailChimp websites include payment processing by Stripe. Expect to pay the standard transaction fees to Stripe, as you would to any payment processor. In addition, on its free plan, MailChimp charges its own 2% transaction fee.

What To Consider About MailChimp

If you've used MailChimp for email marketing, you probably know that it's not only highly-rated but also as easy to use as it is effective. The addition of eCommerce to the MailChimp family seems to be in line with previous offerings from this company that's not monkeying around when it comes to your business.

Let's face it, eCommerce isn't the same for every business, and not everyone wants or needs a full website for sales. If you have an existing website that you like and want to add a simple payment option, a PayPal business account might be just what you need in order to deliver a free eCommerce option. Here's what you'll get:

• Checkout
• Buy now, pay later options
• Recurring payments and subscriptions
• Invoices and estimates
• Social media selling
• Accept credit and debit cards
• Accept payment in person
• Create QR codes for touch-free payment

Payment Processing Costs

PayPal is a convenient payment option, and it's free to sign up for a PayPal Business account. If you use that account to make sales, you'll pay transaction fees that are higher than the average for payment processors. These fees vary widely and will depend on how you accept payment. For example, if you use a PayPal/Venmo QR code for transactions above $10, you'll pay 1.9% + $0.10. Under $10 and you're looking at 2.4% + $0.10 per transaction. And when you use PayPal Digital Payments, the rate will be 3.49% + $0.49 per transaction. If you're drawn to PayPal Business, make sure you understand the transaction fee schedule.

One word of caution: PayPal Business does not easily refund these transaction fees when your customers return their orders for a refund from you. So if you're considering using PayPal Business, you might want to take a good look at your return policy and factor that in.

What To Consider About PayPal Business

If you're looking for a free online sales option that's easy to implement and won't cost you any time or money to maintain, PayPal Business might be just what you need. We think it can be a solid option for new businesses that have website they like and want to add some online sales to their business plan without developing a completely new website.