The 10 Best Free Online Stores For 2022

Pros

Easy to use
Geared toward artists
Customer support available for all users

Cons

Limited products on free plan
Not scalable
Limited integrations

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.

2. WooCommerce: Best Free Online Store For Selling On WordPress

WooCommerce

Get Started with WooCommerce

Pros

Always free
Customizable
Unlimited growth
Numerous integrations available

Cons

Limited customer support
Site hosting not included
Developer knowledge required

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.

3. PrestaShop: Best For Businesses That Sell Internationally & Can Handle Technical Challenges

PrestaShop

Pros

Always free
Highly customizable
Numerous integrations
Strong user community

Cons

Expensive customer support
Developer skills required

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.

4. Square Online Store: Best For Sellers Who Already Use Square

Square Online

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Pros

Easy to use
Ideal for low-volume merchants
Sell in-person and online
Integrates with the Square ecosystem

Cons

Limited customization
Limited features
Limited payment options

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.

5. Ecwid: Best Free & Easy-To-Use Online Store

Ecwid

Pros

Suited for startups
Easy to use
Add an online store to any existing site

Cons

Not scalable
Basic design tools

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.

Get Started with Ecwid

6. Magento: Best For Customizable Solutions

Magento

Pros

Free to download
Impressive feature set
Highly customizable and scalable
An active global user community

Cons

Developer skills required
Steep learning curve
No customer support

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.

7. Stripe: Best For Businesses That Want To Sell Online Without A Full Store

Stripe Payments

Get Started with Stripe Payments

Pros

Aimed at small business
No added fees
Integrates sales and delivery
Automatic customer communication

Cons

Does not include website
Setup requires iPad

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.

8. Shift4Shop: Best For Businesses Wanting A Sophisticated Option

Shift4Shop

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Pros

Generous free plan
Flexible and robust features
No transaction fees
Can grow with your online business

Cons

Inconsistent customer support
No choice on payment gateway

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.

9. MailChimp: Best eCommerce Platform For Small Businesses Adding Online Sales

Mailchimp

Get Started with Mailchimp

Pros

Start selling in minutes
Sell from your current website or connect a new domain
Automate customer communications based on activity and engagement
Connect 250+ integrations

Cons

Transaction fees
Support options limited on free plan
MailChimp branding on pages

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.

10. PayPal Business: Best eCommerce Tool For Businesses That Want A Full Site

PayPal

Pros

Easy signup
Easy payout
Adds eCommerce to existing website
Access to PayPal business features
Sell online or in-person

Cons

Must take payment via PayPal
Not a complete website

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.