The best Shopify alternatives in 2026 are UENI, Square Online, Wix, Squarespace, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, Ecwid and Etsy. Shopify starts at $39 per month billed monthly, or $29 billed yearly, according to its own pricing page. If selling online is not the main thing your business does, most of these cost less and fit better.
Key takeaways on Shopify alternatives
- Shopify’s own pricing page lists Basic at $39 per month billed monthly and $29 billed yearly, rising to $105 and $399 on Grow and Advanced.
- Shopify charges a third-party transaction fee of 2% on Basic if you use any payment provider other than Shopify Payments, which is the fee most owners miss.
- Service businesses and local shops usually need to be found, contacted and booked, not to run a 500-product catalog. That changes which platform wins.
- For a site built for you rather than by you, UENI charges a $79 setup fee and $24.99 per month.
- Square Online has a genuinely free plan, and Etsy has no monthly fee but takes 6.5% of every sale.
- Shopify is still the right answer for real inventory, real order volume and real growth plans. It is a bad fit for a brochure site with a shop page.
Why people look for Shopify alternatives
Shopify is very good at what it does. The problem is that a lot of people who sign up for it are not running the kind of business it was built for. Shopify’s pricing page lists Basic at $39 per month billed monthly, Grow at $105 and Advanced at $399, with Plus starting at $2,300 per month. Those numbers make sense for a store. They make much less sense for a plumber.
You are probably paying for checkout software you barely use
Walk through what a typical local business actually needs from a website. Someone searches, lands on the page, checks that the business is real, looks at prices or past work, and then calls, fills in a form, or books a slot. Maybe they pay a deposit. That is a website with a contact form and a booking button. Shopify is built around inventory, variants, shipping rules, abandoned carts and tax automation. If you sell three things twice a month, you are renting a warehouse to store a shoebox.
The transaction fee nobody reads
Shopify’s own plan comparison lists a third-party transaction fee of 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow, 0.6% on Advanced and 0.2% on Plus. That fee applies when you use a payment provider other than Shopify Payments, and it sits on top of whatever your processor already charges. On $3,000 of monthly sales, 2% is $60 a month, which is more than the plan itself. Shopify’s own card rates start at 2.9% plus 30 cents on Basic, so if Shopify Payments is available to you, using it avoids the extra fee entirely. Owners who arrive with an existing processor often do not notice until the second invoice.
Apps stack on top of the plan price
The base plan is rarely the final bill. Reviews, bookings, subscriptions and email each tend to arrive as a paid app with its own monthly charge. None are expensive alone. Together they quietly double the number you budgeted for. Our guide to how much a website costs in 2026 lays out the whole range.
The best Shopify alternatives in 2026
The Shopify alternatives below are sorted by what the owner actually needs rather than by feature count. Prices below come from each vendor’s live pricing page, checked in August 2026, and are US rates. The one exception is Wix, whose plan prices are quoted from Website Builder Expert and named as such where they appear. Read the “best for” line before the price, because the cheapest option here is only cheap if it does the job you need doing.
| Platform | Best for | Built for you? | Entry price |
|---|---|---|---|
| UENI | Service businesses that need a site, not a store | Yes | $79 setup, then $24.99/mo |
| Square Online | Shops already taking Square payments | No | Free plan available |
| Wix | DIY sites with light selling attached | No | From $17/mo annually |
| Squarespace | Design-led sites with a small shop | No | From $19/mo billed annually |
| BigCommerce | Growing stores that want no platform fees | No | $29/mo annually |
| WooCommerce | Owners already on WordPress | No | Free software, paid hosting |
| Ecwid | Adding a cart to a site you already have | No | From $5/mo |
| Etsy | Handmade and craft sellers | No | No monthly fee, 6.5% per sale |
1. UENI: best when you need a website, not a store
UENI is the option for owners whose real problem is that they have no proper website at all. Instead of handing you an editor, a team designs and writes a multi-page site for you, connects a domain and a matching business email, and hands it over ready to use, typically live within about seven days. UENI’s pricing page lists a $79 setup fee, discounted from $599, then $24.99 per month on the Website Launch plan, with hosting, SSL, professional email and 30 days of edits included. An Ecommerce plan at $99 per month adds 0% commission on sales, abandoned cart recovery and advanced bookings if you do need to sell.
Best for: plumbers, salons, clinics, contractors, consultants and any local business that mostly needs to be found and contacted. Pros: no build work for you, and the pages, copy and basic SEO are handled. Cons: it is not the tool for a 2,000-product catalog with complex shipping rules.
2. Square Online: best free option for shops taking payments already
Square Online is the closest thing to a free Shopify alternative that is still fully functional. Square’s pricing page lists Square Free at $0 per month, Square Plus at $49 per month per location and Square Premium at $149 per month per location. The trade is in the processing rate: online card payments cost 3.3% plus 30 cents on the Free plan, dropping to 2.9% plus 30 cents on Plus and Premium. If you already run a Square register, the online store syncs to the same catalog.
Best for: cafes, salons, market stalls and retailers who take card payments in person. Pros: a real free tier, one inventory across counter and web, and no separate ecommerce subscription. Cons: the higher processing rate on the free plan quietly costs you at volume, and the site builder is plainer than Wix or Squarespace.
3. Wix: best DIY builder with selling attached
Wix is the sensible pick when the website matters more than the store but you still want a cart available. Website Builder Expert lists the current premium plans as Light at $17 per month, Core at $29, Business at $39 and Business Elite at $159, all billed annually, with the monthly billing rate higher (Light is $24 if you pay monthly). Ecommerce features start at Core, so treat $29 as the realistic entry point if you plan to sell anything.
Best for: owners who want to build it themselves and keep full control of the layout. Pros: huge template library, an app market, and a free tier to test with. Cons: you are still the one doing the work, and the freedom eats weekends. Our Wix alternatives guide covers the trade-offs in more depth if Wix is your main comparison.
4. Squarespace: best for a design-led site with a small shop
Squarespace remains the best-looking way to build your own site without design skills. Its pricing page lists Basic at $19 per month, Core at $29, Plus at $49 and Advanced at $99, and every one of those is the annual prepay rate. Pay month to month and Basic is $25 instead of $19. The detail that catches people out is the online store transaction fee: 2% on Basic, and 0% on Core, Plus and Advanced. On $3,000 of monthly sales, that 2% costs $60, so the $29 Core plan is cheaper than the $19 Basic plan the moment you sell anything meaningful.
Best for: studios, photographers, restaurants and brands where the look carries the pitch. Pros: excellent templates, clean editor, strong blogging. Cons: fully DIY, and that entry-plan fee. We compare it against the field in our Squarespace alternatives guide.
5. BigCommerce: best for a growing store that hates platform fees
BigCommerce is the closest direct competitor to Shopify and the natural switch if you have outgrown a small shop. Its pricing page lists Core at $29 per month billed annually or $39 monthly, Growth at $79 annually or $105 monthly, Scale at $299 annually or $399 monthly, and Performance from $1,499 per month billed annually. Orders through embedded payment providers carry zero platform fees on every plan, though an open payment provider fee of 2% on Core, 1% on Growth and 0.6% on Scale applies otherwise. Watch the sales caps: Core auto-upgrades to Growth above $30,000 of trailing twelve month sales.
Best for: stores doing real volume that want more built in before buying apps. Pros: generous native feature set, no fees on embedded payments. Cons: the automatic plan upgrade at each sales cap surprises people, and it is overkill for a service business.
6. WooCommerce: best if you already run WordPress
WooCommerce is not a subscription at all. It is a free plugin that turns a WordPress site into a store, and WooCommerce’s pricing page states plainly that it charges a 0% revenue share on your sales. The cost moves elsewhere: the same page puts hosting at $25 to $350 per month for most stores, and paid extensions at $29 to $299 per year each. You also own the maintenance, the updates and the security.
Best for: owners with an existing WordPress site or a developer on call. Pros: no platform fee, total control, and you own the whole stack. Cons: you are the system administrator now, and the true cost depends entirely on which plugins you end up needing.
7. Ecwid: best for bolting a cart onto a site you already have
Ecwid, now part of Lightspeed, exists for one specific job: adding a working store to a website you do not want to rebuild. Its pricing page lists Starter at $5 per month for up to 10 products, Venture at $35 for up to 100 products plus digital goods, Business at $65 for up to 2,500 products and Unlimited at $149, with a 16% discount for paying annually. Ecwid charges no fees per sale on any tier.
Best for: a business with a perfectly good site that now needs to sell six things. Pros: cheap entry, no transaction fees, embeds almost anywhere. Cons: the product limits at the lower tiers bite quickly, and you are managing two systems instead of one.
8. Etsy: best marketplace option for handmade sellers
Etsy is not a website builder. It is a marketplace, which means the traffic is the product you are paying for. Etsy’s own fees policy sets a listing fee of $0.20 per item, a transaction fee of 6.5% on the item price plus shipping and gift wrapping, and an optional Etsy Plus subscription at $10 per month. Payment processing is charged separately and varies by the country of your bank account. On $3,000 of monthly sales that 6.5% alone is $195, far more than any subscription on this list.
Best for: handmade, vintage and craft sellers who want buyers without doing their own marketing. Pros: built-in demand, no monthly commitment, quick to start. Cons: you rent the customer relationship, you compete on price inside someone else’s search results, and the percentage never stops. Most sellers eventually want their own site too.
When Shopify beats every alternative
Do not switch out of habit. Shopify earns its price when selling online genuinely is the business, and the numbers on its own pricing page back that up. Card rates start at 2.9% plus 30 cents on Basic and improve to 2.7% on Grow and 2.5% on Advanced, and Shopify states there are no setup fees on any plan.
Stay on Shopify if you hold real inventory across variants and locations, if order volume is high enough that checkout conversion is worth optimizing, if you sell across several channels at once, or if you rely on an app ecosystem that no other platform matches. At meaningful volume the improving card rates and the falling third-party fee, from 2% on Basic down to 0.6% on Advanced, start working in your favor rather than against you. The mismatch is not Shopify being bad. It is a store platform sold to businesses that do not run a store.
How to choose between Shopify alternatives
Answer three questions in order and the shortlist collapses fast.
First, do you want to build it yourself? If the honest answer is no, stop comparing editors. UENI is the only option here where a team builds the site and hands it over, which is the whole gap the DIY market leaves open. Every other platform on this list assumes you will do the work, and most abandoned websites are abandoned at exactly that step.
Second, is selling online the point, or a side feature? If it is a side feature, Wix Core, Squarespace Core or a UENI site with a shop page covers it. If selling is the point, compare BigCommerce and Shopify properly rather than defaulting to the more famous one. If you already have a site you like, Ecwid adds a cart for less than rebuilding.
Third, where do your customers already look for you? Handmade sellers may do better starting on Etsy while they build an audience, accepting the 6.5% as a marketing cost. Local service businesses almost never do. Their customers arrive through Google and maps, which is a very different job. Our guide to local SEO for small business covers that side, and if price is your main filter, the cheapest website builder roundup ranks the low-cost end. If you are pricing platforms alongside registrars and hosts, the GoDaddy alternatives guide compares that group.
Frequently asked questions
What are the best Shopify alternatives?
It depends on whether you actually run a store. For a service business that needs a professional website rather than a catalog, UENI is the best alternative because a team builds it for you. For a real online store, BigCommerce is the closest like-for-like competitor, and Square Online is the strongest free option.
Are there free Shopify alternatives?
Yes. Square Online has a free plan at $0 per month according to Square’s pricing page, though online card payments cost 3.3% plus 30 cents on that tier. WooCommerce is also free software with a 0% revenue share, but you pay for hosting, which WooCommerce puts at $25 to $350 per month for most stores.
How much does Shopify actually cost per month?
Shopify’s pricing page lists Basic at $39 per month billed monthly or $29 billed yearly, Grow at $105 or $79, Advanced at $399 or $299, and Plus from $2,300. Add a 2% third-party transaction fee on Basic if you do not use Shopify Payments, plus any paid apps you install.
What is cheaper than Shopify for a small business?
Square Online’s free plan, Ecwid from $5 per month and UENI at $24.99 per month after a $79 setup fee all come in below Shopify’s $39 monthly rate. Squarespace Basic is $19 per month billed annually, or $25 month to month, and it adds a 2% online store transaction fee, so Core at $29 is usually cheaper once you sell.
Should I use Etsy instead of Shopify?
Etsy suits handmade and vintage sellers who want existing buyer traffic and no monthly commitment. It charges $0.20 per listing and 6.5% per sale, so on $3,000 of monthly sales that fee alone is $195. Many sellers use Etsy for reach and their own site for margin.
Can I move my store off Shopify later?
Yes. Products, customers and orders can be exported and imported into most platforms, and a domain can be pointed anywhere. The parts that do not transfer are your theme, your apps and your URL structure, so plan redirects before you switch to protect your search rankings.
Need a website, not a storefront?
If your business runs on enquiries and bookings rather than shopping carts, UENI builds the whole site, domain and business email for you and hands it over ready to launch. See how the done-for-you website service works.
