The Best Shopify Alternatives in 2026
By Ethan Halfhide · Updated October 5, 2026
Last verified 2026-10-05
The best Shopify alternatives in 2026 are WooCommerce if you want full control and no platform fee, Squarespace or Wix for an all-in-one website with a store, BigCommerce for a like-for-like hosted store platform, Square Online for a $0 start, and Ecwid for adding a store to a site you already have. Every price below comes from the maker's own website as of October 2026, set against Shopify Basic at $39 a month, or $29 a month paid yearly.
Top pick: WooCommerceTL;DR: Top pick
WordPress: With the free, open-source WooCommerce plugin, WordPress becomes a store with no monthly platform subscription, 0% revenue share and no added fee for third-party payment providers. You choose and pay for hosting, payments and extensions separately.
Why people look for a Shopify alternative
Shopify is an all-in-one commerce platform: its pricing page describes an online store, payments, and selling on social channels and in person from one dashboard, and its feature table lists unlimited products. The reasons to look around are on that same page. As of October 2026, Basic is $39 a month, or $29 a month paid yearly, and the next two plans are Grow at $105 ($79 yearly) and Advanced at $399 ($299 yearly). Online card rates with Shopify Payments start at 2.9% + 30¢ on Basic. If you take payments through a third-party provider instead, Shopify adds its own fee of 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow and 0.6% on Advanced. Checkout customization is marked Limited on every plan below Plus, which starts at $2,300 a month. New stores get 3 days free and then $1 a month for 3 months. If you want lower fixed costs, your own payment processor without an added fee, or a website first and a store second, one of the platforms below may fit better. If you are staying and want to see what its AI tools do, read our Shopify AI website builder guide.
Side-by-side comparison
| Platform | Best for | Entry plan that can sell (as of October 2026) | Platform fee on sales | Card processing shown by the maker | Product limit on that plan |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shopify (for reference) | All-in-one store platform | Basic $39/mo, or $29/mo paid yearly | 2% on Basic when you use a third-party payment provider instead of Shopify Payments | 2.9% + 30¢ online with Shopify Payments | Unlimited products |
| WooCommerce (WordPress) | Control and no platform fee | Plugin is free; hosting $25 to $350/mo for most stores (WooCommerce's estimate) | None, and 0% revenue share | About 2.50% to 2.90% + 30¢ with WooPayments | Unlimited products |
| Squarespace | Design-led website with a store | Basic $25/mo, or $19/mo paid annually | 2% on Basic; 0% from Core ($39/mo, or $29/mo paid annually) | From 2.9% + $0.30 with Squarespace Payments | No limit |
| Wix | Flexible website builder with a store | Core $29/mo on annual billing, or $36 billed monthly (Wix blog post, July 26, 2026) | Not stated on Wix's plans page | 2.9% + $0.30 on US credit and debit cards with Wix Payments (American Express costs more) | 50,000 products |
| BigCommerce | Hosted store platform closest to Shopify | Core $39/mo, or $29/mo billed annually | 0% with its embedded payment providers; 2.0% on Core with any other provider | From 2.89% + $0.29 (PayPal Braintree rate quoted by BigCommerce) | Sales cap, not a product count: $30K in trailing 12-month sales on Core |
| Square Online | Free start, selling in person and online | Square Free $0/mo | No monthly fee and no separate platform fee listed | 3.3% + 30¢ online on Free; 2.9% + 30¢ on Plus ($49/mo per location) | Not stated on the plans page |
| Ecwid | Adding a store to a site you already have | Starter $5/mo; Venture $35/mo, or $29/mo paid annually | $0 on every plan | Depends on the payment provider you connect (70+ supported) | 10 on Starter, 100 on Venture, 2,500 on Business |
| Hostinger Website Builder | Lowest paid-plan price | Unlimited plan: sale price $3.99/mo for 48 months, renews at $16.99/mo | No sales commission | Depends on the payment gateway you choose | Up to 1,000 products |
| Webflow | Custom-designed storefronts | Ecommerce Standard $29/mo billed yearly | 2% on Standard; 0% on Plus ($74/mo billed yearly) | Stripe or PayPal processing fees on top | 500 ecommerce items on Standard |
| Shift4Shop | One flat plan with everything included | $41/mo | No setup or transaction fees | Your payment processor's normal fees (integrated PayPal solution) | Unlimited products |
| Lemon Squeezy | Digital products with sales tax handled | $0/mo | 5% + 50¢ per transaction | Part of the same per-sale fee | Not stated |
Best for control and no platform fee: WooCommerce
WooCommerce is a free, open-source store plugin for WordPress. Its pricing page lists no monthly subscription for the core platform, 0% revenue share, and no additional fee for using a third-party payment solution, which is the fee Shopify sets at 2% on Basic. The free core includes unlimited products and orders. What you pay for is everything around it: WooCommerce estimates hosting at $25 to $350 a month for most stores and extensions at $29 to $299 a year each, and card processing through its own WooPayments runs about 2.50% to 2.90% + 30¢ per transaction, all as of October 2026. The trade-off is that it is not one bundled service: you choose and pay for a host, a payment processor and any extensions separately, so add those up before assuming it is cheaper than a Shopify plan. If you would rather have AI set up the WordPress site for you, see our list of WordPress AI website builders.
Best all-in-one site builders with a store: Squarespace and Wix
Both are website builders first, with selling built in. On Squarespace every paid plan can sell, with no limit on the number of products. As of October 2026, Basic is $25 a month, or $19 a month paid annually, and carries a 2% online store transaction fee; Core is $39 a month, or $29 paid annually, and drops that fee to 0%. Card rates start at 2.9% + $0.30 with Squarespace Payments, and there is a 14-day free trial but no free plan. Squarespace also charges a separate fee on digital content and memberships such as courses: 7% on Basic, 5% on Core, 1% on Plus and 0% on Advanced. Wix has a free plan for building, but Wix says you need Core or higher to sell online. Wix's own blog post "Is Wix really free?", dated July 26, 2026 and read in October 2026, gives Core at $29 a month and Business at $39 a month on annual billing, or $36 and $46 billed monthly. Wix's store plans list 50,000 products and abandoned cart recovery, with dropshipping capped at 25 products on Core and 250 on Business. Wix Payments charges 2.9% + $0.30 on US credit and debit card payments, with American Express charged more, and you can connect PayPal, Stripe and more than 70 other payment providers instead. Our Wix vs Squarespace page compares the two builders side by side.
Closest hosted store platform: BigCommerce
BigCommerce is the nearest thing to Shopify in shape: a hosted store platform with plans sized by sales. It changed those plans on June 1, 2026, and older comparison pages still show the previous ones. The old Standard, Plus and Pro plans are now Core, Growth and Scale. As of October 2026, Core is $39 a month, or $29 a month billed annually, the same two prices as Shopify Basic. It covers stores with up to $30K in trailing 12-month sales, down from a $50K limit on Standard, and BigCommerce counts those sales as gross order value minus 10%. Pass the limit and the plan upgrades automatically to Growth at $105 a month ($79 billed annually), which runs to $100K. Scale is $399 a month ($299 billed annually). BigCommerce also now charges an Open Payment Provider Fee. Orders paid through its list of embedded providers, which includes Stripe, PayPal, Adyen and its own BigCommerce Payments, carry no BigCommerce fee, but orders through any provider not on that list cost 2.0% on Core, 1.0% on Growth and 0.6% on Scale. Those are the same percentages as Shopify's third-party fee, though BigCommerce's fee-free list has 21 entries. Core leaves out the abandoned cart saver and included phone support, and the free trial runs 15 days with no credit card.
Cheapest ways to start: Square Online, Ecwid and Hostinger
Square includes online store features in every Square plan, including Square Free, which has no monthly subscription: you pay only processing fees, 3.3% + 30¢ for online card payments. Square Plus is $49 a month per location and Square Premium is $149, and both lower online card payments to 2.9% + 30¢ (as of October 2026). The free plan has limits that matter for a real store: Square's feature table marks custom domain connection and abandoned cart emails as not included on Free, and real-time shipping rates as Premium only. Ecwid is built to be added to a site you already run, on WordPress, Wix, Squarespace or elsewhere, and charges $0 in transaction fees on every plan. Its pricing page shows no free plan, though some roundups still mention one. As of October 2026, Starter is $5 a month for up to 10 products, Venture is $35 a month ($29 paid annually) for 100 products, and Business is $65 ($49 paid annually) for 2,500 products and adds abandoned cart recovery. Hostinger has the lowest paid-plan price here, but read the terms. Its plan cards list ecommerce on the Unlimited plan at a sale price of $3.99 a month as of October 2026, which means $191.52 paid up front for 48 months, renewing at $16.99 a month. Hostinger says its builder supports up to 1,000 products and takes no sales commission.
Custom design and digital products: Webflow and Lemon Squeezy
Webflow is for stores where the design is the point. Its ecommerce plans are sold per site. As of October 2026, Standard is $29 a month billed yearly for 500 ecommerce items, with a 2% transaction fee on top of Stripe or PayPal processing fees; Plus is $74 a month billed yearly for 5,000 items with a 0% fee; Advanced is $212 a month billed yearly for 15,000 items. All three list a checkout and shopping cart you can design yourself, and no cap on sales volume. Note that Webflow counts products, variants and categories toward the item limit. Lemon Squeezy solves a different problem. It is a platform for selling digital products that acts as merchant of record, which means it takes on calculating, collecting and paying sales tax and VAT for you. There is no monthly fee; it takes 5% + 50¢ per transaction as of October 2026. That is more per sale than the starting card rates of the store platforms above, so it makes sense when tax handling across countries is the hard part of your business.
Shift4Shop: one flat plan, not the free plan older lists describe
Shift4Shop shows up on some lists of Shopify alternatives as a free platform. The plan page we loaded on October 5, 2026 does not show a free plan: it advertises one unlimited plan for $41 a month, with unlimited products, staff users and bandwidth, no revenue caps, and card payments through an integrated PayPal solution. Its FAQ says there are no setup or transaction fees beyond your payment processor's own, and that a monthly fee may be charged depending on your plan and monthly processing amount. If a free plan is why you were considering it, confirm the current terms with Shift4Shop before you build.
What the fees take from a $100 order
Plan prices are only half the bill, so here is the arithmetic on one $100 US card order, using each maker's published starting online rate as of October 2026. Shopify Basic with Shopify Payments: 2.9% + 30¢, or $3.20. Shopify Basic with a third-party provider: Shopify's 2% is $2.00, plus whatever that provider charges. Squarespace Basic with Squarespace Payments: $3.20 in card fees plus the 2% store fee, $5.20 in total; on Core the store fee is gone and it is $3.20. Wix with Wix Payments: $3.20. Square Free: 3.3% + 30¢, or $3.60, with no monthly fee; Square Plus: $3.20. BigCommerce at its quoted starting rate of 2.89% + $0.29: $3.18. WooCommerce with WooPayments: about $2.80 to $3.20. Lemon Squeezy: 5% + 50¢, or $5.50. These are starting rates; some cards cost more, such as premium and international cards on Shopify or American Express with Wix Payments.
How to choose
Start from the reason you are leaving. If it is the fee for using your own payment processor, WooCommerce and Ecwid charge none, and Squarespace Core, Webflow Plus and BigCommerce (with one of its embedded providers) bring the platform fee to 0%. If it is the monthly price, Square Free costs nothing until you sell, Ecwid Starter is $5 a month for a 10-product shop, and Squarespace Basic at $19 a month paid annually undercuts Shopify Basic by $10, though its 2% store fee cancels that saving once you sell more than about $500 a month. If you mostly need a good-looking website that also sells, pick Squarespace or Wix; if the storefront has to be designed from scratch, Webflow. If you want something that works like Shopify, BigCommerce is the closest, but its list prices and third-party fee percentages now match Shopify's, so the move only pays if a specific feature or payment processor matters to you. If you also sell in person, look at Square, where online store features come with every plan. For AI-assisted store builders ranked on criteria that include the total cost of selling, see our guide to the best AI website builder for ecommerce.
What we could not verify
GoDaddy's online store page did not load for us on October 5, 2026, so GoDaddy is left out. Wix's plans page does not say whether Wix takes a platform fee on store sales, so the table leaves that cell open. We could not read US plan prices from that page either, so the Wix prices here come from a Wix blog post dated July 26, 2026. Hostinger's page contradicts itself: the plan cards put ecommerce on the Unlimited plan, while its FAQ says a Business plan starting at $2.99 a month is all you need. We used the plan cards. We did not find monthly-billing prices for Webflow's ecommerce plans, so only yearly-billed figures appear here. Shift4Shop's plan page does not state card processing rates. We have not compared uptime, support quality, app stores or migration effort, because no published source measures them the same way across platforms. Prices are US dollar list prices before taxes, apps, themes and domains.
How this page was put together
We compared each platform's own pricing and plan pages, loaded on October 5, 2026, against Shopify's pricing page from the same day. Where a maker published a change notice (BigCommerce), a help article with payment rates (Wix) or a recent blog post with plan prices (Wix, July 26, 2026), we used that too. We did not build stores on these platforms for this page, and the order reflects published prices, fees and plan limits, not performance. Plans change often, and BigCommerce's changed in June 2026, so check the linked source before you pay.
Six Shopify alternatives with full listings on our site
- 1WordPress
Open-source CMS with AI page-builder plugins
With the free, open-source WooCommerce plugin, WordPress becomes a store with no monthly platform subscription, 0% revenue share and no added fee for third-party payment providers. You choose and pay for hosting, payments and extensions separately.
- Best for:
- Full control with no platform fee
- Pricing:
- Plugin free. Hosting $25 to $350/mo for most stores (WooCommerce's estimate), as of October 2026
- 2Squarespace
The most polished AI website builder for creatives and brand-conscious businesses
Every paid plan can sell, with no limit on the number of products, and abandoned cart recovery is marked as included on all four. Basic adds a 2% online store fee; Core removes it. There is a 14-day free trial but no free plan.
- Best for:
- A polished website that also sells
- Pricing:
- Basic $25/mo ($19/mo paid annually). Core $39/mo ($29/mo paid annually), as of October 2026
- 3Wix
AI website builder with a free plan, drag-and-drop editing and 2000+ templates
Build for free, then move to Core or higher to sell online. Store plans list 50,000 products and abandoned cart recovery. Wix Payments charges 2.9% + $0.30 on US credit and debit card payments (American Express costs more), or you can connect PayPal, Stripe and other providers.
- Best for:
- A flexible site builder with a store added
- Pricing:
- Free plan to build. Core $29/mo on annual billing ($36 billed monthly), per Wix's blog post of July 26, 2026 (read October 2026)
- 4Hostinger Website Builder
AI website builder with a 14-day free trial; Premium from $2.99/mo on a 48-month term (Sept 2026)
An AI store builder with the lowest paid-plan price on this page. It supports up to 1,000 products and Hostinger takes no sales commission. Check the renewal price before you commit.
- Best for:
- The lowest paid-plan price, on a long prepaid term
- Pricing:
- Unlimited plan: sale price $3.99/mo for 48 months ($191.52 up front), renews at $16.99/mo, as of October 2026
- 5Webflow
Build production websites without writing code
Ecommerce plans are per site, with a checkout and cart you design yourself. Standard covers 500 ecommerce items with a 2% transaction fee; Plus covers 5,000 items with 0%.
- Best for:
- Custom-designed storefronts
- Pricing:
- Ecommerce Standard $29/mo billed yearly. Plus $74/mo billed yearly, as of October 2026
- 6Lemon Squeezy
Sell digital products and SaaS subscriptions
A merchant of record for digital products: it takes on calculating, collecting and paying sales tax and VAT on your behalf. There is no monthly fee, but the per-sale cut is higher than the starting card rates of the store platforms above.
- Best for:
- Digital products with sales tax handled for you
- Pricing:
- $0/mo. 5% + 50¢ per transaction, as of October 2026
Verdict
WooCommerce is the best Shopify alternative for most people leaving over fees or control: the plugin is free, there is no revenue share and no added fee for choosing your own payment processor, and the trade is that you assemble hosting and extensions yourself. Choose Squarespace or Wix if you want one bill and a website that also sells, BigCommerce if you want a hosted platform shaped like Shopify and can use one of its embedded payment providers, Square Online or Ecwid to start for $0 to $5 a month, Webflow for a custom-designed storefront, and Lemon Squeezy for digital products where sales tax is the headache. Shopify still makes sense if you use Shopify Payments, since its third-party fee then does not apply. See our Shopify listing for the platform itself.
Frequently asked questions
Sources
- Shopify pricing
- WooCommerce pricing
- WooCommerce
- Squarespace pricing
- Wix plans
- Wix blog: Is Wix really free?
- Wix online store builder
- Wix eCommerce website
- Wix help: Wix Payments service fees
- BigCommerce pricing
- BigCommerce plan and pricing updates (2026)
- Square Online plans
- Ecwid pricing
- Hostinger ecommerce website builder
- Webflow pricing
- Shift4Shop End-to-End plan
- Lemon Squeezy pricing
Keep reading
About the author
Ethan Halfhide
Ethan Halfhide is an AI technologist and founder who has helped more than a thousand people build websites and products with AI tools. He compares AI website builders on pricing, features and what each one actually produces from a prompt.