9 Best Shopify Alternatives in 2026: Compare Fees & Features 2026

Shopify remains the default recommendation when anyone asks how to launch an online store. It is fast, well-supported, and comfortable to operate. But comfort has a price. Between the Shopify Payments surcharge if you use a third-party gateway, the 2026 Basic plan rise to $39/month, and the app bills that stack quickly, a lot of sellers are quietly looking at what else is out there.

This guide compares 9 real Shopify alternatives — by starting price, transaction fees, customisation, and the kind of seller each one fits best. We also cover what changes when you move and when it actually makes sense to stay. If you also sell across Shopee, Lazada, TikTok Shop, or Amazon, see our guide to multichannel listing software — that is a different problem than picking a storefront. For the fee-by-fee maths on staying, read our Shopify fees breakdown.

Why Sellers Look for Shopify Alternatives

Shopify is not broken. It is just not the right answer for everyone. The most common reasons sellers start looking:

• The transaction-fee penalty. If you use a third-party payment gateway instead of Shopify Payments, Shopify charges 2.0% on Basic, 1.0% on Grow, and 0.6% on Advanced on top of your gateway’s own fees. On a $200,000/year store, the Basic surcharge alone is $4,000/year.
• Plan price creep. Basic went from $29 to $39/month; annual billing is the only way to hold the older rates. Businesses that relied on predictable overhead are being pushed up.
• App costs stack. A “simple” Shopify store running subscriptions, reviews, advanced shipping rules, and a product-bundles app can easily add $50–$200/month in recurring app fees. The platform is modular by design, but the bill is not.
• Customisation limits. Shopify’s Liquid templating and checkout extensibility have loosened in 2024–25, but anything non-standard still hits friction — especially deep customisation of checkout, B2B workflows, or subscription logic.
• Platform lock-in. Themes, apps, metaobjects, and Shopify Flow all tie you more tightly to the platform. Migrations become harder the longer you stay.
• You do not need a full storefront. If you already sell on Shopee, Lazada, TikTok Shop, or Amazon, a Shopify store is extra overhead you may not need at all. See why you must be on all ecommerce platforms for the multichannel case.

In short: Shopify is a premium product with premium friction. If you are paying for features you do not use, or hitting walls on the features you do, there is a better-fit platform on this list.

Quick Comparison: Shopify Alternatives at a Glance

Pricing reflects US monthly rates in April 2026. Annual billing usually saves 10–25%. Payment processing is separate on every platform.

1. BigCommerce — Best for Scaling Brands That Hate Transaction Fees

Best for: Growing brands processing $1M+ in annual GMV who want Shopify-level polish without the transaction-fee penalty.

BigCommerce is the most direct Shopify competitor on this list. Same category, similar pricing, comparable speed and reliability — but with zero platform transaction fees on every plan. That single line item is why most brands crossing $500k/year in GMV on third-party gateways evaluate it.

Where BigCommerce wins:

• 0% transaction fees — use any of ~65 supported payment gateways without a surcharge
• Native B2B Edition — customer groups, price lists, quoting, and purchase orders built in (Shopify charges $2,300/mo for this on Plus)
• Built-in features that Shopify pushes to apps: product filtering, gift cards, ratings/reviews, and advanced coupons
• Multi-storefront on mid-tier plans — run up to three storefronts on Pro, not just Enterprise
• Sales-volume thresholds — each plan caps annual online sales (Standard $50k, Plus $180k, Pro $400k); exceed it and you auto-upgrade

Where BigCommerce is weaker:

• Theme selection is thinner than Shopify’s ecosystem (~175 themes vs Shopify’s 250+)
• App marketplace is smaller (~1,300 vs Shopify’s 8,000+)
• Checkout feels less polished out of the box than Shopify’s
• Learning curve is steeper — the admin is more powerful but less intuitive

Pricing: Standard $39/mo, Plus $105/mo, Pro $399/mo, Enterprise custom (typically $2,000–$10,000/mo). Processing rates via BigCommerce’s PayPal partnership start at 2.59% + $0.49 — competitive with Shopify Payments.

Verdict: If you have grown past Shopify Basic and the thought of Advanced at $399/month makes your eye twitch, BigCommerce Pro gives you B2B, multi-storefront, and 0% transaction fees at the same price. It is the most natural “next step” for brands that have outgrown Shopify.

2. WooCommerce — Best for Full Control (If You Can Handle WordPress)

Best for: Sellers who want complete ownership of their store, data, and costs — and who are already comfortable with WordPress.

WooCommerce is a free WordPress plugin, not a hosted platform. That distinction matters. You get the most customisable storefront on this list, pay zero platform fees, and own every byte of your data. You also become responsible for hosting, security, performance, backups, updates, and compatibility between your ~12 plugins. It is the classic open-source trade-off.

Where WooCommerce wins:

• Free plugin, no platform cut — you pay only hosting, domain, and your chosen plugins
• Unmatched customisation — PHP, hooks, and filters let you change anything
• Huge plugin ecosystem — roughly 60,000 free plugins on the WordPress repository plus thousands of paid extensions
• Content + commerce in one stack — if SEO and content marketing is your acquisition channel, nothing beats WordPress on content side
• No sales caps — process $10k or $10m, same platform cost

Where WooCommerce is weaker:

• You are the sysadmin — hosting, WAF, backups, and PHP version bumps are your problem
• Performance is hosting-dependent; a cheap shared host will feel slow at any scale
• Plugin conflicts are the most common source of site-down incidents
• Total cost of ownership is rarely “free” once hosting ($25–$250/mo), security ($20–$50/mo), paid plugins ($50–$300/mo), and developer time are added up
• Checkout is dated compared to Shopify or BigCommerce without extensions

Pricing: The plugin is free. Realistic monthly cost for a small store: $50–$120/mo (managed hosting + 2–4 paid extensions). Enterprise on WooCommerce.com’s managed hosting runs $300–$1,000+/mo. See our guide to WooCommerce inventory management for scaling considerations (and yes, that article covers Shopify — the principles are the same; WooCommerce sellers face nearly identical multichannel challenges).

Verdict: WooCommerce wins on every spreadsheet and loses on every weekend you spend debugging a checkout plugin at 11pm. It is the right answer if you want control and you already know WordPress — wrong if you just want a store to run.

3. Wix eCommerce — Best for Beginners and Small Catalogues

Best for: Solo sellers, creatives, and service businesses selling under ~200 SKUs who want a genuinely simple setup.

Wix started as a drag-and-drop site builder and added commerce on top. That heritage shows. The design editor is the most forgiving on this list — you can build a presentable store in an afternoon without touching any template code. The trade-off is that Wix is best at “simple, good-looking, small-to-medium” and less good at “complex, scaling, or high-volume.”

Where Wix wins:

• Drag-and-drop editor is still best-in-class for non-technical users
• 500+ templates, most commerce-ready out of the box
• Wix Payments available in 40+ countries with rates starting at 2.9% + $0.30
• Built-in tools for bookings, events, memberships, and donations — useful for hybrid businesses
• Velo (Wix’s developer platform) lets you add real code if you outgrow the editor

Where Wix is weaker:

• You cannot change templates after publishing — you rebuild the site to switch theme
• Scales poorly past ~500 SKUs (editor and admin get sluggish)
• Fewer marketplace integrations than Shopify/BigCommerce
• Reports and inventory features are basic compared to specialist platforms
• SEO has improved dramatically post-2020 but still trails WordPress/Shopify for content-heavy stores

Pricing: Light $17/mo, Core $29/mo, Business $36/mo, Business Elite $159/mo. Business is the entry point for real ecommerce (accepts online payments, unlimited products). Payment processing via Wix Payments: 2.9% + $0.30; 0% platform transaction fee.

Verdict: If you are launching your first store, you have under 200 SKUs, and the thought of configuring Liquid templates makes you want to lie down — Wix is genuinely fine. Do not pick it for a store you expect to scale past low six figures.

4. Squarespace Commerce — Best for Design-Led Brands

Best for: Creators, service businesses, and boutique brands where the visual brand matters as much as the product.

Squarespace has the best default aesthetics of any platform on this list. The templates are cohesive, the typography is considered, and the editorial feel is unmatched — which is why fashion brands, studios, photographers, and newsletter-plus-products businesses gravitate to it. The commerce features are capable if not cutting-edge.

Where Squarespace wins:

• Template quality — arguably the best out-of-the-box design on any commerce platform
• 0% transaction fees on Commerce plans (Basic Commerce and Advanced Commerce)
• All-in-one bundle — site, domain, email marketing (Squarespace Email Campaigns), scheduling (Acuity) in one stack
• Strong fit for services + products hybrid stores (booking + selling goods)
• Squarespace Payments now available with 2.9% + $0.30 processing

Where Squarespace is weaker:

• Light on commerce features past ~1,000 SKUs
• Apps and extensions ecosystem is small (~100 extensions, mostly marketing)
• Product options and variants are limited compared to Shopify
• No multi-currency selling at checkout (display-only)
• Reports and analytics are basic — expect to bolt on GA4 and real BI tools

Pricing: Personal $16/mo (no commerce), Business $23/mo (3% transaction fee), Basic Commerce $27/mo (0% transaction fee), Advanced Commerce $49/mo. Start at Basic Commerce if you are selling more than occasionally.

Verdict: If your brand lives or dies on design, Squarespace Commerce gets you there with the least work. It is less of a Shopify alternative and more of a different philosophy — a curated site builder that happens to sell things.

5. Ecwid by Lightspeed — Best for Adding a Store to an Existing Site

Best for: Sellers with an existing WordPress, Wix, Squarespace, or even HTML site who want to add commerce without migrating.

Ecwid (now owned by Lightspeed) is the platform you pick when you do not want a new website. It gives you a product catalogue, cart, and checkout that embed as a widget into any website — or run as a standalone “Instant Site” if you need one. The free plan is genuinely useful for sellers with fewer than five products.

Where Ecwid wins:

• Free plan supports up to 5 products and real payments (no trial limit)
• Embeds into any website — WordPress, Wix, Squarespace, Tumblr, plain HTML
• Native point-of-sale via Lightspeed integration
• Sells on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Google Shopping from the same catalogue
• Mobile apps for iOS and Android to manage from a phone
• Strong fit for creators selling a handful of products alongside content or services

Where Ecwid is weaker:

• Small catalogue focus — not designed for 5,000+ SKU stores
• Customisation is more limited than Shopify themes
• Features like advanced shipping rules, subscriptions, and B2B need higher plans
• The “Instant Site” option is serviceable but not a full CMS

Pricing: Free (5 products), Venture $21/mo (100 products), Business $39/mo (2,500 products), Unlimited $89/mo. Transaction fee: 0% on paid plans, the free plan has no platform fee either — you just pay the payment gateway.

Verdict: If you already have a site you like and you just need the “buy now” layer, Ecwid is faster to deploy than moving the whole site to Shopify. For a first-time seller who wants free-to-start with real functionality, the free plan is also hard to beat.

6. Square Online — Best for Retail + In-Person Sellers

Best for: Cafes, restaurants, retail stores, and any business where in-person and online sales need to share inventory.

Square Online is the ecommerce half of Square’s retail-and-restaurants ecosystem. If you already run a Square terminal at a till, Square Online extends the same product catalogue, inventory, and reporting to a web store. The value is the integration — the online store on its own is average; the online-plus-offline bundle is genuinely differentiated.

Where Square Online wins:

• Genuinely free plan with no trial expiry — you pay only processing on each sale
• Single source of truth for inventory across till, online store, and marketplaces
• Square Payments — 2.9% + $0.30 online, 2.6% + $0.10 in-person
• Strong fit for food & beverage (order-ahead, delivery, local-only options)
• Gift cards, loyalty, and marketing tied into the POS customer file

Where Square Online is weaker:

• Limited template range — less design flexibility than Wix or Squarespace
• International selling is weaker than Shopify (Square is primarily US/UK/AU/CA/JP/IE/FR/ES/IT)
• Plan tiers above the free plan are less differentiated than competitors
• Admin feels POS-first; ecommerce-only users may find workflows odd

Pricing: Free, Plus $29/mo, Premium $79/mo. Processing rates are the same across all plans (2.9% + $0.30 online, 2.6% + $0.10 tap-to-pay). No platform transaction fees beyond processing.

Verdict: If your online store is a channel for a physical business, Square Online is the cleanest answer on this list. If you are pure-play online, you will outgrow it.

7. Adobe Commerce (Magento) — Best for Enterprise and Complex B2B

Best for: Enterprise brands with custom B2B logic, multi-brand portfolios, or six-figure-plus development budgets.

Magento became Adobe Commerce in 2018 and now splits into two products: Adobe Commerce (paid, cloud-hosted enterprise edition) and Magento Open Source (free, self-hosted community edition). Both are the most feature-rich, most customisable, and most expensive-to-operate options on this list.

Where Adobe Commerce wins:

• Most powerful B2B feature set — customer-specific catalogues, tiered pricing, quotes, PO workflows, approval chains
• Multi-store, multi-brand, multi-currency support is enterprise-grade
• Open source option (Magento Open Source) means zero licence fee if you self-host
• Deep integration with the broader Adobe Experience Cloud (Analytics, Target, Marketo)
• Handles 1M+ SKU catalogues and high-volume B2B without breaking

Where Adobe Commerce is weaker:

• Total cost of ownership is high — Adobe Commerce Cloud starts around $22,000/year on base licence, and most deployments cost $50k–$250k+ including development
• Developer scarcity — Magento/Adobe devs command $75–$200/hour and are harder to find than Shopify developers
• Complex setup — most brands engage a specialised agency
• Upgrades are non-trivial; brands routinely run one or two major versions behind

Pricing: Magento Open Source: free (you pay only hosting + development). Adobe Commerce: quote-based, typically $22k–$125k+/year in licence plus hosting. Transaction fees depend on your payment gateway; no platform take rate.

Verdict: Adobe Commerce is not a like-for-like Shopify alternative. It is the place you land when Shopify Plus cannot flex far enough — complex B2B, thousands of variants, or custom workflows that do not fit Shopify’s model. If you cannot articulate why you need it in one sentence, you probably do not need it.

8. Webflow Ecommerce — Best for Designer-Built Brand Sites

Best for: Brand and content sites where design quality is the product, and commerce is a smaller part of the picture.

Webflow is a visual development tool — it gives designers CSS-level control through a visual editor, then publishes clean HTML/CSS/JS. Its ecommerce module lets you add a store to that workflow. Webflow sites routinely win design awards; the commerce side is competent if not best-in-class.

Where Webflow wins:

• Pixel-perfect design control — anything you could build in HTML/CSS, you can build in Webflow
• Clean code output — no plugin bloat, strong Core Web Vitals
• CMS for editorial content is strong — good for brands with content-heavy sites
• No platform transaction fee on the Plus commerce plan ($29/mo gets you 0%)
• Designer-friendly collaboration and staging

Where Webflow is weaker:

• Product limit per plan (Standard 500, Plus 1,000, Advanced 3,000)
• Checkout customisation is limited compared to Shopify or BigCommerce
• Smaller app ecosystem; fewer marketplace integrations
• Learning curve for non-designers
• Stripe/PayPal only for direct payments (no Klarna/Afterpay natively in all regions)

Pricing: Standard $29/mo (2% transaction fee), Plus $74/mo (0% transaction fee), Advanced $235/mo. Stripe processing: 2.9% + $0.30.

Verdict: Pick Webflow if your site has to look a specific way, content is a major part of your strategy, and your catalogue is moderate. Do not pick it for a 5,000-SKU marketplace store.

9. Shift4Shop — Best for Sellers Already on Shift4 Payments

Best for: US-based sellers willing to process all payments through Shift4 in exchange for a free storefront.

Shift4Shop (formerly 3dcart) offers a genuinely free plan — not a trial, not a freemium with a product cap — provided you use Shift4 Payments for all your card processing. The trade-off is clear: you save Shopify-level monthly fees ($300–$400+/year) but you are locked into Shift4’s processing rates and their ecosystem.

Where Shift4Shop wins:

• $0/mo End-to-End plan for US merchants using Shift4 Payments
• Surprisingly deep feature set — reviews, abandoned cart, recurring orders, B2B groups
• No platform transaction fees (processing separate)
• Unlimited products, bandwidth, and storage on the free plan

Where Shift4Shop is weaker:

• US-only free plan — international sellers pay standard plan prices
• Processing rates with Shift4 (approximately 2.9% + $0.30) are not materially cheaper than Stripe/PayPal
• Smaller theme and app ecosystem than Shopify/BigCommerce
• Interface and documentation feel dated
• Migration to another platform is painful if Shift4 payments relationship ends

Pricing: $0/mo (End-to-End, US only, Shift4 Payments required), or paid plans starting at $29/mo without the Shift4 Payments requirement. All plans: 0% platform transaction fee.

Verdict: A legitimate option for US sellers who are indifferent about their payment processor. If you would not choose Shift4 Payments on its own merits, do not pick the platform to chase the $0/mo.

Shopify vs Alternatives: Feature-by-Feature

What About Multichannel Selling?

There is a question this entire list does not answer: what if your problem is not “which storefront platform” but “how do I sell across Shopee, Lazada, TikTok Shop, Amazon, and my own Shopify store without going insane?”

That is a different problem, and migrating between Shopify and BigCommerce does not solve it. You need a multichannel listing and inventory layer that sits on top of all your platforms and keeps stock, prices, and orders in sync.

This is where OneCart fits. OneCart is not a Shopify alternative — it is a multichannel management tool that works with Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Magento, Shopee, Lazada, TikTok Shop, Amazon, Temu, and 10+ other marketplaces. Sellers keep whichever storefront they prefer (Shopify, WooCommerce, or one of the alternatives on this list) and use OneCart to:

• Sync inventory in real time across every connected channel
• Process orders from every marketplace in a single dashboard
• Manage SKUs, bundles, and purchase orders centrally
• Integrate with Xero, QuickBooks, and other accounting tools

Pricing: From S$48/mo (Hobbyist, 2 platforms) to S$868/mo (Business, 20 platforms). See OneCart pricing for full details.

If your real bottleneck is spreadsheet chaos across platforms — not Shopify’s monthly bill — a multichannel layer beats a storefront migration. See our multichannel inventory management comparison for the full evaluation of this category.

Migration: What to Expect When You Leave Shopify

Most sellers underestimate migration cost. Realistic expectations for moving a ~1,000-SKU store off Shopify:

1. Product data export — CSV export from Shopify is clean, but metafields, variants, and tags need mapping to the new platform’s model. Plan 4–8 hours for manual cleanup even with a tool.
2. Customer data — exportable, but password hashes are not portable. Customers will need to reset passwords on first login at the new platform.
3. Order history — usually stays in Shopify as historical reference. Very few migrations bring it across cleanly.
4. App parity — the hardest part. Every Shopify app you rely on (subscriptions, loyalty, reviews, shipping) needs an equivalent on the new platform. Expect 10–20 hours of re-wiring.
5. SEO redirects — every product, collection, and blog URL needs a 301. Skip this and you lose months of organic traffic. Most platforms support bulk 301 import.
6. Theme rebuild — you are not porting your Liquid theme. Budget 40–120 hours of design work or a $2,000–$10,000 agency engagement.
7. Payment re-approval — some gateways need a new merchant application per platform; allow 3–10 business days.
8. Testing window — run both stores in parallel for at least two weeks before cutting DNS over.

Realistic timeline: 6–12 weeks for a mature store, 2–4 weeks for a simple one. Do not migrate during peak season.

When You Should Stay on Shopify

Being honest: most stores that consider leaving Shopify should not. Reasons to stay:

• You process most payments through Shopify Payments — the transaction-fee penalty does not apply to you
• Your custom-theme work and apps would cost more to rebuild than you will save in 3 years of platform fees
• Your team is trained on Shopify and the productivity loss of re-training is real
• You sell on Shopify-specific channels (Shop Pay, Shop App, Linkpop) that do not port
• Your monthly bill is <$1,000 and you are not hitting feature walls — migrations past that threshold rarely pay back for small stores

The right move for many Shopify sellers is not to migrate but to address the specific pain point: negotiate better processing rates, cut unused apps, downgrade from Advanced to Grow if you are over-plan, or add a multichannel layer to reach more demand without re-platforming.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which Shopify alternative is the cheapest?

Shift4Shop has a genuine $0/mo plan for US merchants using Shift4 Payments, and Square Online has a free plan with no catalogue cap. If you can tolerate WordPress self-hosting, WooCommerce is free as a plugin — but realistic total cost lands at $50–$120/month once hosting and essentials are added.

Which Shopify alternative has no transaction fees?

BigCommerce charges 0% platform transaction fees on every plan. Squarespace Commerce (Basic Commerce and above) and Webflow Plus also charge 0%. Shopify only charges 0% when you use Shopify Payments — on third-party gateways you pay 0.6–2.0% depending on plan.

Is WooCommerce really free?

The plugin is free. The real monthly cost for a working store is $50–$120/month once you add managed WordPress hosting, an SSL certificate, a security plugin, an email service, and two to four commercial extensions. Factor developer time if you are not technical.

What is the best Shopify alternative for beginners?

Wix eCommerce for ease of setup, Squarespace Commerce for out-of-the-box design, or Ecwid’s free plan if you already have a website. All three get a working store live in a day without needing a developer.

What is the best Shopify alternative for large stores?

BigCommerce at the $1M+ GMV range (no transaction fees, native B2B), Adobe Commerce / Magento at the $10M+ enterprise range (complex B2B, multi-brand), or WooCommerce on managed hosting if you want total control. Shopify Plus still competes strongly here — do not move without running the 3-year TCO comparison.

Should I migrate off Shopify or add multichannel instead?

If your frustration is the Shopify bill, migrate to a platform with 0% transaction fees (BigCommerce, Squarespace Commerce) or free hosting (Shift4Shop). If your frustration is reaching more customers, stay on Shopify and add a multichannel listing tool to sell on Shopee, Lazada, TikTok Shop, and Amazon alongside your Shopify store. They solve different problems.

Ready to sell everywhere instead of everywhere-else? Most sellers who think they need to leave Shopify actually need to stay on it and add more sales channels. OneCart connects your Shopify store with Shopee, Lazada, TikTok Shop, Amazon, Temu, WooCommerce, and 10+ other marketplaces — one inventory, one order queue, one dashboard. Start free at getonecart.com and keep the storefront you already know.