{"id":372,"date":"2024-06-22T09:25:58","date_gmt":"2024-06-22T09:25:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.yellowfalconmedia.com\/blog\/2024\/06\/22\/best-free-e-commerce-website-builders-in-2023-nerdwallet\/"},"modified":"2024-06-22T09:25:58","modified_gmt":"2024-06-22T09:25:58","slug":"best-free-e-commerce-website-builders-in-2023-nerdwallet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.yellowfalconmedia.com\/blog\/2024\/06\/22\/best-free-e-commerce-website-builders-in-2023-nerdwallet\/","title":{"rendered":"Best Free E-Commerce Website Builders in 2023 – NerdWallet"},"content":{"rendered":"

We believe everyone should be able to make financial decisions with confidence. And while our site doesn\u2019t feature every company or financial product available on the market, we\u2019re proud that the guidance we offer, the information we provide and the tools we create are objective, independent, straightforward \u2014 and free.
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Rosalie Murphy is a small-business writer at NerdWallet. Since 2021, she has covered business insurance, banking, credit cards and e-commerce software, and her reporting has been featured by The Associated Press, MarketWatch, Entrepreneur and many other publications. Rosalie holds a graduate certificate in Quantitative Business Management from Kent State University and is now pursuing an MBA. She is based in Chicago.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ryan Lane is an editor on NerdWallet\u2019s small-business team. He joined NerdWallet in 2019 as a student loans writer, serving as an authority on that topic after spending more than a decade at student loan guarantor American Student Assistance. In that role, Ryan co-authored the Student Loan Ranger blog in partnership with U.S. News & World Report, as well as wrote and edited content about education financing and financial literacy for multiple online properties, e-courses and more. Ryan also previously oversaw the production of life science journals as a managing editor for publisher Cell Press. Ryan is located in Rochester, New York.<\/span>
Many or all of the products featured here are from our partners who compensate us. This influences which products we write about and where and how the product appears on a page. However, this does not influence our evaluations. Our opinions are our own. Here is a list of our partners<\/a> and here's how we make money<\/a>.
You can set up a functional, well-designed online store without paying a monthly subscription fee. Free e-commerce website builders can help you create a website, list your products, take payments and manage shipments. The best options offer unlimited product listings and don\u2019t cap your revenue.<\/span>
But there\u2019s a catch: While these <\/span>e-commerce website builders<\/span><\/a> don\u2019t charge monthly fees, you\u2019ll still have to pay a small cut from each sale to cover payment processing. And you may be locked into your provider\u2019s payments system, which means you can\u2019t shop around for lower transaction fees.<\/span>
Here are our picks for the best free options.<\/span>
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Shopify Ecommerce
$29
Basic Plan. Shopify & Advanced Plans Available.\u00a0
E-commerce website builder<\/span>
Best for<\/span>
Key features<\/span>
Square Online<\/span>
Brick-and-mortar businesses moving online.<\/span>
Unlimited products, in-store pickup, gift cards and the ability to add particular paid features without upgrading to a fully paid plan.<\/span>
Shift4Shop<\/span>
Business-to-business, or B2B, sellers.<\/span>
Customer portals, wholesale and custom pricing, and the ability to accept a variety of payment methods beyond credit and debit cards.<\/span>
Big Cartel <\/span>
Very small businesses that want to list five or fewer products.<\/span>
Automated sales tax, discount codes and shipment tracking.<\/span>
Ecwid<\/span>
Businesses that want to add an online store to an existing website.<\/span>
HTML and plug-ins that you can add to your website to set up a store.<\/span>
WooCommerce<\/span>
WordPress users.<\/span>
Apps and extensions that support a variety of features, although some come with fees.<\/span>
Freewebstore<\/span>
Businesses that want lots of features but don\u2019t generate that much revenue from their online stores.<\/span>
Abandoned cart emails, sales on online marketplaces and customer reviews.<\/span>
Square Online is free to businesses that use a <\/span>Square point-of-sale system<\/span><\/a> in a brick-and-mortar location or take online payments through Square. Its simplicity and ease of use make it a good choice for businesses that want to get online fast. And you can sell an unlimited number of products without upgrading to a paid plan.<\/span>
Note that all users have to pay Square\u2019s payment processing fee of 2.9% plus 30 cents per online transaction.<\/span>
Square Online\u2019s key features include:<\/span>
Unlimited products:<\/span><\/span> Lots of free e-commerce website builders allow you to list only a few items before you have to upgrade. That\u2019s not the case with Square, which has no cap on how many products you can sell on any of its plans.<\/span>
Individual features on a subscription basis:<\/span><\/span> You can pay a monthly fee to add particular functions like email or text marketing or a loyalty program without upgrading your Square subscription altogether \u2014\u00a0so you don\u2019t have to pay for features you don\u2019t plan to use.<\/span>
Gift cards:<\/span><\/span> Square facilitates digital gift cards for free. Physical gift cards start at 81 cents per card.<\/span>
In-store pickup and local delivery:<\/span><\/span> Once a customer buys a product, you can use a third-party delivery service or your own staff members to get it to their doorstep \u2014\u00a0although these services charge small fees of $1.50 and 50 cents, respectively. You can also hold the product in store until the next time the customer stops by.<\/span>
Who should use Square Online:<\/span><\/span> Brick-and-mortar businesses looking to set up an online store quickly and easily. <\/span>Read NerdWallet\u2019s review of Square Online<\/span><\/a>.<\/span>
Shift4Shop is one of few free e-commerce website builders that offer business-to-business features and is one of our picks for the <\/span>best B2B e-commerce platforms<\/span><\/a>. But it may also be a good choice for larger consumer-facing e-commerce businesses because it\u2019s packed with features: You can customize your checkout experience, monitor order status and send updates to your customers, create out-of-stock alerts and much more.<\/span>
Shift4Shop is free to users who process at least $500 per month in sales using <\/span>Shift4<\/span><\/a>, the payment processing company that owns Shift4Shop \u2014 formerly known as 3dcart. Shift4 charges transaction fees, but they can vary with each customer\u2019s contract.<\/span>
Shift4Shop\u2019s key B2B features include:<\/span>
Customer portals:<\/span><\/span> Your customers can set up accounts on your website and see their previous orders, place reorders, save items and even import <\/span>stock-keeping units, or SKUs,<\/span><\/a> to find the specific products they\u2019re looking for.<\/span>
Acceptance of multiple forms of payment:<\/span><\/span> In addition to credit and debit card payments using Shift4, you can use Shift4Shop to accept checks, money orders, purchase orders, corporate accounts and more. If customers want to finance large purchases, they can open a line of credit with Apruve.<\/span>
Preorders:<\/span><\/span> Taking preorders can help you order or manufacture the right amount of inventory \u2014\u00a0especially if customers make partial payments upfront. Shift4Shop says you can take preorders on event tickets, too.<\/span>
Who should use Shift4Shop:<\/span><\/span> Businesses that sell physical products, especially to other businesses. <\/span>Read NerdWallet\u2019s review of Shift4Shop<\/span><\/a>.<\/span>
Big Cartel is a bare-bones <\/span>online store builder<\/span><\/a>, but if you\u2019re a very small business or one that sells only a few different products at a time, it might offer all you need. You can list five items in your store, which will have a custom domain. Each item can include multiple colors and sizes but just one product image. For $9.99 per month, you can upgrade to a store that includes 50 product listings.<\/span>
You can accept payments on Big Cartel using Stripe or PayPal. Both of those payment processors will charge a fee on each transaction \u2014\u00a0starting at 2.9% plus 30 cents or 3.49% plus 49 cents, respectively.<\/span>
Big Cartel\u2019s key features include:<\/span>
Discount codes:<\/span><\/span> Big Cartel users can create custom discount codes that reduce prices by a certain percentage or dollar amount or give customers free shipping. You can limit use of discount codes, too, to certain items or minimum spend amounts.<\/span>
Automated sales tax:<\/span><\/span> Big Cartel uses TaxJar, a third-party app, to calculate sales tax based on the locations of you and your customers. You can classify products by tax category because some goods are subject to different tax rates than others. TaxJar then pays the state or local government the taxes owed on your behalf.<\/span>
Shipment tracking:<\/span><\/span> You can set up automatic emails to your customers when their orders ship. When you enter a customer's tracking number into Big Cartel, the platform can detect which carrier you\u2019re using and share an order tracking number with your customer.<\/span>
Who should use Big Cartel:<\/span><\/span> Businesses that need to list only a handful of products at a time, especially small artists and solopreneurs who often rotate merchandise in and out. <\/span>Read NerdWallet's review of Big Cartel<\/span><\/a>. <\/span>
Ecwid is a plug-in that can help you add e-commerce functionality to your existing business website. If you know some of the web programming language known as\u00a0HTML, you can add individual store elements, like product search or a shopping bag, to your website. Or you can set up a separate Ecwid website and tie it into your existing website with a link.<\/span>
Ecwid\u2019s free plan allows five product listings, and you can view, manage and fulfill orders from a combined dashboard. However, you can\u2019t sell digital goods with Ecwid\u2019s free plan. Free stores also can\u2019t directly connect to social media accounts or online marketplaces.<\/span>
Ecwid\u2019s key features include:<\/span>
Plug-ins for existing websites:<\/span><\/span> You can add Ecwid to websites built with WordPress, Wix, Drupal and Weebly using plug-ins, which usually don\u2019t require coding. You can also add Ecwid manually to websites built on Squarespace, Blogger and many more.<\/span>
Easy website builder:<\/span><\/span> You can use Ecwid to build a stand-alone website with simple product listings and checkout functionality.<\/span>
Choice of payment processor:<\/span><\/span> Ecwid is owned by Lightspeed, a payment processor, but there\u2019s no financial benefit to using Lightspeed over Stripe, Square, PayPal or any of the other payment methods Ecwid supports. You\u2019ll have to pay your payment processor\u2019s fees, but Ecwid doesn\u2019t charge fees on top of that.<\/span>
Who should use Ecwid:<\/span><\/span> Businesses that already have a website and want to sell just a handful of products. <\/span>Read NerdWallet\u2019s review of Ecwid<\/span><\/a>.<\/span>
WooCommerce is a plug-in that lets you add an <\/span>online shopping cart<\/span><\/a> to a WordPress website. It\u2019s feature-rich and highly customizable: You can choose a theme, make edits to shopping cart and checkout pages, send customers coupons and rewards, and use extensions to add tons of additional functionality.<\/span>
Though WooCommerce is open source and free, you\u2019ll need WordPress\u2019 Business or Commerce plan to run plug-ins. Those plans cost $25 or $45 per month, respectively. The Commerce plan comes with WooCommerce pre-installed.<\/span>
WooCommerce\u2019s key features include:<\/span>
Variety of payment options:<\/span><\/span> You can customize your shopping cart so that it accepts payment from credit and debit cards as well as cash on delivery, bank transfers and checks.<\/span>
Social media and online marketplace sales:<\/span><\/span> WooCommerce can facilitate advertising on Facebook and Google and help you list products on Pinterest, Amazon, eBay and other platforms.<\/span>
Shipping support:<\/span><\/span> You can print U.S. Postal Service and DHL shipping labels from your WooCommerce dashboard, which is built into the backend of your WordPress website. Some customers may qualify for discounted shipping rates.<\/span>
Who should use WooCommerce:<\/span><\/span> Businesses that already run on WordPress and have a web developer on staff. <\/span>Here\u2019s how WooCommerce stacks up against Shopify, a leading e-commerce platform<\/span><\/a>.<\/span>
Freewebstore is an online store builder that offers lots of features and themes. It may be a good fit for businesses that want an <\/span>e-commerce website<\/span><\/a> but don\u2019t expect online revenue to exceed $30,000 annually; after that, you\u2019ll have to upgrade to a paid plan.<\/span>
Freewebstore comes with other limitations \u2014 for instance, no additional accounts for your staff and Freewebstore ads on your website. But it offers an opportunity to experiment with many features and get comfortable online before you decide whether you really want to invest in it.<\/span>
Freewebstore\u2019s key features include:<\/span>
Abandoned cart emails:<\/span><\/span> You can automatically generate emails to customers who navigate away from your website with items still in their cart. However, if the customer comes back and completes their purchase, Freewebstore will take 5% of it.<\/span>
Requests for customer reviews:<\/span><\/span> Ten times per month, you can generate emails to customers asking them to review your products. Positive online reviews may help future customers decide to make purchases.<\/span>
Vacation responder:<\/span><\/span> Taking some time off? You can put your Freewebstore shop in \u201cvacation mode,\u201d which sends customers a message letting them know you\u2019ll be offline for a while.<\/span>
Who should use Freewebstore:<\/span><\/span> Small businesses that want to set up an e-commerce website with lots of features but don\u2019t expect to exceed $30,000 in annual revenue.<\/span>
Shopify Starter isn\u2019t free: It costs $5 per month. But Shopify is a market leader in e-commerce, and its Starter plan offers a chance for <\/span>e-commerce businesses<\/span><\/a> with a social media following to get off the ground before building out a full online store.<\/span>
In addition to the monthly fee, Shopify Payments takes a transaction fee of 5% on each sale.<\/span>
Shopify Starter\u2019s key features include:<\/span>
Unlimited products:<\/span><\/span> Your store can include as many items as you want.<\/span>
No website \u2014 just a \u201clink in bio\u201d page:<\/span><\/span> You won\u2019t get your own website with Shopify Starter. Instead, you can share links to individual products directly on social media or through messaging apps. You can also create a page displaying your top products, which comes with a custom URL that you can add to social media bios.<\/span>
Shopify\u2019s order dashboard:<\/span><\/span> On the backend, Shopify Starter users have access to an analytics dashboard, which displays information like which social channels are driving traffic to the store and how much revenue the average order generates.<\/span>
Who should use Shopify Starter:<\/span><\/span> E-commerce businesses that want to launch social media and online marketplace sales and eventually develop their own website. <\/span>Read NerdWallet\u2019s review of Shopify<\/span><\/a>.<\/span>
Ask yourself the following questions while weighing your options.<\/span>
From Big Cartel\u2019s five-product limit to Square Online\u2019s lack of a limit, there\u2019s a wide range of options. If you\u2019re a microbusiness that lists only a few products at a time, think about whether you anticipate even moderate growth. If so, consider starting on a platform without a product limit.<\/span>
Some free e-commerce website builders require you to use a proprietary payment processor. Others offer only one or two <\/span>payment processor options<\/span><\/a>.<\/span>
On one hand, that\u2019s one less decision for you to make \u2014\u00a0and if you generate a relatively small amount of revenue, it might not make that big of a difference to your bottom line. But on the other hand, that means you can\u2019t save money by choosing a processor with lower fees.<\/span>
If choosing your own payment processor matters, make sure to choose a website builder like WooCommerce or Ecwid that supports a variety of them.<\/span>
None of the free options on this list charge a monthly subscription fee, but you\u2019ll have to pay for them in other ways:<\/span>
Losing a cut of your revenue to payment processing fees.<\/span>
Keeping your revenue below a certain cap.<\/span>
Paying for a related service, like WordPress or a website that can run Ecwid\u2019s plug-in.<\/span>
You may also have to upgrade for certain features. Ecwid free users can\u2019t sell digital goods, for instance, and Big Cartel free users get only one photo per product.<\/span>
Decide which features matter most to your business, and look for the online store builder that offers that functionality for free. You may have to pay for additional features or upgrade to a subscription service as your business grows, though.<\/span>
Some of these platforms, like Shift4Shop, WooCommerce and Shopify, can support your business scaling many times over. But others are much more limited. If you outgrow your <\/span>e-commerce platform<\/span><\/a>, moving all your listings to a new one can be a lot of work; plus, you risk losing months or years of order history and data.<\/span>
If significant growth is on the horizon, consider committing to a more feature-rich e-commerce website now. Shopify, <\/span>Squarespace<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>Wix<\/span><\/a> all offer multiple pricing tiers so you don\u2019t have to pay for too many features that you don\u2019t plan to use. These all charge subscription fees, but you can sign up for free trials to compare these paid website builders to your free options.<\/span>
Instead of building a website, lots of small businesses create a profile on an online marketplace, like <\/span>Etsy<\/span><\/a> or <\/span>eBay<\/span><\/a>. In general, these platforms charge higher fees than the website builders listed above \u2014\u00a0Etsy charges 20 cents to list each item, then takes 6.5% of each sale, for example \u2014 but they can also be easier to use.<\/span>
Using a marketplace instead of building a website may be a good choice if:<\/span>
You don\u2019t feel that comfortable online.<\/span><\/span> You don\u2019t need to know how to code to use Square Online, Big Cartel, Shift4Shop or Shopify Starter. But it can still seem daunting to build a website from scratch. Marketplaces offer far fewer customization options, which means the learning curve can be less steep.<\/span>
Your business revenue is relatively low.<\/span><\/span> The more you sell, the bigger the difference will be between the transaction fees charged by payment processors \u2014\u00a0usually around 3% per transaction \u2014 and the higher fees charged by online marketplaces. But if your business is small or seasonal, that may make less of a difference.<\/span>
Your business fits in the right niche.<\/span><\/span> Shoppers generally go to Etsy for handmade goods, eBay for collectibles and <\/span>Poshmark<\/span><\/a> for fashion. If your business fits neatly into one of those categories \u2014 or there\u2019s another platform that serves your community \u2014\u00a0your customer base is probably already there, too.<\/span><\/p>\n

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