Best Ecommerce Website Builders 2021

1. Wix

Best overall ecommerce website builder

Wix is brilliant for smaller online stores, but thanks to a massive overhaul of its sales features over the past year, plus regular Wix discounts, it can now truly hold its own with the very best ecommerce platforms.

Based on our most recent round of research and testing, Wix now boasts an impressive score of 4.4 out of 5 for sales features, and an almost unbeatable 4.8 out of 5 overall as an ecommerce platform (compared to 4.6 in previous research).

It makes creating an online shop incredibly easy, even for first timers, and the results will look slick and professional thanks to some brilliant templates.

Wix hasn't historically offered all of the features necessary for managing larger stores. However, Wix has consistently worked hard to update its platform and boost its ecommerce functionality, rolling out a host of new features and improvements on a regular basis. For this reason, we've rated Wix as the top-rated ecommerce website builder available today.

Is Wix good for ecommerce?

Wix is great for ecommerce if you're running a smaller online store, and if you're keen to design your own site. When you sign up for a Wix ecommerce site, you get access to a rapidly improving ecommerce platform, with unmatched help and support. What’s more, in our user testing, Wix scored well for ease of use – particularly for having an easy to understand interface. It does have a bit of a steep learning curve, but once you're past the initial growing pains, Wix is a breeze to navigate.

Additionally, if you're using Ascend by Wix — the Marketing & Customer Management Suite provided by the website builder — you'll be able to centrally control and automate a range of business functions, from promoting your business with marketing emails to giving customers help and support with chatbots. You can also easily create multilingual sites with Wix – ideal for users in countries with one or more major languages.

Designing an ecommerce site with Wix

Wix's ecommerce platform uses exactly the same design tools as the regular Wix website builder. This means that you'll easily be able to build a brilliant-looking online store in minutes.

Wix offers a great range of templates for online stores that you'll be able to customize with new text and images for all your products, plus contact forms and extra pages. Wix's drag-and-drop editor makes everything super easy, as well.

How much does Wix ecommerce cost?

Wix offers three dedicated ecommerce pricing plans: Business Basic, Business Unlimited, and Business VIP.

2. Shopify

Best for larger ecommerce businesses

Shopify excelled across the board in our testing. It combines top class sales channel integration with a simple and intuitive UI, and features great reporting tools to help optimize your sales.

Shopify is nearly unmatched when it comes to integrating disparate sales channels into a single online platform. Through its Shopify Payments system, you’re able to track everything from sales on Instagram through to Google Shopping, and even real-world point of sale transactions. That’s right – if you run a bricks-and-mortar store, you can manage all your sales, inventory, and accounting through one platform.

The downside, of course, is that Shopify is kind of expensive. While its app store is massive, allowing users to take advantage of basically any ecommerce feature they can think of, the apps don't come cheap. This, combined with the lack of built-in apps available right out of the gate, means you could end up spending a lot on Shopify.

Designing an ecommerce site with Shopify

Shopify is probably one of the best ecommerce platform when it comes to design, although the interface isn't exactly intuitive, so you may have some issues if you're a beginner to website builders. It offers loads of different website templates, all of which are mobile optimized and can be edited and changed to your liking with remarkable depth.

Don't underestimate just how simple it can be to create your own online store – paying for a website designer is no small undertaking, with costs often spiraling into the thousands. A website builder, however, can be far cheaper and surprisingly easy, even for novices. Thanks to Shopify's great templates, you could create a functioning online store in a matter of hours. To see for yourself, simply take advantage of the 14 day free trial.

How much does Shopify cost?

Shopify offers three main pricing plans: Shopify Basic, Shopify, and Shopify Advanced.

Now, a word of caution. Shopify will seem much more expensive than some of the other platforms on this list, and that's because it definitely is. However, you're paying for a superior experience with Shopify, which makes the value more than worth it if you're a larger business.

While the Basic plan costs $29 per month when paid annually, it will give you all the tools you need to run an online store. No extra apps required – everything is ready to go.

The confusingly named Shopify plan costs $79 per month. This gives you some cheaper credit card processing rates, and some nice extra features such as gift card issuing. It also gives you support for hardware peripherals, such as receipt printers, which are essential if you're running a bricks-and-mortar store as well as your website.

The Shopify Advanced plan costs $299 per month when paid annually. You get access to a report building tools, as well as third-party calculated shipping rates, which means customers will be able to see how much it'll cost them to get a product delivered through different companies.

To be transparent, Shopify does offer a Lite plan for $9 per month and an enterprise-level plan called Plus for $2,000 per month, but we recommend sticking to those middle three plans if you're interested in ecommerce.

Want to know more? See our Shopify pricing guide

3. Squarespace

Best for growing businesses

You might be forgiven for thinking we’ve put Squarespace in by mistake. After all, it’s a website builder first-and-foremost, designed to give you a great-looking website, and not designed as an ecommerce platform.

However, we found Squarespace to be a very competent ecommerce platform. For a start, its product and inventory management is just as advanced as any of the other platforms on this list, with a surprising amount of detail on offer. It also allows you to easily stock different types of products, from your standard physical products to digital downloads and even services. Plus, the built-in scalability of the platform allows for growing businesses to grow along with the platform, rather than trying to figure out something when you hit it big.

Squarespace templates

As we mentioned above, Squarespace's real advantage is that it has some of the best website builder templates on the market. The templates are all designed in-house, and are completely optimized for mobiles and tablets as well as laptops and PCs.

There are plenty designed specifically for ecommerce websites as well, so getting started will be a piece of cake.

Taking payments on Squarespace

While Squarespace previously only allowed for two third-party payment options, the company has since expanded, allowing payments through Stripe, Paypal, Apple Pay, and Afterpay. Unfortunately, you will be limited in your ability to internationalize due to tricky language settings and shipping choices.

Squarespace also offers compatibility with Square – one of the biggest POS providers out there — which can be a huge benefit to any business, particularly physical stores.

Squarespace pricing

Squarespace offers two pricing plan for online stores: Basic Commerce and Advanced Commerce.

The Basic plan costs $26 per month. For that, you get a mobile optimized checkout, and improved commercial metrics to identify any pain-points your users are finding with your site. What's more, you won't have to pay any transaction fees on any sales.

The Advanced plan costs $40 per month, and gives you lots of extra features. For example, you get abandoned cart recoveries as well as shipping rate calculations for USPS, FedEx, and UPS. You get access to Squarespace's Orders API, which allows you to build custom integration with third-party services for order fulfillment and production logistics. Plus, you can sell gift cards and recurring digital services, such as magazines or members-only podcasts.

Want to know more? Read our full Squarespace for ecommerce review

4. Square Online

Best for businesses on a budget

Square Online is one of the easiest ecommerce platforms to get started with. Signing up and building a store with the platform is remarkably straightforward. All the tools you need to create an online store are offered up straightaway with minimal fuss and confusion.

What's more, unlike most of its rivals, you can start selling stuff online without signing up for one of Square Online's paid plans. Yes, that's right, this platform is completely free right. Unfortunately, the transaction fees

However, while it is simple and cheap to get started with, Square Online has some problems.

Square Online design

Square Online doesn't offer you a whole lot in the way of design or customization options.

In fact, during our user testing, we found Square Online's designs to be a bit basic. Unlike most of its rivals, Square Online doesn't give users a range of site templates to choose from. Instead, you get a basic layout which can be changed a bit, but you'll still be left with something that looks a bit generic.

Square Online bricks and mortar

Perhaps one of Square's biggest upsides is that it has seamless integration with Square's POS software.

That makes Square Online a great choice if you're already using Square's POS tools for a bricks and mortar store. All your sales, accounting, and inventory information will be stored together, making everything easy to access and easy to manage.

Find out more in our full Square Online review

Square Online pricing

As we mentioned above, Square Online is the only worthwhile ecommerce platform that allows you to start selling stuff for free — with a pretty expensive 2.9% + $0.30 transaction fee on all sales.

However, there are some drawbacks to the free plan. For example, you won't get a custom domain name — meaning you'll be left with something that looks sloppy and a bit unprofessional. Your site will also feature Square Online branding, with banner adverts that, again, make your site look amateurish. However, you get access to all the accounting and inventory features offered on the more expensive plans which is, in our mind, pretty remarkable.

The paid-for plans start with the $16 per month Professional plan which removes the Square Online branding whilst also giving you unlimited storage. The $29 per month Performance plan gives you some extra marketing and shipping features.

The $79 per month Premium plan lowers the transaction fee to 2.6% and offers improved shipping discounts. Your customers will also be able to use the real-time shipping calculator, letting them see exactly how much they'll pay at checkout.

5. BigCommerce

Best for inventory management

While it can’t quite match Shopify or Wix, BigCommerce is still an excellent ecommerce platform. The main drawbacks to BigCommerce are its slightly limited customization options, and that its interface is difficult to navigate and doesn't provide many helpful tips to get the hang of it.

However, when it comes to its core function as a sales platform, BigCommerce can match Shopify stride-for-stride. Between the lack of transaction fees entirely and the impressive inventory management features, you could make the case, depending on your needs, that BigCommerce is a better fit for your business.

BigCommerce reporting and transaction fees

This is thanks to its excellent reporting and sales analysis tools, excellent product inventory detail, and the wide range of sales channels it can integrate, including real-world point of sale transactions.

BigCommerce doesn’t place transaction fees on the sales you make – something that you might have to put up with if you opt for Shopify. However, BigCommerce will place a cap on the total value of sales you can make, which increases depending on the pricing plan you choose.

And right now, they're running a promotion: Sign up before the end of January 2022 and get two months free!

Want to know more? See our BigCommerce pricing guide

Sales channels

BigCommerce allows you to manage loads of different sales channels through its platform. In addition to selling on your own website, you'll also be able to sell products on Instagram, eBay, and Amazon while controlling everything through your BigCommerce account.

This makes BigCommerce a much more viable option than some of the website builder-focused options, if you're looking to run a big ecommerce operation.

BigCommerce pricing

BigCommerce has three main pricing plans, and they're very similar to Shopify's. There's the $29.95 per month Standard plan, the $79.95 per month Plus plan, and the $299.95 per month Pro plan.

The Standard plan allows you to list an unlimited number of products with any payment processor you want. However, it doesn't give you access to some of the customer-centric features that are now commonplace, and your annual sales are capped to $50,000.

The Plus plan ups the sales cap to $150,000 per year. It also allows you to create custom customer groups for more precisely targeted marketing, while customers are able to score credit cards.

The Pro plan gives you access to Google customer reviews, allows you to import a custom SSL certificate, and lifts the sales cap to $400,000 per annum.

Want to know more? See our BigCommerce pricing guide

6. Volusion

Best for non-beginners

We're not going to sugarcoat it; Volusion is a great ecommerce platform, but it's kind of hard to use. Simply put, it just isn’t quite as intuitive and straightforward to use as many of the options on this list, which really holds it back in this context.

Volusion does do some things right though. For one, it has great, mobile-responsive website templates, which will help make your site stand out from the crowd. On top of that, it provides one of the strongest site speeds on this list, which is nothing to scoff at when it comes to a quality website.

Volusion sales features

Like the other platforms in this list, Volusion has a good range of strong sales features – especially its highly-detailed inventory management. This will pay dividends as your business grows, as managing your stock and analyzing your sales performance will be easy.

It also has no transaction fees, and a great range of reporting tools which can help you stay on top of your dealings.

Volusion confusion

But, as we mentioned above, it can be a bit confusing to navigate. Some features relating to your site’s design, for example, can be accessed from two separate menus, creating a doubled-up feeling which leaves your head spinning.

Some menus are simply confusing, with pages you’d expect to be in one place being located in a seemingly unrelated menu. Still, Volusion’s proactive help and support team should be able to help.

Volusion pricing

Volusion offers three fixed pricing plans, as well as a POA plan for the largest businesses, with pricing based on your gross merchandise volume.

The Personal plan costs $29 per month, and is meant for small businesses. You only have access to online support, and will be limited to 100 products and up to $50,000 sales per year.

The Professional plan costs $79 per month, and will let you list 5,000 products on your site. The sales cap is doubled to $100,000 per year, and you get access to features such as product reviews, newsletters, and abandoned cart recoveries.

The Business plan costs $299 per month, and gives you a lot of extra features. For example, you get access to Volusion’s API, advanced report builder tools, and the platform's “Dedicated Success Team,” who can advise you on business decisions rather than simply offering support.

7. Big Cartel

Best for individual launching a side gig

Big Cartel is unique on this list, in that it is primarily aimed at artists and other creators to sell pieces with a simple and affordable platform. Between the stripped back feature set, the low prices, and the basic templates, you'll be able to set up an online shop quickly and easily that won't distract from your creative vision.

That being said, any other kind of business likely wants to steer clear of Big Cartel. It's incredibly limited with even in the more expensive plans missing advanced ecommerce features like gift cards and abandoned cart recovery. It's also quite limited in a branding sense, as marketing features are virtually non-existent.

Big Cartel inventory management

Yes, Big Cartel offers a free plan, and it can be very attractive if you're planning on selling less than five products. However, there are a few features missing from the free plan that you get when you pay, and one of them is inventory tracking.

With this feature, you'll be able to not only sell your products, but you'll also be able to make sure you're keeping track of everything effectively. Plus, you'll be perfectly set up to scale down the road, which is always beneficial for a growing business.

By artists, for artists

Unlike most of the website builders on this list, Big Cartel has a pretty notable niche, and it's artists. According to their website, they've helped in the sale of more than $2.5 billion worth of art, and the small team aims to support artists however they can.

If you aren't an artist though, this might not be your best option. Particularly for the money, you could get a much more effective website builder that is a bit more robust when it comes to ecommerce features. Still, if you're looking to launch a small, artistic side gig, you've found the perfect option.