Best Ecommerce Website Builders (2026): Prices and Fees Compared

The best ecommerce website builders in 2026 are Shopify for most product sellers and dropshippers, Wix and Squarespace for design-led brands that also sell, BigCommerce for larger catalogs, and WooCommerce if you want full control on WordPress. If you need to start at $0, Square Online's free plan is the most usable free ecommerce website builder we checked. Every price below was taken from the official US pricing pages in October 2026, including the transaction fees most comparison lists skip.

That last part matters more than the monthly fee. A $19 plan that adds 2% to every sale costs more than a $29 plan with no fee once you pass roughly $500 a month in orders. We'll walk through that math, compare Shopify vs Wix vs Squarespace head to head, and finish with a quick way to choose based on what you sell.

Best ecommerce website builders compared (October 2026 prices)

Prices are per month in USD. "Yearly" means the monthly equivalent when you pay for a year upfront. The transaction fee column is the platform's own cut, charged on top of normal card processing.

Sources: each vendor's pricing page (Shopify, Squarespace, BigCommerce, Wix, WooCommerce and the others named above), checked from a US connection on 20 October 2026. Prices change and some vendors show different prices by country, so confirm on the vendor's site before you pay.

What a good ecommerce website builder actually needs

Most builders can put products on a page. The differences show up three months in, when you're processing real orders. Before you look at templates, check these five things:

• Total cost at your sales volume. Add the plan price, the platform's transaction fee and card processing. A "cheap" plan with a 2% fee is expensive once orders pick up.
• Checkout and payments. Can customers pay with cards, PayPal, Apple Pay and Google Pay? Does the builder push you toward its own payment processor, and what happens if you don't use it?
• Apps for how you source products. If you dropship, you need an app that imports products and sends orders to suppliers. Shopify's builder page lists 13,000+ apps; smaller builders have far fewer supplier integrations.
• Catalog limits. Webflow's Standard plan caps you at 500 ecommerce items and Ecwid's Starter plan at 10 products. Shopify, Squarespace and BigCommerce let you sell unlimited products.
• SEO basics. Editable title tags and meta descriptions, clean URLs, automatic sitemaps and a built-in blog. All the builders in the table cover these; the gap is how much control you get over structured data and page speed.

The 11 best ecommerce website builders, reviewed

1. Shopify: best overall and best for dropshipping

Shopify is built around selling, and it shows in the checkout, the order admin and the app store. Plans are Basic ($39 a month, or $29 billed yearly), Grow ($105, or $89 yearly) and Advanced ($399, or $359 yearly), with Plus starting at $2,300 a month. New stores get 3 days free and then $1 a month for the first three months.

The catch is the third-party transaction fee. If you use Shopify Payments, Shopify takes nothing extra beyond card processing (2.9% + 30¢ online on Basic). If you use another gateway, Shopify adds 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow and 0.6% on Advanced. For most US and EU sellers the simple answer is to use Shopify Payments.

Why it wins for dropshipping: every serious supplier app supports Shopify first, from AliExpress importers to US supplier marketplaces. If you plan to sell products you don't stock, start here. Our guide to dropshipping on Shopify with AliExpress walks through the setup.

Watch out for: paid apps add up. Budget $20 to $60 a month for the three or four apps most stores end up installing (reviews, email, upsells, sourcing).

2. Wix: best for design control on a small catalog

Wix's drag-and-drop editor gives you more layout freedom than Shopify's section-based themes. You can build for free, but the Free and Light ($17) plans can't accept payments. Selling starts on Core at $29 a month, then Business at $39 and Business Elite at $159, all billed yearly. Wix doesn't add its own transaction fee on product sales; you pay card processing through Wix Payments or another provider.

Wix lists "Dropshipping by Modalyst" in its plan features, so you can dropship without a third-party platform, but the supplier choice is narrower than on Shopify. Good fit: a boutique with 20 to 200 products, a strong visual identity and a blog. Weaker fit: a store that needs complex discounts, many apps or high order volume. If Wix is your pick, our Wix AliExpress dropshipping guide covers the sourcing side.

3. Squarespace: best templates, and watch the Basic fee

Squarespace replaced its old Personal, Business and Commerce plans with four new ones: Basic ($25 monthly or $19 yearly), Core ($39 or $29), Plus ($65 or $49) and Advanced ($139 or $99). All of them can sell unlimited products. The difference is fees: Basic charges a 2% transaction fee on online store sales, while Core and above charge 0%. Card rates also drop from 2.9% + 30¢ on Basic and Core to 2.7% on Plus and 2.5% on Advanced when you use Squarespace Payments.

Squarespace templates are still the most polished out of the box, and it handles services, bookings and memberships well. Its ecommerce tools are aimed at products you make or stock yourself, so if you plan to dropship, check the supplier integrations before you commit.

4. BigCommerce: best for large catalogs (note the new 2026 fees)

BigCommerce renamed and repriced its plans for 2026: Core ($39 monthly, $29 yearly, up to $30K in trailing 12-month sales), Growth ($105 or $79, up to $100K), Scale ($399 or $299) and Performance from $1,499 a month. Plans move up automatically when your sales pass the cap.

The bigger change is a new fee on orders processed through what BigCommerce calls "open" payment providers: 2% of eligible GMV on Core, 1% on Growth and 0.6% on Scale. Orders through its embedded providers carry no fee. That makes BigCommerce's fee structure look a lot like Shopify's now. Where it still stands out is native B2B features, multi-storefront and handling big, complex catalogs without stacking apps.

5. WooCommerce: best free software if you're on WordPress

WooCommerce is a free, open-source plugin for WordPress. There's no platform fee and no revenue share; you pay for hosting, a domain, any paid extensions and card processing (WooPayments lists US card rates of roughly 2.5% to 2.9% + 30¢). Realistic running costs for a small store land between $10 and $50 a month depending on your host.

You get full control of your data, design and code. You also own the maintenance: plugin updates, security, backups and speed. If that sounds like a chore, a hosted builder will save you hours every month.

6. Square Online: best free plan for real selling

Square Online is the strongest answer to "free ecommerce website builder" because its Free plan actually lets you sell: $0 a month, with online card payments at 3.3% + 30¢. Square Plus ($49 a month per location) and Premium ($149) lower the online rate to 2.9% + 30¢ and add more advanced features, with a 30-day free trial. It's the obvious choice if you already use Square for in-person sales, since inventory and orders sit in one place.

7. Webflow: best for designers who want pixel-level control

Webflow's ecommerce plans are Standard ($29 a month billed yearly, 500 items, 2% transaction fee), Plus ($74, 5,000 items, 0% fee) and Advanced ($212, 15,000 items, 0% fee). The visual editor and CMS are excellent for content-heavy brands, but the learning curve is steep and the app ecosystem for sourcing and fulfillment is thin. Pick it for a brand site with a modest catalog, not a fast-moving product store.

8. Hostinger Website Builder: lowest upfront price

Hostinger's ecommerce-capable Website Builder plan (Unlimited) is advertised at $3.49 a month, but that price requires paying for 48 months upfront ($167.52) and it renews at $16.99 a month. It includes a domain for the first year, AI design tools and 0% transaction fees. It's a fair deal for a side project. Just compare the renewal price, not the intro price, against the other builders.

9. Ecwid by Lightspeed: best for adding a shop to an existing site

Ecwid embeds a store into a site you already have (WordPress, Wix, a custom site) or social pages. In 2026 it no longer lists a free plan: Starter is $5 a month for up to 10 products, Venture is $35 a month ($29 yearly) for 100 products, Business is $65 ($49 yearly) for 2,500 and Unlimited is $149 ($119 yearly). Ecwid says it charges no setup or transaction fees on any plan.

10. Big Cartel: best for artists and makers

Big Cartel keeps things simple. The limited Gold plan is free, Platinum is $15 a month after a 7-day trial, and Diamond is $30 a month with abandoned cart recovery and product drops. It's built for people selling their own work, not for big catalogs or dropshipping at scale.

11. GoDaddy Airo: easiest for a local business

GoDaddy's builder now runs on its Airo AI tools. To take payments and use the product catalog you need the Professional plan at $24.99 a month billed yearly. Domain, site and email can sit on one bill, which suits a local shop that wants simple, but customization and integrations trail Shopify and Wix.

Enterprise and self-hosted options

Adobe Commerce (formerly Magento) is aimed at large companies with developers and is priced through Adobe's sales team. PrestaShop and OpenCart are free, open-source carts you host yourself. All three give you full control, but none of them make sense for a first store unless you or a developer are comfortable with servers and code.

Shopify vs Wix vs Squarespace: which one should you pick?

These three get compared more than any others, so here's a direct answer based on what you sell.

Our take: if products are the business, choose Shopify. If the website is the business and products are part of it, choose Squarespace (on Core, not Basic). Choose Wix if you want to design every pixel of a smaller shop yourself.

What you'll really pay: a worked example

Say your store does $5,000 a month in online sales, about 125 orders at a $40 average. Here's what the platform layer costs before you spend anything on ads or apps:

• Shopify Basic, yearly, using Shopify Payments: $29 plan + card processing of 2.9% + 30¢ per order ($145 + $37.50) = about $211.50.
• Same store using a third-party gateway: add Shopify's 2% ($100), plus whatever your gateway charges for processing. That single setting can cost you $1,200 a year.
• Squarespace Basic vs Core, yearly: Basic is $19 plus a 2% fee ($100) = $119 before processing. Core is $29 with no fee. Core is cheaper as soon as you sell more than $500 a month.
• Webflow Standard vs Plus: Standard's 2% fee costs $100 here; Plus costs $45 more per month but has no fee, so Plus wins once you pass about $2,250 a month in sales.
• BigCommerce Core with an open payment provider: $29 plan + 2% of GMV, which BigCommerce calculates as order value minus 10% ($4,500 x 2% = $90).

The lesson: once you have regular sales, the platform's transaction fee matters more than the monthly price. Run your own numbers with your expected order count before choosing a plan.

Free ecommerce website builders: what "free" really means

Very few builders let you sell for $0. Here's what each "free" option includes in October 2026:

• Square Online Free: a real store with no monthly fee. You pay 3.3% + 30¢ per online card payment.
• Big Cartel Gold: free but limited, fine for testing a handful of products.
• WooCommerce: free software, but you still pay for hosting and a domain.
• Wix Free: you can build and publish, but you can't accept payments until you upgrade to Core.
• Shopify: not free, but 3 free days and then $1 a month for three months makes it nearly free while you build and test.

For a deeper list, see our roundup of free website builders for dropshipping.

How to choose the best website builder for your online store

1. Write down how you'll source products. Making your own, holding stock, print on demand or dropshipping? That alone rules out half the list.
2. Estimate monthly sales for months 3 to 12. Even a rough number lets you compare transaction fees properly.
3. Price the plan you'll actually need, not the cheapest one. Check product limits, staff accounts and whether payments are included.
4. Check the apps. Search the builder's app store for your supplier, email tool and review app before you sign up.
5. Use the free trial with real tasks. Add five products, set up shipping zones, place a test order and process a refund. You'll know within an hour whether the admin suits you.
6. Plan your exit. Make sure you can export products, customers and orders as CSV. Moving platforms later is possible but painful.

Where AliDrop fits if you're building a dropshipping store

If you've picked Shopify and want to sell without holding stock, AliDrop handles the product side. It imports products from AliExpress, Alibaba and Temu into Shopify in one click, sends orders to suppliers automatically and gives you access to vetted US and EU suppliers for faster delivery. The AI Shopify store builder can set up a starting store for you, and the AI title and description generator rewrites supplier listings so they don't read like everyone else's.

AliDrop starts with a 7-day trial for $1, then plans run from $39 a month (Starter) to $299 (Unicorn); see AliDrop pricing for the details. If you want to try it while your Shopify trial is running, you can start your $1 AliDrop trial here. For more on the platform choice itself, read our guide to the best ecommerce platform for dropshipping and our list of Shopify dropshipping suppliers.

Our pick

For most people starting an online store in 2026, Shopify is the best ecommerce website builder: the checkout converts, the app choice is unmatched and the fees are low if you use Shopify Payments. Squarespace Core is the best choice if your website and brand matter as much as the products, Wix suits hands-on designers with small catalogs, and Square Online is the only free option that works as a real shop. Pick on total cost and sourcing fit, not on templates.

Ready to fill your new store with products? Try AliDrop for $1 for the first 7 days and import your first items in minutes.