The Best Free and Cheap Ecommerce Website Builders

Square is the best free ecommerce website builder that we tested. It’s the only platform to offer a free ecommerce software plan, which can be paired with its free EPOS software for combined online and in-person selling.

That said, you’ll still have to pay card processing fees of 1.4% +25p per transaction with Square, so remember that there’s unfortunately no such thing as a completely free ecommerce website builder.

The other providers on this list still charge monthly subscription fees for using their ecommerce website builders; however, they offer cheap starter plans, making them the next best thing after Square’s free plan.

The Best Free and Cheap Ecommerce Website Builders: Quick Comparison

Here’s a side-by-side look at the best free and cheap ecommerce website builders:

1. Square Online: Best Option With No Monthly Fees

Square Online is the only ecommerce website builder we tested that offers a truly free plan, meaning it doesn’t charge monthly subscription fees for its software. That said, you’ll still have to pay card processing fees on every item you sell through your Square Online store, something that is unavoidable in the industry.

What makes Square Online the best free option?

As we’ve noted, Square’s main draw is that it’s the only ecommerce platform on this list to offer a free plan that lets you sell online. While competitor Wix also offers a free plan, it doesn’t allow you to sell online; you have to be on the £16 per Month Core plan to access ecommerce features.

Plus, its card processing of 1.4% + 25p per UK online transaction is also quite low compared to Wix’s 2.1% +20p fee, and Squarespace’s starting fee of 2% + 25p (you can get lower fees if you pay more for a monthly subscription)/

Square’s free plan is also quite generous. It allows you to sell an unlimited number of products, something Wix and Hostinger’s paid plans don’t offer, and includes a few more premium features, such as integrations with third-party shipping apps, shipping label printing, and tax calculations.

A free ecommerce website builder isn’t the only free software Square offers. It also offers free EPOS software, which easily integrates with its ecommerce platform, making it a cost-effective option for small businesses that take payments in person but want to supplement with online sales.

Square also offers paid versions of its ecommerce website builder, which come with more website design and customisation tools. The maximum price it charges for ecommerce is £69 per month, which is cheap compared to competitors. Wix’s most expensive plan costs £119, while Shopify’s costs $2,300 USD.

What fees does Square Online charge?

• Monthly subscription fees: £0-£69/month
• Card processing fees: 1.4% + 25p/UK card transaction; 2.5% + 25p/Non-UK card transaction
• Hosting fees: None (included with ecommerce website builder)
• Domain registration: Variable (£0 on free plan, £10-£20/year otherwise)

This is not an exhaustive list of all Square’s fees, simply the ones related to its ecommerce website builder. Other Square products, such as its EPOS system or marketing tools, come with their own fees, although Square offers both free and paid versions of most of its products.

Are there any drawbacks to using Square Online?

As with all free website builder plans, one catch is that you have the platform’s branding on each of your web pages, plus a subdomain on your URL. These risks include your site appearing unprofessional (or worse, untrustworthy), which can lead to lost sales.

Additionally, Square limits design and customisation features on its free plan, with templates and stock images only available on its paid ecommerce plans. AI content creation tools are also nonexistent on the free plan, and the paid plans only feature AI-powered product descriptions.

If you’re looking for an ecommerce website builder with AI tools to help you design your online store quickly, we recommend Wix or Hostinger.

2. Wix: Best for Free Built-in Marketing Tools

While Wix offers a free website building plan, you have to upgrade to at least the £16 per month Core plan to access ecommerce features and sell online. That said, all Wix plans come with a plethora of free built-in marketing tools, meaning you don’t need to pay more for third-party apps. This makes it a cost-effective ecommerce platform for small online stores.

What makes Wix a good free or cheap ecommerce website builder?

As we’ve noted, Wix has a free website-building plan, but doesn’t offer a free ecommerce website builder. That said, taking into account its large array of built-in content creation and marketing features, its cheapest ecommerce plan, the £16 per month Core plan, offers great value for money.

For example, Wix is the only ecommerce website builder on this list to offer free built-in logo, email campaign, and social post creation tools, removing the need to integrate and pay for a third-party app. Comparatively, competitors Shopify, Squarespace, and Square only offer built-in email marketing, and Square charges extra for this feature.

It also has over 900 free pre-built website templates, the most of any provider on this list (Shopify has both free and paid templates, while Square doesn’t offer them on its free plan), which increases the chance you’ll find one that matches your unique needs and preferences.

When it comes to ecommerce features, Wix offers a comprehensive range, including stock monitoring, automated abandoned cart recovery, and integration with online marketplaces such as Amazon and social media platforms such as Facebook. These should be enough for most small businesses to successfully manage and market their online store.

Lastly, Wix offers a great set of AI tools, which can help inexperienced users build an ecommerce website quickly. Wix’s AI website builder can produce a wide variety of website designs based on the same prompt, and AI tools extend to other areas of content creation, including writing, image generation, and marketing.

What fees does Wix charge?

• Monthly subscription fees: £16-£119/month
• Card processing fees: 2.1% + 20p
• Hosting fees: None (included with ecommerce website builder)
• Domain registration: Variable (£10-£20/year)

Are there any drawbacks to using Wix?

The main drawback to using Wix is that it doesn’t offer a free ecommerce website building plan, and its £16 per month starter ecommerce plan isn’t the cheapest paid option on our list. You can get access to ecommerce features for just £12 per month with Squarespace, or £13.99 per month with Hostinger (after the first term £3.49 per month discount runs out).

That said, these competitors don’t offer the breadth of content creation, marketing, or AI tools that Wix does. This richness of features is a double-edged sword for Wix, since we’ve found it makes the Wix platform less user-friendly, especially for beginners. We noticed that ease of use has improved in the past year, but users looking for a basic ecommerce tool might prefer Square, or Hostinger.

3. Shopify: Cheapest Starter Plan

While Shopify isn’t known as a cheap ecommerce platform, it actually offers one of the cheapest ecommerce website builder plans on the market, the £5 per month Starter plan. This allows users to create a simple product page and checkout page, and market and sell via social media.

What makes Shopify a good free or cheap ecommerce website builder?

Shopify may not have a free ecommerce website builder, but its £5 per month Starter plan is one of the cheapest plans on the market, far less than £12 per month you’d pay with Squarespace, the next cheapest option.

With the Shopify Starter plan, you won’t be able to create a fully-fledged ecommerce website, but you’ll be able to create two essential pages: a product page, a checkout page, and a contact page. You can then share links to these pages via social media, such as Instagram or Facebook Messenger, email, and SMS.

You’ll also get access to other ecommerce features, such as basic order management (track from sale to fulfilment), and sales reporting. If you download the Shopify POS app onto your smartphone, you’ll also be able to use it to take in-person contactless payments.

While the Starter plan is quite basic, the advantage of starting your first online store with Shopify is that it allows you to scale up quickly, without needing to change ecommerce platforms. Shopify offers advanced ecommerce features on its more expensive paid plans, such as international shipping management and label printing, and is used by larger brands such as Dermatologica and Gymshark.

What fees does Shopify charge?

• Monthly subscription fees: £5-$2,300 USD/month
• Card processing fees: 5% on Starter plan, 2% + 25p to 1.5% + 25p per transaction, or custom fees on other plans
• Hosting fees: None (included with ecommerce website builder)
• Domain registration: Variable (£0 on Starter plan, £10-£20/year on other plans)

Are there any drawbacks to using Shopify?

Besides the fact that Shopify’s £5 Starter plan only allows you to create three webpages with virtually no design customisation options, it also comes with very high card processing fees of 5% with Shopify Payments, which you have to use on the Starter plan (other plans let you use third-party providers for a fee). That’s more than double the average 2% fee competitors charge.

If your online business takes off and sales increase, we recommend upgrading to one of Shopify’s premium paid plans to avoid these high fees eating into profits.

That said, we should note that Shopify’s regular paid plans cost more than competitors on average. While its £19 per month Basic plan is in line with competitors Wix and Square Online, Shopify’s paid plans quickly jump to over £200 per month. If you want to keep costs low throughout your ecommerce journey, we recommend Squarespace, which has a maximum price of £79 per month.

4. Squarespace: Cheapest Option for Creating a Stunning Website

While Squarespace doesn’t have a free ecommerce website builder plan, it lets you start selling online from its cheapest plan, the £12 per month Basic plan. This plan also gives you access to Squarespace’s high-quality templates and design tools, allowing you to create an expensive and professional-looking website without spending too much.

What makes Squarespace a good free or cheap ecommerce website builder?

Using Squarespace is the closest you can get to a professionally designed ecommerce website, which will help boost your brand image and attract more sales. Plus, you can do all this from Squarespace’s cheapest plan, the £12 per month Basic plan. That’s £4 less than what you’d be paying with Wix, and almost £2 less than Hostinger long-term.

In our testing, we rated Squarespace’s templates as the most attractive and most well-organised. This is the case for Squarespace’s prebuilt templates as well as those designed by its AI website builder, so you’ll get great results no matter how you choose to create your Squarespace online store.

Plus, Squarespace’s editor has a unique grid format that guides users on where to place elements, so we found it much easier to create a cohesive website with Squarespace compared to competitors.

When it comes to ecommerce features, Squarespace lets businesses sell unlimited products, integrate with third-party shipping apps, and create a customised checkout page that perfectly matches their brand, to name a few features.

Squarespace also offers excellent booking management tools at no extra cost, making it a great choice for businesses that need an ecommerce website to sell services such as classes or appointments. With Squarespace’s Acuity app, businesses can create a customised bookings page, set availability for different staff and across different locations, and send automated reminders to clients, all without paying for an additional booking management platform.

Lastly, don’t forget Expert Market readers can save 10% on Squarespace by entering EM10 at checkout.

What fees does Squarespace charge?

• Monthly subscription fees: £12-£79/month
• Card processing fees: 2% + 25p to 1.5% + 25p depending on plan
• Hosting fees: None (included with ecommerce website builder)
• Domain registration: Variable (£10-£20/year)

Are there any drawbacks to using Squarespace?

One of the main downsides to using Squarespace is that it has no free plan, neither for simple website building nor for ecommerce website building. That said, after Shopify’s £5 per month Starter plan, Squarespace’s £12 per month Basic is the next cheapest paid option.

Unfortunately, card processing fees are quite high on Squarespace’s cheapest plan, at 2% + 25p, plus the added 2% online transaction fee, you’re looking at a 4% + 25p fee per transaction, which is similar to the 5% on Shopify Starter. To reduce fees, you need to be on at least the next plan up, the £17 per month Core plan, where the 2% online transaction fee is waived.

5. Hostinger: Generously Discounted Pricing

While Hostinger doesn’t offer a free ecommerce website building plan, it offers a massive discount for users who sign up for a 48-month contract. You can get its £14.99 per month Business Website Builder for just £3.49 per month for the first two years, with the plan renewing at £13.99 per month. Just bear in mind you’ll have to pay for the two years upfront.

What makes Hostinger a good free or cheap ecommerce website builder?

Hostinger’s main allure as a cheap ecommerce website builder is its massive discounts for longer contracts. It allows you to pay just £3.49 per year for the first two years of using its website builder, instead of the standard £14.99 per month. That makes Hostinger even cheaper than Shopify’s £5 Starter plan for the first two years you use it.

Besides affordability, thanks to its massive discounts, Hostinger is also a very user-friendly ecommerce website builder. It’s designed so that users can use generative AI to create all their website content for them, from web design to text to images.

If you’re creating an online store, we do recommend you use some personal input, especially when it comes to product images, but when testing the platform, we found that Hostinger’s AI tools make it an accessible option for non-tech-savvy users.

Hostinger has more limited ecommerce features compared to its competitors; it doesn’t offer its own payment processing service, for example, but this allows you to choose the best rate from a third-party provider, such as Stripe or PayPal. Hostinger, unlike Squarespace or Shopify, also doesn’t tack on extra fees for online transactions.

While not a very advanced ecommerce platform, it offers essential tools such as stock monitoring, various discount settings, and a customised checkout page.

What fees does Hostinger charge?

• Monthly subscription fees: £14.99/month, paying monthly, discounts from £3.49/month for paying upfront for a term (renews at £13.99/month)
• Card processing fees: N/A (depends on chosen third-party provider)
• Hosting fees: None (included with ecommerce website builder)
• Domain registration: Variable (£10-£20/year)

Are there any drawbacks to using Hostinger?

The main downside to using Hostinger as an ecommerce website builder is that it has limited sales tools compared to competitors, and only offers one ecommerce plan, which means it can’t be scaled up as your business grows.

For example, Hostinger has a 500 product limit, while all competitors besides Wix allow for unlimited products (Wix has a generous 50,000 product limit). It also doesn’t integrate with third-party shipping apps, since Hostinger is missing an app store, and can’t be used for selling subscriptions or product bundles, unlike most competitors.

Do Completely Free Ecommerce Platforms Exist?

Unfortunately, there’s no such thing as a completely free ecommerce platform.

Even platforms such as Square Online, which don’t charge monthly subscription fees for using their website-building software, charge card processing fees on each sale you make.

While this can be frustrating, remember that a lot goes into processing an online transaction, with the buyer’s bank, the seller’s bank, the card processing service, and the card network all having to communicate to authorise the transaction and transfer the money. This is a service that understandably costs money.

You might see some ecommerce platforms claim to be free, but even if they don’t charge you card processing fees themselves, like Square, the third-party card processor you integrate into your ecommerce website will.

Additionally, these platforms typically still require you to pay for hosting and the domain registration for your website online, even if they don’t charge monthly subscription fees for their website-building software.

Hosting is what enables your website to stay online and be found on search engines such as Google. Most ecommerce website builders with paid plans include hosting free of charge. Domain registration is the yearly cost of owning your website’s unique URL (ex: www.lucyscreations.co.uk).

Can You Sell Online Without An Ecommerce Website Builder?

Yes, you can sell online without setting up an ecommerce website builder.

There are several ways to do this, including using online marketplaces such as Amazon, Etsy, and eBay. If you specialise in selling secondhand items, apps such as Depop and Vinted are also good places to start.

You can also sell on social media websites, with platforms such as TikTok and Instagram now featuring a “shop” feature.

While these platforms allow you to sell without paying for an ecommerce website subscription, they aren’t free. You’ll have to pay a combination of transaction fees, seller fees, or platform fees every time you make a sale, which combined can usually be higher than the standard card processing fees you’d pay on your own ecommerce website.

These platforms can also be very competitive, since so many sellers and businesses use them, making it hard to get noticed by potential buyers.

Remember, you can also do both. Many online businesses have their own ecommerce website while also marketing and selling their products on third-party marketplaces and social media sites.

Buying Guide: How to Choose an Ecommerce Website Builder

Here are the factors you should bear in mind when it comes to selecting an online selling tool:

• Price of upgrading: Free and cheap ecommerce website builders are generally only designed for micro to small online businesses. If you see success online, chances are you’ll need to upgrade your plan, so make sure you’re comfortable paying your chosen provider’s higher fees. Square, Squarespace and Hostinger are the most affordable platforms overall.
• Selling channel: Think about how you sell and where your customers are. Are they purely online, mainly coming to you from social media, or do you also sell in person? Wix, Squarespace, and Hostinger are good for purely online sales, but Square and Shopify are better for combining online and in-person selling.
• Level of technical skill needed: Think about how tech-savvy you are, and how long it takes you to get to grips with new software. Hostinger and Squarespace are on the easy side, whereas Shopify is harder to navigate. Square and Wix fall somewhere in the middle.

After you’ve identified those key features of your business plan, you can move forward with selecting an ecommerce platform.

How We Test Ecommerce Website Builders for Businesses