The 9 best free ecommerce platforms for small businesses for 2024 Can you really create an online shop for free? We take a look at the 'free' ecommerce options available for thrifty entrepreneurs. Written by Ross Darragh Updated on 26 October 2023 Our Research When recommending the best ecommerce platforms, our expert team of writers and researchers focus on the features that matter most to small businesses. We rate platforms on their value for money – including setup costs and ongoing transaction fees – design features, including store templates; inventory management; payment processing options; help and support, plus customer feedback. Written and reviewed by: Ross Darragh Writer Robyn Summers-Emler Digital Growth Editor Our independent reviews are funded in part by affiliate commissions, at no extra cost to our readers. With Square Online, our top free ecommerce platform, you can sell an unlimited number of products without signing up for a paid plan. Creating a store and product inventory is all free to do – you simply pay a small percentage fee on your sales to Square. This is an attractive offer considering the ongoing cost of living crisis and burdening overhead costs.But that’s not the only way to have a free online store – many top website builders offer free plans or free trials. This includes Wix, our best ecommerce platform with a great free trial.In this article, we’ll separate the ‘free forevers’ from the ‘free for a whiles’ and, based on genuine user testing and in-depth research, give our ranking of the best free ecommerce platforms you can use to create your online shop.If you like the sound of any of the ecommerce platforms in particular, just follow the links within its pricing table or scorecard to try out a free plan or trial.Let’s get started! Top 3 Free Website Builders for 2024 Square – best ecommerce store builder that's completely free to useWix – best all-round ecommerce platform with a free trial periodShopify – best range of apps and extensions This article will cover: Best free ecommerce platforms and software comparison The best ecommerce website builders with a free trial The best free ecommerce software How does an ecommerce builder work? What types of businesses are ecommerce builders suitable for? Is a free ecommerce site enough for small businesses to succeed? How we test ecommerce website builders for small businesses Verdict FAQs Best free ecommerce platforms and software comparison Swipe right to see more 0 out of 0 backward forward BEST FREE PLAN BEST FREE TRIAL Square Online Wix Shopify Squarespace BigCommerce GoDaddy Big Cartel Woocommerce with Bluehost Magento with Bluehost Platform or software? Platform Platform or software? Platform Platform or software? Platform Platform or software? Platform Platform or software? Platform Platform or software? Platform Platform or software? Platform Platform or software? Software Platform or software? Software Best for Best ecommerce store builder that's free to use Best for Best all-round ecommerce platform with a free trial period Best for Best range of apps and extensions Best for Best for ease of use and great design Best for Best sales features Best for Best for simplicity Best for Best for small creative brands Best for Best for small retailers using WordPress Best for Best for large retailers Cheapest paid plan £20 per month Cheapest paid plan £14 per month Cheapest paid plan £19 per month Cheapest paid plan £17 per month10% off with code STARTUPS10 Cheapest paid plan $29 (around £23) per month (billed annually) Cheapest paid plan £13.99 per month Cheapest paid plan $9.99 per month Cheapest paid plan N/A – but software does not include hosting costs or domain registration Cheapest paid plan N/A – but software does not include hosting costs or domain registration Free trial? Free trial? Free trial? Free trial? Free trial? Free trial? Free trial? Free trial? Free trial? Free plan? Free plan? Free plan? Free plan? Free plan? Free plan? Free plan? Free plan? Free plan? Visit Try Square Visit Try Wix Visit Try Shopify Visit Try Squarespace Visit Try BigCommerce Visit Try GoDaddy Visit Visit Visit What is an ecommerce builder?An ecommerce builder is an intuitive website builder you can use to construct your online storefront. This covers everything from the look and feel of the website that customers will see, to the back-end inventory management and payment processing that the business relies on.Ecommerce builders help you set up the means to process transactions from online customers. This means your website acts as the storefront, inventory manager, and cash register all in one.All of this is ready to go out of the box, thanks to some modern templates that can make your store look professional and trustworthy. You can customise the look and feel however you like, and fill the inventory with your own stock – regardless of what product you're selling. Ecommerce builders are fully equipped to help you manage your inventory, keep track of transactions, update your virtual storefront, surface deals and capture newsletter signups.Square Online: Best for selling for free 4.3 out of 5 Website features 3.5 Sales features 3.5 Design flexibility 2.7 Help and support 4.0 Value for money 4.6 Ease of use 3.9 Try Square Online If you’re looking for a simple, cost-effective free ecommerce platform, you couldn’t do much better than the Square Online Store builder.With the Square Online Store builder, you can build an ecommerce site and start selling without signing up for a paid plan. There are no limits on the number of products you can sell, but you will incur a 1.9% transaction fee on every sale made (a little higher than most competitors).Of course, there are limitations to the free plan, but it’s not all bad – you get access to automatic inventory, integration with Instagram and Pinterest, online shopping cart functionality, and order and item sync with Square POS. Generally, we’d say your online store will work best in conjunction with other Square features.The Square Online Store doesn’t offer much in the way of design flexibility, and your storefront will be fairly simplistic. That said, the builder did earn the highest ease of use score of all the ecommerce platforms reviewed by our testers, and it does offer a range of ecommerce website templates specifically designed for online selling.Once you move onto a premium plan, you gain access to a fairly comprehensive range of features, with the invoice creator add-on, abandoned cart emails, and revenue tracking deserving special mention.We would say that overall, the free plan has plenty of great features to get your online store up and running. The fact you can even sell for free is something to shout about. However it may be worth going for a cheaper premium plan as your ecommerce venture begins to grow.As demand increases, you'll need to generate invoices, improve the customer buying experience, and market you're products – all of which you can't do on Square's free plan.We still have another 8 free ecommerce platforms to show you. But if Square Online sounds like the free ecommerce platform for you, why not check out its free plan today?Square Online pricing Swipe right to see more 0 out of 0 backward forward Free Plus Premium Price £0 per month Price £20 per month Price £64 per month Features Start selling onlineSell on Instagram and FacebookSEO toolsSync with Square POS Features Custom domain10GB storageCustomised font uploadsPassword-protected pages Features Professional featuresAccept PayPalAbandoned basketAdvanced reportingProduct reviews Pros You really can build an online store and start selling with the free plan The easiest to use free online builder, according to our testers Great value for money Cons Free plan is fairly restrictive in terms of sales features offered Design flexibility and customisability limited Wondering about the Weebly ecommerce platform?If you're thinking to yourself, “Why is the Weebly ecommerce builder not featured on this list?” we'd understand! But it's because Weebly's ecommerce solutions are now offered by Square Online.Big Cartel: Best for small creative brands 2.9 out of 5 Website features 1.5 Sales features 3.0 Design flexibility 2.5 Help and support 1.0 Value for money 3.5 Ease of use 3.7 Try Big Cartel Big Cartel’s offering is targeted specifically at small creative brands and businesses selling products like t-shirts, art, clothing, merchandise, prints, and jewellery. If you’re a service business, or you sell goods at a higher price point, it probably isn’t the platform for you. Otherwise, read on!On the free plan, you’re able to list and sell up to five different products. To clarify, you can sell an unlimited number of those five products, not just five products full stop. And, unlike with Square Online, there’s no transaction fee. You can also sell digital products, but you’ll need to add on additional functionality from a third party provider.The free version also grants you more useful features than would usually be available without a premium plan, including customisable themes, stats, discounts and promotions, and shipping tracking.However, you’ll need to use the sub.domain ‘.bigcartel’ on your free Big Cartel online store – which doesn’t look very professional – and that five product limit is nowhere near generous enough for serious online sellers. If you do choose to upgrade, ecommerce plans start from a reasonable $9.99 per month.Big Cartel pricing Swipe right to see more 0 out of 0 backward forward Free Platinum Diamond Price £0 per month Price $9.99 per month Price $19.99 per month Pros If you’re a small creative seller, this ecommerce platform has been created especially for you Very affordable if you do upgrade No transaction fee Cons Not suitable if you’re a larger ecommerce business Only allows you to sell five products The best ecommerce website builders with a free trialThe following ecommerce platforms are only free for the duration of their free trials, and none of them allow you to sell until you upgrade to a paid plan.Having said that, during the trial period, you'll be able to build your online store and get a feel for whether the ecommerce platform you’ve chosen is worth the investment. Swipe right to see more 0 out of 0 backward forward BEST WITH FREE TRIAL Wix Shopify Squarespace BigCommerce GoDaddy Overall rating 4.8 Overall rating 4.6 Overall rating 4.6 Overall rating 4.2 Overall rating 3.9 Length of free trial 14-day free trial Length of free trial 3-day free trial Length of free trial 14-day free trial Length of free trial 15-day free trial Length of free trial 30-day free trial Visit Try Wix Visit Try Shopify Visit Try Squarespace Visit Try BigCommerce Visit Try GoDaddy Wix ecommerce: Best all-rounderStart your 14-day free trial 4.8 out of 5 Website features 4.5 Sales features 4.4 Design flexibility 4.0 Help and support 3.8 Value for money 4.2 Ease of use 4.0 Visit Wix Wix, our top ecommerce platform for small businesses, offers its customers a 14-day free trial, which is fairly standard in the industry.But what can you actually do in those two weeks? Well, you can build a great online store using Wix’s intuitive drag-and-drop website builder, and you can give a decent portion of its quality features a test run.When you consider its range of ecommerce features in conjunction with the cost of its plans (which start from just £14/month), you’re looking at one of the best value ecommerce platforms around.It might not have the same depth of sales features as ecommerce-specific builders like Shopify and BigCommerce, but the Wix App Market provides all the functionality most small to medium online sellers could ever need (though you’ll have to pay more for third party apps).Your online store will look fantastic as well – Wix has an unparalleled 71 ecommerce templates to choose from, with virtually no restrictions on customisation.We should also mention that Wix has improved its ecommerce offering even more. Ascend by Wix is a CRM and marketing suite that helps you drive sales and boost loyalty all from one central hub.Elsewhere, you can design and launch data applications using its comprehensive web development platform. And that's not all: Wix has also improved everything from its order fulfilment and management to its templates and payments solutions.There are a few downsides: you can’t change templates once your store is live, and there’s currently no option to integrate with other sales channels.But if you’re looking for a great all-round ecommerce platform that’s easy to use, Wix is for you. We bet you’ll want to skip the free trial and move straight onto the main event!Wix ecommerce pricing Swipe right to see more 0 out of 0 backward forward Core Business Business Elite Price £14 per month£7 until 18 Jan Price £20 per month£10 until 18 Jan Price £119 per month£59.50 until 18 Jan Features Basic ecommerceAccept paymentsBasic site analyticsAbandoned cart recovery Features Standard site analyticsStandard eCommerceAutomated sales tax for 100 transactions per monthAccept pre-orders Features Advanced eCommerceAdvanced developer platformAdvanced site analyticsLoyalty program by Smile.io Free trial? Free trial? Free trial? Claim 50% off Claim 50% off Claim 50% off Pros Our top ecommerce platform for small businesses Offers great value for money An unparalleled 71 ecommerce specific templates to choose from Cons You’ll have to pay for some additional third party features You currently can’t integrate your online store with other sales channels Shopify: Best for sales-specific featuresStart your 3-day free trial 4.6 out of 5 Website features 4.2 Sales features 4.5 Design functionalities 3.9 Value for money 3.0 Help and support 3.8 Ease of use 3.5 Try Shopify for free Shopify has been built from the ground up to help you find customers, drive sales, and manage the day-to-day admin of running a busy, growing online store.You don’t need credit card details to sign up for Shopify’s 3-day free trial, which begins the moment your account is active, not when you start building your store. Your account will be frozen at the end of the trial, unless you’ve selected a premium plan.During the free trial, you can sample nearly all of the features offered by whichever pricing plan you choose other than taking payments – and those features are top of the range.As an ecommerce platform first and foremost, Shopify’s sales features are second to none. You have the freedom to sell as many (and as many types of) products as you want, and it’s easy to manage in the backend, with excellent stock management, monitoring, and analytics tools.You can integrate with a multitude of sales channels, giving you the ability to sell on everything from Facebook to Pinterest, and Shopify supports more payment options than you could ever need.Shopify’s accounting offering is also top of the range, with automatic tax calculation and invoice generation. The only areas our testers marked it down for were its SEO support and marketing tools, which are both limited.Shopify pricing Swipe right to see more 0 out of 0 backward forward GET 3 MONTHS FOR £1/MO Starter Basic Shopify Shopify Advanced Price £5 per month Price £1 per month for 3 monthsThen £19 per month Price £49 per month Price £259 per month Features A simple, instant storefrontUnlimited product pagesFast and secure checkout Features Unlimited productsAbandoned cart recovery Features Professional reports and analytics5 staff accounts Features Advanced reportsCalculated shipping rates Online card processing fees 2.9% + 30p for online sales Online card processing fees 2% + 25p for online purchases Online card processing fees 1.7% + 25p for online purchases Online card processing fees 1.5% + 25p for online purchases Pros Top quality sales features designed to help with every aspect of creating, running, and scaling a successful online shop Can check out nearly all the premium features during the free trial Cons Quite pricey when you do upgrade to a paid plan Its SEO and marketing tools leave something to be desired Squarespace: Best for creative controlStart your 14-day free trial 4.6 out of 5 Website features 4.3 Sales features 3.4 Design flexibility 4.0 Value for money 4.2 Help and support 3.5 Ease of use 4.2 Try Squarespace Squarespace is another non-ecommerce-specific website builder with a 14-day free trial, and another one of our top ecommerce platforms for small businesses. However, it distinguishes itself with a laser focus on design.To get started, you can choose from a selection of the best-looking ecommerce templates on the market, which our testers described as “sleek, stylish, and modern”. Then, thanks to Squarespace’s almost unlimited design flexibility, you can customise your shopfront to your heart’s content.Squarespace’s free trial doesn’t require any credit card information to sign up. Once the trial is over, you just need to upgrade to a paid plan. You can save yourself 10% off any of Squarespace's plans by using the code STARTUPS10 at checkout.If you don’t upgrade, your online store will still be there – you just won’t have access until you go premium. You can even extend your trial by seven days if you feel you need more time to decide.And you can use nearly all of Squarespace's premium features during the free trial, so you can really get a feel for how the platform works before you sign up.But what are those features like? Well, Squarespace offers a solid, if limited, range of tools and sales features.You can sell unlimited products and services, which can be managed with a drag-and-drop sorting tool, and managed from the inventory space. There’s a handy Checkout Style Editor, and you can set up custom emails to be sent to customers when they take a particular action.However, Squarespace only supports a limited number of payment options, and doesn’t allow you to sell in multiple currencies. It also offers very little in the way of accounting functionality.Nevertheless, look no further than Squarespace if you want a beautiful, professional-looking online store.Squarespace ecommerce pricing Swipe right to see more 0 out of 0 backward forward BEST VALUE Squarespace Business Basic Commerce Advanced Commerce Price £17 per month Price £23 per month Price £35 per month Features Fully integrated ecommerce3% transaction feeSell unlimited products Features No commerce transaction feesPoint of sale integrationCustomer accounts Features Abandoned cart recoveryPowerful ecommerce analyticsAdvanced shipping Pros Hands down the best-looking ecommerce templates around Free trial allows you to use nearly all premium features, and doesn’t require a credit card to sign up No limit on the number of products and services you can sell Cons Supports a limited number of payment options Doesn’t support selling in multiple currencies BigCommerce: Best for multi-channel sellingStart your 15-day free trial 4.2 out of 5 Website features 3.5 Sales features 4.6 Design flexibility 4.0 Value for money 3.0 Help and support 3.9 Ease of use 3.3 Try BigCommerce Bucking the two-week trend with an unusual 15-day free trial is BigCommerce, the ecommerce platform for online shops that are serious about scaling.The great thing about BigCommerce is that, even though its plans are more expensive than most of its rivals, all its features are included in that cost, so there’s no need to rely on third party apps.BigCommerce is a great option for online shops with big and/or global ambitions. It offers more in-house features than any other builder, as well as unparalleled support for businesses that want to grow internationally, including the ability to sell in multiple currencies at one time, and support for 12 languages.For those wanting to set up an online clothing store, BigCommerce is the best solution partly due to its best inventory management system.However, if you’re looking for an easy way to start your online shop, this isn’t it. The editing interface can be very challenging to use, and, for non-tech literate customers, it uses quite unfamiliar terminology.Also, the design control is quite restrictive, leaving you to rely on the templates, features, and functionality offered by BigCommerce, rather than really making it your own. And it’s the only builder not to have a mobile app, so you can’t edit/sell on the go.BigCommerce pricing Swipe right to see more 0 out of 0 backward forward Best plan for small businesses Standard Plan Plus Plan Pro Plan Enterprise Plan Price $29 per month (around £23) Price $79 per month (around £64) Price $299 per month (around £240) Price Custom Features Coupons and discountsReporting toolsMulti-channel selling Features Customer groups and segmentationAbandoned cart recoveryStores credit card details Features Google customer reviewsProduct filteringCustom product filtering Features Express routing, priority support, and customer success managementAPI (application programming interface) supportCustom sales limit Pros Currently offering three months free after your free trial ends Offers more commercial and non-commercial features than any other builder Unparalleled support for international growth Cons The editor isn’t that easy to use, and the language might be too complicated for non-techy customers Design flexibility is limited compared to other, more affordable platforms Ready to take your ecommerce game to the next level? BigCommerce is hosting its annual ‘Make it Big' conference on the 13th and 14th of September (Tue-Wed). It's a virtual event, and is completely free to attend. Sign up here to get insights from industry leaders on all things retail and ecommerce (like crypto, omnichannel, and Gen Z consumers). GoDaddy: Best for ease of useStart your 30-day free trial 3.9 out of 5 Website features 2.5 Sales features 3.5 Design flexibility 2.7 Help and support 3.3 Value for money 3.6 Ease of use 4.1 Try GoDaddy At 30 days, GoDaddy offers the daddy of free trials. And there’s no credit card needed to sign up. That’s a month to test your online store with no-obligation at the end.We ranked GoDaddy sixth in our list of the top ecommerce platforms for small businesses; however, we did rank it the easiest online store to use, thanks to an accessible editor, and an Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI) system that does a lot of the hard work for you. All you need to do is answer some questions about layout, text, and proposed images.On average, our research participants only spent 75% of the allocated hour creating their GoDaddy online store, while often exceeding the hour with other builders.That very helpful ADI function does, however, come at the cost of creative control, and some users may find the design tools very restrictive. Also, GoDaddy lacks the depth and quality of features offered by its rivals, and fails to provide some of the sales specific features you’d expect from an ecommerce platform, like digital product sales.With just one ecommerce plan at £12.99/month, it’s not the cheapest builder, but it’s pretty reasonable and very transparent – everything you need is included in the cost.That goes for its excellent SEO and marketing, neat templates, and analytics tools. If you need to get your online store up in a flash, there’s no faster product to use than GoDaddy.GoDaddy pricing Swipe right to see more 0 out of 0 backward forward Ecommerce Price £12.99 per month, billed annually Features Product listingsFlexible paymentsFlexible shipping optionsDiscount and promotional features Pros Fastest and easiest for creating an online store thanks to its ADI function Restore Hero prevents errors or mistakes from causing you any added stress by allowing you to create five backup versions No surprise fees Cons Limited creative control, since the ADI function takes the majority of this away from its users Lacks depth and quality in the features offered (but supports the basics to get you going) The best free ecommerce software Swipe right to see more 0 out of 0 backward forward Free ecommerce software Woocommerce with Bluehost Free ecommerce software Magento with Bluehost Best for Best for small retailers using WordPress Best for Best for large retailers Ecommerce software operates as an open-source platform that you can install for free.Open-source software is computer software released under a licence that gives anyone access to the source code, and allows them to use, change, or distribute it for any purpose.This means it’s only suitable if you’re planning to self-host your website, by which we mean pay for hosting services separately. So, while the software is free, there’ll be additional ongoing costs.Please note: we've reviewed the free ecommerce software available using Bluehost as a hosting provider, as we believe it is the best hosting provider on the market. Want to take a look yourself? Visit Bluehost to find out what it could offer your online store set-up.WooCommerce – best for integrating with WordPress.orgWooCommerce is a fully customisable, open-source ecommerce platform built specifically as a WordPress plugin. This means that you’ll first need to create a WordPress website, and then add WooCommerce to it.In comparison to the sprawling complexity of Magento, this makes it a good option for smaller ecommerce operations.It only takes a few minutes to set up, and instantly gives your site essential ecommerce features, including secure payments, order management and shipping, and marketing. If you need additional functionality, the WooCommerce marketplace grants you access to hundreds of free and paid extensions.WooCommerce doesn’t require the skills of a developer, but if you do have more bespoke needs, the software is fully open to edit and extend – virtually any service can be integrated with your online store. Pros Seamless integration with WordPress Hundreds of integrations to increase functionality Cons Cost of extensions can add up No dedicated support Magento – Best for large online retailersLet’s get one thing straight: Magento is not for beginners. It’s a formidable product, offering unrivalled scalability, customizability, and capability for online stores with grand ambitions.Used by big name retailers like Nike and Samsung, Magento is an extremely advanced ecommerce platform with the capacity to handle thousands of transactions a minute. It incorporates a next-level drag-and-drop page builder, business intelligence services, multiple sales and advertising channels, and countless third party integrations.With Magento, you can create the online store you’ve always dreamed of – but if you don’t have any development skills, or you haven’t hired a developer, those dreams will be hard to achieve.It all comes down to how much you’re willing to invest in your online store. It might be free to download, but you’re going to end up spending a lot on hosting and development. HostGator actually has a Magento-specific plan. Pros Unrivalled capacity to scale and customise Can support businesses making thousands of transactions per minute Free to install Cons Will require you to have development skills, or to hire a developer Doesn’t offer much in the way of help and support How does an ecommerce builder work?Similarly to a standard website builder, ecommerce builders are designed to be easy to use. All you have to do is select one of the modern templates for your store, then drag-and-drop or select the features you want to appear on your website in the editor. What you see on the website editor is what will appear online.Various apps and widgets are made available for you to customise things to your heart's content, and you can easily create everything from a home page to specific product pages and categories remarkably quickly. We're talking hours, not months.To set up your ecommerce site, you'll need to do the following on the builder:Register your domain and choose a hosting serviceDesign your e-commerce websiteList your products and servicesSet up payment processing and tax collectionFigure out how you'll ship your productsIntegrate with other online marketplacesSet up email marketing and social media profiles to link to your siteTest and launch your e-commerce website What types of businesses are ecommerce builders suitable for?Ecommerce builders are an easy and accessible way of building your ecommerce site. Since they're intuitive, this is a great option for:New businesses that want to quickly get their store live and onlineGrowing startups that want to keep their budget in check and don't want to invest in hiring a website designerSide-hustlers who want to have an easily manageable ecommerce siteDropshipping sites who want to smoothly manage their inventoryEstablished businesses who want to scale their ecommerce website Is a free ecommerce site enough for small businesses to succeed?When it comes to ecommerce, that old adage ‘you’ve got to spend money to make money’ holds true.For a start, with most of the ‘free’ ecommerce website builders listed above, you won’t even be able to start taking payments until you upgrade to a paid plan.As you can see, many of the premium plans on offer are very affordable, with the option to scale up to a more expensive one if necessary.But it’s not just the facility to take payments that makes upgrading to a paid plan worth it. Often, essential ecommerce functions like store management, and the marketing and SEO features you need to actually get visitors to your site, are only available with paid plans.Even when using our top free plan pick Square Online, there are limitations to the features at your disposal until you upgrade to a paid plan.For example, you don't have access to advanced reporting, product reviews, or the ability to accept PayPal payments with Square's free plan. Whereas on its performance plan you get access to all of these professional features, and as your business scales using only free ecommerce plans could definitely do more damage than good. How we test ecommerce website builders for small businessesWe tested eight ecommerce website builders to evaluate them in terms of functionality, usability, accuracy, and aesthetics so we can make the most useful recommendations to small UK-based businesses.Our rigorous testing process means these products have been scored and rated in seven main categories of investigation and 47 subcategories – in fact, we covered 341 areas of investigation in total. We then gave each category score a ‘relevance weighting' to ensure the product's final score perfectly reflects the needs of our Startups.co.uk readers.Our main testing categories for ecommerce website builders are:Website Features: the capabilities and functionalities offered by an ecommerce website builder, e.g. blog functionality, SEO capability, and marketing capacity.Sales Features: the sales capabilities and sales functionalities offered by an ecommerce builder, e.g. shipping, inventory capacity, and payment options.Design: the aesthetic appeal and visual layout of a website created using an ecommerce website builder. It encompasses aspects such as page templates and customisable themes.Customer Score: external customer opinion; the feedback and ratings given by customers who have used a particular ecommerce platform – the market position and reputation a builder holds.Ease of Use: how user-friendly and intuitive an ecommerce website builder is for people with varying levels of technical expertise.Value for Money: the balance between the cost of an ecommerce builder and the benefits it provides. It considers factors such as pricing plans, subscription models, and available features.Help and Support: the assistance and resources available to users when they encounter issues or need guidance while using an ecommerce website builder.The Startups product testing process Final Verdict: The best free ecommerce solutionTo summarise, the best free ecommerce platforms for small businesses are:Square Online – best free planWix – best free trialShopifySquarespaceBigCommerceGoDaddyBig Cartel Woocommerce with Bluehost Magento with BluehostIf you want to start selling without signing up for a premium plan, Square Online is the free ecommerce platform for you. Its free plan allows you to sell an unlimited number of products, and gives you access to shopping cart functionality and social media integrations.Sure, its features and design flexibility are limited, but our researchers found it to be the easiest platform to use. And you can pay to upgrade whenever you’re ready for the full ecommerce experience. If you’re not fussed about selling for free, but you want to set up your store before you pay for a plan, give Wix a whirl – it’s a great all-rounder and easily boasts the best free trial.Shopify is also a strong contender, especially if you want access to the best range of apps and extensions to supercharge your online store.Or, if design is more your bag, Squarespace is a great shout.If you’re planning to self-host your ecommerce site, we think WooCommerce is the best open source platform for smaller businesses. It’s easy to add to your WordPress site and it offers countless integrations.So there you have it. 9 very different but equally valid ways to create a free online store. FAQs What is the best free ecommerce website builder? As the only one of our top website builders to allow you to start selling without paying for a plan, Square Online is the best free ecommerce website builder. You just have to pay a standard 1.9% fee on all transactions. You can find out more by taking a look at Square Online's freemium and premium plans and what they offer. Can I create a good ecommerce site with a free ecommerce website builder? Yes, with most ecommerce website builders, you can design and create a professional-looking online store without spending a penny. But, other than with Square Online or Big Cartel, if you want to take payments, you’ll have to upgrade to a premium plan. Are free ecommerce platforms always completely free? There are very few ecommerce platforms that are completely free. You can sell products on Square Online’s free plan, but you will be charged a transaction fee. On most of the other ecommerce platforms we’ve reviewed you can’t take payments until you upgrade to a premium plan. Is Magento free for ecommerce? Yes, it is free to download. However, you’ll probably have to hire a developer to actually build your online store if you want to make the most of all that Magento has to offer. Is Wix eCommerce free? Wix eCommerce is only free to use for 14 days, after which you’ll have to either upgrade to a paid account or abandon your lovingly created online store. You can, of course, always give the Wix free trial a go as a way to test premium ecommerce functionality for free. Is there a free version of Shopify? There’s no free version of Shopify, but it does offer a 3-day free trial that allows you to sample most of the features available on its premium plans except for taking payments. Startups.co.uk is reader-supported. If you make a purchase through the links on our site, we may earn a commission from the retailers of the products we have reviewed. This helps Startups.co.uk to provide free reviews for our readers. It has no additional cost to you, and never affects the editorial independence of our reviews. Share this post facebook twitter linkedin Written by: Ross Darragh Writer Ross has been writing for Startups since 2021, specialising in telephone systems, digital marketing, payroll, and sustainable business. He also runs the successful entrepreneur section of the website. Having graduated with a Masters in Journalism, Ross went on to write for Condé Nast Traveller and the NME, before moving in to the world of business journalism. Ross has been involved in startups from a young age, and has a keen eye for exciting, innovative new businesses. Follow him on his Twitter - @startupsross for helpful business tips.