The Best E-Commerce Platforms of 2023

E-Commerce Platform	Best For	Pricing	Best Features
Shift4Shop (4.5)	Best e-commerce platform	Free plan See pricing	Completely free platform Built-in payment processing Easy-to-use SEO tools
Square Online (4.6)	Best e-commerce platform for in-person and online sales	Plans starting for free See pricing	Accept multiple payment types Sell in person and online Age confirmation tool
BigCommerce (4.3)	Best e-commerce platform for custom online stores	Plans starting at $29.95 per month See pricing	Highly customizable Multichannel selling 24/7 support
Wix (4.3)	Best e-commerce platform for beginners	Plans starting at $27 per month See pricing	500 free premade online store templates Improved site loading speeds Easy-to-use built-in tools
Shopify (4.1)	Best e-commerce platform for international sellers	Plans starting at $29 per month See pricing	Abandoned cart recovery on all plans Supports multiple languages and currencies Powerful marketing features
Squarespace (4.0)	Best e-commerce platform for modern designs	Plans starting at $23 per month See pricing	Award-winning designs Accept donations on all plans Unlimited products
GoDaddy Online Store (3.9)	Best e-commerce platform for no added transaction fees	Plans starting at $24.99 per month See pricing	AI-assisted store design Centralized marketing tools Easy to use
WP Engine (3.9)	Best e-commerce platform for online store agencies	Plans starting at $29 per month See pricing	Plans with multiple sites 99.99% uptime GeoTarget add-on
Zyro (3.6)	Best e-commerce platform for AI assistance	Plans starting at $14.99 per month See pricing	AI tools for branding, design, and content creation 20+ payment options Order and inventory management
Bluehost (3.4)	Best e-commerce platform for long-term deals	Plans starting at $29.95 per month See pricing	Low introductory pricing Marketplace selling Daily backups

Our team spent more than 40 hours researching and testing 60+ of the top software in the industry to determine the best e-commerce platforms. This guide can benefit anyone looking to sell digital or physical products or services online.

Why You Should Trust This Review

About Digital.com’s expert reviewer, Amy Nichol Smith:

I’m an experienced journalist, tech expert, and content director. I cover various topics and industries, including retail, tech, and marketing, featured in the L.A. Times, Forbes, Tom’s Guide, and Reader’s Digest.

I surveyed and spoke with past and current power users of each platform to get real-world feedback on these platforms and take them into account in my review.

How I Rated the Best E-Commerce Platforms

Value for your money — not cost

The cheapest e-commerce platform isn’t always the best. I ranked platforms that offer a free plan highest, but also looked at the monthly and annual costs — and what you get for each plan. Finding that sweet spot in the cost ratio to features is the goal.

Ease of use

This ranking criterion is difficult to prove because it’s such a subjective feature, so I aim to identify intuitive dashboards, tools, and features and then explain howit’s easy to use. Some e-commerce platforms include tutorials, tours, or pop-up definitions for each feature. Others mimic software you may have used before, which makes it immediately familiar.

Features

It’s pointless operating an online store without tools to help you create, promote, and rank your site, content, and products. E-commerce platforms that include specific tools or features received the highest credit, including:

Abandoned cart recovery
Built-in or integrated email marketing
Search engine optimization (SEO) tools or plug-ins
Mobile-responsive themes and apps for managing an online store
Inventory management (more credit for ingredient-level management)
Reporting and analytics (beyond Google Analytics integration)
Shipping options
Built-in payment processing

Security

Without proper security for your e-commerce website, you could run off potential customers or suffer data loss, or worse — face a data breach. I only considered e-commerce platforms that take security very seriously. The most important security features of an e-commerce platform include:

PCI compliance
Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate
Automatic backups
Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) protection

Support and improvements

It’s standard practice in the industry to offer 24/7 customer support to its customers via a ticket system, email, live chat, and phone. I gave the highest rank to those offering more live support, especially for chat and phone; knowledge bases, articles, and in-app documentation can help you find answers.

Additionally, I considered how each e-commerce platform grows and innovates as technology improves. I’ve seen the best website builders become contenders for top e-commerce platforms, artificial intelligence-assisted designers, and built-in features added that previously required third-party apps. Improvements lead to better value for you.

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The Top 10 E-Commerce Platforms

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Reviews

Shift4Shop

Best e-commerce platform

4.5

No monthly fee — forever free plan
Built-in payment processing
Easy-to-use SEO tools

Starting price: Free
Free trial or demo: Forever free plan

Any small business owner would do well with Shift4Shop, whether you’re a solopreneur, an e-commerce business on the rise, or a big brand. It’s a 100% free platform — all you pay is the transaction fee for Shift4 payments. The platform gets high marks in all categories because it’s a complete solution except for reporting tools.

The top reason Shift4Shop is our pick for the overall best e-commerce platform is that the company makes it easy for anyone to get started selling online with free software. All you pay are transaction fees on any sales you make, which are fees you’d have to pay anyway through a third-party merchant services provider (MSP) or payment processor.

You can list an unlimited number of products, and Shift4Shop doesn’t limit your bandwidth, so you can grow your customer base. Shift4Shop is an all-in-one online store builder with a free domain name for your first year, hosting, free use of its platform and all features, and strong security.

Shift4Shop offers a 99.99% uptime guarantee, fast performance for your e-commerce site, and 24/7 monitoring to protect all of its clients. If anything should go wrong, I was able to access 24/7/365 support via phone, email, and live chat.

To ensure your customers’ peace of mind and your online store’s growth, Shift4Shop promises automatic daily backups and software upgrades, unlimited bandwidth and storage, two-factor authentication (2FA), DDoS attack protection, and PCI compliance.

Last, but not least, I found Shift4Shop easy to use. Hundreds of free templates are customizable with a modular editing method and I didn’t have to do any code to modify them. But you can use HTML for development if you prefer.

Who is Shift4Shop best for?

My testing revealed that Shift4Shop is ideal for new businesses and those on a budget. Shift4Shop can work for established businesses as well, but the transaction fees (2.9% + 30 cents per transaction, comparable to Square Online) may add up.

Recent upgrades to Shift4Shop

Shift4Shop regularly updates its product to provide the best tools and features to its clients. Recently, Shift4Shop added Facebook Commerce to give you more avenues to sell your products. It also integrated Facebook Ads Manager, so you can better reach your customers; Google Analytics integration, for better insights, and you can accept cryptocurrency as payment.

Shift4Shop pricing

With Shift4Shop being free, it’s accessible for all small businesses that want to sell online. Its transaction fee is similar to Square Online at 2.9% + 30 cents per transaction, but you won’t get a break on that fee structure unless you’re doing high-volume sales. If you choose to go with an MSP that can offer a much lower fee table, you will have to pay for one of Shift4Shop’s plans, which range from $29 to $229 per month, close to Shopify’s monthly fees. However, Shift4Shop won’t charge any additional percentages if you choose a different processor.

Pros and Cons of Shift4Shop

Pros

Free e-commerce platform
All-in-one solution (domain name, hosting, free templates)
Can use your own payment processor (at a monthly cost,)
Strong security features (SSL, DDoS protection, 2FA) and Cloudflare integration and support

Cons

Basic reporting via Google Analytics
Limited design function (not very innovative, and HTML coding only available)
Decentralized editing client, making it a bit difficult to navigate menus

What customers are saying about Shift4Shop

Shift4Shop, designed for small or medium e-commerce stores, offers many features. There are mixed reviews on whether it is easy to use and how effective the customer service is.

Summary

Shift4Shop

Starting Price
- Free
Free Trial or Demo
Forever free plan

Features

No monthly fee — forever free plan
Built-in payment processing
Easy-to-use SEO tools

Square Online

Best for in-person and online sales

4.5

Accept multiple payment types
Sell in person and online
Age confirmation tool

Starting price: Free
Free trial or demo: 30-day free trial

Square is one of the most ubiquitous POS systems around, and with Square Online, you can sync your physical location with your online store. You can start for free, but you’ll miss many features. Upgrade for better inventory management, add PayPal to your online store, give real-time shipping rates, and set up an age confirmation tool.

Square Online is one of the few e-commerce platforms that syncs your online store with a physical store (or mobile shop), and it even provides a POS and card reader, so you can sell wherever you or your customers are. For all features, you’ll have to pick the highest-priced plan, but you get real-time shipping and personalized ordering for customers and lower transaction fees for you.

Square Online support is rated highly, but I found it limited and hard to access. Phone support is only available from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. PST Monday through Friday, and I had to wait on hold for a while when I called. It may be better to pick a live chat with the same weekday hours as phone support and extended hours on the weekend from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. PST (email support is 24/7).

Most e-commerce platforms offer paid add-on services or features for marketing, but Square Online includes tools and integrations to help you reach your customers easily — many at no added cost. You can create coupons, manage Facebook ads, and create lead capture forms on your site — these features are available on all plans.

Rarely mentioned among e-commerce platforms are integrations for accounting, but Square Online offers multiple options. You can add the best accounting software to manage your online store finances, including QuickBooks and Xero.

Who is Square best for?

Square Online is best if you want to sell online and in person with a single account.

Recent upgrades to Square Online

Earlier in 2022, Square Online upgraded its Afterpay ranges, so you can set minimum and maximum prices for flexible payment options. And if you offer buy-online-pickup-in-store (BOPIS), Square Online improved its order scheduling feature, so you can create a more accurate pickup window time for customers.

Square Online pricing

The free plan from Square Online is good enough to get you started right away, but with many limitations — you can only sell online via social media. To set up a store, you have to choose the $29-per-month plan, which is similar to the low-cost plan from Shopify or BigCommerce. Shift4Shop offers the same transaction fee schedule as Square Online and its end-to-end solution is more comprehensive, but you won’t be able to sell in person.

Pros and Cons of Square Online

Pros

Use for in-person or online sales
Free plan available
Accept multiple payment options
All-in-one e-commerce platform and no-code solution

Cons

Not great for high-volume sellers
Limited customization
Limited storage
Lots of paid add-ons for more functionality

What customers are saying about Shift4Shop

Summary

Square Online

Starting Price
- Free
Free Trial or Demo
30-day free trial

Features

Accept multiple payment types
Sell in person and online
Age confirmation tool

BigCommerce

Best e-commerce platform for custom online stores

4.3

Highly customizable
Multichannel selling
24/7 support

Starting price: $29.95 per month
Free trial or demo: 15-day free trial

BigCommerce is a popular e-commerce platform thanks to its competitive pricing, built-in features, and allowance for customization. Also offering excellent security and support, it’s a great pick for growing or established businesses of any size.

BigCommerce remains one of the most popular e-commerce platforms for businesses that want a completely customized online store. In my testing, I could choose from 12 free themes or purchase one of the 180+ paid themes, and then modify them to my liking. You’re only limited by your ability — use HTML or CSS coding to make your e-commerce site precisely what you want.

A ready-to-use online store and free templates get you started; add as many products as you want to BigCommerce’s plans. You also get coupons, discounts, and gift card features on all plans. But you’ll have to upgrade to the mid-tier plan for access to abandoned cart recovery, and only the highest plan offers Google Analytics integration and an SSL certificate.

BigCommerce offers 24/7 customer support via email, live chat, and phone. I found BigCommerce University helpful with guides and answers to commonly asked questions.

While support is a big selling point, security excels, too. It’s a fully hosted solution and you can also add an SSL certificate (which is 100% suggested). The e-commerce platform maintains backups of your site, should anything go wrong, so you can roll back to your latest save. And with your site hosted on a cloud platform, data remains safe, and BigCommerce handles big spikes in traffic, so your site should never go down unexpectedly.

Who is BigCommerce best for?

I’d recommend BigCommerce for the most serious small businesses that want to create an online store. It’s highly customizable, if you have the skill or you hire a dev, and it’s one of the most scalable solutions on the market. I found BigCommerce to be one of the best choices for growing businesses that want to create a custom online store that grows with their customer base.

Recent upgrades to BigCommerce

BigCommerce doesn’t update its e-commerce platform often but has a big change coming. A centralized multi-storefront will help immensely to keep you aware of your sales. From one dashboard, you’ll have insight into what’s working and what isn’t from everywhere you sell, and your third-party apps sync across the board.

BigCommerce pricing

Unlike Square Online or Shopify, BigCommerce doesn’t offer payment processing — you’ll have to secure a plan with a third-party MSP. However, it won’t charge any additional transaction fees, which Shopify does if you choose another processor. The pricing shown above is monthly, but you can get a slight discount on higher tiers if you choose annual pricing.

Pros and Cons of BigCommerce

Pros

Highly customizable and one of the most scalable solutions
Multichannel selling
Some of the best SEO options
Strong security features

Cons

Annual sales limit
Dated free themes
No multilingual support
No native point of sale (POS) feature

What customers are saying about BigCommerce

BigCommerce is a good fit for small businesses that don’t have multiple sites. It is fast, easy to use and set up, and has noteworthy templates. But it can be hard to customize. Also, customer service can be unreliable and the platform is pricey.

Summary

BigCommerce

Starting Price
- $29.95 per month
Free Trial or Demo
15-day free trial

Features

Highly customizable
Multichannel selling
24/7 support

Wix

Best for beginners

4.3

500 premade online store templates
Improved site loading speeds
Easy-to-use built-in tools

Starting price: $27 per month
Free trial or demo: 14-day free trial

Wix is one of the best e-commerce platforms for beginners, thanks to its competitive pricing, numerous free pre-built templates for digital storefronts, and drag-and-drop editors. The site loading speed helps keep customers on your site and its security features are practically unmatched.

Wix is one of the best e-commerce platforms to help you start selling online immediately, making it ideal for beginners. There are no-code features, so you can modify your online store without knowing any code.

I found it easy to work with the Wix artificial design intelligence (ADI) design option. It builds an e-commerce store based on your answers to a few questions. Wix excels as one of the easiest-to-use e-commerce platforms, making selling accessible to anyone, also due to its pricing point. On top of all this, Wix doesn’t nickel and dime you with sales fees.

Serious sellers will probably want to bypass Wix’s limited starting plan. Smaller outfits should be fine with the limitations, though. For example, you can sell on social channels, like Facebook and Instagram, with any plan, but you can’t sell on marketplaces or employ drop-shipping until the mid-tier plan.

Who is Wix best for?

In my opinion, Wix is best for new small businesses and solopreneurs who are serious about selling. Its plans are mostly affordable, and the e-commerce platform is so easy to use that anyone can run an online store. The flexible system lets almost any type of business operate easily, thanks to tools like online orders for restaurants, and Wix lets you accept reservations and appointments, which is perfect for service-based businesses.

Recent upgrades to Wix

Based on Wix’s release notes, the e-commerce platform gets regular updates each month. Recently, Wix upgraded features, including one for service-based businesses that rely on booking classes — you can now display a weekly schedule on your site for clients to see openings and book directly.

Wix pricing

Wix offers affordable pricing across the board for all of its plans — it’s cheaper than higher-rated picks like BigCommerce and Shopify. Yet it’s much more expensive than Shift4Shop and Square Online.

Pros and Cons of Wix

Pros

Visual no-code editor
120+ online store templates
Affordable, scalable pricing plans
Wix ADI e-commerce site creation help

Cons

Not everything is customizable
Too much design freedom for beginners
Limited video hours, automated sales tax feature, and limited dropshipping options

What customers are saying about Wix

Wix is an easy-to-use website building platform that is great for entrepreneurs or small business owners who do not have the experience or money to hire a professional to build them a website. It’s a good platform for quick, easy, low-budget websites.

Summary

Wix

Starting Price
- $27 per month
Free Trial or Demo
14-day free trial

Features

500 premade online store templates
Improved site loading speeds
Easy-to-use built-in tools

Shopify

Best e-commerce platform for international sellers

4.1

Abandoned cart recovery on all plans
Supports multiple languages and currencies
Powerful marketing features

Starting price: $29 per month
Free trial or demo: 14-day free trial

Shopify, known as the e-commerce platform, is a great choice for many online store owners. It’s our pick as the best for international sellers because it’s one of the few solutions that offer you multilanguage themes, global shipping, and tax calculations, along with currency conversions.

Shopify may be the best-known e-commerce platform, but its most unique benefit is that it’s a great pick for global sellers. In addition to multilingual support, Shopify includes international shipping and tax calculations.

Beyond the unique selling point, I was impressed with Shopify’s basics. All of its 100+ templates are easy to modify and mobile responsive, so they’ll look great on any device your customers use to view your e-commerce site. The customization goes deeper than the no-code features Shopify offers.

Also beneficial are Shopify’s product upload options — you can add items one at a time or use a spreadsheet to bulk upload products you have, saving time. The abandoned cart recovery feature is important for e-commerce platforms, and Shopify includes it for all of its plan users. You can set up automatic email reminders to customers that leave unpurchased items behind.

It’s also worth mentioning that Shopify makes e-commerce marketing and on-page SEO easy. There’s a built-in blogging tool, which is sometimes rare to find among e-commerce platforms that focus on only providing online stores.

Who is Shopify best for?

In my testing, I found that Shopify is a great pick for new users because no code is required to get started, but it’s best for those who want to add apps, modify the templates significantly, and expect to grow.

Recent upgrades to Shopify

Shopify is great at listening to its customers, so when you make a feature request, the company takes it into serious consideration. Recently, Shopify added a shipping speed status, which improves your relationship with customers and their expectations of you. You can also now track your Shopify store activity with a live view to see where your customers are located, how many active visitors you have at a time and the number of orders.

Shopify pricing

Overall, Shopify is a pricy option, while BigCommerce and Shift4Shop are similarly priced. Still, you get a lot of features, integrations, and security measures for the cost. If you’re looking for a budget-friendly solution, consider the end-to-end solution from Shift4Shop, Square Online, or Wix.

Pros and Cons of Shopify

Pros

Multichannel sales
Customizable designs
Huge app marketplace (4,000+)
Built-in payment processing

Cons

Steep learning curve
Only includes basic features
Higher priced than most competitors

What customers are saying about Shopify

Shopify is a fully-hosted platform that is easy to use and can be customized in various ways. It is fast, secure, and offers a quality app store and many themes. But it can be pricey, and many features are only available through a third party.

Summary

Shopify

Starting Price
- $29 per month
Free Trial or Demo
14-day free trial

Features

Abandoned cart recovery on all plans
Supports multiple languages and currencies
Powerful marketing features

Squarespace

Best for modern designs

4.0

Award-winning designs
Accept donations on all plans
Unlimited products

Starting price: $33 per month
Free trial or demo: 14-day free trial

Squarespace is like a boutique website and online store builder. It offers 100+ sleek templates, so it’s ideal for minimalist e-commerce sites that want to showcase images of products. Squarespace isn’t the easiest platform, but it’s a good pick for design and has no limits on bandwidth, storage (except video), or products.

It’s almost impossible to talk about Squarespace without starting with its clean, modern, and award-winning pre-designed templates. The mobile-responsive e-commerce site designs look great on any device, and you can easily blend your brand into any of its designs. All e-commerce plans also get access to its video studio app.

Squarespace gives you all the tools to sell physical and digital products and services, including payment and processing options (Stripe, Square, PayPal, Afterpay, and Clearpay). Hands down, Squarespace’s best features are its beautiful designs, e-commerce reports, and — if you have the e-commerce plan, you can accept donations.

There are plenty of other tools that I love, such as the ability to offer gift cards from any plan, and you can add product reviews to your product pages and use the advanced reporting if you’re at least on the mid-tier plan. All of these tools make it easier for you to convert visitors to customers.

Who is Squarespace best for?

It is an ideal e-commerce platform for online sellers that want gorgeous pre-designed templates. I’ve used Squarespace many times before, and my recent testing confirms that it may not be the easiest platform to navigate, and it has a bit of a learning curve.

Recent upgrades to Squarespace

Squarespace recently announced an upcoming 100+ innovations. Soon it will be possible to monetize videos with paid membership access. You can sell on multiple channels, and accept payments and manage appointments, and pay-as-you-go options in the checkout make it easier to make sales to customers that may be worried about budgeting.

Squarespace pricing

To be fair, Squarespace isn’t the most expensive option on the e-commerce platform market, but it isn’t the most affordable either. It sits in the middle, alongside GoDaddy Online Store and Wix. It gets a few more points for its value for the money, but it slips up with some lacking features and few integrations of third-party apps.

Pros and Cons of Squarespace

Pros

Modern, award-winning premade designs
Excellent inventory management tool
Affordable plans with many unlimited allowances
Advanced analytics

Cons

Not the easiest to use out of the box
Added 3% transaction fee on low-tier e-commerce plan
Abandoned cart recovery feature only on highest-priced plan
Subscription sales only on high-tier plan

What customers are saying about Shopify

Summary

Squarespace

Starting Price
- $33 per month
Free Trial or Demo
14-day free trial

Features

Award-winning designs
Accept donations on all plans
Unlimited products

GoDaddy Online Store

Best e-commerce platform for no added transaction fees

3.9

AI-assisted store design
Centralized marketing tools
Easy to use

Starting price: $24.99 per month
Free trial or demo: 30-day free trial

GoDaddy may be best known as a domain registrar and a web host, but it’s also a great e-commerce platform. While other well-known online store builders charge fees on top of transaction fees, GoDaddy Online Store doesn’t. It’s also simple to navigate with everything in a centralized dashboard.

I found GoDaddy Online Store to be simple to use, especially for small businesses on a budget that don’t plan to scale quickly. The central dashboard makes it easy to find precisely what you need when you need it, and setting up an e-commerce site is quick, thanks to the ADI feature. Multichannel sellers would do well with GoDaddy Online Store, too because you can sell via social media and marketplaces.

The basic features of a GoDaddy Online Store plan get your products or services online fast, so you can start selling right away. And almost everything about GoDaddy Online Store is mobile-friendly. The online stores are mobile-responsive, so they’ll look great on any device. Plus, you can run your business with the GoDaddy app, including store and order management.

Who is GoDaddy Online Store best for?

In my testing, I determined that GoDaddy Online Store is best for those who are just starting and want an online store up and running right away. It’s easy to get started and stay on budget with its low pricing, less advanced design options, and easy navigation of its main dashboard (one of the essentials of an e-commerce platform). As your online store grows, you can easily upgrade marketing and SEO to support that growth.

Recent upgrades to GoDaddy Online Store

GoDaddy Online Stores get fairly regular updates, so you can expect to benefit from the constant innovation. The latest upgrades to GoDaddy Online Store include the addition of TikTok, Twitch, and Discord social media buttons you can add to your e-commerce website. There’s also now a service to get paid marketing service or SEO help.

GoDaddy Online Store pricing

GoDaddy Online Store is only available on two plans, but the cost savings is significant if you compare to Shopify and BigCommerce. The introductory pricing is nice, but you must sign up and pay in advance for a long-term plan to get the discount.

Pros and Cons of GoDaddy Online Store

Pros

Multichannel sales
Centralized dashboard for marketing and SEO
24/7 support via live chat, phone, and social media
Industry-specific themes

Cons

Limited customization
Lacks common third-party app integrations
Only basic SEO tools

What customers are saying about GoDaddy Online Store

GoDaddy’s GoCentral online store is a user-friendly platform for startups and small businesses. It is customizable and has various features, though not as many as some platforms. The price is affordable, except for the Microsoft integration.

Summary

GoDaddy Online Store

Starting Price
- $24.99 per month
Free Trial or Demo
30-day free trial

Features

AI-assisted store design
Centralized marketing tools
Easy to use

WP Engine

Best e-commerce platform for online store agencies

3.9

Plans with multiple sites
99.99% uptime
GeoTarget add-on

Starting price: $29 per month
Free trial or demo: None

One reason to consider WP Engine as your e-commerce platform is that it offers a build-your-own plan pricing structure, which is helpful for new agencies on a budget. You can choose a plan for the number of sites you plan to build. Startups can go with the lowest e-commerce plan, or choose 30+ site allowance.

The main reason to choose WP Engine over other e-commerce platforms is that it lets you create a custom plan to get multiple stores on one account. It isn’t the most cost-effective solution, and WP Engine applies multiple limitations on bandwidth, storage, and even visitor count. But I was offered pricing that suits various combinations of limitations, along with optional paid add-ons.

I appreciated being able to access customer support through the user portal via live chat or phone 24/7.

A unique feature of WP Engine is its GeoTarget paid add-on, which allows you to serve appropriate content to visitors based on their location. It also offers website caching for fast page load speeds, and an included CDN — all of which are ideal for good SEO.

Who is WP Engine best for?

After testing WP Engine for e-commerce sites, I found it’s really the best solution for agencies that create online stores for clients. Choose a plan with as many sites as you need for your customers and use its staging area, automatic backups, and overall security. It can also work well if you want to host multiple e-commerce websites at once and access them from a single dashboard.

Recent upgrades to WP Engine

Most updates to WP Engine focus on adding functionality to WordPress hosting. For the most part, WP Engine highlights updates by plug-ins you can add to your e-commerce platform to make designing elements easier or better. Recently, WP Engine gave props to the Advanced Custom Fields plug-in for updating its user interface (UI) and adding a repeater pagination feature for Pro users that allows you to add multiple lines of data with subfields.

WP Engine pricing

You can set your price based on your site or visitor's needs, a unique feature. The startup cost for one online store is $30 per month with no discount, comparable to Shopify and BigCommerce without the added value you’d get from a dedicated e-commerce platform.

Pros and Cons of WP Engine

Pros

Build-your-own e-commerce plan
Excellent pick for web agencies
Simple upgrades
99.99% uptime guarantee and quick page loading speeds

Cons

Limited visitors per month (with overage costs)
No professional email add-on available
More expensive than most other WordPress hosted solutions

What customers are saying about WP Engine

WP Engine works well for small businesses with WordPress websites, offering fast loading speeds and a secure environment. But this is not the best choice for larger sites or people seeking consistently good customer support, and plans are pricey.

Summary

WP Engine

Starting Price
- $29 per month
Free Trial or Demo
None

Features

Plans with multiple sites
99.99% uptime
GeoTarget add-on

Zyro

Best e-commerce platform for AI assistance

3.6

AI tools for branding, design, and content creation
20+ payment options
Order and inventory management

Starting price: $14.99 per month
Free trial or demo: 30-day money-back guarantee

Zyro is web host Hostinger’s answer to the all-in-one website builder and e-commerce platform many small businesses seek. The 100+ templates, 20+ payment options, and simple-to-use tools make it a good pick, but there may be a bigger draw for you. Zyro offers lots of artificial intelligence-powered tools to help you create branding, designs, and content easily (but all the tools need some work).

Zyro may not offer the most feature-packed e-commerce platform, but I liked its unique AI-powered tools to help you create a brand, content, and modify your images. I found the logo creation tool especially helpful for new brands in need of direction. It was easy to navigate the website editor and online store builder. It’s a classic drag-and-drop editor with some customization available.

When it comes to the basics, Zyro handles it like many web hosting services. Bandwidth and storage are unlimited, and my plan came with a free domain name for the first year, web hosting, and an SSL certificate.

I was able to access 24/7 live chat via the user portal, but no phone support is available and there’s no guarantee when the team will respond via email. You can get quick responses through other channels by paying for priority support.

Who is Zyro best for?

The AI tools and limited features make Zyro a good choice if you are new and need a bit of fencing and help with brand building.

Recent upgrades to Zyro

If Zyro seems to be behind other e-commerce platforms when it comes to the value of its features, it seems to be hard at work to implement new ones. It recently included some big value adds to the e-commerce platform, including variants for products, promo codes so you can offer discounts and categories for your products for better inventory organization for your online store.

Zyro pricing

Zyro only offers a single e-commerce platform plan. Its regular cost is $14.99 per month, which is considerably lower than most competitors, so it’s affordable for anyone. You can get a deep discount if you pay upfront for one or two years — the price drops to $3.99 per month.

Pros and Cons of Zyro

Pros

Lots of AI-assisted tools
20+ payment options
Automatic status emails for customers
Affordable e-commerce plan

Cons

Limited to 500 products
1% transaction fee for all users
No phone support

What customers are saying about Zyro

Users find Zyro's website builder is simple, intuitive, and easy to use. The customer service is quick and helpful, with several users citing its amazing availability for helping its small business customers.

Summary

Zyro

Starting Price
- $14.99 per month
Free Trial or Demo
30-day money-back guarantee

Features

AI tools for branding, design, and content creation
20+ payment options
Order and inventory management

Bluehost

Best e-commerce platform for long-term deals

3.4

Low introductory pricing
Marketplace selling
Daily backups

Starting price: $24.95 per month
Free trial or demo: 30-day free trial

If you know Bluehost as one of the best web hosting providers, we agree.But it also offers an avenue for building an online store. It’s a great pick if you’re looking to also sell on multiple marketplaces, but even better is its low introductory pricing — and you can save a lot of money with a long-term deal, but be cautious of renewal costs.

The top reason to choose Bluehost as an e-commerce platform is mainly the attractive introductory pricing — a 12-month term can save you a lot of money at the start, which is huge for new businesses.

I was able to access Bluehost support 24/7 support via live chat and email, but its phone support hours are limited, only available from 7 a.m. to 12 a.m. every day. Beyond pricing, Bluehost’s biggest selling points are its responsive customer support and easy management of WordPress with WooCommerce to make it a viable e-commerce platform.

WordPress and WooCommerce came preinstalled on my Business plan, making it easy to get started right away with my online store. I also got a free domain name and SSL certificate for the first year.

Finally, my plan included an email campaign creator to reach out to customers about orders, sales, and more.

Who is Bluehost best for?

Overall, Bluehost is great for those on a budget who want features including easy navigation, an SSL certificate, and an intuitive interface.

Recent upgrades to Bluehost

Bluehost isn’t known for regular updates to its product, but it isn’t stagnant either. The latest release notes from January 2023 cover various backend improvements, including a better-designed marketplace to make it simpler to find add-ons and services. Bluehost also added easier access to advanced tools from your control panel, so you can get to your file manager, backups, and firewall without having to search fruitlessly.

Bluehost pricing

Bluehost pricing is surprisingly affordable compared to other e-commerce platforms, but you have to sign up for at least a 12-month term and pay upfront to get the sweet introductory deal. Renewal prices range from $14.99 to $39.95 per month afterward, which aligns Bluehost with Wix and GoDaddy Online Store, but it’s still more affordable than top-rated choices like BigCommerce and Shopify.

Pros and Cons of Bluehost

Pros

Extremely low introductory pricing
Highly customizable solution
All-in-one solution for WordPress users
Pre-installed WordPress + WooCommerce plans

Cons

Expensive renewal pricing
Storage limitations on all plans
24/7 support only for live chat and email

What customers are saying about Bluehost

Bluehost is a reputable provider offering shared and VPS hosting. The company is easy to use, affordable, and has great uptime. It is geared toward entrepreneurs and small online startups. Billing might be confusing, but they have solid customer service for any issues.

Summary

Bluehost

Starting Price
- $24.95 per month
Free Trial or Demo
30-day free trial

Features

Low introductory pricing
Marketplace selling
Daily backups

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