The Best E-Commerce Platforms of 2023

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 to use, 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.

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?

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.

Square is one of the most ubiquitous POS systems around, and with Square, 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 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 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 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 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 is best if you want to sell online and in person with a single account.

Recent upgrades to Square

In 2022, Square 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 improved its order scheduling feature, so you can create a more accurate pickup window time for customers.

Square pricing

The free plan from Square 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 and its end-to-end solution is more comprehensive, but you won’t be able to sell in person.

Hostinger is 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. Hostinger offers lots of artificial intelligence-powered tools to help you create branding, designs, and content easily (but all the tools need some work).



Hostinger 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, Hostinger 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 Hostinger best for?

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

Recent upgrades to Hostinger

Recent Hostinger updates 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.

Hostinger pricing

Hostinger bundles its website builder with web hosting and offers e-commerce features on its most basic plan, all for $2.99 per month introductory pricing.

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?

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.

GoDaddy may be best known as a domain registrar and 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?

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 GoDaddy plans 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.

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 mid-size to enterprise businesses.



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 recommend BigCommerce for midsize or larger businesses that want to create an online store. It’s highly customizable and 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.

Any small business owner would do well with Shift4Shop, whether you’re a solopreneur, have an e-commerce business on the rise, or manage 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.



Shift4Shop 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?

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 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.

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 $36 per month with no discount, comparable to Shopify and BigCommerce without the added value you’d get from a dedicated e-commerce platform.

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 2022 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 with a starting price of $9.95 per month, 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.