The Best Shopify Alternatives for Small Businesses in 2026

Shopify remains a solid default for online stores, but it is not the cheapest or the most flexible option once you look past the entry-level sticker price. Two complaints come up most often among merchants who go looking for alternatives: the surcharge Shopify adds when you route payments through a gateway other than Shopify Payments, which ranges from 0.2% to 2.0% of the transaction depending on plan, and the cost of paid themes and apps stacking on top of the monthly subscription. Merchants in countries where Shopify Payments is not offered feel this hardest, since they have no way to avoid the surcharge at all.

We compared six platforms merchants actually migrate to: BigCommerce, WooCommerce, Squarespace, Wix, Ecwid by Lightspeed, and Square Online. Pricing below is pulled from each vendor's own pricing page as of this writing.

Shopify, for reference

Shopify's Basic plan is $39 a month paid monthly or $29 a month paid annually, with a 2.9% plus $0.30 card rate through Shopify Payments and a 2.0% surcharge if you use a different payment gateway. Grow is $105 monthly or $79 annually with a 1.0% third-party gateway surcharge, and Advanced is $399 monthly or $299 annually with a 0.6% surcharge. Plus starts around $2,300 a month for large merchants. Shopify's 2026 platform update rolled checkout customization, previously a Plus-only feature, out to all plans, and added its Sidekick AI assistant free across every tier, which has narrowed some of the gap that used to justify Plus pricing for mid-size merchants.

BigCommerce

BigCommerce prices similarly to Shopify on paper (Core at $39 monthly or $29 annually, Growth at $105 or $79, Scale at $399 or $299) but its core pitch is that approved payment providers carry no extra transaction fee on any tier, versus Shopify's sliding surcharge for non-Shopify-Payments gateways. Each tier instead caps trailing-twelve-month revenue (up to $30,000 on Core, $100,000 on Growth) rather than capping features, and merchants who exceed the cap move up a tier. BigCommerce's API is deeper and its architecture more decoupled, which mid-market and B2B sellers use to run headless storefronts more easily than Shopify's Liquid-templated theme system allows. The tradeoff is a smaller app marketplace than Shopify's, so if your workflow depends on a long tail of niche Shopify apps, some may not have a BigCommerce equivalent.

WooCommerce

WooCommerce is a free, open-source plugin for WordPress, so there is no platform subscription or revenue share from WooCommerce itself. You pay for hosting (commonly in the range of $25 to $350 a month depending on traffic and performance needs) and any paid extensions you add, typically $29 to $299 a year each. Its own payment processor, WooPayments, charges 2.9% plus $0.30 per US card transaction, with added surcharges for international cards and currency conversion, but merchants are free to use Stripe, PayPal, or Square directly with no WooCommerce markup on top. The real cost of WooCommerce is time: you own hosting, security, and updates yourself, with no managed infrastructure the way Shopify provides. In exchange you get full code ownership and the largest total plugin ecosystem of any platform here, plus the strongest content and blogging tools since it runs on WordPress natively.

Squarespace

Squarespace's Commerce-capable plans are Basic at $19 a month annually (2% online store transaction fee), Core at $29 (0% transaction fee), Plus at $49 (0% fee, lower digital-content fee), and Advanced at $99 (0% fee across the board). Once you clear the Core tier, Squarespace does not add its own cut on top of card processing the way Shopify's non-Payments surcharge can. The platform's real strength is template and design quality out of the box; its weakness relative to Shopify is thinner catalog management for large product counts and a much smaller third-party app ecosystem, so complex inventory or multi-warehouse setups tend to outgrow it.

Wix

Wix's eCommerce-capable plans run from Light at roughly $17 a month annually up through Business at around $39 and Business Elite near $159, based on current third-party pricing trackers cross-checked against each other (Wix's own pricing page renders pricing dynamically by region, so confirm your local price directly at checkout). The entry Light plan does not support accepting online payments; Core is generally the first tier that does. Wix Payments charges roughly 2.9% plus $0.30 for most cards with no separate Wix platform fee layered on top. The draw is the most approachable drag-and-drop site builder of the group, plus AI-assisted site generation, which suits merchants who want a store built quickly without touching code or a developer.

Ecwid by Lightspeed

Ecwid is structurally different from the others: instead of a full site builder, it is an embeddable storefront widget you can drop into an existing website on any CMS, or use to sell directly through Instagram, Facebook, Amazon, and Google. Following a March 2026 repricing, plans run Starter at $5 a month, Venture at $29 a month annually, Business at $49 a month annually, and Unlimited at $119 a month annually, with no Ecwid transaction fee on any tier. That makes it a fit for a business that already has a website or a strong social presence and wants to add checkout without rebuilding the whole site, rather than for someone starting a store from nothing.

Square Online

Square Online's Free plan has no monthly fee but the highest online card rate of the group at 3.3% plus $0.30. Plus, at $49 a month per location, and Premium, at $149 a month per location, both drop the online rate to 2.9% plus $0.30 while also lowering in-person card rates. Square Online's real advantage is omnichannel sync: if you already sell in person on Square hardware, online and in-store inventory, orders, and payments reconcile automatically in one dashboard, which none of the other platforms here match as tightly. Its design flexibility and app ecosystem are both smaller than Shopify's, so it suits a retailer extending an existing in-person business online more than a merchant building an online-first brand.

Comparison table

Platform	Entry price (annual billing)	Transaction fee beyond card processing	Best for
Shopify	$29/mo	0.2% to 2.0% on non-Shopify-Payments gateways	Merchants who want the largest app and theme ecosystem
BigCommerce	$29/mo	None on approved gateways, any tier	Merchants who want no gateway surcharge and deeper APIs
WooCommerce	Free plugin + hosting	None beyond your chosen processor's own rate	Merchants who want full code ownership and content tools
Squarespace	$19/mo	2% on Basic, 0% from Core up	Merchants who prioritize design and are past the entry tier
Wix	~$17/mo	None beyond Wix Payments' card rate	Merchants who want the easiest no-code store builder
Ecwid by Lightspeed	$5/mo	None on any tier	Merchants adding a store to an existing site or social channels
Square Online	Free	None beyond card rate	Merchants who already sell in person on Square

Recommendation by use case

If the Shopify surcharge on third-party payment gateways is your main frustration, BigCommerce and Ecwid both charge nothing beyond your processor's own rate on every tier, and Squarespace matches that once you are on Core or above. If you want full control over code and hosting and are comfortable managing that yourself, WooCommerce has no platform fee at all and the deepest plugin ecosystem of any option here. If you are not building a store from scratch but adding checkout to a site or social channels you already run, Ecwid's widget model fits better than a full site builder. If you already run in-person sales on Square hardware, Square Online is the only option here that keeps online and in-store inventory and payments in one system automatically. And if ease of use matters more than flexibility, Wix's builder is the most approachable of the group, with AI tools that can generate a working store layout from a prompt.

Verdict

There is no single best Shopify replacement, because the platforms solve different problems. BigCommerce is the closest like-for-like swap for a merchant who wants Shopify's polish without its non-Payments surcharge. WooCommerce is the right move for anyone who wants to own their stack outright and is willing to manage hosting. Everyone else should match the platform to what they are actually optimizing for, design simplicity with Wix or Squarespace, omnichannel retail with Square Online, or a lightweight add-on storefront with Ecwid, rather than picking based on price alone.