5 Best Ecommerce Website Builders For Small Business

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If you’re looking for the best ecommerce website builder for small businesses, our top choice is Wix. The beginner-friendly website builder scores 4.7 out of 5 overall. This feature-rich, easy-to-use builder makes setting up your ecommerce website fun with its drag-and-drop system. It also doesn’t hurt the wallet as much as other builders either, and we awarded it a high 4.4 out of 5 score for value for money in our research.

Here’s a peek at the line up for the five best ecommerce website builders for those of you starting your online ventures:

5 Best Ecommerce Website Builders for Small Businesses

  1. Wix Best overall ecommerce website builder for small businesses
  2. Shopify Best for sales-specific features
  3. Squarespace Best for creative control
  4. Square Online Best value for money
  5. GoDaddy Fastest way to get online
For general information on how we analyze our website builders, read on!

We’re pretty proud of our research process, because not many sites can say they’ve carried out such in-depth testing before making recommendations. Here’s how our in-house research team go about finding the best ecommerce website builders on the market.

Every single builder goes through our thorough research process. We investigate important areas such as:

  • Ease of use
  • Design flexibility
  • Value for money
  • Feature quality
  • Sales tools
  • Help and support
  • Customer satisfaction

This helps us rate and compare the builders fairly, focusing on important factors that users have told us matter most.

We even get groups of everyday people to test the builders out and give us feedback, which we then analyze. This helps us:

  • understand exactly how easy (or difficult) beginners find the builder
  • uncover any issues within the builder
  • judge customer satisfaction

We’ve applied this process to over 50 website builders so far – all so we can bring you the most accurate results and recommendations!

Still got questions? Read our report on How We Conduct Our Website Builder Research for a more detailed explanation.

Do you wish there was a quicker way to find out which small business ecommerce platform you should use? You’re in luck! Our quick and easy quiz gives you a personalized recommendation, so you’ll know exactly which one is best for your needs. Click below to get started…

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Find Your Builder

The top three ecommerce website builders for small businesses are Wix, Shopify, and Squarespace. You can see how each performed in our research by taking a glance at their star ratings below:

Best overall ecommerce website builder for small businesses

4.7

out of 5
Top Choice
Website Features

4.4 out of 5 stars

Sales Features

4.4 out of 5 stars

Design Functionalities

4 out of 5 stars

Help and Support

3.8 out of 5 stars

Value For Money

4.4 out of 5 stars

Customer Score

4 out of 5 stars

Ease Of Use

4 out of 5 stars

Best for sales-specific features

4.6

out of 5
Website Features

4.1 out of 5 stars

Sales Features

4.7 out of 5 stars

Design Functionalities

0 out of 5 stars

Help and Support

3.5 out of 5 stars

Value For Money

3 out of 5 stars

Customer Score

4.8 out of 5 stars

Ease Of Use

4 out of 5 stars

Best for creative control

4.5

out of 5
Website Features

4.2 out of 5 stars

Sales Features

3.4 out of 5 stars

Design Functionalities

4 out of 5 stars

Help and Support

3.5 out of 5 stars

Value For Money

4.4 out of 5 stars

Customer Score

4.3 out of 5 stars

Ease Of Use

4.2 out of 5 stars

Compare The 5 Best Website Builders for Small Businesses

It can be tricky to figure out which ecommerce builder is perfect for your small business. Instead of leaving you to scramble around and try to collect all the information, we’ve put this handy comparison chart together for you.

Just use these little arrows below to scroll through and compare the five best platforms, looking at features, pricing, and star ratings. There’s also some reviews attached if you want more information!

Swipe right to see more
0 out of 0

Wix

Shopify

Squarespace

Square Online

GoDaddy

Overall rating
4.8
Overall rating
4.8
Overall rating
4.4
Overall rating
4.2
Overall rating
3.0
Starting Price
Starting Price

$29

Starting Price
Starting Price

$29

Starting Price

$24.99

Transaction Fees

2.9% plus $0.30

Transaction Fees

2.9% + $0.30

Transaction Fees

0% – 3%

Transaction Fees

2.9% + $0.30

Transaction Fees

2.3% + $0.30

Free plan or free trial

Free plan

Free plan or free trial
Free plan or free trial

14-day free trial

Free plan or free trial

Free plan

Free plan or free trial

1 month free trial

Payment options

11 including: Paypal, Wix Payments, Stripe, Square

Payment options

100+ including: Shopify Payments, Paypal, Klarna

Payment options

3: Stripe, Paypal, Square

Payment options

4: Credit cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Square

Payment options

Paypal, Stripe, and Square

Sales features
4.5
Sales features
4.7
Sales features
3.7
Sales features
3.6
Sales features
2.8
Bandwidth

Unlimited

Bandwidth

Unlimited

Bandwidth

Unlimited

Bandwidth

Unlimited

Bandwidth

Unlimited

Storage space

20GB – 50GB

Storage space

Unlimited

Storage space

Unlimited

Storage space

Unlimited

Storage space

Unlimited

Number of products on cheapest plan

Unlimited

Number of products on cheapest plan

Unlimited

Number of products on cheapest plan

Unlimited

Number of products on cheapest plan

Unlimited

Number of products on cheapest plan

5000

Visit Wix Visit Shopify View Squarespace Visit Square Visit GoDaddy

More Information

#1. Wix

Best for small online stores

Pricing range: $27 – $159 per month (billed annually)

Editor's Choice

Wix

Best ecommerce builder for small businesses

4.7

out of 5
  • Easiest to use
  • 800+ template designs
  • Most popular in testing

Free plan available

Paid Plans: $16 - $159 / month

Pros

  • Really easy to use
  • It has the best features
  • Has marketing, accounting, and blogging

Cons

  • Less powerful big data tools
  • Can't swap templates later on
  • Help and support not as great
Wix Review

Features

In our research, Wix scored particularly well in three main areas: value for money, website features, and sales features. It also came in second for ease of use after Squarespace with a beginner-friendly score of 4 out of 5.

Wix’s plans are rich in features, yet its prices are a lot cheaper than ecommerce competitors like Shopify. In short, Wix gives you total creative control, makes building an online store easy for beginners, and packs tons into its ecommerce plans without hiking up its prices.

The main area where Wix didn’t perform quite as well in our research was in the help and support category. In our research, we gave it a 3.8 out of 5. That said, Wix does have a range of support channels including phone support, live chat, and articles in the Wix Help Center, offering users 24/7 support.

However, Wix has more than enough to offer a small business looking to get started online.

Wix is a dream for tech beginners – it’s easy to use, and lets anyone build an awesome online store. You can also add product videos, which is a great feature.

Templates

Wix’s template design and level of creative control is impressive. You simply drag images, text boxes, and more onto your page, then drop them into position wherever you want. This drag-and-drop editing style is super easy, and gives you total creative freedom over the design of your store.

Wix "create a business website" page with example dog grooming images
Building an online store with Wix couldn’t be easier thanks to its drag-and-drop design

Pricing

Wix lets you create a store at no cost, so you can build your ecommerce empire’s foundations without spending a dime. It’s the second-best value builder commerce builder we tested, earning a 4.4 out of 5. However, to actually sell products, you’ll need to upgrade to at least the Business Basic plan, which costs $27 per month.

As you can see, there’s plenty of reasons why Wix is our #1 recommended ecommerce website builder for small businesses. But don’t just take our word for it. We spoke to Claudia, founder of The Vegan Bakes, to find out about her experience of using Wix to build her small bakery website.

Claudia runs The Vegan Bakes from her kitchen at home. She launched her business after turning vegan and struggling to get hold of any yummy vegan treats. Believing no one should have to miss out on a little indulgence, Claudia chose to create a Wix online store to sell her brownies, cookies, and cakes.

I would definitely recommend Wix to anyone looking to create their own website at a low cost. It’s so straight forward to use and you can personalize every part of your site.

I wanted to build a website to sell my bakes online to post all over the UK. Having a website means I have a platform to sell to a large audience.
Wix was the first platform after WordPress that I tried and I love how easy it was to use. I had a look at Squarespace too as I know a lot of people use it, but I struggled to get to grips with it so stuck with Wix.
Wix is super easy to use, it almost reminds me of using Microsoft Word as it uses a simple drag-and-drop system.
I love how simple it is to navigate and create beautiful sites. I wanted a minimal, modern and professional looking site and this was so easy to create on Wix. I selected a completely blank template to allow 100% personalization. This way I could make my website exactly how I wanted it to be.
I wanted to add a subscription option to my website to allow people to get boxes of brownies and cookies delivered to their door each month! Initially when I was looking this option wasn’t available, but I got creative and managed to use an app to create the subscription functionality.
I was trying to keep costs down when launching my vegan bakery as I didn’t have the money to spend on branding and website design. I think Wix is pretty affordable for what it is. I made a one-off payment for the year and it works out at a low cost per month.
Wix is our top-rated ecommerce website builder for small businesses.

More Information

#2. Shopify

Best for larger businesses

Pricing range: $29 – $299 per month

Shopify

Best for larger businesses

4.6

out of 5
  • Best design flexibility
  • Over 3,000 apps available
  • Multi-platform selling

Free plan available

Paid Plans: $29 - $299 / month

Pros

  • Second best sales features on the market
  • Enormous app market
  • Brilliant inventory system

Cons

  • Expensive for small businesses
  • Has transaction fees
  • Tools won't benefit if selling few items
Shopify Review

Features

If you’re serious about selling and want to give your small business a boost, Shopify has all the tools you’ll need with an impressive sales features score of 4.5 out of 5! And if you can’t find what you’re looking for, there’s an enormous app store for you to browse!

Shopify is a dedicated ecommerce platform, meaning it’s designed purely to help you build an online store. That’s why it has more advanced sales tools than website builders like Squarespace.

In our research, Shopify received the highest customer score. We calculate this score by getting people to try out the builder, and then rate it based on their experience. Shopify was the people’s favorite for building an online store, and when customer retention can result in a 25–29% increase in revenue alone, it’s important not to alienate them.

An especially great feature of Shopify is that it comes with built-in dropshipping tools. So if you’re a small business struggling to find storage for your products, Shopify could be your perfect solution.

If you’re already selling, Shopify has apps that let you sync your inventories, making it easy to manage all your sales from one place. Shopify also has great multichannel selling options, including integration with Instagram, Facebook, and even Amazon and eBay.

Pricing

Shopify didn’t wow us in every department, though – the most significant area where it fell down was value for money with a score of 3 out of 5. A lot of Shopify’s sales tools are actually too advanced for small businesses, meaning you’re paying for features you might not need for a long time. When you’re on a tight budget, every cent counts!

Shopify’s pricing plans start from $29 per month for annual plans, if sign up to pay on a monthly basis that starting prices go up to $39 per month.

You’ll save 25% if you sign up for one year, which means you could save around $120 per year on the Shopify plan which you could put towards travel expenses, office equipment, or some new business cards!

Good to know… Unless you choose Shopify’s in-house payment gateway, Shopify Payments, you will be charged transaction fees on your sales. On the cheapest plan, this would be a 2% transaction fee.

Shopify’s powerful tools won’t benefit you if you just want to sell one or two products. However, if you’re ambitious and want to give your store a solid foundation, then Shopify has the full package to support your small business.

shopify best ecommerce for small business
Shopify is designed to help online sellers create their own online store, and has all the tools to help you succeed.
93% of people we surveyed said they would recommend Shopify.

More Information

  • Read our full Shopify Review to find out if it could be the perfect ecommerce builder for your small business

#3. Squarespace

Best value for money

Pricing range: $23 – $49 per month (billed annually)

Best Value For Money

Squarespace

Best value for money

4.5

out of 5
  • Best website designs
  • Great in-built features
  • Ideal for creatives

Free plan available

Paid Plans: $16 - $49 / month

Pros

  • Excellent social media integration
  • The best designed templates
  • Flexible creative control

Cons

  • Lacks payment options
  • Only two plans dedicated to ecommerce
  • Not most scalable choice
Squarespace Review

Templates

If you’re looking to build an eye-catching portfolio or online business, then make space for this platform. Why? Because Squarespace stores stand out.

In our research, Squarespace has a respectable score when it came to design with a 4 out of 5.  Its online store templates are modern, sleek, and built to show off your products. You can even rebuild your template any time you like – perfect for any rebrands you might have down the line.

Features

Unlike Wix, Squarespace wasn’t so strong in our testing of its sales features. For example, it does support multichannel selling, but only through Instagram – a pretty limited offering compared to builders like Shopify.

That said, with Squarespace’s built-in tools, you’ll still get everything you need to set a small store up for success. You can even add extra sales features from Squarespace’s app store, Squarespace Extensions.

Overall, Squarespace is a great choice if you’re after a superb-looking storefront.

Pricing

Even the Squarespace price plans look good – if you sign up for a year, you’ll pay just $23 per month on the cheapest ecommerce plan (or $33 per month on a month by month contract).

However, you can get the $23/month plan for only $20.70/month when you use our exclusive Squarespace offer code on your first purchase. Simply enter code WBE at the checkout to save 10% on any Squarespace plan.

squarespace ecommerce
Squarespace helps your online store stand out from the crowd with its delightful templates
Squarespace gives you lots of creative control over your website.

More Information

#4. Square Online

Best for ability to sell for free

Pricing range: $12 – $72 per month (free option available)

Square Online

Best for ability to sell for free

4.2

out of 5
  • Easy-to-use dashboard
  • Easily add products
  • Great marketing features

Free plan available

Paid Plans: $12 - $79 / month

Pros

  • You can begin selling for free!
  • It has Artificial Design Intelligence
  • Fairly easy to use

Cons

  • Lacks payment options
  • Limitations in customization
  • Small learning curb when you start
Square Online Review

Ease of Use

Square is a payment processing giant which bought Weebly – the popular website builder – in 2018. The result is Square Online, which combines Square’s features with Weebly’s website building platform. 

You sign up through Square Online, and get extra features, but you’re still using Weebly’s building software to actually create your store.

This is especially great news for beginners, as Weebly is a straight forward builder that uses drag-and-drop editing blocks. However, it also comes with Weebly’s limitations, namely the limited customization options.

Square Online uses Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI) to build you a store that’s tailored to your needs. This is the same method used by builders like GoDaddy, asking questions about your store to create a personalized layout for your website.

Features

So, why use Square Online instead of Weebly? Well, Square Online comes with extra features and integrations that Weebly doesn’t, such as tracking customer behavior and creating custom invoices.

It also uses its AI tech to help you follow best practice when adding products, which was a feature that really stood out when we tested Square Online. For example, it can identify products and suggest the category name for you, saving time.

Pricing

Because of these features, we recommend Square Online to sellers who want to get the most value for their money – it scores an impressive 4.5 out of 5 for value for money in our research!

Square Online’s platform is easy to use and affordable, but it doesn’t sacrifice great features, either.

One of the most obvious things to shout about with Square Online is the fact it has a free plan for you to sell on – a very rare offer that isn’t available with most ecommerce builders. Square Online has four plans, ranging from $0 to $72 per month (billed annually).

square ecommerce builder
Square is a payment processor first and foremost, but its store builder has some pretty cool sales features to help businesses get online.
Build and sell for free with Square Online.

#5. GoDaddy

Fastest way to build a website

Pricing range (for ecommerce): $16.99 per month – $29.99 per month

GoDaddy

Fastest way to get online

Average

3

out of 5
  • 5-minute setup
  • Good for basic sites
  • Affordable starting plan

Free plan available

Paid Plans: $6.99 - $469.99 / month

Pros

  • Fastest route to building a site
  • Switch templates at any time
  • Supports lots of industries

Cons

  • Only suitable for basic websites
  • ADI limits customization
  • Sales features aren't the best
GoDaddy Review

Features

GoDaddy scores a very low 1.9 out of 5 for its website features, making it the weakest option on this list. Despite being a great builder for getting online quickly and easily, GoDaddy offers the bare minimum to its users. In particular, we were disappointed by its limited marketing and blogging features, meaning you’ll struggle to promote your business online and build awareness.

Unfortunately, GoDaddy’s features appear lackluster in comparison to other website builders, such as Wix and Shopify. This is especially true for online selling since GoDaddy’s cheapest plan limits you to 5,000 products and only provides a few payment options, including PayPal and Stripe – while this will be suitable for a lot of small businesses, you’ll soon feel restricted as your business starts to grow.

But, if you’re looking for a simple and basic website builder that you can get to grips with quickly, then GoDaddy’s free plan is worth trying out.

Templates

GoDaddy scores an equally low 1.9 out of 5 for its designs and templates, which, once again, puts GoDaddy at the bottom of the pack. When you sign up to GoDaddy, its ADI builder helps you get online in minutes, but your creative control will be restricted. It lacks the drag-and-drop editor of Wix and only offers basic design elements that can be organized by blocks.

As for GoDaddy’s template library, users can choose between hundreds of layouts, and can even filter the themes by industries such as “Fashion & Beauty” and “Home Services”. Small businesses should have no trouble finding a suitable fit for their website.

Pricing

A small business will want to choose one of GoDaddy’s ecommerce-specific plans which start from $16.99 per month (billed annually). Both plans, Commerce and Commerce Plus (which costs $29.99 per month), are very affordable solutions if you’re hoping to sell online. But you’ll get more for your money if you opt to go with more powerful, or more expensive, builders, such as Wix and Shopify.

Form to add new products on GoDaddy's editor
GoDaddy makes it easy to add new products from its editor.
GoDaddy is the fastest way to get your small business online.

Best Ecommerce Website Builders for Small Business: Recap

There are many website builder options for your small business. These builders let you create an awesome online store for a relatively low cost, helping you get off the ground and into the world of ecommerce.

To recap, the five best ecommerce website builders for small businesses are:

5 Best Ecommerce Website Builders for Small Businesses

  1. Wix Best overall ecommerce website builder for small businesses
  2. Shopify Best for sales-specific features
  3. Squarespace Best for creative control
  4. Square Online Best value for money
  5. GoDaddy Fastest way to get online

This list of five is a great fix for small businesses looking to get started online. However, as your store grows, so will your website’s needs.

If your store does grow quickly – and hopefully it will – you might want to consider switching to a big business-friendly platform like Shopify which is ideal for fast-growing ecommerce stores.

For most small businesses, we recommend one of our top three. You should use:

  • Wix if you want to get the most out of your budget – or if you’re a beginner who wants total creative freedom over your site’s design
  • Shopify if you’re serious about selling, and want powerful tools and an endless choice of apps to help you run your business
  • Squarespace if you want a sleek, modern design template for your business website, tons of creative control, and all your features built-in

Don’t forget that each platform either offers a free plan or a free trial, so you can begin building the foundations for your future ecommerce empire at no personal cost.

FAQs

Wix is the best overall ecommerce platform on the market, it’s easy to use, offers excellent sales tools, and provides comprehensive customer support. It’s also great for small businesses, too. It lets you build a store and sell a few products with ease.
BigCommerce is for fast growing businesses looking to scale massively. It has the best built-in features of any platform, but it’s quite tricky to work because it uses complicated language. Shopify is better for smaller businesses. It’s much easier to use than BigCommerce, helping you build a store quickly.
You’ll get the best value for your money from Square Online, which lets you sell on its free plan and offers excellent features on its paid plans from $12 per month.

  1. Find a niche market and choose what to sell
  2. Research your competition then come up with a solid business strategy
  3. Find an ecommerce site builder to start your online store (we recommend Wix for small businesses)
  4. Find a supplier and set up your logistics
  5. Launch your site and begin marketing your services to the world!

Factoring the price of a subscription to an ecommerce builder, you will also have to factor in the materials for your product, locating a supplier, packaging, shipping, space to hold inventory, and also taxes.

Therefore, you could be looking at anywhere from around $2000 – $10,000 to start your business.

Website Builder Expert aims to provide you with honest data. That’s why we conduct our own research and obtain direct, personal insight. Analyses and graphics in this article are based on authentic sources cross-validated by our in-house experts.

We take great care to ensure the information we publish is reliable and accurate. However, WBE takes no responsibility for any inaccuracy in information supplied to us by users, research participants, or other entities.

Please note the insight contained within this article is for general information purposes only. We’re glad to answer any questions you may have about this article and its supporting research. For further information, please contact Website Builder Expert directly via email at info@websitebuilderexpert.com.

Written by:
I used to think website design was just for professionals. Because maybe like you, I have no coding or design experience. But, with the help of our expert researchers (and after testing every website builder myself), I can confidently guide you through on how to get the most out of each one.
Researched by:
natasha_willett
I love to understand human behavior and the cognitive biases that drive us to do what we do. For over nine years I have worked as a mixed method researcher – research using a mix of numerical data and personal experiences – across a range of sectors, from insurance and policy development to finally arriving at Website Builder Expert five years ago. Fascinated by consumer decision-making, I meticulously built our leading ranking methodology to explore where providers like Wix sit within a competitive industry and what value they truly bring to our audience.
As a member of the Market Research Society, I’m an advocate for high ethical, commercial, and methodological best practices. All of this combines to give you the most ethical recommendations based on real data.

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