6 Best Online Store Builders

In 2022, it was estimated that retail e-commerce in the U.S. would generate about $905 billion. And with online retail sales in the country set to surpass $1.70 trillion by 2027, it’s no wonder more and more businesses are looking to jump on the e-commerce bandwagon.

The best online store builders make it easy to create a professional and attractive online store without coding knowledge. Our top picks have everything you need to create and manage your digital storefront with ease. They also have user-friendly drag-and-drop website builders, various shipping options and payment tool integrations.

To help you make the best choice for your online store, Money has selected and reviewed the best online store builders.

Our Top Picks for Best Online Store Builders

• Shopify - Best for Performance
• Wix - Best for Ease of Use
• BigCommerce - Best for Large Companies
• Square Online - Best for Small Businesses
• Weebly - Most Affordable
• Webflow - Best for Customization

Best Online Store Builder Reviews

Why we chose this company: Among online store builders, Shopify is the most widely talked about platform thanks to its ease of use, good customer service and reliability. No matter the size of your business, Shopify has everything you need to run an efficient online store.

With a user-friendly interface, Shopify has been praised for its ease of use, fast loading times and outstanding customer service. Its dashboard makes it easy to upload products, manage orders and track sales performance in real time.

In terms of design, Shopify offers a wide range of customizable templates to meet your branding needs. Its advanced SEO tools also make it easy to optimize your website for search engines to attract more customers.

With Shopify, you can set up dropshipping, manage shopping carts and handle shipping costs. It also lets you use a payment gateway of your choice or its own Shopify Payments.

Why we choose this company: If you’re looking for the best online store builder that’s easy to use, Wix is your best bet. With its intuitive drag-and-drop editor and extensive library of professionally designed templates, you’ll have a working e-commerce website built in no time.

With Wix, you can use one of the many pre-made templates to create your storefront quickly or utilize its Artificial Design Intelligence to get a custom website made just for you. Simply adjust the colors and include your logo to correspond with your branding before uploading your merchandise.

Wix is an easy way to host your online store with included website security and marketing tools, including access to an SEO wizard. It also offers web hosting for standard websites.

Check out Money’s list of best web hosting companies for more options.

Why we choose this company: BigCommerce is a platform for building web storefronts for large businesses. BigCommerce is ideal for those who want to include multiple sales channels and sell on social media apps.

In addition to offering a user-friendly interface, it gives you all the tools and features you need to manage orders, inventory, shipping and more. You can optimize your website for search engines with powerful SEO tools, manage customer accounts and shopping carts effortlessly, and ship products anywhere with flexible global shipping options.

BigCommerce also integrates with many plug-ins, making it a great choice for companies that already use other services and are looking to grow to an online store builder that can accommodate existing workflows. However, its extensive features lead to a level of complexity that can be challenging for ecommerce beginners to navigate.

Why we choose this company: Square Online allows you to open an online store for free without registering for a premium plan. This free plan makes Square the best online store builder for small businesses on a tight budget.

Square’s Point of Sale (POS) software is its most well-known product. If you're currently using it, you'll be able to process all major credit cards, connect with your current Square POS and optimize your inventory system. Using the Square POS and online store will allow you to seamlessly sync your inventory between online and in-person sales.

Square Online websites are easy to set up, and offer flexible options for consumer interaction such as selling via Instagram and creating a website checkout.

Why we choose this company: If you’re searching for an affordable online store builder, Weebly is an excellent option. You can create and host your website for free with Weebly, and there are no hidden fees or monthly costs.

Using Weebly's website builder for online stores is straightforward, and it has a powerful set of templates that are optimized for search engines like Google. The templates are customizable to give you more control over your website design.

Weebly's iPhone and Android apps also allow you to manage your store on the go. You can process and sell goods, respond to client queries and release new products from your phone.

Why we choose this company: Over 3.5 million users rely on Webflow to develop attractive sites and online stores. And no wonder, since it provides adaptable website creation, fast and secure hosting options and helpful customer service.

Webflow partners with various software providers so customers can integrate website elements from services they're already using. The website builder for online stores also offers a hosting service that ensures your website is safe and secure.

While it may be challenging for beginners to create a fully customized website, it’s not difficult to set up a basic site. Meanwhile, advanced users can fully customize their website templates with the website builder's extensive library of CSS tools.

Webflow’s pricing plans are flexible, as you can choose to pay for each website separately or subscribe to monthly plans. So if you're looking for an online store builder that offers flexibility and customization, Webflow is a great option.

Other companies we considered

Squarespace

Squarespace is well-known for its stunning, award-winning website templates. It also includes e-commerce functionality in its business plans.

While Squarespace features an intuitive drag-and-drop interface and extensive library of customizable professional templates, there are limitations to its abilities including no autosave feature and limited navigation customization options.

Squarespace gives you the ability to sell custom merchandise, monetize videos, and create shoppable posts on social media. It also integrates with third-party shipping APIs, including FedEx, UPS, USPS and more, but only supports PayPal and Stripe for online payment processing.

WooCommerce

WooCommerce is a free WordPress plugin that allows you to create a basic online store on your existing website. While the plugin is free, there will be costs associated with purchasing your domain (see our list of best domain registrars) and hosting your website.

WooCommerce offers additional free and paid add-on plugins that provide extensive integration options, such as connecting a shipping calculator to your website. You can sell physical and digital products using WooCommerce to turn your website into an e-commerce platform. The free plugin allows you to list inventory and accept payments (with additional payment processing fees depending on your processors), as well as offer coupon codes and sales.

WooCommerce is an extension for WordPress, requiring users to have an active WordPress site to operate. This makes it a good option for a more limited number of e-commerce businesses.

Volusion

Volusion's all-in-one e-commerce solution offers a wide range of marketing tools and features and can integrate with all major payment gateways, including Paypal.

Moreover, Volusion can manage the pricing and status of a company's product variants thanks to its inventory grid feature. So its inventory management system can handle a product that comes in multiple colors, for example.

Along with functional capabilities like a secure checkout and a dropshipping integration, Volusion also offers site-building options like mobile adaptability, category sections and SEO features.

While Volusion has a lot of features, it can be difficult to navigate and customize on the front end. Users have commented that it is difficult to design your website and that the system is overly complicated, though Volusion does provide excellent support materials.

Ecwid

Ecwid is the best online store creator for people who need inventory management functionality. It lets you specify the amount of stock for each item and notifies you when a specific item is out of stock.

The POS and email marketing connectivity that Ecwid offers are both useful to online store owners. Additionally, its mobile app enables vendors to monitor their inventory and sales while on the road.

Besides inventory management, however, there aren’t many features that make Ecwid stand out from the competition.

Shift4Shop

Shift4Shop offers you the best value for your money as it provides completely free enterprise e-commerce tools for U.S.-based business owners. That is, as long as you use their credit card payment processor. If you want to use a different payment gateway, such as PayPal or Stripe, you will need to upgrade to a paid plan.

Contrary to other free services, Shift4Shop doesn't compromise on functionality with its free plan. Shift4Shop functionalities include SEO tools, mobile-ready themes and API access.

GoDaddy

GoDaddy is widely regarded as the industry pioneer for domain names. Many people are unaware, though, that GoDaddy also offers an e-commerce website builder for online stores.

You can quickly set up your online store with GoDaddy’s e-commerce tools, including item descriptions, shopping cart, payment methods and SSL certificates. However, GoDaddy’s relatively basic ecommerce tools mean it is not ideal for complicated websites. It faces challenges as simple as being unable to transfer content when you change your theme.

While GoDaddy’s rates appear competitive at first glance, their promotional pricing disappears after the first year. They also don’t disclose your costs until you reach the final checkout page, and advertised prices are based on a discount for an up-front annual payment rather than monthly rates.

Zyro

Zyro provides a cost-effective approach to starting a simple online business. It is a good option for those searching for a quick and inexpensive way to start selling online.

Zyro stands apart from the competitors thanks in part to its sophisticated AI business solutions. These technologies use AI and machine learning to assist you in developing your brand identity by generating a business name, slogan and logo. You can even use its AI to generate written content for your about page or to describe your brand to customers.

Three choices are available in Zyro for building a new website. You can choose to start from scratch manually, use a template or have Zyro's AI build a website for you. Compared to other online store builders, Zyro’s ecommerce features are fairly limited, offering few website components or expert capabilities.

Main things to consider when choosing online store builders

When building an online store, choosing the right platform for your business can save you both time and money. Some key things to keep in mind when choosing the best online store builder are bandwidth, third-party platform compatibility and available support.

Bandwidth is important for both the performance of your website and for your customers' experience. Your website pages should load quickly enough to keep your customers from navigating away from your store. You'll also want to make sure that whatever platform you choose is compatible with the software and plugins that you already use in your business.

Finally, it's important to consider the level of support available with your online store builder. Many platforms come with extensive documentation and tutorials, while others offer customer support via phone or live chat. Whether you’re a beginner or you plan to use advanced tools for your online store, good customer support could be invaluable when you have questions.

What is the average cost of online store builders?

The average cost of online store builders can vary significantly depending on several factors. Generally, the main determining factors are the features offered by different platforms and the level of customization that you require for your website.

For the most part, basic plans start around $20-$30, plus plans run $50-$80 and premium plans cost $200-$300 per month.

However, there are a few online store builders that let you start for free, depending on the number of products you plan to sell, your expected sales volume and the level of customization you require.

Other popular options offer affordable plans starting at around $10-$15 per month. Add-ons such as increased bandwidth or plugins will come at an added cost.

How to start an online store with a website builder?

The first step to start an online store with a website builder is to choose a platform that offers all the features and tools you need for your business.

Once you've chosen the best online store builder for you, the next step is to design your website. This typically involves selecting a theme or template and adding the content you need, such as product pages, blog posts and other important information.

Depending on your e-commerce plan, you may also need to choose software or plugins that integrate with your online store builder, allowing you to process payments and manage inventory.

How long does it take to create an online store?

The time it takes to create an online store can vary depending on multiple factors. For example, the complexity and design of your website will likely have an impact on how long it takes to build. It will be much faster to create your online store if you’re using a template than if you are creating a custom website.

Additionally, if you have a lot of products, it will take more time to upload all of the product names, descriptions, images and other information. A basic store using a theme or template and selling just a few offerings could take just a few hours to set up.

How We Found the Best Online Store Builders

With so many options available, choosing the right platform for your e-commerce store can feel overwhelming. We considered what the best options are to help you make a professional website for your online business, upload your products, optimize for search engines, drive sales and process payments.

Customization

We highlighted companies that offer a wide variety of design templates to choose from. Customizing your store’s look is essential, allowing you to create unique branding for your business. We also looked for platforms that offer a wide range of features and allow for further customization with HTML and CSS code.

Ease of Use

We looked for platforms that are user-friendly, especially for those less experienced with website design and development. We highlighted platforms that are intuitive for all users and include features such as a drag-and-drop interface that makes adding or removing content from your site quick and easy.

Pricing

Throughout our search, we favored companies that provide a free pricing tier and a selection of paid plans with additional features. We also looked for companies that offer discounts for annual payments. We made sure to compare the prices with the features offered to see which platforms offered the best value for your money.

Summary of the Best Online Store Builders of 2023

• Shopify - Best for Performance
• Wix - Best for Ease of Use
• BigCommerce - Best for Large Companies
• Square Online - Best for Small Businesses
• Weebly - Most Affordable
• Webflow - Best for Customization