The 6 best ecommerce platforms for small businesses

• Shopify pricing: £19-£259 per month (billed annually)
• Transaction fees: From as low as 1.5%-2% + 25p per transaction (online)
• Standout features: Unlimited products, new AI site theme builder, Shopify Magic, Shopify Payments, VR functionality
• What’s missing?: Free custom domain, longer free trial period, drag-and-drop editor

My experience building an online shop with Shopify

Not only is Shopify by far one of the best online store builders I’ve tested, its our overall top ecommerce platform for small businesses. Shopify’s sales features are unbeatable: you’ll benefit from automated emails, abandoned cart recovery, and multichannel selling all from Shopify’s cheapest plan.

There were thousands of apps in Shopify’s app store for me to choose from. Source: Startups.co.uk

What I liked most when testing Shopify was its customisability – if I couldn’t find a feature already built into the platform, I could browse the massive app market to add extra functionality. Whether it’s a new marketing or fulfilment app, Shopify helps your business scale seamlessly. The ability to automatically generate customisable invoices was also a definite highlight.

That said, I found it difficult to customise my site’s appearance as the editor isn’t the most beginner-friendly – Shopify opts to have you structure your pages by section, rather than using the popular drag-and-drop style that other builders use, like Wix.

The good news is that Shopify continues to make improvements behind the scenes, and considers the needs of its merchants. For example, the recent Shopify Editions: Winter ‘25 introduced a bunch of new features, including customer account extensions, and Shopify Sidekick: its AI-powered assistant. There’s also the new AI site theme builder that can create a site for you in just seconds.

• Wix pricing: £16-£119 per month (billed annually)
• Transaction fees: 2.1% + 20p per transaction
• Standout features: Wix Payments, Wix Owner app, POS integration, keyword data support from Semrush, AI chatbot builder
• What’s missing?: Unlimited products, template flexibility

My experience building an online shop with Wix

Wix boasts an impressive range of website features and 900+ professionally designed templates. You can do almost everything, from managing your inventory to running a blog, all under one roof. It’s the Swiss Army Knife of website builders.

Our research found that Wix is the best option for designing an online store, making it ideal if you don’t have the time to contend with complex coding. From my experience with the builder, the drag-and-drop editor is incredibly easy to use – I had complete creative control over how my online store looked.

I found it easy to make changes to my online store thanks to Wix’s ecommerce templates and drag-and-drop editor. Source: Startups.co.uk

When it comes to Wix’s sales features, they’re second only to our number one pick Shopify. Shopify offers advanced ecommerce functionality from its cheapest plan, such as unlimited products and internationalisation tools.

Wix provides all merchants with the basics, including the ability to offer discounts on products, a free custom domain to help boost brand awareness, and multichannel selling so you can connect with customers on social media and marketplaces. But, to unlock more storage space or even features like adding multiple currencies, you’ll need a more expensive plan (starting from the Business tier).

Wix is always evolving, and recently Wix has announced its users can sell directly through YouTube Shopping, as well integration with Printful. It has also launched an AI Site-Chat meaning your site visitors can receive round-the-clock service. Most recently Wix announced Astro, an AI-powered business assistant. This lets you perform business related tasks directly from the chat interface.

• Squarespace pricing: £17-£35 per month (billed annually)
• Transaction fees: 0-3% per transaction
• Standout features: Service-based tools, Squarespace Payments, stunning templates and designs, AI site builder, excellent booking tools through Acuity, customisable checkout page
• What’s missing?: Built-in dropshipping functionality, UK POS integration

My experience building an online shop with Squarespace

Like Wix, Squarespace is a website builder that rivals ecommerce-specific platforms when it comes to creating a professional online store. Based on my hands-on testing of the platform and our rigorous research, I can confidently say that Squarespace is not only one of the easiest platforms to use, but it boasts the best range of design features.

You can build a stylish and modern online store using Squarespace’s stunning templates and drag-and-drop editor. For ecommerce sites, I particularly love the testimonial and digital product design elements – Squarespace makes the process of building a page from scratch quick and simple. You can also create a customisable checkout page containing special fields and a guest checkout function.

I loved how many styles and designs Squarespace offers for different section types, helping you create a unique-looking store. Source: Startups.co.uk

Another great perk is the scheduling and service-based tools. Acuity Scheduling lets you create and manage bookings directly in Squarespace, and you can also create branded invoices. As of its last Refresh update, it also launched the Design Intelligence suite of features, including Blueprint AI, its first AI-powered website builder. This gives you greater control, and more confidence, over what’s on your ecommerce site.

Unfortunately, you’ll need to pay for one of Squarespace’s more expensive plans to unlock advanced sales features. For example, you can avoid paying any transaction fees but only on the Commerce Basic plan or above.

You’ll also need to subscribe to the Commerce Advanced plan for abandoned cart recovery – a feature that’s available on Wix and Shopify’s cheapest ecommerce plan. We’d also warn you that Squarespace’s site speeds aren’t the zippiest – out of all the builders we tested, Hostinger can lay claim to having the fastest loading speeds in town.

• Hostinger pricing: £3.79 per month (for a 48-month subscription)
• Transaction fees: Zero transaction fees
• Standout features: Suite of AI tools including AI blog generator, speedy setup time, fastest site loading speeds on the roundup
• What’s missing?: Scalable ecommerce plans, unlimited products, built-in email marketing

My experience building an online shop with Hostinger

Hostinger has moved up a spot since our last round of research. Having made improvements to site speed (now having the fastest load times that we tested), interface, navigation, and overall usability, it’s a builder that’s gone from strength to strength.

When using it, I could get my online store up and running in minutes thanks to Hostinger’s AI website builder and intuitive drag-and-drop editor.

During my testing, Hostinger’s AI managed to create an effective site for my fake online bookshop. It already came equipped with useful elements, like shop categories and a contact form to join a book club. I only had to make a few tweaks here and there to refresh the imagery and copy.

Hostinger has also doubled down on its AI features, especially in recent months, which I found especially useful. It provides an AI SEO tool and AI heatmaps. For time-poor business owners, you can quickly add copy, blog posts (the AI blog feature can generate up to 2000 words which is really useful for quickly building your site’s content), or new images – to name just a few examples – using Hostinger’s suite of AI tools.

I was particularly impressed by the AI-powered Product Information Generator tool. With this, I could let Hostinger generate my product details for me, such as a description or title, all based on my uploaded image. This is a very useful feature for new businesses that are unfamiliar with building an inventory online.

Another decent bonus from Hostinger is that it charges 0% on processing fees for businesses (just keep in mind you’ll still be subject to any fees from your payment processor though).

I could use Hostinger’s AI Logo Maker to help me create a logo for my business. Source: Startups.co.uk

• GoDaddy pricing: £13.99 per month (billed annually)
• Transaction fees: Dependent on the payment provider, up to 2.9% + 20p per transaction
• Standout features: Quickest setup time, AI website builder, built-in social media calendar and post planner
• What’s missing?: App market, drag-and-drop editor, additional ecommerce plans

My experience building an online shop with GoDaddy

GoDaddy is an entry-level website builder that excels in integrating your ecommerce site with a marketing system. GoDaddy can provide you with a host of in-built marketing tools like an AI generated social calendar planner as well as a social post creator. It also provides integrated booking tools that are great for businesses that need to manage lots of appointments.

GoDaddy also makes starting your own ecommerce site a breeze even if you’re not technologically inclined. I’d argue that GoDaddy’s simplicity makes it ideal for beginners, but its editor and features can be too basic at times.

That said, GoDaddy is not only easy to use but it’s also one of the quickest ways to get online. The onboarding process took me a few minutes and I could immediately dive into designing my store or adding products in the backend.

I added all of the key information to my GoDaddy product page, such as name, price, inventory quantity, and shipping options. Source: Startups.co.uk

However, GoDaddy is let down by its lack of sales features, especially in comparison to the other ecommerce platforms on this list. For example, GoDaddy will always charge transaction fees, whereas other builders, like BigCommerce and Hostinger, don’t charge them at all.

You’ll get the bare minimum, such as personalised SEO tools and the ability to connect your store with Google to help your business get found by the right customers. And, while this makes it great for targeting the local market, GoDaddy limits your store to 5,000 products and lacks scalability.

Still, for stores that don’t need the advanced sales functionality provided by platforms like Shopify, GoDaddy is a very affordable alternative, especially if you’re looking for an ecommerce and marketing hybrid platform.

• BigCommerce pricing: around £22-£229 per month (billed annually)
• Transaction fees: Zero transaction fees
• Standout features: Unlimited products, international shipping options, variety of payment options including Square, PayPal, Stripe and Gift Cards
• What’s missing?: AI features, better design options

My experience building an online shop with BigCommerce

BigCommerce should be your go-to ecommerce platform if your business is rapidly expanding, and you need advanced inventory and order management to support your needs. BigCommerce is equipped to handle thousands of SKUs and you can sync up your inventory across multiple marketplaces. These tools can help large ecommerce stores really streamline daily operations.

You can easily navigate global fulfilment thanks to the multiple storefronts and inventory locations BigCommerce allows – plus, you can accept payments in over 100 different currencies to help encourage sales around the world. You can also connect a wide variety of payment options to your site, including Amazon (one of the only  builders we tested that supports this).

When testing BigCommerce myself, I found its sales features and interface to be more complex and advanced than Shopify’s, so expect a steep learning curve if you’re an ecommerce beginner.

I found it difficult to use BigCommerce’s editor and my site quickly looked messy. Source: Startups.co.uk

Truthfully, I even found the onboarding process to be a little overwhelming. So, unless you have the time to invest in learning the ins and outs of BigCommerce, I’d recommend choosing an easier ecommerce experience with a platform like Hostinger or Squarespace.

For this reason, BigCommerce is better suited for large enterprises. While Shopify rivals the platform with its depth of sales features to support growing businesses and an option for a customisable checkout page, the fact that BigCommerce won’t charge you any transaction fees might give it the edge in the eyes of large-scale sellers.