Find Your Online Store Builder: Our Side-by-Side Comparison

For the best ecommerce website builder, Shopify is our top choice thanks to its excellent sales features, large app store, and scalability for long-term growth.

Our comparison chart below gives you the essential details for each of our top five ecommerce builders, helping you make an informed decision so you can find the right fit for your online store:

We constantly update this page to keep you in-the-know with ecommerce builder changes. Most notably, I’ve swapped the position of Hostinger and GoDaddy around to reflect the latest findings from our 2025 ecommerce builder testing.
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Shopify

Wix

Squarespace

Hostinger

GoDaddy

Overall rating
4.8
Overall rating
4.8
Overall rating
4.7
Overall rating
4.2
Overall rating
4.0
Best For

Best for selling physical products

Best For

Best for selling digital products

Best For

Best for selling services

Best For

Best for selling as a side hustle

Best For

Best for selling locally

Starting Price
Starting Price
Starting Price
Starting Price

$13.99

$3.99 + 3 months free (48-month term)

Starting Price
Pros
  • Unlimited products
  • AI-powered Shopify Magic & Shopify Sidekick tools
  • 100+ payment options
  • Huge app market
  • Multichannel selling
  • POS tools
Pros
  • Multichannel selling
  • Email marketing
  • AI support: Wix Astro
  • Features cater to a variety of industries
  • Personalized SEO support
Pros
  • Schedule appointments with Acuity Scheduling
  • Blueprint AI setup
  • Stylish templates for online stores
  • Unlimited products and storage
  • Easy editor
Pros
  • Easy-to-use editor
  • 100+ payment methods
  • Strong suite of AI tools for products and SEO
  • Unlimited products
  • Cheap ecommerce plan
  • No transaction fees
Pros
  • Local promotional tools
  • Social media post creation and scheduling tools
  • Inbuilt bookings
  • POS selling
  • Great for beginners
  • Personalized SEO support
Cons
  • Limited customization options
  • Additional app costs
  • Lacks built-in features
  • Most templates cost extra
Cons
  • Editor can feel cluttered and overwhelming
  • Low storage space on cheaper plans
  • Limited to 50,000 products in catalog
  • Cheapest sales plan expensive
Cons
  • Limited scalability
  • Advanced sales tools only on expensive plan
  • Acuity Scheduling costs $16 extra/mo
  • Slow site load speed
Cons
  • Limited scalability for larger stores
  • No app market
  • No email marketing
  • Simple templates and designs
  • No advanced sales features
Cons
  • Limited customization options
  • Lack of scalability
  • One ecommerce plan
  • Outdated and dull designs
  • No way to remove transaction fees
Transaction Fees

2.9% + $0.30

Transaction Fees

2.9% + $0.30

Transaction Fees

0% – 2%

Transaction Fees

None

Transaction Fees

2.7% + $0.30

Free plan or free trial

3-day free trial

Free plan or free trial

Free plan

Free plan or free trial

14-day free trial

Free plan or free trial

7-day free trial

Free plan or free trial

Free plan

Number of templates

200+

Number of templates

2,000+

Number of templates

150+

Number of templates

150+

Number of templates

200+

Payment options

100+ including: Shopify Payments, Paypal, Klarna

Payment options

80+ including: Paypal, Wix Payments, Stripe, Square

Payment options

5+ including: Squarespace Payments, Stripe, Square, PayPal

Payment options

100+ including: PayPal, Stripe, Apple Pay, Google Pay

Payment options

GoDaddy Payments, PayPal, Stripe, Square

Abandoned cart recovery
Abandoned cart recovery
Abandoned cart recovery
Abandoned cart recovery
Abandoned cart recovery
Number of products on cheapest plan

Unlimited

Number of products on cheapest plan

50,000

Number of products on cheapest plan

Unlimited

Number of products on cheapest plan

500

Number of products on cheapest plan

5,000

Free SSL
Free SSL
Free SSL
Free SSL
Free SSL
Try Shopify Try Wix Try Squarespace Try Hostinger Visit GoDaddy

Our Roundup of the Best Ecommerce Website Builders

Choosing the right online store builder isn’t always easy – the best option for you might not be the best for another business, and it might not be our top-ranked option.

Our comparison table gives you a side-by-side look at the ecommerce website builders we recommend the most. To recap, Shopify is our top choice overall for online stores because of its impressive sales features and flexibility for all business sizes.

For more beginner-friendly options, consider Wix or Squarespace which have simple drag-and-drop editors. And if you want to get online quickly and cheaply, GoDaddy or Hostinger will be your best bet thanks to AI building support and affordable starting plans. That said, these two builders lack the advanced sales features and scalability of a builder like Shopify.

Shopify won’t be the right fit for every business, so play around with any available free plans or trials to see what works best for your business needs.

How We Test Ecommerce Website Builders

We believe that any and all recommendations we put forward to our readers should be backed by data. Our research process into the best ecommerce website builders is carried out regularly to ensure that the information we provide is honest and up-to-date. We want to make sure you know what you’re getting when you commit to a builder.

Over more than 300 hours of testing, we analyze each website builder across seven main areas of investigation. Each category has a unique weighting, based on what’s important to online store owners:

  • Sales Features: 30%
  • Website Functionality: 15%
  • Design Features: 15%
  • Help and Support: 15%
  • User Experience: 10%
  • Pricing: 10%
  • Reputation: 5%

We then award each builder with a score for each category to contribute to its overall rankings.

Graphic breaking down Website Builder Expert's ecommerce website builder testing into three steps: conducting business surveys to build a methodology, testing website builders, and finalizing scores
Written by:
Headshot of Emma Ryan
Emma is Lead Writer at Website Builder Expert, having first joined the team in 2022. She manages the website's topical content strategy to help website owners navigate the highs and lows of being online. Emma also specializes in following the development of leading website builders Wix, Squarespace, and Shopify, through hands-on testing and research. Her work and expertise have been featured in Startups.co.uk, Digiday, TechRound, Industry Today, and Digital Information World.

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