The 5 best Shopify alternatives & competitors in 2023

Updated on May 30th, 2023

Shopify alternatives have a steep climb to even be considered similar or a competitor.

Why do I say this? Because Shopify comes with a lot of benefits and currently sits at the mount Rushmore of one of the greatest ecommerce software platforms.

So to be compared as one of the top websites like Shopify you have to be extremely good.

In this article, I will be reviewing and comparing the most popular and best Shopify alternatives. These are true competitors of Shopify everyone should consider.

5 best Shopify alternatives & competitors compared

The alternative companies explored in this post are based on similar characteristics, price value, innovation, popularity, Google trends, easier functionality, etc, comparable to Shopify.

However, they each have their uniqueness that makes them suitable for certain businesses and entrepreneurs.

Platform	Known as
Wix Stores	the best alternative for newbies and small businesses
Squarespace	best for stunning templates
Woocommerce	the best alternative for WordPress sites & those tech-savvy
Square Online Store	best alternative for omnichannel sellers
Bigcommerce	the best substitute for big shops

Let’s explore these Shopify’s powerful substitutes deeper.

Wix Stores (best for small businesses & stores)

Wix is a powerful website builder and ecommerce platform. A great alternative to Shopify because of its super easy-to-use drag-and-drop functionality when creating your personal & ecommerce site.

I used it a few times to create a website and its editor is really smooth and easy.

It offers beautiful templates that are stunning design-wise and that can help with conversion.

Made for small businesses and online shops and newbies.

A con is that it doesn’t perform well SEO-wise like Shopify.

Notable features

• Sell digital or physical products
• Sell subscriptions
• Customers can pay in installments
• Create your own mobile app
• Dropshipping
• Cart abandonment alert
• Multi sales channel
• Zapier integration
• Related product gallery
• Offer store coupons & discounts
• Promotional videos
• Product review
• Order tracking for customers

Price comparison

The company has various prices for those just using their platform to build websites, sell online, and for large enterprises.

Since this article is about ecommerce we will only be listing their price for that.

• Business Basic: $27/m
• Business Unlimited: $32/m
• Business VIP: $59/m

As you can see its basic plan is similar to Shopify’s basic plan price.

Squarespace (best for stunning templates)

Next on our list of best Shopify alternatives is Squarespace. This competitor of Shopify is beloved by many because of its ease of use, design capability, beautiful & quality templates, and affordable pricing.

This platform is so good that others had to copy its characteristics to keep up.

Unlike Shopify which offers easy scaling tools, it can be hard to scale with Squarespace as your store gets big. This is one of the complaints by users.

Yet it is still one of the top best Shopify alternatives even with that minor knack.

Notable features

• Builtin analytics & email marketing
• Sell anything (courses, memberships, products)
• Noncomplicated & intuitive website builder
• No storage limit like other platforms
• 100+ templates in various industry
• Product reviews
• Customer account creation
• Video & logo maker
• Banners & pop-ups to promote your products
• Unlimited bandwidth & product selling
• Sell subscriptions

Price comparison

When you opt to pay yearly you will be rewarded with a great discount.

You will also pay a 3% transaction fee on all sales but you can easily avoid that by upgrading to Basic Commerce or Advanced Commerce.

• Personal: $16/m
• Business: $23/m
• Basic Commerce: $27/m
• Advanced Commerce: $49/m

Try Squarespace

Woocommerce (best for those with tech skills)

Woocommerce is the most popular plugin for WordPress site owners who want to build a virtual shop for their business.

This Shopify replacement is a plugin that makes it easy for WP website owners to launch and sell more with their online store(s). 

It is the best for SEO, customization, and running a content-heavy ecommerce site.

With all that said, it requires a lot of tech skills, unlike Shopify.

And if you don’t have the skills you have to hire a pro.

Notable features

• Auto tax calculation
• Shipping label printing
• Live shipping rates from top shippers
• 165 region-specific payment gateways
• Subscription & deposit payment options
• Ability to translate into 24 languages
• No limit on what you can sell
• 100s of ecommerce extensions and integration tools

Price

Unlike other Shopify alternatives on this list that you have to pay for, Woocommerce cost is ZERO install and is only available on websites built with WordPress.

Even though it is FREE, you still need to pay for website hosting with a top services provider like Bluehost (great for starters) or WPengine (I recommend it for those migrating an existing store or large enterprise).

You also need to hire someone from Fiverr to help you set it up and optimize for maximum performance if you don’t have the tech skills or time.

A great Shopify alternative regardless.

Square Online Store (best for omnichannel sellers)

Square Online Store is no doubt the most popular and best omnichannel selling platform in the market today and that is challenging Shopify.

Square is already popular and used by many small businesses for their payment solutions (chip reader & point of sale). So getting started is not hard.

Other benefits I like about this company’s ecom solutions are that it offers a free plan to start (the free plan has limited features though which are listed below), easy-to-use, has affordable paid plans, can sell both online & offline, etc).

The flak with this platform is that the FREE plan is extremely limited. You only get 500MB of storage, lots of annoying ads, performance tracking is not allowed, etc.

Notable features

• Multichannel selling (offline & online)
• No commission local delivery
• Website builder
• Unlimited product listing
• Search engine-optimized tools
• Buy now, pay later built-in app
• Social medial selling
• The app has built-in inventory management
• Zero fees in-store pickup
• Abandoned cart recovery tools
• Inexpensive paid plans
• Easily create coupons
• Real-time shipping rate calculator
• Complimentary hosting & domain
• The ability to bring your own domain
• 200+ third-party app integration

Price comparison

Like other replacements, you will pay less if you do pick the annual payment.

With both the free and plus plans, you will pay 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction.

The premium per transaction rate is 2.6% + 30 cents.

• Free plan: $0/m but you can connect to a domain you own, 500MB bandwidth which is extremely small, non-stop irritating pop-up ads, you can’t track site performance & statistics, no video upload allowed, no abandoned cart alert, etc.
• Plus: $29/m
• Premium: $79/m

Bigcommerce (best for established & big businesses)

Bigcommerce is one of the strong alternatives to Shopify you should consider thanks to its feature-rich tools that are built into the software and good SEO performance which we love.

It is a great option for those businesses who have the fund and looking to run a big ecommerce business as the price can get high.

Let’s take a look at this Shopify substitute’s powerful features.

Notable feature

• No transaction fee
• Inventory management tools
• Built-in features with less dependent on third-party apps like Zapier
• Fully customizable URL structure
• Built-in abandoned cart saver
• Built-in blog
• AMP ready
• Akamai Image Manager included
• 24/7 email, chat, & phone tech support
• No code builder with a smooth drag-and-drop editor
• 65 payment gateway integration
• Free website hosting
• Integration with WordPress
• Strong search engine optimization performance
• 70+ native promotion & discounts

Price comparison

The ecommerce platform offers 15 days of free trials and deep discounts when you select the yearly payment option. Its standard price is similar to Shopify’s standard plan price.

• Standard: $29.95/m
• Plus: $71.95/m
• Pro: $269.96/m

Which replacement is right for me in 2023?

Whether you are looking for a company similar to Shopify because you are a beginner or switching from Shopify, any of the substitutes we shared here are great and the top choices.

Choosing the best one ultimately comes down to your business and store needs, budget, the type of company you have or part of, and personal choice.

I hope that the comparison here will help you pick the right website like Shopify.

If you have questions regarding some of the Shopify alternatives, contact us.