10 Best Free Ecommerce Website Builders

Square Online’s forever-free plan lets you list an unlimited number of products (physical or digital), track inventory, and manage SEO. It also integrates marketing software like Mailchimp—things you might not need right away but are very nice to have as you grow.

• Unlimited products: List and sell unlimited physical and digital products like e-books and videos with no website storage or photo upload limits.
• Full website: You can create the usual main navigation pages a website has, such as a Contact Us page, then customize it with your logo and colors. You can also add blank pages, a gallery, and email capture forms.
• Coupon codes: Create coupon codes that visitors can enter to receive a percentage or dollar amount discount or free shipping. Coupons can be valid for all orders, orders over a certain amount, or specific items.
• Subdomain: Free plans come with a customizable “square.site” subdomain, so your website will appear as “yourstore.square.site” on the address bar.
• Square branded footer: Free websites also display “Powered by Square” on the footer of each page. It’s subtle and doesn’t look too bad compared to other free websites. However, you’ll need to upgrade to at least the Plus edition ($29 per month) to remove it.
• Customer support: Support for Square Online is a little tricky to reach. You have to chat with its support robot and request to speak with a representative. Phone and live chat support are available weekdays from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Eastern time and weekends from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Eastern time. During my evaluation, it took about 30 minutes to connect to a live support agent and one business day to respond through email.

Square Online’s Website Builder is user-friendly and easy to navigate. We were able to build our demo store in just a few hours.

This “Powered by Square” footer is displayed on all free websites. (Source: Square)

An upgrade to a paid plan is necessary when you need one or more of the following features:

• A custom domain: One of the main reasons to upgrade from the free plan is to use your domain name instead of yourstore.square.site. To do this, you’ll need to upgrade to Square Online’s Plus ($29 per month), which includes a free custom domain that’s good for a year.
• Shipping tools: With a Premium account ($79 per month), you can use a shipping calculator to charge customers real-time rates from USPS, UPS, FedEx, or DHL. Transaction fees are also discounted. If you aren’t ready to upgrade yet, note that with WooCommerce and Ecwid, you can access some of these shipping tools for free.
• Customer reviews: If you want to give customers the ability to leave reviews of your products, you’ll need to upgrade to at least the Plus plan ($29 per month).

• Free domain
• Website builder: 50-plus mobile-ready website themes with a built-in blog.
• Product management features: Sell an unlimited number of products—even digital goods—categories and images. You can also set up upsell and cross-sell for your products and create waiting lists.
• Multichannel selling: Sell your products on sales channels, such as Amazon, Facebook, Instagram, eBay, and Google Shopping Feed.
• Marketing tools: There is a wealth of marketing tools available on the free plan, including product reviews, Google customer reviews, wish lists, gift certificates, affiliate programs, coupons and discounts, and Mailchimp or Aweber integrations.
• SEO: This is an area where the software excels. It lets you set up 301 redirects, navigation and breadcrumb links, and customizable meta descriptions. Integration with Google Analytics is also available. What we like is that it has pop-ups and prompts that remind you to fill in fields like image alt tags and meta descriptions.

Shift4Shop’s free themes are varied, and its website builder allows for moderate customization because of its building blocks.

An upgrade to a paid plan is necessary when you need one or more of the following features:

• More payment provider options: If you would like to have the freedom to choose another payment provider that is a better fit for your business, you need to upgrade to a paid tier (From $29).
• Automation features: Shift4Shop’s highest plan, Pro ($229/month), unlocks automation features, such as auto-shipping, autoresponder email campaigns, pre-orders, and back-in-stock notifications.

• Unlimited products: List an unlimited number of products, including physical and digital goods (like e-books and videos). WooCommerce also includes tools to manage your inventory, such as low stock alerts.
• USPS integration: Calculate the shipping price in real time when a customer checks out, then print discounted USPS postage straight from WooCommerce with the customer’s name and address already filled in. You can integrate other carriers like UPS and FedEx for an additional fee.
• Coupon codes: WooCommerce lets you create coupon codes for discounts on the customer’s order. You can also create special rules, such as requiring a minimum spend and excluding certain items.
• Product reviews: Allow customers to rate and submit reviews of your products.
• Support: WooCommerce does not have customer support available to free users, although there is a help forum where you can ask other users questions.

How to set up coupons in a WooCommerce store. (Source: WooCommerce)

WooCommerce is a free WordPress plugin and offers several third-party integrations. An upgrade to a paid plan is necessary when you need one or more of the following features:

• SEO: WooCommerce does not include great SEO tools out-of-the-box, so many users will install an SEO plugin like Yoast to help them edit search engine titles and descriptions for their products and pages.
• Multilanguage capability: An extension is required to display your site in multiple languages, and this can cost around $200 per year.
• Marketing: Another common way users upgrade WooCommerce is by installing one of the dozens of marketing extensions. You can sell on Facebook, start an affiliate program, or create targeted email campaigns with unique offers based on a customer’s previous purchases. Prices range from $0 to hundreds of dollars per year.

• Inventory management: PrestaShop offers basic and advanced inventory management solutions. Once you enable advanced stock management, you can specify quantities for every product (or combination) in your store, select the warehouse in which the product is stored (with multiple carriers), track inventory movements, current product status, and more.
• Payment processing: Set up payment methods, such as payments by invoice, COD, check, bank transfers, credit cards, subscriptions, and POS or payment via physical stores.
• Marketing: You can enable features for promo codes, coupons, and discounts, as well as have price rules like special offers based on product, customer, or order. You can also make abandoned cart recovery and engagement emails.
• Customer support: Support is a premium (paid) service. However, PrestaShop has a large and supportive community that contributes to its forum or help center.

An example of a premium template in PrestaShop. (Source: Prestashop.com)

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This is a view on how to enable the Advanced Stock Management Option in PrestaShop. (Source: PrestaShop Manager)

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An upgrade to a paid plan is necessary when you need one or more of the following features:

• Customized website themes: While PrestaShop offers free website templates, most free offerings have limited customization abilities or unappealing designs.
• Marketplace selling: If you want to connect your store to common marketplaces, such as Amazon, eBay, Etsy, and Google Shopping, you’d need to pay for an extension module.

• Up to 10 products: Free users can list up to 10 unique products at a time. Customers can pay with a credit card, which can be processed through PayPal, Stripe, Square, and more than 60 other payment gateways. Free users cannot sell digital items like e-books and videos.
• Link to website: While Ecwid can be set up as a free standalone site, most users integrate it with their existing website. Ecwid has official integrations with Wix, Weebly, and WordPress, allowing you to add your free Ecwid store with just a few clicks. For other website builders like Squarespace, you can integrate Ecwid by copying and pasting HTML code.
• Shipping calculators: Ecwid is the only free ecommerce website builder that has free shipping calculators for all the major US carriers, Canada Post, Royal Mail, and more. This means you can charge customers actual shipping rates based on their location and package weight. However, you cannot purchase shipping labels straight from Ecwid unless you integrate an app like ShipStation.
• Support: For free users, there is only email support available. Live chat and phone support are available to paying customers.

This is the demo store we built using Ecwid’s Instant Site. You can create a functional and straightforward store and have detailed product pages.

An upgrade to a paid plan is necessary when you need one or more of the following features:

• List more products: A Venture plan ($19 per month) lets you list up to 100 products at a time, whereas a Business plan ($39 per month) allows you up to 2,500. Meanwhile, an Unlimited plan ($99 per month) enables you to post unlimited products.
• Custom domain: If you’re using Ecwid to host your website, you can use a custom domain, such as www.yourstore.com, instead of the storename.company.site domain that’s included for free.
• Multichannel selling: One of the big perks of using Ecwid is that you can integrate your online store with more than one website—and you can do that even with a free account. However, with a Business account ($39 per month), you can also list your products on Amazon, eBay, Etsy, Facebook, and Instagram. Some additional fees may apply.
• Multilanguage: Ecwid offers multilanguage functionality for users on the Business plan ($39 per month).
• Coupon codes: Another perk for paid users is creating promotional coupons for customers to use at their store. Ecwid gives you a lot of control over coupons as you can specify the number of times a coupon can be used, require a minimum order amount, only allow it for certain customers, or only allow it for certain items/item categories.

• Connect to custom domain: You can use a custom domain under the Community plan provided you transfer the domain to Freewebstore.
• Abandoned cart saver: Set up cart saver emails by customizing the time the email gets sent as well as how many emails you send. You get to send unlimited emails per month, and Freewebstore charges 5% of the order value when a save is completed.
• Email marketing features: Connect Mailchimp, get up to 10 review emails per month, and enable stock requests.

A preview of how Freewebstore’s user interface looks like

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I find Freewebstore’s user interface lagging and clunky when it comes to switching pages and setting up and loading features. What you see is the icon loading until the page loads, usually at three seconds.

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An upgrade to a paid plan is necessary when you need one or more of the following features:

• An increase in annual sales cap limits: Your sales revenue will naturally increase as your online store gains traction and grows. Upgrading to Freewebstore’s next plan, Startup ($20/month), lets you have up to $100,000 in annual sales revenue as a limit.
• Real-life (human) support: The free plan only lets you have AI assistants as chatbots when you have queries. Upgrading to Startup ($20/month) gives you access to its support team via chat.
• Additional staff accounts: Once you hire more staff and need to give them store access, upgrading would be necessary. The Startup plan ($20/month) gives you up to two additional staff accounts, whereas the Pro ($65/plan) lets you have up to five.

• Free domain for a year
• The choice of using a WYSIWYG site editor or an AI-based site builder
• UPS and FedEx shipping calculators
• Comprehensive SEO tools
• Embedded live chat
• Automated inventory management
• Product recommendations—upselling and cross-selling features
• Google Analytics integration

• Limit to one free app within the Odoo enterprise system: I have talked about how Odoo’s ecommerce module is just a part of its vast system earlier. When you sign up with Odoo, you are entitled to one free app or module and would need to purchase the next module you need. Since you are not able to integrate outside apps, any functionality you might need on top of the ecommerce module will be an added cost.
• No subscription tiers: Odoo’s ecommerce platform doesn’t have tiers, only added modules at cost. However, Odoo’s single ecommerce plan is robust and comprehensive already.

• Use a custom domain: Big Cartel is one of the few free ecommerce website builders in my list that we’re aware of that lets you connect a custom domain, such as www.yourstore.com. If you don’t own a custom domain, you can use a Big Cartel subdomain, like yourstore.BigCartel.com, for free.
• Up to five products: Free plans list up to five unique products at a time, with one photo per item. Customers can check out using a credit card, which is processed through PayPal or Stripe. Free users cannot sell digital items like e-books and videos.
• Full website: Create a complete website with multiple pages and a contact form. Big Cartel lets you choose from many stylish themes that you can customize with your own logo and colors. Big Cartel gives you a surprising amount of control over your website’s layout and lets you integrate a small but solid set of apps, including Mailchimp, ShipStation, and live chat apps.
• Support: Big Cartel has email support available from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Eastern time, including weekends. During my evaluation, I submitted a question after hours and received a helpful response first thing in the morning.

Example of a Big Cartel website. For this particular theme, the gray “Big Cartel” logo in the lower-left corner is the only branding displayed.

An upgrade to a paid plan is necessary when you need one or more of the following features:

• More products and photos: The most prominent reason to upgrade Big Cartel is to add more than five products and upload more than one photo per item. The $9.99 per month edition lets you sell up to 50 products, with the $19.99 per month edition 500 products. All paid versions of Big Cartel also let you sell digital items.
• Coupons: All paid versions of Big Cartel allow you to create digital coupons for customers. This can be a percentage or dollar amount discount or free shipping.
• More SEO options: Neither free nor paid versions of Big Cartel allow you to edit the SEO title and description of products. For most users, this won’t be an issue since Big Cartel simply generates them automatically. However, those looking for more SEO control should consider Square or WooCommerce instead.

• Intuitive drag-and-drop editor
• Attractive templates
• Unlimited free websites
• Limited to one product, 500MB storage, 5GB monthly bandwidth
• 5% transaction fee
• 24/7 live chat

• Digital downloads need an upgrade.You need to upgrade to Pro ($20/month), its second-tier paid plan, to be able to sell digital goods.
• Marketing tools such as abandoned cart savers, custom forms, and email automation are also unlocked at Pro ($20/month).
• Storage limits are enforced even at its highest tier, VIP ($59/month) at 100GB of storage.

• Up to five products: Free users can list up to five unique products at a time. Unlike Big Cartel, you aren’t limited by how many photos you can upload, but there is an overall storage limit of 500MB for free accounts.
• Full website: Mozello makes it easy to create a full website with multiple pages and a contact form. Along with Square and Big Cartel, it’s easily the fastest ecommerce website to get up and running. That said, its design options are considerably more limited, and it has very few integrations.
• Multilanguage: Mozello is the only free ecommerce website builder on our list that supports multilanguage sites, and it’s the only one we’re aware of that covers more than 60 languages worldwide. Simply choose which languages you want to support and write your website content, like product titles and descriptions for each language. At the top of your site, visitors will click on which language they want to see.
• Subdomain: Free websites come with a customizable mozello.com subdomain, so your website will appear as yourstore.mozello.com on the address bar.
• Mozello footer: Free websites also display a small message on the footer that reads, “Created with Mozello—the world’s easiest to use website builder.” While it doesn’t stand out too bad, it makes the website a bit less classy than the others on this list—particularly Big Cartel, Ecwid, and WooCommerce.
• Support: Mozello has free email support in English. I sent a few questions during my evaluation and received a detailed and personalized response three hours later. While there is a phone support line, the office is based in Eastern Europe, so you will have to call early in the morning to reach them, and may incur international charges.

Users can change the language using the links on the top-right. Also, a Mozello ad is displayed on the footer.

An upgrade to a paid plan is necessary when you need one or more of the following features:

• More products and storage: One of the main reasons to upgrade is to add more products and increase your storage for photos, videos, and other types of files. The $8 per month plan allows up to 15 items and 50GB of storage, while the $16 per month plan allows unlimited items and unlimited storage.
• Custom domain: Another key reason to upgrade is to use a custom domain instead of the yourstore.mozello.com subdomain, which is provided for free. All paid users can do this (starting at $8 per month), and a custom domain is even provided for free for one year. However, you can also connect a domain purchased from an outside registrar.
• SSL certificate: Paid users (starting at $8 per month) can enable SSL encryption, make your website more secure, and change your URL from HTTP to HTTPS. This makes your website more appealing to search engines and can help you rank higher in the results. Free accounts get HTTPS during checkout automatically to secure credit card information, but the rest of the site is HTTP.
• Coupon codes: Paid users can create promotional coupons for customers to use at their store.

All quoted prices require an annual subscription.