8 Best Etsy Alternatives for 2023

Shopify is our top pick for the best ecommerce platform and our best bet if you want to take your handmade business a step further. Shopify is easy to set up and affordable for the creative maker who wants to jump-start their business and provides powerful selling tools to help them scale their online store.

Unlike Etsy, Shopify doesn’t have the advantage of tapping into a marketplace of customers ready to shop. Since Shopify doesn’t have the traffic and customer base Etsy provides, one needs to start from scratch and market an online store. Fortunately, Shopify has plenty of free built-in tools, such as SEO tools and an email marketing app, to help market one’s business.

Shopify doesn’t have a free plan but offers a three-day free trial with the option to extend it for $1 per month for three months. It also does not charge listing fees:

• Paid plans: Starts at $39 a month
• Transaction fees: None, if using Shopify Payments
• Payment processing fees: 2.9% plus 30 cents

Big Cartel is one of our top picks for the best free ecommerce website builder because of its stylish website templates and the ability to connect a custom domain on a free plan. Big Cartel specially designed its platform with artists in mind, knowing it would compete with Etsy as the platform of choice for creative makers.

Big Cartel has the edge over Etsy with its zero listing and transaction fees and fully customizable website, complete with multiple pages and a contact form—all on a free plan. While its free plan has a five-product limit and lacks marketing features, you can upgrade easily to unlock more products at a low monthly fee ($9.99) and refer to a strong artist community to help you figure out how to market your business.

We recommend Big Cartel for artists that sell a limited number of products at a time or run a seasonal business. You can use its free plan easily with zero to little overhead costs.

Big Cartel offers a free plan to sell up to five products, create a standalone website (with multiple pages, a contact form, and a store), and use a custom domain. Paid plans start at $9.99 a month:

• Software fees:
  • Gold ($0): Sell up to five products
  • Platinum ($9.99): Sell up to 50 products
  • Diamond ($19.99): Sell up to 500 products
• Transaction fees: None
• Payment processing fees: Stripe: 2.9% plus 30 cents; PayPal: 3.49% plus 49 cents

Squarespace is another excellent ecommerce platform alternative for artisans. It provides a modern website builder—one of our top-recommended website builders for small businesses—with various templates and a drag-and-drop editor, making it ideal for beginners and those without technical knowledge in building a website.

What’s great about Squarespace is that it makes migrating from Etsy quick and easy, allowing you to keep your products and product URLs—making it one of the more accessible alternatives to Etsy if you’re looking to transfer platforms.

If you are a seller that relies on creating content to promote your products, you can take advantage of Squarespace’s powerful blogging tools and market your products with its built-in social media tools.

Squarespace doesn’t offer a free plan, but its entry-level ecommerce plan generally is less expensive than most ecommerce platforms. Its monthly plans with ecommerce capabilities have the following fees:

• Business ($33): Entry-level plan for ecommerce, unlimited products (physical and digital), 3% fee on transactions on top of payment processing fees
• Basic Commerce ($36): Same features as Business but without the extra 3% transaction fee, more advanced analytics
• Advanced Commerce ($65): Same features as Basic Commerce plus a United States Postal Service (USPS) shipping calculator, abandoned cart recovery, and the ability to sell subscriptions

IndieMade is a great Etsy alternative if you prefer a standalone website but have budget restraints and limited technical know-how on setting up a fully functional online store. It also provides an Etsy integration, so its 30-day free trial lets you test things out first without exerting too much effort by migrating product listings. Alternatively, its two-way Etsy integration is a great option if you want to explore alternatives without closing your Etsy shop.

IndieMade’s platform is straightforward, making updating your product listings with video and image galleries easy. In addition to building an ecommerce store, you can add a blog, calendar of events, image galleries, and other pages.

Like many Etsy alternatives for sellers, IndieMade does not have a built-in marketplace, so you can’t get the traffic that Etsy offers. However, its monthly fees are the lowest among Etsy’s standalone store alternatives, making it an excellent option for creative artists on a limited budget who want their own store without Etsy’s branding.

IndieMade provides a free 30-day trial, with no credit card required. Paid monthly plans come in four tiers and include the ability to use a custom domain and build a standalone online store:

• Basic ($4.95): Sell up to 10 products with up to five images per product, 10 pages, and 10 galleries
• Standard ($12.95): Sell up to 250 products with up to 10 images per product, and unlimited pages and galleries
• Pro ($14.95): Sell up to 500 products with up to 20 images per product, and unlimited pages and galleries
• Plus ($19.95): Sell unlimited products with unlimited images, and unlimited pages and galleries

If you want an Etsy alternative that works similarly, Bonanza is for you. It is an online marketplace with the same demographic as Etsy, albeit a smaller audience. However, Bonanza gives you the best of both worlds: You can sell on Bonanza for marketplace exposure and build your online store. Like Etsy, there is no monthly fee to sell on Bonanza, but transaction fees are involved.

Bonanza has lower transaction fees than Etsy and better marketing tools like cart abandonment savers, seller-first customer service, and buyer-to-seller communication. Note, however, that on Etsy, shoppers can message sellers to negotiate prices but it’s not the norm on that platform. On Bonanza, price negotiations are typical and even expected. It is a good idea to keep this in mind when pricing products so you can have room to accept shoppers’ offers and let them feel like they’re getting a deal.

Bonanza is transparent about its fees and doesn’t charge anything until you make a sale. You only get charged against the Final Offer Value (FOV): “the amount that the buyer paid to you for the item sold, plus any portion of the shipping fee that exceeds $10.”

• Product listing fees: $0
• Transaction fees: 50 cents, plus 3.5% of the purchase price
• Advertising fees: Paid from your commission on top of transaction fees and can range between 9% and 30% of product sales
• Webstore builder (optional): $25 per month to create a fully functional online store

Amazon Handmade is the part of retail giant Amazon dedicated to crafts and handmade products. Amazon is the most visited online marketplace—averaging 2 billion monthly visits—in the US. If you are looking to tap into Amazon’s buyer reach, apply as a seller for Amazon Handmade.

Getting approved as a seller allows you to list your products, manage orders, and automate fulfillment through FBA within a central dashboard. Fees are waived for Amazon Handmade sellers, so you only pay for referral fees. However, Amazon Handmade charges more than Etsy on this—15% compared to 6.5%.

You must have a Professional selling account to sell on Amazon Handmade, which has a monthly fee of $39.99. However, once your application is approved, your selling fee is waived after your first month, saving $480 a year in fees. This discount is exclusive to sellers approved for Handmade.

There are no product listing fees, aside from a 15% referral fee on sales. Amazon Handmade fees are more expensive than Etsy’s, unless products are priced around $5 or less. Learn more about Amazon seller fees.

Although not considered an online marketplace or an ecommerce platform, Patreon has become increasingly popular as an Etsy alternative, especially for content creators. Primarily a crowdfunding platform, Patreon operates on a rewards-based technique, with subscribers (called patrons) making recurring payments on an ongoing basis to access a creator’s content.

Patreon became popular with Etsy sellers because of its membership tiers. Etsy sellers usually have a Patreon page as an exclusive membership site, with monthly content in how-to videos, project inspiration examples, and bonus products.

What Patreon lacks are promotional tools and a built-in audience. You cannot sell one-time products since you technically do not have a store. However, if you have an established buyer following, know how to market your products, and can produce a steady stream of content—digital, educational, and physical products—Patreon can be a beneficial platform.

atreon is entirely free. It only deducts platform fees depending on your subscribed plan. Features are also available depending on your tier, with more functionalities unlocked in higher plans:

• Lite: 5% of the monthly income you earn on Patreon
• Pro: 8% of the monthly income you earn on Patreon
• Premium: 12% of the monthly income you earn on Patreon

Payment processing fees also apply:

• Standard rate: 2.9% plus 30 cents for donations over $3
• Micropayment rate: 5% plus 10 cents for donations of $3 or less

Ko-fi is a popular Etsy alternative because it combines the benefits of selling on Etsy and keeping a Patreon exclusive membership with lesser fees. Ko‑fi lets you accept donations, set up memberships, sell products, and accept commissions—all in one place. One unique feature of Ko-fi is helping you let buyers pay what they want. You can set a minimum price or leave it entirely open for buyers to set the amount they want to pay.

With Ko-fi, you are saved from the hassle of maintaining different platforms for your buyers.

Ko-fi doesn’t have platform fees for any donations you receive. A 5% transaction fee applies to any commission, membership, or shop sale. You also can subscribe to Ko-fi Gold for $6 a month (paid annually).