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Best Shopify alternatives 2023: Tools to help you set up an online store

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Best Shopify alternatives 2023: Tools to help you set up an online store

Shopify is one of the biggest ecommerce platforms on the web. BuiltWith estimated that, as of spring 2023, Shopify sat behind just over 4m sites worldwide, of which around 180,000 were British.

Certainly, if you wanted to set up your own store quickly and with very little hassle, you wouldn’t go wrong if you opted for Shopify. It’s well supported, extensible, and used by so many online retailers, of all sizes, that there are plenty of other store owners who could help out if you become stuck.

However, it isn’t the only option. Here, we take a look at the top Shopify alternatives, each of which is worth short-listing before you make your final decision.

Best Shopify alternatives: At a glance


How to choose the right Shopify alternative for you

For comparison, what’s the Shopify offering?

Shopify plans start with the Basic tier, which costs £19 a month if you pay annually (annual plans benefit from a 25% reduction on the regular monthly price). For this, you can host an online store with an unlimited number of products, and take payments via credit or debit card, or third-party services such as PayPal. If you use Shopify’s own payment-processing platform, you’ll pay 2% commission on every transaction plus 25p for credit or debit card payments. Use a third-party payment processor, and you’ll still pay the 2%, but not the additional 25p.

Upgrading to the £49-per-month Shopify plan, or £259-per-month Advanced plan, trims these rates to 1.7% and 1.5% for credit and debit card payments respectively (each is also subject to the additional 25p per transaction) when processed by Shopify, and 1% and 0.5% respectively for payments made via third-party payment processors.

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Whichever plan you choose, you can issue discount codes and gift vouchers, segment your customers, create subdomains for specific markets, segregate pricing by territory, and send automatic emails to customers who abandon their shopping carts.

If you only sell through social media, Shopify also has a dedicated Starter plan, which starts at £5 per month plus 5% transaction fees when using Shopify Payments. This buys you a simple storefront, unlimited product pages and a checkout. Should your store take off, you can upgrade to one of the plans outlined above.

READ NEXT: Our full Shopify review

How much should I pay for such a service?

You can get started for free, but be wary of hidden costs and discounts. A lot of paid plans are priced differently depending on whether you sign up for a month or a year, with discounts of up to 25% for annual commitments not uncommon.

On top of this, you’ll usually need to pay transaction fees to cover the cost of processing any sale. In some cases, you’ll have to pay these twice: once to the company hosting your online store and shopping cart, and once to the credit or debit card processor.

Keep an eye on how many transactions you’re processing every month and the cumulative cost, and calculate whether you could save money by upgrading to a more expensive tier that offers reduced or free transaction fees.

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READ NEXT: The best VPNs for streaming and security

Do you need hosting and a domain?

Sign up for a year, and many store platforms will throw in a free domain. This is usually only free for your first year, however, so be sure to check the renewal costs from year two onwards. If you already have a domain you want to use, check whether there are any fees for connecting it to your store.

Are you tech-savvy?

If you’re comfortable installing and setting up the store yourself, you can integrate it with an existing site using a tool such as WooCommerce, combined with WordPress. However, this may also mean liaising with a hosting provider for web space and email.

If your talents lie elsewhere, such as in business, marketing or designing products, you might instead want to check out the all-in-one options that roll together hosting, comms and an integrated ecommerce platform.

We’ve covered both options here.

READ NEXT: The best website builders

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The best Shopify alternatives in 2023

1. WooCommerce: Best for WordPress blogs

Price: From £0/mth | Sign up at WooCommerce

WooCommerce has a significant advantage over competitors: not only is it designed to work within WordPress, currently the world’s most popular content management system, but it’s also developed by Automattic, the company behind WordPress itself. With WordPress powering around 40% of all websites, that makes WooCommerce one of the best-supported Shopify alternatives around.

At the heart of this open-source ecommerce platform is its WordPress plugin, which simplifies the task of building product pages, integrates a shopping cart, and connects the store to payment options such as credit cards, PayPal, Amazon Pay, Stripe and WooCommerce’s own payment tools, among others. If you choose to use WooCommerce Payments, you’ll be charged 2.9% plus $0.30 for each transaction if you register a US-issued credit or debit card, and $1 extra if your card was issued outside the US.

Being so tightly integrated with WordPress means site owners can easily tweak the look and feel of their store by changing the site theme, or quickly add a store to a site they’ve been running for years without the need to undertake a structural redesign.

Another benefit of being an add-on to an existing product, rather than a stand-alone offering such as Shopify, is that it isn’t the developer’s primary source of income. Thus, if you’re selling physical products rather than downloads, you can get started for free. So, if you don’t make any sales, you pay nothing – which isn’t the case with Shopify; it charges £25 a month if you sign up for a month at a time, or £19 a month if you agree to a year up front.

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Key specs – Price: From free; Minimum term: N/A; Shopping cart: Yes; Payment processing: Yes; Includes hosting? No

Sign up at WooCommerce


2. Wix eCommerce: Best for a quick start

Price: From £15/mth | Sign up at Wix eCommerce

Wix eCommerce is a tiered offering: the more you pay, the more features you can use. So, if you’re just starting out, you can opt for the £15-a-month Business Basic plan and upgrade as you grow.

For that price, you get a free domain for your first year, unlimited bandwidth, 20GB of storage and up to five hours of video that you can use to show off your products in their full glory. You can set up customer accounts, create plans and recurring charges, and accept payments online for an unlimited number of products. If you want to sell subscriptions, you’ll need to upgrade to at least the £20-per-month Business Unlimited tier. The same is true if you want to run a drop-shipping business, sell on marketplaces, take multiple currencies or sell ongoing subscriptions.

The native Wix Payments tool can handle UK pound sterling, euros, US and Canadian dollars, Swiss francs and Brazilian real, with customers paying by credit or debit card, Klarna or iDEAL. In each case, customers must spend a minimum of one unit (so, one pound, one euro and so on), and you’ll be charged a processing fee that varies by currency and payment method. For credit or debit card payments in pound sterling, you’ll be charged 2.1% plus 20p. For euros, it’s 1.9% of the transaction amount plus €0.30.

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You don’t need any design skills if you’re happy to use one of Wix’s online store templates, of which there are more than 120 available. If none of them floats your boat, you can start with a blank site and work from there for complete flexibility.

Read our full Wix review

Key specs – Price: From £15 per month; Minimum term: One month; Shopping cart: Yes; Payment processing: Yes; Includes hosting? Yes

Sign up at Wix eCommerce


3. Big Cartel: Best for artists and makers

Price: From £0/mth | Sign up at Big Cartel

If you’re selling five products or fewer, Big Cartel’s Gold tier is free, if slightly limited. You can attach one image to every listing, use a free customisable theme and attach a custom domain so it looks like you’re self-hosting your store. You’ll get real-time stats, but no Google Analytics for deeper insight into the way your customers navigate your store. For that, you’ll need to upgrade to the $9.99-per-month Platinum tier if you’re selling fewer than 50 products, or Diamond, at $19.99 a month, for up to 500 product lines.

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Big Cartel is popular among artists, and it isn’t hard to see why. The company proudly declares that it’s “100% independent and… here to help artists, makers and small brands open a store and start making a living doing what they love”.

Despite this, its paid plans have all the features you’d expect of a big-name store platform, including shipment tracking, tax calculation, discounts and promotion tools, plus inventory tracking. Customers can pay using PayPal, Stripe and Apple Pay, and if you take your designs to a craft fair, you can also accept payments using a Stripe terminal and Big Cartel app for iOS or Android. If you want to accept PayPal payments, you’ll need a verified PayPal business account.

Behind the scenes, there’s a documented API that you can use to integrate your own app with the service, or build a custom shop with a hand-coded template. You can even download the default Big Cartel themes from GitHub to use as a starting point.

Key specs – Price: From free; Minimum term: One month; Shopping cart: Yes; Payment processing: Yes; Includes hosting? Yes

Sign up at Big Cartel


4. Squarespace Business: Best for growing businesses

Price: From £17/mth when paid annually | Sign up at Squarespace

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Squarespace has plans starting at £12 a month when you sign up for a year; however, you need to be on at least the Business tier, at £17 a month, to sell products and take payments. At that rate, you’ll be charged a 3% transaction fee on every sale, on top of any merchant fees charged by your credit or debit card processor. So, if things really take off, there may come a point where upgrading to the £23-per-month Commerce Basic, or £35-per-month Commerce Advanced plan, for which Squarespace doesn’t charge processing fees, is a money saver.

The Business tier includes hosting with unlimited bandwidth and, if you pay for a year up front, free custom domain registration for your first year. You can sell an unlimited number of products. However, if you want to host a checkout on your own domain, gather product reviews, sell on Facebook or set up customer accounts, you’ll need to opt for Commerce Basic. And if you want to sell subscriptions, use APIs or track abandoned carts and send automated emails enticing customers back to the checkout, you’ll need to be on Commerce Advanced.

You can design your own store from scratch or, if you’re not so savvy, use one of the pre-built templates, of which there are dozens to choose from, helpfully categorised by type. And, should you entice a sale, customers can settle up using PayPal or Stripe.

Read our full SquareSpace review

Key specs – Price: From £17 per month; Minimum term: One month; Shopping cart: Yes; Payment processing: Yes; Includes hosting? Yes

Sign up at Squarespace

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5. Weebly: Best for clubs and societies

Price: From £0/mth | Sign up at Weebly

Weebly is owned by payments processor Square, so perhaps it isn’t surprising that the popular web-publishing platform includes a robust online store option. Impressively, it’s even available on the free tier.

You can list an unlimited number of items, host shopping carts, offer in-store pickup if you have a physical location, and issue coupons and gift cards. However, you’ll need to pay at least £5 a month for the Personal tier if you want to give yourself a more professional appearance by connecting a custom domain.

Personal also lets you sell digital goods (which are excluded from the Free plan), calculate shipping and print shipping labels. However, you don’t get a bundled domain and your store will show Square ads. If you don’t have your own domain and want to register via Weebly, and you’d like to get rid of those ads, you’ll need to opt for Professional, at £9 a month. At this point you also benefit from password protection, unlimited storage and advanced site stats. What you can’t do is accept payments through PayPal, gather reviews or send abandoned cart emails, each of which is a feature of the £19-per-month Performance plan.

There are 15 dedicated themes to choose from, and a base theme that designers can use as a starting point. Customers can settle up through PayPal, Square or Stripe.

Weebly has been very clever here, always giving users a good excuse to look to the next tier. Nonetheless, if you’re just getting started, or you’re a small club or society selling to members, the Free tier may provide all you need – so long as you don’t want to tie your store to your domain.

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Key specs – Price: From free; Minimum term: One month; Shopping cart: Yes; Payment processing: Yes; Includes hosting? Yes

Sign up at Weebly


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5 Hidden Features of WordPress.com – WordPress.com News

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5 Hidden Features of WordPress.com – WordPress.com News

Whether you’re a blogger, a developer, or fall somewhere between, you’re likely to discover something new and useful in this video.

Isn’t it amazing how you can learn new things about someone, even after years of knowing them? That’s how Jamie Marsland has felt in the last few weeks while diving deeper into WordPress.com’s capabilities. In today’s Build and Beyond video, he shares five incredible features built right into the platform that aren’t as well known as they should be. Whether you’re a blogger, a developer, or fall somewhere between, you’re likely to discover something new and useful. 

Ready to build on WordPress.com? Start a free trial today:


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New WordPress.com Themes for March 2024 – WordPress.com News

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New WordPress.com Themes for March 2024 – WordPress.com News

Five of our favorite new themes.

The WordPress.com team is always working on new design ideas to bring your website to life. Check out the latest themes in our library, including great options for small businesses, sports fan, nostalgic bloggers, and more.


Feelin’ Good is a vibrant (to say the least!) blog theme with a bold vaporwave aesthetic. Its nostalgic atmosphere pays homage to the daring, over-the-top visual art and advertisements of the ’80s and early ’90s. We’ve combined a lot of elements that shouldn’t work together, but do. If you’re looking for a dynamic, attention-grabbing, eye-popping visual feast of a theme, try Feelin’ Good.

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Click here to view a demo of this theme.


1711610762 938 New WordPresscom Themes for March 2024 – WordPresscom News

Low Fi is a simple blog theme featuring a narrow column layout that’s optimized for seamless browsing on mobile devices. With six style variations, you’re sure to find a palette you’re drawn to. Taking inspiration from the lo-fi beats music scene, the theme’s design cues, such as the square header image, offer a nod to album artwork.

The overall aesthetic is deliberately understated, with each element—from the muted color schemes to the textured background—crafted to evoke a sense of nostalgia and warmth.

Click here to view a demo of this theme.


1711610763 567 New WordPresscom Themes for March 2024 – WordPresscom News

Cakely is the ultimate WordPress theme designed specifically for passionate bakers, cake enthusiasts, and dessert lovers. Tailored for small businesses aiming to shine in the world of sweets, Cakely effortlessly combines style and functionality to showcase mouthwatering creations. Its vibrant pink color scheme exudes joy while maintaining a classy, clean layout with easy navigation. This theme ultimately strikes the perfect balance between professionalism and playfulness, making it an ideal choice for showcasing your delicious masterpieces.

Click here to view a demo of this theme.


New WordPresscom Themes for March 2024 – WordPresscom News

Treehouse is a carefree, fun, and friendly theme ideal for Woo stores selling children’s products. With its unlimited customization options, Treehouse enables you to set up an online shop with just a few clicks. Utilizing a soft color palette, playful design details, and simplified layouts, your site will attract a wide range of customers, from young parents to over-the-moon grandparents. This theme is fully responsive and cross-browser compatible.

Click here to view a demo of this theme.


New WordPresscom Themes for March 2024 – WordPresscom News

Major League Baseball’s 2024 season kicks off on Thursday, March 28. What better way to show your home team the love it deserves than with a baseball-themed fan site! With a somewhat old-school layout, this theme evokes some of the classic sports sites of the ’90s, back before fantasy leagues took over. The header and accent colors are customizable, ensuring that your favorite crew is properly saluted.

Click here to view a demo of this theme.

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To install any of the above themes, click the name of the theme you like, which brings you right to the installation page. Then click the “Activate this design” button. You can also click “Open live demo,” which brings up a clickable, scrollable version of the theme for you to preview.

Premium themes are available to use at no extra charge for customers on the Explorer plan or above. Partner themes are third-party products that can be purchased for $79/year each.

You can explore all of our themes by navigating to the “Themes” page, which is found under “Appearance” in the left-side menu of your WordPress.com dashboard. Or you can click below:


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How to Get Started: Investigating Payment Gateways Online

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How to Get Started: Investigating Payment Gateways Online

When investigating a website, app, or online shop, one of the key questions you may need to answer is ‘How are they making money?’ 

Investigating the financial transactions of an organisation can reveal details about its connections and funding. Furthermore, if the website or app is engaged in illicit transactions, tracing the payment gateway can help achieve accountability by identifying what sites they are using to earn money.   Bellingcat has looked into the payment processors in previous investigations on far-right merchandise, Britain’s far-right influencers, and non-consensual deepfake pornography.

Credit: Nicolas Guyonnet / Hans Lucas via Reuters Connect

Payment gateways are a technology that takes a customer’s payment information, checks it with their financial institution, verifies that the transaction is legitimate, and then completes the transaction. As explained by Forbes, online stores need a payment gateway to be able to facilitate payments. Companies including PayPal, Stripe, and Square are commonly used as a payment gateway for online purchases.

Most mainstream payment gateways (like Stripe and PayPal) prohibit their services from being used in illegal transactions including the sale of illegal drugs, the promotion of hate or racial intolerance, and non-consensual adult content. Finding evidence that someone is violating the Terms of Services of these companies – and how they are doing so- can lead to the closure of loopholes and accounts. It can also provide additional information about an organisation’s revenue streams. 

It is nearly impossible to conduct online transactions without a payment gateway. So it should be possible to find the payment gateway of an organisation earning money, even if it is not obvious at first. One resource that is extremely useful is Chrome’s built- in developer tools (other browsers also have similar tools). Below we’ll provide an overview of the tools to use and questions to ask when scrutinising payment systems. 

How are they Taking Payment?

For online transactions, you’ll typically see websites accept traditional forms of payment including credit cards, debit cards and, more recently, cryptocurrency. Since cryptocurrency is not subject to the same regulations as traditional financial systems, cryptocurrency is often used to process payments for illegal services. Since this does not need to be ‘hidden’, websites will usually disclose which currency they accept and how to transfer funds into a crypto wallet. There are other ways you can track funding through cryptocurrency, as discussed in this guide.

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If none of the above apply?  Other sites that use a payment gateway will accept money directly via credit card payment,  bank transfer, or through peer-to-peer payment apps (i.e., PayPal, Cash App, Zelle). If this is the case, you should be able to identify the payment gateway being used. In the case of the peer-to-peer apps, these services may be used by businesses and not just individuals’ transactions. They also require a bank account or credit card to use them. It is helpful to view transaction options on both the mobile app and web browser, in case the options differ.  It is also worth checking the currency that payments are being taken in – if it is a US website taking payment in a foreign currency, that can also provide clues. Further, if a website is using different payment gateways depending on the currency, this can lead to additional leads in your investigation. Payment options may also change depending on what IP address you are using. In other words, setting your IP address in the UK and then changing it to the US may result in different payment gateway options.

Where are they Soliciting for Payment?

Organisations may solicit for payment via a website or a messaging app like Telegram. It is important to investigate all avenues where  payment is being requested as each method may provide different clues for your investigation. For example, for some of the AI deep fake services we investigated here we found that companies would accept different payment methods depending on how you tried to pay – via their website, via a web browser or via Telegram. Sellers may want to direct their users away from their website to more private forums such as Telegram to facilitate transactions and avoid detection.

Is the Organisation Trying to Hide How Payment is Taken?

For some sellers, using a mainstream payment gateway may  violate the terms of service of that company. To be able to use their services, these sellers may  try to hide the nature of their goods from the payment gateway company. 

A Walk Through Example

Some sites may not show their payment options without signing up first. 

This was the case with the Nudify.VIP site which offers non-consensual AI Deep Fake pornography.  

Initially, the website states that their services are free. 

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“With our service you can undress any person in a photo absolutely FREE!” 

However, this is misdirection, as you are then prompted to log in or sign up. Only once you create an account do you discover that you need to pay to access the service and how much it costs.

After creating an account, we were presented with two options to pay, by card or crypto. 

You are then presented with an option to pay via crypto or via credit card, but it does not yet say what cards they accept or what payment gateway they use. 

Clicking through to ‘Go To Payment’ gives us a new screen that lets the user pay via credit card (ie MasterCard, Visa), a US Bank account (ie Wells Fargo, USAA), or through Cash App. 

There is no indication of the payment gateway they are using, but if we look at the URL on the checkout page, we can see that it no longer says that we are on a Nudify.VIP domain. This is a clue that users are being directed to the checkout page through another website. This method is used to hide the true source of purchases from payment gateway providers. There’s another clue  that the domain has changed- in the fine print at the bottom of the checkout page. Via the Checkout Page using either Cash App or credit card options, it discloses:

“By providing your card information, you allow aiphotos.art to charge your card for future payments in accordance with their terms.”

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This is another clue that the payment gateway does not know this belongs to an AI Deep fake service Nudify.VIP.

Three checkout options for Nudify.VIP: credit card, US bank account, and Cash App.

Use Browser Developer Tools to Investigate Further

All modern browsers have some form of built-in developer tools. You can search online for your specific browser (e.g. Firefox, Chrome, Safari). If you are in Chrome, you can right-click anywhere on the screen to get a menu and an option to ‘Inspect.’ You can also use keyboard shortcuts which can vary between MacOS or Windows. For Windows, you can click CTRL + SHIFT + I and on MacOS you can click Option + Command + I on your keyboard. Any of these actions will open the developer tools which allows you to  view the code of a webpage (such as HTML, CSS, and Javascript). This should appear on the right-hand side of your screen. While developer tools are designed to check for bugs or errors in a website, you can use them in your investigation.

There should be a list of tabbed options for you to view on the top menu bar. Clicking on ‘Sources’ shows you all the resources that the website is using. 

This is a good place to start to look for any clues about what piece of code is being used in the checkout process.  In the example below, one of the listed sources on the page is titled ‘js.stripe.com.’



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