Best eCommerce Website Builders

What separates the top ecommerce website builders?

Squarespace scores 8.8 and costs $23 a month. In our test it built the same five-page site in 94 minutes, the fastest of the four, and it took the best mobile PageSpeed of the hosted builders. The trade-off: a 2% transaction fee on Core, Plus is $39, and there is no free plan.

Wix scores 8.4 at $29. You get 900 templates, 300+ apps and an AI site generator that drafted our first page in minutes, plus a free plan to learn on. Free-form editing is the catch — our mobile layout needed fixing, and it had the slowest mobile PageSpeed of the paid builders.

Shopify scores 8.1 at $29 and is built for selling first, a website second. Checkout conversion tooling, abandoned-cart recovery, shipping labels, Shop Pay and POS are all here, and thousands of apps scale from one product to enterprise. Content pages are the weak spot — our five-page site felt like an afterthought — and good themes cost $200–$400.

Weebly scores 7 at $10. Square payments work on every plan including the free one, the editor is simple enough for a beginner to learn in minutes, and $10 a month includes a domain. Templates and features have barely changed in years, and it had the weakest design options in the test.

What should I check before buying an ecommerce website builder?

Our scoring weights design and templates at 25, ease of use at 25, features and ecommerce at 20, performance and SEO at 15, and value at 15. Match those to your own priorities.

• Transaction fees: Squarespace charges 2% on Core. Weebly lets you sell on every plan, including free, with Square.
• Mobile layout: Wix's free-form editing made our mobile layout fragile. Squarespace held up best on mobile PageSpeed.
• Theme cost: Shopify themes run $200–$400 on top of the $29 plan.
• Content pages: if you need blogs and landing pages, Shopify's five-page site felt like an afterthought.
• Free starting point: Wix and Weebly both have a free plan; Squarespace does not.

Squarespace — for design-led stores

Pick it if you want templates a designer would not be embarrassed by, guardrails that stop you breaking them, and the fastest build in our test at 94 minutes.

Wix — for flexibility and features

Pick it if you want to put anything anywhere, 900 templates, 300+ apps and an AI site generator, and you are willing to fix the mobile layout yourself.

Shopify — for shops first

Pick it if checkout conversion, abandoned-cart recovery, shipping labels, Shop Pay and POS matter more than content pages.

Weebly — for a cheap, simple start

Pick it if $10 a month with a domain, Square payments on every plan and an editor a beginner learns in minutes beat newer templates.

Squarespace suits design-led stores that want the fastest build and the best mobile PageSpeed. Wix suits sellers who want 900 templates, 300+ apps and a free plan to learn on. Shopify suits shops that need checkout conversion tooling, Shop Pay and POS, while Weebly suits anyone starting at $10 a month with Square payments.