Compare E-commerce Platforms in the United States

How we compare e-commerce platforms

We list 7 e-commerce platforms sold to US merchants. Every figure comes from the vendor's own US pricing page. Some plans are billed monthly and some are the monthly equivalent of a year paid up front, so read the Contract required row beside the price.

The calculator asks for monthly online revenue, average order value and product count. Revenue and order value size the transaction fee where a platform charges one, product count picks the plan where a platform caps products, and the table sorts by the monthly estimate. One limit: BigCommerce gates its real US pricing on trailing twelve-month revenue, and we store it as a single plan at its published entry price, so read that figure as a floor if your sales would place you above the entry tier. Commission does not change the order.

Shopify or a challenger: what separates the e-commerce platforms US buyers shortlist

US searches pit Shopify against the rest, so the useful question is what a challenger gives up and gives back. Most of the basics are table stakes. Four rows do the separating.

How much you can bolt on later is what the Squarespace comparisons are really asking about: whether the thing your business needs in eighteen months will exist without a developer. Who can log in matters too, since a part-time helper who only packs orders still needs a login on most of these.

How much of the checkout you own rarely matters until subscription boxes, B2B pricing rules or unusual shipping logic run into it. WooCommerce stands apart on the skill row, and it is the one row that lists hosting as No, at $25+/mo, so its free software carries a bill the hosted platforms absorb.

Squarespace lists API access as Limited and webhooks as No, which limits automation and gives back design: a trade, not a compromise, for a brand-led store with a modest catalog.

The cut an e-commerce platform takes when you bring your own gateway

Some platforms charge a percentage of every sale on top of whatever your payment processor charges, purely because you did not use their own checkout. It is a platform fee, not a processing fee, and the two are constantly confused.

Some vendors step the fee down as you climb the plans, so a higher plan can pay for itself once sales are large enough. Others never charge it. The fee scales with revenue while the plan price does not, so put your actual monthly revenue into the calculator.

The second column is how much choice you have in the first place. Square Online is the clearest version of the bargain: its store price is $0 (Free), and the processor is the product. What each processor charges is a different question, and our payment processing comparison handles it.

Apps and themes: the e-commerce platform bill no pricing page quotes

The second half of the bill lives in the app marketplace. The deeper the marketplace, the more of what you want exists, and the more of it arrives as its own subscription. A thinner marketplace is not automatically cheaper, since you either do without the capability or pay a developer once for it.

A small free theme library is a weak argument against a platform, because a premium theme is a one-time purchase where an app is a bill forever. Check which capabilities are gated by plan or bought as an app: abandoned cart recovery is a common example, listed as Yes (all plans) on Shopify and Yes (Growth+) on BigCommerce, with the rest in the Abandoned cart recovery row.

Price the apps your store needs on each candidate and add the total to the plan.

Sales tax at the checkout your e-commerce platform builds

There is no single national sales tax rate. States set their own, and counties, cities and special districts layer on top, so the correct amount depends on where the buyer is. Economic nexus is the part that surprises people: selling into a state can create an obligation to register and collect there once you pass that state's threshold, with no office, staff or inventory in it. Thresholds are set per state, in sales dollars, in order count, or in either.

We do not carry a sales tax row, so ask each vendor in writing. Does the storefront calculate destination-based rates at checkout, or apply a single rate you type in? Is that calculation included, or an add-on with its own bill? Does anything file the returns? Calculating and remitting are separate jobs; filing belongs to your accounting software, a tax service, or your accountant. Take the registration question itself to a CPA.

Marketplaces, POS and the channels around your e-commerce platform

Many US small stores sell in more than one place. If Walmart Marketplace or TikTok is central to your plan, the channel row settles the question. With a counter as well as a website, a built-in register means a single stock number instead of a nightly reconciliation.

Shipping has no row here. Ask whether the platform prints carrier labels at a negotiated rate, and whether live carrier rates at checkout sit on the plan you intend to buy or the one above it. If you sell across the border, the Multi-currency row narrows things fast.

Dropshipping and catalog size on an e-commerce platform

Supporting dropshipping means three different things across this table: built into the product, delegated to a marketplace app, or not offered. Delegated is workable, and it is also another subscription plus another vendor to chase when an order sticks.

Every platform here sells digital goods, and only the arrangement varies. Webflow lists digital products as Yes (via Memberstack), a third-party dependency worth confirming before you build a membership business on it.

Where a platform caps products by plan, the calculator's product count moves that estimate where the flat-priced rows stay put. Enter your real number and watch which rows change.