ShopifyPowers over 4 million businesses globally with integrated payment processing and inventory management.95.0NEW$29/month
SquarespaceKnown for industry-leading design templates that require minimal customisation to look professional.85.7NEW$16/monthShopify is a leading hosted e-commerce platform enabling merchants to build stores, manage inventory, process payments, and handle shipping with minimal technical knowledge. It offers hundreds of themes and apps with 24/7 support.
WooCommerce is a free, open-source WordPress plugin that transforms WordPress sites into fully functional e-commerce stores. It offers complete control over your site with extensive customisation options and a large developer community.
BigCommerce is a hosted platform designed for growing businesses requiring advanced features, superior uptime, and scalability. It includes built-in features for multi-channel selling, abandoned cart recovery, and sophisticated inventory management.
Magento is an open-source platform purpose-built for mid-market to enterprise retailers needing powerful features, extensive customisation, and multi-store management. Adobe now owns and develops Magento as part of its Experience Cloud.
Squarespace combines website building with integrated e-commerce capabilities, offering beautiful templates and a drag-and-drop editor. It suits creative entrepreneurs wanting aesthetic design without technical complexity.
Wix is a cloud-based website builder offering drag-and-drop simplicity with integrated e-commerce features. It includes hosting, domain registration, and AI-powered design assistance for rapid store creation.
Salesforce Commerce Cloud is an enterprise cloud platform combining e-commerce with CRM and customer data, powered by Einstein AI. It excels at personalisation and omnichannel retail strategies.
PrestaShop is a free, open-source platform popular in Europe for building feature-rich online stores. It offers a modular architecture with thousands of community-built modules for customisation and extension.
Zendesk Commerce (formerly Zendesk Sell) combines e-commerce functionality with integrated customer service and support tools, enabling seamless customer communication throughout the buying journey.
Shopware is an open-source and cloud-native platform offering both traditional and headless commerce architectures. Popular in Germany and Europe, it emphasises flexibility for omnichannel selling.
Positions 1, 2 and 3 are available to buy for twelve months. Everyone below moves down a place, and the bottom entry comes off.
Hosted platforms (Shopify, BigCommerce, Squarespace) handle infrastructure, security, and updates for you via monthly subscription. Self-hosted platforms (WooCommerce, Magento, Shopware) run on your own server, offering control but requiring technical knowledge and ongoing maintenance responsibility.
Wix and Squarespace offer the lowest technical barrier with drag-and-drop interfaces, beautiful templates, and all-in-one hosting. Shopify is slightly more specialised for commerce but remains very beginner-friendly with excellent support and no hosting knowledge required.
Platform fees start from GBP 11-29 monthly, but add domain (GBP 10-15/year), payment processing fees (1.5-3.5%), shipping integration, and optional apps. A realistic budget for a small store ranges from GBP 50-200 monthly; enterprise solutions cost significantly more with custom pricing.