Which website builder is best for a small online store?
Three honest answers by size: just starting and risk-averse, Square Online (free store, you pay only card fees). A real store with growth plans, Shopify Basic ($29 a month, the best checkout in the business). A site that also sells a few things, Wix Core or Squarespace Business. Compare transaction fees, not just subscriptions: at volume, the fees are the bigger line.
Store platform choice is a fees-and-ceilings problem disguised as a features question. Every platform takes payment processing (~2.9% + 30¢ at US standard rates), some add their own transaction fee on top (Squarespace’s lower commerce tier charges 3% extra; Shopify adds a fee only if you bypass Shopify Payments), and subscriptions range from $0 to $40. At $500 of monthly sales, fees barely matter and the free options shine; at $5,000, a 1% fee difference is $50 a month, real money against any subscription gap.
The size-based map: Square Online owns the start (a complete free store, monetized via processing; perfect for local businesses, especially those already on Square’s registers). Shopify owns growth (the checkout converts measurably better, the app store solves every retail problem from subscriptions to local delivery, and the platform never becomes the reason to migrate). Wix and Squarespace own the "site that also sells": their content pages are better, one subscription covers everything, and stores under a few dozen products never feel the commerce gap. Ecwid covers the special case of adding a store to a site that already exists.
Two classic mistakes to avoid: buying Shopify for three products on a content-first site (its blogging is weak and you carry commerce depth you never use), and launching a serious retail operation on a builder’s commerce add-on (the migration to Shopify arrives within two years, with interest). Match the platform to this year’s honest volume, with one tier of headroom.
