8 Best Free Ecommerce Platforms of 2026

Square Online ranks first because it is the most complete store you can run at $0 a month. Square Free includes a website builder with SEO tools, pickup, local delivery and shipping, and selling on search and social, and Square states that on this plan there are no monthly subscription costs, only processing fees when you take a payment. Hosting, checkout and fraud prevention come with the account, so a new seller never has to install or update software. The catalog is shared with Square's point of sale, which helps anyone who also sells at markets or pop-ups. The trade-off is the card rate: online payments on Square Free cost 3.3% + 30¢, while Square Plus and Premium charge 2.9% + 30¢. Once monthly online sales grow, compare that gap with the $49 Square Plus fee, which comes with a 30-day free trial.

WooCommerce is the most capable free option on this list, but free means the software, not the whole store. The core plugin is free with no monthly subscription and, according to Woo, includes unlimited products, orders and APIs with a 0% revenue share. You can use any payment gateway without an extra fee, and the WooCommerce Marketplace lists over 1,000 extensions for subscriptions, shipping, B2B pricing and more. Because it runs on WordPress, you own your site, code and data. The costs come from elsewhere: Woo itself estimates hosting at $25 to $350 a month for most stores and extensions at $29 to $299 a year each, and you are responsible for setup and updates. It is the right pick for a seller who already runs WordPress or is comfortable managing a site, and a poor fit for someone who wants to be selling within an hour.

Big Cartel suits a seller with a small catalog who wants a real storefront for $0. The Gold plan needs no credit card and includes 5 product listings, card and PayPal payments, sales tax autopilot, real-time stats and product variants for size and color. Big Cartel says setup takes four steps and 30 minutes or less. The limits are tight: one template (Cosmos), five products, and no custom domain. Platinum costs $15 a month after a 7 day trial and adds custom domains, shipping label printing, order tracking, design customization and print-on-demand apps. Diamond at $30 a month adds abandoned cart recovery, scheduled product drops and Zapier connections. For an illustrator, band or small maker testing demand with a few items, the free plan is enough to take first orders, and the upgrade path is cheap.

Gumroad charges nothing a month and takes its fee per sale: 10% + $0.50 for sales through your profile or direct links, and 30% when a new customer finds you through the Discover marketplace. Since January 1, 2025 Gumroad has acted as merchant of record, so it collects and remits sales tax worldwide where it has obligations, which removes a large chore for a solo seller. Its page editor builds a simple storefront, or you can embed checkout on an existing site and link a custom domain. Memberships, subscriptions and pay what you want pricing are built in. The fee is the trade-off: on a $50 ebook, Gumroad keeps $5.50 before payment processing. It works best for writers, designers and course creators selling digital files, and less well for a shop with physical stock and shipping.

Ko-fi is free to set up and has no monthly charge; on the free plan it takes a 5% service fee on shop sales, memberships and commissions, plus normal processor fees. Ko-fi Gold costs $12 a month and drops the service fee to 0%, which pays for itself once shop sales pass $240 a month. The shop handles digital or physical items, and the same page takes tips, memberships and commission requests. Payments go directly and instantly into your own PayPal or Stripe account, since Ko-fi does not process or hold funds. Discount codes, widgets and embeds for an existing site are included. It is not a full store builder: there is no catalog structure or shipping tooling on the level of Square Online or Big Cartel. It fits artists, streamers and writers whose buyers already follow them.

Ecwid is here as the low-cost alternative for sellers who decide a free plan is too limiting. It no longer lists a free plan; the Starter plan costs $5 a month and covers up to 10 products, 70+ site templates, a free company.site domain, email support and the option to add the store to any existing website. Ecwid charges 0% transaction fees on every plan. Venture, at $35 a month or $29 billed annually, raises the cap to 100 products and adds selling on Instagram and Facebook, a mobile management app, automated tax calculation, discount coupons and the option to buy a custom domain. The step from $5 to $29 or $35 is steep, so check how many products you plan to list. For a seller who already has a site on Wix, Squarespace or WordPress, Ecwid adds a cart for $5 a month without rebuilding.

PrestaShop Classic is a free download of the full source code, and PrestaShop states that associated costs such as hosting and a domain name are not included. Once installed, it offers a large feature set for a free product: selling to 190 countries in 20 currencies through PrestaShop Checkout with PayPal, catalog sync with Facebook and Instagram, shipping and marketing modules, and access to the PrestaShop Marketplace from the back office. Because it is open source, an agency or developer can change anything. The cost for a beginner is time and skill: you choose a host, install the software, apply updates and keep it secure. PrestaShop also sells a Hosted edition with installation and support and a 14-day trial, priced in EUR on the page we checked. It suits sellers with a developer on hand or sellers in Europe.

OpenCart is free to download, comes with free updates and has zero monthly fees. It covers more out of the box than its price suggests: unlimited categories and products, multi-store management from one admin, a built-in affiliate system, coupons, discounts and specials, downloadable products and product reviews. The marketplace lists 13000+ modules and themes, and the latest release on the download page is version 4.1.0.4 from August 11, 2026. The catch is the same as other self-hosted tools: you need hosting, you upload files and run the installer, and you own updates and security. Many useful add-ons are paid; a one-page checkout extension on the download page, for example, costs $110.99. Free help comes from community forums with more than 110 000 registered members, and dedicated support is a paid service. OpenCart also offers OpenCart Cloud for a hosted setup.