Choosing the cheapest of anything isn’t recommended when running a business. That’s because it usually means you’re compromising on something essential for your business’s success.
Here's the good news: when it comes to choosing affordable website builders, you don’t need to compromise. You can design an attractive website without breaking the bank or dealing with code.
Sounds too good to be true? It isn’t!
Keep reading to learn everything you need to know about choosing the cheapest online store builder for your business, including which factors to consider and the top choices on the market.
Here’s what we’ll cover:
- An Introduction to Website Builders
- How To Choose an Online Store Builder: Considerations
- Top Cheapest Online Store Builders
- StoreBuilder for all use cases
- Shopify for global retail
- Wix for professional websites
- Squarespace for simple ecommerce websites
- CMS Hub for marketers
- Big Cartel for Etsy sellers
- Weebly for hassle-free online editing
- Webflow for tech-savvy users
- BigCommerce for B2B businesses
- Elementor for beginners
- Final Thoughts: Top 10 Cheapest Online Store Builders
An Introduction to Website Builders
A website builder is a tool used to design and customize a website without code. It typically features a drag-and-drop-style user experience that lets you visually customize website layouts, templates, and elements.
Thus, you don’t need a web designer or developer to design your website or make changes. You can do it yourself in real time.
Website builders are generally offered as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions where you don’t need to download or maintain any software. You can sign up for a plan and start using the builder right away.
How To Choose an Online Store Builder: Considerations
Here are the factors you should consider when choosing the online store builder for your business.
Technical Skills
Your technical proficiency is one of the first things you should consider when choosing the cheapest website builder. That’s because some website builders are built for beginners, while others are for those with technical skills that need advanced features.
For instance, someone familiar with HTML or CSS might want a builder that empowers them to create custom HTML layouts or tweak elements with CSS. In contrast, someone lacking coding skills might prefer a builder that offers a fully code-free design experience.
Scalability
Choosing the cheapest online store builder for your business shouldn’t limit your long-term growth. Even if you’re starting with a builder that offers a free plan or essential features, choosing the store builder that can scale with your business over the years is necessary.
Choose a website builder that offers tiered pricing plans with advanced features. For example, if your current plan limits how many products you can host, make sure you have the flexibility to upgrade to unlimited product support in the future.
Customer Support
Although ecommerce website builders are supposed to be DIY tools, you might need help at some point for troubleshooting minor issues. So, it’s important to have easy access to customer support at all times.
Choose a store builder that offers support across multiple channels such as chat, email, and phone. Moreover, make sure it provides 24/7 support.
Top Cheapest Online Store Builders
An inexpensive website builder can help you design and launch an online store on a tight budget. Here are our top 10 picks for the cheapest online store builders on the market.
1. StoreBuilder
StoreBuilder gives you code-free access to the most popular content management system (CMS) — WordPress — which is used by 43% of the internet. It empowers you to sell your products without worrying about WordPress hosting, maintenance, and security.
You get everything you need to sell online, including ecommerce, marketing, and reporting functionalities. StoreBuilder lets you design an attractive website using a drag-and-drop editor and integrate it with third-party tools like Mailchimp, ShipStation, and HubSpot CRM.
Key StoreBuilder features:
- Fully customizable templates.
- WordPress-based website.
- No transaction fees.
- Comprehensive reporting functionality.
- 24/7/365 live support on phone, email, and chat.
Best online store builder for: Anyone who wants a code-free website builder and the design flexibility of an open source platform like WordPress.
Price: Paid plans start from $19/month.
2. Shopify
Shopify isn’t the cheapest online store builder on this list, but it is one of the world’s most popular ecommerce technologies. According to BuiltWith, over 14% of all ecommerce websites on the internet use Shopify.
Shopify lets you build a fully-customizable online store without code and offers features like discount codes, inventory locations, and gift cards. It also enables you to customize your store using over 7,500+ apps and 90+ themes available on its official app and theme stores.
Key Shopify features:
- Versatile theme editor.
- Unlimited bandwidth and products.
- Multiple sales channels.
- Customer segmentation and email marketing automation.
- Fraud analysis.
Best online store builder for: Beginners and small businesses that want to sell globally and need built-in multichannel selling features.
Price: 14-day free trial. Paid plans start from $29/month plus 2.9% and $0.30 transaction fees per order.
3. Wix
Wix is one of the most beginner-friendly online store builders on the market. It offers a simple and intuitive user interface (UI) that makes designing a website effortless. It’s ideal for building an ecommerce store that accepts online bookings, reservations, and subscriptions.
However, it’s worth noting that Wix limits the storage space available with each plan, starting from 50GB for the entry-level Business Basic plan. If you need to host high-quality product images and videos, you might need to upgrade to a higher plan with more storage.
Key Wix features:
- Social media integrations with Facebook and Instagram.
- Unlimited products.
- Online bookings.
- Event ticket management.
- 24/7 customer care.
Best online store builder for: Small business owners who want to sell memberships, subscriptions, and event tickets.
Price: Starts from $27/month with a 14-day money-back guarantee and a free domain name for the first year.
4. Squarespace
Squarespace is a website builder that offers award-winning design templates with basic ecommerce functionality. It also offers hundreds of extensions on its official marketplace you can use to integrate third-party apps and add extra features.
Squarespace lets you design a mobile-friendly website and provides essential search engine optimization (SEO) features to improve your online presence. But if you need anything more than basic features, you’ll need to upgrade to one of its higher-cost plans.
Key Squarespace features:
- Support for donations through Stripe and PayPal.
- Unlimited products.
- Support for online gift cards.
- Advanced analytics and promotional banners.
- 1-year free professional email from Google.
Best online store builder for: Business websites with essential ecommerce functionality.
Price: Commerce-ready plans start from $33/month plus 3% transaction fees.
5. CMS Hub
The HubSpot CMS Hub is one of the few online store builders on this list that offer a free plan with custom domain name support. HubSpot hosts your website and provides a drag-and-editor with live website editing capabilities.
CMS Hub empowers you to focus on tasks that impact your business revenue, such as creating great content, while HubSpot handles security and maintenance for you. It supports multilingual content and offers a comprehensive reporting tool for deep insights.
Key HubSpot CMS features:
- Premium hosting with Content Delivery Network (CDN).
- Extensive marketplace.
- Live chat.
- Reporting dashboard.
- Built-in SEO recommendations.
Best online store builder for: Bloggers and entrepreneurs that sell digital products or need comprehensive marketing tools.
Price: Free with limited features. Premium plans start at $25/month.
6. Big Cartel
Big Cartel is a cheap website builder that offers a free plan for selling up to five products with support for multichannel integrations, shipment tracking, and custom domains. You can offer discounts and promos on its free plan and customize your store design using its user-friendly builder.
And when you need more features, you can upgrade to one of its paid plans that offer increased product support, inventory tracking, theme code editing, and bulk editing. Big Cartel is best suited for you if you need a simple website builder for basic products.
Key Big Cartel features:
- Free customizable themes.
- Shipment tracking.
- Inventory tracking.
- Real-time stats.
- Discounts and promos.
Best online store builder for: Artists who sell on marketplaces like Etsy and want to build their own website and build a brand identity.
Price: Free for up to five products. Paid plans start from $9.99 per month.
7. Weebly
Weebly is a simple website builder that lets you build an attractive online store with essential ecommerce functionality. You get online shopping cart support with SEO, lead capture, and site search functionalities.
Weebly offers an app center that lets you improve its default website using free and paid apps. But it restricts access to features like inventory management, coupon codes, and abandoned cart recovery emails for members subscribed to one of its higher-tier plans.
Key Weebly features:
- Custom domain with free SSL certificate.
- Support for online payments through third-party providers.
- Unlimited website storage.
- $100 Google Ads credit.
- Advanced website stats.
Best online store builder for: First-time sellers who want to start selling online without any hassles.
Price: Starts from $16/month.
8. Webflow
Webflow is a powerful website builder for sellers who want to harness the power of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript in a code-free environment. It empowers you to create seamless shopping experiences with complete control over every element of your online store.
You can edit layouts, create animations, and design attractive product pages without messing with code. You can create stunning store designs using its visual builder, and Webflow will turn your design into clean code in the background.
Key Webflow features:
- Advanced SEO.
- Customizable product and checkout pages.
- Discounts and coupons.
- Integrations with social media platforms.
- Automatic, location-based tax calculation.
Best online store builder for: Tech-savvy sellers who want to tap into trigger-based interactions, mess with CSS animations, and tweak their website using custom code.
Price: Starts from $42/month plus up to 2% transaction fees, excluding payment gateway fees.
9. BigCommerce
BigCommerce is a powerful site builder that offers advanced functionality and SEO tools that can help you drive traffic to your website without spending on ads. That’s important since DataReportal found that ad costs increased by 15% between the second and third quarters of 2021.
BigCommerce provides a code-free website design experience you can integrate with multiple online selling channels.
Due to its advanced features, BigCommerce has a steep learning curve and isn’t the best cheap website builder for new sellers.
Key BigCommerce features:
- Support for selling across Amazon, eBay, Walmart, and Instagram.
- Unlimited product and file storage.
- Support for Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Amazon Pay.
- Multicurrency and multilingual support.
- Built-in point of sale (POS) integrations.
Best online store builder for: B2B businesses who want a platform that can scale with their evolving business needs.
Price: 15-day free trial. Paid plans start from $29.95/month for up to $50,000 in annual sales.
10. Elementor
Elementor is one of the world’s most popular website builders. W3Techs found that 7.7% of all websites on the internet use Elementor. That’s because it’s a beginner-friendly, feature-rich, and free WordPress website builder.
Elementor offers a responsive, drag-and-drop builder with over 300 professionally designed website templates, 100+ widgets, and global style customizations. Elementor also bundles web hosting on the Google Cloud Platform with its website builder.
Key Elementor features:
- Theme builder and global editor.
- Custom CSS.
- Landing page, pop-up, and contact form builder.
- Dynamic content.
- Custom HTML support.
Best online store builder for: First-time users and WordPress veterans who need a comprehensive website editing tool.
Price: Free WordPress plugin. The Pro plan Starts from $49 per year for premium plugin features. Hosting plus website builder plans start from $99 per year.
Final Thoughts: Top 10 Cheapest Online Store Builders
There you have it. We’ve shown you how to choose the cheapest online store builder for your business and shared our top 10 recommendations for different use cases.
Most, if not all of the options on our list, offer a free trial. So try a few before you choose the best website builder for your business.
If you’re looking for an all-in-one, cheap online store builder, check out StoreBuilder. It offers comprehensive ecommerce features and the flexibility of an open source CMS like WordPress. Plus, it comes backed with fully managed hosting from Nexcess.
Check out StoreBuilder to get started today.
