If you are searching for shopify alternatives for etsy sellers because Shopify’s monthly plan plus card fees look steeper than Etsy’s commission, the realistic cheaper options are Big Cartel for a small handmade catalog, Squarespace if you want one website that also sells, and BigCommerce once your sales are large enough that its higher entry price stops mattering.
None of them removes cost. Each one trades away something Shopify includes as standard. What follows compares the numbers on each platform’s own current pricing page, not the marketing copy, so the trade is visible before you commit to one.
Last checked: September 18, 2026. Fees change without notice on every platform named here. Check the current page for your own country before you act on any figure below.
Shopify Alternatives for Etsy Sellers, at a Glance
The comparison below matches each platform on three things: the published monthly plan price, whether a per-sale fee stacks on top of ordinary payment processing, and what kind of catalog the platform is actually built to run. The sections after the table walk through where each one earns its place and where it does not.
| Platform | Entry-level plan | Per-sale fee beyond processing | Fits best |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shopify | $25/mo, $19/mo billed annually | 2% if not using Shopify Payments, 0% if you do | Largest app and freelancer ecosystem |
| Big Cartel | Free Gold tier, $15/mo Platinum | None published | Small, simple handmade catalogs |
| Squarespace | Entry plan, 2% online store fee | Drops to 0% on Commerce tier and above | One site for brand, blog and store together |
| BigCommerce | $39/mo, $29/mo billed annually | 2% down to 0.6%, 0% on embedded processors | Growing shops already on Stripe or PayPal |
Etsy’s Own Fees Are the Starting Line, Not Shopify’s
Before comparing what a new platform costs, it helps to know exactly what you are paying now. According to Etsy’s Fees & Payments Policy, read September 18, 2026, Etsy charges $0.20 to publish or renew a listing, a 6.5% transaction fee on the sale price including the shipping you charge, and a payment processing fee of 3% plus $0.25 per sale through Etsy Payments.
None of that is a subscription. It scales with every sale, which is exactly why a seller doing high volume starts pricing a flat-fee alternative in the first place. If your shop has crossed roughly $10,000 in trailing 12-month US sales, Etsy also enrolls you in mandatory Offsite Ads, and our piece on Etsy’s offsite ads rule and the $10,000 trap works through the 12% and 15% rates that apply above and below that threshold.
That extra fee is often the real trigger for shopping around, more than the base transaction fee alone.
Shopify’s Real Monthly Cost, Before You Compare Anything Else to It
Shopify is the platform most “leave Etsy” guides default to, so it is the baseline the alternatives below get measured against. According to Shopify’s pricing page, read September 18, 2026, Basic costs $25 a month billed monthly or $19 on an annual plan, Grow is $65 or $49 annually, and Advanced is $399 or $299 annually, with Plus starting from $2,300 a month for larger operations.
On top of the subscription, Shopify charges a third-party transaction fee when a seller uses a payment processor other than Shopify Payments: 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow, 0.6% on Advanced, and 0.2% on Plus, per the same page.
That fee disappears if you use Shopify Payments directly, but it is worth knowing it exists before you assume the plan price is the whole bill. If you want the fuller math on when Shopify’s fixed cost beats Etsy’s percentage for your own sales volume, the Etsy to Shopify break-even point walks through three different break-even questions rather than one borrowed number.
Big Cartel: The Cheapest Option, If Your Catalog Stays Small
Big Cartel’s own pricing page lists a free Gold plan, a Platinum plan at $15 a month, and a Diamond plan at $30 a month, with no published per-sale transaction fee on any tier beyond your payment processor’s own rate (bigcartel.com/pricing, read September 18, 2026).
That makes it the least expensive platform in this comparison on the published numbers, and it is built specifically for makers and artists rather than general retail, so the checkout and listing tools do not need much adapting from an Etsy-style catalog.
The honest downside: Big Cartel’s own page does not publish a stated product-count ceiling per tier the way it once advertised, so confirm current listing limits before you migrate a large catalog, and its app and theme ecosystem is far smaller than Shopify’s, which matters once you want built-in email marketing, abandoned-cart recovery, or advanced shipping rules.
Squarespace: One Website That Also Sells
Squarespace’s own pricing page shows transaction fees that fall as you move up its plans: 2% on online store sales on its entry tier and 7% on digital content and memberships, dropping to 0% on store sales and 1% on digital content on its Commerce tier, and 0% on both at Commerce Advanced (squarespace.com/pricing, read September 18, 2026).
The plan names have changed more than once, so check the current tier names on the page itself rather than trusting an older screenshot. Squarespace makes sense if you want a single site that covers your brand story, blog and store together rather than a store-first build, which fits a seller who was already using Etsy’s shop page as a stand-in for a real website.
The trade is that its commerce feature set, particularly around wholesale, subscriptions and complex variants, is thinner than Shopify’s at a comparable price point.
BigCommerce: Not Cheaper Up Front, Cheaper Once You Scale
BigCommerce’s own pricing page lists Core at $39 a month billed monthly or $29 annually for stores under roughly $30,000 in trailing 12-month sales, Growth at $105 or $79 annually, and Scale at $399 or $299 annually (bigcommerce.com/essentials/pricing, read September 18, 2026).
That entry price is higher than Shopify Basic, so BigCommerce is not the cheaper pick for a brand-new small shop. Where it can work out cheaper over time is its Open Payment Provider Fee structure: 2% on Core, 1% on Growth, 0.6% on Scale, but 0% if you use one of its embedded payment providers such as Stripe, PayPal or Adyen, per the same page.
A shop already committed to one of those processors can end up paying less in combined plan-plus-transaction cost at higher volume than an equivalent Shopify tier, though the crossover point depends entirely on your own sales mix and is worth calculating rather than assuming.
What You Give Up When You Pick the Cheaper Platform
Every option here is smaller than Shopify in ecosystem terms: fewer apps, fewer themes built by third parties, and a smaller pool of freelancers who already know the platform if you need paid help later. There is also a trust gap to close on your own.
Etsy’s own branding, reviews and buyer-protection badges did work for you that a brand-new store on any of these platforms has to rebuild from nothing, and our guide to the trust signals a marketplace supplied and how to rebuild them covers what a first-time store owner tends to miss on that front regardless of which platform they land on.
The search-visibility side is a similar reset: none of these platforms hands you the buyer traffic Etsy’s own search was supplying, and the learning curve of ranking a standalone store rather than a marketplace listing is the same whichever platform you pick, which is what our piece on store SEO for someone who only knows marketplace search walks through in more detail.
How to Actually Decide
Match the platform to what is actually true about your shop today, not to which name comes up most in a search. A catalog under roughly 50 items, low complexity, and a tight budget points toward Big Cartel. A seller who wants one site that doubles as a portfolio, blog and store, and who is not planning heavy variant or subscription complexity, fits Squarespace better than a full commerce platform.
A shop already doing meaningful monthly volume through Stripe or PayPal, and planning to keep growing, is the case where BigCommerce’s higher entry cost is offset by its transaction-fee structure. Shopify remains the most common default for sellers who expect to scale, because it carries a wide app and freelancer ecosystem and fewer limits as volume grows, at a higher starting price.
None of these choices is reversible for free, so run the numbers against your own sales and margin before you commit, rather than against the averages any guide, including this one, publishes.
FAQ
What is the cheapest Shopify alternative for an Etsy seller?
On published pricing alone, Big Cartel is the least expensive, with a free tier and paid plans starting at $15 a month and no stated per-sale transaction fee (bigcartel.com/pricing, read September 18, 2026). It fits best for a small, simple catalog rather than a large or complex one.
Is Squarespace actually cheaper than Shopify for a small store?
It depends on the plan and your sales mix. Squarespace’s transaction fees drop to zero on its Commerce tier and above, while Shopify charges a smaller ongoing transaction fee that only disappears entirely if you use Shopify Payments. Compare the current plan prices and fee tiers on each platform’s own pricing page for your country before deciding.
Does BigCommerce charge a transaction fee like Shopify does?
Yes, called the Open Payment Provider Fee, ranging from 2% down to 0.6% depending on plan, but it drops to 0% if you use one of BigCommerce’s embedded payment providers such as Stripe or PayPal (bigcommerce.com/essentials/pricing, read September 18, 2026).
Should I move off Etsy entirely, or run one of these alongside it?
Many sellers keep an Etsy shop for discovery while building a Shopify, Squarespace, Big Cartel or BigCommerce store as the owned, brand-controlled channel. Whether to eventually drop Etsy is a separate decision from which alternative platform to build on, and it depends on how much of your traffic actually comes from Etsy search versus your own audience.
How do I know which alternative fits my shop?
Start from your catalog size, your current sales volume, and how much of your budget you can commit before any sales land on the new platform. A small, simple catalog favors the cheapest tier of Big Cartel or Squarespace; a growing shop already processing real volume through Stripe or PayPal is the case where BigCommerce’s fee structure can work out ahead of Shopify’s over time.
Sources and dates: Etsy’s Fees & Payments Policy, Shopify’s pricing page, Big Cartel’s pricing page (bigcartel.com/pricing), Squarespace’s pricing page (squarespace.com/pricing), and BigCommerce’s pricing page (bigcommerce.com/essentials/pricing), all read September 18, 2026. Every platform revises pricing and fee structures without notice; verify current figures before acting on them.