Best Cheap Ecommerce Platforms: Build an Online Store for Less

We've rounded up some of the more affordable ecommerce web builders. We will discuss the included feautures, pricing, and pros and cons of each.

1. GoDaddy - Best Overall Builder
2. Weebly - Best For Cheap Ecommerce
3. Squarespace - Best For Services

GoDaddy includes ecommerce as part of its offerings. Before signing up for any plan, you can easily use these ecommerce features to perfect your website, add product listings, and select your payment and shipping options, all for free. When you’re ready to begin your GoDaddy Commerce plan, these functions will be fully operational and ready for you at a competitive price. 

Pros:

• Ultra-affordable ecommerce
• Gorgeously designed templates
• One of the easiest platforms to use in the industry
• Powerful SEO features to help your website’s visibility

Cons:

• Limited ecommerce features compared with other platforms
• Customization options can feel limited

GoDaddy Pricing and Plans

GoDaddy includes a range of website builder plans. With two ecommerce options available, you can use this platform to accomplish a wide variety of ecommerce functions.

GoDaddy Commerce Plan

With GoDaddy’s Commerce plan (starting at $14.99 per month) you get some great ecommerce functionality, including:

• No per-transaction fees
• PayPal, Square, or Stripe payments
• Social and marketplace selling
• Integrated inventory tracking between the website and social platforms
• Flexible shipping options
• Coupons and other sales promotions

An additional Commerce Plus plan, starting at $29.99/month, will allow you to list an unlimited number of products and sell up to 1,000 products a month, an upgrade from the 5,000 products that can be listed and 50 a month that can be sold with the Commerce plan.

For more information on GoDaddy’s pricing and plans, read our GoDaddy Website Builder Pricing and Plans review.

Square recently purchased Weebly, leaving the latter with two different website builder options: the original Weebly builder and the Square website builder. Overall, Weebly gives you more ways to customize your website and functions better for ecommerce operations.

Here’s a chart that compares the two builders:

The biggest factor between Weebly and Square for ecommerce depends on whether you want to sync inventory. If you choose to use Weebly for your ecommerce operations, you should be aware of some of the pros and cons of working with this platform. These include the following:

Pros:

• Free plan available (includes Weebly branding)
• Premium plans are priced competitively
• Gorgeous templates that are easy to swap out
• A range of competitive features for the price

Cons:

• Limited customization options
• Lack of apps and plugins

Weebly Pricing and Plans

Every Weebly plan allows you to start with a 14-day free trial so you can test out the product before making a commitment. In addition to a free plan, premium plans are divided into the following three pricing tiers:

Free Plan:

Weebly’s Free plan allows you to build a basic online store and has some of the most essential features you’ll need for your ecommerce operations. This includes the following:

• Free website with search engine optimization (SEO) tools
• Pickup, delivery & shipping
• Sell on Instagram & Facebook
• Accept Afterpay
• Self-serve ordering
• Sync with Square point of sale (POS)

Personal Plan:

In addition to the services included with the Free plan, the Weebly Personal plan includes the following:

• Free features
• Custom domain
• No Weebly ads
• Free domain for one year
• Custom font uploads
• Password-protected pages

Professional Plan:

In addition to the features included with the Personal plan, the Weebly Professional plan includes the following:

• Professional features
• Accept PayPal
• Abandoned cart
• Advanced reporting
• Product reviews
• Gifting options

Performance Plan:

In addition to the features included with the Square Professional plan, the Performance plan includes the following:

• Performance features
• Low processing rate
• Real-time shipping

For a more comprehensive look at some of Square’s pricing and plans, read our Weebly Website Builder Pricing and Plans review.

Squarespace also only offers ecommerce options with specific plans, its Personal plan will not allow you to sell or accept payments. But the Squarespace Business plan does start at a lower price point than Wix’s Business Basic plan and has some contending options. To see our full review of what Squarespace has to offer, read our Squarespace Review.

The core offerings of Squarespace’s ecommerce tools include helpful blocks, used to create menus for restaurants teaming up with OpenTable, or by businesses wanting to sell on Amazon.

At higher plan levels, Squarespace allows you to sell in person and online by syncing with Square. It also allows for your products to be tagged on social media, offers customer accounts, and provides more in-depth analytics, to show you how your reach can grow.

With that said, it’s helpful to keep a few of Squarespace’s pros and cons in mind. They include the following:

Pros:

• A range of affordable ecommerce features
• Gorgeously designed templates and themes
• The easy-to-use website builder tool
• Helpful integrations

Cons

• Lack of an internal app marketplace
• Section-based website editor prevents users from dragging and dropping elements wherever they choose

Squarespace Ecommerce Plans

Squarespace has two ecommerce plans: the Basic Commerce plan and the Advanced Commerce plan. While both of these plans allow you to create a basic store, the latter includes some extra features that add functionality. Here is an overview of the pricing for each plan:

Basic Commerce Plan

The Squarespace Basic Commerce plan includes the bulk of the features you’ll need to create a simple digital touchpoint for your sales efforts:

• Ability to add inventory and take payments to create a basic, fully-integrated ecommerce store
• Only 3% fee on transactions
• Ability to sell unlimited products
• Ability to accept donations
• Ability to create and sell gift cards
• POS
• Customer accounts
• Integrations to sell products on Instagram

Advanced Commerce Plan

The Squarespace Advanced Commerce plan includes all of the features offered through the Basic Commerce plan, as well as the following;

• Abandoned cart recovery
• Ability to sell subscriptions
• Advanced shipping features, such as the ability to calculate rates in real-time
• Advanced discount options, including the ability to automatically add discounts to qualifying orders

For more information on some of the pricing, plans, and ecommerce features included through Squarespace, read our Squarespace Website Builder Pricing and Plans review.

Hopefully, this guide helped you find the right ecommerce platform for your needs and your budget. We recommend GoDaddy as the best affordable ecommerce platform.

To get started using this platform to create a touchpoint for your online sales, be sure to check out our How to Make a GoDaddy Website and How to Use GoDaddy tutorials.