Best UK Ecommerce Platforms Compared for 2026

Choosing an ecommerce platform is one of the most consequential decisions a UK retailer makes — and it's usually made on the wrong evidence. Marketing pages quote base prices in dollars, bury the transaction fees, and skip the fact that "the full Shopify" means a pile of paid apps. This guide compares the platforms UK store owners actually choose from — Shopify, WooCommerce, Wix, Squarespace, ShopWired and Cartiva — using real UK pricing, honest transaction fees, and a clear verdict per business size.

How to compare fairly (the hidden-cost checklist)

Every platform here can sell a product. The differences show up when you add what most stores need:

Monthly fee in GBP, not USD, and on the plan you'd actually need.
Transaction fees. Both the payment processor's cut and any platform fee on top of it.
Apps or plugins. How much the "essentials" cost as add-ons — quantity of plugins, page builder, multi-currency, SEO.
Hosting and maintenance. Included (SaaS) or your responsibility (self-hosted).
Sales channels. Amazon, eBay, Google Shopping — and whether stock stays synced.

Run every candidate through that checklist and the "dollar-a-month" comparison collapses into something honest.

The contestants, briefly

Shopify

The default choice for many UK sellers, and for good reason: it's mature, reliable, and everything is hosted for you. The catch is the ecosystem. The base "Basic" plan is around £25/month (billed annually) but transaction fees apply unless you use Shopify Payments — and even then you pay their processing rates. Advanced features almost always mean paid apps: want better multi-variant stock, wholesale, or abandoned-cart tools beyond the basics? That's a subscription each. A store running well on Shopify typically pays well more than the sticker price by the time the apps are added.

WooCommerce

WooCommerce itself is free, which misleads a lot of people. It's a plugin that runs on WordPress, so you're on the hook for hosting, security, updates, backups and a theme ($30–100), plus plugins for payments, shipping and SEO (many freemium). If you're comfortable with WordPress and maintenance, WooCommerce is very flexible and gives you full control and ownership. If you're not technical, the hidden ongoing cost is your time — and a slow, unscoped site loaded with free plugins is easy to get wrong.

Wix

Wix's drag-and-drop builder is genuinely easy, and its ecommerce plans are reasonable for a small catalogue. The trade-offs: transaction fees unless you're on the pricier "Business VIP" tier, a site that's harder to migrate away from later, and occasional clunkiness as the catalogue grows. It's a solid entry point for a very small store, but the ceiling on growth is real.

Squarespace

Beautiful templates and zero transaction fees on every plan make Squarespace a compelling choice for design-led brands. Plans run from roughly £17 to £36/month depending on the tier, with commerce features split across "Commerce" plans. The downside is a more limited app ecosystem and fewer advanced ecommerce features than Shopify — great for a polished portfolio store, thinner for high-volume or complex operations.

ShopWired

A UK-built platform, which is a genuine advantage for VAT, shipping and support in the same timezone. Plans run from around £19 to £99/month, and it's known for good built-in features without the app-store peanut gallery. It's particularly popular with UK SMEs, though its ecosystem and integrations trail the giants, and marketing/automation features are less mature.

Cartiva

Cartiva is the ecommerce platform we built and run ourselves, and it targets exactly the gap between the DIY giants and self-hosted complexity: a hosted storefront plus built-in payments, multi-channel sales, honest per-size-and-colour stock, AI-powered search and recommendations, and free 30-day returns — all in one back office, without buying a stack of apps. It's the platform we'd choose for a growing UK catalogue that wants speed and all-in-one simplicity. You're seeing it in production on Cartiva itself.

Real UK pricing and transaction fees

Here's the honest ballpark for each, in GBP, for a typical growing store. Prices shift, so treat these as a guide and verify at sign-up.

Shopify: ~£25–£60/month base plans, plus payment processing (typically ~1.5–2.9% + 20p for UK cards depending on plan) and per-app subscriptions. Be prepared to budget £50–150/month total for a feature-complete store.
WooCommerce: plugin free, but hosting (~£5–30/month), a premium theme, plugins and your maintenance time. Transaction fees are whatever your payment gateway charges (~1.5–2.9%). The real cost is ownership and upkeep.
Wix: ~£15–£30/month for ecommerce plans. No transaction fee on the highest tier; lower tiers can carry one. Fine for small catalogues.
Squarespace: ~£17–£36/month across Commerce plans, with no transaction fees on any plan — a genuine plus. Weaker app ecosystem.
ShopWired: ~£19–£99/month. Good built-in breadth, transaction fees depend on the gateway you choose.
Cartiva: all-in-one pricing that bundles storefront, payments and multi-channel stock. No surprise app subscriptions — the features most stores add as extras are built in. Check current UK pricing on the Cartiva site.

The takeaway: never compare sticker prices alone. Add the apps, the transaction fees and your own time, and the real monthly number is what matters.

Don't forget the migration question

Whichever platform you pick, you'll eventually want to leave — or you'll want an easy entry for a catalogue that already exists. Two things to check before you commit. First, can you import your existing products from a spreadsheet, and does the importer handle variants, images, prices and stock cleanly rather than mangling a thousand rows? Second, can you export everything on day one — products, customers, orders, history — without a sales rep unlocking it? A platform that holds your data hostage prices your future options even if today's price looks good. The smoothest migrations let you map your columns once and run the import in an afternoon, because switching platforms is a project you take on precisely when your business is already busy.

A useful way to test all this before spending money is a genuinely free trial — not a 14-day countdown that requires a card up front. A real trial is where you import a small slice of your catalogue, set up a payment method, and place a test order end to end.

Which platform for which business?

Side project / very small store

Wix or Squarespace if you want the simplest possible launch with no code and minimal cost. A dozen products, a design you love, and you're live in an afternoon.

Small to mid UK retailer growing fast

Shopify if you'll happily pay for the app ecosystem and want battle-tested reliability. ShopWired if you prefer UK-built with strong built-in features and local support. Cartiva if you want everything — payments, channels, honest stock, search — in one place without assembling a stack of apps.

Technical / wanting full ownership

WooCommerce if you're comfortable with WordPress and the ongoing maintenance, and you value total control over flexibility.

Design-led brand

Squarespace's no-transaction-fee model and template quality make it a strong pick for a polished, lower-volume storefront.

UK-specific things to check

VAT handling. Can the platform apply correct VAT by product and customer type, and export compatible accounting?
GBP and multi-currency out of the box, without a paid app.
UK payment gateways (Stripe, PayPal, and UK acquirers) supported without workarounds.
GDPR-ready — clear data handling and your own copy of customer data.
Shipping integrations with Royal Mail, Evri, DPD and others, and real-time rates.

A platform that handles US-style everything but makes you bolt on UK VAT is a platform that's quietly costing you time and errors.

The decision framework

Before you pick, do three things. First, write down your real feature list — payments, channels, B2B, stock. Second, price it out fully, apps included, in GBP. Third — and this is the part people skip — consider the day your catalogue gets complex. The platform that feels easy on a two-product demo often feels different at 1,000 SKUs across Amazon, Google and a wholesale channel. Judge each candidate on that day, not the demo day. Our deeper walkthrough on choosing an ecommerce platform in the UK covers this checklist in detail.