If you’re running an online store by yourself, the platform you pick affects everything from how much time you spend on setup to how much of every sale you actually keep. There’s no single “best” answer for every solopreneur, but there is a best answer for your specific situation, and that depends on what you’re selling, how much design control you want, and whether you’d rather build your own traffic or borrow someone else’s.
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This guide compares the three platforms solopreneurs actually end up choosing between — Shopify, Squarespace, and Etsy — with current pricing and fee structures, so you can pick based on real numbers instead of marketing copy.
Quick Answer
For most solopreneurs building a standalone online store, Shopify is the best overall choice — it’s built specifically for ecommerce and scales with you. If you’re already selling handmade, vintage, or craft items and want built-in shopper traffic without building an audience from scratch, Etsy is the better starting point. If your business is design-led (a portfolio, a small product line, or services plus a few products), Squarespace often wins on price and aesthetics.
Shopify, Squarespace, and Etsy: How the Costs Actually Compare
Shopify’s plans run Basic at $39/month (or $29/month billed annually), Grow at $105/month ($79 annually), and Advanced at $399/month ($299 annually), with an enterprise-level Plus tier starting around $2,300+/month. Each plan carries an additional online transaction fee (2% on Basic, dropping to 0.6% on Advanced) unless you use Shopify Payments, in which case that extra fee is waived and you just pay standard card processing rates.
Squarespace’s four plans are Basic ($16/month annually), Core ($23/month), Plus ($39/month), and Advanced ($99/month). Basic still charges a 2% transaction fee on store sales, but Core and above waive it entirely — a meaningful difference if you’re comparing entry-level plans head to head, since Squarespace’s Core plan removes the fee that Shopify’s equivalent tier still charges.
Etsy has no monthly platform fee for a basic shop: you pay $0.20 per listing (good for four months or until it sells), a 6.5% transaction fee on the total sale price including shipping, and payment processing of roughly 3% + $0.25 per US transaction. An optional Etsy Plus subscription ($10/month) adds extra tools but isn’t required to sell. Because there’s no monthly minimum, Etsy is the cheapest way to test whether a product sells at all before committing to a paid platform elsewhere.
Which One Fits Your Situation
Choose Shopify if you want your own branded store, plan to sell across multiple channels (your site, social media, in person), or expect to outgrow a simple builder — its app ecosystem and checkout tools are the most robust of the three, which matters once you’re handling real order volume solo.
Choose Etsy if you’re selling handmade goods, art, vintage items, or craft supplies and want access to shoppers who are already searching that marketplace. You skip the work of driving your own traffic, but you’re also competing directly against other sellers on Etsy’s search results and paying a percentage of every sale indefinitely — there’s no tier that lowers or removes it.
Choose Squarespace if your online store is secondary to a portfolio, blog, or service-based business, or if design quality matters more to you than ecommerce-specific features like abandoned cart recovery or advanced shipping rules. It’s also worth a look if you want to avoid transaction fees without jumping straight to Shopify’s higher-priced tiers.
A common solopreneur path: start on Etsy to validate demand with minimal upfront cost, then migrate to Shopify once you have repeat customers and want full control over branding, email marketing, and margins.
Tips and Common Mistakes
Don’t choose a platform based on the sticker price alone — factor in transaction fees and payment processing, since a cheaper monthly plan with a higher transaction fee can cost more once you’re doing real volume.
Don’t skip testing your own checkout flow as a customer would, on both desktop and mobile, before launching — broken checkout steps are one of the most common reasons a solo store loses sales silently.
Don’t assume a marketplace (like Etsy) will handle marketing for you. You’re still competing for search visibility inside that marketplace, so product photos, titles, and keywords matter as much as they would on your own site.
Don’t over-invest in a fully custom store before you’ve proven the product sells. It’s usually cheaper and faster to validate on a lower-commitment platform first, then move to a more powerful one once sales justify it.
Explore more: More small business tech guides.
Best ecommerce platform for solopreneurs FAQs
What is the cheapest way for a solopreneur to start selling online?
Etsy has no required monthly fee — you only pay a $0.20 listing fee plus fees per sale — making it the lowest-commitment way to test a product before investing in a paid platform like Shopify or Squarespace.
Is Shopify worth it for a one-person business?
If ecommerce is your primary business and you want full control over branding, marketing, and checkout, Shopify’s tools generally justify the higher monthly cost compared to lighter builders. If ecommerce is a side feature of a broader website, it may be more than you need.
Can I sell on more than one platform at once?
Yes, and many solopreneurs do — for example, listing on Etsy for marketplace traffic while also running a Shopify or Squarespace store for full branding control and repeat customers. Just be mindful of keeping inventory and pricing in sync across both.
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Images: Shopify.