A free ecommerce website builder offers an affordable and easy way for artists to monetize their creative skills. With these tools, artists can build websites where they can sell their prints, and showcase their artwork, without having to spend a fortune.
While it’s fair to say a free ecommerce website builder for artists won’t have all the same features and functionality of a premium solution, that doesn’t mean it’s not worth considering. Many of the free solutions available today can offer an excellent entryway into the world of online selling, until you’re ready to upgrade to something more comprehensive.
The question is, which free tools are actually worth checking out?
We’ve extensively tested the most popular ecommerce website builders over the years, and Square Online has a functional free plan that even allows you to sell access multiple channels, making it the best overall free website builder out there.
Today, we’re going to be looking at the top free ecommerce site builders and their unique features.
What Are the Best Free Website Builders for Artists?
1. Square Online
Square is a company best-known for it’s payment processing and POS capabilities. However, you can also use this technology to start selling your art online. The Square ecosystem allows companies to rapidly design their own professional-looking website, to sell art all over the globe. You can even sync your online and offline inventory management.
Square makes it quick and simple to start selling, booking appointments, and taking orders, with a range of plans to suit any business, including a free package. There’s extensive reporting and tracking features to help you stay on top of your business, and unlimited products available to sell with the free plan. You’ll even get to sell on Instagram and Facebook.
Square offers excellent customer support with all plans, a range of tools for selling across multiple channels, and SEO tools, so you can improve your chances of being found online.
The Free Package
The free plan from Square is more comprehensive than many of the options we’ve covered so far, with access to unlimited products, and omnichannel selling across Facebook and Instagram. However, you also need to pay a transaction fee with every purchase. The free is 1.9% on a UK and EEA card, or 2.9% on a non-EEA or UK card.
On the plus side, you will get SEO tools, syncing with Square POS, and self-service ordering on the free package. You can also offer pickup and delivery options too.
The least expensive paid plan starts at £9 and allows you to add your own custom domain and get rid of Square ads. Your domain is free for a year, and you can unlock password protected pages and custom font uploads for customization.
Pros:
- Sell unlimited products on the free plan
- Pickup, delivery, and self-service ordering
- Extensive SEO tools and marketing
- Sync with your Square POS
- Sell across Instagram and Facebook
Cons:
- No custom domain on free plan
- Transaction fees can add up
Further reading 📚
2. Ecwid
Ecwid is a convenient tool for artists keen to start selling online as quickly as possible. If you already have an existing blog or website, you can add store functionality with Ecwid in just a couple of clicks. The technology ensures you can sell anywhere, across a range of websites, social media marketplaces (such as Amazon), and in-person too.
Ecwid comes with a range of marketing capabilities, including integrations with Google and Facebook advertising, and Mailchimp email marketing. You’ll also be able to control your entire ecosystem from a simple dashboard, with a mobile app for keeping track of your sales.
The Ecwid environment comes with live, expert support from a range of leading professionals, and there’s an app market, in case you want to add new functionality to your website. What’s more, the free plan comes with absolutely no transaction fees either.
The Free Package
Ecwid’s free package is completely free to use with no transaction fees. It allows you to integrate sales solutions into your existing online store, though you can’t access the multi-channel marketing features available from Ecwid here.
The free package comes with advertising for Snapchat, Facebook, Google, and Pinterest, a mobile responsive shopping cart, and unlimited bandwidth, but you can only sell up to 10 products. You’ll also have access to Facebook pixel features, tax invoices, and integrations for various leading platforms.
If you’re willing to upgrade to the “Venture” package for £12.50 per month, you can sell across a host of different platforms, including Facebook and Instagram, unlock a mobile POS, and get the mobile app. You’ll also be able to sell up to 100 products, and have various new features like gift cards, custom domain names, and an advanced set of SEO tools.
Pros:
- Integrates with a host of existing website builders
- Easy to use environment for beginners
- Multi-channel sales across multiple avenues
- Excellent selection of marketing options
- Good if you have an existing website
Cons:
- Limited products on the free plan
- No domain name on free plan
Further reading 📚
3. PrestaShop
PrestaShop is another great tool for building an artist website, offering an open source approach to creation. The cloud-based solution is similar to WordPress, allowing you to customize various parts of your site beyond the templates of options like Wix, Weebly, and Squarespace. The solution is also very easy to use, with a dashboard designed to support non-coders.
Though PrestaShop may seem a little daunting with it’s open-source structure, it’s also wonderfully flexible. If you don’t have significant technical skills, you can pay developers to integrate payment gateways, CRM, and ERP technology into the mix.
PrestaShop is great for building a portfolio website, or a site that’s easy to find on the search engine result pages. However, you’ll need a little HTML and CSS knowledge if you choose this tool over solutions like Shopify.
The Free Package
Because PrestaShop is open source, it’s a little different to the other free solutions we’ve mentioned so far. There aren’t different packages depending on what you want to pay to build your art gallery or ecommerce store. The whole service is free, and ecommerce functionality is even available – though you’ll need to pay for the transaction fees of the payment solution you choose.
It’s also worth noting you may need to consider costs like paying for someone to build ecommerce functionality into your store, or design various high-quality aspects of your website if you don’t have the know how to build your own website from scratch.
Pros:
- Flexible solution for site building and optimization
- Excellent for unique website building
- Community brimming with developers
- Lots of connections to widgets and external tools
- SSL included for your art store
Cons:
- Requires basic development knowledge
- Can be expensive to access all the web design features you want
Further reading 📚
4. Big Cartel
Big Cartel is another user-friendly solution for small businesses looking to take their art online. The great thing about this tool for website design, is it’s specially intended for creative professionals and artists. Everything from your web pages to your checkout solution will be focused on art.
Big Cartel is great if you want to build an attractive online store with lots of free themes, perfect for customizing whatever you like. You’ll also have the option to dive into the code behind your online presence if you want something more flexible than a drag-and-drop editor.
Big Cartel is one of the leading tools for an artist’s online portfolio, with the option to sell online and in-person. You can sync your inventory across both environments, track shipments, run discounts and promotions, and even use statistics in real time to learn more about your target audience.
The Free Package
The Big Cartel free package allows users to sell up to five products for free, with no credit card required. You can add a single image to each product, access free customizable themes, and sell both in-person or online. There’s even support for real-time stats.
The free package allows for a custom domain (but you will need to buy that yourself), and you can offer discounts and run promotions. There’s also shipment tracking, sales tax autopilot, product option groups, and more.
If you decide to upgrade to the first paid plan, you’ll pay $9.99 per month for up to 50 products, access five images per product, and unlock free customizable themes. You can also sell online and in-person, use real-time stats, and access shipment tracking bulk editing, and unlock Google analytics.
The paid package also supports theme code editing, product option groups, and a range of other features to help you sell more online.
Pros:
- Lots of flexibility for customizing your own website
- Free customizable website templates
- Sell online and in-person
- Real-time statistics for artists
- Excellent for shipment tracking and sales tax autopilot
Cons:
- Some limitations for scaling your business
Further reading 📚
5. Site123
Designed to be the ultimate free website builder, Site123 promises an ultra-convenient way to get started online. There are a range of features built-into your free website builder, including a selection of high-quality templates so you can avoid spending money on graphic designers.
Ease of use is one of the main points making this tool one of the best on the market. You can access a convenient editor which makes it easy to build your business website in seconds, with fully-responsive content. You can also get an online store up and running in no time, with ecommerce features as part of the platform.
The free website builder from Site123 is simple and effective, great for individuals who don’t want to deal with a significant learning curve when unlocking new commerce tools. You also get a subdomain as part of the free package, but you’ll need to pay to bring your own domain.
The Free Package
The free package from Site123 offers all the features you need to get started online, along with 250 MB of storage and 250 MB of bandwidth. There’s also access to convenient subdomain support, but you won’t have the option to connect your own domain, and you won’t be able to remove the Site123 branding until you move to the paid package.
The paid plan starts at $12.80 per month, with a free domain for a year, 10GB of storage, 5GB of bandwidth, and the option to remove the floating tags with Site123 branding. You can connect your own domain and access ecommerce functionality with this plan.
Pros:
- Excellent range of templates and editing options
- Fantastic for those in search of simplicity
- Decent amount of bandwidth for beginners
- Responsive content editor
- Ecommerce capabilities available
Cons:
- Quite a lot of limitations on the free plan
Further reading 📚
6. Sellfy
Sellfy is a leading solution for ecommerce site building, designed to make life easier for creators. You can sell a host of digital products (such as downloads of your art), or merchandise, depending on your needs. If you’re selling digital products, you can minimize the costs of production.
With Sellfy, you get everything you need to ensure your store is up and running in a matter of minutes. There are helpful templates to get you started, and a range of customization options for your online store. You can even access various marketing tools to help with reaching new customers.
One of the most exciting features of Sellfy for today’s brands is it comes with built-in “Print on Demand” functionality. This means if you do want to produce your own artistic items, you don’t have to manufacture and ship them yourself. You can access the POD team and only pay for an item whenever you sell something.
The Free Package
The free package from Sellfy only allows you to sell up to 10 products, but this could be fine if you’re just getting started with ecommerce. As an extra bonus, you’ll be able to sell a combination of print-on-demand products, and physical products on the free plan.
The “Starter” package, from $19 per month is the cheapest alternative, offering access to support for unlimited products, including digital and subscription products. The paid plan also allows you to access up to 2,000 email credits for marketing and connect your own domain.
Pros:
- Print on demand services already built-in
- Access to physical, and digital products
- Mobile optimized solution for on-the-go selling
- Reporting and analytics included
- Helpful, easy-to-use backend
Cons:
- You can’t remove the branding until the $49 package
- Limited product options in free package
Further reading 📚
7. Branchbob
Branchbob is one of the more unique providers of ecommerce tools and website building features for today’s business leaders. If you want the flexibility of something like WooCommerce, with the simplicity of being able to build your own store on your phone, Branchbob has you covered.
No matter what kind of business you run, Branchbob allows you to build the ultimate homepage, product pages, checkout environments, and more. With this ecommerce platform, you can also sell locally, and online at the same time. There are tutorial guides to help you get everything set up.
Branchbob supports a range of shipping methods, with options like the ability to set a price for collection. You can also easily create other shipping methods linked to various time zones. You’ll also be able to collect payments offline and online using a variety of payment providers.
The Free Package
Branchbob doesn’t have a range of pricing packages to offer like most website builders. Instead, all of the basic functions required for running a successful online store are free of charge. However, there are extra services like booking an app which can have fees associated with them.
You’ll need to pay for certain extras too, like the transaction fees of accepting payments through a range of providers. Make sure you keep an eye on all the “extra” costs that can add up when you start designing your site.
Pros:
- You can build your store from your smartphone
- Lots of features for ecommerce selling
- Access to plugins and add-ons
- Various shipping methods supports
- Payment gateways like PayPal available
Cons:
- May be a little simplistic for some
Choosing the Best Ecommerce Site Builder for Artists
As an artist in the modern world, building a website is an important part of your business plans. But the premium plans associated with many market-leading tools aren’t always an option. Finding the best website builder for artists with a free package can give you a more convenient way to get online and start earning income through sales and affiliate commissions.
Keep in mind, the options above mostly come with a free plan and a premium plan, so if you feel the need to increase the functionality of your store, you can always upgrade to something more advanced later. A free package can give you a fantastic insight into some of the basics a website builder can provide, so you can confidently upgrade at a later date.
Good luck choosing the free website builder for artists destined to help your business grow.
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