The Best Ecommerce Platforms for Canada

Every year, we put market-leading ecommerce platforms through several rounds of hands-on testing against 300+ different criteria to find out who comes out on top for small businesses. This time round, the best ecommerce platform for small businesses in Canada is Shopify.

Shopify’s advanced inventory management features and smart AI text writing mean it’s best suited to ambitious merchants eager to grow their business. But Shopify’s ability to sync with online marketplaces leaves a lot to be desired – plus it’s not the cheapest solution.

With ecommerce sales now making up around 15% of total retail sales in the US, according to the United States Census Bureau, it’s no wonder you’re keen to sell online. A dedicated e-commerce platform is essential for any online business, regardless of its size or status. With so many providers out there, it can be hard to know which to choose. Luckily, while you’ve been perfecting your business plan, we’ve been analyzing the best web store builder software tools.

We compared these programmes based on factors that matter most to Canadian merchants: value for money, design options, ease of use and sales functions. Our researchers scored each platform based on more than 50 aspects, and asked a focus group for their feedback, too.

5 Best Ecommerce Platforms:

Below, you’ll find our comparison table followed by a handy overview of each platform.

All prices in Canadian dollars (we’ve converted Shopify and BigCommerce pricing from USD, as listed on their websites).

1. Shopify: Best Overall

• Subscription pricing: Mid-to-high
• Transaction fees: Fairly high
• Ease of use: 3.5/5

Who We Recommend Shopify For

Shopify is aimed at business-savvy merchants with a very clear business plan. If you’ve sourced your products, decided on your branding, and looking to scale up your sales, then Shopify has the sales features you need.

We recommend Shopify over BigCommerce for sellers with dozens of inventory storage spots. Why? Shopify can cope with up to 1,000 inventory locations (on all plans), whereas BigCommerce facilitates selling and distribution from just four, five or eight (depending on your plan). Wix has much weaker inventory management features than Shopify.

Shopify Pricing

Shopify offers a 3-day free trial period plus the first month for $1. There’s three core price plans (priced in USD, but we’ve converted to CAD). We go into more detail on the features available at each price tier in our Shopify price guide but here’s a quick overview:

Connecting Marketplaces to Your Shopify Store

There are no native features to connect your Shopify store with any of the main online marketplaces. Exceptions are Facebook and Instagram marketplaces as well as a wholesale option called Handshake. For any of the others, you’ll have to connect an app, which comes with monthly fees. For instance, to connect Etsy, you’ll have to pay $19 per month to synch up to 20,000 products.

Unfortunately, third-party apps can present difficulties with functionality, because Shopify cannot help you when these go wrong. We’ve seen many Shopify community discussions trying to find workarounds when Amazon apps stop working.

Shopify’s AI Features

This year Shopify released its AI writing tool Shopify Magic, which we found effective in crafting creative prose for our product descriptions. While Wix has a similar AI text generator, it doesn’t offer the same range of tones of voice as Shopify’s tool.

Similarly, the AI chatbot assistant in the help center was quick and mostly effective at answering my questions about setting up additional sales channels. Its comprehension was not perfect, for instance, it couldn’t understand that the Amazon by Shopify app was no longer supported. Instead, it repeated (outdated) instructions for downloading that very app.

Shopify Pricing

Here’s an overview of Shopify’s pricing plans:

If you’re keen on starting an online store but not sure how it should look, then go and get some style inspiration from our rundown of the best 10 Shopify stores. You’ll be able to pick up some truly handy tips and hints on web store creation from some big brands that already use Shopify.

On the other hand, you may not even know what you want to sell yet. If you’re interested in earning extra income through ecommerce and want to put a lot of effort into the creative branding and marketing side of things, you can always get into dropshipping. This means purchasing inventory after you’ve made a sale so you don’t have any storage fees. Curious? Why not check out our guide on how to start dropshipping with Shopify to learn more.

2. Wix: Best for Bookings and Services

• Subscription pricing: Mid-to-lower end
• Transaction fees: Just the standard credit card rates
• Ease of use: 4/5

Suited to: Services-Based Business Leaders

Wix tops our website builder list thanks to the wide range of features but dips into second place when we consider its sales platform. The reason is its selling features are slightly less generous – Wix limits the number of transactions with automated sales tax, for instance.

Who We Recommend Wix For

Wix is a good all-rounder platform that’s suited to a wide range of business users. It’s not so complicated that only seasoned professionals can use it – we’d comfortably recommend this for beginners with very little web design or even commerce experience. You’ll get more design control than GoDaddy, but it’s not as complicated to configure as WordPress/WooCommerce.

AI-Assisted Store Set-Up

We’re excited about Wix’s use of AI, such as the text generator to speed up content creation. AI assists in the set up process too, with Wix suggesting features you’ll need based on your industry.

Here are some examples:

• If you run a restaurant: table reservations, food delivery, menu listings
• Hotel managers: season-specific room pricing, list add-on services at extra cost
• Fitness enthusiast: bookings (in person or online) via Wix Fit, subscriber-only content,  automated reminders
• Creative professionals: membership areas with paywall content, video streaming

Wix is better for the services industry compared to Square because the latter isn’t set up for paid members-only pages.

Wix Pricing

Wix offers a 14-day money-back guarantee on its premium plans, and we’re glad to offer our readers a discount code: “TAKE10” for 10% off subscriptions. There are three ecommerce-specific plans to choose from:

Wix is one of very few ecommerce platforms that doesn’t charge transaction fees. If you want to find out more about the costs and features of each tier, check out our Wix pricing guide. We’ve also taken a deep dive into the pros and cons of Wix vs Squarespace in case you’d like to take a more in-depth look at those two side-by-side.

3. BigCommerce: Lowest Transaction Fees

• Subscription pricing: Good range of options
• Transaction fees: PayPal (via Braintree) only
• Ease of use: 3.3/5

Suited to: Product Retailers with a Large Customer Base

If your products are popular with everyday shoppers across Amazon, eBay, Walmart, Facebook, and Instagram, then BigCommerce is a convenient platform to manage orders from all of these streams. With Shopify, you’d need to install apps (at extra cost) to achieve the same multichannel sales set-up.

But the best bonus of all has to be the lack of transaction fees across major payment providers.

Another advantage of BigCommerce is the opportunity to speak with its web platform experts on its easily accessible phone line. That means it’s much easier to access customer support on BigCommerce than it is on Wix (you’d need to request a callback through a customer service ticket on the latter).

Who We Recommend BigCommerce For

It has to be said BigCommerce is aimed at larger sales operations or businesses that are looking to scale up in the near future. Its unlimited products and file storage space are intended for thousands, not hundreds, of products.

The lowest-priced Standard plan ($29 per month, paid annually) isn’t great value for money, as it’s missing some key features such as abandoned cart recovery, which is included with all Shopify plans (even its $5 Starter plan). You should aim for a budget of minimum $100 per month to invest in BigCommerce.

BigCommerce Pricing

BigCommerce offers a generous 15-day free trial period, and three core price plans in USD, which we’ve converted to CAD (enterprise pricing is available upon request):

4. Square: Best Free Plan

• Subscription pricing: Affordable
• Transaction fees: Industry standard
• Ease of use: 3.9/5

Suited to: Small-to-Medium Sellers and Local Businesses

You’ll likely have seen Square’s sleek white card readers at bars and stores in your neighborhood. It’s a popular choice of payment terminal, likely due to its very low cost basic hardware. Its website builder product is affordable too – you can sign up to sell online with no monthly subscription fees on the Square Free plan.

Square offers AI-generated product descriptions, which help you to publish your new product pages faster. That’s a really valuable time-saver, and means you won’t have to spend time and money on professional copywriters each time you want to launch a new product range.

Who We Recommend Square For

Square is ideal for entrepreneurs and small business leaders who sell in person as well as online. For instance, if you picture yourself selling through your website, but also attending festivals, and events, and perhaps selling at a brick-and-mortar location, Square is a good choice.

The Square POS (point of sale) hardware devices are, admittedly, an additional expense. However, Square’s ability to offer a very wide range of payment options for your customers is a big pull factor.

Square’s Limited Free Plan

The drawback of the Free plan is the basic nature of the editing tools. You won’t have as much design customization as you would with Square Plus. And you’ll have Square-branded adverts on your site.

But given how speedy, slick and clear Square’s free website builder is, we have little to complain about here.

Widening Sales Features for Local and National Sellers

The Square for Retail’s checkout includes a “buy online, pick up in-store” option. We love that, across all price plans, you can opt for a courier to come straight to your location as soon as a sale goes through.

Shipping is streamlined thanks to a refreshed Shipments Page, from which vendors can manage online, in-store, and subscription order fulfilment.

However, Square is not the best for international sellers. For $79 a month you can subscribe to either Square Premium or BigCommerce Plus – but only BigCommerce stores accept payments in multiple currencies.

Square Online Pricing

Square Online has four price plans to choose from:

5. Squarespace: Best Looking Online Stores

• Subscription pricing: Lower end
• Transaction fees: Reasonable
• Ease of use: 4.2/5

Suited to: Artists, Creatives, and Visually-Driven Brands

Squarespace works well as a portfolio website, showcasing the aesthetics of your brand with classy web design. Think of your Squarespace website as a virtual art gallery: lots of white space, few features, and impeccable taste.

Who We Recommend Squarespace For

Squarespace is best suited to creative professionals such as photographers, artists, content creators, and high-end wellness or luxury brands. We appreciate Squarespace for its aesthetically appealing web designs and recommend it for portfolio-based selling.

Squarespace’s Lovely Editing Process

Using Squarespace, editing your web design is a really pleasant experience, and feels much smoother than using Shopify, GoDaddy or Square. Unlike most website editors we’ve tested (see our GoDaddy review for comparison), you can move every text box or image to the precise position you’d like.

Squarespace updated its editing experience this year so that a grid appears in the background when you click and drag design elements. This makes it easy to line them up evenly with others on the page.

Squarespace Pricing

Squarespace offers a 14-day free trial period and has two ecommerce-specific pricing plans. Also, don’t forget you can save 10% on Squarespace by using code EM10 at the checkout.

The Best Free Ecommerce Platform

Square Online is the best free ecommerce platform for businesses in Canada. Offering reasonable functionality at zero cost is a huge draw for many. It’s the only platform in our review to offer a free ecommerce product, though Shopify, Wix, BigCommerce and Squarespace all provide at least a 14-day free trial period.

That said, nothing in this life is truly free: Square Online takes a slice of every sale made on its free platforms. Also, its design features scored pretty low in our user testing. Overall, you’d make far better use of your time and resources by investing in a premium model to grow your sales the way you need to.

How We Test Ecommerce Platforms