Big Cartel vs Spreadshop Comparison 2026
Big Cartel is a small storefront you build yourself: editable themes, a custom domain, and a free Gold plan, with Platinum and Diamond at $15 and $30 a month capping how many products you list. Spreadshop opens a merchandise shop with no subscription at all: Spreadshirt prints, ships and handles customer service, and you keep the difference between your price and its base cost. The trade is control. Big Cartel gives you a shop that is fully yours for a monthly fee, and Spreadshop gives you one that costs nothing to leave open but belongs to Spreadshirt's frame.
A small shop for people who make things
A print on demand shop that costs nothing
At a glance
- Both have a genuinely free tier.
Side by side
Big Cartel | Spreadshop | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | From $15 | Free |
| Pricing model (they differ) | Free plan, paid tiers | Free |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Billing | Monthly or annual | Not stated |
| Free trial | 7 days | Not stated |
| API | Not stated |
Big Cartel
A small shop for people who make things
Big Cartel has sold for artists and bands since before most of this category existed, and the product still reflects that: a handful of themes, a product limit rather than a transaction limit, and no upsell machinery. Setting up a shop takes an evening. The free plan is genuinely usable for a first release, and the paid ones are cheaper than any general storefront. Anybody who wants apps, subscriptions or a hundred variants should look elsewhere.
Our note
Count your products before choosing, because that single limit is the whole pricing model and it is easy to outgrow in a month if you sell variants as separate listings. For a catalogue that stays small this is cheaper than any general storefront in this directory and stays that way as sales grow.
Only on this side
- Covers digital products & storefronts
Spreadshop
A print on demand shop that costs nothing
Spreadshop opens a merchandise shop with no fee at either end: Spreadshirt prints and ships, and you keep whatever you set above the base price of each item. Because there is no subscription, a shop that sells nothing for six months costs nothing to leave open. The trade is that the storefront and the product range are theirs, so it is less yours than a shop you build.
Why people weigh these two
- Spreadshop instead of Big Cartel
- A print on demand shop that costs nothing, with the printing handled too; suits merch where Big Cartel assumes you make the things yourself.
- Big Cartel instead of Spreadshop
- Big Cartel gives you your own small shop instead of a page on Spreadshirt's own storefront, with a free tier before a $15 plan.
Which one should you pick
Choose Big Cartel to run a shop that is actually yours: your own domain from the entry paid tier, themes you can edit, and a free plan that already ships. It costs $15 or $30 a month once you outgrow Gold, and that fee buys ownership Spreadshop does not offer. It is wrong for a first test of whether merchandise sells at all, since the fee runs whether or not anything does.
Choose Spreadshop to test merchandise with nothing at risk. Opening and keeping the shop open cost nothing, so a quiet month is free rather than a $15 bill. The page's own example prices an item at $12 base with $11 kept as profit. It is wrong once merchandise becomes the business rather than an experiment, because the storefront, checkout and product range stay Spreadshirt's rather than yours.
Common questions
- Is Spreadshop actually free, or does it charge later?
- It stays free. There is no subscription and no listing fee at any point, only a base price per product that you mark up yourself. Big Cartel is close to free too at first, with a Gold plan at no cost, but moves to $15 or $30 a month once a shop needs more products or a custom domain.
- Which one prints and ships the merchandise?
- Spreadshop does, through Spreadshirt, including returns and customer service. Big Cartel lists products for you to fulfil yourself, though its paid plans include discounted shipping labels for whatever you ship on your own.
- Which gives me more control over how the shop looks?
- Big Cartel. Its themes are editable and the shop runs on your own domain from the entry paid tier. Spreadshop's storefront and product range belong to Spreadshirt, so branding sits inside a frame you do not control.
- Do either of these charge a percentage of each sale?
- Neither does, in the ordinary sense. Big Cartel's paid plans are a flat $15 or $30 a month with no cut taken. Spreadshop has no fee at all: you set your own price above the base cost and keep the difference, so your margin is the whole mechanism rather than a percentage on top of it.
Ratings are the average of reviews readers left. The facts are stated by each tool’s own listing and are not verified by CloutStack. How we make money.