Big Cartel vs WooCommerce Comparison 2026
Big Cartel is a hosted shop for a small catalogue: a free Gold plan, then $15 or $30 a month, with tiers capped by product count and no separate hosting to manage. WooCommerce turns an existing WordPress site into a shop for free, taking no platform fee and no cut of sales, but the real cost moves to hosting, which its own page puts at $25 to $350 a month, plus extensions from $29 to $299 a year. Ownership is the trade. Big Cartel is predictable and limited; WooCommerce is variable and yours outright.
A small shop for people who make things
A free store plugin that takes no cut at all
At a glance
- Both have a genuinely free tier.
Side by side
Big Cartel | WooCommerce | |
|---|---|---|
| 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 merch & print on demand
WooCommerce
A free store plugin that takes no cut at all
WooCommerce turns a WordPress site into a shop and states plainly that it charges no platform fee and takes no share of sales. The software is free and open source; the money goes on hosting and on whichever extensions a shop actually needs. That makes the total cost a range rather than a number, and the range depends on traffic more than on features. Running it means owning the hosting, the updates and the security, which is the trade against a platform that does all three and bills monthly.
Why people weigh these two
- WooCommerce instead of Big Cartel
- A free store plugin that takes no cut at all, for people who already run a site and will trade Big Cartel's evening setup for owning the stack.
- Big Cartel instead of WooCommerce
- Big Cartel is a small shop for people who make things, with a free tier and plans from $15, lighter than owning WooCommerce's hosting and updates for a handful of products.
Which one should you pick
Choose Big Cartel to have a shop running by this evening with a bill you can predict: free at first, then $15 or $30 a month flat. There is no hosting to buy and no plugin to patch. It is wrong for a wide catalogue, because the tiers are drawn on product count rather than sales, and a seller listing many variants will hit that ceiling fast.
Choose WooCommerce if the site already runs on WordPress and the shop should belong to you outright. The honest cost is hosting at $25 to $350 a month plus extensions at $29 to $299 a year each, and somebody has to own the updates and security. No percentage is ever taken from a sale. It is wrong for anyone who wants a shop to simply work, since the saving over Big Cartel is real only once you count your own time as free.
Common questions
- Is WooCommerce actually free compared to Big Cartel?
- The plugin is free, but it is not the whole cost. Hosting runs $25 to $350 a month and extensions cost $29 to $299 a year each, so a busy WooCommerce store can easily cost more than Big Cartel's $30 Diamond plan. A quiet Big Cartel shop, by contrast, can run entirely free on Gold.
- Which one caps how much I can sell?
- Neither charges a percentage of sales. Big Cartel instead caps how many products you can list, which is the limit sellers hit first. WooCommerce has no such cap, since your own hosting is the only ceiling, though a busy store needs a larger hosting plan to match the traffic.
- Do I need to know WordPress to use either of these?
- Only for WooCommerce, which is a plugin that assumes an existing WordPress site and somebody willing to own its updates and security. Big Cartel needs no platform knowledge at all: sign up, pick a theme, and the shop is live.
- Which is cheaper for somebody just starting out?
- Big Cartel. Its Gold plan is free with no hosting bill and no plugin to configure, while WooCommerce needs hosting from $25 a month before a single extension is added. WooCommerce can still end up cheaper at real volume, since neither platform takes a percentage of a sale and Big Cartel's product cap is what forces an upgrade, not sales volume.
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.