Shopify vs Big Cartel 2026: Fees and Which to Choose

For the 18-product scenario on this page, Big Cartel has the cheaper renewal. Shopify can cost less during the opening months if the advertised promotion applies. Platinum is $15/mo, or $144 for the year. Basic renews at $39/mo, or $29/mo billed yearly. A standard domestic card costs 2.9% plus $0.30 on both, so the plan is the gap.

An 18-product shop is already off the free plan. That plan stops at 5 products, so the live choice is Platinum against Basic, not a free shop against a paid one. Repeating the same order does not change the card line. It only tells you whether the subscription is worth paying for buyers you already know how to reach.

Toolradar data: Toolradar’s October 25 ecommerce-platform snapshot lists Shopify as an alternative to 70 other tools, second among 110 ecommerce platforms in that catalog snapshot, as of October 2026. Its compare pages drew 120 visits in the prior 30 days, first among the 19 platforms in that set with at least 20 such visits. Shopify has no free plan, while 34% of those 110 platforms do.

Shopify and Big Cartel both host the shop. Neither is a marketplace, so a listing does not inherit someone else's search traffic. The Shopify vs Etsy and Big Cartel vs Etsy pieces price that marketplace bill separately. This page is the hosted-shop choice: what you pay to keep the store, how many products the plan will hold, and which features sit behind the next tier.

Shopify vs Big Cartel at a glance

Shop	Best for	Starting price	Hard limit
Big Cartel Gold	Five products or fewer, on a Big Cartel address	$0, then Stripe or PayPal on each sale	5 products, 1 image each, no custom domain
Big Cartel Platinum	A small catalog on your own domain	$15/mo, or $144 for the year	50 products, 5 images each
Big Cartel Diamond	Abandoned-cart email, or 51 to 500 products	$30/mo, or $288 for the year	500 products, 25 images each
Shopify Basic	A store you expect to grow past those caps	$39/mo, or $29/mo billed yearly	No product cap on any plan
Shopify Grow	Extra staff logins, not a slightly lower card rate	$105/mo, or $79/mo billed yearly	5 additional staff accounts

Plan prices were read on October 30, 2026 on Shopify's pricing page and Big Cartel's pricing page. Big Cartel's annual toggle bills Platinum as $144 for the year and Diamond as $288 for the year, each marked as a 20% saving, and it also shows those years as $12/mo and $24/mo. Product caps are in the import help. The large price on Shopify's plan cards is the yearly rate. The comparison table on the same page lists the monthly renewal beside it.

What do 5, 10, or 20 orders cost?

The month below is one maker, one catalog of 18 products, and the same orders on either shop. Each order is a single $40 product. There is no discount, no separate shipping line, no sales tax, and no gift card. The card is a standard domestic card. Shopify Payments is the only processor on the Shopify side, at Basic's online standard rate. Big Cartel is connected to Stripe at the domestic card rate both Stripe's pricing page and Big Cartel's processing article publish. Apps, a domain registration, a theme, ads, refunds, and chargebacks are outside the table.

Orders	Sales	Card fee on either native processor	Basic monthly plus that fee	Platinum monthly plus that fee	Lower bill
5	$200	$7.30	$46.30	$22.30	Big Cartel by $24.00
10	$400	$14.60	$53.60	$29.60	Big Cartel by $24.00
20	$800	$29.20	$68.20	$44.20	Big Cartel by $24.00

The card fee is 2.9% of $40, which is $1.16, plus $0.30, which is $1.46 an order. Five orders cost $7.30 in processing. Twenty cost $29.20. Those amounts are the same in both paid columns, so adding orders does not close the gap and does not widen it. Big Cartel wins this renewal by the subscription difference, $24, at every volume in the table. A busier month does not make Basic the cheaper hosted shop. It makes the identical card line a larger share of a bill that still differs by the plan.

Yearly billing changes the fixed amount and not the card math. Shopify's billing overview says annual billing charges the full year upfront and shows a lower monthly rate. Twelve times the yearly Basic rate is $348 paid at the start. On 20 orders the yearly Shopify total is $58.20 and the yearly Platinum total is $41.20. The gap is $17, still flat as orders rise.

When does the $1 intro beat the renewal?

Shopify wins the first four paid months if the advertised intro actually applies to the store. The pricing page says to try 3 days free, then $1/mo for 3 months, on top of a line that most plans then move to standard monthly pricing. The trial article says trial length and promotional pricing depend on when the account is created and on the store's location, and that Shopify does not extend or reset the offer. Budget the renewal. Treat the opening price as something to confirm at checkout, not as a rate you can count on next year.

Paid month	Basic if the $1 intro applies, then the monthly renewal	Platinum at the monthly price	Lower cumulative subscription
3	$3	$45	Shopify by $42
4	$42	$60	Shopify by $18
5	$81	$75	Big Cartel by $6
12	$354	$180	Big Cartel by $174

Card fees are left out of this table because they match, so they cannot move the crossing point. The 3-day Shopify trial and Platinum's 7-day trial are also left out. Both are shorter than a billing month. The table is the whole story: Shopify's cumulative subscription is still lower at the end of paid month 4, Platinum is ahead at the end of paid month 5, and the lead is wide by month 12.

Skipping the intro and paying the year at the start removes that head start. Shopify is $348 upfront. The Platinum year is the $144 already listed, which is $204 less, with no opening months in which Shopify is ahead. Shopify also says plan charges are generally non-refundable. A maker who might close the shop in month two should stay on a monthly bill until the orders are real. Big Cartel's pricing page puts "cancel anytime" on the monthly Diamond offer. The year is a separate published total.

If the intro is not offered on that account, there is no four-month head start. Platinum is lower from the first paid month by the full subscription gap, and the cumulative bill never favors Basic.

What do the product caps change?

Big Cartel wins under 500 products on price. Shopify wins at product 501, because there is no next Big Cartel plan. Gold holds 5 products, Platinum 50, Diamond 500. A sixth product forces Platinum. A 51st product forces Diamond, at $30/mo or $288 for the year. Shopify's all-plans list says the number of products is not restricted, and that you are not charged for how many photos you upload.

Photos are a second cap, and they bind earlier than the product count for a maker who shoots a set. Gold allows 1 image per product. Platinum allows 5. Diamond allows 25. A colorway is still one product on Gold: the Gold plan page includes multiple size and color variants inside the five-product limit. Five shirts in three sizes can fit. Six distinct products cannot.

Diamond does not lose the price comparison against Basic. On the 20-order month, Diamond monthly plus Stripe is $59.20, against $68.20 on Basic monthly. Spread across the year, Diamond's $288 is $24 a month, and that version of the 20-order month is $53.20 against $58.20 on yearly Basic. The Big Cartel review walks the same caps against other small-shop options. The longer Shopify pricing page covers Grow, Advanced, and the staff accounts this scenario does not need.

Importing does not lift the cap. Every Big Cartel plan can import from Shopify, Etsy, and Squarespace, and the import stops at the plan limit. Products past the limit are skipped. A maker leaving a larger catalog has to cut the assortment to 50 or 500, or stay.

Which card path actually matches?

Standard domestic cards are a tie when each shop uses the processor it is built around. Shopify Payments on Basic is 2.9% plus $0.30 online for a standard card. Stripe's domestic card rate is the same 2.9% plus $0.30 per successful charge, and Big Cartel says it does not add a transaction fee and does not hold the payout. The processing article's own US example is a $50 charge with a $1.75 Stripe fee, which is that same rate. The fee shows in Stripe, not in the Big Cartel order screen.

PayPal is the path that breaks the tie, and it breaks it by payment type, not by a Big Cartel percent.

PayPal product on a $40 charge	Published US rate	Fee, rounded to the cent	20 orders plus monthly Platinum
PayPal Checkout	3.49% plus $0.49	$1.89	$52.80
Standard credit or debit card payments	2.99% plus $0.49	$1.69	$48.80

Those rates are on PayPal's US business fee page. Big Cartel's processing article, dated March 20, 2026 on the page, gives the Checkout rate as the US example. Twenty Checkout orders plus the monthly plan are $52.80, still under Basic's $68.20, by $15.40. The seller has to match the line in the PayPal account to the product that is actually connected. International cards, currency conversion, and disputes sit on top of every rate in this section and are not in the tables.

The expensive mistake on Shopify is dropping Shopify Payments and running Stripe instead. Basic's third-party transaction fee is 2%, and the fee article calculates it as the product total, minus discounts, plus tax and shipping, times the plan rate. On this order, with no discount, tax, or separate shipping, that is $0.80, or $16.00 across 20 orders, on top of Stripe's own $29.20 and the monthly plan. The month becomes $84.20, which is $16.00 more than staying on Shopify Payments. The help page also says that fee is not returned when you refund the order. Using Shopify Payments as the primary provider makes PayPal wallet transactions exempt from that extra percent. Shopify's own table lists PayPal wallet rates starting at 3.49% plus $0.49, in line with PayPal Checkout, so offering PayPal beside Shopify Payments is not the same decision as replacing Shopify Payments with Stripe.

Premium cards and international cards are published, and this model uses neither. On Basic, a premium online card is 3.5% plus $0.30, which is $1.70 instead of $1.46, or $0.24 more an order. International online cards add 1% on top of the plan's card rate. Grow's standard online rate is 2.7% plus $0.30, a cut of 0.2 points. The plan jump from Basic monthly to Grow monthly is $66. That cut covers the jump only after $33,000 of standard online card sales in the month, which is 825 orders at this price. Below that volume, a solo maker would need another reason to pay for Grow. Grow is the first plan that lists additional staff accounts, and it lists 5. Plus starts at $2,300/mo on the pricing page. The Plus pricing breakdown is for a store that has already left this comparison.

Which features force the next plan?

Price is the wrong decider once a feature you will actually use is missing. The thresholds below are the ones a small maker hits first. Shipping-label discounts are real marketing lines, Big Cartel up to 90% off on the paid plans and Shopify up to 87% off, and they are not in the order math because the label price depends on the package.

Need	Where Big Cartel puts it	Where Shopify puts it	Who is cheaper if you need it
Discount codes	Platinum and Diamond	Every plan on the all-plans list	Platinum, at the renewal above
Custom domain	Platinum and Diamond	Pricing FAQ: connect a domain you own, and every store includes a myshopify.com address	Platinum, if the catalog fits
Abandoned-checkout email	Diamond only	Every plan, with send limits	Diamond monthly is still under Basic's renewal
In-person selling	Platinum and Diamond	Basic includes a phone or card reader	Depends on the counter, not this online table
Extra staff logins	Not listed on the plan comparison	5 additional on Grow, 15 on Advanced	Confirm Big Cartel access before deciding
More than 500 products	No plan	Unlimited products	Shopify

Discount codes are the first practical wall. Gold cannot run them. A maker who wants a market-day code is on Platinum even when five products would have fit. Shopify includes discount codes on every plan in the all-plans list, including combined discounts. That does not make Basic the lower bill. It means the free plan is the wrong place to test a promotion.

A custom domain is the same kind of wall. Gold does not include one. Platinum and Diamond do. The plan fee is support for the domain, not the registration, so a name you still have to buy is a registrar bill on either platform. Shopify's pricing FAQ says you can connect a domain you already own, or buy one, and that every store also has a free myshopify.com address. A test can live on that address. A shop people are supposed to remember should not stay on Gold to avoid Platinum.

Abandoned checkout is the feature people assume is on every paid shop, and on Big Cartel it is not. The pricing page puts cart recovery on Diamond, with scheduled drops, password-protected products, and a Zapier connection it describes as 7,000-plus apps. Shopify includes the email on every plan. The send rules say it is not sent when the customer has not previously completed a purchase and subscribed to marketing, among other cases. Shopify also says its new automation defaults to subscribers and the recipient field can be changed. Confirm the applicable settings and consent rules before relying on a recovery email. Diamond's renewal is still the lower subscription if the catalog is under 500 products.

In-person sales are a different shop. Gold cannot take them. Platinum can, in the mobile app. Basic lists a phone or card reader, at an in-person card rate of 2.6% plus $0.10, and POS Pro is an extra $89/mo per location. That counter math is in the Shopify POS pricing piece.

Staff accounts are a separate decision from card rates. The published Big Cartel comparison does not list seats. A second login should be confirmed there before Platinum is treated as enough. On Shopify, Basic does not list additional staff accounts, and Grow lists 5.

Apps can erase a plan gap without changing the platform fee. This model includes none. Big Cartel Platinum lists installable apps for print-on-demand and similar jobs. Diamond adds the Zapier connection. Shopify's pricing table says stores can integrate with thousands of apps, and a reviews app or an email tool is often the real monthly bill. Price that stack in the Shopify apps guide before treating the platform gap as margin. The Shopify review is the longer read on what the hosted store includes before those apps.

Who should open which shop?

Stay on Gold only when the assortment is five products or fewer, one photo is enough, and you do not need a code, a custom domain, or in-person checkout. The plan is $0 and it does not ask for a card to start. The moment the sixth product, the second photo, or a discount code matters, Gold is the wrong savings. Other no-plan storefronts are collected in the free ecommerce website guide, and they have their own caps.

Open Platinum when the catalog is between 6 and 50 products and buyers already have a reason to visit. You get the domain, discounts, inventory, shipping labels, and five images, plus the processor. You do not get abandoned-cart email. If that email is a requirement, move to Diamond and re-price, rather than assuming the lower paid plan will grow into it.

Open Diamond when you need that email, scheduled drops, or room up to 500 products. On this page's card rate, Diamond still costs less per month than Basic. It stops being the right shop past 500 products, and its plan comparison does not specify staff accounts.

Open Shopify when the catalog will pass 500 products, when a second login is a real need, or when you are using the three intro months to learn the admin and you have a date to revisit the bill. After those months, Basic's renewal has to beat Platinum or Diamond on your own orders. If it does not, the intro was a trial, not a reason to stay. Cheaper Shopify alternatives and the Shopify alternatives ranking cover shops other than Big Cartel. Shopify vs WooCommerce, Shopify vs Squarespace, and Shopify vs BigCommerce are the closer splits once the line is no longer a small maker's catalog. The ecommerce platform ranking is the wider set.

Running both requires coordinating stock, shipping and returns. Big Cartel imports a Shopify catalog only up to the selected plan limit.

FAQ

Is Big Cartel cheaper than Shopify in 2026?

At renewal, yes, for a catalog that fits. On the standard-card orders in this page, Platinum monthly is $24 under Basic monthly at 5, 10, and 20 orders, because the card fee matches and only the plan differs. The exception is the opening stretch, if Shopify's $1/mo intro applies: cumulative subscription stays lower on Shopify through paid month 4 and flips by paid month 5.

How much does Shopify cost after the intro months?

The pricing page lists Basic at $39/mo when you pay monthly, and $29/mo when you pay yearly, with the year charged upfront. Grow is $105/mo or $79/mo yearly. Advanced is $399/mo or $299/mo yearly. Plus starts at $2,300/mo. The intro is not the renewal, and the help center says the promotional price can differ by when the store was opened.

Does Big Cartel take a percentage of each sale?

No platform percent. Stripe or PayPal charges its own fee and pays the rest on that processor's schedule. Stripe's domestic card rate used here is 2.9% plus $0.30. PayPal Checkout on the US fee page is 3.49% plus $0.49. Shopify adds its own 2% on Basic only when a third-party processor, rather than Shopify Payments, takes the order.

What happens at 6 products, 51 products, and 501 products?

Six products end Gold and require Platinum, which caps the shop at 50. Fifty-one products require Diamond, which caps it at 500. Five hundred one products do not fit any Big Cartel plan. Shopify's all-plans list does not restrict the product count. Variants in another size or color stay one product on Gold, so the wall is the product, not the SKU.

Can I use Stripe on both and pay the same card fee?

On Big Cartel, yes: Stripe is a supported processor and Big Cartel does not add a percent. On Shopify, using Stripe instead of Shopify Payments adds Basic's 2% on top of Stripe, which is $0.80 on this order. Keeping Shopify Payments as the primary provider, and adding PayPal beside it, is the setup the help page exempts from that extra percent.

Does the free Big Cartel plan replace a Shopify trial?

Only for a five-product shop that can live with one image, no discount codes, and no custom domain. Shopify's trial is 3 days, then the paid plan, with the pricing page advertising $1/mo for the next 3 months. Big Cartel's pricing page advertises 7 days free, then the $15 plan. A free Gold shop that cannot hold the real assortment is not a trial of the shop you mean to run.

Methodology and bottom line

Retailpresso read Shopify's pricing page, plan-feature list, billing overview, trial article, and third-party fee article, plus Big Cartel's pricing page, Gold page, processing article, and import article, Stripe's pricing page, and PayPal's US business fee page, on October 30, 2026. Image caps were read the same day on Big Cartel's plans and features help article, where the monthly prices still match the pricing page. The order math is our calculation from those published rates. No merchant account was opened, and no visits or conversion were measured. Fees vary by country and can change. A shop near the product caps, or unsure whether the intro price will be offered, should rerun the month with its own item price, tax, and processor before switching.

Keep Big Cartel when the assortment fits and the buyers are yours. Move to Shopify when the cap, the staff list, or a real need for the wider app stack shows up, and do it with the renewal price in the budget. The intro months are a cheap way to learn the Shopify admin. They are a poor reason to leave a fitting Big Cartel plan once month five has arrived.

Cite this: Retailpresso, "Shopify vs Big Cartel 2026: Fees and Which to Choose," prices checked October 30, 2026.

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