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By Jason Feng, Founder & Researcher. See how this review was researched.
Quick answer
Four platforms worth pricing for a dropshipping store: BigCommerce, WooCommerce, Squarespace and Wix. Their entry subscriptions cluster tightly ($0 to $39/month), so the subscription is the wrong place to look.
The dropshipping bill sits in three lines most comparisons skip: the supplier app subscription, which runs from free to $99.99/month and is usually priced by how many products you link; platform caps on products, variants and GMV; and order and payment overage fees.
My default: BigCommerce if you expect volume and want published overage rates. WooCommerce if your catalog is large and you can maintain hosting. Squarespace only above Basic, where its 2% store fee disappears. Wix stays on the shortlist, but I could not verify its US tier prices.
Table of contents
- Why dropshipping changes the math
- The four platforms, by published price
- The supplier app is the subscription that actually matters
- SKU caps and overage: where the price is really set
- Payment overage, the fee people miss
- A worked month at 1,000 orders
- Do these platforms allow dropshipping?
- Our verdict
- Frequently asked questions
- How we researched this
- Sources
Why dropshipping changes the math
A dropshipping store has a different cost shape from a store that holds stock. You have almost no inventory cost and almost no storage cost. What you have instead is an app subscription for supplier integration, a product-count ceiling you hit faster than expected, and per-order fees that scale with volume.
That is why a store can move to a cheaper platform and pay more. Cutting a $39 subscription to save $14/month while picking up a 2% transaction fee costs $800/month at $40,000 in online sales. I have run that arithmetic for other store types in our broader Shopify alternatives comparison, and it lands the same way here.
The four platforms, by published price
Every figure below comes from the vendor’s own pricing page, fetched on 2026-09-24 through a US exit IP.
| Platform | Monthly price (US) | Annual price (US) | Card rate published | Product ceiling published on the pricing page |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shopify (baseline) | Basic $39, Grow $105, Advanced $399, Plus from $2,300 | Basic $29, Grow $79, Advanced $299 | 2.9% + 30¢ on Basic, 2.7% on Grow, 2.5% on Advanced, 2.25% on Plus | Unlimited products; up to 2,048 variants per product per WooCommerce’s comparison table |
| BigCommerce | Core $39, Growth $105, Scale $399, Performance from $1,499 billed annually | Core $29, Growth $79, Scale $299 | Begins at 2.89% + $0.29 per transaction on all plans | [DATA NOT VERIFIED: BigCommerce’s pricing page lists "Products, file storage, and bandwidth" as a feature row with checkmarks, not numbers, so no per-tier product cap is published there] |
| WooCommerce | $0 platform fee | $0 platform fee | ~2.50–2.90% + 30¢ with WooPayments | Unlimited products, orders and APIs; unlimited variants |
| Squarespace | Basic $25, Core $39, Plus $65, Advanced $139 | Basic $19, Core $29, Plus $49, Advanced $99 | 2.9% + $0.30 on Basic and Core, 2.7% on Plus, 2.5% on Advanced | "There’s no limit to the number of products and services you can sell on your online store" |
| Wix | [DATA NOT VERIFIED: the Wix pricing page we fetched on 2026-09-24 returned GST-inclusive prices marked "USD prices displayed for reference only", so no US tier price is cited] | [DATA NOT VERIFIED: same capture limitation] | [DATA NOT VERIFIED: no US card rate confirmed from the page we captured] | Not published on the pricing page we captured |
Two things stand out when you put them side by side. BigCommerce Core and Squarespace Core both list $39/month, the same as Shopify Basic. WooCommerce lists $0 and puts the money in hosting ($25–$350/month for most stores) and extensions ($29–$299/year each), which is the structure I compare in more detail in our WooCommerce vs Shopify fees breakdown.
The other thing: only WooCommerce and Squarespace make a product-ceiling promise on the pricing page itself. Shopify keeps variants at a platform level, not a plan level. BigCommerce does not publish a number at all.
The supplier app is the subscription that actually matters
Supplier integration is not part of the platform. It is an app you buy separately, and it is where a dropshipping store’s second subscription lives.
I pulled the current listings from the Shopify App Store on 2026-09-24, because that is where most dropshipping tooling is sold and priced in public.
| Supplier app | Free tier | Paid tiers (published, US) | What the paid tiers buy |
|---|---|---|---|
| DSers (AliExpress) | Yes, Basic plan free | Advanced $19.90/month, Pro $49.90/month | Bulk ordering, auto price sync. Listing states "Extra fee will be needed if the amount of products exceeds the limit based on the usage level" |
| AutoDS | Free trial, not a free plan | From $26.90/month; entry tier is named "Import 200"; annual $248.70 | Tiers named for import and product counts, up to 1K products on the tier we captured |
| Spocket (US and EU suppliers) | Yes, Free plan | Starter $39.99/month, Pro $59.99/month, Empire $99.99/month | Pro lists 250 unique products and 25 premium products; Empire lists 10,000 and 10,000 |
| Zendrop | Free to install | Beginner $29/month, Pro $49/month, Plus $79/month | Linked products: 1–20 on Beginner, 21–100 on Pro, 101+ on Plus. The free tier says "No linked products allowed" |
Spocket’s allowance goes from 250 unique products to 10,000 between $59.99 and $99.99. Zendrop sells access by the number of products you link. DSers charges extra when you exceed your usage level. You are not buying features. You are buying headroom.
Elsewhere the same tooling exists but is not sold on a platform-owned marketplace, so price discovery is harder. Squarespace lists Spocket, Syncee and Printful in its extensions directory and states that "Squarespace doesn’t charge you for using extensions and doesn’t have any control over the extension’s pricing". BigCommerce groups dropshipping and print-on-demand apps into one marketplace collection inside a catalog it counts at "over 1,200 apps". Wix calls Modalyst its native dropshipping solution, and the Wix App Market listing shows Modalyst as Free.
[DATA NOT VERIFIED: WooCommerce’s dropshipping extension category page returned a 404 on 2026-09-24, so no specific extension price is quoted. Its published band of $29–$299/year per extension would cover one.]
SKU caps and overage: where the price is really set
Caps work differently on each stack, and this is where a store gets surprised mid-year.
- Shopify charges for synced marketplace orders above an allowance: 50 synced marketplace orders per month free, then 1% up to $99/month. Product count is unlimited, variants are not.
- BigCommerce caps each self-service tier by trailing twelve-month GMV and auto-upgrades you when you cross it. Core covers up to $30K TTM, Growth up to $100K TTM, Scale covers $33,333/month in GMV with a 0.9% overage rate above that and no tier jump. At $2 million TTM the account upgrades to Performance. BigCommerce also evaluates those thresholds on gross order value minus 10%, and its own footnote says that number may differ from what you track. That difference is expected, not an error.
- WooCommerce publishes no GMV cap and no revenue share. Its constraint is the one you chose: your host.
- Squarespace publishes no product limit at all on the pricing tiers. Its constraint is the plan-gated fee structure, not a cap.
The BigCommerce auto-upgrade deserves a second look if you are dropshipping, because dropshipping revenue moves in steps. A product going viral can push you from a $39 plan to a $105 plan mid-quarter with no negotiation. At least the rates are published. I go deeper on those tiers in our BigCommerce vs Shopify pricing comparison.
Payment overage, the fee people miss
Shopify charges a third-party transaction fee when you do not use Shopify Payments: 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow, 0.6% on Advanced, 0.2% on Plus, on top of whatever your processor charges you.
BigCommerce charges an Open Payment Provider Fee on its self-service plans: 2.0% on Core, 1.0% on Growth, 0.6% on Scale, and 0.0% with a contract on Performance. The fee applies to GMV attributed to providers outside its embedded list. That list includes BigCommerce Payments, PayPal Braintree, Stripe, Adyen, Amazon Pay and Klarna, and orders through those carry a $0 fee from BigCommerce. Read the list before choosing BigCommerce for a dropshipping store, because an off-list processor means paying twice.
WooCommerce has no platform to charge a penalty. Squarespace ties its rates to Squarespace Payments and lists no separate third-party penalty, but its card rates are only available with that processor. Squarespace also charges a tax-calculation line: 0.15% per transaction on Core, 0.10% on Plus, 0.05% on Advanced, capped at $0.99 each, and not included on Basic.
A worked month at 1,000 orders
Assumptions, stated so you can argue with them: 1,000 orders in a month, $40 average order value, so $40,000 in monthly online GMV. Card payments processed through each platform’s own processor unless noted. No apps, no cost of goods, no shipping. Numbers are arithmetic on the published rate cards above, not quotes.
| Setup | Subscription | Processing | Platform fees | Monthly total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shopify Basic, Shopify Payments | $39 | 2.9% + 30¢ = $1,460 | None | $1,499 |
| Shopify Basic, outside processor | $39 | Your processor’s rate | Third-party fee 2% = $800 | $839 plus your processor’s fees |
| BigCommerce Core | $39 | 2.89% + $0.29 = $1,446 | $0 with an embedded provider | $1,485, but $40K/month blows through Core’s $30K TTM cap and auto-upgrades |
| BigCommerce Growth | $105 | 2.89% + $0.29 = $1,446 | $0 with an embedded provider | $1,551 |
| BigCommerce Core with an off-list provider | $39 | Your processor’s rate | Open provider fee 2% = $800 | $839 plus your processor’s fees |
| WooCommerce | $0 | 2.50–2.90% + 30¢ = $1,300–$1,460 | None | $1,325–$1,810 including hosting at $25–$350 |
| Squarespace Basic | $25 | 2.9% + $0.30 = $1,460 | Online store fee 2% = $800 | $2,285 |
| Squarespace Core | $39 | 2.9% + $0.30 = $1,460 | 0% store fee | $1,499 |
Squarespace Basic versus Core is the clearest example of a cheap tier that is not cheap. The $14/month you save costs $800/month at this volume. I model that trade-off in more detail in our Squarespace vs Shopify pricing comparison.
Add the supplier app from the table above to whichever row you pick, and note the ratio: on a $40,000 month, a $49.90 app subscription is 0.12% of revenue while a 2% payment penalty is sixteen times larger.
Do these platforms allow dropshipping?
Yes, on all four, and I want to be precise about what I checked.
Shopify documents dropshipping in its help center: "Suppliers fulfill orders directly to customers, reducing upfront costs and logistical complexity." It also publishes guidance on cross-border tax obligations for dropshipped sales. Wix says you can "source from millions of high-quality dropshipping products" and calls Modalyst its native dropshipping solution. Squarespace lists dropshipping extensions in its directory. BigCommerce groups dropshipping and print-on-demand apps in its marketplace.
What I did not find, in the policies I could fetch, is a blanket prohibition on dropshipping as a fulfillment method. Shopify’s acceptable use policy is written around illegal activity, product eligibility and bad faith, not around where the warehouse is.
[DATA NOT VERIFIED: the Wix and BigCommerce legal and terms URLs I tried on 2026-09-24 returned 404 from the US exit, so I could not confirm whether either adds dropshipping-specific conditions elsewhere. Nothing in the vendor pages I did read suggests a ban, but I am not stating that as fact.]
The practical edge is elsewhere. Product eligibility rules bite harder here than in any other model, because you list products you did not make and may not have inspected. Shopify says most product eligibility disputes originate outside the platform, with regulators and rights holders. Read the category rules for whatever you plan to sell before you pick a platform for it.
Our verdict
There is no single winner, but the defaults are not close.
- Expecting volume and wanting published overage terms: BigCommerce. Its Core, Growth and Scale caps, its 0.9% Scale overage rate and its 2.0%/1.0%/0.6% open provider fee are all disclosed on the pricing page. Use an embedded payment provider or the fee advantage evaporates. Budget for an auto-upgrade.
- Large catalog and your own hosting arrangement: WooCommerce. Unlimited products, orders and APIs, no GMV cap, no revenue share. You pay $25–$350/month for hosting and $29–$299/year per extension, and a supplier integration is one of those extensions.
- Already leaning Squarespace for the site: start at Core, not Basic. The 2% online store transaction fee on Basic outruns the saving at any real order volume.
- Wix: I would not choose a platform for a dropshipping store without a verified US price, and I could not verify one. Its dropshipping path is real and the app is listed free, but the platform cost is a blank cell in this comparison, and blank cells make bad decisions.
- Staying on Shopify is a defensible answer. Its supplier app ecosystem is where the tooling is priced in public, its variant ceiling is a platform rule rather than a plan gate, and Basic at $39 is the same sticker as BigCommerce Core and Squarespace Core.
Whichever you pick, run the worked month above with your own order count, your own AOV and your own supplier app before you migrate. Our three-platform pricing breakdown has the same arithmetic for stores that also sell on marketplaces.
Frequently asked questions
Which platforms should I price for a dropshipping store?
Four platforms are worth pricing: BigCommerce, WooCommerce, Squarespace and Wix. Their entry subscriptions cluster tightly between $0 and $39/month, so the subscription is the wrong place to look for the real cost.
Why is a cheaper platform plan sometimes more expensive for dropshipping?
Because the dropshipping bill sits in three lines most comparisons skip: the supplier app subscription, platform caps on products, variants and GMV, and order and payment overage fees. Cutting a $39 subscription to save $14/month while picking up a 2% transaction fee costs $800/month at $40,000 in online sales.
How much do dropshipping supplier apps cost?
Supplier app subscriptions run from free to $99.99/month and are usually priced by how many products you link. Examples include DSers at $19.90–$49.90/month, AutoDS from $26.90/month, Spocket at $39.99–$99.99/month, and Zendrop at $29–$79/month.
Does Squarespace Basic charge a store transaction fee?
Yes, Squarespace Basic carries a 2% online store transaction fee that disappears above Basic. At 1,000 orders and a $40 average order value, that fee costs $800/month, far more than the $14/month saved versus Core.
What is BigCommerce’s open payment provider fee?
BigCommerce charges an Open Payment Provider Fee on self-service plans: 2.0% on Core, 1.0% on Growth, 0.6% on Scale, and 0.0% with a contract on Performance. It applies to GMV attributed to providers outside its embedded list, which includes BigCommerce Payments, PayPal Braintree, Stripe, Adyen, Amazon Pay and Klarna.
Do BigCommerce, WooCommerce, Squarespace and Wix allow dropshipping?
Yes, all four allow dropshipping, and no blanket prohibition on dropshipping as a fulfillment method was found in the policies that could be fetched. Product eligibility rules still apply, so check the category rules for whatever you plan to sell.
How we researched this
- Sources are vendor pages. Every price, cap and fee was captured from the vendor’s own pricing page, app marketplace listing or help documentation on 2026-09-24. This is a research-based review: the work is document review and arithmetic on published rate cards, cross-checked against aggregated user reporting.
- Region was controlled. Requests went out through a US exit IP (199.237.109.149, country code US) with
Accept-Language: en-US. Shopify and Wix serve different currencies by IP, and the Wix capture failed that check, which is why it is marked rather than estimated. - Rate cards were used, not quotes. The worked month is arithmetic on published rates at 1,000 orders and a $40 average order value. Your numbers will differ, and the arithmetic is there for you to change.
- Unverifiable numbers are marked, not guessed. Every figure I could not confirm is flagged inline as
[DATA NOT VERIFIED]rather than filled in. I did not convert currencies, infer missing caps or substitute a competitor’s marketing claim. - App prices are the app developers’ own published list prices, captured from their marketplace listings. A developer can change them at any time.
Read the full method on our how we research page.
Sources
All pages fetched 2026-09-24 via a US exit IP (199.237.109.149, country code US) with Accept-Language: en-US.
- Shopify pricing (https://www.shopify.com/pricing): plan prices, card rates, third-party transaction fees, marketplace order allowance, POS Pro add-on
- Shopify Help Center, dropshipping (https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/products/dropshipping): fulfillment model
- Shopify acceptable use policy (https://www.shopify.com/legal/aup): no dropshipping prohibition found
- BigCommerce pricing (https://www.bigcommerce.com/pricing/): plan prices, GMV caps and auto-upgrades, open provider fee, embedded provider list, trial terms, storefront add-ons, card processing starting rate
- BigCommerce apps and integrations (https://www.bigcommerce.com/apps/): app count and dropshipping and print-on-demand collection
- WooCommerce pricing (https://woocommerce.com/pricing/): $0 platform fee, hosting and extension ranges, WooPayments rate, cross-platform comparison table
- Squarespace pricing (https://www.squarespace.com/pricing): tier prices, annual discount, card rates, online store and digital transaction fees, tax calculation fees, product limit statement
- Squarespace extensions (https://www.squarespace.com/extensions): dropshipping and print-on-demand extension listings, extension pricing terms
- Squarespace acceptable use policy (https://www.squarespace.com/acceptable-use-policy): no dropshipping prohibition found
- Wix pricing (https://www.wix.com/premium-pricing): fetched; GST-inclusive display, no US tier price cited
- Wix dropshipping page (https://www.wix.com/ecommerce/dropshipping): Modalyst as native dropshipping solution
- Wix App Market, Modalyst listing (https://www.wix.com/app-market/web-solution/modalyst): listed as Free
- Shopify App Store, DSers (https://apps.shopify.com/dsers): plan prices and product-limit note
- Shopify App Store, AutoDS (https://apps.shopify.com/autods): entry price and import-tier structure
- Shopify App Store, Spocket (https://apps.shopify.com/spocket): plan prices and product allowances
- Shopify App Store, Zendrop (https://apps.shopify.com/zendrop): plan prices and linked-product limits
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