How we score Ecommerce platforms
Rubric v1, published Sep 26, 2026 · See the ranking
We score each ecommerce platform on its entry plan that can sell online, using only what the company publishes on its own website: the plan price, the card-processing rate and any extra transaction fee, staff accounts, what the plan includes and whether there is a free trial. Every score is worked out by the formula shown for its criterion, and every fact behind it links to the page it came from, with the date we read it.
A fact the company does not publish counts as absent. We have not run stores on these platforms; when we do, the method will say so and the rubric version will change.
The criteria
| Criterion | Weight | What a 10 and a 0 look like |
|---|---|---|
| Fees per sale | 30% | What a $50 online card sale costs in the platform's published fees on that plan: its card-processing rate plus any fixed fee, or, if it has no processor of its own, the provider rate its own pages quote plus its transaction fee (owner, 2026-09-27). 10 at $1.40 or less, 0 at $2.50 or more, straight line between. Not published scores 0. |
| Plan price | 25% | Monthly price of the cheapest plan that can sell online, annual prepay included, before promotions. 10 at $15 or less, 0 at $100 or more, straight line between. |
| Included | 20% | Which of five the plan includes: unlimited products, abandoned-cart recovery, discount codes, inventory tracking, a free SSL certificate and domain connection. 2 points each. |
| Using another payment provider | 15% | 10 if the platform charges no extra fee when you use another payment provider; 5 if the fee is 1% or less; 0 above 1% or not published. |
| Free trial | 10% | 10 if there is a free plan or a free trial, else 0. |
The overall score is 10 × the sum of weight × criterion score, from 0 to 100, shown as 0-10 with one decimal.
Version history
- v1, published Sep 26, 2026: Fees per sale 30%, Plan price 25%, Included 20%, Using another payment provider 15%, Free trial 10%