The Best Ecommerce Platforms for Australian Businesses in 2026

If you're starting an online store in Australia — or thinking about migrating away from whatever you're on now — platform choice is one of the most consequential decisions you'll make. Get it right and it's invisible infrastructure. Get it wrong and you're paying a developer $30k to move your store two years later.

This guide cuts through the marketing noise. We've used several of these platforms hands-on, and where we haven't, we've gone deep on the real-world cost structures, not just the headline pricing. This list is not exhaustive, rather gives a comparison of the key or most used platforms and why to use or not use them, and some reasons why which you can apply to any other platforms you choose to research. 

The Landscape in 2026

Australians spent a record $82.6 billion online in 2025 — up 14% year on year — so the market is healthy and platform providers know it. That means competition is fierce, which is mostly good for buyers, but it also means the pricing models have gotten more complex over time.

The core split you need to understand is hosted SaaS platforms (Shopify, BigCommerce, Squarespace, Wix) versus self-hosted open-source (WooCommerce, Magento/Adobe Commerce). It's not just a price difference — it's a fundamentally different relationship with the software, your data, and your developer dependency.

Quick Decision Guide

Before we get into detail, here's the practical steer:

You're launching, not especially technical, and want to be selling within weeks? → Go Shopify. Fastest to market, best app ecosystem, best checkout conversion.

You're launching but have slightly more complex product needs or are cost-sensitive on revenue volume? → BigCommerce is worth a look — but read the new fee changes below before committing.

You already run WordPress, your marketing is content-heavy, and you have some technical support? → WooCommerce. Best SEO flexibility of any platform, and potentially the lowest total cost if managed well.

You're an enterprise-scale operation with serious custom requirements, multiple stores, and a development team? → Adobe Commerce (Magento 2). Eyes open on the cost.

You're a small creative, service-based business that just needs a basic online shop? → Squarespace or Wix. Understand the ceiling before you commit.

Shopify

Best for: Most Australian businesses starting out, particularly those prioritising speed to market and marketing

Shopify is the dominant ecommerce platform globally, powering over 4.8 million active stores, and for most Australian SMEs it's the obvious default. Its core advantage is that it genuinely works out of the box — you can have a professional, functional store live within hours without touching code.

What it costs (AUD)

• Basic: ~$42/month
• Shopify: ~$113/month
• Advanced: ~$431/month
• Plus (enterprise): from ~$2,300 USD/month

Add premium themes ($180–$350 one-off), apps (the real cost creep — budgets of $100–$500/month are common once you're operational), and payment processing fees.

The fee structure — where it gets nuanced

If you use Shopify Payments as your payment gateway, there are no transaction fees on top of standard processing rates. If you use a third-party gateway (PayPal, Stripe, Afterpay as standalone, etc.), Shopify charges an additional percentage: 2% on Basic, 1% on Shopify standard, 0.6% on Advanced. On any meaningful volume, that adds up fast.

The practical advice: use Shopify Payments unless you have a specific reason not to. It natively supports GST, Afterpay, and Australia Post — all the local integrations you need.

App dependency is real

Shopify's base product is deliberately lean. Advanced features — loyalty programs, subscription billing, detailed reporting, multi-channel inventory, custom B2B pricing — typically require paid apps. It's not unusual for a mid-tier Shopify store to spend $300–$600/month in apps on top of the platform fee. Factor that into your cost modelling.

The upside

Shopify's checkout reportedly converts 12% better than competitors on average, it has the deepest integration ecosystem (16,000+ apps), and it's the first platform to get integrations with channels like TikTok Shopping, YouTube Shopping, and Google Shopping. If marketing velocity matters to you — and it should — Shopify is hard to beat.

BigCommerce

Best for: Mid-market businesses, B2B sellers, multi-storefront operations — with caveats

BigCommerce has traditionally been positioned as the more powerful, developer-friendly alternative to Shopify — with more built-in features (no app required for abandoned cart recovery, faceted search, multi-currency, etc.) and historically, no transaction fees.

That last point just changed. Read on.

The June 2026 fee change — this matters

BigCommerce's long-standing differentiator was that it charged zero transaction fees regardless of which payment gateway you used. That's gone. From June 2026, BigCommerce introduced an "Open Payment Provider Fee" on all self-service plans when using gateways outside their preferred list (Stripe, PayPal/Braintree, Adyen, Checkout.com, Klarna, Afterpay).

The fees mirror Shopify's: 2% on Core, 1% on Growth, 0.6% on Scale. The thing that set BigCommerce apart for years has effectively been neutralised.

There's a second wrinkle: BigCommerce ties plans to annual GMV thresholds, and they tightened those thresholds in June 2026. The Core plan now caps at $30,000/year revenue (down from $50,000). Exceed it, and you're automatically bumped to the next tier regardless of whether you need the extra features. Shopify has no GMV caps — you stay on your chosen plan until you decide to upgrade.

What it costs (USD)

• Core: ~$29/month
• Plus: ~$79/month
• Pro: ~$299/month

Still worth considering for the right businesses

Despite the fee change, BigCommerce remains strong for B2B sellers, multi-storefront operators, and businesses with complex product catalogues. It includes more native features than Shopify without needing apps — customer segmentation, product comparison, faceted search, and international selling support are all built in. If you don't need a third-party gateway, the fee change may not affect you much.

But if you were choosing BigCommerce specifically because it was cheaper than Shopify on transaction fees — do the new maths before committing.

WooCommerce

Best for: WordPress users, content-driven businesses, technically capable operators who want maximum SEO and customisation flexibility

WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin, not a standalone platform — and that distinction is important. It powers around 4.65 million active stores globally and holds about 20%+ of the global market. It's the world's most popular ecommerce solution by install count.

What it actually costs

The plugin itself is free. Here's where the real costs land:

• Hosting: $20–$200+/month depending on traffic and provider (SiteGround, WP Engine, and Kinsta are popular for serious stores)
• Security & SSL: $50–$600/year, though most good hosts include this
• Premium theme: $50–$200 one-off
• Plugins: A functional store will typically need 5–15 paid plugins — expect $500–$2,000/year in plugin costs for a proper setup
• Developer time: The real variable. If you're comfortable in WordPress you can self-manage. If not, budget $100–$150/hour for Australian WordPress developers

Total annual cost of a well-run WooCommerce store: $2,000–$10,000+ depending on complexity and how much you self-manage. This can be significantly cheaper than Shopify/BigCommerce at scale if you're technically capable.

No transaction fees — you pay only your payment processor's standard rates (Stripe is typically 1.7% + 30¢ for Australian cards on their domestic rates).

The SEO argument

This is WooCommerce's strongest card. WordPress is the superior CMS for content marketing, and if your acquisition strategy relies heavily on organic search — which it should for most Australian SME ecommerce — the combination of WordPress + WooCommerce + Yoast/RankMath gives you more fine-grained SEO control than any hosted platform. For a store trying to rank for keywords like "handmade leather goods Sydney" through blog content and product page optimisation, WooCommerce is the strongest platform.

The honest trade-offs

You own the infrastructure, which means you're also responsible for it. Security updates, plugin conflicts, server performance, backups — these are your problem. If you don't have the appetite for that, a hosted platform is safer. WooCommerce stores that are neglected technically are a security liability.

Magento / Adobe Commerce

Best for: Enterprise-scale operations with complex requirements, large catalogues, multi-store setups, and a dedicated development budget

Magento was acquired by Adobe in 2018 and the product now sits in two flavours: Magento Open Source (free to download) and Adobe Commerce (the paid enterprise product).

The real costs — be clear-eyed

"Magento is free" is one of the most misleading statements in ecommerce. Here's the actual picture:

Magento Open Source:

• No licence fee, but a basic build starts at $20,000–$50,000 in development costs
• Hosting: $100–$500/month for appropriate infrastructure (Magento is resource-intensive)
• Ongoing maintenance and updates: $500–$2,000+/month if using a developer

Adobe Commerce (paid):

• Licence: ~$22,000 USD/year for stores under $1M annual revenue, scaling to $125,000+/year for $25M–$50M revenue
• That licence fee is 20–40% of total spend — hosting, development, and extensions make up the rest
• A full Adobe Commerce build can range from $100,000 to $500,000+ for the first year

Adobe also launched Adobe Commerce as a Cloud Service (ACCS) in mid-2025 as a SaaS deployment model — designed to reduce the operational overhead of traditional on-premise or cloud installs. Worth knowing about if you're evaluating at the enterprise level.

Who should actually use Magento

Magento makes sense if you have: a complex B2B or B2C product catalogue (thousands of SKUs with complex variants), multi-store or multi-region requirements, deep ERP/CRM integration needs, and a development team or budget to support it. For most Australian SMEs, it's overkill that turns into an expensive millstone.

The platform's installed base is actually declining — down from 162,000 stores at its 2021 peak to around 112,000 as of early 2026, as smaller merchants migrate to simpler platforms. The remaining base is skewing heavily toward mid-market and enterprise, which is where it belongs.

Squarespace

Best for: Creatives, service businesses, small product ranges where design matters

Squarespace is a website builder first and an ecommerce platform second — which is both its strength and its limitation. It produces genuinely beautiful stores with minimal effort, and for photographers, designers, boutique retailers, or service businesses selling a handful of products, it's a legitimate option.

Costs

Plans range from about $16 to $52 AUD/month. Transaction fees apply on lower-tier plans (3% on the Business plan). You'll need the Commerce Basic or Commerce Advanced plan to avoid them.

The ceiling

Squarespace struggles above a certain level of complexity. Limited third-party integrations, a small app ecosystem, constraints on product variants and inventory management, and limited SEO flexibility compared to WordPress all become real problems as you scale. It's also not great for Google Shopping or advanced marketing automation.

If you're a small creative business selling 20–50 products with no ambition to scale heavily, it's fine. If you think you'll outgrow it within 18 months, start somewhere else.

Wix

Best for: Absolute beginners, hobby stores, non-technical users who need to launch fast on a tight budget

Wix is the most accessible platform on this list. Its drag-and-drop editor is genuinely intuitive, and for someone with zero technical background who wants to be selling in a day, it works. Paid plans range from about $21–$199 AUD/month.

Wix Payments waives transaction fees on all plans, which is a plus. But the ecommerce capabilities are limited compared to Shopify or BigCommerce — inventory management, shipping rules, advanced marketing integrations, and multi-channel selling all have constraints.

Think of Wix as a good place to start if you're testing an idea and don't want to over-invest upfront. It's not where you build a serious ecommerce business.

Platform Comparison at a Glance

Australian-Specific Considerations

Whichever platform you choose, make sure it handles:

GST: Shopify, BigCommerce, and WooCommerce all handle GST natively. Squarespace and Wix are workable but less seamless.

Afterpay / Buy Now Pay Later: Afterpay integration is standard on Shopify, BigCommerce (now on preferred gateway list), and available via WooCommerce plugins. This matters — BNPL penetration in Australian ecommerce is significantly higher than in most other markets.

Australia Post integration: Shopify has a native Australia Post app. WooCommerce has solid plugin options. BigCommerce is functional but slightly less plug-and-play for local shipping.

AUD pricing and local payment methods: All major platforms support AUD. Shopify Payments, Stripe AU, and PayPal all work natively across the board.

The Migration Risk Nobody Talks About

The platform you launch on is the platform you'll likely be on in three years. Migrating ecommerce stores is painful — customer data, SEO authority, URL structures, product catalogues, integrations — it all has to move, and it's never clean. The "we'll start cheap and migrate later" plan almost always costs more than choosing the right platform upfront.

The one exception: if you genuinely don't know whether the business model works yet, start on Shopify or even Squarespace, validate, then migrate once you're generating real revenue and know your requirements. That's a legitimate risk-managed approach. Just don't be surprised when migration day comes.

Bottom Line

• Start there, grow there: Shopify. Best ecosystem, best marketing integrations, proven at every scale from $0 to $100M.
• Technically capable, content-led, want to own your stack: WooCommerce. Lower long-term cost, best SEO, full control.
• B2B or multi-storefront complexity: BigCommerce still has merits, but the June 2026 fee change removed its main cost advantage. Re-model carefully.
• Enterprise scale with real budget: Adobe Commerce. Go in with eyes open on TCO.
• Just testing an idea on a shoestring: Wix or Squarespace — with a plan for where you go next.

The worst decision isn't choosing the "wrong" platform. It's choosing one without understanding the true cost structure, or letting the decision drag on while you could be selling.

Last updated May 2026. Platform pricing and features change regularly — always verify current pricing directly with the provider before committing.