Shopify alternatives for small businesses that sell services and events

Published November 8, 2026 · Comparisons

If your small business sells appointments, tickets or memberships as well as products, choose a platform that has those built in. Shopify is built around a product checkout and adds appointment booking through third-party apps. Wix, Square Online and GoDaddy's Airo builder include booking on at least some plans, Squarespace books through Acuity Scheduling, and CloserAccess puts booking, deposits, tickets and memberships in one site that you can build free or have its team build for you.

CloserAccess wrote this comparison and is one of the five alternatives in it. Every competitor price below comes from that company's own pricing or help pages, checked November 8, 2026.

The five alternatives at a glance

Shopify is the baseline: built for products

Shopify's pricing page leads with its checkout and with selling on every channel, and its plans are shaped around that. Basic costs $39 a month billed monthly or $29 billed yearly. Grow is $105 billed monthly or $89 billed yearly, and Advanced is $399 billed monthly or $359 billed yearly. You can try it for 3 days free, then pay $1 a month for 3 months, and there is no setup fee on any plan.

Online card rates through Shopify Payments start at 2.9% + 30c on Basic. If you use a different payment provider instead, Shopify adds its own fee of 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow and 0.6% on Advanced, on top of what that provider charges.

The gap for a service business is booking. Shopify's own guide for service-based sellers points you to apps for appointments and names five, each listed with a free plan, so it is one more tool to pick and set up. Event ticketing isn't among the features on Shopify's plan comparison, and recurring billing runs through the Shopify Subscriptions app.

None of that matters if you mostly ship products. It does when half your income walks in the door.

What it costs: a monthly plan, or a fee when you sell

The six options split into two pricing shapes.

1. A monthly plan, plus card processing. Shopify, Squarespace, Wix, GoDaddy and Square's paid plans. You pay every month, sales or not.
2. No monthly plan; you pay when a customer pays. Square Free costs $0 a month per location, with online card payments at 3.3% + 30c instead of the 2.9% + 30c on Square Plus and Premium. CloserAccess's free build works the same way: no monthly fee, no setup cost and no card to start.

Some platforms also add their own fee per sale. Read those rows before you pick a tier:

• Squarespace charges a 2% fee on store sales on Basic, and a fee on courses, memberships and paid content of 7% on Basic, 5% on Core, 1% on Plus and 0% on Advanced, per its pricing page.
• Wix charges a 2.5% ticket service fee on paid event tickets, separate from card processing, and its plans page lists a fee on what it calls Pricing Plans: 4% on Core, 2% on Business and 0% on Business Elite.
• Shopify adds 2% on Basic if you use an outside payment provider, as above.

CloserAccess charges one platform fee, and only when a customer pays you. On the free build, that fee comes off each sale as its own line, at a rate CloserAccess doesn't publish, so ask for it before you start. Processing runs through a Square account you connect, at Square's own rate with no markup, and the money settles there. If you'd rather have the team build the site, each of the three packages (Starter Website, Premium Website and Digital Master) gets a fixed price before any work starts, and that quote sets the fee rate. Details are on the fees page.

Squarespace: polished design, booking through Acuity

Squarespace suits an owner who cares most about how the site looks and is happy to build it. You start from designer templates, its Fluid Engine drag-and-drop editor or its AI builder, and the pricing page calls the Core plan a foundation for service businesses. There is a 14-day free trial with no card, and no free plan.

Courses, member areas and paid content are built in on every plan, with the fees listed above. Its events page says you can charge for tickets and collect RSVPs.

Booking is the part to budget for. Squarespace's services page describes built-in appointment booking through Acuity Scheduling, and Acuity has its own price list: Starter is $20 a month billed monthly or $16 on annual billing, for one calendar, and Standard is $34 or $27, for six. Squarespace's own plan table has no scheduling row, so plan on Acuity as a separate add-on subscription. Our Squarespace vs CloserAccess comparison goes through it plan by plan.

Wix: the most built-in tools on a do-it-yourself plan

Wix has a free plan with no card required, though Wix branding stays on it. Paid plans on its plans page are shown billed yearly and paid in full upfront: Light at $17 a month, which can't take online payments, then Core at $29, Business at $39 and Business Elite at $159.

Core is where it gets useful for a service business: it adds payments and scheduling. Wix's scheduling page lists staff calendars, deposits, cancellation fees, memberships and packages. Events and ticketing are built in too, with the 2.5% ticket fee. You build with an AI builder, 2,000+ templates and a drag-and-drop editor.

Wix fits an owner who wants a long feature list on one plan and doesn't mind setting each piece up. More in our Wix vs CloserAccess comparison.

Square Online: $0 a month if you also sell in person

Square's pricing page folds its website builder into Square Free, Plus and Premium, priced per location and month to month. Square Free is $0 and includes the point-of-sale app, an online site, an item library, invoicing and booking. Plus is $49 a month per location with a 30-day trial, and Premium is $149.

Two things to know before you start on Free. Online card payments cost 3.3% + 30c there, against 2.9% + 30c on the paid plans. And you can't connect your own domain on Free; that starts on Plus. Class booking, packages and waitlists also start on Plus. Square's hardware starts at $59.

Square Online fits a café, shop or salon that already takes cards at a counter and wants the website to share the same item list. CloserAccess also runs card payments through your own Square account, so you can keep the one you have.

GoDaddy Airo: the lowest entry price for an AI-built site

GoDaddy now sells its website builder as Airo AI Builder: you describe the site and it drafts one. The free plan gives you 50 AI credits a month for preview sites. Starter is $19.99 billed monthly or $9.99 billed annually and publishes one site.

Starter lets you get paid by sharing a link or QR code. Taking online payments and deposits, appointment bookings, a product catalog, automatic sales tax and shipping rates all start on Professional, at $49.99 billed monthly or $24.99 billed annually. A free custom domain shows on the annual-billed paid plans and not in the monthly view. Removing the Airo branding is marked "coming soon" on Professional and Ultimate.

GoDaddy also sells a design service with a one-time build fee of $499.99, plus an annual hosting fee. It fits someone who wants a site up today at the lowest monthly price.

CloserAccess: bookings, tickets and memberships in one site

CloserAccess was built for businesses whose sales aren't only products. In one dashboard you get:

• Booking for services, by time slot or as a request that ends in a quote, with deposits, including a deposit first and the full quote after.
• Events and tickets, with QR codes scanned at the door on a phone, no extra hardware, plus an Eventbrite integration.
• Memberships with tiers, and courses with enrollments.
• A store with products, variants, an optional stock count, and shipping, pickup or both. Printify and Etsy connect to it.
• A blog, a photo gallery, a link-in-bio page, tips and a rewards program.
• Email campaigns and automatic emails such as receipts and booking reminders.

There are two ways in. Build it yourself for free at yourname.closeraccess.com: pick a template, set your colors and launch the same day. Or have the team build it, the route its get-started page labels as the one most businesses choose.

CloserAccess fits a business whose money comes mainly from bookings, events or memberships, run by an owner who would rather have the site built and kept running than build it alone.

Be clear on the limits. There is no drag-and-drop page builder: the editor is form fields with a live preview, and bigger design changes are done by the team. There is no app store. Shipping rates are formula estimates with no carrier labels, sales tax is one flat estimated rate, prices are in US dollars only, and there are no gift cards, no PayPal and no abandoned-cart emails.

Who builds and runs the site

You can build any of these yourself, and each points to paid help if you'd rather not. Shopify has a Partner Directory where partners quote you directly. Squarespace lists independent Experts; it says it doesn't employ or endorse them, and that the cost depends on the scope of your project. Wix has a Hire a Professional marketplace, Square's online store FAQ mentions hiring a Square Specialist, and GoDaddy has the $499.99 build fee above.

CloserAccess makes the done-for-you route the main offer. Its for-business page puts it plainly: it builds the website your business runs on, markets it and keeps it running, with updates, fixes and new pages when you need them. Starter sites can launch in a few days. Premium and Digital Master usually take one to three weeks. You deal with the people building it, not a call center.

Is the customer relationship yours?

All six put you on your own website, not on a profile inside someone else's booking app. The differences are in the domain.

• Shopify gives every store a free myshopify.com address and supports your own domain.
• Squarespace includes one free year of a domain on annual plans only.
• Wix gives a one-year voucher on every paid plan, for a new domain bought from Wix.
• Square doesn't connect a custom domain on Free.
• GoDaddy shows a free domain on annual-billed paid plans.
• CloserAccess puts the free build on yourname.closeraccess.com, and the done-for-you packages include your own domain. Its pricing FAQ says your domain stays yours and your content stays yours.

The done-for-you packages also include free promotion on CloserAccess's discovery pages. That listing is an extra way in alongside your own site, not a replacement for it.

Getting found

Every option here includes a blog (Square calls its version Stories pages), and a blog is still the plainest way to show up for the questions your customers type. Shopify goes furthest for product sellers, with sales channels for social, marketplaces and AI chat apps. Its first 50 synced marketplace orders a month are free, then 1% up to $99 a month.

CloserAccess's packages include marketing advice and social media guidance from the team. The dashboard sends review-request emails after a visit or purchase, works with your Google Business Profile reviews, and has tools for social posting and Meta ads.

When Shopify is still the better choice

Stay on Shopify, or start there, if:

• Most of your sales are physical products you ship. CloserAccess estimates shipping by formula, prints no labels and keeps one stock count per variant, with no multi-location inventory.
• You want an app store so you can add features yourself as you grow.
• You sell at a counter with a card reader. Shopify includes in-person selling on every plan, and its POS Pro add-on is $89 a month per location.
• You sell across many channels, from marketplaces to AI chat apps, from one product list.
• You have staff who each need a login. Grow includes 5 staff accounts and Advanced includes 15.

If that's you, our Shopify vs CloserAccess comparison covers the trade-offs in more depth.

Three CloserAccess businesses that sell more than products

• Starlets, a 21+ club in Woodside, Queens, runs five named weekly nights, each with its own page and upcoming dates. Its VIP tables, birthday packages and buyouts start as request forms that end in a quote. See Starlets' weekly events calendar and our story on Starlets.
• Inkas Tattoo Shop in Elizabeth, NJ, shows a "from" price for each style and books a one-hour consultation with a deposit. Nothing past the deposit is charged until you have a real quote. See the Inkas services and consultation booking and our story on Inkas.
• OMNIassistant sells monthly virtual assistant plans and one-off business filings, each with a posted price, and starts new clients with a free 30-minute consultation. See OMNIassistant's services and prices and our story on OMNIassistant.

Frequently asked questions

What is the cheapest Shopify alternative for a small business?

Square Free and CloserAccess's free build both cost $0 a month, so you only pay when you sell. On Square Free, online card payments cost 3.3% + 30c. On CloserAccess you pay Square's own processing rate plus a platform fee on each sale, at a rate CloserAccess doesn't publish, so ask before you start.

Which Shopify alternatives have appointment booking built in?

Wix includes scheduling from Core up, Square includes booking on its Free plan, and GoDaddy Airo adds it on Professional. CloserAccess includes booking with deposits. Squarespace books through Acuity Scheduling, whose plans start at $20 a month billed monthly.

Can I sell event tickets without a Shopify app?

Yes. Squarespace and Wix both sell tickets, and Wix adds a 2.5% ticket service fee on paid tickets that you or the buyer can cover. CloserAccess sells tickets on your own site, scans them by QR code at the door, and connects to Eventbrite.

Do I need a web designer to use any of these?

No. Each one can be built by the owner. If you want it done for you, the builders' expert marketplaces quote per project, GoDaddy charges a $499.99 build fee plus hosting, and CloserAccess quotes a fixed price before work starts and then keeps the site running.

Is CloserAccess a good Shopify alternative for a products-only store?

Usually not. If nearly all your sales are shipped products, you'll miss carrier labels, a tax engine and deeper inventory. CloserAccess is the better fit when products sit next to bookings, events or memberships.

Prices checked November 8, 2026, on each company's own pricing and help pages. Plans and fees change, so check the linked pages before you decide.

All stories on the CloserAccess blog