The 6th product shouldn't cost you — and neither should the currency conversion
Big Cartel is designed for artists with small ranges — and it does that job well. But it's a US-first platform. USD-only pricing on the platform subscription (which UK card issuers charge non-sterling fees on every month). No native Royal Mail integration. No built-in UK VAT handling. No KashFlow connector.
Free tier: five products only, and just one image per product. Grow to a sixth product and it's $9.99/mo. To fifty products it's $19.99/mo. And even on the top plan you cap out at 500 products.
Add colour variants or size options to a handmade line and you're eating those product slots fast. British makers with any real range end up switching within a year.
Freewebstore is free forever, GBP-billed, unlimited products, unlimited images per product, and shipped with the UK-specific plumbing (VAT, KashFlow, Royal Mail) baked in from day one.
Open My Free ShopWhat Big Cartel charges (in dollars) vs what Freewebstore charges (in pounds)
Big Cartel Gold (free): 5 products. 1 image per product. bigcartel.com subdomain URL.
Big Cartel Platinum: $9.99/mo (~£8/mo). 50 products. Roughly £96/yr, plus FX fees on every charge.
Big Cartel Diamond: $19.99/mo (~£16/mo). 500 products. Roughly £192/yr.
Big Cartel Titanium: $29.99/mo (~£24/mo). Still 500 products. Roughly £288/yr.
Freewebstore Community: £0/mo forever. Unlimited products. Unlimited images per product.
Freewebstore Startup: £15/mo GBP. Free .co.uk domain year one. Discount codes, loyalty points, gift cards. 0.5% sale fee.
Freewebstore Pro: £49/mo. Live Royal Mail rates, abandoned-cart recovery, Smart Import unlimited.
Where Big Cartel falls short for UK makers
USD billing = FX fees every month
Big Cartel bills the subscription in US dollars. UK card issuers apply a non-sterling transaction fee (typically 2.75% on personal cards, more on many business cards) on every monthly charge. That's a real extra cost. Freewebstore is GBP-billed — no FX, no non-sterling surprise.
No Royal Mail, no Click & Drop
Big Cartel has basic shipping tables but no native Royal Mail integration and no Click & Drop label printing. UK makers end up managing labels in a separate tab. Freewebstore ships Royal Mail Tracked 24, Tracked 48 and Special Delivery as first-class options with Click & Drop integration.
UK VAT and KashFlow, absent
Big Cartel supports basic tax rates but has no native UK VAT handling for reduced/zero-rated goods and no KashFlow integration. UK makers who cross the £90,000 VAT threshold end up rebuilding accounting flows manually. Freewebstore handles UK VAT out of the box and exports cleanly to KashFlow, Xero and QuickBooks.
The 500-product wall — and everything missing before you hit it
Big Cartel keeps things simple by leaving things out. That works — until it doesn't.
Even on Titanium at $29.99/mo, Big Cartel doesn't include:
— Abandoned-cart recovery emails
— Product review collection
— Instagram Shop / Facebook Shop native integration
— AI product copy or AI SEO generation
— Loyalty points
— Gift cards
— Discount code campaigns beyond basic codes
— Advanced analytics or business reports
And you cap at 500 products no matter what you pay.
What Freewebstore includes on the same money
Freewebstore Community (free) already includes: product reviews, AI product copy, AI SEO, multi-channel selling (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Google Shopping, Pinterest), MailChimp integration, unlimited images per product, custom domain support.
Freewebstore Startup at £15/mo (roughly the cost of Big Cartel Platinum) adds: loyalty points, gift cards, discount code campaigns, 2 staff accounts, human ticket support, free .co.uk domain year one.
Freewebstore Pro at £49/mo (roughly the cost of Big Cartel Titanium plus its currency conversion fee) adds: abandoned-cart recovery, live Royal Mail rates, unlimited Smart Import, permanent free domain.
Big Cartel isn't a bad platform — for the shop it's designed for. It just isn't designed for a UK maker who's growing.
Move from Big Cartel to Freewebstore in an afternoon
1. Sign up (no card). Create a free Freewebstore account. Pick from 100+ mobile-responsive themes, plenty designed for makers, artists and craft brands.
2. Export from Big Cartel. In your Big Cartel admin: Store → Products → Export → CSV.
3. Smart Import maps the columns. Drop the file into Freewebstore. AI matches product titles, variants, images and stock automatically. Free for up to 1,000 products, unlimited on Pro. Now add all the extra photos and variants you were skipping.
4. Rebuild your marketing pages. Copy About / Contact / Delivery / Returns / Terms into Freewebstore Custom Pages. Under an hour for most sellers.
5. Point your domain, cancel Big Cartel. Update DNS to Freewebstore — free SSL applied. Cancel Big Cartel. Stop paying the FX fee and add product number 501.
UK-specific advantages Big Cartel can't match
GBP billing: no FX fee on your monthly subscription. No non-sterling surprise on business cards.
UK payments: Stripe, PayPal, Ryft (UK-based), Klarna and Clearpay for buy-now-pay-later — all natively supported with no platform surcharge.
UK shipping: Royal Mail Tracked/Special Delivery, Evri, DPD, Yodel, Parcelforce — configurable as first-class shipping options. Click & Drop integration for label printing.
UK tax: 20% / 5% / zero-rated VAT per product, MTD-friendly exports to KashFlow, Xero and QuickBooks.
UK support: Freewebstore Ltd, registered in England (Company Number 06713528). Support team on UK time zone. Since 2007.
