Best ecommerce platforms for law firms

Shopify

The default answer for a full online store, and the one with the deepest app ecosystem if a firm wants to sell document templates, books and merchandise from one catalogue. It gives you an entire website rather than a section of your existing one, which is the catch for a firm whose site already ranks: you are running two sites, or migrating. Card rates on the entry Basic plan are 2.9% + 30 cents, and Shopify adds a 2% cut on top if you process through a provider other than Shopify Payments, so a firm tied to an existing merchant account pays twice.

WooCommerce

The obvious pick if the firm's site is already WordPress, which a large share of law firm sites are: WooCommerce is a free plugin that turns the site you have into a store, so nothing moves and nothing is rebuilt. There is no monthly platform fee at all, and no cut of sales, which makes it the cheapest way to sell a few high-value items such as a $1,500 flat-fee package. The cost shows up elsewhere: hosting, and paid extensions for things like subscriptions, are on you, and so is keeping a payment plugin patched on a site that also holds client enquiries.

Squarespace

A common home for small law firm websites already, so adding a store means switching on a feature rather than adopting a second platform. Read the fee line carefully before selling templates or guides: on the entry Basic plan Squarespace takes 2% of a store order but 7% of digital content and memberships, on top of card rates from 2.9% + $0.30. Those platform cuts fall to zero on the higher plans, so the cheapest plan is rarely the cheapest outcome once a firm is selling regularly.

Wix

The other website builder a small firm is likely to already be on, with store features included rather than bolted on. Building the site is free, but accepting payments requires a paid plan, so treat the free tier as a way to lay the site out rather than to sell from. Wix Payments charges 2.9% + $0.30 on a standard credit or debit card, with American Express at 3.7%. Wix publishes its plan prices only in the browser, which is why the price cell here is blank rather than guessed.

Square Online

The strongest genuinely free option for a firm that wants to test whether anyone will buy before committing to a monthly bill: no monthly fee, no startup cost, and a website builder included. The trade is the rate. Online card payments on the free plan run 3.3% + 30 cents, noticeably above the 2.9% most paid platforms charge, so it gets expensive precisely when it starts working. Square publishes its paid Online plan prices only in the browser, so that cell is left blank here.

BigCommerce

Built for merchants at a scale a law firm will not reach, and included here mainly as the price ceiling: entry is $39 a month and the plans step up on sales volume, auto-upgrading once a store passes each cap. Its one genuinely interesting line for a firm is the fee structure, which charges no BigCommerce cut at all on orders through its embedded payment providers. Unless a firm is running a real products business alongside the practice, the cheaper store platforms above do the same job.

Ecwid by Lightspeed

The other way to keep the firm's existing website and add selling to it, without moving to WordPress the way WooCommerce requires: an Ecwid store drops into a site built on almost anything. Ecwid takes no cut of sales at all on any plan, so what you pay is the monthly fee plus whatever your payment provider charges. The entry plan is capped at ten products, which is usually enough for a template library or a handful of flat-fee packages. Its plan prices render only in the browser, so the price cell here is blank rather than guessed.

Payhip

The simplest way for a firm to put a paid document template or client guide online today: the free plan is permanent, carries every feature, and has no product or revenue cap. It pays for itself through a 5% cut of each sale, which falls to 2% on the $29 Plus plan and to nothing on Pro, so the maths flips in favour of a paid plan once monthly sales pass a few hundred dollars. It hosts the storefront for you rather than touching the firm's site, and it handles downloads, courses and recurring memberships from the same account.

Gumroad

No monthly fee at all, which makes it the lowest-commitment place to sell an ebook or a set of forms: the platform only earns when you do, at 10% plus 50 cents per sale through your own links, rising to 30% when a buyer finds you through Gumroad's marketplace. Since January 2025 Gumroad acts as merchant of record and handles sales tax collection and remittance worldwide, which removes a real administrative burden from a small firm. The limit is the 10% rate, which is punishing on a high-ticket item, and the fact that Gumroad does not permit physical goods.

Sellfy

A middle path between Payhip's free plan and a full store platform: a flat monthly fee with no cut of sales at all, which is the right shape for a firm selling a small number of expensive items. The entry plan is banded by revenue rather than by product count, covering up to $10,000 of sales a year. The storefront is hosted by Sellfy, but buy buttons, product widgets or the whole store can be embedded into the firm's existing site, so it does not have to replace anything.

Podia

Aimed at people selling what they know rather than what they stock, which is close to what a firm productising its advice is doing: courses, a paid community, coaching sessions and downloads, plus email, all on one bill. It includes a website builder, so it can stand in for a firm's whole marketing site or sit alongside it. The entry Mover plan is the expensive one in disguise, since Podia takes 5% of every sale on it and nothing on the two plans above, so a firm selling steadily should price the middle tier, not the entry one.

Kajabi

The heavyweight of the course and membership platforms, and priced like it: entry is $179 a month, several times what a store platform costs, in exchange for courses, coaching programmes, memberships, email marketing and a website builder in one system. It takes no share of revenue, which is the argument for the monthly fee: at a high enough sales volume a flat $179 beats Podia's or Teachable's percentage. For a firm running a single CLE course or a client education programme it is almost certainly more platform than the work justifies.

Teachable

The cheapest way into a proper course platform, at $39 a month for the Starter plan, which is the tier a firm would use to put a CLE session or a client education series behind a paywall. The catch is in the same plan card: Starter carries a 7.5% transaction fee that disappears on the plans above it, so a firm selling more than a few hundred dollars a month is paying for the upgrade whether or not it takes it. Teachable hosts the course site itself, with a custom domain and its own SEO settings.

SamCart

Not a store at all but a checkout: you keep the firm's website and hand buyers a SamCart page for the actual purchase, with upsells, order bumps and payment plans built into that page. It adds no fee of its own on top of card processing when you use its own payment product, which is what justifies the $79 a month entry price for a firm selling a small number of high-value packages. It is the wrong tool for a firm that wants a browsable catalogue, and the right one for a firm selling two or three things very deliberately.

LawPay

The one option here built specifically for law firms, and the only one that addresses trust accounting: it advertises trust account protection and IOLTA compliance, so earned and unearned funds do not land in the same place and processing fees are not deducted from a trust balance. What it sells is not a catalogue but payment: customisable payment pages, payment links, cards on file and scheduled payments, at $19 a month plus 2.99% + $0.30 per card transaction, or 1% for eCheck. A firm taking retainers and invoice payments online usually wants this alongside, not instead of, a store platform.