Our recommendation for most people is Shopify because it offers the most value of any ecommerce platform. Try Shopify free for 14 days, no credit card required. It’s never been smarter to start an ecommerce site. The best ecommerce platforms make it so easy for online sellers in every industry. Common troubles like inventory size and sales volume aren’t problems anymore. We’ll give you peace of mind whether you’re starting your new business from scratch or taking your brick-and-mortar operation online. Either way, this guide has you covered. The Top 6 Best Ecommerce PlatformsThe best ecommerce platform for most of our readers is Shopify because it’s easy to use, no matter how you plan to sell online. Take a 14-day free trial of Shopify and launch your store today.
![]() There’s more than one way to start selling products and services online. Two of my picks–BigCommerce and Shopify–are dedicated ecommerce platforms. They’ve each been conceived and developed as one-stop shops to create an online store. Zyro, Squarespace, and Wix are website builders that also make creating an online store easy. Even if you’re not a developer, you’ll be able to create a more unique website experience with these platforms than you can with the ecommerce-only platforms. Also on my list is Bluehost, which is the perfect web hosting service for people who want to build an online store using WordPress and WooCommerce. Keep reading for in-depth reviews, followed by an ecommerce platform buyers’ guide that walks you through the key factors to consider before making a final decision. Shopify – Best All-Around Ecommerce Platform
Shopify is the world’s most popular choice for setting up an online store. It’s beginner-friendly, yet capable of handling big-time sales. Shopify Starter ($5 per month after a three-day free trial) lets you add “Buy Now” links to emails, blog posts, and social media profiles. Start selling to your audience and let Shopify handle the backend. Complete online stores start at $29 per month and come with all the ecommerce necessities packaged in a sleek platform. Manage inventory, shipping, marketing, and online payments from the same dashboard. It’s extremely easy to use, despite being a very powerful platform. All the users we spoke with complimented Shopify on its ease of use, especially for first-timers. One user without any technical experience who “hates computers” was able to get her site online in a single weekend “just kind of trying different things.” Another user who worked for a nationwide boutique furniture retailer described how the platform teaches users to find success. He’d never used a platform so welcoming and helpful previously. ![]() “Shopify helps you set up everything,” he said. “It doesn’t do things for you, but it makes you aware of things you need to do.” That was the key thing for him. He described the types of helpful notifications he received: “Hey, you probably need to check about taxes. Hey, you probably want inventory alerts.” The platform automatically detected issues and blind spots that would have been costly to discover in the future. “As a first-time store operator, it can be really beneficial,” he said. These are just two of the Shopify users we spoke with, but their experiences capture the breadth of who can start using this platform right away. Everyone from total rookies to more mature businesses that want to jump into the ecommerce space can do great things with Shopify. Shopify Wins
Out of the box, the Shopify platform is not quite as feature-rich as BigCommerce when it comes to managing a really complex inventory. That said, new users aren’t going to notice this. Shopify’s rich plugin selection will more than enable people to fill in any gaps once they’re ready to grow. You can start with Shopify’s intuitive core platform and take it in whatever direction is most valuable to you. You can sell directly on Walmart, eBay, Pinterest, Facebook, and more. And any decent platform lets you link with social media channels, but Shopify actually allows customers to shop directly on Instagram or TikTok. Not only is it easy to build engaging ads that fit with the norms of each different platform, but those viewers will be one swipe away from your shop. Now there are other easy platforms to use–Wix and Squarespace come to mind–but you’re going to run into limits trying to grow on those platforms. If you never have more than one location for inventory or a few dozen products, you’ll be okay with the lighter website builders. But if you want to carry a lot of products, perform transactions in multiple currencies, or do any of the things that let you scale in a big way, Shopify is the better choice. ![]() You’ll have more options to customize product variants, more tools for shipping and tracking, and a much easier time merchandising your products. There are many such shortcuts that are easy to use in Shopify, which cuts down on the effort it takes to keep your store up to date, while minimizing mistakes. One user we spoke with said Shopify saved him several hours during every inventory update, which contained thousands of products and variants. He said last-minute price changes and other “creative differences” were completely normal for his company. Getting everyone on the same page was really frustrating. He said, “I was super over people sending me screenshots with doodles all over,” in order to reflect the current price or name changes. With Shopify, it was easy to create “great workflows” that allowed him to upload changes to inventory all at once. He said the eleventh-hour changes were still annoying, “but it’s only going to take me 10 minutes versus two hours.” Shopify Drawbacks
If you just need a simple, polished, intuitive storefront, Shopify will knock it out of the park. But shop owners looking for something a little more unique might have to spend money on a premium theme from Shopify. Wix, on the other hand, would enable them to create something just as good themselves. Plugins are always going to be a double-edged sword, regardless of platform. The reason I’m drawing attention to them in the Shopify review is that every user we talked to depended on plugins in order to create the online store they needed. As you’re looking at your options, you may find that one of the other platforms has more of the tools you need baked into its core system. This can keep costs down and make managing everything a lot easier. Shopify Pricing![]() For the majority of users, Shopify offers three plans in tiers of Basic, Shopify, and Advanced. You also can subscribe to the Starter tier we mentioned earlier. You’ll have to reach out to Shopify for enterprise pricing through the Shopify Plus tier. The prices listed above are for month-by-month charges. You can receive a discount of up to 50% by signing up and paying for a full year upfront. Basic Shopify, which starts at $29 for the month-to-month subscription, has quite literally everything you need to start selling. You can have two staff accounts and up to four locations for inventory. You also get features like printable shipping labels, gift cards, discount codes, and abandoned cart reminders for free. Those tend to cost money and might require integration in another platform. All Shopify users get competitive shipping rates from DHL Express, UPS, and USPS. Basic Shopify shipping rates are discounted up to 77% and premium plans up to 88%. Their mid-tier plan, Shopify, gives you more staff accounts and inventory locations, as well as standard reporting features. You also get a lower fee for credit card transactions. Advanced Shopify comes with deeper reporting features, calculated shipping rates from third parties, and an even lower rate for credit card transactions. At a certain volume, you’re going to pay for the difference in savings. If you use Shopify Payments, there is no transaction fee beyond what the credit card processor charges. This is why they advertise “0% transaction fees.” Just bear in mind that using another payment gateway will result in a transaction fee. One last thing to understand is that you will have to pay for the really valuable plugins. Every Shopify user we talked to had several plugins at least. Ease of Use with Shopify![]() As we mentioned earlier, the Shopify users we spoke with love how easy it is to use this platform successfully. But we had to try it for ourselves. Our verdict: The users we spoke with knew what they were talking about. Beyond the ease with which you can create a site, Shopify keeps things simple as you grow. For example, you can automate many tasks that you need to do to operate and grow your store. Should a user leave you a negative review, you can have Shopify alert you with a support ticket, so you can respond quickly. If you are running low on inventory for a certain product, have Shopify automatically hide that product until it’s back in stock. Additionally, Shopify greatly simplifies the process of shipping products to customers. You automatically receive access to the shipping company options we mentioned earlier, directly integrated with your Shopify store. Once you set up the shipping options you prefer to run as part of your checkout process, you can simply print a shipping label and go when you receive an order. Designing Shopify Stores![]() When you are ready to design your Shopify store, you can pick from multiple themes. Some themes are free, while others require a one-time fee. Themes help you set up a layout for your store that looks professional. Select from more than 100 design options, so the design of the store matches the types of products you are selling. With a theme selected, you should be able to build your site on your own–even if you are a novice. Setting up your own site saves you quite a bit of money versus having to hire a designer from the start. However, if it seems like something is missing from your site after you create it, Shopify can put you in touch with experts that you can hire to help with design, marketing, or other tasks. Why We Recommend ShopifyShopify made the list based on our research and interviews with active users. The Shopify users loved it. No one had any trouble getting started or growing their stores. Smaller shops that are going to stay small can get by with something less, but Shopify is my top pick for folks looking to make a splash. You don’t have to start big to grow like crazy on this platform. Bottom line: It’s no accident that more people start their store on Shopify than anywhere else. Wix – Best for Stores with Fewer Than 100 Products
Wix is hands-down the best option for stores that are never going to carry a ridiculous amount of inventory. Wix technically does allow you unlimited items, but the reality is that its most successful users have a simple product line that they showcase with Wix’s best-in-class website builder. You can start for free with one of 122 free templates for online stores. That number may be low by the time you read this article because Wix really is always adding more options for online store owners. In fact, it offers more ecommerce templates than the rest of the platforms I’ve reviewed combined. You can start editing a Wix online store template now to see if you like the interface. We spoke with a web developer who’d used both Wix and BigCommerce. He thought Wix was “fantastic” from a design perspective, and perfect for small businesses without super complex or expansive inventory. “[Businesses like that] need something that looks professional and is easy to evolve as they change,” he said. With Wix, you can build the site you want and “there’s not a lot of heavy lifting and expense.” Wix Wins
Squarespace is another great option for folks in this position, but Wix really allows total freedom when it comes to design. You can play with the text or add videos with a click. Shopify and BigCommerce are certainly getting better in this regard, but Wix is really setting the standard these days. ![]() “With Wix, it was definitely super easy to just move things around,” said a recording artist who sold merch on her site. “It wasn’t super difficult to navigate edits,” she said, which was important because she liked to run limited edition product sales of things like t-shirts and CDs. Editing the site was as easy as updating inventory. You can also track orders on the platform, print shipping labels, or use one of Wix’s partner shipping services to handle your deliveries. Users had no complaints about keeping track of inventory, orders, or shipping within the Wix interface. Granted, the folks we talked to were not shipping a high volume of items week after week. ![]() The recording artist we interviewed doesn’t have an assistant yet, so the simple store management was a big plus. The FAQs and Wix documentation have been more than enough for her to figure out how to get her product out the door. The fact that her site looks professional and polished is also a big deal because she’s looking to sign on with a studio. “Having that website definitely helps with attracting management,” she explained. It’s not a perfect science, but because “there’s just so many platforms to be present on” in terms of social media, having a dedicated site of her own has piqued more serious interest in her work. The ability to sell on social media is included with every Wix plan, so you don’t have to pay more to do what I consider to be an essential part of any ecommerce strategy. By linking her Wix site to Twitch, the recording artist has been able to run a challenge where she sells out t-shirts on her stream. “Once it sells out, I’ll launch a new t-shirt with a new design,” she said, and this tactic is, “definitely driving more people to the website for the purposes of selling merchandise.” One other area where Wix excels is security. It has a dedicated world-class security team in place monitoring for and preventing cyber vulnerabilities and threats 24/7. Wix is also compliant with the highest industry security standards and certifications, including SOC 2 Type 2, PCI Level 1, GDPR, CCPA, LGPD, and ISO 27001, 27701, 27018, and 27017. When it comes to protecting the online financial information of customers, every Wix site is compliant by default with the Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS). Both merchants and buyers are protected with secure checkout and payment methods, and merchants can choose from 50+ secure payment providers. Wix also boasts a 99.98 percent uptime rate, meaning your customers will be able to reach your site all the time. And your data is secure too, with your data saved across 20 data centers and backup servers. Wix Drawbacks
Wix offers unlimited items, six product options, and up to a thousand variants per product. So on paper, it looks like you can go really big, but the users we talked to disagreed. This is exactly why we do the research. One web developer explained that he uses Wix for clients that need a fairly basic store they can launch quickly and inexpensively. It won’t have the powerful backend, but his Wix clients are “not going to notice the difference between a super distributed, well-designed site that is going to handle millions of hits a day versus what they’re going to get, which is hundreds of hits a day.” And a different developer we spoke with said, “Wix will fall way short when it comes to any of the features that involve tracking a transaction in the store.” Shopify and BigCommerce have a lot more tax, shipping, and reporting options built in–with Wix, you’ll have to install plugins and get them to work in harmony. This isn’t something most stores should worry about if they have a few conventional items to ship each week. But what’s your inventory going to look like in a year? What would be easy to scale in BigCommerce might require a professional with Wix. You just don’t have as much built-in ability to support multiple locations, currencies, staff members, or payment gateways. Now you could hire a developer, and Wix has a fleet of them on standby, but I think most people will be able to build out a much bigger shop on their own with Shopify or BigCommerce. And then there’s the total cost, which seems to climb faster with Wix than it does with other platforms when people try to grow beyond a simple store. We talked to a lot of users, and this is something we’ve heard from nearly all of them. You can get a great deal on Wix–they have some of the best prices in the space–but there are a lot of upsells and gimmick discounts, and people often end up using paid features without knowing exactly what it’s going to cost. As one user told us, “At first, it was great. And then it got more expensive.” This is something that can happen with every platform, but I’d be extra cautious with Wix if you are thinking about offering a ton of products. Another thing to think about with Wix is that you’re stuck with whatever template you choose. You have a huge selection of templates to choose from and they are fully customizable, but you can’t switch your content to a new template like you can with Squarespace. Most of these drawbacks will never cause real issues for small stores that plan to stay small. The problems identified by web developers building sites for clients were not things we heard from end-users who were running Wix for their shop. It was more than what they needed. Wix PricingWix offers ecommerce builders as a separate product from their website builder, though you’re getting the same great design interface. They offer three plans for online stores: ![]() Business Basic is one of the most affordable ecommerce platforms on the market. It doesn’t come with automated tax calculations, which is notable, but it does come with abandoned cart reminders, a premium feature on other platforms. Business Unlimited comes with the ability to sell on marketplaces like eBay, print shipping labels, and tools to manage shipping. You also get automated sales tax calculation free for up to 100 transactions per month. Personally, I think the $5 per month for Unlimited is worth it for the tax calculations alone. With Business VIP, you get free tax calculations for the first 500 transactions per month and the ability to dropship an unlimited number of products. Note that your storage is limited with Wix, starting at 20 GB with the Basic plan. Other platforms give you unlimited storage, which is something to think about if you have a lot of high-resolution pictures of your products or use a lot of video content. Basic is actually capped at five hours of video content per month. Why We Recommend WixIt’s hard to beat Wix in terms of web design, and they are only improving their platform. Editor X, their new web design interface, had all the developers really excited. When it comes to ecommerce, Wix is one of the best plug-and-play options for people who want a good-looking store that “just works.” It’s a little more expensive than Zyro, but you are getting more of everything: design tools, integrations, templates, reliability, security, and so on. If you have a trim selection of products you want to sell, it’s going to be great. Wix is all that you need to be up and running within the hour. Bottom line: For a small online store, Wix is hard to beat. BigCommerce – Best for Large Inventories
BigCommerce is a very popular ecommerce platform that keeps getting better. There’s a whole lot you can do, and it won’t take you very long to learn. We recommend BigCommerce for businesses with a large inventory of products. It keeps management simple regardless of how many SKUs, variants, warehouses, and channels you have. On the front end, your customers have no problems finding exactly what they need. Where other ecommerce platforms struggle at scale, BigCommerce excels. BigCommerce Wins
The users we spoke with were especially happy that BigCommerce let them carry a ton of products and display them well for customers. On the back end, they could make listings as detailed as they wanted, and on the front end, they could offer customers more control to find exactly what they were searching for. In some of the other platforms, like Shopify, you can only offer a few drop-down menus (do you want small, medium, or large), whereas drop-downs are just one of many options BigCommerce users can employ to increase their customers’ options–you can set up radio buttons, text fields, a selection of swatches, checkbox options, and more. ![]() Users were also happy with how much of this functionality was built right into the platform. “We created discount codes, volume pricing, bulk pricing, and all of that directly in BigCommerce,” one user told us. There was no need to use a plugin to get really targeted with their promotions. “For example, if we were selling to the public, but also wanted to target school teachers, we were able to create specific accounts for school teachers that would give them special access to a certain catalog and have unique pricing for them,” another user noted. Customer ratings and reviews are also part of the BigCommerce platform, and there are more than 70 types of built-in discounts and coupons. Shopify users have to install multiple third-party apps to support customer reviews or run a similar diversity of promotions. In the end, BigCommerce is about giving your customers more options and more ways to get what they want. “You can set up custom rules for those product variations,” another user said. “For example, if you have a T-shirt that has a certain graphic on it–you’ve got a turtle on one and an elephant on the other–and you just want to show the elephant photos when they select the elephant variant, you can do that,” she explained. It’s kind of an odd example, but it illustrates the idea that you can control how you want to display your items, regardless of how many variations and permutations you have. Contrast this with using a lighter platform where you’ll wind up having to find workarounds or using third-party apps to get things just right. Plugins are ok, but can often throw a wrench in your reporting. Out of the box, BigCommerce is just better set up to handle larger, more complex inventories. BigCommerce Drawbacks
Although BigCommerce has a robust list of included features, there are some surprising things you still need to accomplish through plugins, like printing shipping labels. Shopify has that built-in, whereas you’re going to need to add another service like ShipStation to BigCommerce to get your orders out the door without waiting in line at the post office. Also, while BigCommerce can help you grow your online store quickly, it’s harder for people to escape the templated, box-store feel without the help of a professional. Your customers will always know they are on a shopping website from the moment they arrive. Something like Wix allows even a beginner to start differentiating their site from the crowd. BigCommerce PricingThe BigCommerce Essentials plan is what I’ve been describing in this review. It’s aimed at startups and small businesses. There are three different Essentials packages to choose from, as well as custom pricing for enterprise buyers. ![]() The pricing above is month to month. You can get a 10% discount on Plus and Pro plans by signing up for a year. One thing I want to call out right away is that customer support is available 24/7 on every plan. This includes phone, chat, and ticketed support. The users we spoke to had very positive reviews, saying support agents picked up within minutes, were patient with their questions, and fully resolved all issues. The Standard plan includes everything you need for your online storefront and the ability to connect with 55 payment gateways. There is no additional charge from BigCommerce so long as your sales stay below $50k per year. After that, you have to upgrade to the Plus plan and pay a flat fee of $50 per month. BigCommerce also offers a 15-day free trial. This is one clear area where Shopify and BigCommerce differ. You have to use Shopify Payments to avoid a transaction fee, whereas BigCommerce lets small businesses sell for free. The credit card rates for online sales are also slightly lower with BigCommerce than they are with Shopify. At scale, this is going to matter a lot. Bigcommerce supports 100 different currencies. Shopify also handles dozens, but you’re going to have to depend on plugins to increase what your site can handle. The reporting tools are also good, no matter which BigCommerce plan you pick. This is distinct from Shopify as well, which only includes advanced reporting tools with its most expensive platform. With the Pro plan, you can give your customers the ability to filter products in your store. If you have a large inventory, this is key. Why We Recommend BigCommerceIf you want to get your products in front of online shoppers, BigCommerce is a safe bet. There’s hardly anything it can’t do. A beginner is not going to be able to design a dazzling site, but other than that, the users we spoke to felt like this platform supercharged their ability to grow. It excels in key areas that really matter to folks with pages of products and hundreds of variants. With BigCommerce, you can display products the way you want and offer rich options to your customers. Bottom line: BigCommerce has everything we wanted to see in a large-scale ecommerce platform, and none of the annoying limits we saw with other options. Squarespace – Best for Cornering a Niche Market
Squarespace is my top recommendation for users that need an online store with more style and substance than the typical commercial, shopping-cart-focused ecommerce platforms. You’ll be able to offer customers a much more on-brand, unique experience, which is critical for businesses competing in a niche market. “It feels presentable in a way that I’m comfortable with being the face of our brand,” said one shop owner who sold house plants within her home state. Like the other Squarespace users we talked to, she felt like it was easy to design and maintain a site that spoke to her clientele. Like the other platforms I reviewed, with Squarespace you can tag products on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest, bringing people from different communities into your shop. The plant shop owner liked the consistent feel between her Instagram page, where she does most of her marketing, and her Squarespace store. Not only was her site on-brand, it was also simple for visitors to start shopping. “I feel really good about the ease of use for the user as well,” she said. ![]() Squarespace Wins
Squarespace used to be in a league of its own in terms of providing users with an intuitive visual web page builder. The competition has caught up, with many vendors shamelessly copying everything that made Squarespace amazing. The reason Squarespace still lives near the top of my recommendations is that they’ve continued to improve the design experience, and built out their online store offerings to a point where they can offer a viable alternative to something like Shopify. You simply can’t create that original of a site on Shopify without diving into the code, whereas a total beginner can jump in and start crafting a really unique website on Squarespace. Squarespace really stands on its own, in terms of establishing a professional online presence for your business, the “face of your brand.” BigCommerce has five online store templates to start from, Shopify has nine, and Squarespace has 34, and you have a lot more flexibility to customize from there. And unlike Wix, which also allows for a lot of design freedom, Squarespace will let you keep your store if you switch templates. This can be really helpful for a branding refresh or taking a new direction. Wix is great, but you’d have to start over from square one to make such a significant change. “It can be as simple or as complicated as you want it to be,” said an artist who uses Squarespace as both a portfolio for displaying different types of artwork, as well as an online store where customers can buy originals and prints. She really appreciated how easy it was to add functionality to her site. “There are so many more capabilities behind the scenes that they’re already built-in,” she said. It’s just a matter of clicking a button, instead of having to install a plugin, getting it to work, and keeping it up to date. This level of manual maintenance is something you’d run into a lot with WordPress, which you have to build from the ground up. Squarespace is more or less ready to go, especially if you go with one of the built-in templates. As another user explained, “You don’t have to constantly be installing updates, because it’s what they do across the board with a limited number of templates.” Not having to manage custom themes or plugins is a real time-saver and protects your site automatically from potential security vulnerabilities. “I knew that everything would always be up to date,” this user said, adding how much they enjoyed not thinking about it. That was a common theme among Squarespace users–they were able to keep the backend management pretty simple despite growing their stores considerably. “My sales are so much higher than they’ve ever been and it’s so easy,” said one user. “I mean, nothing about it has gotten harder.” Squarespace Drawbacks
Every user we spoke with was happy with the design interface and what their store looked like, but I don’t want to give the impression that Squarespace’s design system is completely freeform. With Wix, you can move page elements wherever you want on the page. You can’t quite do that in Squarespace. As one user with experience in both platforms said, “with the layout of Squarespace, it’s way more structured. It’s like things are where they are, and that’s where they go. You have to just kind of work within that.” So while Squarespace is a lot more customizable than BigCommerce, you can’t escape the template altogether, as you can with Wix. You may find yourself constrained by the design, even though it’s easy to use. It’s a tradeoff, though, like anything else. Wix gives you a little bit more freedom to add page elements how and where you want, but you can’t switch templates without starting over from scratch. Squarespace is a bit more regimented, but you have the freedom to switch your content from one template to another. Some people are going to get their site the way they want it and only make minor changes after that. Others are going to want to try new designs to keep things fresh. It’s possible to color outside the lines in Squarespace–but you really have to know what you’re doing. “It’s a little harder than I would like to override CSS and HTML,” one user told us. Custom editing is also more difficult than with something like WordPress, where “you can easily just get under the hood, get to the source code and tweak a few things if you need it,” as one user described. Again, it’s a tradeoff, because Squarespace’s secure, proprietary platform is just a lot harder to hack into than WordPress, which is entirely open source. Although Squarespace is diligent about adding new features and capabilities, I think Shopify and BigCommerce are going to work a lot better for folks that have a lot of products and a high volume of sales. Users said they felt confident Squarespace would work for a few hundred items, but a store with thousands of SKUs is going to run into issues. “If you’re shipping out of a warehouse, Squarespace isn’t for you,” said one user. I think this is helpful for visualizing the limits, but it’s also literally true–you can’t track inventory in multiple locations with Squarespace. With Shopify, that’s built into the platform of their cheapest plan. In other words, scaling Squarespace is going to take some in-house IT resources, or require the likely ongoing help of a developer. The ambitious store owner will likely be able to grow quicker by themselves with BigCommerce or Shopify. Squarespace PricingSquarespace has very straightforward pricing for its website builder, which lets you create an online store with all but the most entry-level plan. ![]() The prices above are for annual plans, which are discounted from the monthly rate. The Business plan is enough for an online-only shop to get off the ground. It’s appropriate for smaller shops only, as it doesn’t come with the merchandizing, analytics, or advanced shipping tools that help owners push a lot of product. If you can make it work, the Business plan is a cost-effective way to bring your store to life. That said, there is a 3% transaction fee on all sales. That fee is removed if you upgrade to one of the Commerce plans. For most folks who want an online store, the Commerce plans are going to work much better. You have a 0% transaction fee (credit card processors will still charge you, but Squarespace won’t), the ability to collect in-person payments, Instagram integration, and a lot more tools to display and market your products. The biggest reason to go with one of the Commerce plans is that they include free TaxJar integration. This will automatically calculate all of your shipping taxes, though you will still have to upgrade to a paid TaxJar extension in order to automate sales tax filing for reporting. This extension works flawlessly for most folks. “My husband is an accountant and his CPA is on the line if we don’t do things properly,” one user told us. Her home state had some unusual regulations that made it difficult to know how much to collect and who they needed to remit to. “TaxJar helped with that a lot,” she said. Some of the noticeable features that only come with Advanced Commerce are abandoned cart reminders (Shopify includes this with every plan they offer), subscription sales, and API access to build your own solutions. Why We Recommend SquarespaceSquarespace offers a website builder that delivers stunning results without a ton of work. For folks that need something on-brand and engaging, Squarespace allows you to craft a store that goes well beyond the templates of Shopify or BigCommerce. And even though Wix allows you a little more liberty to set up your site the way you want it, Squarespace is much more forgiving in terms of letting you switch templates without starting over. Bottom line: Squarespace is perfect for people who need to make a strong impression on their target market. Zyro – Best Price for a Full Online Store
Zyro is a beginner-friendly website builder that includes the ability to sell products online. It’s easy to learn and affordably priced. Because it’s built specifically for smaller ecommerce stores, Zyro (pronounced “zero”) has a refreshing lack of complexity. It’s perfect for the person who wants to make a few hundred or thousand dollars each month. You don’t have to sell very much to start turning a profit, and you’ll never need a web developer to keep the site looking fresh. I recommend Zyro if you want a “move-in ready” online store where you can put up your digital sign and start selling right away. Zyro Wins
People choose Zyro for the low barrier to entry–both in terms of price and lack of a learning curve. It’s also really convenient to have your business website and online store on the same platform. For a super simple start, you can pick a template that does 90% of the work for you. Then use the visual website builder to add images, tweak the colors, pick a font, enter your copy, and customize your site with your branding. We also heard from users about how easy it is to design your site and even edit product listings on Zyro, even if you have never done it before. And inventory management in Zyro is very straightforward. There’s not a lot you need to know to get all your products listed and keep things updated. ![]() You’ll get an image editor, logo maker, and AI tools to generate text for product descriptions. These are all super helpful because you can do all of your list editing directly in Zyro for free. Zyro customer service is quite good, especially given their affordable rates. They are available 24/7, and from what we heard, the agents are knowledgeable and really work to solve your problems. You’re not stuck chatting with bots. One Zyro user told us that they may not respond right away every time, but “They will bend over backward to help you.” This user feedback definitely contrasted with many of the reports we heard about users on other platforms who struggled to get support from an actual human. Zyro excels at the fundamentals–you’re going to get everything you need to build a professional-looking online store. There are even handy SEO tools that help people find your store online. The platform walks you through the changes you need to make in order to get your site to rank higher. And your site will be fast. Zyro is built on Hostinger, one of the best web hosting providers, so you will rarely (if ever) experience downtime. Shoppers do not like slow sites, so this is important. Zyro includes a CDN (content delivery network), which makes your site even faster and more resilient. You also get an SSL certificate, which keeps your site secure and lets users know it’s safe to enter their credit card information. The best part is that you don’t have to know about CDNs or SSL certificates in order to benefit from them. It’s all taken care of when you sign up. Choose Zyro for the least amount of time, effort, and money to get your online store off the ground. Zyro Tradeoffs
If you are trying to create a more intricate, interactive online store, Zyro is probably not the tool for you. It excels at delivering simple, polished websites for businesses. You might find the ecommerce platform lacking if you are trying to deliver a next-level online shopping experience. There’s simply not as much variety in the templates or as deep a level of customization as with others on this list. Both Zyro and Wix are truly plug-and-play, for instance, but there’s a lot more you can plug into on Wix. And the big, purebred ecommerce platforms like BigCommerce and Shopify give you a ton more flexibility when it comes to displaying and categorizing the items in your store. You can still create options to sell different product sizes, colors, and so on in Zyro. It’s enough to get you started. But once you start trying to sell fine-grained variations of hundreds or thousands of different products, I’d definitely point you toward one of the more mature ecommerce platforms. The other thing you are missing out on with Zyro is the integrations. Yes, you can get your products on Facebook and Instagram, and send newsletters with Mailchimp, but other platforms let you integrate with a much larger range of other sites and software. Shopify has dozens of pre-built integrations with email marketing, advertising, SEO, and conversion analytics software. If your store is always going to stay the size it is, you won’t miss any of this. But if you are going for massive growth, one of my other recommendations is probably what you want. Zyro PricingThere are three different plans you can choose to launch an online store with Zyro. Their least expensive plan, Website Builder, doesn’t allow ecommerce, but every other plan does. ![]() The Business plan (starting at $4.41 per month) lets you sell up to 100 products and comes with more than 20 options to accept payments online. This is a very trim ecommerce platform, without many of the common online store tools you get with other platforms. You can build a complete online store, but you’ll have to upgrade to access discount codes and gift cards, or to sell on social media. I recommend the Business plan for businesses that want to be able to sell a small number of products without having to learn or pay for software that’s built to sell thousands. There’s a 1% application fee for every sale you make on the Business plan. Zyro will waive this fee if you upgrade to an Online Store or Advanced Store plan. The Online Store plan (starting at $8.01 per month) gives you more tools to manage your inventory and orders, as well as connect your store to Facebook and Instagram. The Advanced Store plan (starting at $14.31 per month) allows you to sell up to 2,500 products and has many more marketing tools to reach a wider audience. It’s not as comprehensive as Shopify or BigCommerce by any means, but it’s less than half the price. Note that with Zyro, the price you pay per month goes down the longer that you sign up for. To get the per-month price you see above, you’ll have to sign up for a four-year contract. You’ll also have to pay upfront. None of this is unusual in the website/ecommerce world, but I want potential buyers to understand that there is a high day-one spend to lock in the best possible deal. You can pay month-to-month to avoid a contract, or sign up for a single year, but the savings are not quite as good. Why We Recommend ZyroMany similar products try (and fail) to compete with BigCommerce and Shopify, but Zyro is doing its own thing in the ecommerce world and doing it well. If you need a simple online store that won’t take a lot of fuss to manage, Zyro is it. Try Zyro for free, no credit card necessary. Only pay when you like what you’ve built, and rest assured you’ll be paying less than you would anywhere else. Zyro also offers a 30-day money-back guarantee if you jump straight into a paid plan. Bottom line: Unless you’re a web developer, Zyro is hands down the most affordable and straightforward way to launch a good-looking small or medium-sized online store. Bluehost – Best for WordPress Users Who Want To Sell Online
Bluehost is one of my top picks for hosting a WordPress site, and definitely my top pick if you are planning on going the ecommerce route. They offer WooCommerce hosting specifically for WordPress users that want an online store. Although WooCommerce is free to install, you can’t use it on a free WordPress site. But Bluehost is affordable and one of only three web hosts officially recommended by WordPress. That close relationship made choosing Bluehost and a paid WordPress site a winning combo. “I have felt like there was a linking between the two that makes things like finding plugins easy,” one user told us. It also helps that Bluehost staff are well trained. “They are very knowledgeable about WordPress and that helps.” I highly recommend Bluehost to WordPress users that have already built a blog on a free WordPress.com site and need hosting in order to set up a WordPress.org site that allows them to use plugins like WooCommerce. “I originally started with just plain simple WordPress, super free, super basic,” one user told us. “I quickly learned that I needed greater abilities through web hosting and just fell into Bluehost’s lap.” Bluehost Wins
Pro tip: WordPress is not always the best choice for ecommerce. I’ve written about the topic at length, and the truth is it only makes sense if you are pursuing a content-driven SEO strategy. Are you driving traffic with a blog? Are you interested in monetizing your site to generate revenue instead of just selling products and services? In these cases, WordPress will be a great choice for you. The other platforms on this list do offer built-in blogging, but their options aren’t great. Wix has the only other comprehensive blog, and users definitely weren’t crazy about blogging on Squarespace. Not a single Shopify or BigCommerce user mentioned blogging or much at all about the content outside their shop. As one Squarespace user with WordPress experience noted, “Definitely if you’re looking for more data-based organization of posts, WordPress is still the king there.” He talked about the robust tagging system and hierarchies of posts. “You’re able to really drill down and organize the site much cleaner, much better than Squarespace does currently.” Beginners will have no trouble setting up their site with Bluehost. The guided walkthrough will help you install WordPress (one click) and WooCommerce (one click), and if you have any questions, you can live chat with Bluehost 24/7. Also, no other platform has as much free knowledge about it online as WordPress does. More than a third of the internet is powered by WordPress. New WooCommerce users can build a simple shop with little trouble, and improve their skills over time, just by reading and following online WordPress guides. ![]() For simple online stores, WooCommerce is all you need. And because it’s built on WordPress, the sky’s the limit. You can add plugins to improve SEO, email marketing, scheduling, booking, shipping, and virtually any other aspect of your site. If there’s something you can’t do on your site, odds are the WordPress community is working on a plugin for it right now. You’ll find WooCommerce-specific plugins (typically not free) that help you fill in some of the gaps in the platform by enabling advanced tracking, additional delivery services, or dropshipping. is also a great option for people looking to get into dropshipping. With a dropshipping plugin, you can start selling products without carrying inventory. WooCommerce supports 10 different plugins to partner with Aliexpress, Fulfillment by Amazon, and ShipWire. Talk about making store management easier! Advanced users can take advantage of the open-source nature of WordPress to customize any aspect they please. However you plan on selling, you’ll be able to mix and match WordPress plugins to create the customer experience and backend management you need. We talked with one user who has run their health coaching business on WordPress with Bluehost for eight years. Over time, her business has changed, and the flexible nature of WordPress has allowed her to evolve with the market. She’s started doing webinars, for instance, and installed the ClickFunnels plugin in order to convert website visitors. “That’s a big one,” she said, “And that’s integrated with Active Campaign,” which is another email marketing and marketing automation plugin. Bluehost Drawbacks
If you are starting off brand new, something like Shopify is going to be much more plug-and-play. It’s not that WooCommerce is hard to set up–it’s not, especially if you use Bluehost–it’s just that there’s a lot more responsibility on the end-user. Whereas the other options I’ve recommended handle all the security for you, with WordPress you’ll be in charge of updating all the plugins you use. Veterans will manage this with no problem, but less experienced users may not know there’s a problem until something breaks or their site crashes. In other words, WordPress security is not something you can ignore or expect to take care of itself. WordPress is the most popular website builder on the planet, which means it gets hacked more than any other platform. Another thing is that you’re going to have to update WordPress themes as well. Themes are basically the templates that govern the layout and feel of your site. WooCommerce includes some standard themes that work great for simple online stores, but if you want to stand out from the crowd, you’re going to have to purchase a custom theme or build your own. The trouble is when those third-party theme providers move on to other projects. One user talked about finally finding a theme that “really did what I wanted to do,” but then they discovered that the theme would get outdated or wouldn’t get updated. “And so it would become obsolete pretty quickly,” they said, forcing them to buy a new theme and go through the process of switching over. Time doing maintenance is time you could be selling. And if something breaks and your site goes down, you won’t be selling at all. If you’re not using too many plugins, the extra maintenance is pretty straightforward. But if you are really trying to take your site to the next level, or engage in a complex marketing campaign involving multiple plugins, there’s going to be some extra legwork to keep everything secure. Less-experienced users should also be aware that Bluehost customer service may not be able to answer your question. Yes, they’re available 24/7, but “we have to fix our own stuff,” one user reported. Another user explained that “you can get someone right away, but I have never in all my asking of questions felt like I’ve gotten answers that really helped me understand the problem.” She felt like advanced users would be fine, but for someone like her, the level of support was not enough. “All of these acronyms and website-y words for someone like me who’s not a programmer, they don’t make sense,” she said. At the same time, she’s stuck with Bluehost for nearly a decade. “They are quick and easy to get a hold of because they have this chat option,” she said. For her, imperfect service is better than slow service, which may be what you get from other platforms unless you’re paying for premium customer support. “And so the fact that I can just go on and chat to someone pretty much right away is the most important thing to me,” she explained. Bluehost Pricing for WooCommerceThere’s more than one way to get an online store up and running on WordPress, but using Bluehost for WooCommerce is an easy, cost-effective way to do it. Think of it as a one-stop shop for a WordPress store you can have up and running within the hour. Hosting plus a website builder plus WooCommerce–all a few clicks away. ![]() The prices above reflect an annual commitment. You can increase your discount by paying up to three years in full, which I’d recommend stretching the savings as long as possible. The Standard plan lets you create two websites, and includes a number of features like product reviews, printable shipping labels, and customer reviews which are only included with premium plans on other platforms. The Premium plan gives you more storage for databases, more files, and lets you create an unlimited number of websites. Note that some of the services–email, WHOIS privacy, and the premium plugins–are only included for the first year, even with a Premium subscription. Depending on what you already have, and what you are using, the price could go up significantly after that. WooCommerce is a free plugin, but the extensions for it are not always free. You can handle the basics of setting up a store, shopping carts, and checkout. Want to offer products as bundles, or let shoppers customize their purchases? Those extensions can cost anywhere from $49-$99 per year. Why We Recommend BluehostBluehost is a solid hosting option with WordPress, and if you want to run an online store, WooCommerce hosting is the easiest way to get started. It’s not for everyone, but folks who want a simple way to sell from their WordPress blog will get just what they need. WordPress Power users can build whatever they can imagine on the WooCommerce base. You’ll have some additional responsibilities in terms of updating plugins, themes, and the WordPress core. But with those responsibilities comes the power to drive traffic to your site and conquer SEO. Bottom line: If you want to run a store on WordPress, Bluehost should be your first pick. Selection and Review Process for the Best Ecommerce PlatformsSelecting the top ecommerce platformsIn order to make our top list, each platform had to include all the fundamentals of a modern online shopping experience:
Our researchers focused on platforms that individuals could start using right away, without deep experience in computer languages, supply chain management, or online marketing. On day one, someone should be able to set up their store, stock their products, market their brand, and ship orders. None of these fundamentals should require a developer or a computer science degree. This is why I ended up excluding some great products like Magento. Those products are marketed toward larger operations with complex requirements. For the vast majority of users, a tool in this class has more firepower than they need, and it’s going to be way more challenging to set up. You can definitely do millions in revenue with the recommendations on my list. Many businesses already have. Shopify and BigCommerce offer pre-built integrations with the most popular ERP software and form the ecommerce backbone of massive multinational retailers. Squarespace and Wix offer custom solutions used by some of the biggest companies on the planet. WordPress is still the king of the internet. If you’re an enterprise buyer, reach out to any of these platforms’ sales teams. That’s where you’ll be able to learn just how well they can handle your needs. For the rest of you, you can start on any of my recommendations and grow. All of these platforms have fundamentals like security locked down. You’re not worrying about SSL certificates, PCI compliance audits, or anything like that. You may be on the hook for updating plugins, which is especially important for WordPress, but you certainly don’t need to have any specialized cybersecurity knowledge to keep your site, and your customers, hack-free. Once we felt confident that our top list was suited to individuals and small businesses, it was time to take a deeper look at what it’s really like to run a store on each of these platforms. Reviewing the top ecommerce platformsThe only way to find out how well these tools perform in the real world is to speak with active users. These are shop owners and web developers who have entrusted their businesses to these platforms. Demoing a product for two weeks is fun, and it can be illuminating. However, nothing trumps the experience of someone who is depending on the platform for their income year after year. How we found active users:
Who we interviewed:
Interviews ranged from around 15 minutes to as long as 45 minutes. Some of the longer interviews were with developers who had tried every tool on the market and built high-powered sites on multiple platforms. But we also had good long talks with total rookies who were finding success without any professional guidance. They were proud of their ability to find their own solutions online. As one first-timer explained, “I am a true millennial in the way that I will do anything to find the answer in writing rather than having to call someone.” We found people of all ages are using these platforms. A 76-year-old told us about an 84-year-old he knows who “hates computers,” but sat at her desk one weekend and figured out BigCommerce. What We Learned Reviewing the Best Ecommerce PlatformsOne thing that surprised us about the people who switched was that we didn’t hear “x is so much better than y.” Instead, we heard “x worked well for certain things, but when I started doing other things, y was definitely the way to go.” This is similar to what we heard from web developers who had experience in multiple platforms as well. So what are the major factors to consider? How should you frame your search? In the guidance that follows, I’ve distilled everything we learned about ecommerce platforms. Three weeks of interviews, hundreds of collective years of ecommerce experience, and thousands of lessons learned are boiled down into four key considerations. Your Platform Sets the Tone for Your StoreYou’re going to invest a lot of time in your platform–getting all your inventory online, with pictures, tags, descriptions, and so on–so switching from one platform to another is not going to be easy. We talked to people who did, and they all recommended avoiding a switch if at all possible. So how do you know, before you start, which ecommerce platform is the best one for your particular store long term? I think it can be helpful to visualize the physical space you’d have to lease for your online store. Is it a small shop, a space in a strip mall, or a box store that can receive deliveries on a loading dock? Zyro, Wix, and Squarespace are website builders that allow you to add an online store. They’re perfect for boutiques, small-scale online retailers, solopreneurs, and others that need to distinguish their products and services from the competition. You’re going to have the freedom to create a much more unique site with these than you can with a pure ecommerce platform, like BigCommerce. With Wix and Squarespace you can really escape the strip mall feel and build an entire site that fits your vision. In fact, one user who really loved BigCommerce told us that Wix outclassed it in terms of design tools. He said, “I would use Wix to promote an idea, promote a concept, promote a brand, where visual presentation and the flexibility to update that visual presentation are important.” With the website builders, total beginners can put together an online store that stands out and evolve their design as the market changes. “Wix dominates that,” said the BigCommerce user. “You can do some fantastic stuff.” But you have to judge these things based on scale, according to the folks we interviewed. Shopify and BigCommerce are pure ecommerce platforms. Out of the box, they are set up to provide the basics a shop owner needs to conduct ecommerce at a high-volume The same BigCommerce user we spoke with told us that Wix is fine so long as “you’re not managing a complex inventory system tied into a point-of-sale system with a lot of other complex issues for managing your products.” After that point, it starts to break down. This is what we heard from Squarespace users, too, who loved the look and feel of their site, but did not feel confident it could scale like the ecommerce platforms. “If you have a store with 500 to 1,000 different items, Squarespace isn’t for you,” one user said. “It’s way too many items. That’s better for a Shopify or something like that.” The website builders also have a limited number of payment gateways and POS systems. A single brick-and-mortar with a single POS will be fine with Wix, but you’ll need to get some custom coding in order to support multiple inventory locations. Shopify and BigCommerce have this capability baked into their most affordable plans. It’s like choosing between a boutique and a box store location. Deliveries are harder to make to the cute shop downtown than the massive warehouse by the highway. One BigCommerce user explained the tradeoff perfectly. “It’s actually pretty easy to sell 10,000 products instead of 10,” he said, “but as far as offering more features, more end-user interactivity, that was the most difficult to do.” We spoke with some Shopify and BigCommerce gurus, who knew how to work custom HTML, CSS, and JavaScript elements into their pages. Some of these folks built sites for less experienced ecommerce users, so while it’s possible to create a unique online experience with these tools, you really have to know what you’re doing. Wix and Squarespace make this aspect a little easier, though there’s much more of a ceiling for major growth. Running your online store on WordPress with Bluehost is like purchasing an open commercial lot. Beginners can install WooCommerce with a couple of clicks, stick to the templates, and create a simple store very quickly. Advanced users will be able to extend the open-source platform in virtually any direction they choose. I think it’s a good alternative to website builders because it’s much more extensible. The number of WordPress plugins for ecommerce is a lot greater than what Wix and Squarespace offer. Size (Of Your Store) MattersThe amount of software support and functionality you need is directly proportional to how big, complex, and varied your online store is–or will be. A solo creator who’s tired of paying table stakes for Etsy is in a very different position than a company with staff needing to oversee an online store that’s open 24/7. A mismatch here can lead to a lot of headaches. Trying to do more than your platform is designed for is a recipe for frustration and an eventual switch, while trying to use an immense platform for a basic online trade show booth will feel like trying to drink from a fire hose. Accuracy and simplicity also factor in here. A relatively basic store that’s accurate and up-to-date is going to be better than a dazzling one with mistakes. If pricing is no longer correct, or you’re listing products for sale that are actually out of stock, customers are going to hate shopping on your site. Be realistic about the time you can give your store, too. The more plugins you add and products you list, the more work you’re going to have to do to stay on top of it. If you offer a simple menu of products or services and don’t plan to scale up very far, Wix, Squarespace, and WooCommerce on Bluehost won’t take a lot of time to set up or maintain. One user we spoke with who used Squarespace to sell house plants said it was perfect for a side hustle. “I’m able to do what I need to do pretty easily with the time I’m able to give to it.” She still works a full-time job, and wished she had more time to master everything, but “I just don’t have the luxury of that time and energy.” Similarly, you don’t have to do much to get a stellar, on-brand site with Wix. It’s like filling a display window–a couple of outfits on mannequins, a few accessories, a little seasonal decor, and boom, the small shop has what it needs to bring visitors in the door. For people who know their way around WordPress, WooCommerce on Bluehost can be a super-affordable way to get a simple online store off the ground. Adding more plugins increases the cost and time spent doing maintenance. Keeping things simple has its benefits for folks who are short on time. I wouldn’t recommend WooCommerce for people dreaming of massive growth, though, as Shopify and BigCommerce are just better set up to handle complex inventories. One WooCommerce user on Bluehost told us that the cart system lacked the ability they needed to keep updated prices for the thousands of parts they stocked. It was simply too difficult to keep track of shipping costs from different vendors, and they wound up moving to another platform. If you have a complex inventory or ship a lot of products each week (or you know you plan to get to that level within a year or two), platforms like Shopify and BigCommerce are better suited. The same simple product line that looked tight on Wix might look a little sparse on BigCommerce–like a warehouse with a lot of empty shelf space. You’ll have more options to classify, filter, and sell products with ecommerce builders like these. It might be overkill for the side hustle or simple shop, but both Shopify and BigCommerce are designed for maintaining inventory at scale. You just have a lot more control over product variations with Shopify (up to 100) and BigCommerce (up to 600). One BigCommerce user who worked for a digital marketing company that helped retailers sell online told us how easy it was to manage a super diverse inventory. “You can set up custom rules for product variations, as far as, when you’re showing different pieces of content,” he said. “You can even show specific photos just for specific variations of a product.” And a Shopify user told us how much time they saved updating high-volume inventory because of Shopify’s easy upload process. “You can come up with these great workflows for managing dozens to hundreds, to thousands of items and ensure that your QA is being adhered to.” Previously, these updates involved manually going in and making the changes to each product. By their estimation, Shopify cut the time it took to update the product line in half. Wix and WooCommerce let you add six product options, which is going to be fine for some users, but completely unacceptable for others. According to Wix, they’ve updated the platform so that you can add up to 100 variants, but none of the users we spoke with had used this feature yet. With Squarespace, you can add a lot of variants, up to 250, but the process of uploading a .csv or using the product editor is not as streamlined as it is for BigCommerce and Shopify. This gets incredibly important when you’re trying to scale. If you have a really simple inventory, Squarespace, Wix, and WooCommerce have the tools you need to manage it. But once things start to get complicated, Shopify and BigCommerce are much better set up. You’ll be able to categorize and display products on your terms, and keeping everything up to date will be far easier. Compete For YOUR Market, Not THE MarketEveryone we talked to tied their store into social media feeds and online marketplaces. This was the lifeblood of their digital stores’ traffic. It created brand new streams of revenue for brick-and-mortars. “They were selling only in their store,” one developer said about a beauty shop, “giving them a very easy-to-use ecommerce site literally just open[ed] worlds up.” Once the word about their products was online, it spread, and now they have their own niche market of shoppers from across the country. “I have a presence on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, all those spots,” a recording artist told us. Squarespace makes it as easy as possible for her to gain followers, subscribers, and eventually paying customers. The platforms I’ve recommended let you connect to all the big social channels, and are constantly adding newer, trendier social media options. People using website builders like Wix were using links to get followers from social media to their stores. It was very effective, but Shopify let store owners push further. With the TikTok app, Shopify users could link their store to TikTok for Business and generate shoppable, in-app content for customers. ![]() BigCommerce has a comparable TikTok app, for example, but the other platforms do not. For example, you can embed TikTok on your Wix site, but you can’t design a shoppable TikTok video within the Wix platform. I’d pay very close attention to the integrations, plugins, and apps available. Get current information and read the reviews in the app store–these are a goldmine for assessing the quality of the plugin or app. But you can’t just blast away on every marketing channel. The users we spoke with who were finding success were extremely targeted in both the channels they selected and how they positioned themselves within the channel. One user we talked with loved the ability to do email marketing directly within Squarespace. It was just “clicking a button” as opposed to installing a plugin or buying another tool to integrate. At the same time, though, she had to be careful “not to overwhelm them or cause email fatigue.” Pick your channels carefully and word your offers thoughtfully. As the Squarespace user explained, “I want them to pay attention to a message when they do get it from us.” Lock Your Shipping Strategy Down EarlyAfter all the hard work of getting customers on your site and through the checkout process, the final step of actually delivering the product is supposed to be easy. But is it? We heard a lot about shipping issues from people, especially if they had large, heavy, or living items, like plants. They didn’t always know who to blame–the shipper, the platform, themselves–but the more you can figure out about what shipping setup works for you ahead of time, the better. You may be able to use the built-in shipping features included with the platform, especially if you’re shipping conventional items, and you feel confident enough in your prices to charge default rates. Bear in mind that entry-level plans don’t always include tools to handle more than basic shipping. WooCommerce and Shopify let you print shipping labels with their entry-level plan, but other platforms like Wix require you to upgrade if you want to avoid a trip to the post office. With BigCommerce, you’ll have to use a plugin like ShipStation to print your own labels. Out of the box, Shopify works incredibly well. You’ll get up to 77% off shipping rates with DHL Express, UPS, or USPS with the entry-level Basic Shopify plan. The discount increases up to 88% for premium plans. If you need to ship large, heavy, or otherwise unconventional items where you need more flexible shipping rates, you are almost certainly going to have to use a plugin or extension. These will fetch pricing rates from shippers, calculate the cost according to zip code, or allow customers to request shipping quotes where a flat rate or live quote isn’t feasible. We spoke with one Shopify user who handled a lot of their own furniture deliveries because they needed a white-glove, concierge delivery. “I mean, some of these orders are half a million dollars of stuff,” he said. “But we did offer shipping for a lot of products because if people can’t put in their credit card, and complete the order right then, they won’t buy it. They’re going to go to Amazon or somewhere else.” He felt like anything you can ship should be available to buy with a click on their site. “Shopify would manage it for us based on whatever we were putting in there,” he said. “I didn’t even have to worry about that.” Shopify and BigCommerce allow a ton more flexibility when it comes to shipping, especially internationally. BigCommerce has the edge simply because it’s easy to negotiate different currencies. With other platforms, you’re going to run into some limits, like a lack of currencies to smooth international shipping, or the inability to dial in shipping costs for a varied inventory. Squarespace, for example, does not allow for shipping costs by individual product. It adds corresponding weight and then calculates the total. You also can’t track your shipping from multiple locations, whereas Shopify lets you assign inventory to four different locations with their entry-level plan. As one Squarespace user noted, the platform really works best for small scale. “If you just have a storefront, a couple hundred items, and you get like one or two orders a day, that’s easy,” he said, but recommended something like Shopify if you’re trying to do more. Wix is another good option for ecommerce if you’re not shipping that much. For one thing, you don’t get automated tax calculations with their entry-level plan. You’ll either have to figure this out on your own or upgrade to Business Unlimited or Business VIP. Even then, though, the automated calculations are still limited to 100 transactions per month with Unlimited, and 500 transactions per month with VIP. If you are interested in dropshipping, Shopify would be my top choice. No other platform integrates as seamlessly with as large a variety of dropshippers, directories, and databases. BigCommerce and WooCommerce also have a healthy number of dropshipping and fulfillment integrations as well, but Shopify allows the most flexibility in this regard. The Top Ecommerce Platforms in SummaryEcommerce solutions come in all shapes and sizes. Some are made for international online stores with thousands of products. Others are better suited for sellers with just a handful of items. All of the best ecommerce platforms provide the ability to sell online, but not all are built to scale. Be aware that your needs might change as your site grows. If that’s in the cards for you, be sure to choose a platform that can grow with you. via Quick Sprout https://www.quicksprout.com/best-ecommerce-platforms/
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The best way to form an LLC for the majority of our readers is ZenBusiness because of its low price and straightforward process. Register your LLC in any state starting at $49 plus state fees. Limited liability companies (LLCs) are a popular option for entrepreneurs nationwide. Unlike other types of business structures, LLCs can be formed in any state, regardless of your company’s physical presence. Some states offer significant financial advantages compared to others. This guide will take a closer look at the best states to form an LLC and ultimately help you determine the best state of formation for your business. Top Rated LLC Services to Form an LLCZenBusiness is our top recommendation for most people looking to form an LLC in any state. Set up your LLC the right way in less than 10 minutes with ZenBusiness.
You can read our full reviews of each LLC service here. Foreign LLCs vs. Domestic LLCsIf you form an LLC in your state of residence (your home state), it’s known as a domestic LLC. When you form an LLC somewhere other than your home state, you’re required to register that business as a foreign LLC in your home state. To be clear, the term “foreign” has nothing to do with a business being owned by a non-US resident or outside the US. It just means that the company is doing business outside of its home state. Why is this important? Starting an LLC in another state might require you to form two LLCs—one in the state of formation and another in your home state. For example, let’s say you live in Indiana but want to form an LLC in Wisconsin. You’d have to register that company as a foreign LLC in Indiana to do business in your home state. With two LLCs, you’ll have double everything. That includes two state filing fees, registered agents in both states, two annual reporting fees, and more. Maintaining two LLCs can quickly double your costs and double your headaches. Forming an LLC in Your Home StateAre some states better to form an LLC than others? Absolutely. But for the vast majority of people, registering an LLC in your home state will be the best option. Most people hear or read something online that says, “Nevada has no corporate income taxes,” and assume it’s the right state to form a business. While the former may be true, the latter is not always the case—especially for anyone who lives outside of Nevada. (We’ll talk about Nevada in greater detail shortly). Why? Remember, you’ll still be required to register a foreign LLC in your home state. So, you’ll still have to pay taxes in your home state, on top of the additional fees required for maintaining two LLCs. The idea that you can form your LLC in a “no-tax” state, elect to be taxed as a corporation, and not pay income taxes in your home state is essentially misinformation. For most people, your home state will always be the best place to form your LLC. It’s unlikely you’ll be able to save money by registering an LLC elsewhere, and it will likely cost you more money in both the short-term and long-term. 5 Best States to Start an LLCWith all of that in mind, five states stand out amongst the rest as the best locations to form an LLC, so if you live in one of these states—great. If you don’t live in one of these states, don’t automatically think it’s a good idea to form an LLC here (for the reasons discussed above). The type of business you’re starting will be a factor, as well. For example, an online-only consulting business with no physical facilities or storefronts could consider forming an LLC outside of their home state. But a retailer with a physical storefront in a shopping center probably wouldn’t have as much flexibility. Below we’ll dive deep into the pros and cons of forming an LLC in the “best” states. 1. DelawareDelaware has a longstanding reputation for being one of the most business-friendly states in the nation. According to the Delaware Division of Corporations, nearly 67% of Fortune 500 businesses are incorporated there. While this doesn’t necessarily apply to LLCs, it definitely conveys a draw for organizations to form a business in Delaware. In 2021, 247,003 LLCs and 24,588 LPs/LLPs (limited liability partnership) formed in Delaware compared to 62,510 corporations. Why? For starters, the initial state filing fees and franchise taxes are lower than other states. Delaware doesn’t impose taxes on out-of-state income, either. The filing process is simple and allows LLCs to get up and running quickly. Another unique standout of Delaware is the Chancery Court. This is one of three constitutional courts in Delaware (alongside the Supreme Court and Superior Court). The Chancery Court is only for business cases. This means that business-related cases are resolved much quicker than in courts that hear cases in all categories. Plus, the judges in the Chancey Court have much more experience in business hearings. Delaware doesn’t require shareholders, directors, or officers to be residents of the state. Furthermore, one person can be named in all of these roles. It’s also one of the only states that allows you to exclude your personal identity from the formation documents. Pros of Forming an LLC in Delaware:
Cons of Forming an LLC in Delaware:
If you live outside of Delaware and want to form an LLC there, it could ultimately be more expensive than starting an LLC in your home state. Aside from having to maintain two LLCs, your administrative costs may also be higher. An accountant in your home state may not be familiar with Delaware structures, so you’d likely have to retain two accountants. Need help? Visit ZenBusiness to form an LLC in Delaware today. 2. NevadaNevada is another state that draws a lot of attention from business owners who want to avoid paying high taxes. That’s because Nevada doesn’t impose taxes on personal income, corporate income, or franchise taxes. With that said, Nevada does require business owners to pay annual license fees and annual filing fees. In terms of privacy, Nevada is arguably second to none. They are one of the only states that allow for complete anonymity with public filings. In short, your LLC can remain anonymous in any public registration filing. Furthermore, Nevada does not have an information-sharing agreement with the IRS. Since the state doesn’t have an income tax department, there’s no information to share. Maintaining an LLC in Nevada is easy since they don’t require annual meetings or operating agreements. ![]() The registration process is simple and also requires fewer steps compared to other states nationwide. Pros of Forming an LLC in Nevada:
Cons of Forming an LLC in Nevada:
As you can see, forming an LLC in Nevada isn’t always ideal, especially if you’re in another state. You’ll still have to create a foreign LLC in your home state and maintain two registered agents for each LLC. Need help? Visit ZenBusiness to form an LLC in Nevada today. 3. WyomingWyoming is another state with policies aiming to be as business-friendly as possible. For starters, they don’t impose strict reporting obligations for business owners. Similar to other states on our list, Wyoming doesn’t tax personal income or corporate income. There aren’t any franchise taxes either. Wyoming offers something really unique compared to other states—a lifetime proxy. With a lifetime proxy, you’re able to appoint another person to represent your shares or stock in a company on your behalf. This means that business owners in Wyoming can benefit from complete anonymity. Aside from no individual or corporate taxes, the sales tax rates in Wyoming are very low. ![]() As you can see from this graph, Wyoming ranks 44th in the country for local tax rates. Of the 46 states that impose sales tax (four states don’t have any sales tax), Hawaii and Alaska are the only two with lower averages. Pros of Forming an LLC in Wyoming:
Cons of Forming an LLC in Wyoming:
Wyoming is definitely a great state to form an LLC for entrepreneurs who live in the state. But do the pros outweigh the cons if you’re living elsewhere? Your home state will still require a foreign LLC registration, so you can’t avoid taxation altogether. Need help? Visit ZenBusiness to form an LLC in Wyoming today. 4. AlaskaAlaska—the last frontier. While Alaska is best known for its cold weather and thousands of miles of uninhabitable terrain, it’s also a top location to form a business. The largest state in the Union (and one of the last to join), it is an appealing place to start an LLC. For starters, there is no state income tax or sales tax in Alaska. However, it’s worth noting that cities can collect local sales taxes (although these are generally low). Depending on your new business’s industry, you might be entitled to certain tax credits as well. Examples include film production credits, frontier basin credits, new area development credits, qualified oil and gas service industry expenditure credits, minerals exploration incentives, and more. However, most of these require you to actually do business within the state. Alaska also provides new business owners with great loan programs. But similar to the tax credits, they are intended for businesses operating with a physical presence in Alaska. The state fees associated with forming an LLC in Alaska are fairly inexpensive compared to other states. Here’s a list of some common LLC fees from the Alaska Department of Commerce, Community, and Economic Development website: ![]() Pros of Forming an LLC in Alaska:
Cons of Forming an LLC in Alaska:
If you live in Alaska and your business operates in Alaska, it’s definitely a great place to form an LLC. But it’s not always a practical solution for out-of-state LLC owners. Need help? Visit ZenBusiness to form an LLC in Alaska today. 5. South DakotaLike other states on our list, South Dakota does not have any state income taxes (a common theme on our list). Another advantage of starting a business in South Dakota is its 0% corporate tax rate. So, this is a great option for creating an LLC that gets taxed as a corporation. South Dakota has several other tax advantages as well, including no personal property taxes, no inheritance tax, and no business inventory tax. The filing process is easy, affordable, and can be completed online without strict requirements. ![]() Pros of Forming an LLC in South Dakota:
Cons of Forming an LLC in South Dakota:
Most of the advantages associated with forming an LLC in South Dakota are for state residents and companies operating within the state. Anyone else would still have to maintain a foreign LLC in their home state. Need help? Visit ZenBusiness to form an LLC in South Dakota today. What to Expect When You File For an LLCRegardless of your state of formation, there are certain expectations for LLC filing that remain constant across the board. First, expect to pay some type of filing fee to the state. These typically range anywhere from $50 to $500, and payments are due upon filing your Articles of Organization. Many states also require you to file an Operating Agreement. This is a legal document that explains how your LLC will be run and managed. Even if your state doesn’t require you to file an Operating Agreement during the formation process, it’s still in your best interest to do so, as it will help prevent internal conflicts amongst LLC members. Be prepared to appoint a registered agent during the filing process as well. You could technically name yourself as the registered agent, but it will make your life much easier if you use a professional registered agent service. Once everything has been filed, it’s just a matter of waiting until the state officially recognizes your LLC as a legal entity. The exact time varies by state, but the typical range is anywhere from three to ten business days. Most states let you expedite your filing for an additional fee, which can also be facilitated through your business formation service. ConclusionLLC formation is not universal from state to state. As you can see from this guide, some states have advantages compared to others for LLC owners. With that said, it doesn’t mean that you should automatically form an LLC in one of these states. So, while you may get tax breaks in one state, you’ll still have to pay them in your home state. Plus, maintaining two LLCs comes with its fair share of headaches, like extra fees, multiple accountants, multiple lawyers, and multiple registered agents. In most cases, the pros won’t outweigh the cons when it comes to forming an LLC in a state other than your own. As always, consult with your accountant and attorney before deciding where to form an LLC. via Quick Sprout https://www.quicksprout.com/best-states-to-form-an-llc/ The best online incorporation service for most people is ZenBusiness because it makes a complicated process smooth and stress-free. Get your first year of ZenBusiness services for just $49. For four weeks, our dedicated research team analyzed the 13 viable business incorporation services available online. We spent hours studying 1,152 customer reviews and measured each brand against 12 criteria points. With this intensive research, we narrowed the list of the best online incorporation services down to 11 outstanding brands. In this guide, you’ll learn all about why we love these top brands—and why we didn’t pick the other two options. The Top 11 Best Online Incorporation ServicesEach of the online incorporation services on our list is an excellent choice for different reasons. But thanks to the unique and reliable way it guides users through the incorporation process, the all-around top pick for most people is ZenBusiness. You can start registering your company with ZenBusiness for just $49.
![]() How We Evaluate the Best Online Incorporation Service CompaniesAre you wondering why some companies made our list and some didn’t? In this section, we lay out the methodology we used to choose the top online incorporation services. If you want to skip ahead to the product reviews, you can do that too. How We Qualify the Online Incorporation Services for ConsiderationOur first round of research identified 13 brands that provide online incorporation services. BizFilings, Harbor Compliance, Inc Authority, Incfile, Incorporate.com, LegalZoom, LegalNature, MyCompanyWorks, MyCorporation, Northwest Registered Agent, Rocket Lawyer, Swyft Filings, ZenBusiness Most of these companies were excellent. How did we know? Because we defined 12 criteria points that make an incorporation service worth it for a user, including six core criteria.
These criteria helped us weed out two companies, leaving us with 11 top online incorporation services. We dove deep into each one to make it easy for you to choose the best service for your needs. How We Narrowed the List of Qualified Online Incorporation ServicesYou’re probably wondering why we knocked two companies off our top list. Let’s take a look at both services and the reasons they didn’t make the cut. Incorporate.com: While this incorporation service has roots going back over a hundred years, its pricing is higher than competitors—and for no good reason. You can get the same services at more reasonable prices from several of the top companies on our list. MyCorporation: Like Incorporate.com, MyCorporation offers its services at prices that exceed the norm for this industry—without having a solid reason for doing so. The Top Online Incorporation Service Companies Left StandingThe majority of our readers can find everything they need from ZenBusiness or Incfile. Getting started with ZenBusiness is just $49 for a year of incorporation services.
Match Your Scenario to the Right Online Incorporation SolutionIf you’re not sure which incorporation service to use, this section will walk through several scenarios that could be relevant to you. In each scenario section, we’ll suggest two services that would meet those needs.
You need some extra help incorporating your businessBest Option: ZenBusiness If you’re struggling to navigate the paperwork needed to form your LLC, C corp, or S corp, ZenBusiness offers several helpful tools to help you figure it all out:
![]() Another great choice: LegalZoom One downside to ZenBusiness is that it doesn’t come with the services to support the creation of non-profits. That’s where LegalZoom comes in. LegalZoom lets you form non-profits, LLCs, C corps, and S corps. Like ZenBusiness, LegalZoom offers users an extensive library of resources to help beginners understand the process of business incorporation. It also provides U.S.-based phone support on weekdays and weekends. If you need a proverbial shoulder to lean on as you incorporate your business, keep these factors in mind:
You want the best valueBest Option: Incfile If you want the most bang for your buck, Incfile offers a wealth of valuable features in budget-friendly packages. For example, Incfile’s Gold Package for LLC formation comes with:
All of these services come with a one-time price of $199 plus state filing fees. To continue receiving registered agent services, you’ll pay $119 yearly after the first year. ![]() Another great choice: Swyft Filings If you won’t need registered agent services, Swyft Filings offers excellent value with its Standard Package—which is comparable to Incfile’s Gold Package. For $149 plus state filing fees, you’ll receive:
While Swyft Filings also offers registered agent services, you’ll need to pay $149 every three months. This is much pricier than Incfile’s $199 for the first year. We recommend Swyft Filings for people who can get everything organized in a single quarter without needing further services. If you’re looking for a high-value service that won’t break the bank, here’s what to keep in mind:
You want the simplest and easiest incorporation process without the extrasBest Option: Incfile The best no-frills business incorporation service is Incfile. It’s free to file and prepare your business’s articles of organization with Incfile. Best of all, you’ll still get customer support, unlimited name searches, and one free year of Incfile’s registered agent service. However, you’ll still need to pay state filing fees. These vary dramatically, from $5 to form an LLC in California to $250 for the same incorporation in Alaska. If you need any additional services, you can order them à la carte. ![]() Another great choice: MyCompanyWorks For just $59 plus your state’s filing fees, MyCompanyWorks takes care of your business incorporation. The company backs its services with a 90-day, 100% satisfaction guarantee—no questions asked. This is something most services don’t offer. If you’re in the market for business incorporation and not much else, here’s what to pay attention to:
You need a registered agent service in addition to incorporationBest Option: Northwest Registered Agent Maybe you run an ecommerce business with no physical location, and you don’t want to use your home address for your business. Or maybe you own a restaurant and want to avoid receiving sensitive documents with customers around. If you need privacy of any kind, a registered agent service is the perfect solution. Northwest Registered Agent offers comprehensive registered agent services designed to give you maximum privacy as a business owner. You’ll receive same-day local scans of documents sent to you, mail forwarding, annual compliance reminders, and easy access to your incorporation documents. ![]() Another great choice: Incfile Because it offers one free year of registered agent services, Incfile is an ideal choice if you’re still testing out the waters when it comes to using a registered agent other than yourself. If you decide you love it, you can renew the service year after year. If you’re looking for a registered agent along with an online incorporation service, consider:
You need to incorporate your business quicklyBest Option: Northwest Registered Agent While most online incorporation services process documents within two to three weeks, Northwest Registered Agent can get everything filed on the same business day. For no extra charge. That’s what we call speedy service. ![]() Another great choice: MyCompanyWorks MyCompanyWorks guarantees same-day business processing for all paperwork submitted before 3 p.m. EST on a business day. Anything submitted after this time will be processed the next business day. Better yet, there’s no additional fee for this expedited process. If you need to incorporate a business quickly, keep these points in mind:
You need access to legal services as wellBest Option: Rocket Lawyer Rocket Lawyer helps you incorporate your business while also providing legal services specific to running a business. With a Rocket Lawyer subscription of $39 per month, you receive:
![]() Another great choice: LegalNature If you don’t need access to a lawyer but would like to have over 100 legal document templates at your disposal, try LegalNature. For just $119 a year on top of the $49 business formation fee, you’ll have what you need to run a legally sound business. Those who need to pay extra-close attention to legal issues should consider:
Online Incorporation Service Company ReviewsStarting any type of business is both exciting and overwhelming. Online business incorporation sites make the process smoother, but how do you know which one to pick? In this section, we provide a detailed review of each of the top 11 online incorporation services. Our goal is to give you the information you need to make a decision sooner rather than later. That way, you can get back to running your business while one of these services takes care of the paperwork. ZenBusiness – Best for Beginners![]() If you’ve never incorporated a business before, ZenBusiness is the perfect tool to get you started. Our favorite feature for beginners is the chatbot that guides you through the process of incorporating an LLC or corporation. It’s like having a pro sitting next to you and explaining each step in detail. If you run into any problems, ZenBusiness offers the following customer support options:
One downside with ZenBusiness is that you can’t form a non-profit using its services. We’d love to see this feature included in the future—there are plenty of beginners in the non-profit space who could benefit from ZenBusiness’s easy-to-use tools. What Makes ZenBusiness GreatZenBusiness users praise the company’s intuitive interface, customer service, and reasonably quick filing speed. Most paperwork is filed within two to three weeks, but you can expedite the process for a fee: $50 for 4-6 day filing or $100 for 1-2 day filing. We also appreciate ZenBusiness’s commitment to helping its customers stay compliant. Keeping in good standing with the state—or states—where you do business can be challenging, especially if you’re new to business ownership. Depending on the state and type of business, you’ll likely need to submit an annual report to your state every year. ZenBusiness offers a Worry-Free Compliance service in each of its pricing plans. The service will send you alerts when it’s time to submit paperwork—and it’ll file the documents on your behalf. If you accidentally miss a deadline, ZenBusiness will deploy an expert to help you get back on track. ![]() The Starter plan costs $49 a year for the first year and then $199 each year thereafter. It’s basically a less expensive first year of the Pro plan, which costs $199 per year. Regardless of which plan or service you use, you’ll need to pay state filing fees, too. See our full ZenBusiness review for more information about this online incorporation service. Incfile – Best for the Budget-Conscious![]() Some states—looking at you and your $520 filing fee for an LLC, Massachusetts—charge a lot of money for anyone wishing to incorporate a business. Nevada, Massachusetts, Alaska, Alabama, Tennessee, and Texas are some of the pricier states. If you want to do business in one of these states, Incfile can help keep your costs down. That’s because its incorporation service is 100% free. You can form a business using Incfile without paying the company a penny. You’ll only need to worry about state filing fees. Even better, Incfile provides you with a free registered agent service for one year. If you like having a registered agent, you can continue this service for $119 a year. One thing we wish we could see is weekend customer support options—agents are only reachable from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. CST. But this is a small price to pay for a budget-friendly service. What Makes Incfile GreatIncfile’s website is stylish and easy to navigate. For the most part, you won’t be wasting time trying to figure out where to find the services you need. The only detail that might be hard to find at first is pricing, but that’s because Incfile includes state filing fees in its plan pricing tiers. Those filing an LLC in California, for example, will select both those options to see the resulting price—just $5 for Incfile’s Silver package because that’s the state filing fee. Massachusetts will still be a whopping $520, but that’s all the state’s fault—not Incfile’s. If you choose a Gold or Platinum package, you’ll pay a package fee and a state fee, but you’ll receive plenty of benefits, including:
Incfile also offers a plethora of à la carte services should you need them. ![]() Check out our full review of Incfile for more detail on the pros and cons of this business formation service. Northwest Registered Agent – Best for Maximum Privacy![]() Every state in the United States requires businesses to have a registered agent. This person can be you or someone else, and their job is to run a physical office to receive mail and legal documents on behalf of your business. You can act as your own registered agent, but if you want privacy, using a service like Northwest Registered Agent is a better idea. As part of its registered agent service, Northwest Registered Agent will:
In addition to these services, Northwest offers online incorporation services so you can form your business and manage it from one platform. One drawback to Northwest Registered Agent is that its pricing structure is difficult to pin down. You have to do a fair bit of searching to find it as there’s no pricing page. And while Northwest provides phone support, it’s unclear whether live chat is an option. What Makes Northwest Registered Agent GreatIn addition to its registered agent services, Northwest Registered Agent offers additional perks for reasonable prices. All of these extras can help your business secure even more privacy:
We should note that the virtual office service is only available in a handful of states—California, Delaware, Florida, Indiana, Illinois, Montana, New York, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming. ![]() To file documents for forming a business, you’ll pay $100 plus your state’s processing fee. You’ll also pay $125 for the registered agent service—and you can’t opt out of that. Dig deeper into this company in our detailed review. Rocket Lawyer – Best for Ongoing Legal Support![]() Rocket Lawyer is an excellent combination of online incorporation services and legal support. While these services are available on a pick-what-you-need basis, the Rocket Lawyer subscription provides the best value. For $39 a month, you’ll get full incorporation services, legal document templates, document dispute protection, direct answers to legal questions, and 30-minute consultations with a lawyer. Any business that needs legal support regularly would benefit from Rocket Lawyer’s services. You can test most of these tools out with Rocket Lawyer’s seven-day free trial, but keep in mind that some user reviews stated that canceling this free trial is difficult to do. What Makes Rocket Lawyer GreatOur open-source research showed that users found Rocket Lawyer easy to use, which is important when legal situations are on the line. Rocket Lawyer’s document builder features step-by-step instructions to help you create all the paperwork you need for your business. The website is intuitive and easy to navigate. Legal issues are sorted into categories. Each category contains the legal documents you might need to use, FAQs for a specific legal issue, and a box for you to submit questions to a lawyer. ![]() If you want to use one single document or ask a lawyer one question, you’ll pay a hefty price—$39.99 for each document and $49.99 per question. Anyone needing ongoing legal support, including legal documents, would be better off with a monthly subscription of $39.99 a month. Learn more about Rocket Lawyer in our detailed review. LegalNature – Best for DIY Legal Forms![]() If you’ve got legal experience or won’t need ongoing legal support, LegalNature provides business incorporation services plus all the legal forms your company might need. While LegalNature walks you through each legal form to make sure it gets filled out correctly, the company doesn’t offer any lawyer consultations or Q&A sessions. We love that the services LegalNature does offer are easy to buy individually—and at reasonable prices. If all you need is DIY legal documents, you’ll pay an annual fee of $119 for an all-you-can-use buffet of documents and forms. Easily add business formation services, certified copies, registered agent services, foreign entity registration, or articles of amendment to your plan as needed. What Makes LegalNature GreatLegalNature excels at customer service. If you end up needing extra support or experience a technical glitch, you can reach an actual human from Monday to Friday, 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. PST, and both weekend days from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. PST. The reviews we studied also praised how simple and quick it is to customize legal documents with LegalNature. And even though the company doesn’t provide a timeline for how quickly they process business formation paperwork, users had few negative things to say about the business formation service. ![]() LegalNature is one of the most budget-friendly business incorporation and legal document template services around. A year of unlimited documents is $119, and the business incorporation service costs $49 plus your state’s filing fee. LegalZoom – Best Buffet of Business Services![]() It can be exhausting to do your taxes with one online service, incorporate your company with another service, and use yet another online company for as-needed legal services. If you need a robust array of business services, LegalZoom enables you to do them all from one platform. Here’s what LegalZoom offers:
The packages are robust, and you can get a lot of these services for a single price—but not all of them. Still, this is the closest you’ll get to a buffet of business formation and management services. What Makes LegalZoom GreatLegalZoom is easy to use, and those who just need a bit of support with business formation services can do so with a Basic or Pro package. But LegalZoom’s Premium package is unique in that you get a qualified attorney to help you set your business up correctly. Not only that, but you get to choose the attorney from LegalZoom’s network yourself. For the first 90 days after you begin the business formation process, you get unlimited 30-minute consultations with your attorney. You’ll also be able to make any necessary changes within those 90 days without paying extra. As you go through the checkout process, you’ll be able to pick and choose all the business services you’ll need. ![]() It’s free—plus state fees—to form a business using LegalZoom’s Basic plan. You can add extra perks like tax preparation or a registered agent service as desired. The Pro plan starts at $249, and the Premium plan with attorney consultation begins at $399 plus your state’s filing fees. Read more about this impressive company in our full review. BizFilings – Best for Entrepreneurs and New Businesses![]() First-time business owners may feel overwhelmed by the steps they need to take as they open a business for the first time. Just the idea of putting together a business startup checklist can seem overwhelming. What if you miss a step? With BizFilings, you won’t have to worry about that. BizFilings offers its users a startup checklist to help keep track of important tasks. The BizFilings wizard leads you through every step of the business formation process, making sure you hit all the right points to stay compliant, acquire the licenses you need, and register trademarks. Each of the BizFilings packages includes three months of registered agent services, but there’s a downside. After this initial period, the price climbs to $220 a year for a registered agent. This is a lot more than what competitors charge. What Makes BizFilings GreatBizFilings shines in how it enables easy compliance and business management from one central dashboard. For example, the BizComply service automatically creates alerts based on your state and the type of business you incorporate. You can access these alerts for important filing dates, meetings, and events right from your BizFilings dashboard. First-timers can feel extra nervous about remembering every little detail. After pouring their heart and soul into a business, they want it to remain in good standing. That’s what BizFilings excels at helping you do. It also comes with an impressive resource library that assumes it’s your first time forming a business and walks you through every possible path you could take. ![]() To view prices, you’ll need to select your state and business type. Packages generally begin at $99 plus state fees, and you can add on extra services as desired. Harbor Compliance – Best for Compliance in Multiple States![]() As the name suggests, Harbor Compliance is dedicated to helping businesses stay out of hot water when it comes to renewing business licenses, submitting annual reports, keeping records, and meeting requirements. If you run your businesses in more than one state, or if your business type comes with complicated compliance requirements, Harbor Compliance is an excellent choice. What sets Harbor Compliance apart from other compliance tools is that it built an entire, award-winning software program dedicated to compliance. You can keep track of all your compliance tasks and deadlines from the compliance software dashboard. Harbor Compliance also offers ComplianceAdviser, a custom package that can come with registered agent services, annual report filing, DBA renewal, compliance coaching, and more. If you have any questions, it may be difficult to get help. Harbor Compliance’s customer support options are murky. There’s a phone number—and an email address—posted on the site’s Contact Us page, but no hours of operation are listed. What Makes Harbor Compliance GreatHarbor Compliance’s power lies in its compliance software. In addition to a dashboard to keep track of all your compliance documents and to-dos, the software features five task managers:
Together, these task managers make compliance easy for anyone doing business in multiple states. They’re also excellent for those of us who like to visually organize and keep track of important data. ![]() Forming an LLC with Harbor Compliance costs $99 plus state fees. It’s unclear what’s included in this price. If you want expedited processing, you’ll have to pay up to $499. You’ll have to schedule a demonstration of the compliance software to get a pricing quote. Inc Authority – Best for Starting from Scratch![]() Are you starting a thrilling new business with no funding, no website, no organized plan, and no budget? Inc Authority is the online incorporation service that helps you get your act together and make your dream a reality. First off, Inc Authority offers free LLC formation services. When you form an LLC with Inc Authority, you also receive one year of free registered agent services. Once you become an Inc Authority client, you can access a variety of services, including business funding, website builders, compliance tools, payroll services, tax management, accounting services, logo creation, and trademark registration. One drawback is that it’s hard to figure out the pricing for any of these services. You have to contact Inc Authority and speak with a business specialist for a quote. What Makes Inc Authority GreatInc Authority markets itself as the one-stop shop for startups, and that’s exactly what it is. The company has fast, friendly customer service to help answer all your questions as you get started with your new venture. Agents are available via live chat and phone from Monday to Friday, 6 a.m. to 5 p.m. PST. You can also reach agents by email. We also love that when you sign up for your free LLC, you get high-quality services, including:
Another bonus is that Inc Authority provides a detailed, state-specific guide for how to form an LLC in all 50 states. ![]() To find out the cost of Inc Authority’s Premium Packages, you’ll need to contact the sales team. Find out more about this one-stop startup shop in our complete review. MyCompanyWorks – Best Expedited Incorporation Service![]() If you need to incorporate your business yesterday, MyCompanyWorks can get you the next-best thing: same-day paperwork processing. As long as you turn your paperwork in by 3 p.m. EST, that is. Otherwise, you’ll have to wait until the next day. But the cherry on top is that MyCompanyWorks does not charge a single extra penny for this expedited service. With other services, you can end up paying hundreds of dollars for fast processing, so this is a big deal. Prices begin at $59 plus state fees for business incorporation—same-day processing included. Even better? There’s a 90-day, 100% satisfaction guarantee. What Makes MyCompanyWorks GreatIn addition to its unbeatable, same-day order processing, you can purchase MyCompanyWorks Premium either as a standalone service or as part of the Entrepreneur and Complete pricing packages. The interactive startup wizard makes each step easy. MyCompanyWorks Premium provides users with business entity monitoring, a compliance management dashboard, compliance alerts, managed annual report service, and document uploading capabilities. The company also comes with one of the most reasonably priced registered agent services around—just $99 a year. If you need to quickly incorporate and begin running your business, MyCompanyWorks is an excellent choice. ![]() The basic package costs $59 plus state fees, but if you pay $259 plus state fees for the Complete package, MyCompanyWorks Premium is included. Enter your state and business type to see the package features and pricing. For more information about MyCompanyWorks, check out our extensive review. Swyft Filings – Best for Dedicated Customer Support![]() If you want a personal experience from the comfort of your own home, Swyft Filings is the way to go. When you sign up to incorporate your business with Swyft Filings, you get assigned to a Business Specialist. This specialist will give you their direct phone number and email address. They’ll help you work through the incorporation process, and when you have a question, you can call your specialist directly. You’ll never have to repeat yourself over and over again because you’ll get to speak with the same specialist every time you have a question. What Makes Swyft Filings GreatSwyft Filings provides users with a business specialist no matter what pricing tier they choose, and the lowest tier begins at $49 plus state filing fees. This lowest tier also gets users a one-hour business tax consultation, preparation of the articles of organization, compliance alerts, and an online portal for business documents. If you choose Swyft’s Premium plan, you’ll get a business website plus website hosting, a customized digital LLC kit, and expedited filing. Swyft also comes with a substantial Learning Center, which includes helpful checklists and comparison charts to help you make decisions. ![]() To get specific pricing information, you’ll need to give Swyft Filings your contact information and business type. But in general, prices begin at $49 plus state filing fees for the Basic plan, $149 for the Standard plan, and $299 for the Premium plan. See our detailed review for more information about Swyft Filings. Quick Sprout Online Incorporation Services Related ContentIn this section, you’ll learn more about business formation through guides, how-tos, company reviews, comparisons, and top lists. Consider this your mini resource library for all things related to business incorporation. Online Incorporation Services Guides and How Tos
Online Incorporation Services Company Reviews
Online Incorporation Services Related Top Listsvia Quick Sprout https://www.quicksprout.com/best-online-incorporation-services/ Employee monitoring is a tricky topic. From questions of ethics and legality to whether or not employee monitoring is beneficial, there’s a lot to unpack. If you’re considering implementing tools to track your employees’ productivity and safety at work, you’ve come to the right place. This guide will show you why you need an employee monitoring policy—and what to keep in mind as you create one. What is Employee Monitoring?Employee monitoring can look different from one company to another, and employers keep track of their employees for a variety of reasons. But there are three key goals that employers tend to look at when deciding whether to implement a monitoring plan. When done right, employee monitoring helps companies:
That said, there are downsides to employee monitoring. Employee surveillance and monitoring can cause employees to feel that their employers don’t trust them, create extra costs for employers, and put a company at legal risk. The most important action to take if you plan to use workplace monitoring is to create an employee monitoring policy. This document should disclose an employer’s intent to monitor employees, lay out when and where employees can expect privacy and where they cannot, and define how the company is adhering to all local, state, and federal labor laws. ![]() Before you can create an employee monitoring policy, it’s important to understand what employee surveillance looks like. Types of Employee MonitoringBack before the digital revolution, employee monitoring was simple. Employers watched their employees in the workplace to assess performance, listened to customer complaints and praises, and kept track of labor using time cards. A lot has changed. Thanks to the evolution of electronics, monitoring employees is easier than ever before. Some would say it’s too easy and that excessive monitoring can have serious drawbacks for employers and employees alike. Let’s take a look at the most common forms of employee monitoring, along with their benefits and pitfalls. Video SurveillanceIt’s difficult to find a store, restaurant, or even a house without at least a few security cameras installed. While cameras are less common in office spaces, they can help prevent crimes like theft and sexual assault—and provide evidence to help prosecute such crimes when they do occur. But there are important rules employers must follow when using video cameras to record employee activity. First, you must have a legitimate reason why monitoring employees using a video camera matters to your business. Security, investigative processes, and time and motion studies are all legitimate business reasons. If you’re considering using video cameras to monitor your employees for any work-related reason, there are several key points to consider. First, recording audio without employee consent may violate federal wiretapping laws. It’s okay to require that consent as a condition of accepting a job, but you still need to obtain it first. Second, cameras should be easily visible to employees. If they are hidden in any way, you must have a really good reason for this—and be prepared to back it up in court. And you should never record audio or video in a space where an employee has a reasonable expectation of privacy, such as a bathroom, changing room, or locker room. Third, each state has different laws regarding video recording in the workplace. Make sure you understand and follow your state’s laws. Monitoring Software for ComputersWhether it’s food service drivers who use GPS to navigate to customers’ homes or office workers creating reports on company-issued laptops, computers fortify today’s workforce. They can easily be surveilled using monitoring software. Monitoring software provides employers with a way to make sure their employees are staying on the job during their paid work hours. A geofence can keep drivers from making unnecessary pitstops, for example. Social media blockers can help employees avoid the temptation of Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, and other time sucks. The best employee monitoring software encourages employees to work more productively without alienating them. Time Doctor is one of our favorite monitoring software services for this very reason. This product operates on the assumption that employees are well aware of the many distractions their laptops offer—and that many employees want help staying focused. ![]() Whether an employee is working from home or from inside the office, monitoring software like Time Doctor helps them stay on task. For example, if an employee can’t resist the temptation to check Facebook when they’re supposed to be working, Time Doctor will send an alert to help them get back to work. Time Doctor and other monitoring software services tend to track things like team chats, time, web and app use, breaks, work email, and attendance. They can also enable employers or employees to take screenshots and screen recordings. Features like this can get tricky, as some studies show that remote employees resent these monitoring methods—and that they may even refuse job offers from companies that use them. Trust is key here. If you decide to use screen recordings or screenshots, express your reasons to employees and take the time to listen to any questions they have. Above all, make sure you’re following the privacy laws that apply to your company. Sometimes, it’s in your company’s best interest to deploy silent software monitoring measures. Unfortunately, data theft is a real concern. If you regularly handle sensitive data, you don’t want that data getting stolen—whether by someone inside your company or someone on the outside. Monitoring software like InterGuard helps secure your data against internal cyber attacks and data theft while remaining compliant with data laws. ![]() Telephone MonitoringWhen employees work in a call center or regularly interact with clients using employer phones, telephone monitoring can help ensure the quality of a call. Some forms of call monitoring include recording calls, listening in on live calls, and jumping in to help agents when a call is headed south. Talkdesk is one of our favorite call monitoring services because it provides call barging and live monitoring, but it also allows supervisors to give feedback on specific points in the call. ![]() As with every other type of employee monitoring, call surveillance is best done under the direction of a clear and comprehensive employee monitoring policy. Biometric MonitoringBiometric technology is booming in both personal and workplace-related use. We use facial recognition to unlock our iPhones and press our fingerprints into time clocks to track work hours. These biometric advances undoubtedly make life more streamlined, but they can have downsides. Employers appreciate that fingerprinted clock-ins help reduce time theft, for example, but employee advocates worry about what else the personal data—a person’s fingerprint—might be used for. In recent years, some employers have encouraged the use of biometric screenings and fitness watch-based health initiatives to improve employee health and wellness. But this data, critics argue, can also pave the way for discrimination if employers use the data to inform health insurance coverage decisions. If you decide to utilize a biometric tool of any kind—like UKG’s TouchFree ID for punching in or company Fitbits to encourage healthy practices—make sure you:
![]() While few states currently have laws addressing biometric monitoring, regulations are gaining ground. Illinois, Texas, and Washington all have laws regulating the use of biometric information. Other states are poised to follow suit. Stay out of any legal issues by following the steps above—and keeping the data private once you have it. Steps to Creating an Employee Monitoring PolicyThe first step toward creating an employee monitoring policy is to enlist the help of your company’s lawyer or an online legal service like LegalZoom. Tell your attorney how and why you plan to monitor your employees. An attorney will be able to help you understand the laws you must follow before you can even decide what monitoring methods to use. They can also help you draft an employee monitoring policy or point you in the direction of a suitable template. ![]() You can find employee monitoring policy templates on sites like Template.net. What we love about this template is that it outlines the reasons for monitoring in detail. ![]() In general, an employee monitoring policy should include the following sections:
If the policy ever changes at any point in time, alert your employees, create an updated policy, and give employees the updated paperwork to read and sign if they agree. And remember to show your attorney the employee monitoring policy to ensure you comply with all the laws relevant to your company. Is an Employee Monitoring Policy Right For You?Yes. If you plan to monitor employees in any way, then we absolutely recommend implementing an employee monitoring policy. A policy like this helps your company enjoy the benefits of monitoring while reducing the risk of legal or ethical violations that can land you in boiling water. But there are additional benefits to employee monitoring policies to think of, too:
It’s true that you’ll need to put in a bit of work to create an employee monitoring policy. But it’s worth doing the work now to avoid problems down the road. Final Thoughts About Employee Monitoring PoliciesMonitoring your employees, whether they’re working remotely or in the office, can bolster productivity, help ensure safety, and promote well-being. But employers must take care not to abuse the monitoring of employees, both for ethical and legal reasons. And if you’re going to monitor your employees, we recommend doing so in a way that fosters trust—not ruins it. An excellent way to avoid issues related to employee surveillance is to implement an employee monitoring policy. These types of policies keep your company ethical and transparent. They help your employees provide informed consent, leading to a healthier—and more productive!—workplace environment. There’s no better time than now to make employee monitoring policies a part of your employee management system and onboarding process. via Quick Sprout https://www.quicksprout.com/employee-monitoring-policies/ When you want to keep your employees engaged and motivated with an employee incentive program, 15Five can help you track it. You can try 15Five for 14 days with a free trial account. When employees feel that they have value and that management appreciates them, production tends to be better. Incentivized employees tend to be more willing to stay with the company rather than constantly job hopping. There are multiple subscription software packages you can choose from to streamline and simplify the incentivization process. The 5 Best Software Packages for Employee Incentive ProgramsThrough employee engagement software, you, as a business owner or as a human resources manager, can give employees a voice. These software packages deliver surveys and information that help management determine which incentives are most important for employees. Our list of the best employee engagement software packages can help you begin your research.
What Are Employee Incentive Programs?![]() Employee incentive programs are ideas the company implements to give employees a chance to earn extra benefits. These benefits go beyond the salary and other parts of their employment packages, like health insurance, paid vacation, and paid sick days. Benefits that are part of an employee incentive program can include tangible benefits, such as extra days off or gift certificates. They also can include things like recognizing an employee of the week or positively reinforcing certain actions at work. For example, 15Five offers digital “high fives” that teammates can give and receive to highlight excellent work and attitude. Rather than focusing on the accomplishments of an individual, some employee incentives can reward a department or the entire company. If the team hits its sales goal for the quarter, perhaps management can pay for a catered lunch. Such incentives can involve fun activities, too, like a casual dress workday or an employee night out at the local ballpark. Do Employee Incentive Programs Actually Work?According to McKinsey & Company, incentive programs, especially financial incentives, have both short-term and long-term benefits. In the short term, such incentives lead to rapid employee performance improvements. This can be helpful when the company is implementing a new area of focus or when a major transformation is occurring. In the long term, employees tend to feel valued when participating in incentive programs. When they receive monetary rewards through the incentive program, they tend to job hunt less often. Companies have an easier time retaining top employees with a combination of competitive employment benefits and incentive programs. Some of the overall benefits of either individual- or team-based employee incentive plans include:
Incentives for employees as part of these programs should be different from providing office perks for your employees. Office perks can involve consistent things like free coffee or donuts on Fridays, regardless of company performance. Incentive programs should be special benefits that show extra appreciation for a job well done. Deciding Whether to Start an Employee Incentive Program![]() If you start an incentive program, it’s important to take it seriously. Management needs to be on board with the program so it receives the funding and attention required to make it work as intended. If the program isn’t receiving support from management, employees will figure it out pretty quickly, and they won’t take it seriously. Consider the budget you want to deploy to the program. Does the company want to try a one-time expenditure to fund a short-term program? Or are you ready to devote an annual budget to a long-term employee incentive program? Think about what you want to accomplish with the program. Will the employee incentive program involve meeting long-term goals as something designed to be permanent? Does your business need special incentives during busy times, such as at the end of the fiscal year, to hit goals? Or do you need something in between? You then can begin setting goals for what you want to accomplish through the employee incentive program. Software like 15Five provides the ability to track objectives that the company has. Have department heads and administrators create a list of goals in 15Five they want to accomplish. Through the list, you then can find some objectives that would fit well within an employee incentive plan. Take a Survey of Employees![]() Once you decide to begin using an employee incentive program, it’s time to check in with the employees themselves. Employees need to have a say in how the program expects to operate and what the incentives will be. Part of the reason to begin this type of program is to show employees that the company values them. If company executives put a program in place that has no employee input involved, employees may not receive it well. They may not want to participate if the incentives aren’t of value to them or if they don’t see the importance of the goals. One of the best ways to find out what kinds of incentives employees would appreciate is through an online survey. One of the strengths of 15Five is how it lets employers create quick surveys and feedback requests for a variety of items. You can use these surveys to learn about items that employees would find important in an incentive program. Some of the incentive program details about which you can ask your employees for their opinions include:
Understand that chances are extremely low that you will receive 100% consensus from the employees. You may find it helpful to narrow the number of choices you give employees within each topic. By having three to five options in the survey, you’re more likely to at least have a majority select one of them versus having 10 to 12 choices and spreading out the answers. You also could offer multiple incentives if you believe your employees won’t be able to come to a consensus. Perhaps in a large company, one department can work toward one type of incentive while another department has another incentive in mind. How to Implement an Employee Incentive Program![]() When you are almost ready to implement the incentive program for employees, you may want to hold a meeting with representatives from a few different departments. Go over the proposed incentive plan and ask for feedback. You don’t need to have full agreement from everyone at the meeting, but you can receive a general idea about whether the plan needs any tweaking. After any final adjustments, it’s finally time to introduce the incentive program to employees. If this is a completely new program, you may want to have a big production and buildup, so employees can become excited about the program. You’ll want to put some thought into the introduction, as employee buy-in is important for success in this type of program. When a new employee comes on board and has a chance to participate in the employee incentive plan, you probably don’t want to have a big production for each new hire. However, if you want to receive the highest level of buy-in from new employees, an explanation of the incentive program should occur as part of the employee onboarding process. Explain the Program in DetailEmployees need to be able to fully understand the program. Incentive programs like this likely will bring out a high level of competitiveness from some of your employees. They will want to be able to track their progress toward earning incentives. The program should be easy to understand. You may want to provide easily accessible documentation that gives employees the ability to calculate their progress. Having detailed explanations of the incentive program also should prevent disagreements and disputes down the road. Ultimately, everything should be as above board and as clear as possible in setting up the incentive program. You never want employees to feel like the company is hiding something or trying to trick them into working more for an unattainable incentive. Transparency is key. Allow Employees to Track Their Progress![]() As part of introducing as much transparency into the incentive program as possible, consider allowing employees to track their progress through software. You may be able to track progress toward incentives through employee engagement software or through human resources software. Not only does giving employees the opportunity to track the progress toward reaching incentives make the program transparent, but it also sparks competition. When employees can see their progress and the progress of their team members, many of them will use these numbers as motivation. With the ability to track the incentive program through software, employees should never have a question about the deadlines for a short-term program, either. Some companies may prefer to post results for the program on a community bulletin board or on a whiteboard in the breakroom to make sure everyone sees it. This may work better for tracking progress toward a team-oriented goal. Placing a notice in the breakroom can encourage employees to talk about the program and brainstorm ideas about how to try to reach the team-based incentives. You may even want to create a poster in the breakroom that allows employees to mark off progress toward the goal to receive the incentive. Marking daily progress can be a fun activity that encourages team building. Celebrate Successes in the Incentive ProgramWhen implementing an employee incentive program, the ultimate goal is to encourage employees – and to allow the company – to have more success. When the team or individual employees reach their objectives, it’s important to celebrate this accomplishment. Holding celebrations of successes can encourage other employees to work toward meeting the goals for the next incentive period. Recognizing successes also shows the employees that the program is real and that it is possible to reach the incentives. Seeing co-workers receive their incentives or being part of a team that reaches its goals can be a source of pride. Celebrating this accomplishment shows appreciation from management for the hard work of the employees. Administrators may want to present employees with extra incentives, such as a gift card or another type of prize, in front of the entire company or department. It’s also possible to shoot videos and photos of a company outing that a team earned by hitting its goals. Then post those images to the company’s internal website, so everyone can see the team enjoying the benefits of the incentive program. Plan Ahead For Discouraging ResultsOf course, it is possible that your employee incentive plan does not quite work as intended, and the team doesn’t reach the required objectives. Avoid the temptation to simplify the program in mid-stream or to change the goals to let employees “win” the incentive. The incentives and goals that are part of the program should be challenging, after all. If you believe the goals were too difficult to obtain in this incentive cycle, you can adjust them for the next cycle to give employees and teams a better chance of hitting them. Just don’t change the rules in the middle of a program, or employees may expect the company to make things easier every time. The program then loses some of its effectiveness. Final Thoughts About Employee Incentive ProgramsIt’s an old saying, but it remains true in today’s evolving workplace: Your company is only as strong as its employees. Once you have good employees working for you, keeping them engaged and happy with employee incentive programs is a smart idea. Managing and implementing your employee incentive program is easier when using employee engagement software. These software packages not only track the incentives for you, but they also help you query your employees about incentives they would like to have available. When your employees feel like they have a voice in the incentive program, they’re more likely to appreciate the incentives they’re receiving. It all leads to more productive employees. via Quick Sprout https://www.quicksprout.com/employee-incentive-programs/ Want to just get started? Click here to sign up for Hostinger and start your website today. This blog generates hundreds of thousands of dollars every month by helping readers answer their questions. It took me years and a team to get to this point–but you can start a profitable blog right now. The money is there if you keep at it and follow some tried and true methods like the ones below. Top-Rated Web Hosting Companies to Start a Blog That Makes MoneyIf you want to start a blog that makes money, you’ll need to start with a great web hosting company. Here are the best options:
You can read our full reviews of each web hosting company here. 11 Steps to Start a Blog That Makes MoneyTurning a profit requires a few more steps than hobby blogging (doing it just for fun and not worrying about consistency, SEO, and monetization). Here are the steps you need to know about how to start a blog:
![]() Quickstart Guide to BloggingYou can jump straight into blogging if you already have a name and an idea for your blog. Just head over to Hostinger and sign up for a Single WordPress plan. This is the best hosting service for beginners and the easiest way to start a new blog. ![]() Plans start at just $1.99 per month. This rate is based on a four-year contract, but it’s the best deal in web hosting if you want reliable service from a reputable provider. In addition to web hosting, you’ll get a free domain name, website builder, email accounts, and everything else you need to get started. The registration process is simple. Hostinger will walk you through a series of steps that are very straightforward. Here’s a quick overview that you can follow:
Now you can log into your new website and start blogging immediately. Monetizing your blog is the next step. There are lots of different ways to make money from your blog, and we’ll cover that later on. For now, let’s dive straight into the entire blog creation process from the beginning. Step 1: Find a Blog IdeaThis is the most important step for your blog. Choosing your blog’s topic (or niche) determines the rest of the website’s future. This is what you’re going to be writing about and — hopefully — making money from. The good news: There’s practically an audience out there for every single topic you might be interested in. BUT there are some topics that tend to perform better than others. You need to find a topic that appeals to a big audience while still appealing to you. To find the perfect blog niche, you’ll need to answer two questions: What am I interested in?What topic do you love? What are you obsessed with? This is the basis of your blog niche. After all, if you don’t love the topic, you’re not going to want to write about it day after day. To help answer this question, I suggest looking towards several areas:
ACTION STEP: Write down 10 – 15 topics you’re interested in. Pull up a blank document or sheet of paper and actually write this down. It’ll help you keep your ideas focused. Plus, you can refer back to it later when you make your final decision. What are other people interested in?This area is a bit trickier. You need to find out what other people are interested in as well. Otherwise, you might find yourself with a blog that doesn’t draw in a lot of people. For example, you might think that a blog all about how wonderful your dog is is super interesting — but is that going to draw in a lot of people? On the other hand, a blog about how to take care of and train dogs appeals to a much bigger audience of readers. You need to take your personal interest and find a way to make it universal. Think back to how you initially gained interest in the topic. How did you gather expertise in the topic? Think of all the questions and confusions you had when you started out and what helped you gain expertise. To help, here are a few popular categories that always do well:
Pro tip: Use Google’s Keyword Planner tool to see how often people search for a specific category or niche. It’ll reveal what people are and aren’t interested in. ACTION STEP: Take a look at your list from before. Do any of them fall under these categories? If not, that’s okay! There’s probably still an audience out there for one of your topics. For now, I want you to choose a topic from your list that you want to turn into a blog. Once you do, you’re going to make it even more specific and niche it down. For example, you might want to start a personal finance website. Niching it down might mean you make a personal finance website for millennials making $100,000 a year. Or for thirty-somethings who want to retire early. Look back at the different topics you generated in Step 1. Can you blend to topics you like writing about to zero in on a niche? Step 2: Find the Perfect Domain NameNow the fun part: choosing your blog’s name. For this, I have good news and bad news.
Here are a few good rules of thumb to keep in mind when choosing a good name:
When you come up with a domain you like, head to Hostinger to see if it’s available using their domain tool. ![]() If it is, great! If not, you now have two options:
Your best bet is to keep going until you find a domain that you like and can purchase directly from a domain registrar for about $10. We go into lots of detail on which domain registrar to use here. But I highly suggest you buy a web host that allows you to register a domain for free. That means going with Hostinger. Using your personal name as the domainIf this is your first blog and you’re not completely sure what you want to blog about, I recommend that you use your personal name. The reason is that changing your domain later will mean that you have to start over from scratch. There are a lot of mistakes in blogging that can be corrected later; having the wrong domain isn’t one of them. Let’s say you pick a domain like fitnessfordoctors.com. Then after six months, you realize you’d rather be doing personal finance blogging for doctors. You’d need to get a new domain and start over from scratch. Personal domains are much more flexible — it’s just a name after all. So if you jump categories after a few months, it’s not a big deal. Take down any old content that’s not relevant to your new direction, start posting new content, and you’re good to go. That said, personal domains have two major downsides:
However, these are pretty advanced problems to have. If this is your first blog, the benefits of using your name as the domain greatly outweigh the costs that only show up down the road. ACTION STEP: Pick a domain name and run with it. While it’s important to pick a good, brandable domain name, the most important thing to do in this step is to make a decision and go. You don’t want to be stuck in the dreaded state of “paralysis by analysis.” Instead, just choose one based on the system above and run with it. Go deeper: Want to learn more about this topic? Check out our article on how to buy the right domain name. Step 3: Sign Up For HostingerEvery website needs to have a web hosting provider. Your web host runs the servers where your site will “live” on the internet—making it possible for people to visit your blog. This is one of the most important steps in this process, so don’t rush through it. Having a quality web host ensures that your site loads quickly, performs well, and doesn’t crash unexpectedly. You can check out our complete list of the best web hosts for WordPress, but Hostinger will be the best option for most new blogs—and that’s what we’ll use for the purposes of this tutorial.
Hostinger is straightforward and affordable, which is exactly what new blogs should be looking for in a web host. For such an affordable price, Hostinger also performs at a really high level. So you’re still getting a high-quality hosting service at an entry-level price tag. Speaking of price, you can get Hostinger for just $2.59 per month when you sign up using our special discount link. This is an amazing value when you consider all the features you’re getting. ![]() The great part about Hostinger is that it can grow with you as your blog scales. So as you start getting more traffic over time, you can simply upgrade your plan to the next tier as needed. If you’re looking for a simple and reliable web hosting service, look no further than Hostinger. Step 4: Install WordPressYour website needs a content management system (CMS) in order to function. This CMS is what allows you to create and manage blog posts. And for this, there’s only one option: WordPress. ![]() In reality, there are far more options than just WordPress, but trust me when I say that it’s the only one you should use. Why? Because WordPress is one of the (if not the) most powerful, easy-to-use, and customizable CMSs out there. Here’s proof: WordPress powers roughly one-third of the internet. Pause on that for a moment – one third of the entire internet. That’s a lot. So, that’s why I stated from the beginning to just use WordPress for your blog, end of story. Since WordPress is one of the most popular CMSs in existence, most web hosts offer a one-click install for WordPress making the setup a quick and painless experience. There’s always the option to use a dedicated blogging platform like Medium or even LinkedIn. Both are great for sharing ideas, but they are quite difficult to generate any revenue from. WordPress, on the other hand, gives you plenty of ways to turn a profit, which is why it’s one of the most popular choices. So, if you’re trying to make money blogging, WordPress is definitely the better choice. ACTION STEP: Install WordPress on your host. Hostinger makes it really easy–you will actually handle the WordPress install during the signup process. Once you tell Hostinger the type of site you want to create (a blog in this case), it will offer you a few appropriate CMS options. Simply select WordPress: ![]() Complete the rest of the signup process, and launch your site. Once it’s ready, Hostinger will prompt you to activate WordPress the first time you sign in. Anytime you want to interact with your WordPress site, you can find it on the lefthand sidebar of your Hostinger dashboard. ![]() Step 5: Pick a Fitting WordPress ThemeIt’s very easy to change your site’s look and feel with WordPress. The best part: No coding knowledge is required. That’s because WordPress uses “themes.” These are little packages of code that can be swapped in and out. Whenever you change your theme, your site will also change but your blog content stays the same. This makes it very easy to evolve your site over time without having to rebuild your entire site from scratch. Hostinger actually has you choose a theme during the setup process, just after you select WordPress as your CMS. ![]() Hostinger is going to offer a bunch of free themes for you to get started. There were 38 when I signed up. Choose something that you like, but don’t get too precious about it at this point. You can switch up your theme later with very little work. The number of themes out there makes me dizzy. There are thousands of free and paid themes out there already, and the WordPress community is always creating more. When picking a theme for my blogs, I go straight to StudioPress. The themes are a bit more expensive at $130. (Most themes go for $20–50.) But it’s totally worth it. StudioPress was purchased by WP Engine and WP Engine now includes all the StudioPress themes as part of its hosting package. It’s a nice freebie if you are already planning on hosting your site with WP Engine. If you want a wider selection of WordPress themes at standard prices, Themeforest is the most popular WordPress theme marketplace. Because it’s so easy to select your first theme with Hostinger (one click during the setup process), I want to show you how to switch up your theme in the future. It’s not much harder at all. ACTION STEP: Purchase a theme and add it to your website. After you purchase your theme, log into your WordPress blog, go to the Theme section which is under Appearance in the WordPress sidebar menu. Then follow the instructions for adding the theme. ![]() You’ll have to upload the theme files to WordPress and activate the theme from within WordPress. You can find the upload option by going to Themes > Add New, a button towards the top. Then you’ll see this option to upload: ![]() You’ll be able to manage any themes you’ve uploaded to your WordPress blog from your Themes section: ![]() You can always use free themes if you don’t want to pay for one, helping to keep your startup costs low. Just be aware that some free themes lack the features and customization options that come with premium themes. Some free themes are poorly coded, which could slow down your site or open you up to security vulnerabilities. Step 6: Install WordPress PluginsOne of the best parts about WordPress is that it’s infinitely customizable. Since it’s open-source, you can change it to do whatever you want. The easiest way to make changes is with plugins. Plugins are little batches of software you can install within WordPress to get extra functionality. This is how you’ll add a bunch of extra features to your site without having to code anything yourself. BUT be careful here and try not to go overboard. Some bloggers will install dozens of plugins on their blogs. That can cause a bunch of problems later on. Not only can plugins cause unexpected conflicts with each other, they become a security liability since it’s unlikely that every plugin owner will maintain the plugin over time. They also become a huge headache to manage. When you have that many plugins, you’re never sure which plugin is causing a particular problem. I like to keep my selection limited to 5–10 amazing plugins. ACTION STEP: Download helpful plugins Here are a few of my favorites:
![]() Step 7: Install Google AnalyticsGoogle Analytics is a free tool that will help you monitor key performance metrics related to your blog traffic. You can use it to see how many site visits you’re getting, the demographics of your visitors, and see which pages are driving the most traffic. With that said, Google Analytics can get tricky if you don’t know how to use it. That’s why we’re going to ignore the majority of what the tool can do—at least for the moment. Right now, you just need to create a Google Analytics account and install it on your blog. ![]() While there are dozens of reasons why Google Analytics should be installed on your site, there are two major ones that we’re going to focus on right now. First, Google Analytics tracks your data over time. So when you’re ready to dive deeper into the weeds later on, you’ll be happy that you’ve been collecting data from day one. Second, it’s encouraging to watch people visit your blog in the early stages. This can give you the motivation you need to continue putting in the work required to scale your blog. Google Analytics is also really easy to set up. Here’s how you do it: Log into Google AnalyticsThis is simple. Go to Google Analytics and click on Start Measuring. ![]() If you’re not logged into a Google account, it’ll ask you to log in to your Google account. If you have one, do so. If not, create one and log in with that. Create your Google Analytics AccountOn this screen, it’ll ask you to provide an account name. Use the name of your website or blog for this. Don’t worry about the boxes with the checkmarks for now. You can always change them later. Once you do that, click on Next at the bottom. ![]() Choose what you want to measureThis screen asks you to choose whether you want to measure a website, an app, or a combination of both. Choose Web since you’re creating a blog. ![]() Then click Next. Fill in the property detailsIt’ll now ask you to fill in some details about your website including its name, the URL, your industry category, and your timezone. Once you’ve done that, click on Create at the bottom. ![]() Copy and paste the tracking code onto your siteOnce your account is created, you’ll have a unique JavaScript tracking code for your site. When you copy and paste that snippet of code into your site, Google Analytics will start collecting data for you. ![]() Voila! That’s it. You are now tracking Google Analytics for your website. Step 8: Set Up Your Email ListEvery marketing engine I’ve built for companies has relied on emails at its core. And there’s a good reason for that: Email lists are the best marketing tool. Period. Think of your email list as a giant laser ray you can focus on any offer you want. Selling consulting? Pitch your list to the reader. Publishing a new blog post? Pitch your list at the bottom of the blog post. A podcast just interviewed you? Pitch your list to the podcast’s audience. Of all the marketing channels that have come and gone over the years, nothing compares to the power of a high-quality email list. Even if you’re not sure what to send your email subscribers, that’s okay. The important thing is you start gathering a list of subscribers and build the foundation early. ACTION STEP: Create an email list. Using Constant Contact or other email marketing services, start collecting emails on your blog so that the list is ready for you as soon as you need it. It takes time to build a decent size list so your future self will be extremely grateful if you set it up now. Even a super basic opt-in in your blog sidebar is enough to get you started. Don’t even worry about sending any emails yet unless you want to. The main thing is that you’re collecting email subscribers from the beginning. Email lists can be a gold mine once you have a few thousand subscribers, and the money really rolls in once you have 10,000 subscribers and above. Step 9: Pick a Blogging CadenceWriting blog posts isn’t a sprint, it’s a marathon. Actually, it’s more like a multi-day backpacking trip. The best bloggers settle into a consistent writing pace they can maintain for a few years. That’s right, years. Here are a few posting frequency rules of thumb:
It will get easier to publish posts the more you do it. Getting several posts out the door each week might sound like a lot now, but over time, every part of your process will get quicker. The important thing is to start your blogging cadence off on the right foot. Begin with a weekly publishing rhythm, and build from there. ACTION STEP: Start posting at least once a week. I know writing isn’t easy. After writing blog posts full-time for three months, I always want to throw my MacBook out the window. It’s a grind for all of us. This is why I recommend starting at one post per week. That still gives you the majority of the week to focus on other aspects of your site while also giving you a break from writing blog posts all the time. A really great post should take you two days to complete. The first day is for research and outlining, along with as much writing as you can complete. The second day is for finishing the writing, proofreading, and publishing the post in WordPress. Also, push quality as hard as you can. The key to building a site and traffic over time is to write posts that are more valuable than what other people have already published in your category. Step 10: Build an AudienceThere’s a super famous article in blogging circles: 1,000 True Fans. Basically, getting 1,000 true fans means you can fully support yourself. You can quit your job, work wherever you like, and be in complete control of your life. All from hitting a very reasonable goal of 1,000 true fans. With blogging, you’ll build your audience of 1,000 true fans slowly and consistently. As long as you keep at it, you will get there. Typically, it takes a few years. ACTION STEP: Use this system to get 1,000 true fans. Here’s what to focus on in order to get there faster:
As your blog audience matures you will want to change your traffic strategies as you grow. Step 11: Monetize Your BlogThere are three ways blogs make money. Yes, only three. They are:
Here’s a quick primer on how they work: How info products workI could write a book on info products. For now, we’ll keep it simple. Here’s the model:
Now, this sounds too good to be true. While there are a few catches, it’s mostly true. What are the catches? First, you’ll need to get extremely good at direct-response copy. Second, it helps to be in the right category. People want money, status, and relationships. How affiliate programs workAffiliate marketing is pretty simple: You go about creating as large of an audience as possible. Then, throughout your content, you recommend products that are helpful to that audience. When your audience clicks through the link of that recommendation, they get a special tracking code. If they end up purchasing, you get a cut of the sale. The main downside is that only a small percentage of people will ever click through and an even smaller percentage of people will purchase. So it really helps to have a massive amount of traffic in order to make enough money from your blog. How freelancing and consulting worksWhile info products and affiliates are the main ways to make serious money, you also need serious traffic in order to make them work. At least if you want them to work well enough to make six figures per year… That’s why I believe freelancing and consulting are the best ways for beginners to start making money fast blogging. To make money quickly, this is by far your best option. It’s also the easiest to do. When I worked at I Will Teach You To Be Rich, our freelancing programs taught thousands of people how to get started freelancing. What always blew me away was how life-changing those first few freelancing gigs are. I went through that exact change myself. Years ago, I started my personal blog and got a few freelancing clients doing it. I’ll never forget that first $100 payment sent via PayPal. The amount sounds so small now, but the real impact was knowing that I personally produced that income myself. Guess how much traffic that personal blog of mine has? Only a few thousand visitors per month, spread across about 20 blog posts. Anyone can create a blog that size and use it for freelancing lead generation. It’s enough to build a client base that pays you $3,000 to $5,000 per month. That’s enough to quit your job. That’s life-changing. And it’s a much easier goal to hit than a full-ramped affiliate or info product marketing machine. You always have the option to build that stuff later anyway. What about all those other monetization methods?Most of them are a waste of time. The impact on revenue is marginal, it’s a complete distraction. A few are worth doing for marketing and branding. The rest should be ignored entirely. Here’s the list that bloggers always try at some point:
Don’t let this discourage you though. The important thing is that you get started building your blog and writing. Do it consistently and stick to the system, and you’ll find that success comes quicker than you think. That brings us to our last action step… LAST ACTION STEP: Keep Growing! Read articles on how to start and grow a successful blog We’ve been writing about blogging and how to make money blogging on Quick Sprout for years. Check out Everything About Blogging for an annotated list of what you should read next. via Quick Sprout https://www.quicksprout.com/how-to-start-a-blog/ Outsourcing payroll or using multiple software to manage human resources isn’t always enough to efficiently handle all your administrative tasks. That’s where PEO (professional employer organization) service providers come in. In the past few years, outsourcing several managerial and administrative functions to trusted PEOs has become quite common. Oasis PEO is one of the many excellent PEO service providers available in the market today. It has a service-focused approach and provides various services like risk management, payroll, technology benefits, employee solutions, and much more. ![]() Oasis PEO ComparedOasis PEO made our top list for several reasons. While it’s a great option, the best PEO service provider for most readers is Resourcing Edge because it provides customized solutions to clients. Moreover, it offers advanced technology and a single point of contact. Find out how you can empower your business with a free consultation with Resourcing Edge.
You can read the in-depth analysis of these platforms here. About Oasis PEOOasis PEO offers a range of professional employee organization services that include multiple touchpoints with your company. It assigns a payroll accountant and an HR generalist to your account. This hands-on approach has helped Oasis win many clients over the years. Moreover, it equips you with the tools needed to invest in your workforce, from hiring to retirement. Since its acquisition by Paychex, Oasis has leveraged Paychex’s network and technologies. It has ultimately increased the client base of its parent company by offering advanced PEO and HR outsourcing services. It also offers industry-specific solutions targeting education, retail, private equity, financial services, and more. Furthermore, it is an excellent fit for startups because of its versatility. Oasis PEO has a 90-day money-back guarantee window, giving small businesses plenty of time to try it and analyze whether it suits their needs. Oasis PEO Health and StabilityOasis PEO ceased to exist as a single company after its acquisition by Paychex in December 2018 for $1.2 billion. At the time of acquisition, Oasis had 8400 PEO clients and 1100 employees. Moreover, its annual revenue exceeded $9 billion in the previous year. On the other hand, Paychex had 650,000 payroll clients and 14,500 employees. After the acquisition, Paychex Oasis, as a single company, has been providing HR outsourcing services to 1.4 million worksite employees. In 2019, following the acquisition, Paychex was ranked 700 on the Forbes 500 list of largest corporations by revenue. The company’s total revenue in 2020 amounted to a whopping $4.1 billion. Paychex Oasis is traded on NASDAQ as PAYX. The parent company of Oasis, Paychex, is more than 40 years old and shows no signs of slowing down any time soon. Therefore, Paychex Oasis is here to stay for a long time. Oasis PricingFor any business to be eligible for Oasis’s PEO services, it must have at least five employees. Unlike other PEO service providers, Oasis needs you to sign a one-year-long contract. However, you can still cancel the subscription by providing a 30-day written notice. There is a chance that Oasis may charge you a small early termination fee. As Oasis PEO offers quote-based pricing plans, you’ll have to contact their sales team to get a customized subscription plan based on your requirements and case. Once you reach out to the team, it will help you identify the exact needs of your business and correctly assess which operations need to be outsourced. The consultation is entirely free, making it ideal for small businesses. Speak to an expert and get started today with two months of free access. Oasis PEO Pricing StructureFor Oasis PEO, the pricing quote depends on the number of services provided in each package. Professional employer organizations keep coming up with new limited-time offers and discounts, so keep an eye out for them. Some primary services Oasis PEO offers include worker’s compensation, employee benefits, time and attendance solutions, and much more. Its pricing structure can also vary based on the size of your organization. The larger the organization, the bigger the needs of the business. Therefore, the client gets a fair quote after a careful assessment of what the company requires. The final quote is based on the number of services you request. Each service provides more value to your business. You’d probably have to take most of Oasis’s services if you plan to outsource administrative and HR tasks. You can request a discount for a bundle of services. Oasis PEO will help you provide and manage various employee benefits through the Paychex Flex HR platform. These benefits include vision insurance, dental plans, pooled employer plans, traditional 401(k), and health savings accounts. Irrespective of the number of services you decide to avail, you’ll receive full-service payroll with 24/7 support, monitoring of laws that may impact your business, and access to dedicated HR specialists and SMEs. Oasis PEO Pricing ComparisonOasis PEO offers many services to its clients, including large corporations and small businesses. However, there is no set pricing, and each new user has to get a price quote based on their needs. This leads to a need for more pricing transparency. However, that is the case with most professional employer organizations. Oasis, Resourcing Edge, Insperity, ADP TotalSource, Vensure HR, Amplify PEO, and almost all other PEOs also offer a private pricing quote instead of a public pricing list, given the nature of their work. However, a few PEOs like to offer free trials or discounted initial months. For example, Paychex offers three months of free payroll processing. Similarly, Papaya Global offers a 30-minute demo and gives businesses a chance to decide whether or not to move forward with this PEO. TriNet is unique compared to other PEOs because it requires its prospective clients to take a PEO assessment that helps them better understand the needs of their clients. Moreover, it also offers a referral reward of $10,000. Oasis PEO Trials and GuaranteesOasis PEO can help your business provide employee benefits and recruit and retain top talent. Over 730.000 businesses trust Paychex Oasis. It proves that there are various benefits to outsourcing HR administration. For expert PEO and HR support, Oasis PEO offers its services for free in the first two months. This can help users get the hang of the platform and help them decide whether they want to continue using its services. The company also runs different limited-time discount offers throughout the year. So, keep checking to get a higher discount for trying out their service. Moreover, you can contact the customer support service to understand the purpose and benefits of the various services on offer. Get started today with two free months. Oasis PEO Service Providers ReviewThere are several better professional employer organizations present in the market today. Those platforms outperform Oasis PEO in different aspects. However, Oasis PEO compensates for it by offering free consultations and many advanced features and services. If you are looking for a PEO with exceptional services and excellent client support, choose Oasis PEO. Our research also suggests that Oasis PEO is ideal for small businesses and startups. It provides HR technology and service, regulatory compliance, risk management, and other crucial services required to run a business efficiently. To see how Oasis’s professional employer organization services stack up against some of its top competitors, read our comparison of the best PEO service providers. What Makes Oasis PEO Service Provider Great![]()
Where Oasis PEO Service Provider Falls Short![]()
Oasis PEO Service Provider ComparedWhile Oasis PEO is an excellent option, the best PEO service provider for most of our readers is Resourcing Edge because it provides customized solutions to its clients. Moreover, it offers advanced technology and a single point of contact.
Oasis PEO HR Outsourcing Services ReviewWhile Oasis PEO helps solve problems related to complex HR payment cycles, other PEOs offer better services in other aspects. Even though Oasis didn’t make it to the top of our list of the comparison between the best HR outsourcing services, it did make it to the second spot. First of all, Oasis offers various HR outsourcing services, but it is best for its payroll services. It can handle payments for all types of workers, from a mixed workforce of contractors to full-time employees and employees who want to be paid via prepaid debit cards. Besides payroll, it provides retirement and insurance services, HR professionals, compliance services, and benefits administration. Oasis PEO offers a mobile app that allows businesses to track hiring and labor costs. Even companies with internal HR departments can consult Oasis to extend or improve their HR services. Oasis PEO HR Outsourcing Services ComparedOasis PEO offers various services, and its HR services are ranked among the top PEOs. However, it is not the leading service provider in our list of the best HR outsourcing services.
Final VerdictAs a business grows, it sometimes has to outsource different HR and other operations to better focus on the rest of the company. Therefore, the various professional employer organizations are of utmost importance as they help businesses focus on their core competencies by handling administrative duties. Paychex Oasis has been in the market for a long time and has always shown exceptional performance. It stands out from the crowd because of its unique features, timely customer support, and other valuable features. Therefore, we can conclude that Oasis PEO is here to stay for a long time. via Quick Sprout https://www.quicksprout.com/oasis-peo-review/ Square has been a leader in digital payment services for years, helping online and brick-and-mortar businesses collect payments, access funds, and create rewarding loyalty programs. Square Payroll provides convenient payroll and tax services, adding to Square’s all-in-one merchant-focused solution. Small businesses, especially, can benefit from using a payroll service like Square Payroll to pay their teams, deduct taxes, review sales, and more. Learn how Square Payroll can ease payroll management for your team. ![]() Square Payroll ComparedSquare Payroll did not make our top list of online payroll services. Our top pick, Gusto, is an excellent alternative to Square Payroll for most businesses, including new companies without a dedicated payroll team. Try Gusto free for 30 days.
Read more about the best online payroll services. About Square PayrollAlthough Square Payroll didn’t make our top list for online payroll services, it still offers plenty for small businesses. The company helps small business owners without payroll experience pay employees and contractors, track paid time off, and withhold multistate taxes. Square Payroll also combines other key employee management services, like time tracking, invoicing, workers’ compensation, and benefits package management. Business owners can choose between contractor-only plans or plans covering payments for contractors and employees. Square Payroll Health and StabilityAlthough Square was founded back in 2009, Square Payroll is a more recent offering from the digital commerce company, introduced in 2015. Square Payroll operates in all 50 of the United States and the District of Columbia. Square has exhibited a promising amount of growth over its lifetime. Its parent company, Block, Inc., saw a 101.5% increase and an 85.95% increase in revenue from 2019-2020 and 2020-2021, respectively. Although 2022 growth hasn’t been as drastic, Square’s movement into other financial and commerce services gives it plenty of room for successful expansion. For instance, the company owns Cash App and Weebly, two powerhouse services in their industries. As a result, we only expect Square and Square Payroll to continue moving up the ranks as a commerce services provider. With Square Payroll seamlessly connecting to other Square services, users can expect it to remain as strong and reliable as its parent company. Square Payroll PricingSquare Payroll keeps its pricing transparent by showcasing its pricing structure on its website. With just two plans available, Square Payroll offers an uncomplicated process for choosing a plan based on whether you use contractors or employees. Square Payroll Pricing StructureSquare Payroll gives businesses a choice between two plans: Contractor Only and Employees and Contractors. Both plans include the same features, such as contract-free subscriptions, mailed forms, and seasonal inactivity management. The primary difference is that the Employees and Contractors plan comes with must-have features for employee payroll, like multistate payroll and tax filings and payments. Billing cycles are monthly. Contractor Only plans are charged per contractor, while an Employees and Contractors plan costs a monthly subscription fee plus a smaller fee for each contractor or employee. Square Payroll Pricing ComparisonDesigned to meet the needs of small businesses, Square Payroll is a highly affordable payroll service. Its stripped-down nature makes payroll simple to manage and budget-friendly without lacking features. A Contractor Only plan is $5 per contractor, and an Employees and Contractors plan costs $35 per month plus $5 monthly per employee or contractor. This is lower pricing than the top competitor, Gusto, which starts at $40 per month plus $6 per month for each paid worker. Like many other Square Payroll competitors, Gusto does not offer a contractor-only plan. However, Gusto’s more robust employee benefits packages may be worth the extra cost for medium to larger businesses. Paychex is one of the most comparable payroll services to Square Payroll in terms of pricing and features, with its lowest-tier package costing $39 per month plus $5 per employee per month. Still, this is a few dollars more than Square Payroll and lacks a contractor-only option. Square Payroll Trials and GuaranteesSquare Payroll does not currently offer any free trials, demos, or guarantees. However, the company doesn’t require business owners to sign a contract. This benefit, combined with monthly billing, allows you to cancel your subscription anytime without a significant financial commitment or early termination penalty. Additionally, Square Payroll is an IRS-certified reporting agent that uses the most up-to-date data and practices to file and manage your business’s payroll taxes accurately. Therefore, the company can assist your business in the event of an audit. Square Payroll Online Payroll Services ReviewSquare Payroll targets small businesses needing a simplified online payroll service that manages payments for employees and contractors. Taking advantage of Square’s infrastructure of digital commerce tools, Square Payroll is ideal for businesses already using other Square products, like point-of-sale equipment and team management tools. Continue reading this review to discover why Square Payroll might be one of the best online payroll solutions for your business. What Makes Square Payroll Online Payroll Services Great![]()
Where Square Payroll Online Payroll Services Fall Short![]()
Square Payroll Online Payroll Services ComparedOur top pick for online payroll providers is Gusto, which offers an excellent mix of features and benefits for many types of teams.
Final VerdictSquare Payroll is an all-in-one solution for small businesses paying contractors and employees. With a $5 contractor-only plan, it’s also a cost-effective solution for solopreneurs and micro businesses with only a handful of partnered contractors. Square Payroll’s easy-to-use interface and convenient mobile app make payroll management a breeze for small business owners. However, medium and large businesses will probably want to consider a more comprehensive option, like Gusto or Paychex. via Quick Sprout https://www.quicksprout.com/square-payroll-review/ Our recommendation for most people Shopify because it works well with most dropshipping services. Try Shopify free for 14-days, no credit card required. If you’ve always wanted to create an ecommerce brand but don’t have the time, space, or desire to store inventory and ship products yourself, consider starting a dropshipping business. This simple business model allows people to sell products online without taking on inventory, shipping, or fulfillment. Dropshipping offers a lot of potential for people with a knack for marketing. From finding the right ecommerce platform to locating suppliers, we’ve reviewed the best options for launching and expanding your dropshipping business. You’ll find additional guidance on getting started after the reviews section. The 6 Best Dropshipping Companies, Suppliers, Databases, and Tools
![]() It can be hard to break into dropshipping because most dropshipping businesses don’t like to share their items or their suppliers. Their concern is that you’ll just replicate their shop and eat into their market. We’re here to help you avoid that scenario. The following are our top picks for dropshippers, databases, and suppliers — along with what each does best. Shopify – Best for Beginners
Shopify offers one of the most popular ways to build an online store, and it comes ready to integrate with a long list of dropshipping services. In fact, many of the other dropshipping companies on our list recommend using Shopify as your base of operations. The reason is simple: Shopify is a true plug-and-ecommerce platform. It works as well for dropshipping as it does for traditional online stores. Make a Shopify account for free to explore more than 70 different dropshipping apps. Link up with a variety of wholesalers, suppliers, and warehousing services and start selling. ![]() Like any other dropshipping company, all the inventory and logistics is handled by third-parties. You just have to get the word out there about your products. That’s where Shopify’s built-in marketing tools come in handy. Create ads for TikTok, Facebook, Pinterest, or showcase your items on marketplaces like eBay. The Shopify dashboard automatically tracks where customers are coming from, so you can focus on selling where it counts. There are plenty of resources on Shopify if you are new to dropshipping, as well as live chat and email support 24/7. Sign up today and get two weeks of Shopify free, no credit card required. Dropified — Best Shopify App for AliExpress
Dropified is a very useful Shopify app that you can use to stock your store and automate your orders on AliExpress (including shipping addresses). There’s no Dropified marketplace–it’s a browser plugin that’ll let you pull products from anywhere on the web. What used to be a long-process is now just a few clicks. On AliExpress, Alibaba, and eBay, you’ll be able to get new products in front of your customers faster. ![]() To speed up the process even further, you can set up margin parameters and rules for changing the price points in your store. There’s a 14-day free trial; after that it’s $47 per month for the Retro plan, or $39 per month on the annual plan. The Channel Management plan, which costs $127 per month or $97 per month with annual billing, recently added a profit dashboard, Zapier integration, and an unlimited high-speed captcha solver. If you have a Shopify store and you are ready to start dropshipping, Dropified can help you make your work as efficient and profitable as possible. SaleHoo — Best Database to Find Suppliers
SaleHoo is a great dropshipper that offers a massive supplier database to draw on. A $67 yearly membership with SaleHoo grants you access to this database of 8,000+ wholesalers and dropshippers. They’re all screened by SaleHoo before they’re added to the directory. There’s a 60-day free trial period, and the customer service gets high marks in public reviews. The best part is that you don’t have to worry about something being too good to be true if it’s on SaleHoo. If it made it onto the site, it has been vetted and confirmed. ![]() You can make back the yearly membership fee with a single sale. Along with access to fully vetted suppliers, you also get SaleHoo’s Market Research Lab. Look at the trends and play with the data to find out what really matters to your market right now. Within the Market Research Lab, you can see competition for the product among other dropshippers, compare profit potential between items, and spot emerging trends. Data like this allows you to strike while the iron is hot (or before other sellers are hip to the trend). With SaleHoo, access to the wholesaler database is just half of it. The other half is the unprecedented agility you’ll gain compared to other dropshippers. As a bonus, when QuickSprout readers purchase one year of SaleHoo dropshipping, you’ll get one additional year for FREE. Printful — Best for Print-on-Demand Products
Printful is a full-service print-on-demand dropshipper that allows you to sell branded, custom-designed merchandise to anyone in the world. Just head over to the Printful website and add your own custom designs or use something from their library of designs on anything. The experts at Printful will print, package, and ship the orders to your customers. ![]() You can put your design or logo on seemingly anything. Printful offers over 330+ different options, including men’s, women’s, and children’s clothing, wall art, hats, mugs, water bottles, stationery, bags, blankets, and more. Best of all, the platform integrates with almost every ecommerce platform you can think of:
The list goes on and on. So no matter what platform you’re using to power your dropshipping business, integrating with Printful shouldn’t be an issue. If you need help with your designs or company branding, Printful goes a step further by offering several options for adding your branding to your orders. These services include branded stickers on your packages, your logo on t-shirt labels, and even adding stickers or business cards to your packaging. It’s free to sign up, and there are no monthly subscription fees. You simply pay the cost per item, plus a markup fee to Printful. When someone places an order on your site, they pay your price, and then Printful does a second transaction charging you for the product, fulfillment, and shipping. You keep the difference. Get started with Printful today to sell your custom designs via dropshipping. Spocket — Best for International Dropshipping
Spocket gives you a great database app for dropshipping items that works especially well for people shipping in the US and beyond. They allow you to sort by country and simply upload the products into your Shopify store. They make it easy to find US and EU items that’ll ship within your country rather than from China, cutting down on slow ship speeds. This also keeps costs lower–for you and your customers. Lower costs and faster shipping times? Spocket is the answer for people who want to dropship around the world. ![]() Spocket offers a free plan, which will let you check out their database of products. Once you are ready to start selling, you can upgrade to one of the paid plans. The Starter plan (25 products with unlimited orders) is $24.99. Upgrading to Pro is $49.99 per month for 250 products and branded invoicing. The Empire plan unlocks unlimited products for $99.99 per month. Take a 14-day free trial of Spocket today, and start selling around the globe. Wholesale2B — Versatile Supplier and Dropshipping Hub
Wholesale2B is one of my favorite dropshipping suppliers. They offer more than 1 million products you can start selling right now. Think of them as a one-stop shop for anything related to drop shipping. You’ll get access to a massive directory and all the tools you need to process orders. ![]() You can sign up for free (no credit card required), and start reviewing Wholesale2B’s massive inventory of products. Take your time–you won’t be charged until you’re ready to start dropshipping. On top of that, they allow you to sell products on:
Handle the orders yourself by becoming a registered reseller with each supplier. Or pay Wholesale2B a 3% fee to handle that for you. Wholesale2B starts free and includes their 1 million products, customer support, and a lifetime free account. More Great Dropshipping ServicesInventory Source — Time-Saving Dropshipping Automation Tool
Inventory Source is an automation tool built specifically for dropshippers. If you are looking to cut down the time it takes to fulfill orders, this could be the tool you’re missing. It allows you to either sync the suppliers’ products with your page (inventory automation) or to sync the entire customer purchase flow so that your orders are automatically placed with your supplier (full automation). Inventory Source has pre-built integrations with more than 230 suppliers. Many companies say that it’s “easy” to connect your site with a suppliers’ inventory–but it’s not always so easy. Inventory Source’s integrations really work, and the company puts a ton of effort in making sure they continue to perform flawlessly. ![]() This cuts down on busy-work big time. You choose a new product and Inventory Source automatically uploads the quantities, weights, colors, titles, and more. This data is coming directly from the supplier’s feed, so it’s always up-to-date. Inventory automation is $99/month and full automation is $199/month. However, getting just a directory account that allows you to view all dropship suppliers and preview product feeds is free. Nothing beats that, right? Worldwide Brands — Best Budget-Friendly Database
For $299, you can get a lifetime subscription to Worldwide Brands’s database of wholesalers and dropshippers. It’s a great budget-friendly solution for those competing to sell products on Amazon, eBay, and Etsy. They carry every category of consumer good: electronics, home & garden, clothing, shoes, accessories, sporting goods, art, health & beauty, books, and much more. With a subscription to Worldwide Brands, you can cut out the middleman and increase your own profits. It’s a one-time subscription, so you will always have a direct access to the best possible deals. They are constantly updating their database, which is easy to search and filter results. ![]() Give yourself the edge by relying on Worldwide Brands team of specialists. You’ll get the most up-to-date information without any extra work on your part. Worldwide Brands distinguishes itself with its extensive upper-market wholesale directory of certified dropshippers and its reliable and quick-to-respond support team. The lifetime membership certainly doesn’t hurt either, with many similar services charging you each month or year. Modalyst — Best Wix Plugin & Directory
Modalyst seamlessly automates your dropshipping business. You’ll be able to add suppliers (for free), set your own prices, and showcase a large inventory however you want. Where Modalyst really shines is their integration with Wix, the popular website builder. With just a single click, you’ll be able to install their app and get started selling to your customers. Modalyst also integrates with BigCommerce, Shopify, and other platforms, but if you are using Wix for dropshipping, this is what I would choose. It’s so easy to connect with suppliers and get your customers the products they need. Modalyst has a long list of suppliers of products including clothing, jewelry, accessories, and more. ![]() Modalyst is also centralized—making it very easy to use. You’ll be able to connect with suppliers from a single dashboard, and they even have an app for easy communication. You can start for free, adding millions of products to your site with just a few clicks. In fact, the Modalyst Basic plan is $0 per month to sign up. There’s a 5% transaction fee and a 25-product limit, but it’s completely free. Upgrading to the Start Up ($35 per month) or Pro ($90) per month unlocks more suppliers, shorter shipping times, and more. If you are thinking about dropshipping, use Modalyst’s free option to get started. Plug it into your ecommerce site and supercharge your inventory overnight. Start selling more with a free Modalyst account. Importify — Best Dropshipping Tool for WooCommerce
Importify handles product importing and automation for dropshipping stores running on WooCommerce, Shopify, Wix, or Jumpseller. With so many dropshipping tools focusing almost entirely on Shopify stores, Importify stands out as one of the best all-purpose platforms for improving your WooCommerce-based WordPress operation. ![]() It starts with its research and sourcing tool, allowing you to find products through notable wholesalers such as:
Find what you want to sell and import it to your WooCommerce store in just one click. Importify makes it easy to switch suppliers on a product if one runs out or you find a better deal elsewhere. You can set pricing rules before you import as well, so you can go from sourcing to selling even faster. You also get a product listing editor, Chrome extension for even easier product importing, and 24/7 support. Everything I’ve described comes on Importify’s Basic plan for $14.95 per month. If you want to import products from Amazon and Aliexpress, upgrade to the Premium plan for $27.95 per month. High-traffic dropshippers will want Importify’s Gold plan, which runs $37.95 per month. That unlocks the platform’s automation for order fulfillment. You can automatically have customer addresses filled out on supplier forms and product variants picked so you can sell and ship faster than ever at high volume. Boost your WooCommerce-based WordPress dropshipping site by starting a 14-day free trial of Importify today. DSers — Best Shopify Plugin & Directory
DSers (pronounced “dee-zers”) offers an excellent plugin service that works with Shopify stores. It is replacing the previously-used Oberlo app as of June 15, 2022. Note: Oberlo users can use the migration tool to automatically migrate historical data from Oberlo to DSers or manually migrate to any other dropshipping app. The DSers dropshipping app works through AliExpress. Its directory offers you all the products you need and it is a trusted Shopify partner. DSers does bulk order fulfillment and has over 150,000 merchants you can choose from. ![]() Every time you make a sale, DSers will handle product selection and fulfillment for you. That frees up your time to focus on driving traffic to your store. All plans, including the free version, has features like shipping method pre-selection, automated order status updates, supplier optimizer, automated address fixing, and more. The DSers app is available in six languages:
DSers does have a free Basic plan with bulk ordering, basic mapping, and up to three stores and 3,000 products. It also offers an Advanced plan for $15.90 per month billed annually for up to 10 stores and 20,000 products, and a Pro plan for $39.90 per month billed annually for 25 stores and 75,000 products. They also offer an Enterprise plan starting at $399 per month. See pricing and features here. DSers has a 5-star rating with over 7,000 reviews in the Shopify app store. You can try one of the paid plans now with a 14-day free trial. What’s the best dropshipping company for me?Naming just one brand as the best overall dropshipping company is nearly impossible. That’s like asking for the best product available on Amazon--it depends what you’re looking for. But the best dropshippers have a lot in common. They offer fast shipping and great communication. All products arrive on time, in one piece, and match the photographs and descriptions online. All of the dropshipping companies on our list meet this description. Finding the best one for your unique situation ultimately depends on what you’re interested in buying and selling to your customers. You need to find a company that can reliably offer those products at a price point that allows you to satisfy your customers and simultaneously turn a profit. Most dropshipping companies use platforms like Shopify or Wix combined with an automation app like Modalyst. So if you’re new to the dropshipping game, this is definitely the easiest way to get started. Why Shopify is the best way to start your dropshipping businessThat means, you are basically setting up the equivalent to any ecommerce store. For ecommerce stores, the clear winner is Shopify. It’s been the frontrunner for a while. What’s most important about that for dropshipping is that the app store is super robust. Most stores use Shopify, so developers looking to make a high-quality app develop it for the Shopify app store. I don’t recommend dropshipping with eBay. Selling on a marketplace like eBay requires less work — you don’t have to start a website, pay a subscription, etc. like you do with Shopify. But it’s not the way to go, in my opnion. First of all, Shopify is super excited and helpful with new dropshipping businesses, whereas eBay is growing more and more against them. Here are the sticking points for me:
If you do want to build your dropshipping business with eBay, I’d spend a few weeks or months in the seller forums to understand the specific risks and challenges of dropshipping on eBay. How to start a dropshipping company1. Find items to sellFirst, find your niche. There’s lots of chatter on the internet about finding your dropshipping niche, but this is just a trendy buzzword for product-market fit: are there people who want to buy your product? From you? If not, you won’t have a successful business. You’ll have the most success dropshipping a product if there’s an audience that wants to buy it and doesn’t have an easy way to access it. That’s where you come in. Some ways to find your niche: brainstorm rabid fan groups or audiences with a common need or interest (dog lovers, anime fans, parents who love to dress up their kids in matching outfits, sailors, very tall people, people who love 90s throwback tees). These are purchase-ready populations looking to love and buy things that they’re interested in. Then, see what’s trending on Facebook. Doing a quick search of a phrase like “Get yours here” or “Buy now” and look at the videos featuring items for sale that are getting traction. This can give you a sense of which products are interesting people on Facebook right now. Look for a high number of views in a short period of time, then search for the item at a dropship supplier like Salehoo. ![]() Consider the price-point of the item in the video and the assets you can create for it. Can you replicate — or improve on — the current trending video? If so, you may have an item worth dropshipping. I have a few pieces of advice after you’ve taken care of all that: Don’t sell anything dangerous or copyrighted If you’re a beginner, don’t start with something that goes in or on a person’s body. If you do not know the quality and source of the ingredients, and something goes wrong, do you have coverage for that liability? Also, if there’s a celebrity or character from a movie franchise on the item, it could get you in trouble. Steer clear of mice with big round ears. Look at seller’s reviews and order a test product How long has the seller been selling? What feedback have they been getting. When you order a test product, does it meet your expectations? What do you need to tell your customers so they’ll be happy when they receive the product? Consider dropshipping only some items Just because you’re dropshipping some things doesn’t mean you need to dropship everything. Perhaps it makes sense to use dropshipping for large, bulky, high-priced niche items. Say, for example, you have an online store that sells nautical gear. You may want to personally store and ship some items, but dropship the anchors. For items like this, your customers may also be more accommodating to longer shipping times since it’s a large and more considered purchase. Same goes for home goods: perhaps you keep small items in stock, but dropship the couches. You can increase your inventory breadth very simply this way. Go directly to a supplier and build a dropshipping relationship with them This is a killer plan: there’s guaranteed to be less competition. You’re basically creating a new audience for an under-marketed product that’s not getting seen by a ready-to-buy audience. If you use a database, every single other subscriber is using that same database. 2. Nail the basicsYou want to invest in a good domain name. It’s a key component of any ecommerce operation. We buy all our domain names from Domain.com. (You can read our full review on the best domain registrars.) Once you’ve done that, then you can set up your website. If you go with Shopify, you’ll be up in minutes. Lots of dropshippers recommend the Shopify Brooklyn theme with a good font choice. You can also use another ecommerce option. Here’s our review on the best ecommerce platforms, if you’re interested in exploring. You can get a professional logo for your site for a reasonable price (and no design expertise) with 99Designs. See my post about how to get your first brand identity on a budget for more details and how to run a logo design contest. Make sure to set up professional email addresses for your dropshipping store. It should be a sensible start (help@, support@) with your own domain name. I recommend getting Google Workspace for $6 a month per user. There’s nothing to trust about emailing a customer service that’s at yahoo.com or gmail.com. Here are some other key elements to factor into your planning and set up: Give your customer strong trust signals You can do this with high quality photos and unique item copy, a real and robust About Us page, and thoughtfully using things like discounted prices and pop-ups. Ask yourself: Would I buy from this store? Would I feel comfortable suggesting it to a friend or family member? You’ll need some trust logos and some FAQs at minimum. Set shipping time expectations Most dropshipped items aren’t going to get to the customer very quickly — and in world where Amazon Prime has set the standard at two days, that means dropshipments of 30 days feel extremely slow. If you don’t prepare your customers they’ll be very unhappy. We’ve seen very straightforward copy, like: All our items ship directly from our suppliers in China. Shipments are processed the day of your order and arrive in 25–30 days. Make sure your orders go through Bundle credit card orders so your bank doesn’t cancel your numerous orders. Let your bank know what types of orders and in what quantities you’ll be placing, so they’re not flagged as fraudulent. There is no pain so rich as having to reorder orders you’ve placed (you do have a business credit card, right?). Prepare for returns and cancellations How will you deal with unhappy customers? What’s your return policy and how will you chargeback customer payments? Will returned items be shipped to you, or to your distributor? How will that work? Like with anything in business, it’s important to set it all up from day one like it’ll be a huge success. Set aside money to pay taxes If you’re using Shopify as your payment gateway, once you get to a certain sales threshold, Shopify will automatically report your sales to the government. You’ll want to make sure you have money available to pay applicable taxes. We also recommend getting an accountant and a lawyer (we’ve heard good things about UpCounsel and LegalZoom) and setting up Quicken. 3. Differentiate yourselfA great way to stand out right from the jump is to make your store listings and ads unique. Remember, if you can quickly and easily set up a dropshipping order for a specific product, it’s likely another store will be able to do the same. You will need to find an edge: why would someone order from you, or find your store selling the product, and not your competitor? Make sure people know about your store. This can be through word of mouth, social media ads, viral memes, influencer programs, SEO, a newsletter. You’re going to need visitors to make sales. Take your own pictures. Write your own copy. Shoot unique social videos. Really put thought into how to best convey the product and why a person would want it: What problems does it solve? Can it make them feel joy? If you’re using AliExpress, you can import the user reviews. No one likes being the first to buy something. Consider offering free shipping, too. That can really entice customers. Do all orders have free shipping or only when a certain order spend is hit? What threshold or minimum spend works best? I do not recommend offering “Free products — you pay shipping.” Many customers would rather know the price up-front than go through a purchase flow that says $0 the whole way through and then slaps on a $15 shipping charge. 4. Iterate iterate iterateUse ads to gather data and test strategy. We’re assuming that you’ll be buying ads. If you do, buy and use the data to test what’s working. What gets traction? Double down on it. What doesn’t? Trash it. This may lead you to changing your products, your ad style, your audience. Following the early traction means you head toward what’s working and away from what’s not. Get anyaltical with your sales trends, as well. What’s selling well? What’s not selling at all? Is there any common theme in the items? Replicate what you can. Stop what’s not working. The Top Dropshipping Companies in SummaryDropshipping can be a lucrative ecommerce strategy. But it all starts with the right partner. Choosing the best dropshipping company for you depends on the type of products you want to offer your customers, the supplier’s quality, and how well the service integrates with your process. via Quick Sprout https://www.quicksprout.com/best-dropshipping-companies/ Want to jump straight to the answer? The best medical transcription service for most people is GoTranscript. Transcribing exam notes is crucial for running a medical office, even after a long day of seeing patients. Unfortunately for small practices, hiring an on-site transcriptionist may not be practical—especially when needs change each day. The best (and most affordable) option for these situations is to outsource medical transcription needs to a third party. Compare Quotes From The Best Medical Transcription Services Get matched up with a medical transcription service that fits your needs. The 9 Best Medical Transcription Services
![]() For your patient notes, you may consider using a voice to text software package that attempts to automatically transcribe your spoken word. However, you need a human to go over the automatically generated transcription and make editing changes to make sure it’s really accurate. Here are the transcription services we believe will give you the most accurate transcriptions every time. GoTranscript
GoTranscript has 15 years in business and 20,000 employees dedicated to providing fast, accurate, and affordable medical transcription services. Rates start as low as $0.77 per minute for transcription. All patient data is kept confidential and secure. GoTranscript will sign an NDA and its compliance program has been independently verified by Compliancy Group as meeting all HIPAA requirements. This is a very easy platform to use. Simply upload audio recordings to GoTranscript, and your transcriptions will be delivered via email. Additional services include rush orders, captions, translations, and foreign subtitles. Pros
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Acusis
>> Compare Quotes Acusis is one of the best medical transcription services out there. Not only do they give you accurate transcriptions, they’re also very popular. In addition to reliability, this service has flexible usage options. Use the features that are right for you and don’t worry about the rest. You can upload your audio files through a traditional telephone line or through an iPhone app. Acusis provides the highest possible levels of security, protecting your sensitive medical data all the way through the transcription chain. Pros
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Aquity Solutions
>> Compare Quotes Aquity can handle a big volume of work with quick turnaround. How? Simple: They have a good amount of talented transcriptionists to handle big worklaods. They’re also one of the largest medical transcription services on the market. For those who need the transcription service to fit into a particular budget, Aquity can help you, as it offers multiple price points, levels of accuracy, and turnaround times. Pros
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EHR Transcriptions
>> Compare Quotes EHR provides one of the easiest medical transcription services to access and use, so medical personnel who want to keep things simple will appreciate it. However, it must sacrifice advanced customization features to maintain an easy-to-use interface, so it’s not the best option for those who have advanced needs for their transcripts. EHR does provide an excellent level of accuracy and file security, so you can trust the service you’ll receive. Pros
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InSync Healthcare Solutions
>> Compare Quotes The InSync service is one of the best medical transcription services out there. They offer excellent service, well-rounded features, and multiple add-on options. Customize the offering to match your medical practice’s needs. InSync even allows audio uploads using whatever method makes it easy for clients, including telephone, digital file, or mobile app. Pros
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Med-Scribe
>> Compare Quotes Med-Scribe offers one of the fastest services. They guarantee your transcription in less than an hour. As an added bonus, this service does not charge extra when you need to take advantage of its fastest turnaround times. Unfortunately, Med-Scribe has some above average setup fees for the majority of new clients, unless they commit to providing a high level of work. Its overall pricing is also above average versus other services, so unless you need extremely fast results, this service probably is overkill for you. Pros
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MTBC
>> Compare Quotes This is a no-brainer if your practice is already leveraging MTBC. If you are a customer of the MTBC practice management software or the MTBC EMR software, you will receive a significant discount in pricing with the MTBC medical transcription service. In fact, your cost is reduced to half if you use them already. For those who don’t use other MTBC products, you can use the MTBC transcription service at the regular price rate. This service requires no contracts, but it also doesn’t provide a lot of information about how it achieves its projected accuracy rate. Pros
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SmartMDSmartMD strength is in its pricing flexibility and in its offerings. One of our favorite services they offer is an online archive of your transcriptions in a secure cloud account. That lets you access them from anywhere and at any time. Of course, it costs a little extra for these cloud storage services — but it’s well worth it in our opinion. SmartMD uses a workforce of American-based transcriptionists, which gives it a higher level of accuracy than some other services that rely on transcriptionists where English is not their first language. Pros
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World Wide Dictation
>> Compare Quotes World Wide Dictation offers maximum flexibility from a transcription service. You do not have to commit to contracts, and you can provide varying levels of work for the company without penalty. Even though World Wide Dictation offers transcription services for multiple types of industries, when it takes on a medical practice as a client, it guarantees that you will receive a dedicated medical transcriptionist for your work. Pros
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How to Choose The Best Medical Transcription Service For YouWhen you’re in the market for the best medical transcription service, there are a few key factors to consider. Your options are not all the same. If you pay attention, you can find a solution that satisfies your regulatory requirements with less work and fits better with the natural workflow of your practice. Because of the expense involved in this type of work, you want to be absolutely certain the transcription service’s offerings truly match what your medical office needs, so you aren’t paying for services you won’t use. HIPAA CompatibilityHIPAA, short for Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, is a set of regulations health care providers must follow for protecting the medical information of their patients. Failure to abide by these regulations results in significant fines and penalties. If you are using a best medical transcription service, and this service will be transcribing notes regarding patient care, it is vital that the service is able to protect this information, while following all HIPAA guidelines. For services based in the United States, HIPAA compatibility should be easy to find. But for services located outside the United States, finding those that follow HIPAA guidelines may be more difficult. Understand that some services will have American addresses, but they may use transcriptionists based in other parts of the world. The transcription service needs to spell out exactly how it protects this sensitive health information in a case like this, while following HIPAA guidelines and protecting your medical office from potential violations. Software System CompatibilityWhen you have EMR or EHR software in use at your medical practice, you’ll be using this software to store your patient records. To simplify the process of keeping your records organized and safe, you’ll want to link the transcription to the correct patient record. Some medical transcription services will offer compatibility with numerous EMR/EHR software packages, allowing them to transfer the transcription files into your software, linking them to the right patient. This will save your staff from having to organize the transcription files once they arrive from the transcription service, giving them more time to handle other tasks. Audio File CompatibilityWhen recording patient notes, the medical personnel in your practice probably have a certain system they like to use. Depending on the preferences of the doctors in your practice, you may use multiple audio file formats. Any medical transcription service you select must be able to handle whatever audio file formats you want to use. This should be a relatively easy process, as the majority of medical transcription services will handle many file formats. However, if your medical practice uses an uncommon audio file format, you may have to search around to find a compatible service. Some medical transcription services allow you to record your patient notes directly through a telephone call to the service, which some doctors prefer. Turnaround TimeMedical transcription services will use a term called TAT, which is short for turnaround time. This refers to the amount of time it will take the service to deliver your transcription after it receives the audio file. The majority of services require a day or two, but they may offer “rush” jobs, where they can return the transcript within an hour or two, usually for a higher cost. Some services allow you to select the exact TAT you want to use. Some services even promise to turn around the audio files you send at 6 p.m. by 6 a.m. the following day. When you have particular needs for TAT, you may need to shop around to find the service that will offer what you require at the price you’re seeking. Quality AssuranceAny medical transcription service needs to have multiple layers of quality checks in place to ensure accuracy. You need an accurate transcript, or you run the risk of making a mistake in treating a patient by having inaccurate information in the patient’s file. Some transcription services will let you select what level of accuracy you would like to have, as more layers of fact checking and editing will cost more than one or two levels of editing. Be wary of any service that says it can guarantee 98% to 100% accuracy with just one level of fact checking. Most services will offer a minimum of three levels. Matching Your Specialized TerminologyIf your medical practice frequently uses non-standard terminology during the care of your patients, or if you have a particular specialty that you emphasize in your practice, the medical transcription service you select must be able to accurately handle it. The transcriptionists must recognize the uncommon terms you’re using and be able to spell them correctly. Many of the best medical transcription services will include particular specialty area endorsements in their marketing materials. Pay attention to these when shopping for a service. FeesMedical transcription services will charge for their work in a variety of ways, including:
This can be extremely confusing, especially when you’re trying to compare the fees of various services who don’t use the same method of charging you. It’s hard to compare one service that charges by the minute to one that charges by the character. Additionally, some services that charge by the character will charge you for spaces between words, while others will not. Services that do not charge for spaces base their fees on VBCs (visible black characters). You may have to pay extra if you have a particularly difficult or unusual type of medical terminology in the exam notes that you need transcribed. Contract TermsWith some medical transcription services, you can just submit jobs whenever you want with no contract required. However, for the best level of service, you will want to sign a contract. Why? With a contract in hand, you will be a priority for the service. Without it, you may find that your jobs are not a priority. Additionally, with a contract in hand, you can specify that you need a certain level of accuracy and a certain TAT. Without a contract, you may receive verbal promises about accuracy and TAT, but the transcription service has no consequences for failing to meet its promises. With a written contract, there is a clear outline of the potential penalties for missing promised levels of performance. Some services offer month to month contracts, while others require a 12-month contract. Some offer other lengths of contracts. Don’t be afraid to request a certain contract length, as this is an area transcription services often will bargain with you. Customer ServiceIf you have an issue with your transcript, you want to be able to contact the transcription service immediately and have the problem resolved. Some services are only open during normal business hours, while others provide around-the-clock service. Additionally, some services have phone, email, or direct messaging customer service options. Others may limit you to one type of communication. Look for a customer service option that matches how you want to use the service. The Top Medical Transcription Services in SummaryHaving accurate patient notes generated by a medical transcription service will make your life much easier. You’ll receive significant benefits with these patient notes, including allowing your medical professionals to work more efficiently. Acusis, Aquity Solutions, and EHR Transcriptions are the best medical transcription services. Using a trusted medical transcription service gives you flexibility and saves money. You also get the benefits of a professional transcriptionist. Compare Quotes From The Best Medical Transcription Services Get matched up with a medical transcription service that fits your needs. via Quick Sprout https://www.quicksprout.com/best-medical-transcription-services/ |
Sean BrianWhile radishes deter certain insects naturally, they require similar growing conditions as carrots. Although the crops both have roots, radishes grow and germinate quicker, allowing carrots to continue growing in the soil space available when the radishes are harvested, Archives
April 2023
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