How to start an online shop in the UK in 2026: the seven steps, the three platforms and what each sale really costs you

Starting an online shop is seven decisions in a row, and the first one shapes the other six: whether you sell a catalogue or one thing. A catalogue needs a shop; one product or a course only needs a sales page with a way to pay, which is much cheaper.

1. Decide what you sell and to whom. A catalogue of products and a single product do not need the same tool.
2. Pick the name and check it: search the UK trade mark register to see whether a similar mark already exists in the UK, and register the domain.
3. Choose the platform, which means choosing between renting the shop and installing it on hosting of your own.
4. Upload the catalogue with descriptions, photos and prices that say whether VAT and delivery are included.
5. Connect card payments, and read the provider's percentage before you connect it, not after.
6. Set delivery and returns, with the 14-day right to cancel written down.
7. Publish the legal pages and tell HMRC once your sales pass £1,000 in a tax year.

In the UK the question is not whether you are self-employed but how much comes in. HMRC's trading allowance is a tax exemption of up to £1,000 a year: if your gross trading income stays at £1,000 or less, you may not need to register for Self Assessment. Above it, you do, and the deadline is written on the same page: “by 5 October in the following tax year”.

The word that decides is gross. GOV.UK defines it as “the total amount you would put on your tax return before any allowances or expenses are taken off”. An online shop's gross income is its takings, so a shop that sells £1,200 of stock it bought for £900 has passed the line even though it made £300.

What an online shop costs a month has three parts, and only the first is on the pricing page. The first is the plan fee. The second is the commission the platform itself keeps from each sale, which not all of them charge. The third is what the payment provider charges to take the card, a percentage plus a fixed amount per payment: in the UK, 1.5% + 20p for a standard UK card on Stripe and 2.9% + 30p on PayPal, read on their UK fee pages on 28 September 2026.

The three go to the same pocket but live in three different places, which is why almost nobody publishes the total. The calculator below adds them up for the three platforms at once, because one figure on its own says nothing and three side by side decide.

An online shop is profitable when the margin on each order survives four deductions: the platform, the payment, delivery and returns. The first two are in the calculator above; the last two depend on what you sell and nobody can calculate them for you.

The proportion, though, can be shown. With thirty orders of forty pounds a month, platform and payments take between 2% and 5.6% of sales depending on the combination. If your gross margin were 30%, that means between a fifteenth and a fifth of your margin goes before delivery is paid. It is not the difference between making money and not, but it is the difference between choosing well and choosing by the fee.

The deduction that surprises most is the fixed part of the card fee. On a £10 order, 20p per payment weighs three times more, in proportion, than on a £30 one. In shop decisions: if your product is cheap, a minimum order and bundles are not a sales tactic, they are arithmetic.

The difference between the three is not features, it is who runs the site and who keeps a percentage. Shopify runs everything, and adds a fee to each sale if you take payments elsewhere. WooCommerce charges nothing per sale and leaves the updates to you. Systeme.io charges nothing per sale and leaves you nothing to run, as long as it is not a catalogue shop.

Three answers follow. If you sell a catalogue and you know how, or want to learn how, to look after hosting, WooCommerce leaves the lowest cost per sale with your own domain. If you never want to touch a server, Shopify is worth what it costs, as long as you take payments with its own service. And if what you sell is one thing, building a whole shop is paying too much.

If you have chosen Shopify for your catalogue, the plan is the decision left. Our guide to Shopify pricing in the UK compares the fee, the card rates and the staff logins of Basic, Grow and Advanced, including the international rate Shopify applies to EU cards since Brexit, with a calculator for your own payments.

If you sell one thing, a shop with a catalogue, a search box and categories is infrastructure you will not use and will pay for every month. What you need is a sales page, a way to take payment and a mailing list, and that is exactly what funnel tools do.

The two in this guide agree on what matters: neither keeps a percentage of your sales. Systeme.io lists 0% transaction fees on all its plans; ClickFunnels answers on its own pricing page, “No. You’ll keep every penny you make.” The difference between them, read on 28 September 2026, is the fee: one starts at zero and the other at $81 a month paid yearly, the highest in this guide.

As a decision: if you are starting and do not yet know whether the product sells, we recommend the free plan that takes payments, because it is the one that avoids paying to find out. If you already sell and want to push a funnel with several steps, courses and a team, the high fee stops being the problem.

Starting an online shop for free in the UK is possible, with two options and three caveats. Of the seven platforms read on 28 September 2026, two have a permanent free plan that can take a payment. One is Systeme.io, for one product or a course, with your own domain included. The other is Square Online, whose free plan is a real catalogue shop at £0 a month and 1.4% + 25p per UK card; connecting your own domain and removing Square's branding needs its Plus plan, £20 a month billed annually.

The caveats: WooCommerce gives the software away but not the place it lives, so the free part is the program, not the shop. And Wix's free plan exists, but its help centre is explicit that taking payments needs a paid plan, so it works for having a website, not for selling on it. And Shopify's UK pricing page now lists a £0 plan, “Agentic”, “For selling in AI channels”: its help centre writes that on it “your online store stays password protected, so customers can't visit it”, and that publishing the shop needs a paid plan.

A new shop rarely starts by charging VAT. HMRC makes registration compulsory when taxable turnover goes over £90,000 in the last 12 months, or when you expect to pass it in the next 30 days, and voluntary below that line. If you pass it, you have 30 days from the end of that month to register.

Two consequences for the sums on this page. First, as a rule, while you are not registered you do not reclaim the VAT on your own costs, such as hosting, which UK pricing pages show before VAT: add 20% to them. Second, whatever your VAT status, the prices your customers see must say whether they include tax and delivery: regulation 6(2) of the Electronic Commerce Regulations 2002 requires prices to be indicated clearly and unambiguously, including whether they are inclusive of tax and delivery costs.

There are four, and each rests on a specific rule, so they can be checked one by one instead of copied from a template.

Who you are and how to reach you. Regulation 6 of the Electronic Commerce Regulations 2002 requires your name, your geographic address, an email address and, where they apply, your company registration and VAT numbers, all “easily, directly and permanently accessible”. In practice: a link in the footer, not a form and not a PDF.

What happens before paying. GOV.UK's guidance on online selling asks you to make it clear that customers have to pay when they place an order, to show how they can pay, the delivery options and costs, and the total price. That is what the checkout and the terms of sale page are for.

Cancellations. Under the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013, a customer can cancel “without giving any reason”, and for goods the period ends 14 days after the day the goods come into their physical possession (regulation 30).

Personal data and cookies. The privacy notice comes from UK GDPR, and the cookie banner from the rules the ICO sums up as: “You must tell people if you set cookies, and clearly explain what the cookies do and why. You must also get the user’s consent.” Cookies essential to a service the user asked for, such as remembering the basket, are exempt.