The StoreBase alternative that never takes a cut of your sales.

How StoreBase’s pricing actually works

StoreBase has a single plan, which is refreshingly simple to read. As listed on their pricing page in August 2026 (plans change, so confirm before you buy), you pay ₹99/month for hosting plus 10% of your sales, and the combined amount is capped at ₹999/month. They describe the 10% as part of the plan rather than as a commission, but the mechanics are the same: for every ₹100 a customer pays you, ₹10 goes to StoreBase, until the month’s total reaches ₹999.

Run the numbers for a small seller. At ₹8,000 in monthly sales, you owe ₹99 plus ₹800, which is ₹899. At ₹9,000 you hit the cap and pay ₹999. From there on, whether you sell ₹9,000 or ₹9,00,000, it stays at ₹999/month. So the plan is cheapest when you sell almost nothing and most expensive, in percentage terms, right in the range where most Instagram sellers live: a few thousand rupees a month, where 10% is a real bite out of margin.

Razorpay’s own gateway fee applies on SitesPlaced when a customer pays online; COD and WhatsApp orders carry no per-order fee from us. StoreBase’s gateway fees are not included in their column either.

One honest footnote. Once a StoreBase store passes roughly ₹9,000 in monthly sales, it is a flat ₹999/month, and ₹999 is also what SitesPlaced’s Ecommerce plan costs after the first 30 early-bird stores. At that revenue level the two paid plans can cost the same. The differences then are what ₹999 buys, which the next table covers, and the fact that on SitesPlaced you could have stayed at ₹0 the whole way if you never needed a domain or ad tracking.

Over a year the shape of the bill matters as much as its size. A StoreBase store that sits at the cap pays ₹999 × 12, or ₹11,988 a year. A SitesPlaced store on the early-bird Ecommerce plan pays ₹499 × 12, or ₹5,988, and a store that stays on the free plan pays nothing. Below the cap, StoreBase’s bill rises and falls with your month, which makes it harder to budget and means a good Diwali costs you more in platform fees than a quiet July. A flat fee or a zero fee does not do that.

What StoreBase does well

It would be easy to write a page that only talks about the 10%, so here is the other side. StoreBase claims 1,950+ stores launched. Its page builder ships with 217+ widgets and 7 layout presets, which is a lot of layout freedom for a small-seller tool. It supports customisable products, coupons including BOGO and tiered discounts, UPI and card payments through gateways, and WhatsApp ordering that sends a pre-formatted message to your number. It also offers managed store setup and what it calls lifetime free support, publishes 10 free tools, and has built a large set of landing pages for Indian cities and categories.

Managed setup and ongoing human support are the strongest reasons to pick StoreBase. If you want someone else to build the store for you and be reachable afterwards, that is a real service and the ₹99 base fee is a fair price for it.

SitesPlaced vs StoreBase, feature by feature

StoreBase column from their public pricing page, August 2026; “not listed” means we could not find it there, not that it is absent. SitesPlaced rows are on our pricing page.

Where SitesPlaced goes further

Themes instead of widgets. StoreBase gives you 217 widgets to assemble a page. SitesPlaced gives you 17 finished storefront themes, from a jewellery layout to the Pronto grocery theme and the Maison luxury theme, with every heading, image, menu, footer column and product-page style editable. You start from something that already looks like a shop and change what you need, rather than building from parts.

Shipping is built in and free. Connect Shiprocket or Shipmozo and every order gets an AWB, a courier and a Track Order page your customer can check. Standard and Express delivery options, a COD charge, and order IDs with your own prefix are all on the free plan.

Meta and WhatsApp through their official APIs. On the ₹499 plan, SitesPlaced sends the Purchase event to Meta’s Conversions API from the server, once per paid order and deduplicated against the Pixel, using your own credentials. Order alerts to you and confirmations to the customer go out from your own WhatsApp Business number via Meta’s Cloud API. StoreBase’s WhatsApp ordering is a pre-formatted message the shopper sends to you, which is useful but a different thing from automated two-way order notifications. The difference is explained in our WhatsApp Business API guide.

Personalised products too. StoreBase lists customisable products. SitesPlaced has product personalisation with a print-area preview: the shopper uploads an image or types text and sees it placed on the mug, t-shirt or frame before paying, so you get fewer wrong orders.

Import, AI and chat editing. The store importer rebuilds a catalogue from an Instagram handle, a website URL, a PDF, or a dm2buy or Shopexer store. AI writes product and section copy on the paid plan. And because SitesPlaced has an official MCP server, you can open ChatGPT or Claude and say “add a festive banner and mark the kurta sets as new” and have it done; see the developer page. There is also an Android app for managing orders on the go.

Who should stay on StoreBase

• You want someone to build and maintain the store for you. Managed setup plus lifetime support is StoreBase’s clearest advantage. SitesPlaced is self-serve by design; the importer and themes make it fast, but you are the one clicking publish.
• Your sales are tiny and irregular. At ₹500 in a month you would pay StoreBase ₹149. That is more than SitesPlaced’s ₹0, but it is not a number worth reorganising your business over if you are happy where you are.
• You have built something specific with their widgets. A page layout you spent weeks on has value. Check our templates first to make sure one of the 17 themes gets you close before you move.

How to move from StoreBase to SitesPlaced

1. Create a free account. No card and no trial.
2. Paste your store URL into the importer. The importer reads your products, prices, images, variants and categories. Your Instagram handle or a PDF catalogue works too.
3. Pick a theme and tidy the copy. Every section is editable in the dashboard, or through ChatGPT and Claude.
4. Connect Razorpay, COD and shipping. Add your Razorpay keys, set a COD charge if you want one, link Shiprocket or Shipmozo.
5. Publish free and switch your bio link. Keep StoreBase live until the new store has taken a few orders. Move to ₹499/month only when you want your own domain, Meta CAPI or WhatsApp Business API.

For a sense of what a finished store looks like, see The House of Urmila and Surroor House, both running on SitesPlaced with 0% commission.

Frequently asked questions