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There are so many different headless ecommerce platforms, so making a shortlist of the best can be tricky. You want to separate the front-end presentation layer of your website from the back-end ecommerce functionality—and now need the right tool for your online commerce business. I've got you covered! In this post, I share from my personal experience managing online stores of all sizes, and share my picks of the best headless ecommerce platforms overall.

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The Best Headless Ecommerce Platforms Summary

Tools Price
Lightspeed eCom From $14.08/month
BigCommerce From $29/month and 2.59% + $0.49/transaction
Shopify $29/month, 2.9% + $0.30/transaction
OroCommerce Pricing upon request
Magento Commerce Starts at $15,000/year
Commercetools From $30,000/year
Adobe Experience Manager From $50,000/year
Contentful From $300/month
Kontent From $1249/month
Elastic Path From $50,000/year
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How to Choose Headless Ecommerce Platforms

With so many different headless ecommerce platform available, it can be challenging to make decisions on what headless ecommerce platform is going to be the best fit for your needs. As you're shortlisting, trialing, and selecting headless ecommerce platform, consider the following:

  • What problem are you trying to solve - Start by identifying the headless headless ecommerce feature gap you're trying to fill to clarify the features and functionality the headless ecommerce platform needs to provide.
  • Who will need to use it - To evaluate cost and requirements, consider who'll be using the software and how many licenses you'll need. You'll need to evaluate if it'll just be the ecommerce team, or the whole organization that will require access. When that's clear, it's worth considering if you're prioritizing ease of use for all, or speed for your ecommerce software power users.
  • What other tools it needs to work with - Clarify what tools you're replacing, what tools are staying, and the tools you'll need to integrate with, such as accounting, CRM or HR software. You'll need to decide if the tools will need to integrate together, or alternatively, if you can replace multiple tools with one consolidated headless ecommerce platform.
  • What outcomes are important - Consider the result that the software needs to deliver to be considered a success. Consider what capability you want to gain, or what you want to improve, and how you will be measuring success. For example, an outcome could be the ability to get greater visibility into performance. You could compare headless ecommerce platform features until you’re blue in the face but if you aren’t thinking about the outcomes you want to drive, you could be wasting a lot of valuable time.
  • How it would work within your organization - Consider the software selection alongside your workflows and delivery methodology. Evaluate what's working well, and the areas that are causing issues that need to be addressed. Remember every business is different — don’t assume that because a tool is popular that it'll work in your organization.

Best Headless Ecommerce Platform Reviews

Here’s a brief description of each of the headless ecommerce platforms on my list showing what it does best, plus screenshots to showcase some of the features.

Best headless ecommerce platform for small to mid-sized businesses

  • Freemium plan available
  • From $14.08/month

Lightspeed Ecommerce is a cloud-based, headless ecommerce platform that helps businesses create and manage their online stores. You can optimize your ecommerce operations with features like product management, order fulfillment, and customer relationship management.

Why I Picked Lightspeed Ecommerce: Lightspeed Ecommerce is ideal for SMBs due to its comprehensive features, user-friendly interface, and scalable solutions that cater to the specific needs of small and medium-sized businesses, empowering them to effectively manage their online operations, streamline workflows, and drive growth.

Lightspeed Ecommerce has an awesome drag-and-drop website builder that’s easy enough that non-technical users can design and customize their online stores. The tool also has advanced inventory management features, including product variants and bundling, allowing you to really customize how your products are purchased. Lightspeed's multi-channel capabilities allow businesses to sell their products across multiple channels, including social media and marketplaces like Amazon and eBay, making it easier to reach a wider audience.

Lightspeed Ecommerce Standout Features & Integrations 

Key features include its seamless integration with Lightspeed's point-of-sale (POS) system. This integration allows retailers to manage both their physical store and online operations from a single platform, ensuring synchronized inventory, unified reporting, and a seamless customer experience. The ability to bridge the gap between online and brick-and-mortar sales is a valuable and distinctive feature that sets Lightspeed Ecommerce apart from many competitors. Lightspeed Ecommerce offers specialized features designed specifically for the restaurant industry. It can help you quickly and easily set up an online storefront for takeout, delivery, subscription boxes, or reservations. 

Integrations include PayPal and Stripe, shipping and logistics services like ShipStation and FedEx, and accounting apps like QuickBooks and Xero.

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • Free plan available
  • Multi-channel selling, ie. Amazon, Google
  • No setup or transaction fees

Cons:

  • Limited customization options
  • Phone support locked to highest plans

Best open source headless ecommerce platform

  • 15-day free trial
  • From $29/month and 2.59% + $0.49/transaction

BigCommerce is an ecommerce platform allowing businesses to create custom-made digital storefronts. It provides users powerful tools for managing customer relationships, order management, product catalogs, and promotions. The user-friendly drag-and-drop editor makes it simple for users to customize their ecommerce storefronts.

Why I Picked BigCommerce: BigCommerce is a great open source choice for businesses due to its endless scalability, extensive customization options, and strong developer community support, allowing businesses to create highly tailored and scalable ecommerce solutions on their own terms.

BigCommerce's built-in content management system makes it easy for users to create and publish content on their digital storefronts. With headless commerce, businesses can quickly launch new products, add new features, and optimize their sites in real-time without worrying about technical issues or coding knowledge requirements. Its digital experience platforms allow merchants to increase customer engagement with dynamic, personalized experiences regardless of their device or channel.

BigCommerce Standout Features & Integrations 

Key features include an open API and several available SDKs for developers to quickly and easily spin up projects, making it an ideal choice for businesses looking to launch an integrated ecommerce experience. The platform’s front-end frameworks allow users to create and customize the customer-facing part of their online store. Features such as intelligent storefront search, A/B testing capabilities, machine learning-driven recommendations, real-time analytics, and tracking help facilitate optimization across all channels.

Integrations include LiveChat, ShipStation, Georgias, Mailchimp, Quickbooks Online, Yotpo Product Reviews, Justuno, Brightpearl, Acumatica, ActiveCampaign, Hubspot, Klavyio, Shopgate, Printify, and dozens of other apps.

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • Omnichannel marketing support
  • Extensive design capabilities
  • Helpful customer service

Cons:

  • Hard to troubleshoot technical errors
  • Some custom styles are costly

Best headless ecommerce platform for usability

  • 3-day free trial + $1/month for the first three months
  • $29/month, 2.9% + $0.30/transaction
Visit Website
Rating: 4.4/5

Shopify’s headless ecommerce system lets you separate your frontend design from backend infrastructure, which enables you to publish to any channel and make any device a platform for your brand. There is an extensive knowledge base that will solve basic queries, as well as an active community forum.

Why I Picked Shopify: Shopify is a great choice for usability and ease of use due to its intuitive interface, user-friendly design, and extensive documentation, making it accessible for users with varying levels of technical expertise to easily set up and manage their online stores.

The headless commerce functionality provides total creative control across all touchpoints to deliver a cohesive customer experience. You can use your business software and content management systems to engage customers through custom storefronts like kiosks, wearables, vending machines, and billboards. It can also help you speed up your site performance with a web app that reacts like a native mobile app.

Shopify Standout Features & Integrations 

Key features include its extensive App Store, offering a wide range of third-party applications and integrations. This marketplace allows users to enhance their online stores with unique features and functionalities, ranging from marketing and sales tools to customer support and inventory management solutions. The vast selection of apps caters to various business needs, empowering users to customize and extend the capabilities of their Shopify stores in a way that is unparalleled in the industry.

Integrations include Stocky, Apple Business Chat, Oberlo, Google Sheets, Mailchimp, Wave, Airtable, Slack, and 3k other vital business management apps. The product integrates smoothly with all the major marketplaces like Amazon and eBay.

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • User-friendly platform
  • In-depth inventory management
  • Multiple customizable templates + themes

Cons:

  • Monthly fee + transaction fees can add up
  • Some plugins cost extra

Best headless ecommerce platform for wholesalers

  • Free demo
  • Pricing upon request
Visit Website
Rating: 4/5

OroCommerce comes from the same leadership team that built Magento and focuses on solutions for the B2B industry. Having said that, the platform can be customized to fit any B2B, B2B2C, B2B2B, and B2C ecommerce need. It operates on an open source philosophy and has a vibrant community that is constantly supporting each other.

Why I Picked OroCommerce: OroCommerce is a great choice for wholesalers due to its robust B2B features, including advanced pricing and catalog management, flexible workflows, and support for complex order fulfillment processes, allowing wholesalers to efficiently manage their operations and cater to the specific needs of B2B customers.

OroCommerce’s inventory management features let you conduct multi-website and multi-warehouse management. You can personalize catalogs and adjust pricing as well. OroCommerce lets you take your brand to the web and mobile with a platform that supports both headless ecommerce and traditional ecommerce. It integrates with CRM apps (such as Salesforce) and ERP apps (such as SAP) seamlessly.

OroCommerce Standout Features & Integrations 

Key features include its advanced pricing and catalog management capabilities specifically designed for B2B wholesalers. It allows businesses to set up complex pricing structures, including negotiated pricing, volume-based discounts, customer-specific pricing, and contract-based pricing. Additionally, the platform offers extensive catalog management features such as tiered product pricing, configurable products, and custom catalogs, enabling wholesalers to efficiently manage their product offerings and tailor pricing strategies to meet the diverse needs of their B2B customers.

Integrations include Akeno, Epicor, SAP, Oracle, Infor, Microsoft Dynamics, and additional options using their Rest API, import/export engine, and using SFTP.

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • Easy multi-website management
  • Great product catalog system
  • Strong B2B selling capabilities

Cons:

  • High entry, even for developers
  • Limited user permissions options

Best headless ecommerce platform for robust analytics

  • Free open source version
  • Starts at $15,000/year

Magento Commerce equips developers to deliver tailor-made applications with a high level of customization based on the customer’s needs. This personalization can be enabled by experimentation. Magento empowers experimentation due to the systems being divided and not disturbing the operations of each other. The decoupled architecture facilitates new features and integrations at a fast rate.

Why I Picked Magento Commerce: Magento Commerce is a great choice for robust analytics due to its advanced reporting and analytics capabilities, providing businesses with comprehensive insights into customer behavior, sales performance, and marketing effectiveness, allowing for data-driven decision-making and optimization of ecommerce strategies. You can also export data directly to people’s inboxes, as well as get insights for average order value, lifetime value, and retention rates.

Magento’s inventory management features let you ship inventory to the right store at the right time. It lets you accurately track your inventory levels across multiple locations like warehouses, stores, and dropshippers. You can obtain a live count of your saleable stock. It also allows you to configure management settings globally, per source, and per product.

Magento Commerce Standout Features & Integrations 

Key features include its ability to handle multi-brand companies with diverse product catalogs, efficiently managing offerings for different target markets such as B2B and B2C, and its built-in PWA Studio, which facilitates the creation and launch of progressive web apps that prioritize performance optimization and responsive design, ensuring exceptional user experiences across various devices.

Integrations include over 3,700 paid and free options, like EasyShip, eDesk, Facebook Business, Google Shopping, LiveHelp, Stripe, Mailchimp, Quickbooks, SendCloud, and Stripe.

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • Interconnected to all Adobe software & systems
  • Deep analytics with personalizable dashboards
  • Free community/open source edition

Cons:

  • Comparatively costly vs other options
  • Time-consuming for initial setup + launch

Best headless ecommerce platform for scalability

  • 60-day free trial
  • From $30,000/year

Commercetools is an omnichannel ecommerce platform that leverages headless ecommerce technology to create the foundation for evolutionary ecommerce architecture. It offers a point of sale functionality via cloud deployment. Its cutting-edge API approach powers retailers to create brand awareness by creating engaging customer experiences across multiple channels and also future-proof for emerging channels.

Why I Picked Commercetools: Commercetools has a big focus on scalability, in that they provide a microservices-based architecture, which sets it apart from traditional monolithic commerce platforms. By breaking down the commerce functionality into independent and scalable microservices, Commercetools offers exceptional agility and scalability, allowing businesses to evolve and adapt their commerce ecosystems rapidly. This unique approach enables organizations to add, remove, or modify individual microservices without disrupting the entire commerce system.

Overall, the solution contains all the important functions needed to run an ecommerce business, with the capabilities to constantly evolve and add new features. In terms of inventory management, Commercetools has features for tracking inventory, adjusting inventory, returns management, and multi-store management.

Commercetools Standout Features & Integrations 

Key features include its API-first architecture, which places the API at the core of its platform. This unique approach allows for unparalleled flexibility and extensibility, enabling developers to build custom commerce solutions and integrations tailored to their specific needs. The API-first approach empowers businesses to deliver commerce experiences across various touchpoints, including web, mobile, IoT, voice, and more, while ensuring seamless scalability and agility.

Integrations include Contentstack, Cybersource, and Frontastic. It also works out of the box with DXPs and front-end CMS systems like Bloomreach and Adobe Experience Cloud.

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • Easy to customize
  • Pay only for what you need (microservices-based)
  • API-first architecture from ground-up

Cons:

  • Additional integrations welcomed
  • Require some coding knowledge for full advantages

Best headless ecommerce platform for detailed customer analytics

  • Free demo
  • From $50,000/year

Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) is a comprehensive and enterprise-grade content management solution that empowers organizations to create, manage, and deliver personalized and engaging digital experiences across multiple channels. With its robust features, seamless integration with other Adobe products, and powerful content authoring capabilities, AEM is a leading choice for businesses seeking a scalable and customizable platform to deliver exceptional digital experiences.

Why I Picked Adobe Experience Manager: Adobe Experience Manager customer analytics is a powerful feature that provides businesses with deep insights into customer behavior, preferences, and engagement across digital channels. By leveraging data collected from various touchpoints, it enables businesses to analyze and understand customer journeys, segment audiences, and personalize experiences.

Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) serves as an excellent headless ecommerce solution by seamlessly integrating with popular ecommerce platforms, allowing businesses to leverage the powerful content management capabilities of AEM while utilizing the commerce functionalities of their preferred ecommerce system. AEM's headless architecture enables the separation of content and presentation layers, providing flexibility for front-end development and enabling businesses to deliver consistent, personalized, and immersive shopping experiences across multiple channels.

Adobe Experience Manager Standout Features & Integrations 

Key features include dynamic media capabilities, allowing businesses to deliver rich and immersive digital experiences. Its powerful Digital Asset Management (DAM) functionality includes advanced image and video processing, smart cropping, automatic format conversion, and dynamic rendition generation. Plus, they have Experience Fragments in Adobe Experience Manager provide a unique and innovative way to create reusable content components. Businesses can create fragments that encapsulate specific sections of content or experiences and reuse them across multiple channels and touchpoints. 

Integrations include Amazon SNS connection, BrightEdge Content Optimizer, ExactTarget, Facebook Connect, Generic Analytics Snippet, Microsoft Translator, Pushwoosh Connection, Salesforce, Twitter, YouTube, and other popular systems and services.

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • Robust and scalable for large organizations
  • Comprehensive digital experience solution
  • Tons of content creation, curation, and repurposing tools

Cons:

  • Steep learning curve
  • Not appropriate for small businesses

Best headless ecommerce platform for agile workflows

  • Free for 5 users
  • From $300/month

Contentful is a next-generation content-focused platform that works with a decoupled infrastructure and agile workflows meant to reduce time to market. It enables teams to unify content in a single hub and structure it for any digital channel. There is extensive documentation, user guides, and a supportive community to help you find your way.

Why I Picked Contentful: Contentful is a great choice for agile workflows due to its headless architecture, flexible content modeling, and powerful API, enabling rapid iteration, seamless collaboration between teams, and easy integration with various front-end technologies.

Using open APIs and strong integration capabilities, it can structure the content for multiple platforms and channels.It has an intuitive user interface and support for multiple spaces. This can be helpful for organizations that need separate projects for development, staging, or production.

Contentful Standout Features & Integrations 

Key features include a robust and highly customizable Rich Text Editor that allows content editors to create and format content with a wide range of options, including text styles, embedded media, links, and more. Unlike many other CMS platforms, Contentful's RTE offers a highly extensible and flexible approach, enabling developers to create custom extensions and integrations tailored to specific content requirements, providing a unique level of control and creativity.

Integrations include Dropbox, Jira, Google Analytics, Commercetools, and other similar business tools.

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • User-friendly platform
  • Permissions are very granular and flexible
  • Create custom content models suitable for complex data structures

Cons:

  • Slows down with large volumes of content
  • Search & filtering could be better

Best headless ecommerce platform for content modeling

  • 30-day free trial
  • From $1249/month

Kontent.ai is a versatile Headless CMS designed to meet the needs of ecommerce businesses, providing a flexible content management system that seamlessly integrates with various frontend technologies. With its emphasis on ecommerce, Kontent.ai enables businesses to efficiently manage and deliver product content, promotions, and personalized experiences across multiple channels, driving engaging and conversion-focused ecommerce experiences.

Why I Picked Kontent: Kontent.ai provides a visually intuitive content modeling interface, allowing content editors and administrators to easily define and structure content types and relationships without the need for complex technical knowledge or coding. This unique feature simplifies the content creation and management process, empowering non-technical users to contribute and collaborate.

Kontent.ai is a robust and versatile headless CMS platform that empowers businesses to manage and deliver content seamlessly across various digital channels. With its user-friendly interface and powerful features, Kontent.ai simplifies the content creation and management process, enabling content editors and administrators to structure and organize content without technical expertise. The platform's unique focus on flexibility and scalability makes it ideal for organizations seeking a customizable content management solution. 

Kontent Standout Features & Integrations 

Key features include Content Variants and Variations, which allows businesses to efficiently manage and customize content for different target audiences, languages, regions, or any other custom attributes. This capability enables businesses to streamline content localization, A/B testing, and personalization efforts, providing a highly tailored and localized experience to their customers, all within a single content repository.

Integrations include Builder.io, GatedContent, Algolia, Bynder, commercetools, Gatsby, Cloudinary, Gridsome, Magento, Netlify, Recomby, Ultracommerce, SEMrush, Scaleflex, and other similar tools. You can also unlock more options with a paid plan through Zapier. 

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • Flexible, 'composable DXP' approach
  • Easy-to-use content authoring
  • Well-designed content types elements

Cons:

  • No library of website themes
  • More native integrations welcomed

Best headless ecommerce platform for dynamic catalog management

  • 90-day free trial
  • From $50,000/year

Elastic Path is an API-first commerce platform that empowers businesses to create flexible, personalized, and seamless commerce experiences across various touchpoints. With its headless architecture and extensive API capabilities, Elastic Path enables businesses to innovate, adapt, and deliver unique commerce solutions tailored to their specific needs.

Why I Picked Elastic Path: Elastic Path's dynamic catalog management tools provide businesses with robust capabilities to efficiently manage and organize their product catalogs. With flexible product modeling, businesses can create and configure complex product structures, variations, and relationships. Elastic Path's dynamic catalog management tools allow businesses to easily update and modify product information, attributes, pricing, and inventory across multiple channels.

Elastic Path excels as a headless ecommerce platform by offering an API-first approach, enabling businesses to decouple the front-end presentation layer from the commerce backend. This allows for greater flexibility in front-end development, seamless integration with various touchpoints, and the ability to deliver personalized and consistent commerce experiences across channels.

Elastic Path Standout Features & Integrations 

Key features include advanced revenue optimization capabilities, leveraging machine learning algorithms to dynamically optimize pricing, promotions, and offers in real-time. This unique feature allows businesses to maximize revenue by automatically adjusting pricing strategies based on customer behavior, market conditions, and business objectives, delivering personalized and optimized commerce experiences while driving conversions and increasing profitability.

Integrations include Advanced Commerce GrapheneHC, Ayden, Algolia, AWS Cognito, Authorize.net, Avalara, Braintree, Braze, Card Connect, Constructor.io, Covio, Google Merchant Center, Paypal, OpenAI, and other popular ecommerce, development, and content tools. 

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • Responsive, engaged customer support team
  • Lightweight API for rapid development cycles
  • Simple promotion and personalization engine

Cons:

  • Not appropriate for small biz/startups
  • Can be complex to customize for new users

Other Headless Ecommerce Platforms

Here’s a few more that didn’t make the top list.

  1. Core dna

    Best headless ecommerce platform for customizable templated workflows

  2. Slatwall Commerce

    Best flexible ecommerce platform for enterprises

  3. Digital River

    Best headless ecommerce platform with multi-channel delivery

  4. Nacelle

    Best for mid-market or enterprise merchandisers looking to grow

  5. FenixCommerce

    Best headless ecommerce platform for real-time order routing

If you still haven't found what you're looking for here, check out these related ecommerce tools that we've tested and evaluated.

Selection Criteria for Headless Ecommerce Platforms

Selecting the right headless ecommerce platform involves a careful evaluation of what they have to offer. Through extensive personal trials and research, I've developed criteria to guide software buyers towards making an informed decision. 

Core Functionality: 25% of total weighting score

  • API flexibility and coverage: Ensuring broad and deep API capabilities for custom integration needs.
  • Multi-channel support: Facilitating sales across web, mobile, social media, and marketplaces.
  • Product information management: Efficiently managing a comprehensive product catalog.
  • Scalability: Ability to scale operations up or down based on traffic and transaction volume.
  • Security: Robust security features to protect customer and business data.

Additional Standout Features: 25% of total weighting score

  • Unique integration capabilities: Seeking platforms that offer innovative integration with emerging technologies and platforms.
  • Customization potential: Platforms that allow for extensive customization to create differentiated user experiences.
  • Advanced analytics and insights: Identifying platforms that provide deeper insights into customer behavior and business performance.
  • Enhanced user engagement tools: Platforms offering advanced tools for engaging users, such as AR/VR, chatbots, and personalized shopping experiences.

Usability: 10% of total weighting score

  • Intuitive design: Platforms should feature an interface that is easy to navigate for both technical and non-technical users.
  • Streamlined product management: Tools that simplify the management of extensive product catalogs with efficient sorting, tagging, and filtering capabilities.

Onboarding: 10% of total weighting score

  • Comprehensive learning resources: Availability of detailed documentation, tutorials, and community forums.
  • Interactive product tours and training: Platforms that offer guided tours and interactive training sessions to accelerate the learning curve.
  • Customer onboarding support: Dedicated support during the onboarding process to ensure a smooth transition.

Customer Support: 10% of total weighting score

  • Responsive support: Quick and helpful customer service across multiple channels (email, chat, phone).
  • Community and forum support: Active user communities and forums for peer assistance and advice.

Value For Money: 10% of total weighting score

  • Competitive pricing: Pricing that aligns with the features and capabilities offered, considering different business sizes and needs.
  • Transparent cost structure: Clear explanation of pricing tiers, additional costs, and scalability options.

Customer Reviews: 10% of total weighting score

  • Positive feedback: High ratings and positive reviews from current and past users regarding usability, support, and functionality.
  • Success stories: Case studies and testimonials that highlight successful implementations and outcomes.

When evaluating headless ecommerce platforms, it's crucial to consider how well each platform aligns with your specific business requirements, from core functionality to unique features that set you apart. Balancing functionality with usability ensures that the platform not only meets your current needs but also supports your growth and evolves with your business.

Here are some trends I’ve noticed for headless ecommerce technology, plus what they might mean for the future of the marketing industry. I sourced countless product updates, press releases, and release logs to tease out the most important insights. 

  • Emphasis on Omnichannel Experience: Platforms are increasingly focusing on providing seamless shopping experiences across multiple channels, recognizing the need for businesses to meet customers wherever they are.
  • Advanced Personalization Capabilities: There's a rapid evolution in features allowing for deep customer personalization based on behavioral data, ensuring every customer interaction is tailored and relevant.
  • Integration with Emerging Technologies: Novel functionalities include integration with AR/VR for immersive shopping experiences, IoT for smarter product interactions, and AI for predictive analytics and automated customer service.
  • Sustainability Features: Emerging trends also include functionalities that help businesses operate more sustainably, such as carbon footprint calculators and sustainable shipping options.
  • Decentralization of Commerce: The move towards decentralizing ecommerce, allowing for more peer-to-peer transactions and blockchain integrations, marks a novel shift in how ecommerce might function in the future.

Leveraging a headless ecommerce platform that aligns with these evolving trends will be key to creating differentiated, engaging, and efficient online shopping experiences that meet the ever-changing expectations of consumers.

What Is Headless Ecommerce?

A headless ecommerce platform is a type of ecommerce architecture where the front-end (or the "head", which is what the user interacts with) is decoupled from the back-end (the core e-commerce functionality). This separation allows for greater flexibility in designing and updating the user interface, as changes can be made without altering the back-end systems.

The purpose is to use various front-end technologies to deliver a more personalized and seamless shopping experience across different devices and channels. Headless platforms are particularly useful for companies looking to innovate rapidly and tailor their online presence to specific customer needs and behaviors.

Features of Headless Ecommerce Platforms

Ecommerce platforms typically offer a range of key features to facilitate online retail operations. Some of the common key features include:

  1. Product Catalog Management: The ability to easily manage and organize product listings, including categorization, attributes, pricing, and inventory management.
  2. Shopping Cart and Checkout: Seamless shopping cart functionality with multiple payment options and a secure checkout process to facilitate smooth transactions.
  3. Order and Inventory Management: Tools to track and manage orders, including order processing, shipment tracking, and inventory control to ensure accurate stock levels.
  4. Payment Gateway Integration: Integration with popular payment gateways to enable secure and convenient payment processing for customers.
  5. Customer Management: Tools for managing customer accounts, profiles, and order history, as well as features like customer reviews, wish lists, and personalized recommendations.
  6. Marketing and Promotions: Capabilities for creating and managing promotional campaigns, discount codes, coupons, loyalty programs, and targeted marketing campaigns.
  7. Analytics and Reporting: Built-in analytics and reporting features to track sales performance, customer behavior, conversion rates, and other key metrics for informed decision-making.
  8. Mobile Responsiveness: Ensuring that the platform is optimized for mobile devices, providing a seamless user experience across different screen sizes.
  9. SEO and Content Management: Tools for optimizing product pages, managing SEO metadata, and creating and managing content such as blogs, articles, and landing pages.

These features may vary across different ecommerce platforms, and store owners can choose platforms based on their specific needs and requirements.

Benefits of Headless Ecommerce Platforms

Headless ecommerce platforms are revolutionizing the way businesses approach online sales, offering unprecedented flexibility and control over the digital customer experience. By decoupling the front-end presentation layer from the back-end ecommerce functionality, these platforms provide several key advantages that are critical for staying competitive in today's fast-paced market.

  • Enhanced Flexibility: Users can customize and innovate their storefronts without constraints. This allows businesses to tailor their online presence precisely to their brand identity and customer needs, providing a unique shopping experience that stands out in the digital marketplace.
  • Faster Time to Market: Rapid deployment of updates or new features. Businesses can quickly adapt to market trends or customer feedback, deploying updates or new features across all channels simultaneously, ensuring they stay relevant and responsive.
  • Omnichannel Experience: Seamless integration across multiple platforms and devices. By utilizing a headless approach, organizations can ensure consistent and engaging user experiences across web, mobile, social media, and IoT devices, meeting customers wherever they are.
  • Improved Performance and Scalability: Websites load faster and can handle traffic spikes smoothly. The decoupled nature of headless platforms means front-end developers can optimize the site for performance without being bogged down by back-end complexities, ensuring high-speed loading times and the ability to scale during high-traffic events.
  • Better SEO and Marketing Agility: Easier to implement SEO and content marketing strategies. With headless commerce, SEO strategies and marketing content can be updated more swiftly and efficiently, improving search engine rankings and enabling marketers to react quickly to new opportunities or insights.

By focusing on these primary benefits, organizations can make informed decisions that align with their strategic goals, ensuring they harness the full potential of their online presence to drive growth and customer satisfaction.

Cost & Pricing for Headless Ecommerce Platforms

Plan Comparison Table for Headless Ecommerce Platforms

When exploring headless ecommerce platforms, it's vital to understand the diverse range of plan options typically available, which cater to different sizes and types of businesses. These platforms usually offer scalable solutions that grow with your business, from basic setups for startups to more complex configurations for large enterprises. Here’s a general overview:

Plan TypeAverage PriceCommon Features Included
Basic$200 - $500/monthAPI access, community support, basic analytics, limited SKUs
Professional$1,000 - $3,000/monthEnhanced API access, dedicated support, advanced analytics, more SKUs
Enterprise$5,000+/monthCustom API development, 24/7 support, unlimited SKUs, personalized integration assistance
Free Option$0Access to basic API, community forums for support, very limited SKUs

When selecting a plan, consider the size of your product catalog, the level of support you anticipate needing, and your budget. Each plan offers a different set of features designed to match the varying needs of businesses at different stages of growth. It’s crucial to balance the cost against the features and support provided to ensure that the platform you choose can adequately support your business now and as it grows.

Frequently Asked Questions

To make this go-to list of the best headless ecommerce platforms even more comprehensive, I wanted to cover some of the most frequently asked questions on the topic. Here they are:

Additional Ecommerce Platform Reviews

There are plenty of ecommerce platform types to choose from. Here are some similar software review lists that will complement your research of marketplace platform. You can start with the overall best Best Ecommerce Platforms, which contain a little bit of everything ranked in an ultimate list. 

Ecommerce Platforms by Business Type

Ecommerce Platforms by Need

The Takeaway

According to Gitnux, 60% of major retailers in North America are expected to adopt a headless platform by 2025.

Headless ecommerce is great for store owners because it provides them with the flexibility to customize the frontend, integrate with various systems, deliver personalized experiences, and scale their business according to their specific needs and market demands. Additionally, headless ecommerce is great for online shoppers as it enables seamless shopping experiences across multiple channels and devices, personalized recommendations, and a consistent user interface. That sounds like a potential win-win scenario that could net you better customer satisfaction, more control over the way your store website is built and run, and an increase in profits using this hyper-adaptable approach to selling online.

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By Francois Marchand

Francois Marchand is The Ecomm Manager's content strategist and editor. He is passionate about helping and educating business leaders, ecommerce professionals, and digital marketers grow their skill sets to stay ahead of the competition. Francois holds a BA Specialization in Communication Studies & Journalism from Concordia University (Montreal, QC) and 20+ years of experience in ecommerce, marketing, traditional and digital media, and public relations, including The Vancouver Sun, National Post, CBC/Radio-Canada, Unbounce, and Vancouver Film School. He also hosts The Ecomm Manager Podcast, discussing ecommerce best practices, customer experience, branding, inventory management, shipping and delivery, and analytics with expert guests.