Big Cartel vs Notify Me
Features, use cases, pros and cons, and pricing side by side — and which one to pick.
Best for: Hobbyist makers — jewelry creators, printmakers, crafters — launching their first online shop on the free $0/month plan, Bands and musicians who want to sell merchandise directly to fans without paying for retail features they won't use
Read the full Big Cartel reviewBest for: Shopify stores with frequent stockouts or limited product drops, Merchants who want to collect emails from shoppers hitting sold-out pages
Read the full Notify Me reviewCommission may apply at no extra cost
Big Cartel vs Notify Me: features compared
Compare key features side by side
Feature Comparison Summary
Which should you choose?
Choose Big Cartel if
- A free trial matters to your buying decision
Choose Notify Me if
- You sell on Shopify or BigCommerce with frequent stockouts
- You need back-in-stock alerts, preorders, and wishlists
- You want Klaviyo or Mailchimp sync, plus REST API and MCP
Big Cartel vs Notify Me: pros and cons
Big Cartel
Big Cartel strips ecommerce back to the basics artists actually need: a customizable storefront, product listings, order management, and flat pricing from $0 to $90 a month with no hidden fees. The intentionally minimal toolset and $90/month ceiling mean big catalogs will outgrow it. Overall, it's a low-risk launchpad for creative side hustles and first shops.
Pros
- A free plan at $0 per month lets you open a real store with no upfront investment, which is rare among ecommerce platforms
- Flat monthly pricing from $0 to $90 with no hidden fees keeps costs predictable instead of fluctuating with your sales
- The interface is simple enough for non-technical creatives to launch a shop quickly without developer help
Cons
- The feature set is intentionally minimal, so sellers who need advanced shipping rules, marketing automation, or a large app ecosystem may outgrow it
- The $90 per month top plan is the pricing ceiling, and high-volume stores with large catalogs may find better value on platforms built for scale
- Third-party review coverage is thin, which makes it harder to benchmark long-term user satisfaction before committing
Notify Me
Notify Me! turns sold-out pages into waitlists, pre-orders, and wishlists, then feeds demand signals into Klaviyo, Mailchimp, Omnisend, and PushOwl. Its 4.9/5 rating across 3,400-plus reviews shows real recovery power, but it's locked to Shopify and BigCommerce and SMS costs vary by country. Overall, it's a strong pick for stores losing sales to stockouts.
Pros
- Bundles four revenue-recovery tools — back-in-stock alerts, pre-orders, wishlists, and low-stock reminders — into one app, replacing what would otherwise require several single-purpose subscriptions
- Proven at scale — 35,000+ Shopify and BigCommerce stores, $502M+ in recovered merchant sales, and a 4.9/5 Shopify App Store rating across 3,400+ verified reviews with 97% five-star feedback
- Alerts sync natively into Klaviyo, Mailchimp, Omnisend, and PushOwl, and widgets work with page builders like PageFly, GemPages, and EComposer — no CSV exports or glue code required
Cons
- Built exclusively for Shopify and BigCommerce — merchants on WooCommerce, Magento, or custom platforms can't use it
- SMS and WhatsApp messages are billed separately at rates that vary by country, so total notification costs are hard to predict until you check the per-country rate tables
- Setup isn't fully self-serve — some reviewers needed support help integrating widgets with their themes or handling product variants
Big Cartel and Notify Me in detail
Big Cartel
Big Cartel is a hosted ecommerce website builder designed for DIY makers and artists. It provides the core tools of an online store — product listings, a customizable storefront, and order management — in a package simple enough for someone with no technical background. The platform's entire focus is helping independent creatives sell their goods and grow from a first sale into a sustainable shop.
Standout features
- Customizable Storefront Themes
- Product and Inventory Management
- Order Management
- Built for Creative Sellers
Use cases
- Launching a First Shop for Handmade Goods
- Selling Band Merchandise Directly to Fans
- Selling Art Prints and Photography
- Testing a Side Hustle Before Going Professional
Notify Me
Notify Me! is a Shopify and BigCommerce app that turns out-of-stock moments into revenue. It replaces "Sold out" buttons with waitlist signups, preorder options, and wishlists, then feeds those signals into your email and marketing tools. It's built for e-commerce merchants who want to capture demand on products they can't currently ship—from small brands to the 35,000+ stores already using it.
Standout features
- Turn "Sold out" into signups
- Keep selling with pre-orders
- Wishlists that reveal demand
- Plugs into the stack you already run
- Built for developers, too
Use cases
- Turn sold-out pages into waitlists
- Keep selling through supply gaps
- Gauge demand with wishlists
- Feed alerts into your marketing stack
Pricing compared
List prices from each vendor's pricing page, before taxes and add-ons. Costs are per month.
| Pricing compared | Big Cartel | Notify Me |
|---|---|---|
| From (cheapest paid plan) | $15/mo Tools to grow your sales | $19.90/mo Starter |
| Free plan | No | Yes Lifetime caps: 100 back-in-stock requests, 5 SMS, 5 WhatsApp messages, 5 pre-orders, 50 wishlist actions; 10 notifications/month |
| Free trial | Not stated | Not stated |
| Money-back guarantee | Not stated | 30 days |
| Annual billing savings | — | Up to 20% |
| Pricing model | Flat price | Flat price |
| Cost for 1 user | $15/mo Tools to grow your sales plan, billed monthly | FreeCheaper Free plan, billed monthly |
| Cost for 5 users | $15/mo Tools to grow your sales plan, billed monthly · price per account (user limit not stated) | $19.90/mo Starter plan, billed monthly · price per account (user limit not stated) |
| Cost for 10 users | $15/mo Tools to grow your sales plan, billed monthly · price per account (user limit not stated) | $19.90/mo Starter plan, billed monthly · price per account (user limit not stated) |
| Cost for 25 users | $15/mo Tools to grow your sales plan, billed monthly · price per account (user limit not stated) | $19.90/mo Starter plan, billed monthly · price per account (user limit not stated) |
| Plans | 3 | 6 |
| Prices checked | Checked Oct 13, 2026 | Vendor page checked Oct 13, 2026 |
| Price history | Tracking prices since Oct 1, 2026. No price change detected yet. | Tracking prices since Sep 9, 2026. No price change detected yet. |
- Cheapest plan that fits each team size. Per-user plans are multiplied by the number of users (respecting stated minimums and seat packs). Plans that include some users cost their base price plus the extra-user price for each user beyond those included. Flat-priced plans with no stated user limit are counted as one licence per user.
Cheaper for your team size
For 1 user (billed monthly), Notify Me costs $0/mo vs Big Cartel at $15/mo.
- Only Notify Me has a free plan.
Computed from published list prices on the dates shown. Excludes taxes, add-ons and promotions.
More comparisons
Frequently Asked Questions
What does Notify Me integrate with?
It syncs with Klaviyo, Mailchimp, Omnisend, and PushOwl, works with PageFly, GemPages, and EComposer, and offers a REST API plus MCP server. Big Cartel's integrations aren't documented here.