# Swell review (2026): is it worth $29 a month, billed yearly? > Headless-ready store platform for subscriptions and B2B Checked Nov 12, 2026 ยท graded Nov 12, 2026 by ToolGPA. Swell is a hosted ecommerce platform that runs a store on a theme with a visual builder or as a headless backend through its APIs. It has built-in subscriptions, wholesale pricing, multi-currency and multi-language selling, and a hosted or custom checkout. - **Category:** Online Store Builders - **Made by:** Swell - **Website:** https://www.swell.is - **Runs on:** Web - **Who should skip it:** Watch out: each plan has a trailing 12-month sales ceiling, then 2% on Starter, 1.5% Basic, 1% Standard and 0.4% Unlimited. - **Facts last checked:** Nov 12, 2026 ## Pricing As of Nov 12, 2026, Swell is a paid product with a free trial, starting at $29 per month, billed yearly. - **Pricing model:** Free trial - **Free plan:** None. - **Free trial:** Free trial on every self-serve plan; the pricing page does not state its length. | Plan | Price | What you get | | --- | --- | --- | | Starter | $29 per month, billed yearly | Up to 2 admin users, $50K annual sales ceiling, basic reports, 100K API requests a month and 1GB of storage. | | Basic | $79 per month, billed yearly | Up to 5 admin users, $250K annual sales ceiling, basic reports, 500K API requests a month and 3GB of storage. | | Standard | $299 per month, billed yearly | Up to 15 admin users, $1M sales ceiling, advanced reports, priority support, international price lists and 2M API requests. | | Unlimited | $2250 per month, billed yearly | Unlimited admin users, $5M sales ceiling, role-based permissions, developer support and 5M monthly function calls. | | Custom | Custom | For merchants above $10M in annual sales: negotiated pricing and priority technical support. Sold through sales. | Read from https://www.swell.is/pricing on Nov 12, 2026. Prices change, so confirm with Swell before buying. ## Ways to pay less - **Save 25% by paying yearly** (Annual discount): The pricing page toggles between monthly and yearly billing and labels yearly billing as a 25% saving. Source: https://www.swell.is/pricing ## Key features - **Built-in subscriptions:** Sell physical or virtual products as subscriptions with flexible order schedules and separate invoicing from fulfillment, on every plan. - **Wholesale and B2B pricing:** Serve retail and wholesale buyers from one store, with customer groups, bulk price rules and account management. - **Themes or headless:** Use a visual store builder and themes, upload Shopify themes, or run a headless storefront on the frontend and backend APIs. - **Multi-gateway payments:** Connect several gateways at once, including Stripe, Authorize.Net and PayPal, with split payments, saved cards and BNPL options. - **Localization:** Set prices in explicit currencies, add locales for multiple languages, and apply region-specific payment methods. - **Swell Apps and functions:** Extend the store with custom full-stack apps, app functions and a developer console for API calls and logs. ## Good for - Subscription and replenishment brands that need recurring billing natively - Merchants mixing retail and wholesale customers in one catalog - Developer teams wanting a hosted backend with an API-first storefront ## Worth knowing - Each plan has a trailing 12-month sales ceiling; above it a percentage fee applies: 2% on Starter, 1.5% Basic, 1% Standard, 0.4% Unlimited. - API requests, function calls and storage are capped per plan; extra usage is billed at $5 per 100K requests or calls and $5 per extra GB. - Role-based permissions and developer support appear only on the Unlimited plan, and the trial length is not stated. ## ToolGPA grades **GPA: 2.2 out of 4**, graded Nov 12, 2026. Swell is a store platform with built-in subscriptions, B2B pricing and headless or theme-based stores, from $29 a month billed yearly. Each plan has a sales ceiling and usage caps with a percentage fee above it, and its trial length is not stated. - **Value for money: C.** Starter is $29 a month billed yearly, level with the middle of the category. Basic is $79 and Standard $299. - **Free plan and trial: D.** Every self-serve plan has a free trial, but the page does not say how long it lasts or whether a card is needed. - **Features: B.** Subscriptions, wholesale pricing, themes or headless, several gateways, localization and apps. The listing shows no gap in core store work. - **Ease of use: C.** No store rating on record. Headless setups and functions mean building and configuring. - **Platforms and integrations: B.** Web only, with an API, apps and functions, and Stripe, Authorize.Net, PayPal, Amazon Pay and Affirm. These are ToolGPA's own grades. Graded from this listing, whose facts were read from Swell's own pages on 12 November 2026. Not based on using the product, and shorter than our full reviews. ## Where it stands among online store builders - Swell's GPA of 2.2 is higher than 43 of the 80 other online store builders we grade, and level with 16. - It stands best on features (B, above 60 of 80) and worst on free plan and trial (D, above 23). - Its paid plans start at $29 a month, against a middle price of $29.25 for the category: 17 of the 44 others that charge start lower. - On features, ease of use and platforms it scores 2.7 out of 4. 2 tools score higher and cost less. The category's chart of price against score: https://toolgpa.com/charts/online-stores ## Keep it, or make your own? **Keep it.** To replace Swell you would be making checkout, card payments and sales tax handled for you. That is not a weekend's work, with an AI app builder or without one. It costs $348 a year. - You could make: Inventory and digital downloads: an app builder makes these well. - You could not: Checkout, card payments and sales tax handled for you. - You could not: It plugs into other products, Stripe, Authorize.Net and PayPal among them, and has an API. - You could not: The depth: we grade its features B, which means it covers the whole job. A judgement by ToolGPA from this listing, by rules that are the same for every tool. Nothing was built to test it. ## Works with Stripe, Authorize.Net, PayPal, Amazon Pay, Affirm, Avalara **Tags:** Online store, Public API, Inventory, Digital downloads ## Alternatives - [Shopify](https://toolgpa.com/tools/shopify): Hosted commerce platform for online, in-person and social selling. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/shopify-vs-swell) - [Medusa](https://toolgpa.com/tools/medusa): Open-source commerce framework for developers. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/medusa-vs-swell) - [Saleor](https://toolgpa.com/tools/saleor): Open-source headless commerce with managed Cloud hosting. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/saleor-vs-swell) - [Subbly](https://toolgpa.com/tools/subbly): Store and subscription platform for subscription-box businesses. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/subbly-vs-swell) - [BigCommerce](https://toolgpa.com/tools/bigcommerce): Hosted ecommerce platform with plans set by yearly sales. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/bigcommerce-vs-swell) ## Sources The prices, plans, platforms and features above were read from these pages on Nov 12, 2026: - https://www.swell.is/pricing - https://www.swell.is/ Page: https://toolgpa.com/tools/swell Listed by ToolGPA (toolgpa.com).