InMinutes vs Shopify vs Durable: Free Website Builder With No Fees for Local Business

Quick answer: InMinutes is best for local businesses that need a store, booking and SEO all in one plan — no setup fees, 0% platform fees on payments, and a live site in minutes. Shopify wins if you're running a serious ecommerce operation and don't need appointment booking. Durable is the choice if you want a completely free draft to test with no credit card.

What 'free with no fees' actually means: platform fees vs. processing costs

When a builder claims to be "free with no fees," it usually means one of two things — and they are not the same.

Platform fees are what the builder charges you for hosting, features and support. A 0% platform fee means the website platform itself costs nothing.

Payment processing fees are what Stripe, PayPal or another card processor charges you when a customer pays. These typically run about 2.9% + 30¢ in the US and are separate from the platform.

A truly "free with no fees" builder is rare. Most either charge a platform fee, lock you into their own payment processor at a higher fee, or both. When you see a plan that looks free, the booking feature or the store often lives behind a separate paid subscription, or card fees are baked into a higher tier.

InMinutes, Shopify and Durable each solve this differently — and each trade off something in return.

InMinutes — best for store, booking & SEO in one $49 plan with 0% platform fees

InMinutes is an AI website builder that generates a complete, professional multi-page site from a short description in minutes.

The key difference: you edit by chatting with it in plain language ("make the hero darker," "add a services page") instead of dragging templates around or wrestling with code. It builds everything at once — a homepage, services or products page, contact form, blog, online store with checkout, appointment booking, invoicing, SEO (including LocalBusiness JSON-LD and geo/llms.txt), and a client CRM.

The Pro plan at $49/month is where the store and 0% platform fees unlock. That $49 includes the online store with checkout, appointment booking, blogging, and invoicing — all of it running through your own Stripe or PayPal account with 0% InMinutes platform fees. You pay only the card processor (about 2.9% + 30¢), nothing to InMinutes.

The Free plan ($0/month) gives you one draft site and 200 AI tokens, but no publishing. New subscribers get a 3-day free Pro trial, so you can test the store and chat editing before deciding.

Booking exists on every plan, including Free. If you only take cash or post-dated checks and never charge a card at booking time, Free is genuinely free forever. The moment you want to take a deposit or card payment at the booking stage, you move to Pro for the Stripe connection.

The Business plan ($99/month) has identical features to Pro and simply doubles your monthly AI tokens, so it's only for builders who regenerate or edit their site very frequently.

For a local service business — salon, gym, dentist, contractor, consultant — that needs both online booking and a product store (or even just a homepage and blog with SEO), InMinutes at $49/month undercuts almost every other builder because you're not assembling booking, store, CRM and SEO from separate monthly subscriptions. You get all four in one place, with no platform transaction fees.

The trade-off: chat-based editing is fast for most changes but not as visual as drag-and-drop. If you live in Figma or WordPress and need pixel-perfect control, you'll feel constrained. And if your only need is a static brochure site with no booking or store, you're paying for features you don't use.

Shopify — best if you prioritize ecommerce over booking and need a dedicated store

Shopify starts at $27/month (as of 2026-08-06) and is purpose-built for online retail.

It has no appointment booking feature. If you're a product business — selling t-shirts, jewelry, digital downloads, or anything you ship or deliver — Shopify is the industry standard. The ecosystem of apps, fulfillment integrations, inventory management and payment processors is unmatched. Thousands of sellers have built 7-figure stores on Shopify.

But that strength is also its narrow focus. Shopify's entry-level plan does not include SEO tools, blogging, invoicing, or a CRM. Those are separate add-on subscriptions. And if you ever need to take appointment bookings (even a simple "book a consultation call"), you'll need a third-party calendar app.

The real cost of Shopify for a multi-function business — store plus booking plus CRM plus email — is several separate subscriptions layered on top of the platform, which adds up quickly.

For a pure ecommerce business with no service bookings, Shopify is the right choice. For anything hybrid — a salon with a retail product shop, a coach with digital course sales, a photographer selling prints — the assembly of separate tools and plans makes it less economical than InMinutes.

Durable — best if you want a genuinely free draft site, no credit card required

Durable offers a completely free draft website with no credit card required upfront.

This is the lowest possible barrier to entry. You get a site you can build and test for free, with no payment information on file. That's genuinely useful if you're not sure you need a website yet or you want to kick the tires before committing.

The limitation is that it stays a draft. A free Durable site is not published to the internet. Once you want to go live, you move to a paid tier, and the free plan becomes a starting point rather than a final product.

Durable is best for someone in the "I'm not sure yet" phase — you want to see what a real website looks like with your business on it before you pay. InMinutes' 3-day free Pro trial solves this for most people, but if you want to take your time and have no time pressure, Durable's no-credit-card option removes all friction.

Comparison table: free website builders with no fees explained

Which should you pick: your real decision criteria

Pick Shopify if you run a product-first business — retail goods, digital products, or anything you're selling at scale without appointment bookings. Accept that you'll add separate subscriptions for booking, CRM, email and blogging.

Pick Durable if you're still deciding whether you need a website at all and want to draft one free with zero payment commitment. When you're ready to publish, the economics will likely push you toward one of the other options.

Pick InMinutes if you're a local service business, solo professional, or small multi-function business that needs store, booking, invoicing and SEO under one roof. At $49/month with 0% platform fees and a live site in minutes, it's the fastest and most cost-effective route to a complete online presence. The 3-day free Pro trial lets you test the chat editing and publish a real site before you decide.

Ready to launch your site? Start your free trial with InMinutes and have a live website with booking and store features in minutes. No credit card required for the 3-day Pro trial.