Swell
Swell is headless commerce infrastructure for developers, agencies, and brands building buying experiences.
What Swell is
Swell is headless commerce infrastructure for developers, agencies, and brands building buying experiences. It supports physical and digital products, services, and subscriptions. Merchants can use customizable hosted storefronts or build headless storefronts hosted elsewhere, while serving retail and wholesale customers from one store with native pricing and account management. Subscription tools include flexible schedules, prepaid plans, subscriber portals, pause or skip options, separate invoicing and fulfillment, and automatic retries for failed card payments. Sellers can localize content and pricing and support multiple currencies and languages. Swell provides backend and frontend APIs, and its backend API offers full CRUD capabilities for data models using a secret key. It connects with 40+ services, including Braintree, Klaviyo, PayPal, Vercel, Affirm, Amazon Pay, and Apple Pay. All plans include email and live chat support; higher tiers include priority support. Starter is $29 a month, billed yearly. Annual plans have revenue ceilings and percentage fees on sales above those limits. There is no free plan, but a free trial is available.
Good
- Supports physical and digital goods, services, and subscriptions
- Offers hosted and headless storefront options
- Includes subscription pauses, skips, and payment retries
- Connects with 40+ services
Watch out
- No free plan
- Starter is billed yearly at $29 a month
- Plans set revenue ceilings and fees above them
Who it suits
Swell suits developers, agencies, and brands that want to build hosted or headless storefronts and sell goods, services, or subscriptions. Its tools also serve businesses managing wholesale customers, international sales, or custom API workflows.
Verdict
Swell combines storefront options, subscription management, APIs, and integrations in a commerce platform. Check the annual revenue ceilings and over-ceiling fees when assessing its plans.
Plans and prices
From Swell's own pricing page, checked 12 Oct 2026.
| Plan | Price | What it gives you |
|---|---|---|
| Starter | $29 a month | 2 admin users · $50K revenue ceiling · 100K monthly API requests · billed yearly |
| Basic | $79 a month | 5 admin users · $250K revenue ceiling · 500K monthly API requests · billed yearly |
| Standard | $299 a month | 15 admin users · $1M revenue ceiling · 2M monthly API requests · billed yearly |
| Unlimited | $2,250 a month | Unlimited admin users · $5M revenue ceiling · 5M monthly function calls · billed yearly |
| Custom | Priced on request | Negotiated pricing · for merchants doing over $10M in annual sales |
The facts
Each one read from Swell's own pages, with the date it was checked.
What it does
- Commerce types
- The platform supports selling physical and digital goods and services, including subscriptions.checked 12 Oct 2026
- Developer access
- Swell provides backend and frontend APIs, and its backend API offers full CRUD capabilities for data models using a secret key.checked 12 Oct 2026
- Integrations
- Swell says it connects with 40+ services for marketing, payments, fulfillment, automation, and more.checked 12 Oct 2026
- International selling
- The site says merchants can localize content and pricing and support multiple currencies and languages.checked 12 Oct 2026
- Named integrations
- The integrations page lists services including Braintree, Klaviyo, PayPal, Vercel, Affirm, Amazon Pay, and Apple Pay.checked 12 Oct 2026
- Paid from
- 29checked 20 Sep 2026
- Payment handling
- Swell says it does not store or collect payment card details and names Stripe as a payment processor.checked 12 Oct 2026
- Product
- Swell describes itself as headless commerce infrastructure for developers, agencies, and brands to build buying experiences.checked 12 Oct 2026
- Security and privacy
- Swell says it uses commercially acceptable measures to protect personal data but cannot guarantee absolute security.checked 12 Oct 2026
- Storefronts
- Swell supports customizable hosted storefronts and headless storefronts that can be hosted anywhere.checked 12 Oct 2026
- Subscription tools
- Merchants can set flexible subscription schedules, separate invoicing from fulfillment, and automatically retry failed card payments.checked 12 Oct 2026
- Support
- All plans include email and live chat support for configuration and operational questions; higher tiers include priority support.checked 12 Oct 2026
- Who it is for
- Swell describes its infrastructure as intended for innovative developers, agencies, and brands.checked 12 Oct 2026
- Wholesale
- Swell supports retail and wholesale customers in one store with native pricing and account management tools.checked 12 Oct 2026
Money
- Free plan
- Nochecked 20 Sep 2026
- Plan limits
- Pricing tiers set annual revenue ceilings from $50K to $5M, with percentage fees on sales above the ceiling.checked 12 Oct 2026
Alternatives to Swell
- 1
WooCommerce
Free planOpen sourceAndroidiOSWebAPI9.4From $29 a year - 2
nopCommerce
Free planOpen sourceAndroidiOSWebAPI9.4$499 one-time - 3
Sylius
Free planOpen sourceAndroidiOSWebAPI9.2From €800 a year - 4
Wix eCommerce
Free planAndroidiOSWebAPI8.9From $17.77 a month - 5
Payhip
Free planAndroidiOSWebAPI8.8From $29 a month - 6
Tiendanube
Free planAndroidiOSWebAPI8.8From 27,999 ARS a month