Free E-commerce Plans in Nepal Compared: What You Actually Get

What “Free” Actually Means for Nepali Online Stores

Every platform promises a free start. The reality in Nepal is that “free” almost always has a ceiling — on products, on transactions, or on which payment methods you can connect. Before you spend three days setting up a store only to hit a wall at checkout, it helps to understand what each model actually delivers.

There are three distinct free models operating in Nepal right now: marketplaces, classified listing sites, and store builders with free tiers. Each solves a different problem, and each has different hidden costs.

Marketplaces: Free to List, Not Free to Sell

Platforms like Daraz and SastoDeal let you list products at no upfront cost. You don’t pay a monthly fee. But the moment a sale happens, a commission is deducted — a percentage of the order value plus a payment handling fee. The exact rate varies by category, and “boost” or featured-listing tools you’ll be nudged toward are not free.

What you give up on a marketplace:

• Brand identity — your shop lives inside their platform, not on your own domain
• Customer data — you rarely get buyer contact details for remarketing
• Pricing control — platform-wide sale events pressure you to discount during Dashain and Tihar
• Logistics flexibility — you’re often tied to their courier partnerships or fulfillment rules

For products already in demand that need discovery, a marketplace can work. For building a recognisable brand or running a specialty store, the trade-offs compound quickly.

Classified Sites: Useful for Testing, Not for Running a Store

Hamrobazar is Nepal’s most-used classified platform and genuinely free to post on. You can add listings, attach photos, and receive inquiries. But it is not an e-commerce store — there is no cart, no integrated payment, no inventory tracking, and no order management. Every transaction is negotiated manually, usually over phone or Messenger.

This works fine for selling a second-hand item or a one-off handmade piece. For any business that wants to accept eSewa or Khalti at checkout, or track which sizes are selling out, it breaks down immediately. COD means arranging your own courier with no platform-level tracking.

Store Builders with Free Tiers: Where the Real Comparison Happens

This is the category most Nepali entrepreneurs need to examine carefully, because the gap between free tiers varies enormously. The marketing all sounds similar; the fine print does not.

Common restrictions on free store-builder plans in Nepal:

• Product limits — some cap you at 5–20 products. Fine for a proof of concept, useless for a real catalogue.
• No custom domain — your store URL is platform.com/yourshop instead of yourshop.com, which looks unprofessional and hurts SEO from day one.
• Digital payment locked behind a paid plan — some platforms require an upgrade before you can connect eSewa or Khalti, which means your free store can only accept COD.
• Transaction fees on free plans — certain platforms charge 2–5% per sale on top of the payment gateway’s own cut. During a Dashain rush this is a serious margin hit.
• No POS sync — if you also run a physical counter, a free plan rarely keeps your in-store and online stock in sync.
• No discount or coupon tools — running a Tihar promotion without coupon codes means editing prices manually and resetting them after.

Saauzi’s free plan is one of the few built specifically for Nepal’s conditions — eSewa and Khalti are available without forcing an immediate upgrade, COD is supported, and the platform handles PAN/VAT invoice generation that IRD-compliant businesses need. That combination of local payment support plus compliance tooling on a free tier is not universal, and it matters when you’re just starting out and every rupee counts.

eSewa and Khalti Fees Apply No Matter What Platform You Use

This is the piece most beginners overlook: even on a completely “free” store plan, digital payment gateways are not free. eSewa and Khalti both charge merchants a processing fee on every transaction — the exact rate depends on your merchant agreement and transaction volume. This is not a platform charge; it comes directly from the payment provider and applies universally.

COD has its own cost structure too. If you’re using a courier like Pathao, Porter, or a regional logistics service, the courier charges a COD remittance fee when they collect cash and transfer it to you. This can be a flat amount per order or a percentage. Budget for it from day one; it directly affects your margin on low-ticket items.

VAT, PAN, and Compliance on Free Plans

If your annual turnover crosses the VAT registration threshold (currently NPR 50 lakhs for goods), you are legally required to register and issue proper VAT invoices. Many free store plans do not include invoice generation, which means managing compliance manually — workable for a micro-business, risky as you scale.

Even below that threshold, PAN registration is expected for formal business operations. Before picking a platform, confirm whether the free plan can generate proper tax documents or whether you’ll need a separate accounting tool running alongside it. Adding that tool often negates whatever you saved by staying on a free plan.

Dashain and Tihar: When Limits Hit at the Worst Moment

Nepal’s two biggest shopping seasons generate order spikes that can be 3–5× a normal month for many SMBs. This is exactly when free-plan restrictions become painful:

• Product upload caps mean you can’t add seasonal stock without deleting existing listings
• No promotional tools means you can’t run festival discount campaigns without manually editing every price
• Bandwidth or storage limits on some platforms slow your store precisely when traffic peaks
• Free-tier customer support is slow or unavailable, leaving you without help during your busiest week of the year

Test your platform’s free limits well before October — not during Dashain week when fixing a problem costs you real orders.

Seven Things to Check Before Committing to Any Free Plan

1. How many products can I list? — get the exact number, not “unlimited with conditions”
2. Can I accept eSewa and Khalti on the free plan? — or is that an upgrade feature?
3. Are there per-transaction fees on top of the gateway? — separate from eSewa/Khalti’s own cut
4. Do I get a custom domain? — critical for brand credibility and long-term SEO
5. Can I generate PAN/VAT invoices? — or will compliance require a separate tool?
6. Is COD available without an upgrade? — still the dominant payment method in many parts of Nepal
7. What happens when I hit the limit? — forced immediate upgrade, or does the store pause gracefully?

The Bottom Line

Free plans are a legitimate starting point for Nepali entrepreneurs who want to test before investing. But not all free tiers are built for Nepal’s actual conditions — eSewa/Khalti at checkout, COD logistics, VAT compliance, and festival-season demand spikes require features that many platforms lock behind a paid plan.

Before committing, run a 30-minute audit: create a test product, attempt to connect a digital payment method, and generate a test invoice. That exercise will reveal the real free tier faster than any comparison table. If a platform blocks two of those three steps without payment, you already know where the hidden upgrade wall is.