Do I need a website to sell on Instagram?
DMs work for a while. When they stop working, what a shop page fixes, and what it costs.
See the templatesThe short answer: no, not to start. Plenty of makers sell through Instagram DMs and bank transfers. It stops working when you are spending your evenings answering "how much is this" and chasing payments. That is the point a shop page earns its keep.
What DMs cost you
Every sale is a conversation: price, postage, size, bank details, "has it arrived". Twenty sales is twenty conversations. A shop page has the price, the postage and the payment on it, and the order arrives in your email with the money already taken.
What you need
- A page per product or a simple grid: photo, price, a short description, a buy button
- Card payments through your own Stripe account, which pays you out directly
- Your postage rules written down once
- Your Instagram linking to it from the bio
Shopify or your own?
Shopify is £30 a month on the basic plan plus a cut of each sale. It is built for big ranges. If you sell a few dozen things, a simple shop of your own is cheaper and does the same job. Ours is £99 to set up and £20 a month, with card payments at 1.9% + 20p through your own Stripe account, so the money goes to you and not through us.
Keep Instagram
Instagram still does the showing. The shop page does the selling. Put the link in your bio and in every post caption, and let the page answer the questions.
Prices in this post were checked on 2 October 2026.
Want to see yours? Pick a website template and fill it in for free. You only pay when you want it live. Already have a site? Bring it in and we fill a template from it.