Roots HQ vs. Whatnot

Buyers check out on the seller’s own branded checkout — Roots HQ does not operate a marketplace checkout of its own.

Purchases complete inside Whatnot’s own in-app checkout. Source: https://help.whatnot.com/hc/en-us/articles/4406544597773-Pack-and-ship-your-order, read 2026-10-03.

Roots HQ runs the till and books the sale against the same inventory as every other channel. The card itself is taken by YOUR connected Square account — Square processes the payment and you remain the merchant of record. Roots HQ records the total, the processor's transaction reference and the payment status; it never stores card details.

Not offered by this product today, as far as we could confirm from its own documentation.

Built in at no extra cost and no separate app — this is how the product ships out of the box.

Built in at no extra cost and no separate app — this is how the product ships out of the box.

Built in at no extra cost and no separate app — this is how the product ships out of the box.

Built in at no extra cost and no separate app — this is how the product ships out of the box.

Built in at no extra cost and no separate app — this is how the product ships out of the box.

Built in at no extra cost and no separate app — this is how the product ships out of the box.

Built in at no extra cost and no separate app — this is how the product ships out of the box.

Built in at no extra cost and no separate app — this is how the product ships out of the box.

Built in at no extra cost and no separate app — this is how the product ships out of the box.

Not confirmed in Whatnot's official public documentation on 2026-10-03, so not rated.

Built in at no extra cost and no separate app — this is how the product ships out of the box.

Not a feature Whatnot documents for sellers. Source: https://help.whatnot.com/hc/en-us/articles/40214218704269-Protect-yourself-from-phishing-emails, read 2026-10-03.

Both halves are real and enforced: a global IP deny/blocklist (checked on every request) plus a per-tenant IP allow-list (checked at login and on every authenticated admin request) with CIDR range support. The allow-list only starts restricting access once a tenant adds at least one entry — an empty list means no restriction, not "deny everyone."

Not a feature Whatnot documents for sellers. Source: https://help.whatnot.com/hc/en-us/articles/40214218704269-Protect-yourself-from-phishing-emails, read 2026-10-03.

Enforced at login: sign-in is refused with a 403 when the resolved country is on the blocked list, or (if an allow-list is configured) not on it — a real access-control gate, not just reporting.

Not a feature Whatnot documents for sellers. Source: https://help.whatnot.com/hc/en-us/articles/40214218704269-Protect-yourself-from-phishing-emails, read 2026-10-03.

Each Tap-to-Pay device gets its own short-lived (24-hour) access token minted from a server-held refresh token — never the merchant’s main credential — and that one device’s token can be revoked individually without affecting any other device.

Not a feature Whatnot documents for sellers. Source: https://help.whatnot.com/hc/en-us/articles/40214218704269-Protect-yourself-from-phishing-emails, read 2026-10-03.

Issuing and renewing the HTTPS certificate for a connected custom domain is fully automated (Let’s Encrypt via certbot), with safety checks before every nginx reload and automatic rollback if anything fails.

Not a feature Whatnot documents for sellers. Source: https://help.whatnot.com/hc/en-us/articles/40214218704269-Protect-yourself-from-phishing-emails, read 2026-10-03.

Built in at no extra cost and no separate app — this is how the product ships out of the box.

Not confirmed in Whatnot's official public documentation on 2026-10-03, so not rated.

Built in at no extra cost and no separate app — this is how the product ships out of the box.

Sales happen in Whatnot's marketplace (Shows, Marketplace, Shop); no seller-owned independent storefront was found in Whatnot's documentation. Source: https://help.whatnot.com/hc/en-us/articles/31084236928909-Premier-Shop-Program, read 2026-10-03.

Scoped to the customer contact list specifically (see “Data export” below for the exportable proof of this) — not a claim that every business record is exportable.

Whatnot retains the buyer relationship; sellers can export top-buyer analytics and order reports (buyer username, state, country) but no contact details or portable customer list were found. Source: https://help.whatnot.com/hc/en-us/articles/12231027226637-Track-performance-with-Seller-Analytics, read 2026-10-03.

Built in at no extra cost and no separate app — this is how the product ships out of the box.

By definition — Whatnot is a marketplace app, not an independent site the seller controls. Source: https://help.whatnot.com/hc/en-us/articles/360061197472-Whatnot-Community-Guidelines, read 2026-10-03.

Built in at no extra cost and no separate app — this is how the product ships out of the box.

No CRM/contact-record feature was found in Whatnot's seller documentation. Source: https://help.whatnot.com/hc/en-us/articles/36772664621837-Seller-Weekly-Orders-Report, read 2026-10-03.

Built in at no extra cost and no separate app — this is how the product ships out of the box.

No CRM-style contact records or tags were found in Whatnot's seller documentation (DMs and Rewards Club tiers exist). Source: https://help.whatnot.com/hc/en-us/articles/6590759272845-Direct-messages-for-sellers, read 2026-10-03.

Admin-only, audit-logged CSV export of the contact list and consolidated multi-channel sales (api/src/routes/export.ts). This is NOT a full-account export or backup: no such feature exists, and workspace deletion is a platform-owner action with no self-service pre-deletion export step.

Whatnot lets sellers export show reports, order history, ledger entries and top-buyer data as CSV; no export of buyer contact details or a unified cross-channel sales export was found. Source: https://help.whatnot.com/hc/en-us/articles/36107067835533-Export-a-Show-Report-CSV, read 2026-10-03.

Built in at no extra cost and no separate app — this is how the product ships out of the box.

Real and shipped, but narrower than the feature name suggests. See the note on this cell for the specific boundary.

Built in at no extra cost and no separate app — this is how the product ships out of the box.

No custom-domain feature was found in Whatnot's seller documentation. Source: https://help.whatnot.com/hc/en-us/articles/360061602851-Start-selling-on-Whatnot, read 2026-10-03.

Built in at no extra cost and no separate app — this is how the product ships out of the box.

Real and shipped, but narrower than the feature name suggests. See the note on this cell for the specific boundary.

Built in at no extra cost and no separate app — this is how the product ships out of the box.

Not confirmed in Whatnot's official public documentation on 2026-10-03, so not rated.

Shipping integrations — Beta. Integrations with Shippo, Envia.com and ShipStation are built, with real-account verification still pending. Live label purchasing is not available.

Real and shipped, but narrower than the feature name suggests. See the note on this cell for the specific boundary.

Built in at no extra cost and no separate app — this is how the product ships out of the box.

Real and shipped, but narrower than the feature name suggests. See the note on this cell for the specific boundary.

Built in at no extra cost and no separate app — this is how the product ships out of the box.

Real and shipped, but narrower than the feature name suggests. See the note on this cell for the specific boundary.

Built in at no extra cost and no separate app — this is how the product ships out of the box.

Real and shipped, but narrower than the feature name suggests. See the note on this cell for the specific boundary.

Built in at no extra cost and no separate app — this is how the product ships out of the box.

Whatnot offers Rewards Club tiers; general customer segmentation was not found. Source: https://help.whatnot.com/hc/en-us/articles/27689721056909-Rewards-Club, read 2026-10-03.

Campaigns are composed, scheduled and sent from Roots HQ against a list you own. Delivery runs through YOUR own SMTP provider, billed to you — Roots HQ does not resell email sending, so deliverability is your provider's, not ours.

Sellers can send in-app DMs to opted-in users; no seller email-campaign tool was found. Source: https://help.whatnot.com/hc/en-us/articles/6590759272845-Direct-messages-for-sellers, read 2026-10-03.

Built in at no extra cost and no separate app — this is how the product ships out of the box.

Whatnot’s own policy explicitly prohibits randomizer/prize wheels while selling on its platform. Source: https://help.whatnot.com/hc/en-us/articles/4410443596813-Gambling-and-Purchase-Based-Prize-Policy, read 2026-10-03.

Built in at no extra cost and no separate app — this is how the product ships out of the box.

No CMS or blog feature was found in Whatnot's seller documentation. Source: https://help.whatnot.com/hc/en-us/articles/360061602851-Start-selling-on-Whatnot, read 2026-10-03.

Real and shipped, but narrower than the feature name suggests. See the note on this cell for the specific boundary.

No seller-controlled SEO settings were found in Whatnot's seller documentation. Source: https://help.whatnot.com/hc/en-us/articles/360061602851-Start-selling-on-Whatnot, read 2026-10-03.

Built in at no extra cost and no separate app — this is how the product ships out of the box.

Not offered by this product today, as far as we could confirm from its own documentation.

Built in at no extra cost and no separate app — this is how the product ships out of the box.

Real and shipped, but narrower than the feature name suggests. See the note on this cell for the specific boundary.

Built in at no extra cost and no separate app — this is how the product ships out of the box.

Real and shipped, but narrower than the feature name suggests. See the note on this cell for the specific boundary.