Beginning or working an internet retailer can really feel overwhelming, particularly when there are such a lot of platforms to select from.
Shopify and BigCommerce are two of the most important names within the e-commerce recreation, and for good cause. They each make it simpler to promote on-line, however they’re not the identical—and choosing the right one for your enterprise could make all of the distinction.
As we head into 2025, each platforms are already up with their A-game with new options, instruments, and updates. Nevertheless, what works for one enterprise won’t work for one more.
Possibly you’re simply beginning and wish one thing easy and reasonably priced.
Or perhaps you’re scaling up and wish superior options to deal with extra visitors and gross sales. No matter your state of affairs, understanding the variations between Shopify and BigCommerce is essential. You would possibly wish to learn about Shopify vs. Woocommerce vs. Bigcommerce, nonetheless this weblog focuses primarily on Bigcommerce Vs. Shopify.
On this weblog, we’ll break all of it down merely—no tech jargon.
We’ll take a look at pricing, ease of use, design choices, scalability, and extra so you’ll be able to decide which platform most closely fits your targets.
This comparability will enable you to make a assured resolution.
Fast Overview:
Pricing — It’s a tie. Nevertheless, Shopify has no gross sales limits however expenses transaction charges, whereas BigCommerce has no transaction charges however enforces sales-based upgrades.
Ease of Use — Shopify’s intuitive interface makes it a win for newcomers, whereas BigCommerce packs extra built-in options at the price of a steeper studying curve.
Customization and Design — Shopify leads in design flexibility with 240 themes (13 free) and Liquid customization, whereas BigCommerce provides 273 themes (12 free) with developer-friendly HTML/CSS modifying however much less distinctive designs.
Search engine optimization and Advertising – Shopify excels in user-friendly Search engine optimization and built-in advertising and marketing, whereas BigCommerce provides stronger URL management however wants apps for superior advertising and marketing.
Scalability & Efficiency — Shopify delivers seamless development with no gross sales limits and quicker speeds (1.3s), whereas BigCommerce enforces revenue-based upgrades and lags beneath heavy visitors (2.6s).
Fee Choices — Shopify (100+ gateways, 2% third-party charges, boosts conversions) vs BigCommerce (65+ gateways, no additional charges). Decide Shopify for gross sales, BigCommerce for financial savings.
Apps & Integration — Shopify dominates with 12,000+ apps for infinite customization (however prices add up). BigCommerce provides fewer apps (~1,200) however extra built-in options to scale back dependencies.
Buyer Assist — Each platforms supply 24/7 stay chat, cellphone, and electronic mail assist with in depth assist facilities.
Pricing and Charges
Relating to selecting any e-commerce platform, pricing is commonly some of the essential elements. Each Shopify and BigCommerce have plans that go well with totally different enterprise wants. Nevertheless, there are some minor variations in how they construction their charges.
Shopify
Shopify provides 4 foremost plans (plus a Starter plan and an Enterprise plan). Right here’s what you must know:
Primary Shopify: $29/month
- Greatest for solo entrepreneurs or small companies simply beginning.
- It contains fundamental options like an internet retailer, 10 stock areas, 2 workers accounts, POS Lite for in-person gross sales, and 24/7 assist.
- Transaction charges—2% in the event you don’t use Shopify Funds.
Shopify: $79/month
- Consists of all Primary options.
- Splendid for small groups or rising companies.
- Provides options like present playing cards, skilled experiences, and 5 workers accounts.
- Decrease transaction charges by 1% (if not utilizing Shopify Funds).
Superior Shopify: $299/month
- Designed for scaling companies.
- Consists of superior reporting, 15 workers accounts, 10x checkout capability, decrease bank card charges, and enhanced 24/7 assist.
- Presents transaction charges of 0.6% (if not utilizing Shopify Funds).
Shopify Plus: Beginning at $2,300/month
- For big enterprises with complicated wants.
- Consists of customizable pricing & checkout, limitless workers accounts, and superior options like wholesale/B2B promoting.
Starter Plan: $5/month
- For promoting on social media or messaging apps.
- Doesn’t embody a whole on-line retailer.
Retail Plan: $89 /month
- Consists of in-person promoting instruments with superior workers, stock, and loyalty options
Further Prices
- Transaction charges: There aren’t any extra transaction charges in the event you use Shopify Funds. For those who use a third-party cost gateway (like PayPal or Stripe), Shopify expenses additional charges (0.6% to 2%, relying in your plan). These charges can add up, primarily in the event you course of plenty of gross sales.
- Apps and themes: Many apps and premium themes come at an extra price.
- POS Professional: This prices additional for superior in-person promoting instruments.
Shopify provides a 3-day free trial and a $1 month-to-month deal for the primary 3 months on its foremost plans. Nevertheless, there aren’t any long-term reductions until you decide to annual billing (you save 25% on a plan you select).
Gross sales Thresholds
Shopify doesn’t have any gross sales limits on its plans. You possibly can promote as a lot as you need with out being compelled to improve. Nevertheless, if your enterprise grows considerably, chances are you’ll must improve to entry extra superior options.
BigCommerce
BigCommerce additionally offers 4 foremost plans however with a barely totally different strategy.
Normal ($29/month):
- Greatest for small companies or people.
- Helps as much as $50,000 in annual gross sales.
- Consists of limitless merchandise, 24/7 assist, and no transaction charges.
Plus ($79/month):
- For rising companies.
- Helps as much as $180,000 in annual gross sales.
- Provides options like buyer teams and deserted cart restoration.
Professional ($299/month):
- Splendid for fast-growing companies.
- Helps as much as $400,000 in annual gross sales.
- Consists of superior options like customized product filtering and Google buyer opinions.
Enterprise (Customized pricing):
- For big companies with excessive income (over $1M yearly).
- Presents customized pricing, precedence assist, and superior scalability.
Further Prices
- Gross sales thresholds: For those who exceed the annual gross sales restrict in your plan, you’ll must improve, which might enhance your prices. ($50k/yr to $400k/yr relying in your plan).
- Multi-storefronts: Including additional storefronts prices round $30− $100/month relying in your plan.
BigCommerce provides a 15-day free trial for all plans, with no bank card required. It additionally offers a 25% low cost in the event you pay yearly.
BigCommerce expenses no transaction charges on any plan, regardless of which cost gateway you utilize. This may prevent important cash in the event you’re processing a excessive quantity of gross sales.
Each platforms are competitively priced, however the alternative is determined by your enterprise dimension, gross sales quantity, long-term targets and the way a lot you’re prepared to pay in additional charges.
Ease of Use
Relating to launching an internet retailer, most individuals simply wish to promote merchandise—not spend hours determining tips on how to use a sophisticated platform. That’s why ease of use is such an enormous deal. Shopify and BigCommerce are highly effective e-commerce platforms, however they strategy usability in a different way.
Shopify
Shopify is broadly thought to be some of the user-friendly e-commerce platforms, and for good cause.
The platform guides you thru an intuitive and easy step-by-step setup course of from the second you enroll. The dashboard is clear and well-organized, making it simple to seek out what you want, whether or not including merchandise, customizing your retailer, or checking gross sales analytics.
The administration interface is easy to make use of to replace descriptions, handle stock, or arrange your catalogue. Plus, Shopify provides wonderful buyer onboarding, with movies, checklists, and a complete data base that will help you get began.
BigCommerce
BigCommerce is a little more feature-rich out of the field, which makes it really feel extra complicated, particularly for newcomers.
Whereas the platform’s interface has considerably improved in recent times, it nonetheless has a steeper studying curve than Shopify.
BigCommerce shines in its built-in options.
The platform contains extra superior instruments, which might cut back the necessity for third-party apps. Nevertheless, this additionally means the interface can really feel cluttered, and also you would possibly want a while to get used to the place the whole lot is.
The V3 management panel is an enormous enchancment over earlier variations, providing a cleaner and extra organized dashboard. Nevertheless, it’s nonetheless not as intuitive as Shopify’s.
Customization and Design
Shopify
It provides nice flexibility when customizing and designing your on-line retailer. It provides you the instruments wanted to construct distinctive storefronts identical to you need.
Themes and Designs
Shopify presently provides 240 themes (13 are free, with 227 paid, starting from $100 to $500 as of now). All these themes are responsive and well-designed, appropriate for contemporary on-line shops.
Shopify themes embody options like cart and checkout, built-in blogs, product filtering, mega menus, and enhanced search to enhance navigation and product discovery.
Straightforward Customization with Liquid
Shopify makes use of a coding language referred to as Liquid to design the look of your retailer. It helps you to tweak templates, change layouts, and add customized options.
You possibly can nonetheless make fundamental design modifications utilizing Shopify’s built-in theme editor, even in the event you’re not a coding skilled.
Superior Customization
If you would like extra management, Shopify provides Hydrogen and Oxygen, its headless commerce instruments. These instruments let builders construct customized storefronts from scratch utilizing React (a preferred internet growth framework), giving them extra freedom for inventive and high-performance designs.
Customized Checkout and Backend Logic
Shopify’s checkout is likely one of the greatest within the trade, and you may absolutely customise it. Shopify’s checkout can flawlessly deal with 40,000 checkouts/minute.
With Shopify Features, you’ll be able to add customized low cost guidelines, transport choices, and cost strategies without having to code.
BigCommerce
BigCommerce presently offers 273 themes (12 are free, 261 paid, starting from $99 to $400 as of now). Nonetheless, many are variations of the identical design, lowering the distinctiveness.
BigCommerce does have robust customization, however it’s extra developer-friendly.
Its drag-and-drop Web page Builder permits you to modify the format, transfer components, and modify design settings visually.
For superior modifications, builders can edit the HTML and CSS instantly.
Builders can create bespoke widgets utilizing BigCommerce’s Widgets API, enabling the addition of distinctive content material components like textual content, pictures, movies, banners, carousels, and product lists to the storefront.
Search engine optimization & Advertising Options
Relating to this parameter, each Shopify and BigCommerce supply options that enable you to appeal to clients and develop your on-line retailer. Nevertheless, they’re distinctive by way of built-in capabilities and ease of use.
Shopify
Shopify has easy, beginner-friendly Search engine optimization instruments that make optimizing product pages, meta tags, and URLs simple.
You possibly can customise title tags, meta descriptions, and URLs. Nonetheless, Shopify routinely provides prefixes like /merchandise/ or /collections/ to the URLs, which reduces flexibility for Search engine optimization-focused companies.
It features a built-in running a blog platform, permitting you to create Search engine optimization-friendly content material to drive visitors.
Shopify integrates with Yoast Search engine optimization (the favored WordPress plugin) and Semrush’s Ecommerce Booster app, offering actionable suggestions that will help you optimize your web site for engines like google.
For superior Search engine optimization, Shopify helps Subsequent.js, providing server-side rendering (SSR), which improves web page load velocity and boosts search rankings.
Shopify provides multi-channel promoting, permitting you to attach your retailer with Instagram, TikTok, Amazon, Etsy, and different platforms by the Shopify Market Join app.
Utilizing Shopify E mail, you’ll be able to create and handle electronic mail advertising and marketing campaigns instantly from the dashboard with out the necessity for third-party apps.
Shopify additionally makes working Fb and Google Advertisements simple with a streamlined setup.
The platform integrates with fashionable advertising and marketing apps like Klaviyo for electronic mail advertising and marketing and Fb Advertisements Supervisor, permitting you to handle campaigns effortlessly in a single place.
BigCommerce
BigCommerce has superior Search engine optimization capabilities, providing extra flexibility than Shopify.
It offers full management over URL buildings, permitting you to create clear, customizable URLs with out pointless prefixes. That is higher for Search engine optimization.
BigCommerce additionally provides Open Graph knowledge, which improves your retailer’s visibility when shared on social media.
It contains Search engine optimization-friendly class pages and permits simple modifying of title tags and meta descriptions.
For additional optimization, you should utilize FavSEO and SEOKart apps, which have extra Search engine optimization customization options.
BigCommerce provides fundamental advertising and marketing instruments, together with the power to create promotional banners and automatic emails for deserted carts or buy confirmations instantly from the dashboard.
Nevertheless, for superior advertising and marketing options like customized electronic mail campaigns or social media adverts, you must obtain third-party apps, which provides complexity.
Organising a Google Buying marketing campaign on BigCommerce requires extra guide steps than Shopify, making the method slower.
Scalability and Efficiency
You want a platform that may develop with your enterprise and deal with elevated visitors, gross sales, and stock with out hiccups.
Shopify
Shopify is designed to deal with companies of all sizes, from small startups to giant enterprises.
There aren’t any restrictions on how a lot you’ll be able to promote, so that you received’t be compelled to improve plans as your income grows.
For big enterprises, Shopify provides Shopify Plus, a high-tier plan beginning at $2,300/month. It’s constructed for enormous scalability and options customized APIs, devoted assist, and superior analytics.
Since Shopify takes care of server upkeep and infrastructure, you don’t have to fret about scaling points as your enterprise grows.
Shopify’s cloud-based infrastructure ensures quick web page load instances (common of 1.3 seconds) and dependable efficiency, even throughout visitors spikes. Shopify makes use of a worldwide content material supply community (CDN) to make sure quick loading instances for purchasers worldwide.
BigCommerce
BigCommerce is a strong platform for small to medium-sized shops however faces scalability blockers for bigger companies.
For those who hit particular gross sales thresholds, you will need to improve to a costlier plan, even in the event you don’t want the additional options.
As your retailer grows, chances are you’ll require customized options or developer assist to handle efficiency and stability.
BigCommerce’s common web page load time is 2.6 seconds, which is slower than Shopify’s. Whereas BigCommerce is dependable for small—to medium-sized shops, it could battle with bigger shops or high-traffic volumes.
BigCommerce could expertise slowdowns beneath excessive visitors, requiring guide tweaks for higher efficiency.
Fee Choices
Each platforms supply numerous cost choices, together with gateways and digital wallets, however differ in transaction charges, and adaptability.
Shopify
Shopify does have its cost resolution, Shopify Funds, and assist for fashionable third-party gateways like PayPal, Stripe, and Authorize.internet.
You possibly can select from 100+ cost suppliers, making it simple to simply accept funds globally.
For those who use Shopify Funds, you received’t pay any additional transaction charges (solely commonplace bank card processing charges apply). Nevertheless, third-party cost gateways have extra prices, which might be as much as 2% per transaction, relying in your Shopify plan.
Store Pay can enhance conversion by up to 50% compared to guest checkout. 2 out of three consumers desire Store Pay at checkout. Nevertheless, it’s not obtainable on BigCommerce.
Shopify additionally integrates with digital wallets reminiscent of Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Store Pay, bettering the consumer expertise and boosting conversion charges.
BigCommerce
BigCommerce helps 65+ pre-integrated cost options in 230+ international locations and 140+ currencies.
This vary contains main suppliers like PayPal, Stripe, Adyen, and Sq..
The benefit of BigCommerce is that it has no extra transaction charges coverage, whatever the cost gateway chosen. This strategy permits retailers to pick their most well-liked cost supplier with out incurring additional prices.
BigCommerce additionally helps digital wallets like Apple Pay, Amazon Pay, and PayPal One Contact. It provides accelerated checkout choices like Stripe Hyperlink, Bolt, and Fastlane by PayPal, which make the checkout course of faster and extra handy.
Apps & Integrations
Selecting the very best platform usually is determined by how properly every one integrates with the instruments and companies your enterprise wants.
Shopify
Shopify presently has over 12,000 third-party apps and integrations. This huge ecosystem covers the whole lot from advertising and marketing and Search engine optimization to stock administration and buyer assist.
The sheer variety of apps means you’ll find instruments for nearly any performance you want, whether or not stay chat, electronic mail advertising and marketing, or superior analytics.
Nevertheless, with so many classes and choices, discovering the suitable app on your wants might be difficult.
Lots of Shopify’s apps are paid, and it’s almost unattainable to construct a strong retailer with out leveraging a number of of them. For instance, options like superior Search engine optimization instruments, electronic mail advertising and marketing, and deserted cart restoration usually require third-party apps, which might enhance prices and complexity.
BigCommerce
BigCommerce presently has round 1,200 apps throughout numerous classes, fewer than Shopify.
Whereas the variety of apps is smaller, BigCommerce contains extra built-in options, lowering the necessity for third-party apps. For instance, options like deserted cart restoration and product filtering can be found out of the field.
BigCommerce’s integrations are additionally simple to arrange. Nonetheless, the smaller app market means fewer choices to select from, making it extra easy to seek out the instruments you want.
Buyer Assist
Operating an internet retailer might be sophisticated, however dependable buyer assist could make all of the distinction, particularly whenever you encounter technical points or need assistance optimizing your retailer.
Shopify
Shopify provides round the clock assist through stay chat, electronic mail, and cellphone.
It additionally has a vibrant group the place retailers can ask questions, share insights, and be taught from one another’s experiences with detailed articles masking numerous subjects, from organising your retailer to superior customization.
Shopify has an enormous community of companions and specialists to assist with retailer setup, design, advertising and marketing, and extra.
BigCommerce
Not solely Shopify but in addition BigCommerce offers steady assist through a number of channels like stay chat, cellphone, and electronic mail, with devoted numbers for various areas.
BigCommerce encourages customers to have interaction with the group for shared data and options and provides a complete assortment of articles and guides to help customers in managing their shops successfully.
It additionally collaborates with businesses and specialists who supply specialised assist companies, together with retailer customization and optimization.
Your alternative between the 2 could rely in your most well-liked assist channels and the precise wants of your enterprise.
BigCommerce Vs. Shopify | Which one is healthier?
Hundreds of thousands of retailers in over 175 international locations belief Shopify for fulfillment!
After rigorously evaluating each platforms, Shopify is the higher alternative for many companies—particularly these prioritizing ease of use, scalability, and a seamless buyer expertise.
Its intuitive interface, huge app ecosystem, and dependable efficiency make it a perfect alternative, notably for entrepreneurs, rising manufacturers, and anybody who values simplicity with out sacrificing energy.
Shopify has 100+ Shopify Plus Licensed App Companions like Huptech Net specializing in Bigcommerce to Shopify migration, customization, efficiency optimization, and extra.
That mentioned, BigCommerce is a robust different when you have particular wants, reminiscent of superior B2B performance, built-in Search engine optimization instruments, or builders preferring commonplace internet applied sciences. In case your retailer requires deep customization with out heavy reliance on third-party apps, BigCommerce will be the higher match.
Your resolution ought to align with your enterprise targets, technical experience, and development plans.
For those who’re nonetheless uncertain the place to start out, we recommend benefiting from free trials for each platforms—Shopify’s 3-day trial (then $1/month for 3 months) and a free consultation with our team to see how we will optimize your current setup, particularly if you wish to migrate your retailer on bigcommerce to shopify
You may as well attempt BigCommerce’s 15-day trial—to check which fits your workflow greatest.
As licensed Shopify specialists, we offer end-to-end Shopify services, together with retailer setup, customized design, app integration, and efficiency optimization. Allow us to deal with the technical heavy lifting whilst you deal with rising your enterprise.
Whichever you select, each platforms present the instruments to construct a profitable on-line retailer in 2025! With the suitable platform and the suitable associate, your e-commerce success is indefinite.
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