- Featured
B2B Edition
Advanced B2B features for enterprise plans.Catalyst
NewCreate stunning, high-performing storefronts that captivate and convert.Feedonomics
Omnichannel feed and data transformation.Multi-Storefront
Manage multiple unique stores from one account.International
Grow your brand across the globe.
- Launch Services
Overview
Chart your path to success with specialized services.Implementation Project Management
Experts to ensure you launch on time and under budget.Solution Architecture
Seasoned advisors to help you best design your store.Data Migration & Optimization
Expertise on a clean and clear path to migrating your data.Enterprise Launch Package
Personal training on how to set up and launch your BigCommerce Store.
Professional Services Blog Series
Get to know our teams and how they support your success in this Q&A series.
The Global B2B Buyer Behavior Report
This in-depth report provides actionable strategies to help you sell more online.
The open alternative to Shopify.
Easy to use, without getting boxed in. No closed ecosystem. No data lock-in. No ceiling on what you can build.
Brands who chose BigCommerce over Shopify:
Shopify is easy to start. BigCommerce is built to grow with you.
Shopify works well when your store is straightforward — consumer products, a simple catalog, limited customization. When your business gets more complex, the costs and limitations start to compound, and “app creep” becomes a concern for growing businesses. Transaction fees apply if you use a payment provider outside Shopify Payments.
BigCommerce includes more at the core: robust built-in features that don't require paid apps, up to 600 product variant combinations, and Feedonomics Surface for selling on more channels — free. BigCommerce also offers more than 20 fee-free Embedded Payment Providers, including Stripe, PayPal, Klarna, Adyen, and Afterpay. Keep more of what you earn.
BigCommerce and Shopify both have their merits.
Know the differences before you commit. Lower your costs when you tap into BigCommerce’s native features instead of relying on app purchases with Shopify.
Feature | With Shopify | With BigCommerce |
Ease of use | Beginner-friendly; complexity requires apps | Easy to use out of the box, built to handle more as you grow |
Transaction and payment fees | Fee applies on every order when using a non-Shopify gateway — 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow, 0.6% on Advanced | 20+ fee-free Embedded Payment Providers including Stripe, PayPal, Klarna, Adyen, and Afterpay. Other providers subject to a Open Payment Provider fee. |
Product variants | Up to 100 combinations per product on standard plans | Up to 600 combinations per product — no workarounds needed |
Storefront customization | Polished page builder for non-technical setup | Makeswift visual builder on Stencil — drag-and-drop storefront editing, no dev required |
Built-in features and apps | Lean at the core of the platform, but many apps to add on | Robust features built into the core of the platform |
B2B and wholesale | Full B2B features require Shopify Plus ($2,500/mo). Basic B2B available on all plans; non-Plus merchants capped at 3 catalogs. | Wholesale and trade ordering features from Core plan ($39/mo). Advanced B2B Edition with custom pricing based on needs. No catalog cap |
Channel feed management | Third-party app required to sync and optimize product feeds | Feedonomics Surface included free and built in to BigCommerce — sync and optimize product feeds to Google, Meta, TikTok, Microsoft, and Pinterest without changing your store listings |
Multi-currency and international selling | Multi-currency tools available; 0.5–1.5% FX markup per converted order on standard plans | Multi-currency with multi-storefront and geolocation built in — no platform FX markup |
Customization and developer flexibility | Customizable themes and APIs | Highly customizable with more control over themes, APIs, URLs, and more |
Enterprise and large catalogs | Shopify Plus required for multi-storefront and high-scale needs | Native support for scale, multi-storefront, headless, and complex B2B |
Don’t just take our word for it.
Design seamless online brand experiences, your way.
“The question we asked ourselves was, ‘how do we find the quickest path to value? We didn't have 12 months to get things done, we had six months,” Naish recounts. We needed speed. We needed flexibility. We needed connectivity, but most importantly, we needed to demonstrate the viability of digital. BigCommerce had what we were looking for and it was cost effective, too.”
Luke Naish, Executive GM, Tradelink — Migrated from: Custom
Get modern capabilities and agility, natively.
“It was those two things, features and functionality, that really set BigCommerce apart from the pack and ultimately led us to replatform to BigCommerce.”
Joe Sharplin, Head of Ecommerce, AS Colour — Migrated from: Magento 1
Grow on your own terms, with no ceiling.
“BigCommerce is geared towards developers, but it also has that entry point where you can just jump in and start using it. You don't need to rebuild or reinvent the wheel if you don't want to, which was the big selling point for me.”
Steve Shapiro, Director of Ecommerce and IT, Music Direct — Migrated from: DotNetNuke
Adapt, launch, test, and innovate faster.
“Whether through price lists, customized commercial quotes or tax support, BigCommerce’s native functionality and extensive partner app marketplace delivers the hybrid B2C and B2B capabilities we needed to tailor our site to our diverse audiences.”
Sean Flaherty, Marketing Director, US Cutter — Migrated from: COREsense
Don’t let Shopify box you in.
Get more freedom.
Built for B2B
Meet buyer demands with a more intuitive, customizable platform. Our native solution B2B Edition makes it easy to build purchasing experiences as unique as your business.
Omnichannel
Reach shoppers everywhere with optimized product feeds and improved return
on ad spend with BigCommerce + Feedonomics.
Multi-Storefront
Scale beyond borders — your way. As you reach new levels of digital maturity, Multi-Storefront ensures you can seamlessly expand into new markets, regions, and channels.
Headless
Experience the freedom to design, build, and differentiate every element of commerce and bring your brand to life without ever needing to start from scratch.
Integrations
Connect with the essential frameworks and tools you already trust with a best-in-class
Expertise
Count on the industry’s most trusted experts for strategic migration, launch, innovation, and success support.
Common BigCommerce vs Shopify FAQs
Shopify and BigCommerce may seem similar — but, in fact, they have two very different business models. Shopify heavily focuses on driving its proprietary services and thus acts as a payment gateway, a shipping and fulfillment provider and an email marketing service, all while still being an ecommerce platform.
In contrast, BigCommerce offers only one core product: its ecommerce platform. As a result, BigCommerce focuses all of its resources on building the best cloud-based, multi-channel solution in the industry. With Open SaaS, BigCommerce combines the best of a SaaS platform with API-enabled openness to give merchants more flexibility in customizations and integrations — while handling site maintenance and updates so that you can focus on growing your business.
At first glance, BigCommerce and Shopify’s plans can look fairly similar. A Basic Shopify plan costs $29 monthly, a Shopify plan costs $79 monthly and an Advanced Shopify plan costs $299 monthly, while a BigCommerce Standard plan costs $29 monthly, Plus costs $79 monthly and Pro costs $299 monthly.
However, unlike BigCommerce – which includes out-of-the-box functionality in its flat-rate pricing — Shopify relies on third-party apps, paid extensions and plug-ins to make up for gaps in native functionality, which can greatly increase your total cost of ownership once you add in all of the necessary apps for your online store.
In fact, Shopify requires a third-party app to achieve the 600 product variants, multiple option display types, wishlists and persistent cart — all of which can be done on BigCommerce natively.
While both BigCommerce and Shopify offer essential sales features such as basic shipping tools, multichannel selling and a customizable checkout, many of the sales features that are native on BigCommerce require a third-party app on Shopify.
With BigCommerce, merchants get all of these features out-of-the-box, which means you don’t have to download tons of apps for core store functionality.
BigCommerce supports up to 600 SKUs per product, multiple display option types, custom fields, manually specified prices in different currencies, price lists, quantity-based price breaks, wish lists and persistent carts.
For B2B customers, BigCommerce provides robust sales features including POS and ERP integrations and B2B-specific payment features through partners for reliability and performance.
Shopify has limited SEO customization and requires various third-party apps to reach feature parity with BigCommerce.
BigCommerce, however, offers robust SEO capabilities, giving you full control over your URLs, title tags, header tags and metadata.
These are some of the SEO tools we provide right out of the box:
- Optimized URLs: For product, category and other pages, BigCommerce auto-populates SEO-friendly URLs and allows merchants to alter their URL settings.
- Unique URLs: Every unique page has its own URL which helps prevent duplicate content.
- Microdata: These are “rich snippets” built into product pages that improve your search result listings.
- 301 redirects and URL rewrites: If during the migration process you decide to rename products, BigCommerce will redirect the existing URL to the new URL so that customers can easily navigate to the products they’re looking for.
- CDN (content delivery network): BigCommerce’s CDN is constantly working behind the scenes to ensure your online store loads quickly for both customers and search engines.
As SaaS platforms, BigCommerce and Shopify are both PCI DSS 3.2 certified at Level 1 to protect against data theft and fraud. Both platforms also offer additional protective measures such as multi-layer security and automatic bug fixes.
When it comes to building and managing your ecommerce store, merchants using BigCommerce don’t have to worry about staying up to date and keeping their site secure. Since updates happen automatically, it's easy to always be on the latest version of BigCommerce.
Plus, there are no security patches or updates that require certified developers to install and manage. This gives non-technical merchants the ability to focus on core business activities rather than worry about the upkeep of their website.
Both BigCommerce and Shopify provide 24/7 customer support via phone, email and live chat, and both platforms also provide a help center, a community forum and video tutorials.
With BigCommerce, we provide fast, US-based support. On average, users are speaking to a live support person in under two minutes, and over 85% of issues are resolved on the first call.
Our support is a big reason why BigCommerce leads the industry in trust and customer satisfaction (TrustRadius, G2).
BigCommerce makes seamless migration easier with expert support. In our app marketplace, you’ll find a variety of apps dedicated to data transfer and migration services, or you can get in touch with our Data Migration Services team who can help you seamlessly migrate and launch your store on BigCommerce.
BigCommerce doesn't charge payment fees for orders processed through an embedded payment provider (with over 20 to choose from). Shopify encourages you to use their proprietary payment gateway, Shopify Payments, and if you use a payment provider outside of their ecosystem, you’ll have to pay transaction fees.
Ecommerce — your way.
Discover why more brands are leaving Shopify with a free demo today.
See for yourself.
Our team will contact you within 24 hours for a discovery call to take you through a demo tailored to your specific business needs.