BigCommerce vs Shopify 2023: Which Is Better for You?

3 Which Has Better Pricing?

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When it comes to ecommerce website builders, the recurring monthly cost of a plan is the most important factor for your budget. That said, there will also be additional costs like credit card fees and transaction fees. We’re going to cover monthly plan prices first, and then explain the additional costs you’ll encounter with Shopify vs BigCommerce.

Shopify also offers a $5/month Starter option, but this doesn’t actually provide an online store. Instead, it simply allows you to sell your products to customers via social media platforms, such as TikTok and Instagram, as well as messaging channels, like WhatsApp and email. It’s also only available to new merchants in the 3-day free trial window.

So, back to the online store plans – let’s break those ranges down:

(For very large businesses, BigCommerce and Shopify also offer pricier, more tailored solutions – BigCommerce Enterprise and Shopify Plus – that we’ll discuss later on).

On the surface, these prices don’t seem very different at all. But that changes when additional costs come into play.

Transaction Fees

Transaction fees are the percentage of revenue that a website builder takes from each sale you make. You’ll be happy to know that BigCommerce has no transaction fees on any of its plans. Shopify, on the other hand, charges between 2% and 0.5%, depending on the pricing plan you choose. The only way to avoid Shopify’s transaction fees is to use Shopify Payments (as opposed to third-party payment processors like PayPal).

Credit Card Fees

While transaction fees are between you and your ecommerce platform, credit card fees are what you pay to the third party payment processor that you use when you make sales. There are tons of payment processors to choose from – BigCommerce offers over 65 integrations, while Shopify offers over 100.

You can get special rates on some of the payment processors that come recommended by Shopify or BigCommerce. Shopify recommends its in-house Shopify Payments option, and BigCommerce recommends the ever-popular PayPal – both of which charge fees of 2.9% + 30¢ per transaction.

Which Has Better Value for Money?

In our research, BigCommerce and Shopify socred evenly for value for money – they both scored 3 stars out of 5!

Both BigCommerce and Shopify offer free trials, BigCommerce for 15 days and Shopify for 3 days (they also offer $1 per month for the first three months on selected plans). It’s also safe to say that these platforms don’t have major price differences – but it’s all about what tools and features you actually get for the price you pay.

BigCommerce depends less on third-party apps than Shopify, meaning more tools will come included in the cost of your BigCommerce store. For example, BigCommerce comes with a built-in drag-and-drop website editor that lets you move and insert content elements directly onto any page.

Shopify lets you drag-and-drop elements onto your homepage, but to get that same level of hands-on control for every other page, you’d have to install a separate app like Buildify for an additional $12.99/month.

Do You Want to Try BigCommerce?

Its 15-day free trial and total lack of transaction fees are a pretty attractive combination!

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4 Which Is Easiest to Use?

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First, the basics: Both BigCommerce and Shopify use a straightforward content management system, complete with a modern dashboard and a straightforward website editor.

Both the BigCommerce (left) and Shopify (right) dashboards are simply formatted and full of helpful tools and pointers.

That said, users find Shopify easier to use than BigCommerce. Because BigCommerce’s features are more scalable, they’re also less suited for beginners. Meanwhile, Shopify is a slightly less powerful platform, but you won’t be left to your own devices. Here’s what one Shopify user had to say:

“In the backend where you add your products, it’s fairly easy to do, there is plenty of information and everything you could imagine that you would want to edit about that product is there and easy to find.”

With Shopify, adding products is as simple as filling out a quick form for each item. And there are plenty of pointers along the way, like this useful sales tip about comparing prices:

BigCommerce, on the other hand, offers more powerful sales features that require a bit more of a learning curve:

See that “Product Information” menu on the left? There are a lot more factors to worry about here, but if you’re willing to put in the time, then customers will appreciate the categorizations and info available from your BigCommerce store. As one BigCommerce user explained:

“It’s difficult – it’s not overly easy to use, but you can see why. It’s because it’s basically there to run your business for you. But, creating a website was not the easiest of experiences, and clearly isn’t what BigCommerce is about.”

Plus, BigCommerce has made some recent improvements to its ease of use. BigCommerce’s drag-and-drop builder actually outdoes Shopify in terms of design flexibility, and all you have to do is select a page element you like and insert it wherever you want it to go.

Shopify, meanwhile, doesn’t offer the same hands-on editing experience as BigCommerce. With Shopify, you can switch the order of page elements from a list, but you can’t actually drag and drop an element wherever you want it on a page.

Is Ease of Use Your Top Priority?

If so, Shopify is the better of the two.

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5 Which Has the Better Design?

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Free Themes

Both Shopify and BigCommerce offer a slim amount of free themes – 9 from Shopify, and 12 from BigCommerce.

Shopify is easier to use than BigCommerce, so even beginners are able to create an attractive storefront. That said, BigCommerce scored slightly higher than Shopify when it came to design – BigCommerce scored 4 stars compared to Shopify’s 3.9 – so you may find BigCommerce’s themes more enjoyable to customize.

However, Shopify’s free themes are less uniform to begin with, so you won’t have to tweak as much anyway. Either way, both platforms will set you up for success in a world where 38% of visitors will stop engaging with a website if they find the content or layout unattractive!

Free themes are a great way for new businesses to cut costs while starting out. But most mid to large-sized online stores will quickly outgrow these basic styles and need to upgrade to a paid theme that better reflects their brand.

Paid Themes

Shopify offers over 70 paid themes ranging from a one-time payment of $100 to $180. Specific themes are available for every industry, from food and drink to home and garden. You can also search by number of products, layout style, navigation menu styles, and more.

Most themes come with two or three different color and style options to choose from. Take the Ira theme, for example:

You won’t be limited to these prepackaged styles, either – Shopify’s themes are easy to personalize even further, and you can switch your theme at any time.

Similarly, BigCommerce offers over 150 paid themes for a one-time payment of $150 – $300, which you can browse by industry, catalog size, layout, and more. Like Shopify, each theme comes in a few different style palettes.

While it’s true that BigCommerce offers more than double the amount of themes as Shopify, note that some of BigCommerce’s themes are just slight variations of the same “family.” Take the Geneva template family, for example:

These are all different variations of the same layout, but they’re listed as four separate templates. So in reality, BigCommerce offers about the same amount of template styles as Shopify.

Need an Original Template?

BigCommerce scored 4 stars out of 5 for its designs, which are all optimized for ecommerce and come packed with features.

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6 Which Has the Best Sales Features?

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BigCommerce was number one in our research for its sales features. Shopify wasn’t far behind in second place. First things first – both Shopify and BigCommerce offer essential features as standard, such as:

• Basic shipping tools – Set shipping locations, amend rates based on weight or order value, and print your own shipping labels
• An SSL certificate – Standing for Secure Sockets Layer, this certificate protects your store and validates it as a safe place to process online payments
• Multichannel selling – Sell across multiple platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest

But these are all to be expected from two massive ecommerce platforms. So, what sets BigCommerce and Shopify apart?

BigCommerce: Best for Built-In Features

BigCommerce has an incredible amount of sales features already built-in to your store from the get-go. Its app store is much smaller than Shopify’s, but that’s because you won’t need to go to the trouble of downloading a ton of apps to add functionality to your BigCommerce store. One of our everyday users put it best:

“It was great knowing that I didn’t have to go looking for a third party to support me with certain features or apps. It shows that this platform just has its house in order, that they don’t have to outsource a central feature to work properly.”

These are some of the most useful features that come built-in with BigCommerce, that Shopify only offers through separate apps:

• Ratings and reviews – Allow customers to provide product reviews directly onsite
• Real-time shipping quotes from third party carriers – Give customers the most accurate shipping information available
• Unlimited staff accounts – Grant access to you site admin to as many staff members as you need

There are other features that do come built-in with both BigCommerce and Shopify, but are more advanced with BigCommerce. For example, platforms let you offer different variations of the same product, such as a sweater in multiple colors and sizes. But while Shopify only offers 100 variants per product based on three options (for example size, color, and material), BigCommerce offers 600 variants per product.

BigCommerce even offers a partnership with Walmart, which means BigCommerce merchants can start selling products directly on the Walmart Marketplace as quickly as possible – and that means access to the millions of unique customers who pass through Walmart.com each month.

Shopify: Best for Customizable Features

To get a similar amount of features for a Shopify store, you’ll need to make good use of Shopify’s app store.

Adding features with Shopify requires more effort than BigCommerce. However, Shopify’s app store is considerably larger than BigCommerce’s app store – so not only will you have plenty of useful tools at your disposal, you can also be much pickier about the tools you decide to include on your site, whether it’s curbside pickup options or personalized appointment booking forms.

Just keep in mind that, while some of these plugins are free, many of them cost an extra fee that won’t be included in the monthly cost of a Shopify plan. Paid Shopify apps typically cost between $0 and $200+ dollars per month, and that huge price proves that there are best-fit apps available for every type of ecommerce store.

8 Which Is Better for Big Businesses?

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For enterprise-level ecommerce, both Shopify and BigCommerce offer custom plans to equip your store with advanced tools and support. Shopify Plus and BigCommerce Enterprise are available to help large businesses maximize their potential online.

Pricing

Both plans are based on bespoke quotes adjusted to your yearly revenue. Shopify Plus will charge a minimum of $2,000 per month, while BigCommerce Enterprise quotes are usually priced somewhere between $500 and $15,000 per month.

Features

BigCommerce Enterprise has a much wider range of built-in tools than Shopify Plus, which relies on its app market for most of its customization. Because powerful apps often come at a considerable price, large businesses could end up saving as much as $30,000 per year in app subscription costs by using BigCommerce instead of Shopify.

BigCommerce Enterprise can also handle hundreds of API calls per second, while Shopify Plus has a limit of 10 calls per second. This means you’ll be able to sync your product catalogues far more quickly with BigCommerce. Plus, that Walmart partnership we mentioned earlier means that BigCommerce merchants are in a great position to grow their customer base and sell more widely.

As one user said:

“BigCommerce is 100% geared to larger enterprise level businesses.”

9 Which Has Better Support and Security?

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Shopify vs BigCommerce: Support

Whether you choose Shopify or BigCommerce, you’ll have access to the following:

• 24/7 phone support
• 24/7 live chat support
• Help center
• Community forum
• Email support
• Video tutorials

24/7 phone and live chat support are the standout tools here, but useful knowledge centers make a difference, too. BigCommerce’s help center is full of useful information. But what we really liked about Shopify is that there are helpful prompts throughout its website dashboard that link directly to a relevant page within the Shopify knowledge center. This is a great feature for those looking to learn more on their own time. As one of our users put it:

“The help and support knowledge center was really great. By following the guidance, I was able to identify straight away how to add in a product review section. Well done shopify for your attention to detail.”

For both platforms, upgrading to the highest plan also unlocks priority support. For Shopify, this means gaining access to a dedicated support agent on the Shopify Plus plan. With BigCommerce, you’ll get an onboarding consultant as part of the BigCommerce Enterprise plan, and receive priority treatment when requesting phone support.

Shopify vs BigCommerce: Security

As we mentioned earlier, both BigCommerce and Shopify offer free SSL certificates on all of their plans. You can also upgrade to a more advanced SSL certificate (equipped with site seals and warranties) with BigCommerce, if you like. BigCommerce’s paid SSL options range from $59 to $299.

Both BigCommerce and Shopify are also PCI DSS compliant providers, meaning they meet the requirements of the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard to protect against credit card data breaches.