Shopify Vs. BigCommerce: Which eCommerce giant suits you the most?

Are you currently hesitating between Shopify vs BigCommerce for your e-commerce strategy? Rest assured, you're not alone. These are the two leading hosted e-commerce platforms globally, powering millions of online stores with a combined annual Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) reaching hundreds of billions of USD. In this article, NextSky will provide a detailed comparison between the two platforms to help you easily identify the perfect partner for your business.

Shopify vs. BigCommerce: At a Glance

Shopify

Launched in 2006 by Tobi Lütke, Shopify is a subscription-based e-commerce platform that allows users to create websites and online stores, sell digital and physical products, generate shipping labels, and manage social media posts. It is renowned for its user-friendly interface, extensive app store with over 8,000 third-party apps, and appealing themes. Shopify is ideal for small business owners with no coding experience but charges transaction fees for using external payment gateways.

BigCommerce

BigCommerce is a SaaS e-commerce platform that serves businesses of all sizes. It offers a straightforward content management system with a modern dashboard, advanced inventory management, multi-language, and currency support. BigCommerce provides powerful, scalable features suitable for businesses with significant growth plans. However, it can be more challenging to use and requires a steeper learning curve compared to Shopify.

Read more: 31+ Stunning Free Shopify Themes For Any Online Store

Shopify vs BigCommerce: Quick Comparison Table (Key Differences)

Shopify vs BigCommerce: Key features

1. Pricing – Shopify wins

Both Shopify and BigCommerce offer free trials, with paid plans ranging from $19 to $299 per month. However, the main difference lies in the features included in each plan.

BigCommerce

• Standard ($29/month): Unlimited products, 0% transaction fees, unlimited staff accounts, four inventory locations, point-of-sale (POS) support, 24/7 support.
• Plus ($79/month): Everything in Standard + 5 inventory locations, abandoned cart recovery, customer segmentation, and saved customer cards.
• Pro ($299/month): Everything in Plus + 8 inventory locations, advanced product filtering for customers on the storefront.

Key highlights of BigCommerce:

• When your annual revenue reaches $180,000 on the Standard plan, you are automatically forced to upgrade to Plus — even if you don't need the additional features.
• Truly 0% transaction fees, no matter which payment gateway you use (very advantageous if you don't use Shopify Payments).

Shopify

• Basic ($25 or $19/month when billed annually): Unlimited products, 2.9% + 30¢ transaction fees (unless using Shopify Payments), up to 77% shipping discount, 10 inventory locations, 24/7 support, and POS support.
• Grow ($65/month, or $49/month when billed annually): Everything in Basic + 2.7% + 30¢ transaction fees, up to 88% shipping discount, shipping insurance, and five staff accounts.
• Advanced ($399/month, or $299/month when billed annually): Everything in Grow + 2.5% + 30¢ transaction fees, 15 staff accounts, advanced live support, third-party calculated shipping rates.
• Shopify Plus: Starting at $2,300/month (custom pricing for enterprises).

Key highlights of Shopify:

• Fixed pricing: you upgrade only when you actually need more features, giving you complete control and predictable costs.
• 0% transaction fees when using Shopify Payments (available in over 100 countries).
• Special promotion: First 3 months for $1/month — a risk-free way to test all features thoroughly.

Verdict: The forced plan upgrades on BigCommerce (based on revenue, not feature needs) annoy many growing brands. Meanwhile, Shopify's predictable, fixed pricing and lower long-term total cost of ownership (TCO) make it the winner in approximately 90% of cases.

Read more: Shopify Pricing: Find the Right Plan for Your Business

2. Ease of Use – Shopify wins

BigCommerce

BigCommerce is designed for users with little to no website-building experience, yet it remains flexible enough for developers and power users to customise the code. You can build a store from scratch or leverage built-in sales-boosting features, though it takes some time to get entirely comfortable with the platform.

Shopify

Shopify stands out with its minimalist, intuitive interface and detailed step-by-step guides. You follow the in-app instructions to add products and customise your store — no technical worries, so you can focus entirely on business strategy.

Verdict: In terms of ease of use, Shopify clearly outperforms BigCommerce. Its user-friendly interface, clear menus, and guided setup process allow you to launch and manage your store quickly and efficiently.

Read more: Shopify vs WordPress: Which Is Right for Your Online Store?

3. Themes & template – Shopify wins

BigCommerce

BigCommerce offers 294 themes organized by industry, layout, and price. Although the selection is diverse, it remains significantly smaller than Shopify's. Free themes are ideal for beginners, while premium themes range from $150 to $399. You can check out lists of the best BigCommerce themes for inspiration.

Shopify

Shopify's theme store offers 1.071 options across a wide range of industries and styles, priced from $100 to $500. You can easily filter by layout, store size, navigation style, and more. All themes are modern, professional, mobile-responsive, and highly customizable, helping you create a genuinely unique storefront.

Verdict: In terms of themes and design, Shopify surpasses BigCommerce. The modern look, full mobile responsiveness, and superior customization capabilities of Shopify themes give it a clear advantage, making Shopify the better choice for both free and paid themes.

4. Online selling features – Shopify

Selling features

• Shopify: Offers a comprehensive suite of sales tools, including abandoned cart recovery, discount code creation, and multi-channel selling. Additionally, it integrates with intelligent AI (Shopify Sidekick) to help manage stores, create personalised themes, and generate product, blog, or newsletter content.
• BigCommerce: Supports basic features such as abandoned cart recovery, discount codes, and multi-channel selling, but lacks built-in AI. It uses the BigAI Copywriter app to quickly generate SEO-optimised product descriptions.

Payment processing

• Shopify: Supports over 100 payment gateways, including PayPal, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. When using Shopify Payments, transaction fees decrease depending on the plan: 2.9% + $0.30 (Basic plan) and 2.5% + $0.30 (Advanced plan).
• BigCommerce: Offers over 65 payment gateways (including PayPal and Stripe) and charges no transaction fees whatsoever. However, it does not have a built-in payment solution, so the setup can be more complex than with Shopify.

App market

• Shopify: Shopify boasts a powerful ecosystem with 17,308 apps on the Shopify App Store (as of Mar 17, 2026), allowing users to easily expand capabilities in marketing, conversion rate optimisation (CRO), and automation. This enables businesses to quickly add features tailored to each growth stage without deep technical intervention.
• BigCommerce: It has over 1,200 apps, but many essential features are already built-in (e.g., unlimited staff accounts, product reviews, and real-time shipping calculations), reducing reliance on third-party apps.

Read more: Shopify Features: The Complete Guide for Optimizing Your Store

5. Marketing features – Shopify

Marketing tools

• Shopify: Offers numerous tools to connect with customers, sync products to Instagram and TikTok, and sell on Amazon and Etsy via Shopify Marketplace Connect. Shopify Email lets you create and customise email campaigns, though colours, fonts, and images must be manually adjusted.
• BigCommerce: Supports promotional banners, automated emails (including abandoned cart and post-purchase), and newsletter management. However, advanced email personalisation or social media integrations require additional apps.

SEO

• Shopify: Shopify allows users to implement SEO quickly with automatic sitemap generation and built-in robots.txt, along with a user-friendly interface for editing meta tags. However, it has a key limitation: a fixed URL structure (e.g., /products/, /collections/), which restricts advanced technical SEO optimization in some cases. It also offers basic support for 301 redirects and canonical tags but lacks full flexibility compared to open systems.
• BigCommerce: BigCommerce provides greater flexibility by allowing full control over URL structures, making it easier to implement advanced SEO strategies. It also supports editable robots.txt, 301 redirects, and canonical tags, giving users stronger control over technical SEO. With more built-in SEO features, businesses can reduce reliance on third-party apps and optimize performance more efficiently.

Internationalization/Global Support

• Shopify: Supports over 30 languages and automatically redirects based on the visitor's browser language, delivering a seamless international shopping experience.
• BigCommerce: Strong multi-currency support (display, transaction, and payment in multiple currencies), optimising the experience for global markets.

Read more: Shopify vs WooCommerce: Which E-commerce Platform Wins?

6. Payment gateways – BigCommerce Wins

Shopify

Shopify Payments is Shopify's in-house gateway that transfers money directly from customers to merchants. It includes fraud analysis and ensures fast, smooth, and secure transactions. Key advantages:

• Instant setup and approval.
• Full integration with Shopify.
• No hidden fees or extra transaction fees (when using Shopify Payments).

Shopify also supports over 100 third-party gateways, but charges an additional 0.5%–2% transaction fee if you don't use Shopify Payments, depending on the plan.

BigCommerce

Provides over 65 international gateways and more than 250 local payment methods across over 100 countries (e.g., Amazon Pay, PayPal, Stripe, Square). Key advantages:

• Zero transaction fees on any gateway.
• PCI compliant.
• Mobile-optimised.
• Full multi-currency support with per-SKU pricing customisation.

BigCommerce users can freely choose any payment gateway, even with multi-currency enabled, whereas Shopify often requires Shopify Payments for specific features or to avoid extra fees.

Verdict: BigCommerce wins the payment gateway category due to its zero transaction fees and the flexibility to connect with any popular gateway, resulting in significant cost savings for merchants.

Read more:  Shopify vs Amazon: Which Is Best for Selling Online?

7. Dropshipping – Shopify wins

Although both platforms support the complete A-to-Z dropshipping process, there is a slight difference in the quality of their services.

Shopify

Shopify stands out thanks to its deep integrations with top-tier dropshipping apps, such as DSers and Dropified, which are the leading choices for sourcing a wide variety of wholesale-priced products. Additionally, the Shopify App Store offers a vast number of specialized apps tailored to different niches, markets, and regions. Due to Shopify's strict app review standards, almost all available apps are of high quality and reliable.

Read more: What is Dropshipping? Everything You Need to Know

BigCommerce

BigCommerce also has its own app marketplace, featuring several apps that help with product sourcing and management. However, the quality of these apps is inconsistent, and none are as deeply specialised or widely adopted as DSers.

Verdict: Shopify clearly has the advantage thanks to its strong supplier relationships and a vast, highly specialised app ecosystem. BigCommerce still offers decent support through third-party integrations, but it falls short in depth and reliability.

8. Security – Tie

BigCommerce

Offers robust, enterprise-grade security with multiple layers of protection, including PCI DSS Level 1 compliant servers, firewalls, 24/7 monitoring, and built-in fraud protection for transactions. It also supports third-party SSL certificates to encrypt data and protect customer information.

Shopify

Similarly, it achieves full PCI compliance by default, protecting both customer and business data. SSL certificates are automatically issued when you add a custom domain, ensuring all website content and data transmission are securely encrypted via HTTPS.

Verdict: Both platforms are highly secure and meet the highest industry standards — this category is a tie.

9. Customer support – BigCommerce wins

When building an online store, besides pricing, the availability and quality of technical support are crucial because you never know what issues might arise.

BigCommerce

Immediately after signing up for a trial, you will receive a personal 10-minute onboarding call, allowing the team to gain a deeper understanding of your business and provide tailored advice. With enterprise plans, you get priority onboarding and direct access to an experienced support team.

Shopify

Shopify offers a comprehensive Help Center, community forums, and support through social media. It also has contextual in-editor guidance that quickly directs you to the right article in the Knowledge Center, making the experience very user-friendly.

Verdict: Both platforms have comprehensive help centres, but BigCommerce takes the lead with proactive, personalised onboarding calls and priority support for higher-tier plans, while Shopify excels in self-service tools and in-app guidance. However, for users who value direct human support (especially when starting), BigCommerce has a clearer edge.

Read more: Shopify vs eBay: Which Marketplace Fits Your Business?

10. Performance & Speed - Shopify

Shopify

With its global CDN, optimized hosting, and lightweight architecture, Shopify delivers consistently fast loading speeds. This directly improves user experience, reduces bounce rates, and can increase conversion rates by approximately 10–20%, especially for high-traffic or ad-driven stores.

BigCommerce

BigCommerce offers solid performance, but its heavier built-in feature set can impact speed if not properly optimized. Without careful handling of images, scripts, and configurations, stores may experience slower load times, particularly on mobile devices.

Verdict: If you prioritise user experience and want to maximise revenue per visitor, Shopify is the safer, more efficient choice. BigCommerce remains a strong option if you need more built-in features, but it requires additional optimisation to maintain optimal speed and performance.

11. Scalability & Growth – Tie

Shopify

Shopify enables flexible business scaling through its extensive app ecosystem and Shopify Plus plan, making it ideal for fast-growing DTC brands. Users can easily upgrade features and optimize operations without needing to switch platforms.

BigCommerce

BigCommerce stands out with its built-in scalability from the start, making it particularly suitable for B2B businesses or stores with large product catalogs. With less reliance on third-party apps, the system maintains stable performance as it scales.

Verdict: Both platforms handle scalability well. Shopify is better suited to agile, fast-paced growth, while BigCommerce excels at stable scaling for large, complex systems.

Read more: Shopify vs eBay: Which Marketplace Fits Your Business?

12. Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)

• Shopify: Shopify stands out with a low entry cost and fast setup, making it ideal for quick launches. However, costs can grow over time due to reliance on paid apps for advanced features, along with additional transaction fees if you don’t use Shopify Payments.
• BigCommerce: BigCommerce offers stronger long-term value with no transaction fees and a wide range of built-in features, reducing the need for paid apps. The trade-off is a higher initial complexity, which may require technical resources or developer costs.

Verdict: Shopify is more cost-efficient for SMBs and fast go-to-market strategies, while BigCommerce delivers better long-term value for scaling businesses and B2B operations.

Shopify vs. BigCommerce: Which is right for your business?

Shopify is the best for business:

• Ideal for businesses with both online and offline sales due to its robust point-of-sale system.
• Suitable for those wanting control over subscription upgrades and have small eCommmerce teams.
• Offers customizable themes and apps for tailored online stores.
• Provides various pricing plans and features like Shopify Payments to eliminate transaction fees.
• Offers 24/7 customer support via live chat, email, and phone.

BigCommerce is the best for business:

• Best for businesses focused solely on online sales, especially those with multiple storefronts.
• Ideal for large teams with advanced collaboration needs.
• Preferred by high-risk industries due to its multiple payment gateway integrations.
• Offers support options, including a 10-minute phone call post-free trial and dedicated assistance for enterprise-level plans.

Ultimately, the choice depends on your business's sales channels, team size, industry, and support preferences.