Shopify vs. BigCommerce: Which is the Right Choice?

One of the biggest decisions you’ll make regarding your e-commerce business is choosing which website builder to create your online store with. When you’re building your store from the ground up, there are lots of factors to consider, such as feature set, affordability, scalability, and business fit. 

There are quite a few options available in the market today for sellers at all stages. In this guide, we compare Shopify and BigCommerce, two of the biggest e-commerce store builders out there, to help you choose the best platform for your business. 

Shopify vs. BigCommerce: An overview

Let’s get down to business now. 

Pricing plans

While both Shopify and BigCommerce have similar pricing tiers, BigCommerce’s pricing is more straightforward. This platform also lets you add unlimited staff accounts, no matter your plan. On Shopify, though, staff accounts are only allowed if you opt for a Grow plan or higher. 

Shopify charges you transaction fees unless you use Shopify payments. The more expensive your Shopify plan, the lesser your transaction fees. But having to pay 2% for each sale can add up pretty fast! BigCommerce, on the other hand, doesn’t charge you any transaction fees at all, which is a huge plus. 

However, BigCommerce has sales thresholds for each plan. For instance, if you cross $50K in revenue for a single year, you’ll have no choice but to upgrade to thePlus plan. Shopify (thankfully) doesn’t have any sales thresholds. 

BigCommerce also gatekeeps certain useful features (such as product filtering and credit card saving) behind more expensive plans.

🏅 Winner: It’s a tie! If you’re just starting out and don’t need any staff accounts, Shopify is the better option. But, if you need staff accounts and want to take advantage of the no transaction fees, BigCommerce would be better!

Themes

Shopify has more and better theme options overall than BigCommerce, with both stores offering limited free options. 

However, the problem is that many of BigCommerce’s themes have very similar layouts — especially among the free ones. The paid ones don’t differ from each other all that much, either. Like these, for example: 👇

Shopify themes have more variations among them and have better design overall, so your store won’t end up looking the same as everyone else’s. 

🏅 Winner: Shopify clearly wins the medal here, both in the number and range of themes it provides. 

Ease of use

Both Shopify and BigCommerce are fairly easy to use with a clean interface and no-code drag-and-drop builders making customization simple. But, BigCommerce is slightly more complicated than Shopify and has a steeper learning curve. 

Shopify’s builder offers a higher level of customization. Whether you want to highlight customer reviews on your store, or add a sign-up form, all you need to do is simply select the required content blocks and add them to your site. 

If you want to do the same on BigCommerce, though, you would need coding skills. Both platforms give you full access to your website’s code, giving you complete control over store customization (although you would need to know how to write code, or hire someone who does).

Shopify’s AI features are also more robust than that of BigCommerce’s. It helps you manage your e-commerce store operations. Want to craft a personalized reply? Or maybe you want to create a discount coupon. Just input your task into Shopify’s AI chatbox, and it’ll get the job done for you! 

Alternatively, you can also ask Shopify’s AI assistant for step-by-step guides on how to do something. Much easier than rooting around within the help guides.

While BigCommerce also has some AI features, currently, it can only be used to generate copy for your website. The platform, however, has promised more features soon. 

Finally, if you’re a multi-channel seller who also has a presence on various online marketplaces such as Etsy, eBay, and Poshmark, Shopify might be a better option for you. Why? Because cross listing tools (such as Crosslist) almost always support Shopify, but never BigCommerce.

🏅 Winner: Shopify has the edge when it comes to ease of use since it’s more beginner-friendly!

App integration

Shopify is known for its app ecosystem. With over 8,000 apps to choose from, the level of integration Shopify gives you is unmatched. Whether you want to add a product recommendation feature or turn your Shopify store into a mobile app, Shopify’s app store hands over multiple options to you on a platter. 

Since app integration is Shopify’s thing, developers often create apps designed specifically for Shopify. This, combined with the sheer number of options available, make it really easy to find the perfect app fit for your needs!

While BigCommerce also has apps, it comes nowhere close to Shopify’s selection. But, this isn’t necessarily a dealbreaker since BigCommerce has a ton of features built in already. On the contrary, Shopify relies on third-party apps for many features, such as cart abandonment nudges, upsells, etc., which can be frustrating (and expensive).

If you want an app that’s highly personalized for your BigCommerce store, though, you’ll have no choice but to hire a specialized react native app development company, which can increase your costs pretty fast. 

🏅 Winner: While BigCommerce’s biggest plus point is that it doesn’t rely as heavily on apps as Shopify, we do have to go with Shopify for this one — simply because it has more app options to customize your store exactly the way you want. 

E-commerce functions

A lowdown of all the features that make online selling easier.

Payment options

Both Shopify and BigCommerce integrate with several payment options, including PayPal, Google Pay, and Apple Pay. While Shopify has a native payment gateway known as Shopify Payments, BigCommerce doesn’t have any native gateways. 

But, BigCommerce has zero transaction fees for all payments, which is lacking in Shopify. On Shopify, you’ll pay a 2%+ transaction fee for each sale unless you use Shopify Payments. 

🏅 Winner: It’s a tie!

Product categories and variants

Shopify and BigCommerce both make it easy to categorize your products, but Shopify is slightly better in this regard due to its smart categorization feature. This makes creating product collections easier. 

For example, you can ask Shopify to automatically add products containing the word “red” to a collection called “red gift items.” BigCommerce, unfortunately, doesn’t have this smart feature.

When it comes to product variants, though, BigCommerce wins as it supports far more product variants (600) than Shopify (which limits you to 100 variants). If you’re selling a type of clothing in different colors and sizes, you can hit the upper limit on Shopify pretty fast. So, BigCommerce is better for those with a large, varied, and complex product inventory. 

🏅 Winner: It’s a tie!

Multi-currency and multi-language support

You can sell globally with both Shopify and BigCommerce. With Shopify’s ‘Markets’ feature, you can set up the countries you want to sell in (and even get data as to the percentage of sales coming in from each country).

On BigCommerce, you can choose the currencies you want to sell with, and the platform will make the currency conversions automatically. 

Multi-language support is also possible with both platforms (although you have to use a third-party app for that in BigCommerce).

🏅 Winner: We’ll call this a tie. 

Verdict: Should you choose Shopify or BigCommerce?

If you look at all the features and functionalities we’ve covered, Shopify comes out to be the clear winner. But, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the best fit for your business. 

Shopify is best for you if: you’re a beginner or intermediate seller and want a high level of no-code customization.

BigCommerce is best for you if: you’re an enterprise-level business who wants a dedicated support team, a lot of scalability, and no transaction fees. 

Related reading:

• Shopify vs. Wix
• Shopify vs. WooCommerce