BigCommerce and Shopify are among the top eCommerce platforms in the market. It is understandable that as an entrepreneur, you’re having doubts about which of the two is a better match for your business.
In this article, I’m going to share with you a comprehensive BigCommerce vs Shopify guide. I’ll teach you all about each of their key features, pros and cons, and what type of company they’re best suited for.
I guarantee that after reading this post, you’ll be able to collect all the necessary information and settle for the right option.
Here is the overview of what we’ll discuss throughout the article:
1.BigCommerce vs Shopify At A Glance
Let us see how BigCommerce and Shopify compare with each other through a quick glance at their features and their most valuable pricing plan available.
  4.5 |    4.8 |
| Best for growth. For small-medium businesses with intuitive features for online merchants. Starts at $29.95/month. | Best Overall. Built-in analytics for product performance and finance summaries. Starts at $29/month. |
| Try BigCommerce | Try Shopify |
2. Who Is BigCommerce Best For?
If you are a small- and medium-sized business owner, BigCommerce is the best platform for you to use. Its tools can help your business grow to new heights and boost your profits.
3. Who Is Shopify Best For?
Micro and small businesses can take advantage of this platform because it offers affordable pricing plans. It is also great for people who don’t want to design their page because it has stunning templates available.
4. A Close Look At The Features Of BigCommerce and Shopify.
Here is a side-by-side comparison of BigCommerce vs Shopify.
| Features | | |
| 24/7 Customer Support |  | |
| Website or Homepage Editor | | |
| Affordable Pricing |  | |
| Paid Themes | | |
| Affordable Transaction Fees | | |
| Google SEO | | |
| Create Promos for Customers | | |
| Partner With Third-Party Apps | | |
| Get Started | Try BigCommerce | Try Shopify |
5. Key Features Of BigCommerce
Here are the key features of BigCommerce to help you decide whether this is your preferred platform.
#1 Customization & Themes
Creating your eCommerce website can be difficult but it can also be fun when you have the freedom to tweak designs. From HTML to Akamai image manager, BigCommerce ensures that you have tons of customization options.
You also won’t have to worry about blurry images or small letters on the website.
On the other hand, they also have free and paid templates that you can use if you don’t know how to code. You can also conduct live testing for your website using BigCommerce.
#2 Cloud-Based Hosting & Compliance
Worrying about having an external server when you’re using BigCommerce is an absolute no-no. The platform uses Google Cloud to make sure that all of the information stored is safe and secured.
It is also considered fast because it only takes 10 milliseconds for a page to load.
#3 Full-Featured CMS
As I mentioned earlier in the customization and themes section, you don’t need coding skills using BigCommerce. They have an up-to-date CMS feature to keep your store fresh-looking.
You can also view updates in real time. This can help you have a great loading speed on your pages.
#4 Payment & Inventory Management
No matter what your payment method is such as PayPal One Touch, Stripe, Apple Pay, and Amazon Pay, BigCommerce has got it synced.
All major credit and debit cards are accepted here so you won’t have to worry about your customers’ needs. They also don’t have a transaction fee included.
Burkhard Berger
BigCommerce has it’s own set of premium website templates that is highly responsive and well-optimized to use on the get-go. If you’re looking to get your site up and running as fast as possible, you can easily do that with BigCommerce.
#5 Robust API
Having a robust API allows your page to run smoothly. This feature, powered by the RESTful API, is automatically added when you sign up with BigCommerce.
You can also create top-notch custom apps that can go along with your eCommerce website.
6. Key Features Of Shopify
Shopify is a great platform to launch your online business but if you’re still hesitant about it, here are some of the features to help you change your mind:
#1 Templates & Themes
Your theme is one of the main aspects that customers notice when they visit your website. This is why having a good-looking theme is extremely important.
Shopify has 24 free and 149 premium themes with prices ranging from,$100 to $180. It can also be customizable by tinkering with the HTML and CSS code or if you don’t know how to code you can ask a Shopify expert to help you.
#2 Cloud-Based Hosting
Shopify also uses a Google Cloud Platform, like BigCommerce, to make sure that all of the information of the customer data is safe. It also has unlimited bandwidth so you don’t have to worry about additional expenses.
#3 CMS Product & Inventory Management
CMS is a great feature to have when you have an online shop. Shopify has a CMS product and inventory management to help you manage all of your inventory, sort them, give them a price, and many more.
Their drag-and-drop CMS interface has a minimalistic design that makes it easy to navigate. It also displays real-time information on your dashboard.
#4 Mobile & SEO Optimization
Search engine optimization allows your website to rank higher on SERPs. With Shopify, you can create headings, titles, meta tags, etc. as well as generate sitemaps to ensure that your site will be on top of search engines such as Google or Yahoo.
#5 Omnichannel Selling
Getting a bigger audience is made possible through the Shopify platform. They partnered with huge social media brands like Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr. They integrated it on their website to make sure that you can easily keep track of products, orders, and customers across all channels.
Burkhard Berger
Shopify has it’s own built-in image editor that you can use to easily use to remove any unecessary details or do significant changes at the last minute without having to open other external programs.
7. BigCommerce vs Shopify – Pros & Cons
BigCommerce is a reliable and noteworthy eCommerce platform. Here are its pros and cons:
| Pros | Cons |
| Easy-to-use even for beginners | Limited designs for homepage |
| Comes with a free trial | Can be expensive for micro and small businesses |
| Multichannel sales allow you to grow your business | Has an annual sales cap |
Shopify is another popular platform for online shops, here are its following pros and cons:
| Pros | Cons |
| Easy-to-navigate interface | Transaction fees can be expensive |
| Affordable packages | Single-page checkouts are not allowed |
| Allows third-party apps | Third-party apps can be expensive for smaller businesses |
8. Where Do I Get The Most For My Money?
If you want to know which of these platforms offers the best value for your money. Here are their pricing plans.
BigCommerce Pricing
BigCommerce has four plans you can choose from. Here is the breakdown of their pricing table.
- Standard ($29.95): I’m sure that you’ll love this kind of promo when you’re a micro or small business because it has all of the basic features of the BigCommerce platform. From creating your site to managing your staff account, they got it here.
- Plus ($79.95): According to their site, this is their most popular package. It contains a lot of options that can help you such as customer groups, segmentation, abandoned cart saver, persistent cart, stored credit cards, and many more.
- Pro ($299.95): If you have a large-scale company that needs a virtual shop, you might want to consider this option. It has features such as Google Customer Reviews, product filtering, etc. to increase your sales.
- Enterprise: This is the perfect plan for all of the huge enterprises that want to transition online. You need to call their customer service hotline to get quotes. This option allows you to have custom product filtering, price lists, API calls, and many more.
Shopify Pricing
Shopify also has four pricing options that you can pick from:
- Shopify Lite ($9.00): This is the lowest pricing option for Shopify. This plan, however, doesn’t provide you with any website, they only allow you to embed a Shopify button to add a shopping cart to an existing website.
- Basic Shopify ($29.00): This is a version where you can create your own Shopify site. It includes two staff accounts, a 2% transaction fee, etc.
- Shopify ($79.00): This plan is on par with BigCommerce Pro in terms of pricing and features plus it has a lower transaction fee of 1% and users can create five staff accounts.
- Advanced Shopify ($299.00): Scaling your business is made easy with the help of this plan because you’ll unlock tons of features. It is also great for increasing your revenue because of its small transaction fee of 0.5%.
Note: All of the plans of Shopify excluding the Shopify Lite can be linked to third-party apps.
9. Conclusion – Which Is Better: BigCommerce Or Shopify?
In conclusion, there are a lot of great things that you can do using both platforms. Both show promise to grow your business and bring it to the next level. But one stood out and became the better platform and that is BigCommerce.
Shopify is an incredibly popular platform and has an easy-to-navigate interface. It does have its limitations and low transaction fees that may reduce profits. BigCommerce, on the other hand, has zero transaction fees and also has amazing features for online businesses.
I hope that you’ve enjoyed this article and have chosen the right platform for your company. Do leave a comment below on what you’ve selected. Looking forward to it!
10. BigCommerce vs. Shopify – FAQ
In this part of the article, I’m going to list down the frequently asked questions on BigCommerce vs Shopify.
Can BigCommerce handle any size of business?
Definitely! BigCommerce can handle any size or kind of business you might have. They have different price plans that you can choose as I stated above.
Is BigCommerce customizable?
If you have a lot of time on your hands, you can use BigCommerce’s customize option for all free and paid templates available in their shop.
Are both user-friendly?
Yes, you don’t have to learn different coding scripts or how to layout for both of these platforms. Even rookie business owners can learn how to operate them. In addition to that, they both have great customer service that can help you anytime you’ll encounter any problems.
