E-commerce Platforms · Tool Face-Off

Shopify vs BigCommerce

Quick answer

Shopify wins for most people thanks to its polish and ecosystem, but BigCommerce punches back hard for larger catalogs and teams who hate transaction fees on principle.

Our pick

Shopify

The e-commerce crowd-pleaser that just works

4.4★

BigCommerce

The feature-packed underdog built for serious sellers

4.2★

Starting Price

$39/mo (Basic)

$39/mo (Standard)

Transaction Fees

0.5–2% unless using Shopify Payments

None, ever

Staff Accounts

2 on Basic, up to 15 on Advanced

Unlimited on all plans

Product Variants

Up to 100 per product

Up to 600 per product

Built-in B2B Features

Limited (Shopify Plus only)

Included on Plus plan, some on standard

App Store Size

8,000+ apps

~1,000 apps

Themes (free)

13 free themes

12 free themes

Annual Revenue Cap

None

$50k–$400k before forced plan upgrade

Headless / API Commerce

Good (Storefront API, Hydrogen)

Very strong (Open API, multi-storefront)

POS System

Native, polished Shopify POS

Third-party integrations only

Multi-currency

Built-in with Shopify Payments

Built-in via multi-storefront

Abandoned Cart Recovery

All plans

Shopify

Pricing★★★½☆

Support★★★★½

Features★★★★½

Ease of Use★★★★★

Scalability★★★★½

App Ecosystem★★★★★

SEO & Marketing★★★★☆

BigCommerce

Pricing★★★★☆

Support★★★★½

Features★★★★★

Ease of Use★★★½☆

Scalability★★★★½

App Ecosystem★★★½☆

SEO & Marketing★★★★½

Worth knowing

Shopify powers over 1.7 million businesses across 175 countries.
BigCommerce charges zero transaction fees regardless of which payment gateway you use.
Shopify's app store has roughly 8x more apps than BigCommerce's marketplace.
BigCommerce's revenue-based plan caps can force an upgrade even if you don't want new features.
Shopify POS is a genuinely competitive retail system; BigCommerce has no native equivalent.
BigCommerce supports up to 600 SKU variants per product vs Shopify's 100 — a big deal for apparel.

BigCommerce once had Skullcandy, Toyota, and Ben & Jerry's as customers simultaneously — proving you can sell both headphones and ice cream at enterprise scale without paying per-transaction guilt fees.

If you want

You want the easiest setup and the richest app ecosystem

Shopify's onboarding is borderline magical and 8,000+ apps mean there's a solution for almost any problem.

→ Pick Shopify

If you want

You hate transaction fees and need lots of product variants or staff accounts

BigCommerce never charges transaction fees and its built-in feature set saves you from paying for apps you shouldn't need.

→ Pick BigCommerce

If you want

You sell in physical retail locations too

Shopify POS is a mature, fully integrated system — BigCommerce has no native POS at all.

→ Pick Shopify