BigCommerce is a SaaS platform that allows SMBs to develop eCommerce sites. Features include the capabilities to design the storefront, configure products, manage payments, generate traffic, and optimize conversion.
$39
per month
Shopify
Score 9.1 out of 10
N/A
Shopify is a commerce platform designed for both online stores and retail locations. Shopify offers a professional online storefront, a payment solution to accept credit cards, and the Shopify POS application to power retail sales.
$39
per month
Pricing
BigCommerce
Shopify
Editions & Modules
Standard
$39
per month
Plus
$105
per month
Pro
$399
per month
Enterprise
Custom
per month
Basic Shopify
$39
per month
Grow
$105
per month
Advanced
$399
per month
Shopify Plus
2,000
per month
Shopify Plus
2,300
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
BigCommerce
Shopify
Free Trial
Yes
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
Additional Details
A discount is offered for annual billing.
A 25% discount is offered for annual billing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
BigCommerce
Shopify
TrustRadius Insights
BigCommerce
Shopify
Highlights
Research Team Insight
Published
Users have found both BigCommerce and Shopify to be ideal for setting up online stores. Both platforms have been leveraged by businesses of varying sizes, ranging from small local operations to large-scale enterprises. Customers have praised the simplicity of both platforms, indicating they have been able to create and manage their online ventures, including dropshipping operations, without extensive technical knowledge or support.
The use of advanced features seems to be a differentiating aspect in user experiences with BigCommerce and Shopify. Some users have indicated that they appreciate the depth of options and scalability that BigCommerce offers, especially for larger businesses seeking to expand their online presence. Conversely, Shopify users boast its ease of use, particularly for those launching smaller-scale online operations or stepping into e-commerce for the first time.
Users have utilized the customizability of each platform to tailor e-commerce solutions to their needs. BigCommerce customers cited its excellent out-of-the-box features and integration options, as well as their ability to handle complex inventory management. Shopify users, on the other hand, have praised its range of aesthetically-pleasing templates, clean interface and the wide variety of apps that can be used to extend the platform’s capabilities
Users have found both BigCommerce and Shopify to be ideal for setting up online stores. Both platforms have been leveraged by businesses of varying sizes, ranging from small local operations to large-scale enterprises. Customers have praised the simplicity of both platforms, indicating they have been able to create and manage their online ventures, including dropshipping operations, without extensive technical knowledge or support.
The use of advanced features seems to be a differentiating aspect in user experiences with BigCommerce and Shopify. Some users have indicated that they appreciate the depth of options and scalability that BigCommerce offers, especially for larger businesses seeking to expand their online presence. Conversely, Shopify users boast its ease of use, particularly for those launching smaller-scale online operations or stepping into e-commerce for the first time.
Users have utilized the customizability of each platform to tailor e-commerce solutions to their needs. BigCommerce customers cited its excellent out-of-the-box features and integration options, as well as their ability to handle complex inventory management. Shopify users, on the other hand, have praised its range of aesthetically pleasing templates, clean interface, and a wide variety of apps that can be used to extend the platform’s capabilities.
Features
BigCommerce
Shopify
Online Storefront
Comparison of Online Storefront features of Product A and Product B
BigCommerce
7.8
Ratings
0% below category average
Shopify
8.7
Ratings
10% above category average
Product catalog & listings
8.20 Ratings
9.50 Ratings
Product management
8.10 Ratings
8.70 Ratings
Bulk product upload
7.40 Ratings
8.60 Ratings
Branding
7.80 Ratings
8.80 Ratings
Mobile storefront
8.00 Ratings
8.90 Ratings
Product variations
8.50 Ratings
9.00 Ratings
Website integration
8.30 Ratings
8.60 Ratings
Visual customization
7.70 Ratings
8.00 Ratings
CMS
6.50 Ratings
8.10 Ratings
Online Shopping Cart
Comparison of Online Shopping Cart features of Product A and Product B
BigCommerce
8.0
Ratings
4% above category average
Shopify
7.9
Ratings
3% above category average
Abandoned cart recovery
7.70 Ratings
7.90 Ratings
Checkout user experience
8.20 Ratings
7.80 Ratings
Online Payment System
Comparison of Online Payment System features of Product A and Product B
BigCommerce
8.2
Ratings
1% below category average
Shopify
9.6
Ratings
15% above category average
eCommerce security
8.20 Ratings
9.60 Ratings
eCommerce Marketing
Comparison of eCommerce Marketing features of Product A and Product B
BigCommerce
7.8
Ratings
1% above category average
Shopify
8.4
Ratings
9% above category average
Promotions & discounts
7.70 Ratings
9.20 Ratings
Personalized recommendations
7.40 Ratings
8.40 Ratings
SEO
8.40 Ratings
7.60 Ratings
eCommerce Business Management
Comparison of eCommerce Business Management features of Product A and Product B
The ONLY reason we left Volusion was fear that Volusion was going to go out of business and our website/data would all be lost. I feel BigCommerce is lightyears behind Volusion in website/inventory control. In our experience, BigCommerce customer service severely lacks knowledge, at least compared to what we had in our 7-1/2 years with Volusion. There were times Volusion even helped us with stuff BigCommerce could not understand. I just feel sick about moving and that should not be the case. In my opinion, I downgraded heavily for the feeling BigCommerce would not be going out of business. I just feel sick.
Shopify is perfect for companies who are looking to run a simple-to-medium base e-commerce system and aren't looking to get too fancy with integrations. Those companies, though, that have more complex integrations (especially with checkout) might be better off using another e-com system out there where you have access to the full core code.
Basic requests for store management are not out of the box. Shopify puts a lot of stock in their apps and app partners to bring some of the features that I expected to be out of the box. I've used Shopify for multiple clients and ran into roadblocks for each when we were unable to do basic things. Sometimes the apps are free and it's no big deal. Other times you have to pay for another service to do something as basic as set up stock out reports and notifications.
Their support/team communication is poor. Again, working on multiple stores with license on all their levels and the support was consistently unresponsive or unhelpful.
If you're a partner managing multiple stores, the log-in between the partner dashboard and your individual stores is confusing. I'm often found in a loop searching for the right place to log in because you can't access the stores you are a partner on in the same way as the other Shopify stores. Seems minor, but it's a frustrating thing I encounter often.
BigCommerce is a great platform! It does the job and has a very good API set. I would definitely recommend it to others, but I would warn them about the cost associated with BigCommerce. There are lower cost solutions, but definitely not as feature rich as BigCommerce. It's definitely not perfect, and has a few wrinkles to iron, but nothing is ever perfect. It does the job for us and I do enjoy using the platform!!
Nothing we have used in the past or have seen thus far even comes close to offering what we get with Shopify Plus, especially for the price. You cannot even come close to getting what we are getting at the price we pay. We are beyond thrilled and Shopify Plus meets and exceeds all of our needs and expectations. We love it!
I think that overall it has a great front end for the customer. On the back end, it takes a little spin-up time, but in just a couple of hours you can really have your head wrapped around everything you're going to need 99% of the time. It takes me about 5 minutes to train a new user on how to interact with customer orders.
It is fairly easy to use Shopify regardless of what task you are attempting to perform. Most things are customizable to a degree without requiring coding ability. I have very limited coding experience and have still been able to navigate my way around changing features of the website that require edits to the code with the use of AI and trial-and-error. This previously wasn't possible with the WooCommerce platform.
So far in my time with BigCommerce I have not had any down time when it comes to my webstore or accessing it at any time I need to. Knowing that they have such a good uptime, it makes me feel comfortable that my customers can access things anytime, but also keep sales going 24/7
I have not had any issues with pages loading slow or any real other issues, not that I have encountered so far. Speed of the site and images loading are fantastic and everything just seems to work nicely, which may seem like a simple thing to say about things, but when something just WORKS! Its rather nice vs fighting with things to work right.
Because they are always there no matter how simple or complex the question is, if they don't know the answer they don't fake it and just make you go away feeling frustrated.. they get you to someone that does know the answer. I always appreciate their help and their honesty!
In terms of support I give Shopify a 9 out of 10 because they're always very friendly and thorough, and they personally can't solve my problem for me they always point me in the proper direction with the proper information I need to move forward
They have a comprehensive online help file system that makes it easy to do almost anything. They cover just about everything you'd want to do with your online store with images, clear descriptions and in some cases video. I will, however, say the videos should be a little more professorially done and not sound like the employees are doing it in their cubical.
Shopify offered us several trainings to setup a Shopify store, how to build a brand, SEO, product photography etc. All this content have been super helpful in our journey.
A certified BigCommerce design and solution partner will usually comprise a team of highly experienced designers, developers and marketers. It is our view that in the vast majority of cases, this will pay dividends in the long-term - especially for those teams that could use the extra support.
Big Commerce is definitely king in comparison to EvoX. Not only is Big commerce easier to use, it's also just a more powerful platform with many more capabilities (for example, EVOX has analytic capabilities but, nothing to the extent of Big Commerce's google analytics integration. EVOX's data is very base level and does not provide much customer insight besides visits/pages viewed.
Shopify out of the box had more features and did what we were looking to do that BigCommerce could not do without extensive customizations using a third-party vendor. That made it a very easy choice to switch to Shopify. Most of the customizations needed in Shopify we were able to do ourselves.
I believe after seeing all of the parts of this platform, one is able to develop the business and keep adding on select features for the business. There are multiple options for purchase with the various platforms once the business grows more. The different features being offered by the platform can lead us to scalability.
Provides a robust platform to sell a high-risk product.
Page Builder saves you time and money by negating the need to buy a template.
Includes robust promotion settings that allow for codes and automatic discounts, bulk discounts, and customer groups (i.e. military discount), all native options.
It got the store up quickly so the client could start selling. She was previously selling products on Etsy and Facebook and wanted to consolidate everything onto one website, so the main thing Shopify solved was to reduce the store owner's time in managing all her products on multiple sites. Also, we had previously built a website on Wix with all the custom functionality and branding she needed - a truly great, high-end website - but it performed so slowly that it was unusable. So the speed at which Shopify can be set up and then works on the page is appreciable.
The website was manageable by the client - she could figure the system out herself after a while so she saved money on costs for hiring developers. She did have to hire developers to customize some of the plug-ins but costs are all relative; it wasn't a high investment compared to building a full e-commerce website. With the complexity and size of her product base and the functionality and branding she wanted to have in a website, and the potential of her business, she would have needed to invest well over $10,000 to get to where she really needs to be. In the end she kept the budget under $5000.00.
Costs kept climbing with plug-ins having to be added with everything. My client became more involved in building the website and began to try multiple plugins, and she did not have the skill base to evaluate the plugins functionalities so she chose plugins that did not do everything she needed, and then ended up paying the plugin developers to customize the plugins. So on one hand, it's pretty amazing to be able to bring up an e-commerce website as quickly as a week or so, but on the other hand if you need anything customized or deeper functionality in regards to product searching and filtering on the web page, and management on the backend, it quickly goes beyond the skills of the average person to manage, and above their expected budget as well. In the end my client really did not get anything close to the functionality for the website we had originally envisioned.
Shopify was the easiest way we could find to bring the client's products to a global market. We evaluated several other platforms and the functionality simple did not seem to be adequate, so Shopify seemed like the only solution that could do enough of what we needed and still stay within this client's budget. Really the problem in this project was not platform per se but that the budget wasn't large enough. Shopify managed to provide a solution for an ecommerce store with thousands of products on a tiny budget, so in the sense of pure functionality it provided the best value of all the platforms we evaluated. The solution still isn't big enough for this client's business though so, without having insights into this client's post-build sales results, my guess is that because her new website did not make her products easier to sort through, and she likely didn't have much more budget left to invest in SEO and other marketing of the website, her sales probably didn't increase substantially as a result of having built the website. So I think this project all in all did not likely have a high ROI.
