BigCommerce vs. Shopify Plus

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
BigCommerce
Score 7.9 out of 10
Small Businesses (1-50 employees)
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 Plus
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
Shopify Plus is an eCommerce solution built for enterprise-level companies that enables them to sell online and offline across social channels like Facebook , Pinterest, and marketplaces like Amazon and eBay.
$2,300
per month
Pricing
BigCommerceShopify Plus
Editions & Modules
Standard
$39
per month
Plus
$105
per month
Pro
$399
per month
Enterprise
Custom
per month
3-year term
$2300
per month
1-year term
$2500
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
BigCommerceShopify Plus
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsA discount is offered for annual billing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
BigCommerceShopify Plus
Considered Both Products
BigCommerce
Chose BigCommerce
We used both Yahoo's ecommerce platform which was awful and very limited, not to mention incredibly difficult to find developers for, to also using Shopify Plus which had a lot going for it too but was surprisingly limited out of the box compared to BigCommerce but has more …
Chose BigCommerce
BigCommerce is a great and powerful platform that has lots of upside. We still have a couple basic sites running on BigCommerce, mainly for backing up customer and order data. At this time, we have moved most of our businesses over to Shopify Plus b/c we feel that we get much …
Chose BigCommerce
Magento 1 was sunsetting so we initially looked to upgrade to Magento Cloud or Magento 2 Open Source. The conversion process was horrible and unable to be performed by our staff. The costs that developers quoted us were upwards of $100,000 PER SITE (we have 6!). This, of …
Chose BigCommerce
We initially narrowed down our search based on the features that we needed and our belief that the platform would have them. This was in addition to SLAs, support, etc. We came down to Shopify Plus and BigCommerce Enterprise. At the end of the day, we felt that we would get …
Chose BigCommerce
We switched from Shopify due to the restrictions they implemented on our industry. While we spent tens of thousands of dollars investing in our Shopify store, we can't have them cutting us off anytime they want. We reviewed WooCommerce, but didn't like the storefront or …
Chose BigCommerce
BigCommerce has more modern tools than Yahoo Small Business, is managed unlike WordPress/WooCommerce, and is cheaper than Shopify with better product options management.
Chose BigCommerce
Every criterion we evaluated against BigCommerce either won outright or held its own. What got us over the line was the incredible personal support at every step of the way from onboarding and implementation through to BAU. I had a support ticket this morning which I resolved …
Chose BigCommerce
Of all the eCommerce platforms we evaluated, only Shopify would compete. Shopify is a better bet with smaller catalogs and less custom business requirements in our experience. While the app store in Shopify is robust, BigCommerce has better native features that were important …
Chose BigCommerce
We originally started a relationship with Shopify. I spent hundreds of hours working on customized our store. Shopify's customer service and tech support were very frustrating. I finally decided to abandon Shopify since we could never get our store to function exactly as we …
Chose BigCommerce
With BigCommerce you have great support (not with the open-source alternatives) without the high order fee that comes with Shopify. You also never have to worry about server settings or up-time. And you still have a lot of freedom with the design and functionality.

BigCommerce …
Chose BigCommerce
It is cleaner and easier but sacrifices apps and features. It includes SSL where 3dcart charges. Magento is just too bulky for one person to operate.
Chose BigCommerce
We very much liked BigCommerce because it was the perfect fit or the best of both worlds as far as our business is concerned. It had a really robust shopping cart experience that comes standard and it allows for a Sandbox environment that we can use for future custom build-outs.
Chose BigCommerce
BigCommerce was the platform our company already used when I joined - we will likely transition to a new platform. Shopify is faster, OpenCart is more scalable.
Chose BigCommerce
I have managed to build 2 large websites on BigCommerce and it is fast and reliable. Have managed builds on Magento as well as small website projects on Wix, GoDaddy and Shopify and they all have their pros and cons. This is an ever-changing space and it really comes down to …
Chose BigCommerce
BigCommerce offers so much more features and capabilities out-of-the-box than all the other options combined. Sure the other options have a large marketplace of apps and add-ons, but things tends to break when a platform relies on their 3rd party apps to provide basic …
Chose BigCommerce
Other than Shopify all of these solutions require a lot of development and maintenance as they are very custom. Shopify had a good product for direct to consumer but not as good on the B2B facing side of our business. We also don't like the stance they are taking on customer …
Chose BigCommerce
WordPress is ridiculously hard to learn, manage, and integrate. It’s not designed to be a one-stop-shop like BigCommerce. I like Shopify, but I would have to pay more to get what I get with BigCommerce, and I would have more apps to manage, sync, and update.
Chose BigCommerce
Shopify, while it has a larger learning curve, is better able to meet our needs as we grow. The customer service is easy to understand and often has step by step instructions in order to do what we need it to do. They offer different courses and have access to more apps that …
Chose BigCommerce
If you've been in the eCommerce business for long and don't roll your own solution, odds are you've compared Shopify against BigCommerce. We started on Shopify but decided to switch when Shopify wanted to penalize us 1% of our gross sales for not using their in-house credit …
Chose BigCommerce
We evaluated and used numerous platforms before finally landing with BigCommerce. Some of the platforms were cookie-cutter and didn't offer enough freedom to customize certain things. Other platforms required each individual piece of the platform to be manually added.... adding …
Chose BigCommerce
I've also used Ultracart, Wix, and Square for shopping sites. Amoung the hosted platforms it's hands down my favorite. It's most similar to Shopify except that Bigcommerce has more native features, which is a good thing. With more native features there is less dependence from …
Shopify Plus
Chose Shopify Plus
Shopify is more robust and has more functionalities than its competitors like BigCommerce and Kibo. It offers the best UI in the business and the most exhaustive app marketplace ecosystem. It is more cost effective than big system and doe snot require large teams of developers …
Chose Shopify Plus
Shopify Plus is the most advanced and most widely accepted "DIY" website tool. While WordPress has some capabilities and is certainly cheaper, it is still a blogging platform with e-commerce capabilities added later, and you can tell that's what it is when you use it. BigCommerc…
Chose Shopify Plus
Shopify had the quickest go-to-market and most robust API among the products we compared. CommerceCloud required a VERY LONG integration phase that we just didn't have time for. BigCommerce fell short on the number of features and API coverage that we needed. Overall Shopify …
Chose Shopify Plus
Shopify Plus is WAYYYYYY better than anything else that we have used, and it's not even close. The websites are faster and more reliable, both of which are critical to running an online business. The cost to run is way less. We are running five websites on Shopify Plus for less …
Chose Shopify Plus
We found BigCommerce to be almost identical to Shopify in many ways, but Shopify had more apps in their marketplace and we couldn't find another significant difference at the time.
Chose Shopify Plus
There are all good for business who are just starting but as the business grows the platform has to be able to scale with it
Chose Shopify Plus
Shopify is a much easier and more intuitive platform to use.

The mobile focus is outstanding from the other competitors and the capability to modify the store without previous code or experience makes them the best e-commerce platform.
Chose Shopify Plus
Shopify Plus has the most robust capabilities of the pure cloud plays and the app store ecosystem is the largest and best.
Chose Shopify Plus
Shopify Plus offers a more robust solution than Woo commerce and is easier to train on than Big Commerce. Woo commerce is freeware with no support. Big Commerce offers more SEO features and is a more powerful solution, but harder to remote train users on - lots more …
Chose Shopify Plus
Shopify Plus is way ahead of the pack in terms of features, automated and worry free maintenance / security / scaling / infrastructure, customer support, and speed. We've been building eCommerce sites for over a decade and it seems almost every positive trend in eCommerce is …
Features
BigCommerceShopify Plus
Online Storefront
Comparison of Online Storefront features of Product A and Product B
BigCommerce
7.9
Ratings
1% above category average
Shopify Plus
8.6
Ratings
9% above category average
Product catalog & listings8.20 Ratings9.50 Ratings
Product management8.10 Ratings8.40 Ratings
Bulk product upload7.40 Ratings6.50 Ratings
Branding7.90 Ratings8.20 Ratings
Mobile storefront8.00 Ratings9.60 Ratings
Product variations8.50 Ratings9.20 Ratings
Website integration8.30 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Visual customization7.70 Ratings9.20 Ratings
CMS6.50 Ratings8.20 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 Plus
8.4
Ratings
9% above category average
Abandoned cart recovery7.70 Ratings7.40 Ratings
Checkout user experience8.30 Ratings9.40 Ratings
Online Payment System
Comparison of Online Payment System features of Product A and Product B
BigCommerce
8.3
Ratings
0% above category average
Shopify Plus
9.6
Ratings
15% above category average
eCommerce security8.30 Ratings9.60 Ratings
eCommerce Marketing
Comparison of eCommerce Marketing features of Product A and Product B
BigCommerce
7.9
Ratings
2% above category average
Shopify Plus
8.3
Ratings
7% above category average
Promotions & discounts7.80 Ratings8.70 Ratings
Personalized recommendations7.40 Ratings8.30 Ratings
SEO8.40 Ratings7.80 Ratings
eCommerce Business Management
Comparison of eCommerce Business Management features of Product A and Product B
BigCommerce
7.9
Ratings
1% below category average
Shopify Plus
8.5
Ratings
6% above category average
Multi-site management8.30 Ratings00 Ratings
Order processing7.80 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Inventory management7.80 Ratings7.20 Ratings
Shipping7.70 Ratings8.60 Ratings
Custom functionality7.80 Ratings9.10 Ratings
Best Alternatives
BigCommerceShopify Plus
Small Businesses
Ecwid by Lightspeed
Ecwid by Lightspeed
Score 10.0 out of 10
Ecwid by Lightspeed
Ecwid by Lightspeed
Score 10.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Shopify Plus
Shopify Plus
Score 9.0 out of 10
IBM Digital Commerce
IBM Digital Commerce
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
IBM Digital Commerce
IBM Digital Commerce
Score 9.0 out of 10
IBM Digital Commerce
IBM Digital Commerce
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
BigCommerceShopify Plus
Likelihood to Recommend
8.2
(0 ratings)
9.5
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.1
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
9.1
(0 ratings)
9.6
(0 ratings)
Availability
9.1
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
9.1
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.1
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Online Training
9.1
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.1
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
9.1
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
9.1
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.6
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
9.1
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
9.1
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
BigCommerceShopify Plus
Likelihood to Recommend
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.
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Shopify Plus makes order management simple and less error prone. Connecting our ERP allows us to seamlessly manage our product listings, fulfill orders, and sync customer data. Limitations to the number of product variants requires attention from our staff to make sure our products sync without issue. Other than being arbitrary, there's really no need to limit the number of product variants.
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Pros
  • SEO - fast loading speeds, helps us rank on Google
  • Product customization - allows us to customize templates to our needs to fit all viable information
  • Integration with other platforms - seamless connection to other properties like Google Ads and Analytics
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  • Scales incredibly well. Forget about hardware concerns, load balancing, downtime, etc. and focus on eCommerce. We've seen merchants go from a few thousand dollars per month to having million dollar days, all on Shopify without having to worry about performance or scaling systems.
  • Great new features consistently being added, ahead of the curve on almost everything
  • Solid API to build on and work with, a few annoying quirks here and there for super complex use cases but overall very well documented and works well
  • Most Merchant Success Managers are good and genuinely want to be helpful
  • A fantastic user interface, very logical and easy to use
  • Tons and tons and tons of out of the box integrations. Easily the best integration marketplace of the e-commerce platforms. There's an app for that.
Read full review
Cons
  • Better and easier localisation for stores outside the US
  • Speed - it is not the fastest
  • Make sure that third-party theme developers update regularly and use best practice
  • Consider EU and country-specific rules and legal obligations and make customers aware of whether BC is actually fully compliant
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  • The Account Managers/Reps have become more scripted and seem like they are busier and handling more clients than before. It doesn't seem as personal and special anymore like when we first upgraded to Plus.
  • Shopify still has missing features in their software that might not have an app in their app marketplace available that fills this void.
  • The 24/7 support doesn't seem as dedicated as they once were.
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Likelihood to Renew
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!!
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No answers on this topic
Usability
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.
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Shopify Plus is intutive as stated previously. It's easy to find what we want and edit (reports, products, online store theme, etc...) You dont need to have a ton of coding experience to be able to get a website up and running on Shopify Plus. The reason I wont give a 10/10 and gave an 8 is because I do think it is heavily realiant on app and it can open up a can of worms with the amout of apps that are out there, their costs, and which one to chose. There are also some internal limitations as stated previously with discounts and personalized message for different customer groups. But overall, it is a good platform that I recommend.
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Reliability and Availability
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
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No answers on this topic
Performance
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.
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No answers on this topic
Support Rating
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!
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Always are quick to answer our questions and help us find a solution
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Online Training
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.
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No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
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.
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No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
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.
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Shopify Plus is an all in one service. You are able to keep track of invoices and payments. Shopify Plus also offers options for shipping and connects your tracking number to you order which allows for easy tracking. Your tracking number is also a link which makes it even easier.
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Scalability
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.
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No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
  • 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.
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  • Definitely makes selling on multiple platforms easy, saving us time and effort.
  • Keeps all of our business in one place, saving us money on other apps to manage each aspect.
  • Automatically flags potential fraudulent orders, preventing us from accidentally shipping to a scam.
  • During our busiest months, we don't see any slowdowns, which allows us to go full throttle with all ads and marketing without worrying about whether or not the software can handle it.
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ScreenShots

BigCommerce Screenshots

Screenshot of enterprise ecommerce for high-volume brands like Skullcandy.Screenshot of the integration that lets you list products on Amazon directly from the BigCommerce control panel, with centralized inventory and order processing and fulfillment.Screenshot of where to customize the look and feel of a storefront.

Shopify Plus Screenshots

Screenshot of The home screen of your Shopify admin, including proactive home cards and reporting and live view insights.Screenshot of Your Shopify Plus store is ready for mobile commerce. Customers can browse and buy from your store with an optimized experience on device.Screenshot of Editing products across sales channels.Screenshot of Easily edit colours, typography, settings, and drag and drop sections for each of your store's templates with the theme editor.