As an ecommerce analyst comparing platforms for over 7 years, merchants consistently ask me: “Should I choose Shopify or BigCommerce for my online store?”
It’s easy to get overwhelmed weighing these two leaders against each other. But simplified decision-making emerges by focusing on six essential diferentiators:
- Pricing fees & transaction costs
- Customization flexibility
- Ease-of-use for beginners
- Scalability for growth
- Built-in SEO optimization
- Integrations & support
Evaluating Shopify vs BigCommerce across these categories equips you to select your best-fit platform aligned with your brand’s identity and needs.
I’ll leverage comprehensive research and experience-backed perspectives examining these critical comparison points below. Let’s dive in!
At a Glance: How Shopify and BigCommerce Compare
Before analyzing key decision factors, I wanted to provide a quick capabilities overview:
| Shopify | BigCommerce | |
|---|---|---|
| Best For | Smaller brands,services/product hybrids, niche stores | Midmarket/enterprise brands, huge catalogs, high complexity |
| Ease of Use | Extremely beginner-friendly | Steeper learning developing advanced skills |
| Theme Marketplace | 90+ free/paid themes | 65+ free/paid themes |
| Transaction Fees | 1.9-2.9% | No transaction fees |
| Technical Features | Streamlined feature set Reliant on apps |
Advanced built-in toolset Native integrations |
| Scalability | Proven infrastructure handles scaling App support |
Robust architecture built for enterprise needs Native multi-channel/ERP connectivity |
| Customer Support | 24/7 support via Chat/Email/Phone/Forums | 24/7 support via Chat/Email/Phone and ticketing 90%+ satisfaction |
Now equipped with a broad perspective of each platform, let’s breakdown their differences across six key evaluation criteria.
Pricing and Transaction Fees
As an ecommerce analyst, I always stress the importance of calculating your total solution cost, not just sticker prices. Monthly subscriptions represent one component – you must also account for:
- Transaction fees – Percentage of order value deducted
- App integration costs – Connectors often carry premium fees
- Agency partnerships – Developing custom experiences and managing technical complexity
With this context, how do BigCommerce and Shopify pricing models compare?
Shopify simplifies planning by offering four subscription tiers ranging from $29/month to $299/month catering to different business sizes and needs. Their lowest “Basic Shopify” plan proves extremely affordable for early-stage merchants.
However, be wary of transaction fees from 1.9-2.9% deducted from each order – these significantly erode profit margins. For example, a $100 order on a 2.9% transaction fee plan loses $2.90 per order.
BigCommerce pricing depends on your annual sales volume which better aligns costs with ability to pay. Plans range from $29.95/month (“Standard”) to $249.95 (“Plus”) to customized Enterprise quotes.
One advantage over Shopify is BigCommerce charges no transaction fees. Even at thrifkest rates, those accumulated 2-3% transaction charges severely diminish revenues as order volumes scale.
However, merchants report BigCommerce’s app ecosystem carries steeper premiums – likely due to smaller vendor pool passing on overhead. Carefully evaluate integrations against your budget.
My verdict: BigCommerce offers transparent, value-driven pricing that keeps revenues in your pocket. But Shopify proves extremely affordable for smaller merchants watching every penny.
Customization Flexibility
Establishing a beautifully branded, slick user experience remains vital – 68% of customers abandon a purchase based on website design alone.
Customization flexibility means merchants control the look-and-feel rather than settling with pre-fab templates. So how do our contenders compare for store design options?
Shopify surely delivers regarding free themes – they offer over 90 choices spanning multiple industries, styles and page layouts. Their paid theme marketplace triples available selection.
Their intuitive Theme Editor dashboard enables easy modification like colors, fonts and images without coding expertise. Liquid templating also empowers advanced customization for developers.
However, Shopify merchants cite prohibitively expensive paid theme costs, often exceeding $180+. Locked templates also complicate making incremental changes.
Conversely, BigCommerce offers 60+ free Storefront design themes focused on quality over quantity. You still locate aesthetics suiting beauty stores, fashion boutiques, watch brands and other verticals.
Their UI-based Theme Editor gives merchants more direct control over template changes. Developers appreciate the flexibility of using open-source tools like GitHub.
The main drawback around BigCommerce remains theme marketplace limitations – just fewer options exist presently compared to Shopify’s expansive catalog. But included themes satisfy most use cases.
My verdict: Shopify provides elegantly designed themes nearly doubling available choices compared to BigCommerce. But locked down templates reduce flexible modifications, often pushing expensive developer costs to merchants .
Ease of Use
Simplicity and approachability remain paramount when assessing platforms – especially for new entrepreneurs lacking big tech teams.
Even establishing thought leaders like BigCommerce and Shopify confront merchants just starting their journeys with intimidating dashboards full of settings and configurations.
Shopify recognizes ease-of-use as a key product pillar. Their dashboard introduces critical functions like adding product listings, inventory and order management through simplified menus and processes.
Bolt-on support apps also prevent complicating the merchant experience by offloading heavy functionality outside Shopify’s streamlined environment.
By contrast, merchants praise BigCommerce for providing advanced built-in features catering to mid-sized ecommerce businesses – but criticize confusing navigation and incomplete getting started guides.
The extensive configuration options prove overwhelming for novices. Operating the platform demands deeper training developing technical skills before unlocking true potential.
My verdict: Shopify remains the undisputed leader regarding intuitive usability for first-time merchants. Simplified tools and bolt-on apps prevent early frustration. BigCommerce offers greater long-term capabilities, but requires extensive onboarding.
Scalability
Scalability marks my most frequent enterprise concern as ecommerce consultants:
Can this platform support our multi-million dollar sales volumes? How complex are integrations managing cross-channel marketplaces and ERPs?
So whether just starting or leading a Fortune 500 retailer, evaluating headroom for expansion matters.
As expected, BigCommerce shines strongest targeting mid-sized and enterprise brands. Their architecture supports extensive built-in functionality like complex buyer journeys, custom checkouts and faceted catalogs scaling into the thousands of SKUs.
Native integrations connect BigCommerce into major marketplaces, social channels, corporate ERPs and POS systems. This prevents owning expertise managing API data flows.
Shopify undoubtedly handles sizable merchant sales volumes thanks to clean code and cloud infrastructure. But their app ecosystem attempts filling gaps around multi-channel sales and syncing supply chain systems.
This burdens your team owning patching together technologies made by different vendors. Instead BigCommerce delivers unified data and expansive capabilities from one solutions provider.
My verdict: BigCommerce reduces headaches required to operate at scale by owning integration complexity instead of pushing onto merchants. Shopify relies more on apps bridging gaps between disjointed technologies.
SEO Capabilities
Driving organic traffic from search engines like Google now represents 40% of site visits. So optimizing online discoverability and conversions remains vital.
I love how BigCommerce bakes-in SEO best practices across their platform instead of leaving enhancement solely through third-party apps:
- Editable title tags, meta descriptions and image alt text
- Optimized URLs and XML site maps
- Built-in blog with RSS feeds
- Structured data markup ready for Google
These steps simplify search visibility without relying completely on developers. Shopify optimizes similar on-page elements but they must get bolted-on through apps complicating workflow.
One pain point around BigCommerce includes site migration difficulties transferring SEO authority to new URLs based on merchant feedback. Shopify apps smooth out transition hiccups.
My verdict: BigCommerce reduces heavy lifting required for optimizing search visibility through native tooling. Shopify depends more on apps filling gaps to attain search visibility.
Integrations and Support
Even the most robust platforms require vendor assistance balancing hundreds of configuration choices and app ecosystem complexities.
So when something goes wrong, having authentic service support prevents pulling your hair out! Both our contenders again excel regarding customer care access:
Shopify merchants praise their 24/7 live chat, email, phone and active forums for solving issues promptly, usually within an hour. They also offer a knowledge base with helpful self-service content.
I appreciate how Shopify builds their merchant community for sharing insights. However limitations arise with certain third-party apps owning the resolution processes despite paying Shopify for the platform.
BigCommerce similarly provides 24/7 live chat, email, phone support through helpful representatives. They earn extremely positive feedback resolving tickets quickly and thoroughly.
Their self-service Assistant Answers bot offers step-by-step troubleshooting guides without wait times. And their vendor-owned app ecosystem prevents finger pointing slowing down fixes.
My verdict: Both vendors provide stellar 24/7 customer support and self-service content to minimize merchant frustrations and issues. Slight advantage goes to BigCommerce fully owning app ecosystem complexity.
Making Your Final Decision
As shown above, Shopify and BigCommerce diverge across six critical evaluation areas. So how do you ultimately decide?
Choose Shopify if you value:
- Low upfront costs for early-stage merchants
- Extremely intuitive UI/UX making setup easy
- Massive theme marketplace with stylish designs
- Well-established app ecosystem and integrations
Choose BigCommerce if you want:
- Built-in advanced functionality with less apps
- Enterprise-level scalability and performance
- Higher control over SEO without added plugins
- No transaction fees increasing profit margins
For smaller merchants prioritizing simplicity, Shopify remains extremely user-friendly. Their ecosystem mitigates growing complexity as you scale too.
But mid-market brands scaling past 7 figures with sophisticated needs lean towards BigCommerce. Their robust architecture aligns with high complexity stores requiring fewerIntegrations.
So choose the platform matching your starting point and future state vision! I hope evaluating across these key decision factors proves helpful selecting the best solution fitting your team.
Feel free to reach out if any other questions come up comparing Shopify and BigCommerce. I‘m happy to provide additional guidance!
