tacey
Install on Shopify
Choosing a platform is one of the most consequential decisions a growing brand makes. A platform that fits your business model can accelerate growth, while one that fights your operations creates a drag on everything. For years, the choice between Shopify and BigCommerce has been framed as simplicity versus complexity, but the real difference in 2026 is about how each platform defines scale.
In short, Shopify scales through its enormous app ecosystem, offering flexibility through third-party tools. BigCommerce scales by including more functionality natively, aiming to reduce the need for apps. This core difference impacts everything from your monthly bill to how quickly your team can launch new initiatives. Neither approach is universally better; the right choice depends entirely on how your business operates and where you plan to grow.
How do Shopify and BigCommerce pricing plans compare for growing stores?
Shopify and BigCommerce have nearly identical monthly prices for their main plans, but their underlying cost structures are different. BigCommerce ties its plans to annual revenue caps, while Shopify's plans are primarily differentiated by features and transaction fee rates. This makes a direct comparison dependent on your sales volume and payment gateway choice.
As of late 2026, both platforms offer three main self-serve plans at the same monthly price points: $39, $105, and $399. Paying annually typically provides a discount of around 25% on both platforms. The key difference lies in the fees and sales limits attached to these plans.
Shopify charges a transaction fee (0.6% to 2%) if you use a third-party payment provider instead of Shopify Payments. BigCommerce historically advertised "no transaction fees," but since June 2026, it charges an "Open Payment Provider Fee" if you don't use one of its embedded partners like Stripe or PayPal. This makes the fee structures more similar than they once were.
| Feature | Shopify (Advanced Plan) | BigCommerce (Scale Plan) |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly Price (Annual Billing) | $299/month | $299/month |
| Online Card Rate | 2.5% + 30¢ (with Shopify Payments) | From 2.2% + 30¢ (via Braintree) |
| Third-Party Gateway Fee | 0.6% | 0.6% (Open Payment Provider Fee) |
| Annual Revenue Limit | None | Forces move to Enterprise at ~$2M |
| Monthly Sales Overage Fee | None | 0.9% on GMV above $33,333/month |
A worked example: A $50,000/month store
Imagine a store generating $50,000 in monthly revenue, or $600,000 annually. On Shopify's Advanced plan ($299/mo annual rate), there is no revenue cap. Using Shopify Payments, the cost is the subscription plus card processing fees. The total platform cost is predictable and fixed at $299 per month.
On BigCommerce's Scale plan ($299/mo annual rate), the same store hits a snag. The plan includes roughly $33,333 in monthly sales. The remaining $16,667 incurs a 0.9% overage fee. This adds an extra $150 to the monthly bill, making the effective platform fee $449, not $299. This variability can complicate budgeting.
This overage fee is the hidden cost of scaling on BigCommerce's standard plans. While card processing fees might be slightly lower, the platform fee itself can become variable and grow with your success. Merchants must forecast this to avoid surprise charges on their monthly statements and accurately calculate their total cost of ownership.
What are BigCommerce's annual revenue limits and what happens if you exceed them?
BigCommerce enforces specific annual revenue thresholds on its standard plans, and exceeding them triggers an automatic plan upgrade. This is a fundamental difference from Shopify, which does not force plan upgrades based on sales volume on its standard plans. These caps make cost forecasting on BigCommerce more complex.
The Core plan (formerly Standard) is capped at $30,000 in trailing-12-month gross merchandise volume (GMV). The Growth plan (formerly Plus) is capped at $100,000. Once a store's sales exceed these limits, BigCommerce automatically moves the store to the next tier, increasing the monthly subscription fee.
The Scale plan works differently. It has a monthly GMV allowance of around $33,333, and sales above that incur a 0.9% overage fee, before eventually requiring a move to the custom-priced Performance plan. This structure means a sudden sales spike can significantly increase your platform costs for that month.
The seasonality edge case
Consider a gift company that generates half of its annual revenue in November and December. On Shopify, those high-volume months do not change the monthly plan fee. The cost structure remains predictable, scaling only with payment processing fees on each transaction. Your platform bill stays the same.
On BigCommerce Scale, a massive sales spike in November could generate significant overage fees. If that spike pushes the trailing 12-month revenue over the plan's threshold, it could trigger a mandatory, permanent upgrade to the pricier Performance plan, even if sales return to normal in January. This punishes seasonal success.
When you approach a revenue limit, BigCommerce sends an email notification. You typically have a grace period to upgrade your plan. Ignoring these warnings results in an automatic upgrade to the next tier. This is not a negotiation; it is an automated part of their billing system designed to align plan value with store revenue.
Which platform has a larger, more robust app ecosystem?
Shopify has a significantly larger and more mature app ecosystem than BigCommerce. With over 16,000 apps on the Shopify App Store compared to BigCommerce's 1,200, Shopify offers a wider array of tools for almost any conceivable function, from marketing automation to complex logistics.
This vast selection provides unparalleled flexibility, allowing merchants to layer on specific functionalities as their needs evolve. If there's a niche marketing tactic or a specific operational workflow you want to implement, there is almost certainly a Shopify app for it. The platform's dominance among direct-to-consumer brands means app developers often launch on Shopify first.
The trade-off for this flexibility is cost and complexity. Relying on multiple apps can lead to a "death by a thousand cuts" scenario, where monthly subscription fees add up. It also means managing updates, potential app conflicts, and varying support quality from dozens of different developers.
The true cost of app dependency
A typical scaling Shopify store might need apps for subscriptions ($49/mo), loyalty and reviews ($99/mo), advanced shipping logic ($29/mo), and an email marketing platform integration ($20/mo). This adds nearly $200 per month on top of the base plan fee, easily doubling the effective cost of the platform.
When a critical app fails, the cost goes far beyond its subscription fee. If your subscription app breaks, recurring revenue stops. If a shipping calculator fails, you cannot process orders at checkout. You are then caught between platform support, who will blame the app, and the app developer, who may not offer immediate 24/7 help.
How do API limits on each platform affect custom development?
For businesses with development teams, API rate limits are a critical factor for scalability. Shopify and BigCommerce use different models. Shopify's GraphQL API uses a calculated cost system, while BigCommerce uses a more traditional request-per-hour model. Both can be restrictive if not managed properly.
Shopify’s Admin API uses a "leaky bucket" algorithm where each query has a "cost" in points. A standard plan restores 100 points per second, while Shopify Plus restores 1,000 points per second, offering ten times the throughput. This system is more complex but allows for short bursts of high activity, which can be beneficial for demanding applications.
BigCommerce's standard plans allow 20,000 API requests per hour, which increases to 60,000 on its Scale plan. This is a simpler, more predictable limit. For very high-volume needs, the BigCommerce Performance plan can offer unlimited API calls, a significant advantage for large enterprises with heavy integration requirements.
An API usage scenario: ERP synchronization
Imagine a brand uses an ERP to manage inventory. It needs to sync price and stock levels for 1,000 SKUs every hour. Each product update might involve fetching the product, then posting the new inventory level. This could require 2,000 API calls per hour just for this one essential task.
On BigCommerce's standard plans (20,000 requests/hour), this sync uses 10% of the available API budget. This leaves ample room for other integrations, like a product information manager or a custom reporting tool. The limit is predictable and easy for a development team to monitor and budget for.
On a standard Shopify plan, the "cost" of the same sync is harder to predict. A single product update via GraphQL might cost 10 points. Syncing 1,000 products could cost 10,000 points. With a restore rate of 100 points/sec (360,000 per hour), this is manageable. However, a large bulk import could quickly exhaust the budget and throttle other critical apps.
Which platform offers more built-in features without needing apps?
BigCommerce provides more extensive built-in functionality compared to Shopify. This is a core part of its value proposition: to offer a more complete out-of-the-box solution that reduces reliance on third-party apps. This can lead to a lower total cost of ownership and simpler store management.
Features that often require an app on Shopify, such as customer groups for segmentation, advanced product filtering, and handling complex product variants (up to 600 SKUs on BigCommerce vs. 100 on Shopify), are native to BigCommerce. This makes it particularly strong for businesses with large, complex catalogs or those in the B2B space.
A concrete example: Setting up wholesale pricing
On BigCommerce, the process to create special pricing is built-in. You would navigate to "Customer Groups," create a group named "Wholesale," and assign it a 20% discount across a product category. You then assign specific customer accounts to this group. The feature is native, requiring no extra cost or installation.
On a standard Shopify plan, this same outcome requires a third-party app. You first must research and install a wholesale pricing app from the App Store. Then, you configure your rules inside that app's separate interface and tag customers with "wholesale" to grant them access. The workflow happens outside Shopify's core admin.
The downside is that if a feature isn't built-in, you have fewer app-based alternatives to choose from compared to Shopify. Shopify's model prioritizes a lean core platform that merchants can extend as needed, while BigCommerce makes more decisions on your behalf about what features are essential.
The choice between an ecosystem and a battery-included platform is a philosophical one. Do you want the tool that does one thing perfectly, or the one that does a dozen things well enough? There is no wrong answer, only a wrong fit for your specific team and workflow.
What are the key differences in their enterprise-level plans (Shopify Plus vs. BigCommerce Enterprise)?
At the enterprise level, the platforms diverge significantly in pricing, customization, and B2B capabilities. Shopify Plus starts at a published price of $2,300 per month, while BigCommerce Enterprise (now called Performance) uses custom pricing that starts around $1,499 per month but includes sales overages.
Shopify Plus excels with its polished ecosystem, extensive support network, and tools like Shopify Flow for automation. It’s geared toward high-growth DTC brands that prioritize speed and a reliable, managed environment. BigCommerce Performance is built for operational complexity, offering more native B2B features like quoting and price lists, and the ability to manage multiple brands from a single backend.
The trade-off is stability versus control. Shopify's governed approach with Checkout Extensibility means your checkout is less likely to break during platform updates, as apps operate within safe boundaries. However, these boundaries can also prevent you from implementing a truly unique feature if it falls outside what the APIs allow.
With BigCommerce's open checkout, a developer has the freedom to build almost anything. The risk is that custom code can introduce bugs or security flaws. It also creates a maintenance burden, as your team is responsible for ensuring the custom checkout remains compatible with future BigCommerce updates. A mistake here could take your entire checkout offline.
A key technical difference is checkout customization. Shopify Plus offers "Checkout Extensibility," which allows for significant modifications within a governed framework. BigCommerce provides more open access to its checkout files, offering greater flexibility for developers who need to build highly custom experiences.
Which platform is easier to manage as your product catalog grows?
BigCommerce generally holds an edge for managing large and complex product catalogs due to its more powerful native variant and product option capabilities. It supports up to 600 variants per product, compared to Shopify's limit of 100. This makes it a better fit for businesses selling highly configurable items or with deep product lines.
Let's use a real-world example: selling a configurable sofa. It might come in five fabrics, three leg styles, and two sizes. This equals 30 variants (5 x 3 x 2), which both platforms handle easily. But add four color choices for each fabric, and the total becomes 120 variants (5 x 4 x 3 x 2). This now exceeds Shopify's native limit.
On BigCommerce, this 120-variant product is managed natively within the core admin. On Shopify, you would need to install a product options app to bypass the limit. This solution works, but it can introduce a new point of failure and potentially slow down page load speeds, as custom options often load separately from the main product data.
Shopify's approach often requires using third-party apps to manage complex inventories or get around the 100-variant limit. While these apps are effective, they add another layer of cost and management. For stores with straightforward products, Shopify's simpler product management interface is often seen as more intuitive and faster to use.
The choice here depends on the nature of your products. If your catalog is complex with many options and variations, BigCommerce's built-in architecture is designed to handle that scale more gracefully. If your catalog is simpler, Shopify's user-friendly interface might be more efficient for your team.
What are the checkout customization capabilities on each platform?
BigCommerce offers more direct control over checkout customization across all its plans, while Shopify reserves its most powerful checkout tools for Shopify Plus merchants. On any BigCommerce plan, developers can get open-source access to checkout files, allowing for deep customization of the user experience.
On Shopify’s standard plans, checkout customization is limited to changing colors and the logo. To make more substantial changes, you must be on Shopify Plus, which provides access to Checkout Extensibility. This framework allows for adding custom apps and branding to the checkout process but does not grant direct access to the underlying code. It's a safer, more controlled environment but offers less absolute freedom than BigCommerce's approach.
This difference becomes critical for specific business needs. For example, a B2B store might need to validate a professional license number during checkout. On BigCommerce, a developer can add this custom field and validation logic directly to the checkout flow. On Shopify, this would require a purpose-built app that operates within the stricter confines of Checkout Extensibility.
For most businesses, Shopify's checkout is highly optimized for conversion and requires little modification. However, for brands that need to implement unique workflows, custom fields, or complex logic at the point of sale, BigCommerce's open architecture provides a distinct advantage.
As your store scales on either platform, the volume of orders naturally increases. This often surfaces a common operational challenge: customers placing multiple separate orders before the first one has shipped. Handling these manually is time-consuming and costly. As your order volume grows, a tool to combine these orders becomes essential for operational efficiency and saving on shipping costs.
Tacey's order-merge feature is designed for this exact problem, allowing your team to merge multiple orders into a single shipment with a few clicks. You can explore how it works or install it from the Shopify App Store.
Frequently asked questions
Which platform is better for B2B?
BigCommerce is often considered stronger for complex B2B operations due to its native features like customer-specific pricing, quoting, and purchase orders via its B2B Edition. Shopify has been catching up, making B2B features available on all plans, with more advanced tools reserved for Shopify Plus.
Is Shopify or BigCommerce better for SEO?
Both platforms have strong, comparable SEO capabilities out of the box, including customizable URLs, meta tags, and automated sitemaps. Success in SEO will depend more on your content strategy and technical execution than on the choice between these two platforms. BigCommerce offers slightly more granular control over URL structures, which can be a minor advantage for advanced users.
Can I migrate from Shopify to BigCommerce, or vice versa?
Yes, migration is possible in both directions, but it is a complex process. Both platforms and many third-party services offer tools to help migrate data like products, customers, and order history. However, a full replatforming project requires careful planning, especially regarding theme redevelopment, app replacement, and SEO considerations like URL redirects.
Do both platforms support headless commerce?
Yes, both Shopify and BigCommerce have robust support for headless commerce, allowing developers to use their APIs to build custom front-end experiences with frameworks like React or Vue.js. This approach gives brands maximum design and performance flexibility while relying on the platform's powerful back-end for commerce logic.
How do international sales capabilities compare?
Shopify's Managed Markets feature offers a more integrated solution for international sales, helping to manage currency conversion, duties, and taxes natively. BigCommerce also supports multi-currency and international shipping but often relies more on third-party apps or more complex manual setups to achieve the same level of localization.
Install on Shopify
