Shopify and BigCommerce are both credible choices for a hosted online store. The useful decision is which plan, payment setup, catalog model, and integrations fit your business at the full operating cost. Older comparisons can mislead because BigCommerce's current plan names and payment-provider fee structure differ from widely repeated historical summaries.
This guide reviews official information available September 9, 2026. It does not rank either platform through an invented conversion or speed benchmark.
Start with the current BigCommerce terms
The BigCommerce pricing page lists the following US-dollar reference prices, excluding taxes. Annual figures are monthly equivalents of annual billing.
| Plan | Monthly billing | Annual equivalent | Published sales basis |
|---|---|---|---|
| Core | $39/month | $29/month | $30,000 trailing-12-month GMV |
| Growth | $105/month | $79/month | $100,000 trailing-12-month GMV |
| Scale | $399/month | $299/month | $33,333 monthly GMV before stated overage |
| Performance | Custom | Starting at $1,499/month, billed annually | Contract terms |
BigCommerce also distinguishes Embedded Payment Providers from Open Payment Providers. It lists Open-provider fees of 2%, 1%, and 0.6% for Core, Growth, and Scale, respectively; Embedded-provider orders do not incur that additional fee. Processing charges are separate. Check the current provider list and your account terms.
The sales basis uses BigCommerce's defined GMV, not necessarily the revenue number in your own accounting report. Existing contracts may differ from public new-plan terms.
Compare Shopify using your market and requirements
Obtain the Shopify plan quote for the country and billing term you will use. Compare the normal price after any promotion, then add apps, processing, and applicable platform transaction fees.
Team access can be a material difference between otherwise suitable plans. Shopify's Grow documentation lists five user accounts; Advanced lists 15. Choose against the real operator list and current permissions requirements.
Do not assume a plan name means the same thing across vendors. BigCommerce Growth and Shopify Grow are different plans from different companies.
A payment-cost example
Suppose, purely for illustration, a store has $20,000 of monthly order value subject to an additional 1% platform fee. That component is $200. If only $5,000 is subject to it, the component is $50.
This arithmetic shows why you should split payments by provider instead of applying a fee to all revenue indiscriminately. It is not a quote for a specific store. Use each platform's definition of the fee base and your actual provider mix.
Add the processor's own charges separately. Do not describe a platform as “no fees” merely because one type of fee is zero.
Compare the business rules, not just features
| Requirement | Test to run on each platform |
|---|---|
| Complex products | Recreate variants, customization choices, and their prices |
| Wholesale buying | Test the actual buyer, catalog, payment, and approval rules |
| Multiple storefronts or markets | Demonstrate catalog, content, and stock responsibilities |
| External fulfillment | Send a representative order to the warehouse workflow |
| Reporting | Reproduce the report the operator uses to make a decision |
| Staff | Give the intended person the appropriate access |
A checked feature box cannot demonstrate that your particular wholesale pricing or product modifier works. Build a sample with your own data and inspect the resulting order.
When to choose or retain BigCommerce
BigCommerce deserves a serious evaluation when its catalog and integration model already fits the business, when the existing team operates it well, or when a documented destination requirement would be expensive to rebuild elsewhere.
An established store should count the cost of migration, retraining, and overlapping systems. Staying can be the better economic decision even if another subscription is slightly cheaper.
When Shopify may be the better fit
Shopify is worth testing when its workflows and app ecosystem match the merchant's requirements with less operational effort, or when the business wants to consolidate processes that are currently fragmented.
Write down the improvement in concrete terms: fewer manual stock corrections, a required integration that works, or a simpler product publishing process. Validate it in the trial instead of expecting a platform switch to create sales on its own.
Use a decision record
For each platform, record the quoted monthly cost, payment assumptions, required apps, implementation cost, and unresolved requirements. Mark a requirement unverified when you have only a sales claim or an untested app listing.
Use the trial scorecard for a new-store evaluation. If you decide to move, follow the BigCommerce migration guide, including price rules, identifiers, and inventory reconciliation.
A defensible choice is the one whose costs and core workflows you can demonstrate. A generic winner chosen without your catalog, team, and payment setup is not a useful buying recommendation.