Two platforms, both capable of running a serious store, both charging roughly the same for the entry plan — and yet the right choice is rarely a toss-up once you look at how you sell. This is a decision guide, not a feature list. If you have already decided and are moving, the step-by-step is in migrating from BigCommerce to Shopify. One disclosure up front: Mgroup is a Shopify agency and we migrate BigCommerce stores for a living, so where BigCommerce is the better fit we say so plainly below, because a client on the wrong platform is a bad client to have.
The short version
| Area | Shopify | BigCommerce |
|---|---|---|
| Entry pricing | Basic $39/month ($29 billed yearly); Starter $5 for social selling | Standard $39.95/month |
| Transaction fees | 0.5–2% on third-party gateways, none with Shopify Payments | None on any plan |
| Checkout | Hosted one-page checkout, Shop Pay, extensions on Plus | Customizable open checkout on all plans |
| B2B | Native B2B on Shopify Plus | B2B Edition (Enterprise-level offering) |
| Headless | Hydrogen framework, Oxygen hosting, Storefront API | Catalyst framework, GraphQL Storefront API |
| Apps and themes | Largest ecosystem in e-commerce | Smaller ecosystem, more built-in features |
| Enterprise tier | Shopify Plus | BigCommerce Enterprise |
Prices are the platforms’ published monthly rates as of April 2026 and change; check shopify.com and bigcommerce.com before budgeting.
Pricing and fees
Shopify offers three main plans: Basic at $39 per month ($29 billed yearly), Grow at $105, and Advanced at $399 ($299 billed yearly), plus the $5 Starter plan for selling through social and messaging apps without a full store. Shopify Plus, the enterprise tier, is priced separately (see our Shopify Plus pricing guide). BigCommerce’s plans are Standard at $39.95, Plus at $105.95, Pro at $399.95, and Enterprise on custom pricing; BigCommerce plans also carry annual online-sales thresholds that move a store up a tier as it grows, so read the current limits before assuming a plan will last.
The real difference is transaction fees. BigCommerce charges none on any plan regardless of gateway. Shopify charges none when you use Shopify Payments and 0.5% to 2% per sale, depending on plan, when you process through a third-party gateway. For a store that must use a specific gateway — a regional processor, a high-risk provider, an existing PayPal-only setup — that fee is a real recurring cost and BigCommerce wins the line item. For a store that can use Shopify Payments, the fee never applies and the plans cost about the same; the Shopify Payments vs PayPal comparison covers processing rates.
Checkout
Shopify’s checkout is hosted, one page, tuned by Shopify and backed by Shop Pay, which stores payment and address details across every Shopify store a shopper has used. It is fast and it converts, and the trade-off is control: on standard plans you brand it (logo, colours, fonts) and configure it, but you change its steps only on Shopify Plus through checkout UI extensions. BigCommerce takes the opposite position: its checkout is customizable on all plans, including code-level changes, which developers like and which also means you own the conversion quality of whatever you build. If you want the best checkout without touching it, Shopify; if you need unusual checkout logic on a mid-tier budget, BigCommerce. The tactics that matter on either platform are in our checkout optimization guide.
B2B and wholesale
Both platforms treat B2B as a premium capability. Shopify’s native B2B — company accounts, catalogs with price lists, quantity rules, net terms, B2B checkout — is part of Shopify Plus; on standard plans wholesale runs through apps (we compare the costs in Shopify B2B cost: Plus vs apps vs separate store). BigCommerce offers B2B Edition, an Enterprise-level package with buyer portals, quoting, company accounts and sales-rep tools. If B2B is most of the business and quoting workflows are central, evaluate B2B Edition seriously; if B2B is a growing side of a DTC brand, Shopify Plus keeps both on one platform with one checkout and one app stack.
Headless
Shopify’s headless story is Hydrogen, its React-based framework, hosted for free on Oxygen with Shopify plans, plus the Storefront API for any other stack. BigCommerce offers Catalyst, a Next.js-based storefront framework, and a GraphQL Storefront API, and has long positioned itself as headless-friendly with integrations for WordPress and other front ends. Both are credible. The practical difference is the ecosystem around them: Shopify has more developers, agencies and third-party tooling built for Hydrogen, while BigCommerce’s headless stack appeals to teams that want the front end fully outside the platform. Whether headless is worth it at all is a separate question we answer in is headless Shopify worth it.
Apps, themes and design
This is Shopify’s largest advantage and it compounds. The Shopify App Store is the biggest in e-commerce, the theme market is larger and more professionally maintained, and almost every SaaS tool a store might want — reviews, subscriptions, loyalty, search, email — ships a Shopify integration first. BigCommerce answers with more features built into the platform (faceted search, customer groups, product options and multi-currency without apps on higher plans), which means fewer subscriptions and fewer moving parts for a store that fits the built-in mould. For an unusual store, Shopify’s ecosystem is the safer bet; for a standard catalogue that wants to avoid app fees, BigCommerce’s built-ins are a genuine saving.
SEO
Both platforms produce fast, crawlable stores when built properly. BigCommerce gives more control over URL structure (Shopify locks products under /products/ and collections under /collections/), and some technical SEO teams prefer that flexibility. Shopify counters with a stronger theme ecosystem for Core Web Vitals, a larger pool of SEO apps and agencies, and, since the URL structure is fixed, fewer ways to break it. In practice rankings are decided by content, links and page experience, not by the platform; a migration in either direction preserves rankings if the redirect map is complete, which is the part of our Shopify migration service we spend the most time on.
Payments, currencies and selling abroad
Shopify Payments is the path of least resistance on Shopify — no transaction fee, Shop Pay, and wallets in one switch — but it is available only in the countries Shopify supports; a store registered elsewhere uses a third-party gateway and pays the platform fee on top. BigCommerce is gateway-agnostic by design, with no platform fee whichever processor you choose, which is why merchants in unsupported countries or with regional processors often land there. For international selling, Shopify Markets handles local currency, language, domains and local payment methods from one store, and Plus adds expansion stores when markets need separate catalogues. BigCommerce offers multi-currency and multi-storefront capabilities that grow with the plan tier. Both can sell globally; the difference is how much lives in the platform versus in configuration and apps.
Operations: POS, inventory and shipping
If you sell in physical locations, Shopify POS is a native part of the platform with shared inventory, customers and orders, and it is a large reason retail brands choose Shopify. BigCommerce relies on partner POS integrations rather than a first-party system. On inventory, both track multi-location stock and integrate with the usual 3PL and ERP tools; Shopify’s edge is the number of ready integrations, BigCommerce’s edge is fewer app subscriptions for the basics. On shipping, both offer discounted labels and carrier integrations in their home markets, and both connect to the major shipping apps. For an online-only brand this section is a draw; for an omnichannel brand it usually tips the decision to Shopify.
Total cost of ownership, not plan price
Plan price is the smallest number in either budget. The real comparison is plan plus transaction fees plus apps plus theme plus development plus the cost of the team’s time. A BigCommerce store on Pro with no transaction fees and built-in faceted search may run cheaper month to month than a Shopify Advanced store paying for a search app, a customer-groups app and a third-party gateway fee. A Shopify store on Shopify Payments with a lean app stack may run cheaper than a BigCommerce store that needs custom development for what a Shopify app does out of the box. Build the twelve-month sheet for your own catalogue and gateway before reading any comparison, including this one.
Enterprise: Shopify Plus vs BigCommerce Enterprise
BigCommerce Enterprise offers multi-storefront management, custom SSL, dedicated account management and flexible, individually priced contracts. Shopify Plus offers dedicated support, checkout customization through extensions, native B2B, expansion stores for multi-region and multi-brand setups, and access to Plus-only tooling such as Launchpad and Shopify Functions. The decision at this level usually comes down to two things: how much your checkout and wholesale workflow needs to be custom (BigCommerce leans flexible, Shopify leans opinionated but polished), and which ecosystem your team, agencies and integrations already live in. Enterprise contracts on both sides are negotiated, so the list price matters less than the total cost of the build and the apps around it.
Who should choose which
Choose BigCommerce if
- You must use a third-party payment gateway and the 0.5–2% Shopify fee would be material.
- You need code-level checkout customization without an enterprise budget.
- Your catalogue is large and complex and the built-in features cover it without apps.
- B2B with quoting and sales-rep workflows is the core business.
Choose Shopify if
- Conversion, Shop Pay and a checkout you never have to maintain matter more than checkout control.
- You will rely on apps and integrations — subscriptions, loyalty, reviews, email — and want the widest choice.
- You want the largest pool of themes, developers and agencies, now and in three years.
- You expect to grow into Plus and want DTC and B2B on one platform with expansion stores.
Moving between them
Migration in either direction is a data and SEO exercise: products with variants and metafields, customers, order history, content, and a complete URL redirect map. It is routine when planned and painful when rushed. If you are leaving BigCommerce, our BigCommerce to Shopify migration guide lays out the steps, and the migration team can scope it against your catalogue. If you are staying, you now know why.
