Shopify vs BigCommerce – Website Builders Compared

Shopify vs BigCommerce: Head to Head

Shopify is a better choice than BigCommerce if you're creating an online store, because of its ease of use, customizability, and overall depth. All in all, as an ecommerce provider, Shopify is pretty hard to beat.

That said, BigCommerce isn't far behind it, and both brands emerged from our independent testing and user ratings with very respectable scores — BigCommerce and Shopify are both about equal when it comes to sales-centric features.

On the surface, they might look similar. However, there are some big differences between Shopify and BigCommerce that are worth bearing in mind before picking one to be your ecommerce platform.

Shopify

By our testing, Shopify ties with Wix as our top ecommerce platform on the market. It excels across the board in our testing, especially when it comes to its sales features and customer score.

Shopify also has brilliantly-designed online store templates and a variety of customization options, which will help make websites unique – BigCommerce’s designs, on the other hand, aren’t quite as slick. This is especially useful given that online transactions on mobile devices are set to reach $700 billion by 2025. Having a well-designed store could make the difference between a sale and a bounce.

You’ll be able to integrate loads of different sales channels into Shopify's platform, including everything from eBay and Amazon to Instagram and even real-life sales. Fortunately, Shopify’s straightforward and intuitive UI and reporting tools ensure that all of this functionality is easy to manage and optimize.

Shopify also has a comprehensive app store which can help augment the already sizable list of features on offer, like adding apps which let customers track the progress of their orders.

BigCommerce

While Shopify is our favorite ecommerce builder, BigCommerce has more than earned its place on our list of top ecommerce builders; it could be an especially good choice for businesses with complex inventory management needs or which have big ambitions to scale and grow over time. Unfortunately, it lets itself down in a couple of key areas when compared to its rival.

Let’s start with the positives, though. BigCommerce is an excellent sales platform that can build you an impressively-featured online store, and help you manage lots of disparate sales channels.

BigCommerce does beat Shopify when it comes to design functionality and customer support, although Shopify remains a solid pick for those categories. And, thanks to multi-channel integration and a wide range of payment options, our rating puts BigCommerce's sales features among the best that any top ecommerce website builder has to offer – although it still merely tied with Shopify. BigCommerce doesn’t charge transaction fees, either, unlike Shopify.

BigCommerce also has a large roster of built-in features – product reviews and coupon codes, for example – which on some rivals would have to be installed via an app store. This makes the whole experience of setting up your store easier, and saves you time right out of the gate.

However, it’s not all good news. While your BigCommerce online store will be replete with features and functionality, it won't look as good as a Shopify store, let alone a Squarespace one. Simply put, BigCommerce's range of templates isn’t as good, and its website customization tools aren’t as extensive as Shopify's. We also found BigCommerce’s customer satisfaction and general ease of use to be lacking when compared to Shopify.

Best Value: Shopify

Both Shopify and BigCommerce have three main pricing plan tiers, and the option of custom pricing plans for high volume or high-value merchants. Shopify offers one additional plan more than BigCommerce — an inexpensive but limited starter option called Shopify Starter.

All told, Shopify’s low and middle-tier plans offer better value than BigCommerce's, which is why we've given it a win. But price for price, the two companies cost a comparable amount when paid annually.

BigCommerce does come out slightly ahead when looking at the features of the more expensive plans that both vendors have to offer — depending on your needs, BigCommerce is certainly worth considering for larger companies. Here's our detailed look at each provider's pricing options:

Shopify Pricing

Best for Features: Shopify

Both Shopify and BigCommerce offer a lot when it comes to ecommerce, but each one has its ups and downs. Here's how they match up against each other when it comes to basic and advanced website features and functions:

Website Editor

Simply put, Shopify lets you build a better-looking website than BigCommerce. It has a better online storefront editor than BigCommerce, allowing for more customization and editing. By our testing, Shopify rated a 4.1 out of 5 stars for website features, compared to BigCommerce's 3.4 star rating.

Website Templates

In the other corner, though, BigCommerce does offer a larger number of website templates – 187 to Shopify's 81. The gap is closer for free templates, as 10 of Shopify's templates are free, compared to 12 from BigCommerce. Quantity isn't everything, though, and we found that Shopify's templates were better looking and easier for users to navigate than BigCommerce's.

Inventory Management

Both services allow users to set up inventory tracking and adjust their inventory levels within their website accounts. In addition, BigCommerce offers plenty of integrations for inventory and order management, from a Buy on Google plugin that lets customers use Google's native checkout function for their purchases to an integration with Mercado Libre, an ecommerce site that can open your store to up a Latin America audience.

Page Security

Shopify and BigCommerce both have strong security features to offer their users. Both services support a customer login ability, which lets users give their customers personal accounts.

Unlike Shopify, BigCommerce even allows for the creation of a members-only area of the website, which can be useful for ecommerce sites. But Shopify also supports an additional measure that BigCommerce does note — Password protections for Shopify sites add another layer of security to its ecommerce websites.

Best for Ease of Use: Shopify

This category is a rare case where neither service is truly stellar. Shopify earned a 3.5 stars out of 5 for ease of use according to our testing, while BigCommerce landed 3.3 stars, putting both services underneath other other top ecommerce builders including Wix, Squarespace, and Square. Still, neither rating is bad, and with a bit of a learning curve, you'll likely be happy with either one.

Shopify is solidly simple to use, with intuitive menus and a straightforward design. BigCommerce isn’t bad, but it can’t quite match Shopify for pure simplicity.

Finding your way round Shopify’s menus is a piece of cake thanks to the useful setup tour you’re given. This simplicity will help you save time, and probably money, further down the line.

Best for Ecommerce: Shopify

This was always going to be close, given how these two are leading ecommerce platforms on the market. Both offer a wide range of sales channels, including eBay, Amazon, and social media sites such as Facebook and Instagram. Shopify is slightly better when it comes to offline point-of-sale transactions, thanks to its Shopify Payments processing tool, but that might not be ideal for everyone.

BigCommerce is able to rival Shopify's offerings, simply because many features which can help supplement the sales journey – such as customer reviews and coupon codes – come built-in.

Occasionally, though, BigCommerce won't offer a native functionality that Shopify does have, like when it comes to supporting multiple languages: Shopify's language support comes baked in, while BigCommerce requires a third-party integration called Weglot to do the same.

 Best for Help & Support: BigCommerce

Shopify earns 3.6 stars out of 5 in our tests for help and support offered to customers by the service itself, but BigCommerce beats it with 3.8 stars.

The Shopify online knowledge base is packed with detail, but so is BigCommerce's own knowledge base, which includes a community Q&A section for common concerns, as well as a section for the latest product news and updates.

BigCommerce’s support staff were eager to pick up the phone and guide us through the early days of our site, offering exactly the support an uncertain customer would need to launch a site as well as the expertise an ambitious customer would need ensure the perfect results.

That said, we were able to create a shop easily with Shopify’s builder, without having to look at its support pages once, and that counts for something as well.

Other Website Builder Alternatives

Shopify stands out as the best website builder for larger ecommerce businesses, though BigCommerce isn't far behind with it's standout inventory management tools and customer service. But they're not the only options in town. What other website builders should be competing for your attention?

Our researchers have spent long hours compiling all the relevant metrics, from design functionalities and sales features to page security and value-to-cost ratios. Here are the big ecommerce competitors that you should have in the back of your mind when deciding which pick is best for your unque set of needs.

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