2025 Showdown: The Ultimate Battle Between BigCommerce and Shopify for E-Commerce Dominance

Statistics predict that global ecommerce sales will likely exceed $4.8 trillion by 2025. These figures highlight the vast opportunities still available for those aiming to succeed in the ecommerce market. Businesses worldwide are increasingly utilizing online sales channels to accelerate growth. Ecommerce platforms allow merchants to expand their customer base and manage a variety of products within a single shopping environment.

If you’re considering launching your own online store, selecting the right ecommerce platform can be quite overwhelming. To assist with your decision, I’ve compared two of the leading platforms: BigCommerce and Shopify. This comparison offers a detailed side-by-side analysis of their features and strengths, helping you make a well-informed choice.

Let’s dive into the details.

Note: I may receive affiliate compensation for some links below at no extra cost to you. The tools listed are designed to help businesses launch and operate online stores effectively. You can read our full affiliate disclosure in our privacy policy.

Founded ten years ago, Shopify now supports over one million businesses worldwide. It began with a small team of five but has grown to employ around 5,000 staff members globally.

Both platforms provide extensive features such as payment integrations, marketing tools, custom design options, analytics, and reliable customer support. BigCommerce, launched in 2009, has helped merchants process over $25 billion in online sales and maintains a team of more than 700 employees dedicated to fostering an open ecommerce ecosystem.

BigCommerce features include excellent SEO capabilities, no transaction fees, a vast range of product options with 600 variants, detailed analytics, mobile responsiveness, and 24/7 customer support.

Here’s a detailed comparison covering essentials such as templates, payment options, performance, analytics, user experience, SEO, compliance, and support services.

The visual design of your online store is crucial. Fortunately, both BigCommerce and Shopify provide a selection of customizable templates—many free, others paid—that suit various industries and enable quick setup.

BigCommerce offers 12 free templates, while Shopify provides eight. Both platforms focus on giving small businesses and entrepreneurs accessible options to craft visually appealing online stores with ease.These free templates come with various style options, expanding your choices for website design.

While there are fewer free themes available for Shopify compared to BigCommerce, Shopify’s templates tend to be more visually appealing and diverse, giving it an advantage over BigCommerce in this area.

On the other hand, most BigCommerce templates are quite similar, mainly differing only in color schemes, which limits the variety. Meanwhile, Shopify not only offers more attractive designs but also boasts a broader selection of templates that cater to different business needs. Both platforms feature professional and clean-looking templates, but Shopify’s offerings generally stand out more in terms of aesthetics.

Shopify provides 64 paid templates, priced from $120 to $180, each offering a unique style to suit different brands. These premium templates are highly customizable, attractive, and straightforward to modify. They are designed to be responsive and work seamlessly across all devices. Shopify also offers a user-friendly drag-and-drop editor, making it easy to personalize your site. You can browse and filter these templates based on industry, style, layout, and other preferences, helping you find the perfect match for your online store.

BigCommerce, in comparison, has a larger collection of 130 paid themes, costing between $165 and $250. However, most of these templates look quite similar, with only minor differences primarily in color options. Despite this, BigCommerce sometimes offers discounts on its templates, providing opportunities for good deals. While its variety of paid themes is greater in numbers, the overall selection lacks diversity in design style, making Shopify the more attractive choice for distinctive website templates.

When it comes to customizing templates, both Shopify and BigCommerce offer solid options. You can modify templates directly through the platform’s control panel or by editing CSS and HTML code. Shopify often requires fewer adjustments; however, it sometimes necessitates using Liquid, a templating language that allows you to insert operators, tags, and variables for creating dynamic content. Both platforms also support integration with third-party templates, which is helpful if you cannot find a suitable design within their own collections.

Overall, Shopify stands out as the better choice due to its larger variety of free and paid templates and more flexible customization options.Shopify? Sign up now for a free 14-day trial. 

Both BigCommerce and Shopify provide seamless integration with a broad variety of payment options.

They support many standard payment gateways such as:

Shopify, however, connects with over 100 different payment gateways, whereas BigCommerce supports about 45.

Dealing with third-party payment gateways can sometimes be tricky—they often require complex setups and usually come with monthly fees. To simplify payments, Shopify developed Shopify Payments, and BigCommerce offers PayPal Powered by Braintree.

In the US, BigCommerce offers lower credit card processing rates compared to Shopify. Shopify also allows you to use its Debut theme and built-in currency selector to sell internationally in multiple currencies, but if you’re using a different theme, you’ll need to add custom code to enable currency switching.

On top of that, Shopify can automatically detect visitors’ locations via IP address to show product prices in their local currency, but this feature is only available on Shopify Plus or through third-party apps like Bold Multi-Currency. Shopify tends to push users toward using Shopify Payments and charges fees if you opt for other third-party options.

BigCommerce, by contrast, has no transaction fees at all. It also supports multi-currency functionality through its stencil theme, which can automatically convert currencies based on customer IP addresses. For other themes, you’ll need to install third-party apps, similar to Shopify.

BigCommerce offers additional features such as quick setup for third-party payment options, optimized payment processing for mobile users, multi-currency support, no fees for third-party payment gateways (unlike Shopify, which charges up to 2% of sales), and integrated fraud protection tools.

Both Shopify and BigCommerce deliver excellent payment integrations and support multiple currencies. However, BigCommerce stands out as it incurs no transaction fees and has an open partner ecosystem, making it the more attractive choice for many merchants.

Ready to start with BigCommerce? Sign up for a 14-day free trial today.

How quickly your online store loads can have a huge impact on your sales. Even a delay of just half a second can result in a noticeable drop in visitors. Search engines like Google also prioritize faster websites in search rankings, which can help your store get more organic traffic. Nobody wants to wait for slow pages, and providing a faster browsing experience can boost customer satisfaction and broaden your reach.

Shopify tends to load slightly faster overall, especially on mobile devices, while BigCommerce has a quicker desktop load time. Both platforms maintain high uptime and perform well across third-party sales channels like Amazon, Facebook, eBay, Instagram, and Pinterest.

Shopify has a slight edge in overall speed metrics, but BigCommerce is not far behind in performance.

Interested in trying Shopify? Get a 14-day free trial now.

Data is crucial for ecommerce success, especially when it comes to understanding customer behavior and making informed decisions. Advanced analytics tools enable you to analyze customer data, improve conversions, and grow your revenue. In a competitive market, leveraging big data is essential for staying ahead.

Both Shopify and BigCommerce provide robust reporting features that allow you to gain deep insights. These tools include detailed customer reports covering various touchpoints such as how and where customers originated, whether they are new or returning, their retention rates, average order values, and last purchase dates. They also offer marketing analysis tools to evaluate customer acquisition, search data insights into popular products and demographics, financial reports to track sales, profits, and taxes, as well as abandoned cart reports to identify reasons customers leave without completing their purchases.

With Shopify’s advanced plans like Shopify Plus, you can create customized reports with additional filters to pinpoint specific data. Similarly, BigCommerce offers comprehensive analytics, providing valuable insights into customer behavior, abandoned carts, and top-performing products, helping merchants make more targeted decisions.

Shopify’s pricing plan charges a flat fee of $79 for all tiers, which includes access to detailed analytics reports. The lower-tier Shopify plans tend to have more basic analytics features.

Both Shopify and BigCommerce seamlessly integrate with Google Analytics, making it easier to generate custom reports and track conversions effectively.

Winner: BigCommerce. Its flexible pricing and comprehensive reporting tools give it an advantage over Shopify.

Want to explore BigCommerce? Start with a free 14-day trial here.

According to a Statista report, over 53% of online shopping occurred via smartphones in 2021. As mobile shopping continues to rise, it’s essential for stores to optimize their sites for mobile devices, ensuring quick load times and smooth user experiences.

To stay competitive, especially with the increasing mobile user base, stores must prioritize faster-loading pages and responsive mobile applications.

Both Shopify and BigCommerce provide numerous tools and features to ensure your online store is mobile-friendly and performs well on smartphones and tablets.

Let’s examine which platform offers a more effective mobile experience.

Both platforms offer modern, mobile-responsive, and customizable templates that automatically adjust to fit various screen sizes. This ensures your site looks great and functions smoothly on any smartphone. If you need further personalization beyond what templates offer, you can easily modify the underlying HTML or CSS to match your branding needs.

Shopify provides two primary apps—Shopify and Shopify POS—available on both Android and iOS, helping you manage your store on the go. These apps facilitate activities such as order processing, adding products, and viewing reports. Shopify’s POS app, in particular, enables unified in-person and online store management, including credit card payments, product synchronization, and receipt emailing.

Beyond these, Shopify offers multiple third-party apps to support various store functions, from logo design to marketing, although some apps are only available on Android devices.

BigCommerce also offers dedicated mobile apps that let you monitor orders, communicate with customers, and analyze basic reports. With a broad selection of official apps and integrations, Shopify has an edge, especially with its unique point-of-sale mobile application, which BigCommerce currently lacks. However, BigCommerce owners benefit from an open API ecosystem that allows extensive customization and integrations.

The Google-supported Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) technology helps load mobile web pages faster, significantly improving user experience. AMP pages are simplified versions of your original content, stripped of unnecessary scripts and features to enhance speed.

This faster load time reduces bounce rates, boosts engagement, and offers SEO advantages that can improve your site’s ranking on Google. Benefits of using AMP include improved customer satisfaction and better search visibility, making it a valuable tool for any ecommerce site aiming for mobile excellence.

Both Shopify and BigCommerce enable users to serve product pages in the AMP format. By installing a third-party AMP plugin, you can easily activate AMP on any Shopify template, though this usually involves an additional cost. Conversely, BigCommerce offers native support for AMP on both category and product pages, making it simple to enable on any standard BigCommerce theme. To identify whether a theme supports AMP, you simply need to look for the “Google AMP-enabled” option while browsing the available themes.

Winner: BigCommerce. With greater customization options and built-in support for Google AMP, BigCommerce stands out as the better choice here.

Ready to give BigCommerce a try? You can start with a free 14-day trial today.

Please note: I may receive affiliate commissions for some of the links provided, at no extra cost to you. The platforms and tools mentioned are highly effective for businesses looking to start or grow their online store. You can review our full affiliate disclosure in the privacy policy.

Looking at web design and user experience, aside from high-quality product images, your website must offer a seamless customer journey and straightforward navigation. Having an efficient back-end system is meaningless if the front-end user interface isn’t engaging and easy to use.

Both Shopify and BigCommerce feature modern, appealing interfaces designed to attract online shoppers. Let’s examine their offerings in detail.

Shopify provides over 100 premium and free themes. All themes are clean, contemporary, and appealing. You can filter themes based on industry, layout, and style to find the best fit. The Shopify community actively develops professional, functional themes, ensuring a variety of options. The platform’s user experience is highly intuitive, comparable to top content management systems like WordPress. Shopify also focuses on new user onboarding, with a step-by-step wizard that helps beginners quickly understand how to operate the platform effectively.

BigCommerce also offers a broad selection of themes and a robust dashboard meant to deliver an engaging experience. Its interface is purpose-built for a unique user journey; however, some users find it less intuitive—adding products, for example, can be more cumbersome than on Shopify. Nonetheless, this complexity allows BigCommerce to provide advanced customization features. The theme library is extensive, but some premium themes can be very costly.

Winner: Shopify. Thanks to its straightforward, user-friendly design and reasonable theme prices, Shopify has a clear advantage in usability.

Thinking about SEO, both Shopify and BigCommerce provide powerful tools to optimize your online store for search engines. Managing essential SEO functions like editing page titles, meta descriptions, alt texts, and headers is straightforward on both platforms. Shopify simplifies URL redirection with automated prompts that generate redirects whenever URLs are changed, helping preserve your SEO rankings. However, Shopify requires URLs to include category and product names—e.g., /collections/tents/—which isn’t always optimal for SEO. BigCommerce, on the other hand, allows shorter, keyword-rich URLs like www.yourstore.com/blue-shirt, which can be more effective for search rankings. It automatically prepends relevant prefixes to pages, products, and blog posts, making URLs neater and more Google-friendly. Additionally, many BigCommerce themes come with AMP support built-in, enhancing mobile load speeds and user experience.

Winner: BigCommerce. Thanks to its cleaner URL structure and native AMP integration, BigCommerce offers a more SEO-friendly setup.

Ready to start with BigCommerce? You can sign up for a free 14-day trial now.

Lastly, regarding GDPR compliance, both platforms offer tools and features to help you meet privacy regulations.If you’re planning to run an online shop in Europe, it’s essential to follow the EU’s General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR). Ignoring these rules could lead to costly lawsuits and substantial fines.

Website operators are responsible for safeguarding the privacy of their European visitors to keep their ecommerce businesses compliant within EU countries. Here are some key GDPR essentials that BigCommerce and Shopify store owners should be aware of: ensure clear privacy and cookie notices, store and handle data securely using SSL certificates and HTTPS, obtain explicit consent from users signing up for newsletters, and provide a robust system allowing users to revoke permissions related to non-essential cookies.

Both Shopify and BigCommerce facilitate compliance with the first three points seamlessly. However, for the final aspect—allowing users to revoke cookie permissions—you’ll need legal advice to set up appropriate notifications and custom forms to ensure full GDPR adherence. This includes displaying cookie consent banners and giving users choices about which cookies they accept, especially if third-party services like Google Analytics, Amazon, or Facebook ads are involved, as these require explicit permissions.

Neither platform fully addresses cookie management out of the box, but Shopify users can utilize third-party apps from the Shopify app store to bridge this gap, whereas BigCommerce currently lacks such solutions.

While neither platform offers comprehensive GDPR compliance tools, Shopify has an advantage because of its extensive third-party app ecosystem that can assist in meeting these regulations through additional tools.

Ready to start with Shopify? You can take advantage of a free 14-day trial.

Many visitors add products to their carts but leave before completing their purchase for various reasons. They might be waiting for a better deal, saving items for future purchase, encountering website issues like slow speed or errors, or simply browsing without immediate intent to buy. Monitoring abandonment rates helps identify who needs follow-up, making abandoned cart recovery essential. This feature allows automated emails to remind and encourage customers to complete their orders, thus converting lost opportunities into sales.

BigCommerce’s abandoned cart saver enables sending up to three automated reminders, potentially recovering up to 15% of lost sales. Shopify, on the other hand, only permits sending a single follow-up email, which makes both platforms somewhat limited. Sending multiple reminders can be effective but risks annoying customers, so timing and frequency are crucial. Shopify offers the flexibility of scheduling follow-ups at intervals of 1, 6, 10, or 24 hours, with recommendations favoring the 1 or 10-hour marks for optimal results.

While Shopify’s ability to send scheduled follow-ups gives it an edge in this aspect, both platforms require careful management to maximize effectiveness.

Interested in trying Shopify? Start your free 14-day trial today.

Starting a blog is increasingly popular as it drives organic traffic, especially when focusing on niche topics related to your business. High-quality, SEO-optimized content promoted across various channels can significantly boost your site’s visibility. Both BigCommerce and Shopify allow easy creation of blogs, including importing existing posts via their respective apps—BigCommerce’s Blog Sync and Shopify’s Blogfeeder.

However, their blogging features are quite basic—they don’t support categories (only tags), and neither integrates with advanced SEO plugins like Yoast. BigCommerce’s blog also lacks an RSS feed for content syndication and automatic newsletter integration with new posts, limiting automation options. For more advanced blogging needs, integrating a third-party blog platform on either system is advisable.

In this case, the outcome is a draw because both platforms offer similar basic blogging functionalities, but neither excels significantly without additional third-party tools.This platform provides a simple blogging option. For more advanced customization and complex features, you’ll need to consider a third-party blogging application.

Customer support is a vital aspect of any e-commerce platform. It’s important to have responsive support that can quickly resolve your customers’ issues, ensuring a smooth shopping experience. A poor support system can quickly ruin customer satisfaction.

As delivering excellent customer service becomes a top priority for businesses, choosing a platform that offers comprehensive support options is essential.

Both BigCommerce and Shopify stand out by offering several ways to get help, including live chat, phone support, FAQs, forums & tutorials, and email support. Let’s explore their support services in detail.

BigCommerce provides 24/7 support through phone, live chat, and email. However, before you can contact them via email or phone, you are encouraged to fill out a form and attempt to find solutions independently first. If immediate assistance is needed, you can bypass this step and contact a support representative directly. This flexibility can be very helpful when quick problem resolution is required.

Shopify also offers round-the-clock support and encourages users to search for solutions before reaching out. They provide phone contact options for many countries, but if your country isn’t listed, calling directly may not be an option. In contrast, BigCommerce offers a wider range of country-specific phone numbers and a dedicated contact line for other nations, making it generally easier to get in touch.

In terms of support quality, BigCommerce holds an advantage due to its extensive international contact options. However, the true test of support will be in actual calls or emails, where responsiveness and effectiveness can be assessed.

Ready to start with BigCommerce? You can enjoy a 14-day free trial to explore its features firsthand.

Please note that I may receive affiliate compensation for some links shared here at no extra cost to you. Nonetheless, the software recommended is proven to help businesses successfully launch and manage online stores. For more details, see our privacy policy.

Moving on to pricing, it’s a significant factor in choosing the right platform. While initial costs are important, it’s equally vital to consider hidden fees that might apply based on your sales volume.

Both BigCommerce and Shopify offer multiple pricing plans, each suited to different business sizes and needs.

BigCommerce offers four main plans:
– The Standard plan at $29.95 per month
– The Plus plan at $79.95 per month
– The Pro plan at $299.95 per month
– An Enterprise plan with customized pricing, often starting around $1,000 to $2,500 monthly, tailored for large-scale businesses.

All plans come with a 15-day free trial, allowing you to evaluate whether the features match your requirements. Additionally, BigCommerce charges no transaction fees, making it an excellent choice for high sales volumes, especially if you use a third-party payment provider.

Shopify provides five different subscription plans, each offering different features and pricing.

Beyond the basic plans, Shopify offers two customized options:

Customers can try out their store with a 14-day free trial without any need for a credit card. Shopify works well for smaller businesses just starting out, especially if they plan to use Shopify Payments. Overall, your monthly cost depends on factors like taxes, shipping fees, additional staff accounts, and transaction charges.

Starting to sell products online is more affordable with Shopify for beginners than with BigCommerce, as the Lite plan costs only $9 compared to BigCommerce’s minimum plan of $29.95. But the Lite plan is limited, mainly letting you add Shopify Buy Buttons on social media like Facebook, functioning similar to PayPal’s Buy Now button for selling through existing sites. For larger merchants needing more built-in features and third-party payment options, BigCommerce’s zero transaction fees and customizable shipping quotes make it a better choice.

If you’re just beginning your online store, Shopify’s plans are cheaper initially, but for more advanced needs, BigCommerce offers robust features and flexibility. Your decision should consider not just the monthly subscription but also taxes, shipping costs, staff accounts, and transaction fees. Both platforms have their strengths depending on your business size and complexity.

Shopify’s affordability for small startups is evident since its lowest plan costs only $9, whereas BigCommerce’s entry-level plan is $29.95 monthly. However, the Lite plan doesn’t include features of a full online store and mainly serves to embed the Shopify Button on social media platforms. On the other hand, BigCommerce’s platform, with no transaction fees and better native functionality, suits larger businesses looking for comprehensive e-commerce solutions.

Shopify Review:
Pros include affordable abandoned cart recovery features, cost-effective templates, strong dropshipping support with apps like Oberlo, and extensive third-party app integrations. Its mobile apps and blogging tools are also a plus. However, it lacks email hosting, charges extra transaction fees if not using Shopify Pay, and only higher-tier plans enable advanced features. The platform also has fewer product variants than BigCommerce and less SEO-friendly URLs.

BigCommerce Review:
Pros are its fee-free payment gateways, more comprehensive native features on standard plans, automatic AMP support on product pages, and SEO-optimized URLs. It offers detailed analytics, real-time carrier quotes starting at $29, and supports a high number of product variants—up to 600. Its abandoned cart recovery is more flexible, and its localization tools and dedicated support are available in more countries. Its open ecosystem and variety of discounts and coupons further enhance its appeal, along with integration options with WordPress.

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This comprehensive review aims to assist you in choosing the right ecommerce platform for your needs.

For small businesses, dropshippers, and newcomers, Shopify is ideal due to its user-friendly features and affordability. It’s simple to set up and manage, making it perfect for beginners looking to start an online store quickly.

Want to try Shopify? Start your free 14-day trial today. Larger retailers, those transitioning from older platforms like Magento, small business owners generating over $500,000 annually, or users relying on third-party payment options should consider BigCommerce.

Give BigCommerce a shot with a free 14-day trial.

What platform are you thinking about using? Share your reasons in the comments below!

Related articles on StepThroughThePortal.com: If you’re looking to optimize your shipping process, check out my reviews of the top ecommerce fulfillment services. And if you’re seeking a simpler website solution instead of online selling, read my reviews of the best website builders as well as a detailed comparison of Wix versus Shopify.