Both are hosted platforms, so nobody is running a server either way. The real difference is how each one prices your success – and in 2026 BigCommerce changed its answer.
BigCommerceA written answer within 24 hours
BigCommerce
These two are closer than any other pairing on this site: both hosted, both mature, both perfectly capable of running a serious store. The decision comes down to the cost model. BigCommerce charges no platform fee on sales settled through its embedded payment providers, but its plans carry revenue caps that upgrade you automatically – and in 2026 those caps came down. Shopify has no revenue cap at all, but adds a surcharge if you use a gateway other than Shopify Payments. Which suits you depends on how fast you’re growing and which payment provider you can’t give up.
Written by someone who builds on Shopify and reads both price lists carefully – including the 2026 change that surprised a lot of BigCommerce merchants.
BigCommerce ties each plan to a trailing twelve-month sales threshold: Core up to $30K, Growth up to $100K, and on Scale a monthly cap with an additional 0.9% on sales above it. Cross the line and the plan upgrades automatically, billed pro rata. Shopify has no revenue cap. You move up a plan for features and for a lower card rate, and you do it when you decide to.
BigCommerce takes no platform fee on orders settled through one of its roughly twenty-one embedded payment providers – a genuine advantage. Use anything else and it charges 2% on Core, 1% on Growth and 0.6% on Scale. Shopify charges nothing on top of Shopify Payments and applies the same 2% / 1% / 0.6% by plan if you bring your own gateway. Same percentages, opposite trigger. Which is cheaper depends entirely on which provider you intend to use.
In 2026 BigCommerce renamed its plans, lowered the sales thresholds and changed the reduction factor used to calculate your figure from 3% to 10%, so the GMV it counts is now your gross times 0.90. Merchants on its own forum reported bills jumping several times over, without grandfathering. I mention it not as a gotcha but because it’s the sort of thing a three-year decision should account for: on one platform the plan price is the plan price, on the other it’s a function of how well you do.
Both platforms host, secure and update themselves, so the daily differences are narrower than with a self-hosted platform. These are the ones that show.
Neither asks anything of you here. Both are hosted, both update themselves, both handle security and scaling. If you’re coming from WooCommerce or Magento, this is the part that feels like a holiday on either platform.
On Shopify the plan costs what the plan costs. On BigCommerce a strong quarter can move you up a tier automatically, and the 2026 threshold change made that happen sooner than many merchants expected.
Shopify’s App Store lists more than 16,000 apps with a large free tier; BigCommerce’s marketplace is around 1,200. For mainstream needs both are fine. The gap shows on the odd requirement, where Shopify usually has an app and BigCommerce more often needs development.
Shopify’s one-page checkout and Shop Pay are its strongest commercial asset, and Shopify publishes a figure of up to 15% better conversion for it. BigCommerce has a solid, customisable checkout – but no equivalent of an accelerated wallet with tens of millions of saved shoppers.
No percentage scores. Four areas, verifiable facts – including the rows BigCommerce wins.
Entry plan
Revenue cap on the plan
What happens when you grow
Platform fee on sales
Hosting and security
Apps and integrations
Custom development
Checkout
Control of URLs
Ownership
Card payments
Local payment methods
Languages and currencies
How plans are priced
B2B and wholesale
Cost as you scale
Partner and developer ecosystem
Price stability
Verified on 21 September 2026 from both platforms’ official pricing pages, including BigCommerce’s 2026 pricing update. BigCommerce figures are from its US price list in dollars; Shopify figures from the eurozone list in euros.
Shopify charges per plan in euros and takes no share of your sales. BigCommerce publishes dollars, takes no platform fee on embedded providers, and ties each plan to a sales threshold. Excluding VAT, September 2026.
No revenue cap on any plan. You move up for features and a lower card rate, when you decide to.
Annual billing saves roughly 25%.
Thresholds are measured on trailing twelve-month sales, and since 2026 the figure counted is your gross multiplied by 0.90. Crossing a threshold upgrades the plan automatically.
If your preferred payment provider is on BigCommerce’s embedded list and your revenue is stable, BigCommerce can be the cheaper platform. If you’re growing quickly, the automatic upgrades mean the platform takes a share of that growth in all but name – and the 2026 threshold change made that sharper. On Shopify the plan price is flat and the variable cost sits on the card rate, which you can lower by moving up a plan when it pays for itself. Neither is a trick. They’re different bets on how fast you intend to grow.
In writing within 24 hours · no commitment
Both platforms are built for international selling, but one of them publishes its plans in dollars and was built around the US market first. For a European store the practical pieces are worth going through one by one.
DHL, DPD, GLS, InPost and PostNord connect to Shopify through apps, with pickup point selection, labels and tracking automatic. On BigCommerce the mainstream European carriers are covered, but the app choice for each market is narrower.
Google and Meta are native sales channels on Shopify; idealo, Ceneo or Prisjakt run through a feed I set up per market. BigCommerce connects the large channels too – for smaller European comparison sites expect to do more of it yourself.
This is where the mirror image matters most. Shopify Payments covers the local methods European customers expect – iDEAL, Bancontact, BLIK, Klarna – with no surcharge. On BigCommerce the equivalent comes from the provider you connect, and whether it carries a platform fee depends on whether that provider is on the embedded list.
Shopify calculates VAT per country, accepts OSS and IOSS registrations and validates EU VAT numbers; filing stays with your accountant. Both platforms will need an accounting integration, which on Shopify I connect as part of the build.
Not sure? I’ll tell you straight – I only build on Shopify, but "BigCommerce fits you better" is a legitimate answer. Write to me
Moving between two hosted platforms is the least painful migration there is: both have documented APIs and neither hides your data. The work is in URLs, apps and rebuilding the checkout experience.
I go through the catalogue, the URL structure and the apps you depend on, and map every address to its Shopify equivalent before anything moves.
A new store in Liquid built around your brand, with payments, carriers and invoicing connected from the start.
Products, customers and orders through the API, in batches for larger catalogues. Redirects go live on launch day and the store stays online throughout.
I monitor indexing, rankings and conversion. Thirty days of support is included in every project.
A typical migration from BigCommerce takes 2 to 8 weeks.
In writing within 24 hours · no commitment
It isn’t only the monthly plan. "Free" on a self-hosted platform means you pay for running it elsewhere – and in more line items.
Shopify
BigCommerce
The widths are illustrative rather than exact amounts – I’ll send a calculation for your case in writing within 24 hours.
Real stores I’ve worked on – every one of them live, click through them yourself.
Shopify is €32 on Basic, €92 on Grow and €384 on Advanced, about a quarter less paid annually, billed in euros in the eurozone. BigCommerce publishes $39 on Core, $105 on Growth and $399 on Scale, with roughly 25% off when billed annually. The headline numbers are close – what differs is that BigCommerce plans carry sales thresholds and Shopify plans don’t.
What Shopify costs: the full breakdownEach plan is tied to a trailing twelve-month sales figure: Core up to $30K, Growth up to $100K, and Scale to a monthly cap with an extra 0.9% on sales above it. When you cross a threshold the plan upgrades automatically and is billed pro rata. Since 2026 the figure counted is your gross sales multiplied by 0.90, where the reduction used to be 3%. Shopify has no equivalent cap.
With an asterisk, and the asterisk matters. There’s no platform fee on orders settled through one of its roughly twenty-one embedded payment providers – genuinely good. Through any other provider it charges 2% on Core, 1% on Growth and 0.6% on Scale. Shopify is the mirror image: nothing on top of Shopify Payments, the same percentages if you bring your own gateway. Which is cheaper depends on which provider you need.
The plans were renamed, the sales thresholds were lowered and the reduction factor used to calculate your figure moved from 3% to 10%, meaning the GMV counted is now gross times 0.90. Merchants on BigCommerce’s own forum reported bills rising several times over without grandfathering. I raise it not to score a point but because a platform decision lasts years, and how a vendor handles a price change is information.
Less than people expect for mainstream stores, more than they expect for unusual ones. BigCommerce’s marketplace runs to around 1,200 apps against more than 16,000 on Shopify. For shipping, reviews, email and analytics both are covered. The gap shows the first time you need something specific – on Shopify it’s usually an app, on BigCommerce more often a development ticket.
It’s Shopify’s strongest commercial asset. One-page checkout plus Shop Pay, which returning customers can complete without retyping anything, and Shopify publishes a figure of up to 15% better conversion. BigCommerce’s checkout is solid and more customisable in places, but there’s no equivalent accelerated wallet with that many saved shoppers behind it.
BigCommerce gives you more freedom over URL structure, where Shopify has fixed /products/ and /collections/ prefixes – a genuine point in its favour. Everything else is comparable: both handle redirects, metadata, structured data and sitemaps properly, and both are fast because both are hosted. For most stores the deciding SEO factor is content and speed, not the prefix.
It tilts it. Shopify Payments covers the local methods European customers expect – iDEAL, Bancontact, BLIK, Klarna – natively and without a surcharge, and Shopify Markets runs several countries with their own language, currency and domain from one admin. BigCommerce sells internationally too, but it was built around the US market first and publishes its plans in dollars, which is worth factoring into a European budget.
Selling across the EU: the full guideThis is the easiest migration pairing there is. Both are hosted platforms with documented APIs, so products, customers and orders come out cleanly. The work is in mapping URLs to Shopify’s structure, replacing the apps you depended on and rebuilding the theme – the design doesn’t transfer, and that’s usually the opportunity rather than the cost.
When your payment provider sits on its embedded list, when your revenue is steady enough that the thresholds never bite, when URL control matters to you, and when your requirements are mainstream enough that a smaller marketplace isn’t a constraint. If that describes you, I’ll say so – pushing you onto a platform that costs you more in fees wouldn’t hold up for long.
Yes. WooCommerce, PrestaShop and Shopware each have their own detailed comparison against Shopify, and the hub puts the platforms side by side on the criteria that decide it – who runs the platform, real cost, checkout, cross-border selling and ownership.
All platform comparisonsWrite me a few sentences about your store – where you are now, or that you’re only starting. Within 24 hours you get it in writing: what makes sense for your case and what to do next. No commitment, no pressure.
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