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E-Commerce · head to head

BigCommerce vs Heartland Retail

BigCommerce logo

BigCommerce

E-Commerce

Hosted e-commerce platform that charges no transaction fee and no surcharge for third party gateways

From
$29.95/month
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Heartland Retail logo

Heartland Retail

E-Commerce

Cloud point of sale and inventory management sold alongside Heartland card processing

From
$150/month
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: BigCommerce plans are gated on annual online sales, so a strong year pushes you into a higher tier and a higher subscription even though your traffic, catalogue and resource usage are unchanged.; Heartland Retail the software is sold as part of a card processing relationship, so the monthly licence understates the real cost and the processing rate is the number that determines what you pay over a year.
  • They diverge on capability: BigCommerce covers No platform transaction fee, Heartland Retail covers Multi-store inventory.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 30 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which BigCommerce and Heartland Retail actually diverge.

Attributes where BigCommerce and Heartland Retail differ
AttributeBigCommerceHeartland Retail
Starting price$29.95/month$150/month
Founded20091997

Identical on both: pricing model (subscription), free tier (No), platforms (Web), user rating (Not yet rated), category (E-Commerce).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in BigCommerce

  • No platform transaction fee
  • Stencil theme framework
  • Multi-storefront
  • Faceted search
  • B2B capabilities
  • Headless support
  • Built-in tax integrations
  • Multi-currency

Only in Heartland Retail

  • Multi-store inventory
  • Cloud point of sale
  • Purchasing and receiving
  • Customer records
  • Sales and stock reporting
  • Integrated card processing
  • E-commerce integrations

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

BigCommerce

  • A merchant whose volume makes a percentage transaction fee the largest line in the platform decisionnot Heartland Retail
  • A retailer needing several branded storefronts sharing one catalogue and one back officenot Heartland Retail
  • A B2B seller who needs company accounts and customer-specific price lists without custom developmentnot Heartland Retail
  • A team going headless who wants a managed commerce back end rather than a self-hosted onenot Heartland Retail

Heartland Retail

  • A specialty retailer opening a third or fourth site that needs one stock position across all of themnot BigCommerce
  • Replacing a legacy on-premise till system that requires a server in the back office of every storenot BigCommerce
  • A retailer whose buying team needs purchase orders and receiving rather than just a cash registernot BigCommerce
  • An existing Heartland processing customer consolidating software and payments under one suppliernot BigCommerce

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

BigCommerce

  • Plans are gated on annual online sales, so a strong year pushes you into a higher tier and a higher subscription even though your traffic, catalogue and resource usage are unchanged.
  • There is a documented ceiling on the number of variants a single product can have, which breaks configurable, made-to-measure and heavily optioned catalogues and forces awkward workarounds such as splitting one product into several listings.
  • The application marketplace is much smaller than the largest competitor's, so a specific integration or niche feature is more often a custom build, and custom builds are the line item that quietly exceeds the platform cost.
  • Theme customisation past the visual settings means Stencil, Handlebars templates and a local command line workflow, so changes that look small to a marketing team still require a developer and a deployment.
  • Migrating out moves products and inventory reasonably well and moves the things that matter badly, since customer passwords cannot be exported in usable form, order history rarely transfers intact, and reviews and URL structure have to be rebuilt with a redirect map you must produce yourself or lose the search traffic.

Heartland Retail

  • The software is sold as part of a card processing relationship, so the monthly licence understates the real cost and the processing rate is the number that determines what you pay over a year.
  • Leaving means changing till software and merchant account together, and since the payment terminals, the reporting history and the staff training are all tied to the same supplier, the switching cost is far higher than a software migration alone.
  • It is not an online store platform, so a merchant selling on the web still buys and maintains a separate e-commerce platform, and the stock and order integration between the two is an ongoing operational dependency rather than a one-off setup.
  • Historical sales and customer purchase history rarely migrate cleanly out of a point of sale system, so a retailer who switches typically starts with an empty history and keeps the old system read-only, paying for it, for years.
  • Heartland sits within Global Payments, a group that has repeatedly restructured its portfolio through acquisitions and divestitures, so which entity owns and invests in this specific product is not stable over a long contract term.

Pricing, plan by plan

BigCommerce

$29.95/month
  • Standard$29.95/month
    • Unlimited products
    • 2 staff accounts
    • Basic reports
  • Plus$79.95/month
    • All Standard features
    • Up to 5 staff accounts
    • Advanced reports

Heartland Retail

$150/month
  • Core$150/month
    • POS system
    • Inventory management
    • Customer management
  • Professional$350/month
    • All Core features
    • Omnichannel
    • Advanced analytics

Which should you pick?

Choose BigCommerce if

  • You need no platform transaction fee.
  • You also want stencil theme framework.
BigCommerce review

Choose Heartland Retail if

  • You need multi-store inventory.
  • You also want cloud point of sale.
Heartland Retail review

Questions people ask

Is BigCommerce or Heartland Retail better?
Neither clearly leads. BigCommerce starts at $29.95/month and Heartland Retail at $150/month, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, BigCommerce or Heartland Retail?
BigCommerce starts at $29.95/month and Heartland Retail at $150/month.
Does BigCommerce or Heartland Retail run on more platforms?
Both run on Web, so platform support will not decide this one for you.
What is BigCommerce best used for?
BigCommerce is most often used for a merchant whose volume makes a percentage transaction fee the largest line in the platform decision, a retailer needing several branded storefronts sharing one catalogue and one back office, a b2b seller who needs company accounts and customer-specific price lists without custom development, a team going headless who wants a managed commerce back end rather than a self-hosted one. Of those, a merchant whose volume makes a percentage transaction fee the largest line in the platform decision and a retailer needing several branded storefronts sharing one catalogue and one back office are not what Heartland Retail is typically brought in for.
What can BigCommerce do that Heartland Retail cannot?
BigCommerce covers No platform transaction fee, Stencil theme framework, Multi-storefront, Faceted search. Heartland Retail covers Multi-store inventory, Cloud point of sale, Purchasing and receiving, Customer records.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

BigCommerce: Does BigCommerce charge transaction fees?

No, and it does not surcharge third party payment gateways either. Revenue affects the price through plan sales thresholds instead.

Heartland Retail: Can I use it as my online store?

No. It manages the shop floor and stock. Selling online means a separate e-commerce platform and an integration to keep the catalogue and stock aligned.

BigCommerce: What happens when I exceed my plan's sales threshold?

You move to the next plan tier. Model this at your projected growth rate, because the increase is driven by revenue rather than by usage.

Heartland Retail: Do I have to use Heartland for card processing?

The product is sold as part of a payments relationship, and that is where the supplier's margin sits. Ask explicitly what the software costs standalone before assuming you have a choice.

BigCommerce: Is the app ecosystem large enough?

It covers the common integrations. For anything niche, assume a development project rather than an install, and price that in before comparing subscriptions.

Heartland Retail: What should I negotiate hardest on?

The card processing rate and the contract term, not the software subscription. Ask for interchange-plus pricing in writing rather than a blended rate.

BigCommerce: How hard is it to leave?

Products export cleanly. Customer passwords, order history, reviews and SEO URLs do not. Build the redirect map before you cut over, not after traffic drops.

Heartland Retail: What happens to my sales history if I leave?

Assume products and current stock export cleanly and that years of transaction history do not. Budget for keeping the old system available read-only during any transition.

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