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BigCommerce
Hosted e-commerce platform that charges no transaction fee and no surcharge for third party gateways
As of 30 August 2026, BigCommerce starts at $29.95/month. SaaS commerce for mid-market merchants, notable for not taking a cut of sales or penalising your choice of payment provider. Softwr lists it under E-Commerce. BigCommerce is made by BigCommerce Inc, launched in 2009, available on Web.
Overview
What BigCommerce does
BigCommerce is a hosted e-commerce platform aimed at mid-market and larger merchants. The vendor runs the infrastructure, handles PCI scope and ships the storefront, checkout, catalogue, promotions, tax integrations and reporting. Themes are built on Stencil, its Handlebars-based theme framework with a local command line tool, and there is an extensive API surface plus headless support for merchants who want to drive the commerce back end from a separately built front end. The fact that distinguishes it, and the one worth checking against any competitor you are comparing it with, is that it does not charge a transaction fee on sales and does not add a surcharge for using a payment provider other than its own. On a store doing serious volume that difference compounds into a large number every year, and it is the reason BigCommerce keeps appearing on shortlists next to platforms with better known brands. The catch is that revenue still drives the price, just through a different mechanism. Plans carry annual online sales thresholds, and crossing one moves you to the next tier regardless of whether your resource usage changed, so cost scales with success rather than with load. It is bought by merchants with complex catalogues, several storefronts or a B2B side, who want SaaS operations without a percentage of revenue leaving on every order. The trade-offs are real and specific. The application ecosystem is considerably smaller than the largest competitor's, so a niche requirement is more likely to become a development project than an install. There are hard product limits, notably a ceiling on variants per product that catches configurable and made-to-order catalogues. And customisation past a certain point means Stencil, Handlebars and the CLI, which is developer work rather than something a designer can complete alone.
What people use it 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
The honest half
Where it falls short
Concrete and checkable, so you can decide whether any of them matter to you. This is the half of a review a vendor will not write about 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.
Cross-shopped
What people choose instead of BigCommerce
Each pairing was judged by two reviewers asking whether a buyer would genuinely weigh the two against each other. The ones that failed were deleted rather than published.
- BigCommercevsMagento
Magento: Open-source ecommerce platform for enterprise retail
- BigCommercevsShopkeep
Shopkeep: Cloud-based POS for small businesses
- BigCommercevsHeartland Retail
Heartland Retail: Omnichannel retail management platform
Pricing
What BigCommerce costs
Taken from the vendor's own pricing page. Prices move, so check before you buy.
Standard
$29.95 /mo
- Unlimited products
- 2 staff accounts
- Basic reports
- Email support
Plus
$79.95 /mo
- All Standard features
- Up to 5 staff accounts
- Advanced reports
- Priority support
Capabilities
Features
No platform transaction fee
Takes no percentage of sales and adds no surcharge for third party payment gateways
Stencil theme framework
Handlebars-based themes with a local CLI for development and preview
Multi-storefront
Runs several branded storefronts from one catalogue and back office on higher plans
Faceted search
Filtered product search across large catalogues without a third party search product
B2B capabilities
Company accounts, price lists and quoting for merchants selling to businesses
Headless support
Storefront and management APIs for driving commerce from a separately built front end
Built-in tax integrations
Connects to automated sales tax calculation providers rather than shipping only manual tables
Multi-currency
Displays and transacts in multiple currencies subject to gateway support
Answered, with sources
Questions people ask
Each answer names the page it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Behind it
Who makes BigCommerce
- Company
- BigCommerce Inc
- Based in
- Austin, TX
Keep looking
Where to go from BigCommerce
- BigCommerce alternativesEvery product people weigh against it
- BigCommerce pricingPlans, floors and what the tiers exclude
- BigCommerce badgesWhich rules it meets, and the figure behind each
- All E-Commerce softwareThe full category
- Best E-Commerce softwareThe shortlist, and how it was cut
Best E-Commerce software for
Compare BigCommerce with
- OpenCart
- Square
- Magento
- commercetools
- Algopix
- Namecheap
- PrestaShop
- Shopware
- Volusion
- Wix eCommerce
- Shopkeep
- Heartland Retail
- Vinted
- Klarna
- NCR Voyix
- AliExpress
- Checkout.com
- CJ Dropshipping
Other E-Commerce software
Self-hosted open source shopping cart written in PHP, released under the MIT licence
Free plan13 researched notesOpen core commerce platform, free as Magento Open Source and licensed by revenue as Adobe Commerce
Free plan14 researched notesMarket research tool that estimates demand, competition and margin for products across marketplaces
Free plan13 researched notesICANN-accredited domain registrar that also sells shared hosting, SSL certificates and email
From $0.88/yr13 researched notesExplore the open-source commerce platform, backed by our global community
Free, then €600/mo10 researched notesHosted website builder with a store module, using drag-and-drop layout rather than themes you can swap
Free plan14 researched notesCloud point of sale and inventory management sold alongside Heartland card processing
From $150/mo13 researched notesLithuania-founded secondhand fashion marketplace that charges the buyer, not the seller, a platform fee
Free plan11 researched notesBuy now pay later and instalment checkout for online and in-store merchants
Pricing on request12 researched notesEnterprise point of sale and commerce software for retail and restaurant chains
Pricing on request11 researched notesAlibaba's cross-border retail marketplace, commonly used as a dropshipping supply source
Free plan13 researched notesYour business deserves tailored pricing based on your needs
Pricing on request10 researched notesSourcing and order fulfillment platform for dropshipping and e-commerce sellers
Free plan11 researched notes
Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for BigCommerce, because a rating we did not collect is not ours to publish. What is here is the pricing and platform detail from the vendor’s own pages, limitations we could state concretely, and alternatives a reviewer confirmed people weigh against it. Tell us if any of it is wrong.
More on BigCommerce
BigCommerce alternatives
What people switch to, and what they give up
BigCommerce pricing
Every tier, and where the cost actually lands
Compare BigCommerce
Put it head to head with anything we hold
BigCommerce badge
Its rating, and an embed for your own site
Best E-Commerce software alternatives
Social resale marketplace with a flat fee on low-value sales and a percentage cut above that
Free to list; tiered seller commission by sale price
Japan-founded peer-to-peer resale marketplace with a flat seller commission
Free to list; 10 percent seller commission on sale price plus payment processing fee
Ultra-fast-fashion e-commerce app shipping low-cost apparel direct from Chinese manufacturers
Free to browse and use; pay per order, optional paid loyalty tierLithuania-founded secondhand fashion marketplace that charges the buyer, not the seller, a platform fee
Free for sellers, no commission; buyer pays a variable Buyer Protection fee at checkout
Amazon's consumer marketplace app for browsing, buying and tracking orders
Free to use; optional Prime subscription for fast shipping and bundled media
Ultra-low-cost general merchandise marketplace owned by PDD Holdings, parent of Pinduoduo
Free to browse and use; pay per order, heavy promotional discounting
US and Canada grocery delivery and pickup marketplace with a paid membership tier
Free to download; item markups plus delivery and service fees per order, optional subscription
Fashion resale marketplace popular with younger sellers, owned by Etsy, with a per-item plus percentage fee
Free to list; percentage plus per-order seller fee, separate payment processing fee