BigCommerce vs Shopify: which costs less in 2026?

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The quick verdict

Pick Shopify if you are a small or fast-growing store that wants a low, predictable plan price. Its pricing page states no sales caps for Basic, Grow or Advanced, so a $120,000-a-year store can stay on Basic at $29 a month billed yearly. Use Shopify Payments, or you pay an extra 0.2% to 2% on every sale.

Pick BigCommerce if you want more built in, staff accounts on the entry plan, B2B tools, or your own payment provider from a long approved list with no platform fee. Expect to pay more for the plan as you grow: BigCommerce’s sales caps move a $50,000 store to Growth and a $120,000 store to Scale.

Side by side

The plan prices match tier for tier. The difference is who has to be on which tier.

How BigCommerce’s caps work

Since June 1, 2026, when BigCommerce renamed Standard, Plus, Pro and Enterprise to Core, Growth, Scale and Performance, each self-serve plan has a cap on “Inclusive GMV.” That is your gross order value (products after discounts, plus taxes and shipping) minus 10%, over the last 12 months, including eBay, Amazon and social channel orders. Cross Core’s $30K or Growth’s $100K and BigCommerce moves you up. Scale includes $33,333 a month of GMV and charges 0.9% above that.

Gateway fees work differently

A payment gateway moves money from the customer’s card to your bank. Both platforms charge the same percentages on their first three tiers when you use an outside gateway. The difference is the exemption list.

• Shopify waives its fee for Shopify Payments, and its help center says PayPal is also exempt when Shopify Payments is your main provider.
• BigCommerce waives its new Open Payment Provider fee for a long Embedded list that includes BigCommerce Payments, Stripe, PayPal Braintree, Adyen, Checkout.com, Worldpay, Amazon Pay, Klarna and Affirm. Other providers (BigCommerce’s example is NMI) pay the fee, and you cannot pass it on to shoppers.

Until June 1, 2026, BigCommerce could say “no transaction fees.” That line no longer holds for providers off the Embedded list. Our glossary covers transaction fees in general.

Cost over 3 years

Two US stores, each with a $50 average order, billed yearly. “Sales” here means everything customers pay, tax and shipping included, since that is what BigCommerce counts and what the card is charged. Every total also includes a .com at Namecheap ($48.24 over 3 years; neither platform’s free domain offer is confirmed) and one Google Workspace inbox ($252).

Card rates: Shopify Payments charges 2.9% + 30 cents online on Basic, 2.7% on Grow and 2.5% on Advanced. BigCommerce Payments by PayPal charges 2.89% + $0.30 on Core, 2.59% on Growth and 2.39% on Scale, per its rates page. Its pricing page says cards “begin at 2.89% + $0.29,” a cent less per order. We use the rates page; the $0.29 figure would lower the BigCommerce totals by $30 and $72.

A $50,000-a-year store (1,000 orders a year)

Inclusive GMV is $45,000, over Core’s cap, so BigCommerce requires Growth. Shopify allows Basic.

The math for the first row: $29 x 36 = $1,044; card fees (2.9% of $50,000 + $0.30 x 1,000) x 3 = $5,250; plus $300.24 for domain and email. Stripe rows use Stripe’s standard US rate of 2.9% + 30 cents. The “outside gateway” and “Open provider” rows assume a provider that charges the same 2.9% + 30 cents, plus the platform’s fee: 2% of $50,000 on Shopify Basic ($1,000 a year) and 1% on BigCommerce Growth. BigCommerce charges its fee on Inclusive GMV, so that is 1% of $45,000 ($450 a year).

A $120,000-a-year store (2,400 orders a year)

Inclusive GMV is $108,000, over Growth’s cap, so BigCommerce requires Scale. That is about $9,000 a month on average, well inside Scale’s included $33,333, so no overage. Shopify still allows Basic.

Scale’s lower card rate saves $1,836 over 3 years against Shopify Basic, but the plan costs $9,720 more. Shopify Basic stays cheapest at both sizes. The outside-gateway case is the one to watch: at $120,000, Shopify’s 2% fee ($2,400 a year) leaves Shopify Basic with an outside gateway ($21,144.24) only $684 below BigCommerce Scale with its own payments ($21,828.24).

When BigCommerce comes out ahead

The comparison changes if you would pick Shopify Grow anyway, for example because you need staff logins. At $50,000 a year, BigCommerce Growth with BigCommerce Payments ($7,929.24) costs $165 less over 3 years than Shopify Grow ($8,094.24), because the plans cost the same and BigCommerce’s rate is 0.11 points lower. It also wins if you are tied to a gateway on BigCommerce’s Embedded list, such as Adyen or PayPal Braintree: Shopify charges its fee on those providers, and BigCommerce charges none on Embedded providers.

Monthly billing raises both sides by the same amount at each tier: $39 instead of $29, $105 instead of $79, $399 instead of $299. One more BigCommerce detail: annual plans can be upgraded mid-term when you cross a cap, with the price difference charged at the upgrade.

What the totals leave out: apps and paid themes (neither company publishes a typical spend), staff (Shopify Basic has none, BigCommerce Core and up include them), and BigCommerce features you get on Growth and Scale that might replace apps. Try your own figures in the website cost calculator.

Design and ease of use

Both are hosted, so neither asks you to manage servers. Shopify stores start from a theme in its Theme Store, with free and paid themes, and theme code (Liquid) can be edited on paid plans. BigCommerce uses Stencil themes, a drag-and-drop Page Builder with widgets on most page types, and Catalyst, an open-source Next.js storefront for a headless build. Shopify’s Basic plan is owner-only; BigCommerce includes staff accounts on every plan, while Shopify gives 5 on Grow and 15 on Advanced.

Store, blog and SEO

Both include a blog and pages. BigCommerce builds in 70+ discount options, reviews, real-time carrier rates and 100+ currencies on every plan, though the abandoned cart saver and customer groups need Growth and product filtering needs Scale. Its B2B Edition (company accounts, quotes, invoice portal, purchase orders) is sold by quote. Shopify leans on its App Store, which has thousands of apps, many paid monthly. If you also sell in person, Shopify’s pricing page lists in-person card rates on every plan: 2.6% + 10 cents on Basic.

For SEO, BigCommerce lists automatic SEO-friendly URLs, automatic 301 redirects, robots.txt editing and product microdata. Shopify has SEO fields on products, a sitemap and URL redirects in the admin.

AI features

Shopify’s Sidekick assistant comes with every plan, with “features and usage limits” that vary by plan. It helps with store design, product copy, discounts and reports. BigCommerce lists its Companion assistant as “Now Available” but does not say which plans get it or what it costs; bulk AI catalog writing is in Early Access.

Leaving later

BigCommerce scores 6 out of 10 on our exit scores and Shopify 5. Both export products, customers and orders. BigCommerce edges ahead because product images can be downloaded over WebDAV, where Shopify’s product CSV leaves the image files out and a new store can pull them in only while the old store is still live. On both, the theme runs only on that platform, there is no site code to take, and customer passwords stay behind. BigCommerce’s blog posts and pages come out only through its API. Read our guide to leaving your website builder before you commit to either.

Pick BigCommerce if…

• You want to keep Stripe, PayPal Braintree, Adyen or another Embedded gateway with no platform fee.
• You sell wholesale or B2B, or run several storefronts.
• You need staff logins on a $29 plan.

Pick Shopify if…

• You want your plan price to stay the same as sales grow.
• You are happy using Shopify Payments.
• You sell online and in person from one system.

Neither? Look at these

WooCommerce runs on self-hosted WordPress and scores 10 out of 10 for leaving, because you own the files and the database. We build on WordPress every week; the trade-off is that you run hosting and updates. See Shopify vs WooCommerce and our best builders for online stores.

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