10 Top Alternatives to BigCommerce

With both its Essentials and Enterprise subscription options, BigCommerce is a popular solution among smaller and larger businesses alike. If you've found, however, that BigCommerce hasn't met your specific business needs — or you simply want to consider all of your options before making a decision, you may be searching for some good alternatives. These 10 options are a great place to start.

BigCommerce is a popular solution among business owners, and for good reason. It's an all-inclusive e-commerce platform that allows you to create, launch and manage your online store — with no added transaction fees; unlimited products, file storage and bandwidth; and unlimited staff accounts. Plus, if you need an enterprise-level e-commerce solution, BigCommerce offers this option as well.

However, this e-commerce platform does have some downsides that may have you searching for the best BigCommerce alternatives. Namely,

• Annual sales limits: Each of the BigCommerce Essentials plans has an annual sales volume limit — if you exceed this limit, you’re automatically bumped up to the next plan (and the higher associated price).

• Design options: Compared to some competitors, BigCommerce may not have the most advanced and customizable theme options, especially in terms of free designs.

• Specific features: Although between its three plans BigCommerce has an impressive feature set, depending on your business’s budget and particular needs, you may find that BigCommerce is missing a feature you’re looking for — or that you can find a more affordable alternative that has everything you need.

With all of the e-commerce website builders out there, the best alternative will depend largely on what you’re looking for — in terms of features, functionality and pricing. You might start with these top 10 BigCommerce competitors.

Not only is Shopify one of the top alternatives to BigCommerce, but it’s one of the most popular and well-known e-commerce platforms on the market. Like BigCommerce, Shopify allows you to create and customize your online store, add and manage products, fulfill and ship orders and promote your e-commerce business. Shopify’s three main plans are priced almost identically to the three BigCommerce Essentials plans.

Despite these similarities, there are a few reasons why you might choose to sell on Shopify over BigCommerce:

• Features: On the whole, Shopify and BigCommerce offer similar feature sets across each of their three plans. However, there are certain places where Shopify’s features stand out. First, Shopify includes abandoned cart recovery in all of its plans, where BigCommerce requires that you opt for the second-level Plus plan for those tools. Additionally, whereas BigCommerce limits your sales on an annual basis, Shopify does not. Finally, Shopify includes its own payment processing within your store, and although it charges an additional transaction fee if you don’t use its processing, this setup can be useful if you don’t want to worry about finding and working with a third-party provider.

• Design and ease of use: Although BigCommerce has increased its number of available paid and free themes, Shopify’s themes are still considered more desirable from a design standpoint — plus, whereas the cost of Shopify’s premium themes cap out at $180, many of BigCommerce’s premium themes range from $150 all the way up to $300. Although both platforms have visual as well as HTML editors for customizing your store, Shopify’s drag-and-drop editor is considered one of the most user-friendly on the market.

• POS: Even though BigCommerce offers the ability to integrate with a variety of point-of-sale systems, Shopify provides access to its own proprietary POS app, included with all of its plans. Therefore, if you want to sell online and in-person, you’ll only have to pay for the cost of hardware (and any respective transaction fees). Plus, you can install the Shopify POS on multiple devices (for no extra charge) and all of your data will automatically sync with your Shopify online store.

• Integrations: One of the biggest advantages of Shopify is that even if Shopify doesn’t offer a feature you’re looking for, it likely offers an integration that can provide that functionality. Whereas BigCommerce offers hundreds of third-party integrations, Shopify offers thousands — giving you an impressive ability to manage all of your e-commerce operations in one place.

All in all, Shopify is one of the biggest BigCommerce competitors — and it’s easy to see why. If you’re looking for a relatively similar platform to BigCommerce, but with a few different features that may appeal to your business, Shopify is certainly worth considering.

Like Shopify, Shift4Shop is one of the best all-inclusive, fully hosted alternatives to BigCommerce. Shift4Shop gives you the ability to build, customize and start your online store; sell your products; and manage the whole of your e-commerce operations. This being said, Shift4Shop stands out against BigCommerce in a few notable ways:

• Customization: While Shopify and BigCommerce rely on WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editors, Shift4Shop’s themes require HTML or CSS editing. Although this may not appeal to business owners with little design experience (or access to design resources), this format gives you more flexibility with customizing your template and making it unique to your business. Plus, in addition to its robust feature set, Shift4Shop also allows you to customize your e-commerce platform with over 100 payment processing integrations and third-party tools from its app store.

• Advanced features and scalability: With five unique pricing plans to choose from, Shift4Shop offers a level of scalability you don’t necessarily see with BigCommerce. Where BigCommerce only has three pricing tiers before you have to opt for a quote-based enterprise-level solution, Shift4Shop gives you the ability to grow your business more steadily with its plans. In addition, on top of its standard features, Shift4Shop includes a number of capabilities that BigCommerce doesn’t necessarily offer (one of the reasons Shift4Shop is a top Shopify alternative as well). For example, Shift4Shop offers advanced SEO and marketing tools, automation rules, auto-ship for recurring orders, shipment delivery notifications and more.

• Pricing:Shift4Shop’s pricing is actually very similar to BigCommerce, even though Shift4Shop offers five different subscription plans to BigCommerce’s three. This being said, Shift4Shop’s pricing is particularly compelling in a few ways. First, Shift4Shop offers an initial level plan that’s appealing to businesses just starting out, priced at only $19 per month. Plus, with an annual sales threshold of $50,000, the Shift4Shop Startup plan is $10 cheaper than the first BigCommerce plan — for the same threshold and arguably more features. Additionally, where BigCommerce only offers a handful of free themes to choose from, Shift4Shop offers an impressive 45 free themes, on top of its premium options.

Shift4Shop is a particularly noteworthy alternative to BigCommerce if you’re looking to get more from your e-commerce platform, even if you’re just starting out. Although it may take more time and effort to get your Shift4Shop store set up, this platform may be able to offer greater flexibility, automation and scalability in comparison to BigCommerce.

While Shift4Shop is a worthwhile BigCommerce alternative for automation and scalability, Volusion is a top option for simplicity. Volusion is an all-in-one platform that allows you to launch and manage your online store. Volusion largely focuses on the basics — setting up your store, adding your products and fulfilling your orders.

With this in mind, here are a few specific reasons why you might use Volusion over BigCommerce:

• Simplicity: Volusion stands out with the simplicity of its platform. Although Volusion may not have a feature list as extensive as Shift4Shop or BigCommerce, it does have solid capabilities, especially if you’re not looking for the most features. Volusion is designed to accommodate newer e-commerce businesses without providing an overwhelming number of options or features they might not need. Plus, Volusion offers a user-friendly drag-and-drop editor for customizing your online store, as well as a handful of professionally crafted themes to choose from, most of which are free.

• Pricing: If you look at Volusion’s pricing chart, you’ll see that its plans are priced almost identically to BigCommerce. Therefore, although BigCommerce’s plans may be more economical for the number of features you receive, there are some benefits to Volusion’s pricing. First, whereas BigCommerce offers a 10% discount if you opt for an annual subscription to either of its higher-level plans, Volusion offers a discount on all of its plans if you opt for a three-month subscription. With this pricing structure, you not only get a discount regardless of your plan, but you also have less of a commitment than would be required with BigCommerce. And while Volusion allows you to work with a variety of third-party payment processors, it also offers its own service — Volusion Payments. If you work with Volusion Payments, you may be able to qualify for credit card processing fees as low as 2.15% plus 30 cents per transaction.

• Customer support: Volusion provides an impressive level of customer service. With Volusion, you have 24/7 online support with all plans, as well as phone support with the Professional and Startup plans. With the next plans, you receive priority and VIP support, both of which include dedicated success teams and traffic growth consultations. The highest-level plan, Prime, also offers executive Slack support.

At one time, Volusion was considered one of the most affordable e-commerce solutions for small-business owners. Although its change in pricing has put its fees on par with many of its top competitors, Volusion remains a worthy BigCommerce alternative — especially if you’re a new e-commerce business owner looking to start your online store in the fastest and simplest way — with significant access to customer support and additional resources.

Although Square is perhaps best known for its point-of-sale solutions, Square Online Store is one of the most affordable alternatives to BigCommerce. Plus, not only is Square Online Store affordable, but it’s fully functional. You can create your store; sell an unlimited number of products; and sync your website, inventory and orders with Square POS.

Here's how Square Online Store compares to BigCommerce:

• Pricing: It’s hard to beat an e-commerce platform that offers a free subscription plan. Although Square Online Store has three paid plans, its first plan offering has no monthly fee; you only have to pay transaction fees on orders you receive. Plus, considering the features you receive with the free Square Online Store — unlimited products, inventory management, coupons, gift cards, SEO tools, Instagram and Pinterest integrations and more — Square is a much more economical option compared to BigCommerce, especially for business owners who are just starting out. Although Square Online Store requires that you use Square for payment processing, if you opt for the $72 performance plan, you’ll also receive discounted processing fees and the highest discounts on shipping rates.

• Square integration: With Square Online Store, all of your data (orders, items, inventory) syncs directly with Square POS, meaning if you use the free version of Square Online Store and the free version of Square POS, you’ll be able to sell online and in-person — and only pay transaction fees. In this way, Square Online Store is an ideal BigCommerce alternative for brick-and-mortar businesses looking to expand online, as well as for new e-commerce business owners who would consider using in-person pickup.

• Simplicity: Square Online Store stands out over BigCommerce with its simplicity. You can create a Square Online Store and get started selling in a matter of minutes — and Square Online Store doesn’t overwhelm you with a handful of advanced features you may not need. Additionally, Square’s store editor is extremely user-friendly and approachable — plus, Square offers a number of templates designed for specific types of businesses that may be using Square Online Store and Square POS, like event companies, nonprofits, restaurants and service-based businesses.

There’s no doubt that Square Online Store presents an affordable option. Plus, Square Online Store is a strong alternative for businesses that already use Square POS, as well as those looking for the quickest and easiest way to get started selling online.

If you’re looking for an all-in-one solution designed for multiple stores and wholesale sellers — instead of simplicity and newer businesses — you’ll want to consider AmeriCommerce as a top alternative to BigCommerce. AmeriCommerce is an all-inclusive hosted solution; however, this software is designed as a B2B e-commerce platform, with advanced tools for wholesale selling.

Although AmeriCommerce limits each of its plans in terms of products, traffic and storage, it excels over BigCommerce in the following ways:

• Plan structure: AmeriCommerce designs its plans much differently than BigCommerce and other solutions. With AmeriCommerce, you’re limited in the three ways mentioned above, but you receive all of the other features the platform offers no matter which plan you have. Therefore, unlike BigCommerce, you don’t have to worry about your sales volume threshold or other specific features that might not be included from one plan to another. Every AmeriCommerce plan includes unlimited accounts, no transaction fees, access to free themes, free shared SSL, hundreds of integrations and more.

• Advanced features: Although BigCommerce offers some wholesale and B2B features in its enterprise platform, you have to work with its sales team to find out what the pricing would look like for your business. With AmeriCommerce, you have access to these specific types of features, including store-specific pricing, price quantity breaks, shipping triggers, multi-catalog capabilities and more — and you know exactly how much this platform will cost your business on a monthly basis. Moreover, although you have to pay an additional fee for multiple stores, AmeriCommerce notably allows you to manage these stores through a single dashboard.

• Pricing: Considering the limitations that AmeriCommerce places on storage, traffic and products, it can be difficult to accurately compare its pricing to BigCommerce — however, it is worth noting that pricing for its plans starts at a low $24.95 per month. With this Steel plan, you’ll receive all of AmeriCommerce’s advanced wholesale and B2B features, the option to use and customize any of its themes for your e-commerce website and the ability to connect with over 50 payment processors. If you use AmeriCommerce’s own payment processing service, you’ll receive a discounted rate, as long as you opt for the Silver plan or higher. Finally, if you need even more than what AmeriCommerce offers in its standard plans, you have the option to work with its team to access an enterprise-level solution.

If you are a wholesale or B2B seller and could benefit from the way AmeriCommerce structures its plans, as well as the advanced features included within its platform, it’s certainly worth considering AmeriCommerce over BigCommerce.

AmeriCommerce is designed for wholesale and B2B businesses, however, Selz is designed specifically to accommodate businesses that sell digital goods. Although Selz is a full-service e-commerce platform in its own right, its features for digital sellers make it a particularly noteworthy BigCommerce competitor.

More specifically, Selz stands out as a BigCommerce alternative for a few reasons:

• Digital goods: Although BigCommerce allows you to add digital products and sell them through your store, it does not offer the detailed settings and options that Selz provides for these types of products. With each of its subscription plans, Selz includes capabilities specifically designed for eBooks, videos, software, recipes and more — including license keys, flexible payment options, download limits, web store templates and advanced analytics.

• Simple, multi-channel selling: While BigCommerce is by no means complex, Selz excels in the simplicity of its software, in particular with the ease by which you can sell on multiple channels. With Selz, you can quickly and easily set up a fully-functional online store, but you also have the option to simply add products and an online shopping cart to an existing website or blog or sell on Facebook, Instagram or Google Shopping. Plus, with essential e-commerce features, significant 24/7 customer support (via both email and chat for all plans) and 25 free themes, Selz is well-suited for business owners of all backgrounds, particularly those who are just starting out.

• Pricing: Selz pricing is very similar to many of the BigCommerce competitors on this list. However, there are a few benefits of its pricing that are worth noting. First, Selz offers a 10% discount on all of its plans if you opt for an annual subscription, whereas BigCommerce excludes its entry-level plan from its annual discount. Additionally, although the first Selz and BigCommerce plans are priced at about $29 per month, the second two Selz plans are cheaper, at only $59 and $199, compared to $79.95 and $299.95. Plus, all of the Selz themes are free, and Selz does not impose annual sales volume limits.

Overall, Selz is not only a worthwhile BigCommerce alternative for businesses that sell digital goods, but also, in general, those just starting out that want to try selling online.

All of the BigCommerce competitors mentioned have been all-in-one hosted platforms — meaning the software provider facilitates the web hosting for your online store, and all of the features you have access to are set and included within the platform based on your plan. PrestaShop operates a little differently. PrestaShop is an open-source platform — meaning the software is available for free online and you can download it and customize it in any way. This also means that you have to find and set up your own hosting in order to launch your online store.

With this distinction in mind, PrestaShop has a number of benefits that make it a worthwhile alternative to BigCommerce:

• Customization: An open-source platform will almost always be able to give you more customization than an all-inclusive or SaaS e-commerce platform. Therefore, if you feel restricted by the themes or editing options that BigCommerce offers, you’ll want to look into PrestaShop or a similar open-source platform. With PrestaShop in particular, not only will you be able to use HTML to create a truly unique online store for your business, but you’ll also be able to take advantage of the extensive feature set that’s built into the software and the hundreds of pre-built themes and modules PrestaShop offers through its add-on marketplace. Note that getting set up and maintaining your store with PrestaShop will likely require a web development background or access to developer resources. Although PrestaShop is one of the easier open-source platforms to manage, it will not be particularly user-friendly to those without technical experience.

• International reach: One of the most unique aspects of PrestaShop is its international capabilities. As a European-based company, PrestaShop is truly designed for businesses to sell online all over the world. Still, PrestaShop allows you to adapt your store to your target market, set currencies and automate exchange rates and create a multi-language product sheet to adapt your descriptions for different markets. In addition, PrestaShop is available in more than 75 languages. Compared to BigCommerce and other similar platforms, that may be able to offer a handful of simple capabilities for international commerce, PrestaShop is designed with international sellers in mind.

• Pricing: Based on the features that are already included in PrestaShop, it’s safe to say that you’ll have significant functionality right off the bat with this software. Remember, you’ll also have to pay for web hosting, as well as for any additional resources required to get your store up and running. If you have development experience or access to those resources within your team, PrestaShop can be an extremely affordable solution.

Overall, considering PrestaShop’s robust feature set and international reach, this open-source solution is a great alternative to BigCommerce for business owners who want a higher level of customization. However, the flexibility and possible affordability of PrestaShop comes at a cost — at least some technical skills will be required to use this platform.

For another open-source solution that’s both accessible and extremely popular amongst business owners, you might consider WooCommerce as your top alternative to BigCommerce — especially if you already have a WordPress website. WooCommerce is a free shopping cart plug-in, meaning you can download it and add it to your WordPress website to receive the e-commerce features it offers.

Here are a few reasons you might choose WooCommerce over BigCommerce.

• Open source: WooCommerce is an open-source plugin, meaning you have the ability to customize its capabilities for your needs. As a plug-in, though, WooCommerce allows you to much more easily build an online store from your existing website. In this way, WooCommerce is more approachable than a platform like PrestaShop — not only is it easier for non-technical business owners to manage, but it also is highly functional from the onset, not necessarily requiring code-based editing to implement.

• WordPress friendly: If you don’t have a WordPress website and don’t plan to get one, WooCommerce isn’t for you. On the other hand, if you have a WordPress website or plan to build your business website using WordPress, there’s probably no better or more affordable way to do so than taking advantage of WooCommerce.

• Pricing: If you’re already paying for the hosting and subscription required for your WordPress site, then using WooCommerce to turn your website into an online store is probably your most affordable option (certainly more affordable than starting from scratch with a platform like BigCommerce or Shopify). WooCommerce is free to download — meaning the only costs you’ll incur are transaction fees (which will vary depending on the payment provider you choose) and development costs, if you choose to hire a professional to help you set up and customize your store.

On the whole, WooCommerce is one of the best alternatives to BigCommerce if you have an existing WordPress website and want to start your online store through that medium. In addition, if you’re interested in starting a business website first, with the possibility of investing in e-commerce at a later point, WordPress and WooCommerce can also be well-suited for this purpose.

Compared to our other top BigCommerce competitors, Squarespace is first and foremost a website builder; however, it also offers subscription plans with e-commerce functionality.

You might choose Squarespace over BigCommerce for the following reasons:

• Website-focused: Squarespace is a website builder, but it also offers some e-commerce capabilities. If you’re looking to dip your toes into the e-commerce waters, Squarespace might give you all the features you’re looking for. Starting with the Squarespace Business plan (at $26 per month), you receive all of the web-building capabilities of Squarespace, plus full e-commerce functionality. Although the Squarespace Business plan won’t be able to offer you as many features as some other e-commerce-centric platforms, you will be able to set up a store and start selling with this software.

• Templates: Squarespace is known for its modern and professional website templates, especially those designed to accommodate particular types of businesses. Squarespace offers specific designs for blogs, portfolios, professional services, nonprofits, musicians and more. Plus, all of these templates are user-friendly, with a WYSIWYG editor available for both web and mobile. If you’re looking for a website first, online store second, Squarespace will be a top choice.

Overall, Squarespace is ideal for newer and smaller businesses that aren’t 100% committed to starting an e-commerce business. As a top web builder, Squarespace can serve business owners looking to create an engaging and functional website and still offer them the possibility of selling online in the future.

Like Squarespace, Wix is mainly a website builder that also offers e-commerce functionality. It provides a variety of professional templates for business owners, as well as advanced web and analytics tools.

Here are some reasons why you might consider Wix as your website and e-commerce platform.

• Pricing: Compared both to Squarespace and BigCommerce, Wix has a slightly lower monthly fee for its initial e-commerce-capable plan, at only $23 per month. Additionally, for this price, you also receive a free domain name for one year ands the ability to accept online payments, with no transaction fees imposed by Wix.

• Website tools: A large draw of Wix is its website-building tools. Wix offers hundreds of included features, templates designed for particular business types and three different ways to actually build your site. With Wix, you can take advantage of its drag-and-drop editor and build your website yourself, you can use Wix ADI to have your website built for you or you can code and customize your own website with Corvid by Wix. Wix is the only solution so far that provides these three unique options within one platform.

On the whole, Wix is a great BigCommerce alternative for business owners who want to build a website first and then test out selling online. Plus, Wix offers a variety of lower-level, website exclusive plans, that you can use first and then upgrade to an e-commerce-specific plan at a later time — a particularly worthwhile option for business owners who are concerned about budget.