BigCommerce Pricing: Are the Plans Worth Your Money?
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We’ll be exploring exactly how much BigCommerce costs, explaining each plan in detail, and revealing the extra costs you should be aware of.
BigCommerce, a leading ecommerce website builder, has three price plans ranging from $29 to $299 per month, plus an extra custom-priced Enterprise plan. BigCommerce has a 15-day free trial so you can try it totally risk-free.
Here’s a quick breakdown of each of BigCommerce’s price plans…
BigCommerce Pricing Overview
Bigcommerce Plan | Monthly Price (paid monthly) | Annual Price (per month equivalent) | % Saving | Best for? |
---|---|---|---|---|
Standard | $39 | $29 | - | New online stores – perfect for starting out |
Plus | $105 | $79 | 10% | Growing online stores – unlock important marketing features |
Pro | $399 | $299 | 10% | Large online stores – more features, extra support |
Enterprise* | Custom | - | Enterprise-level businesses – with annual revenue of $400,000+ |
The BigCommerce Enterprise plan is suitable for stores which are:
- Taking over $400k/year in revenue
Or which require any of the following enterprise-only features:
- Custom product filters – use custom product fields as filters in faceted search, which helps customers narrow down their options
- Price lists – display different prices to different customer groups, such as wholesale or retail pricing
- Unlimited API calls – you can send an unlimited number of requests to your server
In testing, BigCommerce scored four out of five stars for its value for money. It has tons of built-in features, meaning you don’t have to splash out on apps in order to grow your store. And that 15-day free trial is longer than the trial offered by rival Shopify.
BigCommerce lost a star because it’s one of the slightly more expensive options out there. That said, its cheapest plan is only 95 cents more per month than the Shopify equivalent!
Find Out More
- Compare BigCommerce with its top competitors in our Ecommerce Website Builder Comparison Chart
- Your business deserves the best. Discover the Best Ecommerce Platforms in our full review.
- Want to know more about BigCommerce? Check out our full BigCommerce Review first.
BigCommerce Plans Up Close
BigCommerce pricing is unique because you have to upgrade as you grow. When you hit a certain sales cap per year, BigCommerce will move you onto a more advanced plan (although many stores choose to do this sooner in order to access more advanced features).
We’ve explained the rationale for this in the next section, but for now, here are the key features you get with each BigCommerce pricing plan:
Features | BigCommerce Standard | BigCommerce Plus | BigCommerce Pro |
---|---|---|---|
Monthly Price | $29 | $79 | $299 |
Annual Revenue Bracket | $0 - $50k | $50k - $180k | $180 - $400k* |
No. of Products | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
24/7 Support | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
Coupons, Discounts And Gift Cards | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
Blogging | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
Free SSL | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
Customer Segmentation | ❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
Abandoned Cart Saver | ❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
Google Customer Reviews | ❌ | ❌ | ✔️ |
Real-Time Shipping | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
Product Filtering | ❌ | ❌ | ✔️ |
* beyond this limit, you can pay an extra $150 per month for each extra $200k in online sales, up to $1m (you’ll need to move to the Enterprise plan after that). Great for thriving stores generating between $150k and $1m in revenue.
All plans include:
- Unlimited products, file storage and bandwidth – sell as many products as you want, without worrying about your store exceeding its limits
- Real-time shipping quotes – offer the lowest shipping price possible to your customers
- Responsive website – looks great on both mobile and desktop
- Single-page checkout – ensure the checkout process is quick and smooth. The smoother it is, the more sales you make
- No transaction fees – keep all the money you make on sales
- 24/7 live customer support – expert help to answer any technical or business questions
But which plan is right for your business? Read on for our assessment:
Standard Plan: $29 per month
- Best for new stores
- Suitable for stores with revenue up to $50k
If you’re just getting started, the Standard plan will give you everything you need and more.
The Standard plan may be the cheapest, but it still comes with a generous amount of features packed in.
As with all BigCommerce plans, it gives you an unlimited amount of products, storage, bandwidth, and staff accounts – plus zero transaction fees!
On top of that, it lets you sell across multiple sales channels, including eBay, Amazon, Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest. Other features include product ratings and reviews, discount and gift card creation, and real time shipping quotes.
Unexpected extra costs are the number one reason customers abandon orders, so being able to offer discounts and real-time shipping quotes are beneficial for your store’s conversion rates!
This plan can support up to $50k in online sales revenue per year, making it perfect for businesses that are starting out and looking to grow.
Plus Plan: $79 per month
- BigCommerce’s most popular price plan
- Includes abandoned cart recovery + other additional tools
- Best for growing stores
- Suitable for stores with revenue up to $180k/year
The Plus plan gives you everything from the Standard plan, plus some extra tools to help you increase customer conversions. These include:
- Customer groups – by building customer groups, you can reward frequent shoppers via loyalty programs
- Abandoned cart saver – use automated emails to win back customers who abandoned their carts at checkout
- Persistent cart – save customers’ shopping carts to their account, so that they can carry on shopping even if they switch devices
- Stored credit cards – help your customers checkout faster by allowing them to safely store their card details
This plan is for ecommerce businesses looking to improve customer experience and boost sales. The abandoned cart saver is the real star of the show – it’s even been found that sending abandoned cart emails can win back 15% of shoppers!
Pro Plan: $299 per month
Priced at $299 per month and boasting an impressive range of features, the Pro plan is designed for big businesses with big budgets.
This plan takes everything from both the Standard and Plus plans, and piles on even more features with the focus on taking your business to the next level.
You unlock:
- Google customer reviews– a tool that lets you collect customer feedback and view product ratings
- Product filtering – help customers quickly find the products they’re looking for using filters such as size, color, or brand
- Custom SSL – if you’ve already bought an SSL elsewhere, you can transfer it to your BigCommerce store
These are useful features for further scaling an already established online store and refining your customer experience.
Enterprise Plan: Custom
- Additional service and support features – API support, express routing, priority support, and strategic account management
- Suitable for businesses earning over $400k/year
For the largest ecommerce stores, the Enterprise plan lets you max out on everything BigCommerce has to offer:
- Custom product filters – use custom product fields as filters in faceted search, which helps customers narrow down their options
- Price lists – display different prices to different customer groups, such as wholesale or retail pricing
- Unlimited API calls – you can send an unlimited number of requests to your server
Find Out More
Once you’ve picked your perfect plan, what’s next? Find out in our full guide on How to Build an Online Store for 9 easy steps!
Why Does BigCommerce Make You Upgrade?
BigCommerce pricing is unique because you have to upgrade as you grow. When you hit a certain sales cap per year, BigCommerce will move you onto a more advanced plan.
Here’s a recap of the ‘caps’ for each plan:
- Standard – $50k. Good for smaller ecommerce stores.
- Plus – $180k. Good option for medium-sized stores or fast-growing stores.
- Pro – $400k; beyond this limit, you pay an extra $150 per month for each extra $200k in online sales, up to $1m. Great for thriving stores generating between $150k and $1m in revenue.
It’s in your best interests to upgrade if you hit your revenue cap. In fact, it’s often worth upgrading long before then.
For example, say you’re on BigCommerce’s Standard plan, and your store is generating over $50k in revenue a year. You’ll find that you don’t have a choice: you must upgrade to the Plus plan.
And don’t worry – upgrades don’t happen out of the blue.
Dashboard notifications and emails are used to alert customers of any upgrades, and these happen once your ‘trailing twelve month sales volume’ goes over your plan limit (i.e. BigCommerce doesn’t look at your revenue by tax or calendar year, but rather as the 12 months previous).
You’ll have plenty of warning if your plan – and your bills – are about to change, and your revenue is never limited, even if you go over the plan threshold.
Can You Downgrade Your BigCommerce Plan?
You might be worrying: what if my sales dip and I can no longer afford my BigCommerce plan? Do plan changes only work one way?
If your sales are dropping and the monthly fee is affecting your profit margins, don’t worry: you can still switch back to a cheaper BigCommerce plan.
We asked BigCommerce directly, and they explained to us that merchants are not automatically downgraded. If you want the cheaper plan, and you’re within the sales limit, you’ll still have to ask.
BigCommerce explained that “because a downgrade will result in the loss of features, we want the client to be the driving force for that action.”
Find Out More
Not sure if BigCommerce is right for you? Check out our BigCommerce vs Shopify comparison to see which platform performed better in our research.
BigCommerce Pricing vs Competitor Pricing
Shopify is BigCommerce’s closest competitor in terms of product offering. They have a really similar pricing structure, but with a few key differences.
For one, Shopify charges platform fees (i.e. commission) for any products bought through its platform (unless they were purchased using Shopify’s own payment gateway, Shopify Payments). This fee sounds small – it’s between 0.5 and 2% – but below you can see the impact this can have over time:
Annual Cost of Using Shopify
Annual Revenue | Shopify Fees* (%) | Shopify Fees ($) | Plan Cost (monthly) | Plan cost (for one year) | Total Shopify Cost (annual) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
$40,000 | 2% | $800 | $29 | $348 | $1,148 |
$100,000 | 1% | $1,000 | $79 | $948 | $1,948 |
$200,000 | 0.5% | $1,000 | $299 | $3,588 | $4,588 |
* Commission is 0% if the purchase is made through Shopify Payments.
Annual Cost of Using BigCommerce
Annual Revenue | BigCommerce Fees (%) | BigCommerce Fees ($) | Plan Cost (monthly) | Plan Cost (for one year) | Total BigCommerce Cost (annual) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
$40,000 | 0% | $0 | $29 | $348 | $348 |
$100,000 | 0% | $0 | $79 | $948 | $948 |
$200,000 | 0% | $0 | $299 | $3,588 | $3,588 |
Additional Costs
When you’re signing up with a new builder, it’s sensible to want to know about any extra or hidden costs that might crop up, either at the checkout or further down the line.
This is why we’ve put together a list of the main extra costs you might encounter when using BigCommerce.
#1. Domain Names
A domain name is like a store’s street sign. It tells visitors to your site who you are, and introduces what your website is about.
Buying a domain name from BigCommerce will cost you from $12.27 for one year. This is about the same as Shopify in terms of price (Shopify domain names start at $13), while Wix will give you a domain name free for a year if you sign up to a Premium plan (such as Wix eCommerce).
Find out more
- Check out our beginner’s guide What Is a Domain Name? for a full introduction to domains.
#2. Credit Card Rates
Whenever a shopper places an order on your store using a credit or debit card, you will have to pay a fee. This charge goes to the payment processor (a bank, for example). The charge is for helping you collect the money from your customer and transfer it into your account.
It’s a fee that all merchants have to pay. That’s how the world of ecommerce works.
BigCommerce processing fees for debit and credit cards start at 2.9% + $0.30 per order, which is pretty standard.
The better your BigCommerce pricing plan, the lower your credit card fees.
BigCommerce’s credit card fees are a little higher than Shopify’s, but merchants selling in modest volumes are unlikely to notice the difference.
A key thing to mention here is that, unlike a lot of ecommerce builders, BigCommerce doesn’t charge any commission fees. This means that credit card rates are the only fee you need to worry about – simple!
This sets BigCommerce apart from its rivals – even Shopify charges a commission unless you use its in-house payments system.
#3. Themes
While BigCommerce has a small range of free themes for you to choose from, it’s possible you may want to pick a premium theme instead.
Premium themes range in price from $135 to $300 each. This is a one-time payment, and you can then use that theme for as long as you like!
Why choose a premium theme? Well, there’s a larger selection of styles to choose from – and because of this, it’s less likely that a lot of other stores will have picked the same design. Premium themes also come with more features built-in, giving you a more powerful store from day one.
Did you know that 94% of first impressions depend on your website’s design? And it only takes about 0.05 seconds for people to form that vital first impression, so be careful picking your store’s theme!
Find out more
Need help designing your online store? We’ve got you covered with our detailed guide on How to Design a Product Page
Looking for inspiration that doesn’t cost extra? Check out our gallery of Free Ecommerce Website Templates
#4. Apps
One of the reasons BigCommerce is such a powerful ecommerce builder is that most of its tools and features are built-in. This sets the builder apart from its rival Shopify, which is pretty reliant on its app store.
However, BigCommerce does have an app store of its own, so if there’s a particular feature you want, you can go a-looking.
There’s a selection of free apps, as well as paid ones which vary in price. For example, BigCommerce’s top paid apps (including ShipStation and Google Shopping) range from $9 to $50 per month.
Many apps come with either a free trial or a free plan, so you can choose whether or not to pay for an upgraded service.
There are tons of apps to choose from, and it can be hard to choose! One feature that’s sometimes overlooked is a good contact form – consumers are most likely to trust a business that’s easy to contact, so look for apps that’ll help you build good customer relationships.
#5. BigCommerce Partners
If you want to give your store a boost and hire professionals to work with you on your store’s success, you can find a BigCommerce Partner to help you out.
BigCommerce has over 4,000 agency partners who specialize in everything from web design to marketing, so you can find your perfect solution. This is totally optional, and prices vary depending on the agency – you’ll need to contact them directly for a quote.
#6. BigCommerce Cancellation
We love the fact that BigCommerce offers a monthly plan – it’s flexible, affordable, and the perfect way to find out if BigCommerce is right for you beyond the 15-day free trial.
However, if you choose BigCommerce’s monthly plan and then decide it’s not for you, make sure you cancel two working days before your term ends. Otherwise, BigCommerce assumes you want to carry on using its builder and will continue charging you.
This is a common complaint we see from customers who didn’t realize this was the case, so don’t get caught by surprise. Don’t wait until the last minute to cancel – set yourself a reminder, and do it a couple of days before you need to just to be safe!
Conclusion: Is BigCommerce’s Pricing Worth It?
Hopefully you now feel like an expert on BigCommerce’s pricing – and have a good idea of which plan is best for you.
If you’re still unsure, here’s a quick recap of each BigCommerce plan, and what each one is best for…
BigCommerce Pricing: Summary
- Standard plan: $39 per month, or $29 per month when paid annually. Best for new or small online stores looking for all the basic features (and a few extras)!
- Plus plan: $105 per month, or $79 per month when paid annually. Best for growing stores that want to boost conversions and improve their marketing.
- Pro plan: $399 per month, or $299 per month when paid annually. Best for large online stores needing scalable features to support their continued growth.
- Enterprise plan: custom pricing. Best for fully established stores needing an extra level of sophistication in their features and support.
The Standard plan is the one we recommend for most new sellers. However, our favorite is the Plus plan, because it comes with abandoned cart recovery – a must for any serious online store!
The Pro plan is a great choice for larger stores searching for new ways to keep scaling up their business, while the Enterprise plan is reserved for big sellers with big budgets and big teams to manage.
When choosing BigCommerce, there are a few extra costs to bear in mind – domain names, themes, and credit card rates are the main three to factor into your budget.
It’s always best to try before you buy, so we highly recommend jumping on BigCommerce’s 15-day free trial. If you’ve already made the most of the trial, snap up your perfect plan to get started for real!
BigCommerce Pricing FAQs
In this review, we’ve covered the key aspects of BigCommerce’s pricing.
You might still have questions about BigCommerce’s cost. Let’s run through some BigCommerce pricing FAQs that we haven’t answered already.
If there are any questions we haven’t covered in this review, make sure to post them in the comments section at the bottom!
Yes! You don’t need to hit the sales threshold to upgrade to a more advanced BigCommerce pricing plan.
BigCommerce bases their sales figure on a mix of product sales, taxes, and shipping. Transactions through marketing channels like Facebook count as sales/orders.
BigCommerce places individual stores on the plan that’s most appropriate for their sales volume.
So that BigCommerce’s pricing eliminates seasonal spikes. This makes your pricing plan more predictable.
Yes. We asked BigCommerce, and as long as you cancel at least five days before your billing date, you won’t be charged again – unless you have a contract with BigCommerce that states otherwise. However, this is only likely to happen if you’re on an Enterprise plan.
BigCommerce converts sales into dollars using exchange rates in place at the time of order. If this applies to you, we recommend you contact BigCommerce and check what these rates are.
Head to your BigCommerce Control Panel and select ‘Billing’ > ‘Purchase History’.
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