E-commerce platforms · Comparison
Shopify vs BigCommerce vs Square Online: Square 7.7, Shopify 7.5; a $10K-a-month store pays $399 to $598
We read the pricing, payments, trust, legal and help center pages of three online-store platforms on the same day and scored them on the same six indicators. What a store selling $10,000 a month pays, where staff, cart emails and shipping rates sit, and who should pick which.
On this page9 sections
On six indicators read from each vendor's public pages, Square Online scores 7.7 out of 10, Shopify 7.5 and BigCommerce 6.0. For our reference scenario, a US store selling $10,000 a month online in 200 orders, with 300 products and 2 staff accounts, a custom domain and abandoned cart emails, Square Plus comes to $399 a month, Shopify Grow to $409 and BigCommerce Scale to $598, card processing included. Square stands out for a free plan that takes real orders and one online card rate for every brand; Shopify for the widest set of selling features on the plan our scenario needs; BigCommerce for unlimited staff, built-in reviews and no platform fee with Stripe or another embedded provider.
All three are in the Good band, and all three publish plan prices, month-to-month prices and card rates. The scores measure what the public pages commit to, not how fast a store loads or how much it sells, and we did not sign up for any of them.
At a glance
| Shopify | BigCommerce | Square Online | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What you pay for | Store, payments, POS and channels in one admin | A store with unlimited staff, tied to annual sales | An online store on Square's POS and payments |
| Free option | 3-day trial, no card | 15-day trial, no card | Free plan with real orders; 30-day trial of Plus |
| Reference scenario ($10K a month, 2 staff) | $409 on Grow, computed | $598 on Scale, computed | $399 on Plus, computed |
| US online card rate on that plan | 2.7% + 30¢ | 2.39% + 30¢ | 2.9% + 30¢ |
| Fee with another payment provider | 2% / 1% / 0.6% by plan | 0% on 21 embedded providers; 2.0% / 1.0% / 0.6% on others | Checkout lists only Square payments |
| Staff accounts | None on Basic, 5 on Grow | Unlimited on every plan | Team members on every plan, no limit stated |
| Real-time carrier rates | Grow billed yearly, Advanced | Every plan | Premium ($149) |
| Score (public pages) | 7.5 Good | 6.0 Good | 7.7 Good |
What the public pages show
Shopify sells a flat plan per store with Shopify Payments built in. Basic ($29 a month billed yearly) has unlimited products, a custom domain and abandoned checkout recovery but no staff accounts; Grow ($79) adds 5 staff and a lower card rate. Gift cards, local-currency prices, in-person selling and social and marketplace channels are on every plan, and subscriptions come through a free first-party app. From our location the pricing page shows a regional price list, so the US list prices and card rates come from the Internet Archive copy of Oct 1, 2026.
BigCommerce ties each plan to trailing 12-month sales: Core ($29 billed yearly) up to $30K, Growth ($79) up to $100K and Scale ($299) up to $33,333 a month, with automatic upgrades past the first two caps. Unlimited products and staff, real-time carrier rates, gift cards, reviews and Amazon, eBay and Walmart channels are on every plan; abandoned cart emails start on Growth.
Square Online is the online store inside a Square account, now sold through account-wide plans priced per location and billed monthly: Square Free ($0, online cards at 3.3% + 30¢), Square Plus ($49, 2.9% + 30¢) and Square Premium ($149). The free plan takes real orders with unlimited items; a custom domain and abandoned cart emails need Plus, and real-time shipping rates need Premium.
Strengths and things to know
Shopify. Strengths: every selling feature we score is on the scenario plan; PCI DSS Level 1 covering each store, SOC 2 Type II and a DPA in the terms; products, orders and customers export to CSV, and a closed store's data is kept 2 years. Things to know: no staff accounts on Basic; a 2% to 0.6% fee when a store uses another payment provider; business cards and American Express pay a premium rate; and pages disagree on the trial length and on refunds.
BigCommerce. Strengths: unlimited staff accounts and built-in reviews from the first plan; no platform fee with 21 embedded payment providers; ISO 27001 and a 365-day staff action log. Things to know: plans move with sales, counting taxes, shipping and refunded orders, so our $10,000-a-month store passes Growth's cap and lands on Scale; subscriptions and POS need apps; the SOC 2 type is not stated; and six points are left out or stated differently across its pages, about trials, upgrades, cancellation and payments eligibility.
Square Online. Strengths: a permanent free plan with unlimited items that takes real orders; the store and Square POS sell from one catalog; one online rate for every card brand; two-step verification required for team members. Things to know: billing is monthly per location with no annual option; real-time shipping rates are on Premium only; payments are in one currency; and the current order-export method is not stated on the pages we read.
Pricing reality
Reference scenario: a US merchant selling online only, 200 orders a month at an average of $50 ($10,000 in US domestic card sales), 300 products, the owner plus 2 staff accounts, a custom domain and abandoned cart recovery, on the cheapest plan that allows all of it, billed annually at the regular renewal price, at US list prices before tax, plus card processing on the built-in payments.
| Service | Plan | Monthly cost | Where the number comes from |
|---|---|---|---|
| Square Online | Square Plus | $399 | Computed: $49 + 2.9% × $10,000 ($290) + 30¢ × 200 ($60); billed monthly, no annual option |
| Shopify | Grow | $409 | Computed: $79 + 2.7% × $10,000 ($270) + 30¢ × 200 ($60); Basic has no staff accounts |
| BigCommerce | Scale | $598 | Computed: $299 + 2.39% × $10,000 ($239) + 30¢ × 200 ($60); $108K a year in GMV passes Growth's $100K cap |
Card processing is most of each bill: $299 to $350 of it at this volume. Month to month, Shopify Grow comes to $435 and BigCommerce Scale to $698 (computed); Square has only monthly billing. While a BigCommerce store's trailing sales are still under $100K, Growth costs $398 (computed). American Express on Shopify Grow is charged the premium rate, 3.3% + 30¢, while Square charges every brand the same; cards issued abroad add 1% on Shopify and 1.5% on BigCommerce and Square.
How we scored them
Every product in this category is scored on the same six indicators, read from the vendor's own pricing, payments, trust, legal, help center and developer pages, with fixed formulas. The overall score is the plain mean. Our methodology page explains how these scores work.
| Indicator | Shopify | BigCommerce | Square Online |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing clarity | 6 | 4 | 8 |
| Free plan and trial | 2 | 3 | 7.5 |
| Monthly cost, $10K in sales | 8.1 | 4.2 | 8.4 |
| Selling features | 10 | 7 | 7.7 |
| Compliance and security | 8.7 | 7.5 | 7.5 |
| Data access and exit | 10 | 10 | 7 |
| Overall | 7.5 | 6.0 | 7.7 |
Square's lead over Shopify comes from its free plan and from pages that leave fewer prices out or in conflict (two points for Square, four for Shopify); Shopify scores higher on selling features, compliance and data exit. BigCommerce's score reflects the scenario price, where its sales cap moves our store to Scale, its trial-only start and the six points its pages leave out or state differently.
Also in this category
Ecwid scores 6.1: it adds a store to an existing website, with abandoned cart emails, subscriptions and full CSV export on Business at $399 a month for our scenario (computed), while new stores have no free plan or trial and Business allows 2 staff. Big Cartel scores 4.3: the lowest-cost store for one person, free for 5 products and $24 a month billed yearly for 500, with no transaction fees, but it has no staff accounts, so our scenario cannot be priced.
Who should choose which
- Choose Square Online if you already sell in person with Square, or want to start free and pay one card rate for every brand. Look elsewhere if you need live carrier rates without the $149 plan, or prices in more than one currency.
- Choose Shopify if you want online, in-person and marketplace sales with carrier rates, subscriptions and local-currency prices on one plan. Look elsewhere if you want a free plan or plan to use your own payment provider without a fee on top.
- Choose BigCommerce if several people run the store and you want unlimited staff, built-in reviews and your own processor with no platform fee. Look elsewhere if you expect more than $100K a year in GMV and want to stay on the $79 Growth plan.
Bottom line
From public pages alone, Square Online edges out Shopify, 7.7 to 7.5: both cost about $400 a month for our $10,000-a-month store, Square with a free plan to start and one card rate, Shopify with more selling features on that plan and a stronger security and exit file. BigCommerce, 6.0, gives every plan unlimited staff and built-in reviews, but its sales caps put our store on a $299 plan. Compare the plan your sales volume and staff need, not the entry price.
How we checked
We read the vendors' pricing pages and plan tables, payments pages, trust and security pages, legal terms, help center articles and developer docs on Oct 16, 2026. Shopify's pricing page shows a regional price list from our location, so we used the Internet Archive copy of the US page from Oct 1, 2026; Square's plan prices load by script, so we read them from the plans page's fee table and data file. We did not sign up, start a trial or call an API. Facts the pages did not state, such as the price of Shopify Grow's carrier-calculated shipping add-on or how Square Online orders are exported today, are left out rather than guessed. Every figure is on the vendors' pages as of that date or, where marked, computed from them.
