by Commerce.com, Inc.E-commerce platforms
A hosted online store with unlimited staff and products, priced by annual sales: Core from $29 a month billed yearly for up to $30K in sales.
A hosted store with unlimited staff and products on every plan, marketplace channels built in and ISO 27001 behind it.
Every BigCommerce plan includes unlimited products and staff accounts with per-user permissions, real-time carrier rates, gift cards, more than 70 discount types, product reviews, a blog, multi-currency and Amazon, eBay and Walmart channels, with Google and Meta feeds free up to 100,000 SKUs. 21 embedded payment providers, Stripe and PayPal among them, carry no platform fee. The trust center lists ISO/IEC 27001:2022 and Level 1 PCI DSS attestations, and a staff action log keeps 365 days on every plan.
Against 3 other products we reviewed in E-commerce platforms: what you pay for with each, the five access facts, the plan limits we recorded and each review's bottom line. The note under the table says how each one was checked.
| Metric | BigCommerce | Square Online | Shopify | Ecwid |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| What you're paying for | Built-in reachA hosted store with unlimited staff and products on every plan, marketplace channels built in and ISO 27001 behind it. | Worth the priceAn online store that shares one catalog, customer list and payments account with Square POS, free to start and taking real orders. | Built-in reachA store, its payments, in-person selling and the main sales channels in one admin, with card rates that fall as you move up a plan. | Worth the priceA store you can add to the website you already have, with no Ecwid transaction fee and abandoned cart emails and subscriptions from $49 a month. |
| Overall score | 6.0 | 7.7Best | 7.5 | 6.1 |
| Free option | 15-day free trial | Free plan | 3-day free trial | Paid only |
| Card to start | No card needed | –Not measured | No card needed | –Not measured |
| Getting access | Self-serve | Self-serve | Self-serve | Self-serve |
| Starter priceCheapest paid plan | $29/mo | $49/location/mo | $29/mo | $5/mo |
| Pricing model | Tiered | Flat rate | Flat rate | Flat rate |
| Pricing page | Public prices | Public prices | Public prices | Public prices |
| Billing unit | Flat monthly plan per store, tied to annual sales (GMV caps), plus card processing | Monthly plan per location, plus card processing | Flat monthly plan per store, plus card processing | Flat monthly plan per store, plus card processing |
| Free option | No free plan; 15-day trial, no card | Square Free with real orders (unlimited products, square.site address); 30-day trial of Plus or Premium | No free store plan; 3-day trial, no card, then $1/mo for 3 months on most plans | No free plan for new sign-ups; no trial listed; Starter $5/mo |
| Reference scenario ($10K/mo, 2 staff, annual) | $598/mo on Scale ($299 + $239 + $60), computed; Growth’s $100K sales cap is exceeded | $399/mo on Square Plus ($49 + $290 + $60), computed; monthly billing only | $409/mo on Grow ($79 + $270 + $60), computed | $399/mo on Business ($49 + $290 + $60), computed |
| Month-to-month price | $39 / $105 / $399 for Core, Growth and Scale | $0 / $49 / $149 per location for Free, Plus and Premium | $39 / $105 / $399 for Basic, Grow and Advanced | $5 / $35 / $65 / $149 for Starter, Venture, Business and Unlimited |
| US online card rate | 2.89% + 30¢ (Core), 2.59% + 30¢ (Growth), 2.39% + 30¢ (Scale) | 3.3% + 30¢ (Free), 2.9% + 30¢ (Plus and Premium) | 2.9% + 30¢ (Basic), 2.7% + 30¢ (Grow), 2.5% + 30¢ (Advanced) | 2.9% + 30¢ on Lightspeed Payments, every plan |
| Fee with another payment provider | 2.0% / 1.0% / 0.6% on Open Payment Providers; 0% on 21 embedded providers | Checkout lists only Square payments | 2% / 1% / 0.6% (Plus 0.2%) | $0 on Ecwid pages; Lightspeed agreement sets a monthly fee for eligible customers |
| Products and staff | Unlimited products and staff accounts on every plan | Unlimited items; team members on every plan, no limit stated | Unlimited products; staff 0 / 5 / 15 / unlimited | 10 / 100 / 2,500 / unlimited products; staff 0 / 0 / 2 / unlimited |
| Abandoned cart recovery | Growth and up | Square Plus and up | Every plan | Business and up |
| Selling channels | Amazon, eBay, Walmart built in; Google and Meta through Feedonomics; POS through apps | Square POS, Facebook, Instagram and Google listings on every plan | POS, Google, Meta, TikTok on every plan; Amazon, eBay, Walmart via Marketplace Connect | Facebook, Instagram, Google listings; marketplaces through third-party apps; mobile POS |
| PCI / SOC 2 / ISO 27001 | PCI DSS Level 1; SOC 2 (type not stated); ISO/IEC 27001:2022 | PCI DSS Level 1; SOC 2 not stated on a public page; ISO 27001 | PCI DSS Level 1; SOC 2 Type II; ISO 27001 not stated | PCI DSS Level 1; SOC 2 Type II (Lightspeed E-Series); ISO 27001 not stated |
| Data export | CSV or XML of products, orders and customers; API and webhooks on every plan | Items and customers to CSV; order export not stated; Square APIs and webhooks | CSV of products, orders and customers; Admin API on every plan | CSV of products, orders and customers from Venture; REST API on paid plans |
| Data after closing | Deleted 30 days after cancellation | No fixed retention period stated | Kept 2 years after deactivation | Erased when the account is deleted; $12.50/mo Suspension plan |
| Bottom line | From its public pages, BigCommerce puts unlimited staff, reviews and marketplace channels on every plan and lets you keep your own processor. Plans are tied to sales, so our $10,000-a-month store lands on Scale, and several pages disagree on trial and billing details. | From its public pages, Square Online offers the most complete free start here: a store with unlimited items that takes real orders and shares Square’s POS and payments, with Plus at $49 for a custom domain and cart emails. Live shipping rates need Premium, and payments are in one currency. | From its public pages, Shopify has the broadest set of selling features here on the plan our scenario needs, with PCI Level 1, SOC 2 Type II and a 2-year data window. Staff accounts start on Grow, and a store that uses another payment provider pays Shopify a fee on top. | From its public pages, Ecwid is a low-cost way to add a store to an existing site, with cart emails, subscriptions and full CSV export from $49 a month. There is no free plan or trial, and whether Lightspeed’s monthly fee for other payment providers applies to Ecwid stores is worth asking. |
Evidence: BigCommerce: facts checked 2026-10-16 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run; Square Online: facts checked 2026-10-16 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run; Shopify: facts checked 2026-10-16 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run; Ecwid: facts checked 2026-10-16 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run. Prices in USD as listed, excluding tax. "–" means not recorded.
Review from public pages
Written from BigCommerce's public pages (pricing, security or privacy, and docs) as read on Oct 16, 2026. We did not sign up, and no hands-on run is published yet.
We read BigCommerce's pricing page with its plan table and FAQ, the 2026 plan and pricing update page, the BigCommerce Payments page, the free trial and trial sign-up pages, the pricing FAQ, the trust center, Commerce.com's terms, fees and billing terms and DPA, and help center articles on pricing, platform limits, the trial, cancellation, abandoned cart saver, staff permissions, store logs, two-step verification and logging in (which mentions staff SSO through an identity provider but names no plan for it), exports, the API and domains on Oct 16, 2026. We did not start a trial for this review.
The pricing page is clear on plan prices: Core $29, Growth $79 and Scale $299 a month billed yearly, $39, $105 and $399 month to month, with no introductory offer. Each plan carries a sales cap on trailing 12-month GMV, defined as gross order value, taxes and shipping included, less 10%, and the page says a store is upgraded automatically when it passes Core’s or Growth’s cap.
Several points need a question. The timing of an automatic upgrade on an annual plan is described three ways. The trial FAQs say a trial store can take real payments, while the trial form says it can no longer. Data kept after a trial is 90 days, 30 days or a short time depending on the page.
Core includes unlimited users with per-user permissions, so a team does not need a higher plan for logins.
vs Shopify: Shopify Basic has no staff accounts and Ecwid Business allows 2; Big Cartel has one owner login.
Real-time carrier rates, gift cards, more than 70 discount types, product reviews and a blog are on every plan.
vs Shopify: Shopify’s first-party Product Reviews app is no longer available; Big Cartel needs apps for gift cards and reviews.
Stripe, PayPal Braintree, Adyen, Checkout.com, Worldpay and other embedded providers carry no BigCommerce fee, so a store can keep its own processor.
vs Shopify: Shopify charges 2% to 0.6% when a store uses any provider other than Shopify Payments.
The trust center lists ISO/IEC 27001:2022, and Store Logs keep 365 days of staff actions on every plan.
vs Shopify: Shopify does not state ISO 27001, and its activity log shows at most 250 results and cannot be exported.
Core is capped at $30K and Growth at $100K in trailing 12-month GMV, counting taxes, shipping and cancelled and refunded orders; passing a cap upgrades the plan, and Scale charges 0.9% above $33,333 a month.
Workaround: A downgrade is allowed once GMV is back below the lower plan’s cap.
The Abandoned Cart Saver needs Growth or higher ($79 a month billed yearly).
Workaround: Core includes the other main store features, so a store without cart emails can start there.
Recurring billing needs an app or a specific payment gateway, and in-person selling runs through third-party POS apps whose prices the pages do not list; POS orders also carry the Open Payment Provider Fee.
Workaround: The help center lists Square, Clover, Lightspeed, PayPal Zettle and Teamwork as POS options.
The trust center lists SOC 1, SOC 2 and SOC 3 reports behind an access request, without saying whether the SOC 2 report is Type I or Type II.
Workaround: Request the report through the trust center to confirm its type.
BigCommerce bills a flat plan per store, tied to sales. In our scenario the store needs abandoned cart emails, which start on Growth, but $10,000 a month is $108K a year in GMV (less 10%), above Growth’s $100K cap, so the plan becomes Scale: $299 billed yearly, plus 2.39% of $10,000 ($239) and 30¢ on 200 orders ($60), $598 a month (computed); month to month, $698. While trailing sales are still under $100K, Growth costs $79 + $259 + $60 = $398 (computed). International cards add 1.5% and PayPal and Venmo are 3.49% + 49¢. Open Payment Providers cost 2.0% to 0.6% on top. Fees are non-refundable.
Products, orders and customers export to CSV or XML on every plan (customers without passwords), and product images can be downloaded over WebDAV. Blog posts and web pages have no CSV export; they move through the API or by copying their HTML. A purchased domain can be unlocked with an EPP code. After cancellation, the help center says data is deleted after 30 days and cannot be recovered; plans renew unless notice reaches BigCommerce 2 business days before the billing date.
From its public pages, BigCommerce puts unlimited staff, reviews and marketplace channels on every plan and lets you keep your own processor. Plans are tied to sales, so our $10,000-a-month store lands on Scale, and several pages disagree on trial and billing details.
| Limit | As recorded |
|---|---|
| Billing unit | Flat monthly plan per store, tied to annual sales (GMV caps), plus card processing |
| Free option | No free plan; 15-day trial, no card |
| Reference scenario ($10K/mo, 2 staff, annual) | $598/mo on Scale ($299 + $239 + $60), computed; Growth’s $100K sales cap is exceeded |
| Month-to-month price | $39 / $105 / $399 for Core, Growth and Scale |
| US online card rate | 2.89% + 30¢ (Core), 2.59% + 30¢ (Growth), 2.39% + 30¢ (Scale) |
| Fee with another payment provider | 2.0% / 1.0% / 0.6% on Open Payment Providers; 0% on 21 embedded providers |
| Products and staff | Unlimited products and staff accounts on every plan |
| Abandoned cart recovery | Growth and up |
| Selling channels | Amazon, eBay, Walmart built in; Google and Meta through Feedonomics; POS through apps |
| PCI / SOC 2 / ISO 27001 | PCI DSS Level 1; SOC 2 (type not stated); ISO/IEC 27001:2022 |
| Data export | CSV or XML of products, orders and customers; API and webhooks on every plan |
| Data after closing | Deleted 30 days after cancellation |
Read from the vendor's public pages on Oct 16, 2026. No hands-on run is published yet. How we check
We have not published a sign-up run for BigCommerce yet. The access facts above were read from its sign-up and pricing pages on Oct 16, 2026.
We have not published API calls for BigCommerce yet.
BigCommerce lists 4 plans. The cheapest paid plan, Core (billed yearly), costs $29/mo.
Prices as listed, USD, excluding tax; observed 2026-10-16.
Source: bigcommerce.com pricing page. Prices change; the observed date above is when our agent read them.
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.
