BigCommerce and Shopify are two of the most widely used eCommerce platforms for mid-market merchants. Both are SaaS platforms with comparable base pricing, large app ecosystems, and solid core functionality. Choosing between them is less about which is objectively better and more about which fits your specific business model, catalog structure, and integration requirements.
At Tavano Team, we are partners with both platforms and integrate both with NetSuite ERP. We see both work well in the right context. Here is an honest comparison of the key decision factors.
Pricing
Both platforms follow similar SaaS pricing structures with four tiers.
BigCommerce (2026 pricing, billed annually):
- Standard: $29/month
- Plus: $79/month
- Pro: $299/month
- Enterprise: custom pricing
Shopify (2026 pricing, billed annually):
- Basic: $29/month
- Grow (formerly Shopify): $79/month
- Advanced: $299/month
- Plus: from approximately $2,300/month
The headline prices are nearly identical at every tier. The differences surface in what is included at each level and what the total cost of ownership looks like when you factor in apps, transaction fees, and annual revenue limits.
Key pricing differences to understand:
Transaction fees. BigCommerce charges no transaction fees on any plan regardless of payment gateway. Shopify waives its transaction fee only when merchants use Shopify Payments. If you use a third-party payment processor with Shopify, you pay 0.5% to 2% per transaction depending on your plan. For high-volume merchants, this difference compounds significantly.
Annual revenue limits. BigCommerce’s Standard plan caps at $50,000 in annual online sales and automatically upgrades you to Plus when you exceed it. Shopify’s plans are revenue-agnostic, meaning you stay on Basic regardless of sales volume.
Built-in vs. app-dependent features. BigCommerce includes real-time carrier shipping quotes, professional reporting, ratings and reviews, and up to 600 product variant combinations on all plans. Shopify requires paid third-party apps for several of these features. Real-world Shopify stores often spend an additional $50 to $300 per month on apps to match BigCommerce’s out-of-box functionality.
Abandoned cart recovery is available on Shopify’s Basic plan. On BigCommerce, it requires the Plus plan ($79/month). If abandoned cart email automation is a priority and you are starting at the lowest tier, Shopify’s Basic plan has an advantage here.
Themes and Design
Both platforms offer free and paid themes.
Free theme selection: BigCommerce offers 12 free themes; Shopify offers 13. Both use drag-and-drop editors, though Shopify’s Online Store 2.0 editor provides this capability across all themes, while BigCommerce’s Page Builder is available across its full theme library as well.
Paid themes: BigCommerce’s marketplace includes approximately 175 paid themes ranging from $150 to $300. Shopify’s marketplace offers around 200 paid themes ranging from $140 to $450. Shopify’s paid themes tend to have more design variety; BigCommerce’s themes have more built-in B2B functional features, particularly in themes like Camden.
For merchants who prioritize design expressiveness, Shopify’s theme ecosystem has more variety and a stronger community of third-party theme developers. For merchants who prioritize B2B-specific functionality baked into the theme architecture, BigCommerce’s catalog has more purpose-built options.
Selling Features
Payment gateways. Shopify supports over 100 payment gateways; BigCommerce supports approximately 65, though the number varies by country. For merchants operating in multiple international markets, Shopify’s broader payment gateway coverage can be a deciding factor.
Shipping. Both platforms support flat-rate, weight-based, and price-based shipping rules. Real-time carrier quotes from third-party carriers are available on all BigCommerce plans. On Shopify, real-time quotes require either the Advanced plan or an annual billing commitment on lower plans, except for select carrier partners in Australia, Canada, the UK, and the US.
Multi-storefront. BigCommerce natively supports multiple storefronts from a single account on standard plans, which is useful for merchants managing separate regional sites or separate B2B and B2C storefronts with shared inventory. Shopify supports this through its Markets feature and at the Plus level through organization-level multi-store management.
B2B features. BigCommerce’s B2B Edition provides company account hierarchies, delegated purchasing, quote management, the Invoice Portal, and the Buyer Portal as an add-on to any BigCommerce plan. Shopify’s native B2B capabilities are primarily available through Shopify Plus, making them accessible only at the $2,300+/month tier.
Which Platform Is Better for NetSuite Merchants?
Both platforms integrate with NetSuite. Tavano Team offers NetSuite connectors for both Shopify and BigCommerce, and both integrations support real-time inventory, order, customer, and pricing synchronization.
The platform choice for a NetSuite merchant usually comes down to business model:
- B2C retail with a standard catalog: Both platforms work well. Shopify’s larger app ecosystem and simpler storefront management tend to resonate with DTC brands focused on marketing and conversion.
- B2B or B2B2C with complex pricing, account management, or catalog structure: BigCommerce’s native B2B capabilities and API performance for high-volume catalog operations are typically the better fit.
- High catalog complexity (10,000+ SKUs, many variants, ERP-driven pricing): BigCommerce’s API throughput and variant support handle this more comfortably.
Our overall view, based on implementations across both platforms: Shopify often works better for B2C retail brands where simplicity, design, and app ecosystem are priorities. BigCommerce consistently outperforms in B2B and hybrid B2B2C environments where built-in feature depth and total cost of ownership matter more than ecosystem breadth.
If you are evaluating either platform alongside NetSuite and want a direct conversation about which fits your business model, our NetSuite eCommerce experts can walk you through it.
