BigCommerce Pricing Overview

Good uptime. That's it. That is the only good thing I can say about it. It was never down.

Back in 2016 I was with GoDaddy's Quick Shopping Cart. It was lacking in many "modern" features so I looked at upgrading. GoDaddy had started a new shopping cart product, but weirdly it had less features and I was told there were no plans to improve it. Interesting business strategy. So I looked around and decided on BigCommerce because pricing was better than Shopify (at the time) and they were pretty equivalent. After spending 2 months swapping my store over, I launched and a few days later BigCommerce doubled my monthly fees. They did a big song and dance about how they hadn't raised prices in a long time and it had to happen. After a couple years I started getting hit with volume overage charges each month. And finally in July 2021 they contacted me and said the plan I was on was being eliminated and I would have to go on an enterprise tier for $1200/month. This made me highly motivated to find an alternative. I just switched a couple weeks ago to Lightspeed for $140/month for everything I had with BigCommerce, plus full inventory integration with my two businesses and for another $35 (and a one time $3500 developer fee) am able to add my second business website to pull from the same inventory. So much more efficient and dirt cheap compared to BigCommerce. Hey, I just can't afford BigCommerce, right? Well, then I went to cancel. They had to open a case for billing to do the cancellation. 4 days later no word so I called in and the case hadn't been touched. A big song and dance about having to review my contract to see if I am even allowed to cancel. I had to read them the emails I had with their rep in July where I stated I would not sign a contract (because I knew I was not staying for $1200/month). Why make it hard to cancel? Why make the last thing I remember about their company be a poor customer service experience? I am writing this review 100% because of them wasting my time on trying to cancel their service. It's a big decision to go with a ecom provider - don't make it lightly. And if you want to stay in control of costs, don't go with one of the big guys- you want WooCommerce or similar where you can pay for development as needed (and you can afford it) but keep your monthly overhead as low as possible.

I have cut my overhead by $1000/month by cancelling BigCommerce.

I like that it's a fully managed platform with a range of third party plugins that can easily be added, though the plugins don't come close to those available on Shopify.

Their customer service used to be a strength, now it's a real problem. The agents used to be Americans highly trained on the platform. They've since switched to outsourcing their service and it's rare to get a representative with strong English who has a strong education on the platform. On my last ticket, it took me a three weeks to get an answer to a basic question. The first response came a week after my ticket was submitted and asked for my website and support code, both of which were in the initial ticket. The ticket was about a pricing error. On their website it clearly states their pricing. They charge a flat monthly fee for a certain amount of sales per year. Then they charge additional amounts based on "Online sales per year Calculated on a trailing 12-month basis." My plan allowed for $400,000 a year in sales plus $150/month for each additional $200,000 in sales. When my sales went up, my pricing went up. But then my sales went down, and my pricing didn't go back down. I submitted a ticket and when I finally got their response three weeks later, it said that they only automatically raise prices. It's apparently up to me to track when I'm being over billed and submit a ticket asking them to lower the bill to their pricing requirements. Of course, in the three weeks it took them to respond to my ticket, they had already billed me another time. And they will give me no refunds for being over billed. Nothing on their pricing page mentions this and I think it's completely misleading.

They give me a fully hosted ecommerce platform. I like that it's someone else's job to make sure my website is up and running 24/7. When I first started with them, they offered excellend service as well. Unfortunately, that has not remained constant.

More customization possibilities in compare with Shopify. Have a decent amount of apps but not as much free ones like Shopify. Overall it's more costly in exchange for more control

No custom ssl with one time add on pricing but rather needed to pay the pro plan to get this feature. Want EV SSL? Out of luck unless you're ready to pay that much. Also crazy that their built in insight also cost extra. Sadly for more control of the site over Shopify which do not allow custom ssl at All unless you're spending 2k a month on Shopify plus. Still would needed to pay more in exchange for bigcommerce

E commerce multi channel selling

Something I like most about Bigcommerce is that it does not charge transaction fees to use third-party payment gateways. This was very important to me when I started my dropshipping store with BigCommerce. Also, Bigcommerce offers several built-in features which are available on the standard plan. One feature I loved was the ability to sell in many different currencies. Some other features that I loved as a beginner in the dropshipping business were the built-in review feature, unlimited number of products and storage, and automatic image optimization. These features made it extremely easy to start my dropshipping business with big commerce with minimal recurrent expenditures. Since my dropshipping product was Tea, it was essential to provide discounts and gift cards to customers who would talk about my products on Instagram or youtube. Bigcommerce offering this feature on their standard plan was a real game-changer.

I would have loved to have the abandoned cart functionality on the standard plan, but I think it was an income tactic from the company's side. One thing that frustrated me was that the available free themes lacked variety, and I had to spend a lot of time finding a theme that matched my tea shop; and I also found that editing the free themes were challenging and time-consuming. Also, I suggest including shipping discounts which are extremely important in getting people to buy more and upsell.

The main problem I solved with Bigcommerce is launching my drop shipping online tea store. BigCommerce was extremely beginner-friendly and more affordable compared to other similar services, especially for beginners. It allowed me to create a fully functional online store with many features with minimal effort.

The main reason I prefer bigcommerce is not because its affordable but what it offers or what comes with the subscriptions that other counterparts don't offer. By now everyone should know that Bigcommerce stands above everyone ecommerce site when it comes to importing limits, customer service, apps and integrations, modern theme marketplace and more. Bigcommerce is my favorite because they put the customers first and are always there when you need help with something either on your end, or a bug on their system.

What i really dislike is the themes are madd expensive. Like c'mon please reduce the prices so I can upgrade my store's looks and feel. One of my favorite themes there i couldn't even look at because the price made me feel broke but apart from that the theme I use is fine, my store's up and running well. Everything is going smoothly and so far so good.

No problems so far. I have tried lots of features and apps and the integration between Facebook and Instagram has really been simplified and its now way easier. All the benefits I have realized, I mentioned above. Unlike its counterparts, Bigcommerce offers more with its subscriptions than all the other sites I've tried.

Easy marketing, product placement and easy value fields to change for group products.

The price randomly fluctuates and raises leaving you to pay more out of nowhere or completely lose everything!

I'm no longer using it. The price gouging hurt badly and forced my 5 years of business to creating our own website with WordPress 100% free of monthly fees.

The user interface is very intuitive and it is very easy to manipulate content.

Uploading images and pdfs must be done through a third-party file-transfer app, which is a little bit of a hassle; I'd prefer to just drag and drop.

Offering custom discounts on individual orders is easy to do after the order is placed - this was not always the case. We used to have to void the order, then contact the customer and have them place their order a 2nd time, using a discount code. Now, when we decide to offer a discount, we can reduce the price on the back end and not bother the customer.

BigCommerce has provided me with so many useful tools up front, without needing to pay for extra add-ons or higher pricing tiers. When I've needed support, their team has been very quick to respond to all my communications.

The stock themes are pretty bland, especially compared to Shopify storefronts, and there are still just a couple of features that don't have native support yet. Things like product backorders, more options for automatic promotions, and dynamic banners, popups, and widgets. Integration with QuickBooks could be improved.

BigCommerce gave me the space to showcase my entire catalog on my terms, instead of being limited to the Etsy framework (or marketplaces in general). I'm also saving money by paying a flat monthly fee, instead of a commission on every sale - like I used to pay on Etsy, and like I'd be paying on the comparably-priced level of Shopify. I've gained much more flexibility in managing my online presence, especially with all the app and channel integrations, like MailChimp, Yotpo, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and others.