BigCommerce vs Shopify: Which Fits Your Store in 2026?

BigCommerce and Shopify are both hosted ecommerce platforms. Neither is "better" for every store. Shopify usually wins on ease of use, app choice and checkout conversion tools. BigCommerce usually wins on built-in catalogue features, B2B options and flexibility over URLs and payment providers. The right choice depends on your catalogue, how you sell, and how much you want to rely on apps.

This guide compares the two for store owners in the USA, UK, Canada and Australia who are choosing a platform or thinking about moving.

How do the fees compare?

Both platforms charge a monthly subscription, plus card processing fees. The differences are in the details:

• Shopify has fixed plan tiers (Basic, Grow, Advanced, and Plus for larger merchants). If you use a payment provider other than Shopify Payments, Shopify adds its own transaction fee on top of the provider's fee: 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow, 0.6% on Advanced and 0.2% on Plus (Shopify pricing page, November 2026).
• BigCommerce ties its self-service plans to your online sales over the previous 12 months. When your sales pass a plan's limit, you move up to the next plan. BigCommerce does not add its own transaction fee when you use a third-party payment gateway, so you only pay the gateway.

What this means: if you plan to keep a payment provider you already have (for example a negotiated rate with a bank or processor), BigCommerce can cost less. If you are happy with Shopify Payments, Shopify's extra fee doesn't apply. Always check both pricing pages for your country, because prices differ by region and change over time.

Which is better for large catalogues and B2B?

BigCommerce includes more catalogue features out of the box: rich product options, customer groups with their own pricing, and B2B tools (its B2B Edition adds company accounts, quotes and purchase orders).

Shopify handles B2B through Shopify Plus, which adds company profiles, price lists and payment terms. On lower Shopify plans, wholesale usually means an app.

Choose BigCommerce if B2B is a large part of your revenue and you don't plan to move to Shopify Plus. Choose Shopify if most of your sales are direct to consumers and B2B is a side channel.

How do SEO and URLs differ?

Both platforms produce crawlable, mobile-friendly stores with editable titles, meta descriptions and image alt text. The main difference is URL control:

• Shopify uses fixed URL paths: /products/, /collections/, /pages/ and /blogs/. You can edit the handle after the path, but not the path itself.
• BigCommerce lets you set custom URLs for products, categories and pages.

Neither choice stops a store from ranking. What matters more is good category pages, unique product descriptions, fast pages and, if you move platforms, a complete set of 301 redirects from every old URL to its new one.

Which has the better app ecosystem?

Shopify's App Store is much larger, and most ecommerce tools (reviews, subscriptions, email, loyalty, shipping) build for Shopify first. That makes it easy to add features, but each app adds a monthly cost and can slow your theme.

BigCommerce has fewer apps but more features built in, so you may need fewer of them. Before choosing, list the five or six tools you rely on and check that each supports the platform.

What about checkout?

Shopify's checkout is consistent, fast and familiar to shoppers, and Shop Pay gives returning buyers one-tap checkout. Customisation is done through Checkout UI extensions and Shopify Functions, and the deepest options need Shopify Plus.

BigCommerce gives developers more direct control over the checkout, which suits stores with unusual checkout needs, at the cost of more development work.

When is it worth moving from BigCommerce to Shopify (or back)?

A migration takes planning and costs money, so move only for a clear reason:

• Move to Shopify when you want a larger app ecosystem, an easier admin for your team, Shop Pay, or a theme your marketing team can manage without a developer.
• Stay on (or move to) BigCommerce when you depend on built-in B2B pricing, want custom URL structures, or want to keep a payment gateway without an extra platform fee.

A migration checklist if you do switch

1. Export products, variants, categories, customers and orders, and decide how BigCommerce options map to Shopify variants and metafields.
2. List every indexed URL (from your sitemap and Search Console) and build a 301 redirect map.
3. Plan for customer passwords: they cannot be moved, so customers will need to set a new one. Send an account-activation email after launch.
4. Rebuild integrations (ERP, inventory, email, reviews) and test orders end to end.
5. Launch, submit the new sitemap, and watch Search Console for 404s for the first few weeks.

Need help choosing or moving?

Dzimark plans and builds Shopify stores and migrations for businesses in the USA, UK, Canada and Australia. If you're weighing a move, see our Shopify migration service or read about our Shopify development work.

Sources

• Shopify pricing (plans and third-party payment provider fees)
• Shopify Help Center, URL redirects
• Shopify B2B on Shopify Plus
• BigCommerce pricing (plans and online-sales limits)
• BigCommerce B2B Edition