BigCommerce vs WooCommerce: Which is the Best For eCommerce Website?

Planning to start an eCommerce website? And you can’t decide which platform to choose? Do you easily get overburdened with the number of options? To help you make a decision, we have compared the two giants, WooCommerce & BigCommerce. 

If you are looking for the best platform to streamline your online selling process, there are plenty of options across the Internet. The only way you can sell predominantly in the online market is when you can sell fast. You can achieve this by simply having a platform that offers both automation & flexibility.

In this article, we are going to do a quick review based on different metrics.

It’s not a complete ecommerce website development guide, but it does help you decide the better option. We will check both on ease of use, associated costs, payment options, integrations and add-ons, and more. 

Hopefully, this article will help you reach a decision. 

If you’re interested in learning about BigCommerce or WooCommerce, then buckle up and let us help you choose the right one for your next online store. 

What is WooCommerce? 

WooCommerce is an open-source eCommerce extension for WordPress (a popular content management system) that powers millions of online stores. It’s best for building complex eCommerce sites where you add deep-level customization to your website so it fulfills your unique business requirements.

According to Statista, WooCommerce is among the most popular eCommerce platforms.

As of 2024, WooCommerce holds 37.7% of the global eCommerce platform market share, making it the leading platform. BigCommerce, on the other hand, remains much smaller with only a 1% market share. However, this certainly does not mean that BigCommerce is an unpopular option. 

When it comes to customization, WooCommerce offers plenty of customization options. This free-to-use platform is absolutely free, and you only have to pay a yearly subscription based on your needs. 

Due to its high-end customizability, WooCommerce gives you the opportunity to add multiple extensions at the backend making this particular online store highly versatile for online use. 

What is BigCommerce? 

BigCommerce, on the other hand, is a standalone eCommerce solution where you can build online stores of your choice to create and manage all your online selling activities. 

With BigCommerce, you don’t have to be an expert-level developer to manage an online store. You need very little to no expertise in dealing with custom eCommerce development services & solutions.

The best thing about BigCommerce is that it’s fully hosted. You don’t have to search for a separate host or think about coming up with a domain name and checking its availability. 

BigCommerce includes different service packages such as hosting, design, content, SEO, payment processing & other alternative marketing features. 

Anyone with a piece of limited technical knowledge can operate BigCommerce and use it to set up their online store. If you want to focus more on selling products, BigCommerce is perfect for you. 

Comparing the Giants – WooCommerce vs BigCommerce 

Do you find yourself stuck between making a choice? Can’t decide whether you want to go for WooCommerce or BigCommerce for your next digital product? 

Let’s do a quick comparison to best understand the major differences between the two. Hopefully, it will help you decide which platform is the most suitable option for you. 

Ease of Use

Being a business owner, what’s the first thing that comes to your mind? 

• Meeting customer satisfaction. 
• And quick order delivery. 

This will only be achieved if you have an online store which you can easily manage. 

BigCommerce offers an easy store launch. Besides, you don’t have to worry about site maintenance much, especially the way you would when you are running a website on WordPress WooCommerce. 

As mentioned above, BigCommerce doesn’t require setting up hosting or choosing a domain name which further adds to the ease of its usage for customers. Another benefit of hosting a website on BigCommerce is that you don’t have to worry about things such as security, backup, or website performance issues. 

The team at BigCommerce takes care of it all for you. 

To get started with BigCommerce, just sign up. You get a 15-day trial period. 

As soon as you’re done signing up on the BigCommerce page, you are directed to a BigCommerce dashboard where you have plenty of options to customize your store, the way you desire. 

Don’t like your store’s current design? Want to change how it appears online? You can do it by changing the theme of your store. There are plenty of design options for you to choose from. 

Once you’ve confirmed what store design works best for you, your next option is to customize your theme. Add the different design elements of your choice and add products as many as you want. 

There are many other settings and options which you can access from the admin panel. With BigCommerce, you can find it on the right-hand side in the form of a menu. You can choose from plenty of options such as managing products, orders, marketing, customers, analytics & integrations. 

Starting as a completely new business? BigCommerce will offer you a sub-domain that’s free to use. 

Here’s what a subdomain for BigCommerce appears like: 

https://mystore.mybigcommerce.com

In case, you want to give your BigCommerce store a custom subdomain, then you can buy it from BigCommerce or any other domain name registrar of your choice & integrate it to your BigCommerce store. If your website is already on WordPress, then you can use the BigCommerce WordPress plugin. This plugin will help you enjoy all the benefits and features of BigCommerce on your WordPress website.  

On the contrary, WooCommerce works as a standalone WordPress website plugin. 

It is not a self-hosted platform such as BigCommerce. It’s a WordPress plugin that you need to install at the back end of your existing website so it can function as an eCommerce online store. 

If you’re starting a new store with WooCommerce, you will have to purchase a separate hosting & a domain name for your WordPress website. Once you’re done with the initial purchase & launch, the next step is to install the free-to-use WooCommerce plugin at the back end of your website. 

A good hosting platform such as HostNoc offers cheap dedicated servers & separate eCommerce hosting. As soon as you’re done with the WordPress setup and purchase, your next step is to start with WooCommerce. When you install the plugin, it will take you to a setup wizard. 

You can start with the basics through this wizard such as page setup, setting store location, configuring shipping and taxes, setting up payment options, and getting the store to launch. 

You can do it all in under a few minutes. 

If you don’t find the current theme useful, you can always change it to something useful. 

There are plenty of WooCommerce plugins and extensions to play with. 

The only downside of working with WooCommerce is that you will need a developer to help you take care of your site maintenance, check with site security, and perform your website’s backup. 

This is automatically taken care of, especially when your site is hosted on BigCommerce. 

Here’s the exciting part…

The internet is full of countless resources, online forums, and thousands of videos to educate you on WooCommerce. If you’re an enthusiastic learner, you can take care of it all, all on your own. 

Verdict: 

Even though WooCommerce can be a bit of a challenge to learn, there are almost a ton of free resources available where you may find millions of articles to help you with any WooCommerce issue. 

Compared to BigCommerce, WooCommerce will always require a bit of research & personal commitment. Therefore, BigCommerce takes the win here because it’s the easiest of the two platforms. 

Cost Comparison

When choosing the right eCommerce platform for your business, cost is another important factor that’s essential to address. Are you wondering how much it exactly costs to use any of the platforms? 

Since BigCommerce is a subscription-based platform, it works on three different pricing plans. Basically, there are four pricing plans in total; three are the basic essential plans which are the most suitable for small business owners; whereas one of them is the enterprise-level plan for large-scale agencies or businesses. 

The basic plan or the standard plan starts at $29 per month, the plus plan goes up to $79 and the pro plan goes as much as up to $299, all with a predefined BigCommerce domain name. 

If you want a custom domain, you can apply for a domain name directly from BigCommerce for around $12 per year. You can also purchase a domain from any of your preferred domain registrars. 

With BigCommerce you don’t have to pay up any transaction fees for any site purchase. All of the plans include unlimited products, unlimited file storage, unlimited bandwidth & staff accounts. 

However, there’s a threshold on the overall sale. 

Let’s say, that if your current plan has a threshold of selling only $50k worth of product per year, and somehow it exceeds that limit, your plan will eventually increase in size to a bigger package such as Pro.

Besides all of these costs, there are certain additional costs associated with your BigCommerce. These may include costs for buying a premium theme or adding any external apps.

BigCommerce paid themes start at a minimum cost of $150. 

The true cost of using WooCommerce

WooCommerce, on the other hand, is an open-source WordPress plugin which you can download and use for unlimited sites, absolutely free of cost. However, to make your WooCommerce store versatile & effective, you need to add a list of other paid services at the backend to make the store better. 

First things first, you will have to start with purchasing a domain name. 

Start with purchasing a website hosting account. Once purchased, your next task is to get an SSL certificate. Domain name will cost you around $14.99/year whereas a decent hosting service will take anywhere from $7.99/month up to $20/month. For an SSL certificate, you have to pay around $69.99/year. Then there are additional charges, especially if you choose to purchase a theme or add more extensions (paid ones to be specific) which makes the total sum more expensive for a startup. 

Fortunately, WooCommerce offers many free WooCommerce plugins and themes.

It can reduce the overall cost significantly. 

Verdict: 

Comparing the two, there’s no denying that the WooCommerce platform is clearly the winner compared to BigCommerce as it’s more cost-effective, irrespective of how much sales you make per year. 

Payment Options

The internet has plenty of payment gateway options.

Some are completely new, while others are launched for many years.  

However, different payment gateways can differ based on which of them are available for use for you or your customer based on their respective region. 

Payment Options in BigCommerce

When it comes to payment options, BigCommerce accepts payment from a variety of third-party gateways. It supports PayPal, Square, Adyen, CyberSource, Authorize.net, and Stripe. 

It also features integration and add-ons for digital wallets like Apple Pay, Amazon Pay, and Masterpass. 

BigCommerce offers a certain processing fee for debit and credit cards. It starts with 2.59% + $0.49 per transaction. This fee structure eventually decreases as your BigCommerce store scales up. 

Payment Options in WooCommerce 

Just like BigCommerce, WooCommerce also comes with PayPal and Stripe payment integrations. The platform also comes with complete support for gateways like Authorize.net & other add-ons. 

But because of the nature of WooCommerce, this open-source platform supports less popular payment services as well, including a variety of built-in integrations making it the ideal choice.   

Verdict:

Since both the platforms offer plenty of payment gateway options, BigCommerce & WooCommerce are at a tie. 

Integrations & Add-Ons

No matter how powerful your eCommerce platform is, the base software always contains limited features. Therefore, to make your software solution versatile, you must add the necessary integrations and add-ons to make the store effective in performance. 

The most common types of integrations which many eCommerce stores introduce are none other than email marketing tools, lead generation tools, and social analytics. 

Let’s explore what BigCommerce and WooCommerce offer in terms of third-party integration. 

BigCommerce Add-ons and Integrations 

When it comes to BigCommerce integrations, there are hundreds of third-party app integrations which adds power to the BigCommerce store. While some of them are free, others are paid add-ons. 

One can easily find them all in an app marketplace called the BigCommerce marketplace. 

The BigCommerce app marketplace currently features 12 distinct app collections. These collections are curated to help users discover the most relevant apps for their eCommerce needs, ranging from must-have apps to those tailored for specific industries or functionalities. 

The BigCommerce app marketplace comes with a different set of tools; tools for marketing, shipping, analytics, and customer support. There are plenty of apps, some available for email marketing, others for social media integration, and some for inventory management and payment gateways. All such apps focus on helping merchants optimize their eCommerce site

The BigCommerce app marketplace offers a wide range of apps, including tools for marketing, shipping, analytics, and customer support. You can find apps for email marketing, social media integration, inventory management, and payment gateways, all designed to enhance the functionality of your online store. These apps cater to various business needs, helping merchants optimize their eCommerce operations. 

WooCommerce Add-ons and Integrations 

On the other hand, WooCommerce is in itself an integration of the open-source content management system (CMS) software, WordPress. WooCommerce allows business owners to gain access to more than 59,000 more free WordPress plugins and 1000s of premium plugins. One can easily find these plugins within the official WordPress.org plugin repository. As far as the official WooCommerce add-ons go, the store contains a total of 250 free and premium extensions.

Since WooCommerce has a pretty large number of plugins, you can get almost any plugin you want to add any imaginable feature to your WordPress WooCommerce site. In fact, there are plenty of options available in WooCommerce, ranging from SEO plugins to performance optimization plugins, etc.

With WooCommerce, there are plenty of third-party services who have built their own plugins. In fact, you can create your own WooCommerce add-on specifically for your eCommerce store. 

All you need is a bit of coding skills, and if you lack that, you can always hire a developer. 

Verdict: 

While both eCommerce solutions are remarkably well-built in their own ways and have plenty of eCommerce plugins available, WooCommerce takes the lion’s share. 

It has definitely more plugins compared to BigCommerce. 

In fact, the open-source nature of WooCommerce is what makes the extension quite the popular choice among eCommerce store owners. 

The Bottomline 

Without a doubt, BigCommerce and WooCommerce are both powerful platforms. 

You can use any of these eCommerce stores to fulfill your business requirements. In fact, when it comes down to technical skills, how much of a budget you’re planning to invest, or your personal preference, people have the freedom to choose any of the platforms with which they feel comfortable. 

If it’s ease and accessibility which you’re looking for, BigCommerce is definitely an all-in-one solution. With BigCommerce, you don’t have to set up anything and you can initiate the store right away. 

The team at the backend will take care of backup, security, and store’s scalability. 

It’s truly a hassle-free solution. 

However, with WooCommerce, you get much better control of your website. You are free to make changes as you want, add anything you feel is necessary to add up and manage site budgets as per your preference. In fact, you can start a store on WooCommerce with a very little budget. 

The only disadvantage is, that you will need to hire a developer or have to learn it all yourself. 

So depending on what fulfills your requirements, choose a platform that works best in your situation. At Branex, we are a custom web development company where our experts offer you the best eCommerce development solutions worldwide. No matter where you’re located, our team can develop the perfect eCommerce store just for you. 

Feel free to get in touch with us, let us help you build the perfect store.