Choosing the right eCommerce platform can feel overwhelming. There are dozens of options, each promising they're the best fit for your business. Meanwhile, you're trying to figure out which one will actually help you sell more products, keep operations running smoothly, and grow without constant headaches.
At Stellar One, we work with eCommerce businesses every day as they connect their online stores to the back-office operations that keep everything running. BigCommerce is one of the platforms we see our members using most often, and we've developed deep expertise in how it fits into a larger business technology stack.
In this article, you'll learn exactly what BigCommerce is, how it works, what it costs, who it's built for, and what you should think about as your store grows. By the end, you'll have a clear picture of whether BigCommerce belongs on your shortlist.
What Is BigCommerce?
BigCommerce is a cloud-based eCommerce platform that will let you build, manage, and grow an online store without needing to handle the technical side yourself. It's what's known as a "hosted" or "Software as a Service" (SaaS) platform, which simply means that BigCommerce will take care of the servers, security updates, and software maintenance behind the scenes. That way, you can focus on your products and customers.
Founded in 2009 and headquartered in Austin, Texas, BigCommerce has powered over 130,000 merchants across more than 150 countries. It operates as a product brand under its parent company, Commerce.com, Inc. The company's platform serves everyone from small startups to large enterprise brands, though it's become especially well known for its strength with growing midsized businesses and B2B sellers.
Unlike some competitors that require you to install plugins for basic selling features, BigCommerce includes a wide range of built-in tools right out of the box. That means less reliance on third-party apps and fewer moving parts to manage as your store scales.
Key Features of BigCommerce
BigCommerce packs a lot of functionality into its platform. Here are some of the features that matter most to business owners:
- No transaction fees: Unlike some eCommerce platforms that take a percentage of every sale, BigCommerce charges zero transaction fees on any plan. You'll still pay standard credit card processing fees through your payment provider, like PayPal or Stripe, but BigCommerce itself won’t take a cut. For high-volume sellers, this difference can save thousands of dollars per year.
- Built-in multichannel selling: BigCommerce will let you sell across multiple channels from a single dashboard. You can connect your store to marketplaces like Amazon, eBay, and Walmart, as well as social platforms like Facebook and Instagram. Meet your customers wherever they prefer to shop without managing each channel separately.
- Flexible design and customization: The platform offers a library of both free and premium storefront themes. If you want deeper control, BigCommerce's open architecture and headless commerce capabilities allow developers to customize the front-end experience while keeping the powerful back-end engine intact.
- Strong SEO tools: BigCommerce includes built-in search engine optimization features like customizable URLs, automatic sitemap generation, and structured data markup. These tools will help your products show up in search results, which is critical for driving organic traffic to your store.
- Unlimited products, bandwidth, and staff accounts: Every BigCommerce plan comes with unlimited product listings, file storage, bandwidth, and staff accounts. You won't hit a ceiling on how many products you can sell or how many team members can access the platform.
With all of those features included across every plan, the next question most business owners ask is what BigCommerce actually costs.
How Much Does BigCommerce Cost?
BigCommerce offers four pricing tiers designed to match different business sizes and needs:
- Standard starts at $39 per month ($29 per month if billed annually) and supports up to $50,000 in annual online sales. It includes up to three storefronts and all the core selling features.
- Plus starts at $105 per month ($79 per month billed annually) and supports up to $180,000 in annual sales. It adds abandoned cart recovery, customer groups, and persistent cart features.
- Pro starts at $399 per month ($299 per month billed annually) and supports up to $400,000 in annual sales. It includes advanced product filtering, Google customer reviews, and custom SSL.
- Enterprise is custom-priced for large businesses and includes price lists, unlimited API calls, and dedicated account management.
One important detail: BigCommerce will automatically upgrade your plan when your trailing twelve-month sales exceed the cap for your current tier. You’ll want to factor this automation into your budget as your revenue grows.
Beyond the subscription, you should also budget for a custom theme ($100 to $400 for premium options), a domain name (around $12 per year), and any third-party apps you choose to add from the BigCommerce marketplace.
Who Is BigCommerce Best For?
BigCommerce is a strong fit for several types of businesses, including:
- Growing eCommerce brands that need built-in features without relying heavily on third-party apps. BigCommerce's all-in-one approach will keep your tech stack simpler as you scale.
- B2B sellers who need features like custom pricing, quote management, and tiered pricing structures. BigCommerce's B2B Edition was specifically designed for wholesale and business-to-business operations.
. - Multichannel retailers selling across their own website, marketplaces, and social media. The centralized dashboard keeps inventory and orders in sync across all channels.
- Businesses that want to avoid transaction fees. If your margins are tight or your volume is high, the zero transaction fee model can make a meaningful difference in your profitability.
BigCommerce may not be the best fit for very small businesses or hobby sellers who need the simplest possible setup, or for businesses that need extremely robust content marketing and blogging tools built directly into their storefront.
BigCommerce Editions: B2C, B2B, and Enterprise
BigCommerce isn't a one-size-fits-all platform. It offers different editions tailored to how each business sells. Here’s the breakdown of those editions:
- BigCommerce Essentials (B2C): This is the standard version of BigCommerce, designed for businesses selling directly to consumers. The Standard, Plus, and Pro plans all fall under this umbrella. It includes everything you need to launch and grow a consumer-facing online store.
- BigCommerce B2B Edition: Built specifically for wholesale and business-to-business selling, the B2B Edition adds features like company account management, custom pricing and quote management, purchase order support, and buyer role permissions. If you sell to other businesses, this edition addresses the unique complexities of B2B transactions that standard eCommerce platforms often struggle with.
- BigCommerce Enterprise: For large organizations with complex requirements, the Enterprise plan offers custom pricing, unlimited API calls, priority support, and advanced features like price lists. It's designed for businesses processing high volumes of transactions across multiple storefronts and regions.
Knowing which edition fits your business today is a great starting point, but it's just as important to think about what happens next as your store scales.
What to Think About as Your BigCommerce Store Grows
BigCommerce is a powerful storefront, but it's important to understand that a storefront is only one piece of your business technology. As your operations get more complex, you'll likely run into challenges that BigCommerce wasn't designed to solve on its own.
Inventory and Order Management
When you're selling across multiple channels and processing hundreds (or thousands) of orders per month, managing inventory inside BigCommerce alone becomes difficult. Overselling, stockouts, and manual data entry errors become real problems.
This problem area is where connecting your storefront to a back-office ERP platform can make a significant difference. An ERP solution will sync your inventory, orders, and financials in real time so your team won’t have to toggle between spreadsheets and separate tools.
Financial Reporting and Accounting
BigCommerce provides sales reporting, but it's not accounting software. As your business grows, you'll need a way to connect your eCommerce data to your financial operations. Many businesses start with a basic integration to QuickBooks or a similar tool, but eventually reach a point where they need a more robust ERP solution that unifies financials, inventory, and customer data in one place.
The Native Acumatica Connector
One advantage BigCommerce has over many eCommerce platforms is its native integration with Acumatica, a cloud-based ERP platform. This built-in connector can create a two-way data flow between your online store and your core business operations. Orders placed in BigCommerce automatically sync to the ERP platform, inventory updates flow back to the storefront in real time, and financial data stays accurate without manual reconciliation.
If you're evaluating BigCommerce and thinking ahead to how your back-office operations will scale alongside your store, this native ERP connectivity is worth considering early in your decision.
Examples of Businesses Using BigCommerce
BigCommerce powers a wide range of businesses across different industries. Here are some of the most common verticals you'll find on the platform:
- Home and garden retailers make up the largest segment, accounting for roughly 17% of all BigCommerce stores.
- Apparel and fashion brands represent the second-largest category at about 14%.
- Automotive parts and accessories sellers are a growing presence at around 8% of stores.
- Health and beauty brands, food and beverage companies, and electronics retailers all maintain a significant presence on the platform as well.
The platform is especially popular among small to midsized businesses. The majority of BigCommerce stores operate with fewer than 50 employees, and the average merchant generates around $250,000 in annual sales. However, the platform also powers 112 of the top 2,000 online retailers, proving it can handle enterprise-level demands as well.
How Does BigCommerce Compare to Other Platforms?
We won't dive into a full platform comparison here (that's a separate conversation worth having), but here's a quick snapshot of how BigCommerce stacks up against:
- Shopify: Both Shopify and BigCommerce are major SaaS eCommerce platforms. BigCommerce tends to include more features out of the box, while Shopify has a larger app ecosystem. BigCommerce's zero transaction fees and stronger native B2B tools give it an edge for certain business types.
- WooCommerce: WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin, meaning you manage your own hosting and security. BigCommerce handles that for you. WooCommerce offers more flexibility if you're already deep in the WordPress ecosystem, but BigCommerce is simpler to maintain.
- Magento (Adobe Commerce): Magento is a powerful open-source platform, but it requires significant development resources. BigCommerce is more accessible for businesses that don't have a dedicated in-house development team.
The right platform for you depends on your business size, technical resources, selling model (B2B vs. B2C), and how you plan to grow. No single platform is universally "the best."
Your Next Steps for Evaluating BigCommerce
BigCommerce is a full-featured, cloud-hosted eCommerce platform that gives business owners a solid foundation for selling online. With built-in multichannel selling, zero transaction fees, strong SEO tools, and options for both B2C and B2B, it's a platform that can grow with your business through multiple stages.
That said, your eCommerce platform is only one part of the picture. As your store grows, the real challenge won't be selling products online. It'll be keeping your inventory accurate, your accounting clean, your orders flowing, and your team working efficiently. Those are the operational challenges that determine whether your growth is sustainable or chaotic.
If you're evaluating BigCommerce and want to understand how other businesses feel about it, check out our review compilation: BigCommerce Reviews From Users and Industry Experts. Knowing what others in your position have experienced with the tool will help you make a more confident, future-proof decision.
At Stellar One, we've helped dozens of eCommerce businesses connect BigCommerce to Acumatica's cloud ERP platform, giving them real-time visibility into inventory, orders, and financials from a single place. If you're curious about what that looks like for your business, try our Free Deployment below to see Acumatica working with your own data before you commit. No cost, no obligation.
