BigCommerce vs. WooCommerce: Which Platform Wins?

The arrival of technology and the Internet led to the eCommerce revolution and has dramatically transformed the way people go shopping. A lot of retailers and wholesalers have built their online stores to serve savvy online buyers, even if they still stick to their physical shops.

However, online shopping is quite challenging for retailers as they need to choose the most appropriate platform to build an online store. Bigcommerce and Woocommerce are among the most dominant platforms in the eCommerce realm. Each of them has a long list of advantages and disadvantages.

This post today will take you through all the aspects of the BigCommerce and WooCommerce debate. You’ll get a better understanding of the discrepancies and similarities between the two options and pick the right one in the end.

Table of contents

• What is BigCommerce?
• What is WooCommerce?
• What are The Critical Differences Between BigCommerce vs WooCommerce?
• BigCommerce vs WooCommerce: Which one is better?
  • BigCommerce vs WooCommerce: Customer Service Comparison
  • BigCommerce vs WooCommerce: Features and Tools Comparison
  • BigCommerce vs WooCommerce: Scalability Comparison
  • BigCommerce vs WooCommerce: Integration and Addons Comparison
  • BigCommerce vs WooCommerce: Payment Methods Comparison
  • BigCommerce vs WooCommerce: Pricing Comparison
  • BigCommerce vs WooCommerce: Their Advantages and Disadvantages
    • The Pros of BigCommerce
    • The Cons of BigCommerce
    • The Pros of WooCommerce
    • The Cons of WooCommerce
• To Wrap Up

What is BigCommerce?

BigCommerce is a wholly hosted eCommerce software. It allows you to access a large package of services, such as hosting, payments, design, SEO, content, and marketing features.

Thus, it is known as software as a solution (SaaS) or an all-in-one platform. You can build a BigCommerce store with ease by buying a subscription plan.

The drawback of using BigCommerce is that you will be restricted to the tools in the BigCommerce platform. Meanwhile, the major benefit you can get from BigCommerce is that you can operate a comprehensively functional BigCommerce store along with your current WordPress website.

What is WooCommerce?

WooCommerce is the most dominant eCommerce plugin for WordPress. It can support you in converting any WordPress blog or site into an eCommerce shop.

To run a WooCommerce store, you have to purchase or set up web hosting, install WooCommerce, WordPress, and various marketing tools.

What are The Critical Differences Between BigCommerce vs WooCommerce?

The primary discrepancy between BigCommerce and WooCommerce is that BigCommerce is a completely-hosted eCommerce site builder. It has built about 100,000 online stores for entrepreneurs across the world.

An eCommerce site builder is a software that can aid you to design and manage your online shop. Additionally, BigCommerce offers thousands of built-in eCommerce features. The platform gives you everything you need to design, release, and grow your online business.

Meanwhile, WooCommerce is an open-source WordPress plugin that allows WordPress members to begin selling on the Internet. WooCommerce was created by Automatic - the same web development company that established WordPress. Therefore, if you already run a WordPress site on which you want to create an online shop, WooCommerce is the number one choice.

Being a comprehensively customizable platform, WooCommerce allows you to maintain the branding across your site and the online store consistently.

BigCommerce vs WooCommerce: Which one is better?

BigCommerce vs WooCommerce: Ease of Use Comparison

BigCommerce

You can start with BigCommerce by registering for their free trial. Then, you can create your store in three steps:

• Fill in your email address
• Create your shop’s name
• Give some information about your brand

You just need several minutes to set up your BigCommerce store. Then you can see your BigCommerce dashboard, preview your shop, insert products, and customize your design and settings.

As part of the onboarding process, you’ll find where to find special features and how to customize particular elements. Besides, BigCommerce also stimulates you to seek/ask any questions you have in their FAQs section.

Many of BigCommerce’s features are generated into its themes, which makes approaching and utilizing BigCommerce’s tools even easier. Moreover, unlike WooCommerce, BigCommer offers users with a web domain, hosting platform, and security certificates.

WooCommerce

Compared to BigCommerce, WooCommerce is a little more bewildering to use because it seems to be a technical platform.

With Bluehost, you’ll approach the features below:

• WooCommerce automatic-install
• A free call to support setting up an online shop for you
• A domain name and SSL certificate with no cost
• WooCommerce’s ‘Storefront’ theme pre-installed
• 24/7 customer service from Bluehost’s in-house WordPress guru

If you choose a hosting provider that cooperates with WooCommerce (such as Bluehost), there’s no need for you to install WordPress and the WooCommerce plugin manually. Your hosting provider will get WooCommerce pre-installed.

Whichever way you decide, when you already install the WooCommerce plugin, you can introduce the setup wizard of WooCommerce. This gives you everything you’ll need to establish your WooCommerce shop in minutes. You can easily manage all the basics, including generating pages, building your payment settings, currency, taxes, shipping, etc.

BigCommerce vs WooCommerce: Customer Service Comparison

BigCommerce

BigCommerce provides 24/7 customer support through some communication channels, such as live chat, email, and phone. Besides, there’s also a user forum and an online help center where you can find thousands of self-help instructions.

If you decide to choose the Enterprise plan of BigCommerce, you can have your account manager and onboarding consultant who help you handle any problems.

WooCommerce

WooCommerce is a self-hosted platform, and there are some platforms where you can find support for your business.

For WooCommerce core plugin related problems, you’ll reach out to the WordPress forum or the official WooCommerce site. You can find already solved issues and also post your questions in these support centers.

WooCommerce site has a support page that contains significantly massive documentation, tutorials, and instructions to help you find solutions on your own.

If you face some WooCommerce theme and extension problems, you can find support from their excellent developers. Your web hosting will take charge of supporting any server related issues.

In addition, you can access a variety of WooCommerce related tutorials on WordPress blogs such as WPBeginner.

BigCommerce vs WooCommerce: Features and Tools Comparison

BigCommerce

There are numerous important, in-built features that are useful for your online store.

• Multi-channel integration - allows you to sell from your site directly on marketplaces such as eBay and social media like Facebook.
• SSL security - secures your online store by protecting payments, providing you a little padlock symbol next to your URL, so consumers know when checking out.
• Analytical tracking and reporting tools - check your store’s performance via sessions, email campaigns, sales, etc.
• Abandoned cart recovery - gives your shoppers automatic email reminders when they leave their cart behind.
• Promotional codes and discounts - enables you to offer sales and deals on products by giving shoppers a code to use at the checkout.

WooCommerce

• Blogging - the in-built capability to produce, publish, and share articles.
• One-click refunds - enables you to get money back for returns immediately.
• Unlimited customization - if you can code, you can change everything from the storefront to the checkout page without any restrictions.

BigCommerce vs WooCommerce: Scalability Comparison

Scalability features are crucial as you need more resources when your store develops.

BigCommerce

Because BigCommerce is a completely hosted platform, you don’t have to care about any of the technical things such as backups, storage, updates, downtimes, or security. When your store thrives, you’ll necessarily update your plan, and BigCommerce will manage the rest.

BigCommerce provides you a hassle-free solution to expand your online business.

WooCommerce

WooCommerce is a self-hosted solution, so you are responsible for resources, updates, backups, and your site’s security.

Most of the leading WordPress hosting firms enable you to upgrade your hosting plan to address the requirements of your growing site. Nevertheless, the migrating process can consist of some bewildering steps.

BigCommerce vs. WooCommerce: Integration and Addons Comparison

BigCommerce

BigCommerce offers tons of third-party apps and integrations to help you include incredible features to your BigCommerce shop. The platform provides both free and paid addons in the BigCommerce app marketplace.

It has six main app collections classified as must-haves, design, shipping essentials, payments, and marketing. You can quickly pick apps from these collections for your online shop. Besides, there are several apps, such as analytics and reporting, accounting and tax, product sourcing, CRM and customer service, and so many more.

WooCommerce

WooCommerce is an open-source plugin established on top of the prevailing content management system (CMS) software, WordPress. This allows you to approach over 55,000 WordPress plugins and hundreds of premium plugins without paying any fee.

You can look for these plugins at the official WordPress.org plugin repository, plugin sites, official WooCommerce site. The official WooCommerce extension store displays more than 250 free and premium extensions to enhance your eCommerce features.

With plenty of WooCommerce plugins, you can opt for a plugin for any feature. There are numerous options for creating contact forms, lead generation forms, performance optimization, analytics, SEO, etc.

The majority of the prevalent third-party services have grown their plugins to integrate with your WooCommerce store. Moreover, you can build a WooCommerce addon for your shop if you know about coding or hire a developer.

BigCommerce vs. WooCommerce: Payment Methods Comparison

BigCommerce

BigCommerce gives you a range of payment methods for your online store. It contains built-in native integrations with the most popular digital wallets in the industry, such as Square, Stripe, PayPal supported by Braintree, Authorize.net, Adyen, and CyberSource.

The processing cost for credit and debit cards begins at 2.9% +$0.30 for one transaction, but it reduces when your BigCommerce store develops.

Furthermore, it has built-in integration with common payment platforms, such as Masterpass, Amazon Pay, PayPal, and Apple Pay. Including these reliable payment platforms can aid your store to dramatically boost your mobile conversion.

WooCommerce

WooCommerce provides Stripe and PayPal payments by default. Also, it supports all the top payment gateways through addons and extensions.

As WooCommerce is an open-source platform, a lot of regional and less prevailing payment services have also created an integration for WooCommerce. Hence, you can search for integration for nearly any payment platform you want to apply.

BigCommerce vs. WooCommerce: Pricing Comparison

BigCommerce

BigCommerce is a subscription-based eCommerce solution that offers various pricing options. There are four primary pricing plans; 3 Essential plans for small businesses and Enterprise plans for larger agencies.

The Standard plan charges you $29.95 per month. This plan provides you everything necessary to open your online business with a BigCommerce subdomain.

If you want to have a custom domain name, you would have to purchase a domain name. You can purchase a domain name from BigCommerce for about $12 per year or any other domain registrar.

All plans require no transaction fees, limitless products, limitless file storage, limitless bandwidth, and unlimited staff accounts. Nevertheless, BigCommerce provides thresholds for your total sales. For instance, the total sales limit for the Standard plan is $50k a year.

If you’re creating more sales, BigCommerce will automatically move your store to a higher plan. If you are purchasing their biggest Essential plan Pro, you’ll need to pay an extra $150 per month for each extra $200k in online sales.

Moreover, you may need to invest more money if you want to apply a premium theme and app. The paid BigCommece themes start at $170.

WooCommerce

WooCommerce is an open-source WordPress plugin that you can download and use on limitless websites without any cost. Nevertheless, you’ll need to pay other services to set up a store on WooCommerce.

First and foremost, you need a domain name, a site hosting account, and an SSL certificate. A domain name is typically $14.49 per year, web hosting about $7.99 per month, and SSL Certificate about $69.99 per year.

The total sum of these costs is quite pricey for low-budget startups. However, a few hosting companies are offering specialized WooCommerce hosting services at a reasonable price. One of them is Bluehost WooCommerce hosting. They are giving WPBeginner users a discount on hosting + a free domain name and an SSL certificate. That means you just pay $6.95 per month for your hosting.

If you choose a Bluehost eCommerce plan, starting an online shop costs much lower than other BigCommerce plans.

If you’d like to have a premium WooCommerce theme or paid extensions, you’ll need to pay more. However, you can go for hundreds of free WooCommerce plugins and themes.

BigCommerce vs. WooCommerce: Their Advantages and Disadvantages

The Pros of BigCommerce

• BigCommerce provides the most built-in features that you can dream of.
• The selling process via some channels, such as Amazon, Instagram, and Facebook is seamless and smooth.
• BigCommerce shops have surprising loading speeds, so you don’t need to care about caching apps.
• BigCommerce is responsible for a whole host of security and compliance measures.
• The templates of BigCommerce are stunning. There are a wide variety of responsive themes to select from, which are clear to install and edit. Furthermore, in case you have any CSS know-how or HTML, BigCommerce makes it simple to have the code.

The Cons of BigCommerce

• BigCommerce doesn’t have a mobile app available, which makes it difficult to manage your store.
• It is a bit challenging to navigate BigCommerce’s editing interface.
• Compared to WooCommerce, the app marketplace of BigCommerce is smaller. BigCommerce doesn’t offer a similar variety and selection of extension for you to install.

The Pros of WooCommerce

• You can implement unlimited customization.
• You’ll have a chance to get WordPress’s fantastic SEO tools.
• WooCommerce requires no fee to download so that you can start your online store with a small budget.
• You can include infinite item lists throughout different categories. Besides, you can sell virtual, physical, and downloadable items. The decision is yours.
• Your store can support any payment modes.

The Cons of WooCommerce

• WooCommerce doesn’t offer comprehensive customer service; sometimes, you have to handle problems on your own, or you can pose your questions on the WooCommerce forum.
• You need to prepare some advanced technical knowledge to enjoy the full extent of WooCommerce’s offering.
• You need to manage your own website updates.
• It is a little bit tricky to launch a multi-currency website with WooCommerce.

To Wrap Up

BigCommerce works best for those with bigger or fast-developing businesses. Its excellent set of built-in tools and functionality will support your online business when you grow your store. In contrast, WooCommerce is an ideal choice for small companies that currently have a WordPress website.

Through this article, we hope that you can come up with your decision, choosing between BigCommerce and WooCommerce.

If you’ve already experienced with one of two platforms or have any questions, please drop a line in the comment box. We’d love to hear from you.