If you are looking for the best eCommerce platform for beginners to build your eCommerce store, then you are on the right page. There are a lot of platforms available out there that allows you to create a functional online store with a plethora of advanced functionalities. They may seem similar but their features and functionalities are quite different from one another. Therefore, it is important to choose the right platform to build a functional business website to meet your desired goals.in this article, I am going to write a detailed BigCommerce vs WooCommerce. These two are the well-established eCommerce platforms known for offering great eCommerce features.
If you’re comparing BigCommerce pricing vs WooCommerce pricing, this guide will help you make an informed decision based on your budget, features, and growth expectations.
In this guide, I am going to compare BigCommerce and WooCommerce by highlighting their key differences. They both belong to the list of leading eCommerce website builders with some mind-boggling differences. This article is not aims towards proving one is better than the other but is aimed at highlighting which one is better suitable for what purpose. Therefore, we urge you to reflect upon the unique requirements of your business and pick the platform that meets those requirements. Let’s get started-
BigCommerce vs WooCommerce – Table Of Content
1. What is BigCommerce?
2. What is WooCommerce?
3. BigCommerce vs WooCommerce: Comparison
4. BigCommerce vs WooCommerce: Pricing
5. BigCommerce vs WooCommerce: Features
6. BigCommerce vs WooCommerce: Final Words
What is BigCommerce?
BigCommerce is a versatile ecommerce website developer which offers exceptionally advanced eCommerce features for efficient eCommerce website development. It is a wholly hosted eCommerce software that allow you to access bundles of services including hosting, design, on page SEO, content, payments, and marketing features. Since it is a SaaS solution, you can start building your online store right away without having to download any software or program on your device. This all-in-one platform allows you to build a big online store with advanced eCommerce features. BigCommerce enables you to operate a comprehensively functional BigCommerce store along with your WordPress website. However, the only downside of using BigCommerce
Pros and cons of BigCommerce solution
BigCommerce brings a considerable amount of benefits and some downfalls as well. Read the pros and cons of BigCommerce as given below-
Pros
- Built-in statistics
- User-friendly admin panel and editor
- Offers mobile-friendly online store
- Comes with built-in payment
- Connect with your custom domain name
- Offers seamless integration with hundreds of leading inventory, accounting, and marketing apps.
- Offers flexible designing options
- SEO-friendly platform
- Enables selling on social media
Cons
- Bit of expensive
- No really beginner-friendly
What is WooCommerce?
WooCommerce is a bit of a technical platform that allows you to turn your normal website into an eCommerce store. Basically, it is a freeware WordPress plugin which means you need to install WordPress first to power WooCommerce platform. Just get a reliable eCommerce hosting provider like Bluehost and get your own eCommerce platform. Moreover, you can have control over everything from the order details to sensitive data in your website. Furthermore, it allows you to switch hosting providers within minutes through its quick migration system. This way, it keeps you free from any third-party obligations.
WooCommerce entertains thousands of fully-customizable themes. Moreover, you can manipulate these themes with custom code blocks of HTML or CSS. in addition, it comes with various advanced integrations like multiple store inventories, simple product listing, Google analytics, bulk email marketing, marketing features, newsletter plugins, and more. This platform is ideal for advanced users who want control over their website setup, decision making, and maintenance for the ultimate growth of their online business.
Pros and cons of WooCommerce solution
Make a clear, confusion-free choice for your business after reading the pros and cons of WooCommerce platform as given below-
Pros
- WooCommerce is a freeware solution
- Offers access to over 50K+ plugins
- Easy migration system
- Offers full control over your website
- Pretty flexible and extremely affordable
- SEO-optimized platform
- Extensive community and instant support
- Highly scalable
- Offers support for multilingual sites
- Highly compatible with WordPress themes
Cons
- Internal costs can lead to much higher costs than anticipated
- Most plugins are either expensive or incompatible
- Rather complicated setup process
BigCommerce vs WooCommerce: Comparison
Here is a tabular comparison of your BigCommerce vs WooCommerce for quick review-
| Factors | BigCommerce | WooCommerce |
| Founded in | 2009 | 2011 |
| Popularity | Powers over 100,000 online stores | Downloaded over 82 million times |
| Support | 24×7 phone support, Help centre, 24×7 live chat support, Community forum, Email support, and Video tutorials | online community, help center |
| Number of templates | Around 86 templates available | Around 20 themes available |
| Drag-and-drop editor? | No | Not available |
| Ease of Use | Complicated interface | Complex |
| Mobile-responsiveness | Limited | Manual |
| Online community | Moderate | Extensive |
| Marketplace | Available | Yes, available |
| Language/Localization support | Need to manually translate the entire website. | Available |
| Blogging support | No support for blogging | Greater support for WordPress integration |
BigCommerce vs WooCommerce: Pricing
Pricing is a rather important factor. In fact, most users plan their business around the budget they can spare. You can’t afford to go over your agreed budget or you can end up hampering your entire business due to lack of financial or other resources. BigCommerce and WooCommerce, both offer a pricing structure with varying services. Let’s have a look at their pricing structure-
BigCommerce Pricing
- Standard for $29.95/month
- Plus for $79.95/month
- Pro for $299/month
BigCommerce plans include unlimited bandwidth and offer a 15-day free trial with the cheapest, i.e. standard plans. For more advanced features like abandoned cart recovery, users have to upgrade to the higher-tier plans.
WooCommerce Pricing
As mentioned earlier, WooCommerce is an open source CMS. However, it is a self-hosted platform, so you will have to arrange hosting, security, domain name, etc, from your own pocket. Let’s assume you are creating an entry-level website, therefore, the costs you will have to bear are: an average theme for $79, an SSL for $79/year, hosting service for $99/year. Depending upon the resources you spare on your online store, you can end up spending $100-$1,500 a month on your WooCommerce store.
BigCommerce vs WooCommerce: Features
Before we dive into the technicalities of BigCommerce and WooCommerce, it is important to understand the common features into scalability, security, designing flexibility, and more. Let’s look into their features-
Ease of use
Ease of use is an important factor, especially for beginners. Website builders like BigCommerce are easier to use when it comes to building a website. The setup and settings of the features are complex but are displayed in a friendlier manner. Moreover, its modern design helps users access the admin panel more easily. Considering BigCommerce is a fully-hosted platform, users need not to be concerned about various services like hosting, or installing any software on their devices. They can just start building and maintaining their online store right away.
In addition, you don’t have to think about performance issues, security, and backups. All you have to do is simply sign up and set up your online store in 3 simple steps. Enter your email address, your contact details, and name of your store. After that, it will ask for some more information about your store and the nature of your business. Your store will be up and running within a couple of hours.
WooCommerce, on the other hand, is not a hosted solution which means you have to download it on your device and get a reliable hosting provider before making your website live. If you choose to get a reliable hosting provider like Bluehost, then you don’t need to manually install WooCommerce as it comes pre-installed with the hosting service. However, creating and maintaining your WooCommerce is a bit more complex as compared to BigCommerce. For a step by step guide, read our article on how to create an eCommerce website with WooCommerce.
Sales features
Since both BigCommerce and WooCommerce are eCommerce platforms, they both offer a plethora of eCommerce-specific features. Starting with BigCommerce, it offers plenty of payment options to enable you to collect payment from your customers easily. It comes with built-in native integrations with all major payment methods including PayPal, Stripe, Square, CyberSource, Authorize.net, and Adyen. However, you will have to pay a certain transaction fee on debit and credit cards starting at 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction. Nonetheless, it decreases as our BigCommerce store grows. In addition, it offers some built-in integrations with digital wallets including Amazon Pay, PayPal, Apple Pay, and MasterPass.
Meanwhile WooCommerce comes with Stripe and PayPal payments as default. In addition, it supports a number of major payment gateways through add-ons and extensions. The upside of using WooCommerce is that it is an open-source platform, which means it is possible to find or build an integration for regional and less popular payment services. Therefore, if you plan on serving customers from a more local perspective, having their regional payment method integrated into your online store can do wonders. Overall, it is a tie between these two platforms.
Templates/Themes
Your online store has to be functional as well as good looking. Therefore, BigCommerce offers 12 free themes and over 50 premium themes costing between $100-300. It may seem a bit expensive but it is a one-time investment and you only get one chance to make that first impression
While WooCommerce offers 20 themes in total with 14 storefront themes costing between $40-120. It offers slightly cheapers themes as compared to BigCommerce but it doesn’t conceal the limited variety it offers. However, you can create your own WooCommerce theme.
Marketing features
Digital marketing tools and features allow you gain visibility and appear in front of your targeted customers. Using them efficiently will not only help you gain new customers but will also keep existing customers. BigCommerce offers marketing tools for stores in all sizes and shapes. It includes blogging tools, social media integrations, coupon and gift cards, product ratings and reviews, multichannel selling integration support, and more. In addition, you can get advanced tools like abandoned cart recovery and Google customer review with its cheapest plan.
WooCommerce, on the other hand, offers around 89 marketing extensions in its marketplace with built-in marketing tools similar to BigCommerce. It has plenty of built-in SEO tools that allows you to add customized URLs, meta descriptions, meta titles, headings, rich snippets, landing pages for your ads, and more. However, installing a bulk of plugins can affect the performance of your store and they may not perform well on Google PageSpeed tool which is not good for your overall SEO. Overall, BigCommerce wins this round since all you have to do is upgrade to an expensive plan and it will take care of the rest while maintaining the best performance of your online store. Also, read this guide for top-notch eCommerce SEO tips.
Add-on and Extensions
BigCommerce comes with third-party add-ons and extensions to enable users to add advanced functionalities to their online store. There are both paid and free add-ons available in its app market. You will see its featured app collections categorized as payments, marketing, design, shipping, essentials, and must-haves. You can either look through the categories or browse through them all. Furthermore, it has extensive collection of apps in other categories including analytics and reporting, tax, product sourcing, customer service, etc.
Meanwhile WooCommerce is known for offering seamless integration with thousands of free and premium plugins. Since it is a WordPress plugin, all the WordPress plugins are compatible with WooCommerce as well. However, choosing the right extension can be the real challenge since it has over thousands of extensions available. Nevertheless, it has an official extensions store that contains over 250 free and extensions. You will have plenty of choices in terms of lead generation forms, SEO, performance optimization, analytics, contact forms, and more. In addition, you can leverage this open-source platform and build your own WooCommerce extensions. If you are still confused, have a look at this list of best WooCommerce plugins.
Scalability Support
Most eCommerce stores aspire to grow with time. However, choosing the wrong platform can limit the growth of your online store as well as your business. Nevertheless, both BigCommerce and WooCommerce offer some great scalability support to enable you to grow your business. Being a fully-hosted solution, BigCommerce brings a whole package of storage, updates, downtimes, and security. With the growth of your business, you can upgrade your plan and it will automatically handle the rest for you. All in all, it is the ideal solution if you want minimal fuss and maximum service.
Being a self hosted solution, WooCommerce expects you to take care of all the services including backups, security, updates, and online store management resources. You can seek the best WordPress hosting services that allow you to upgrade your hosting plans with the growth of your business. However, upgrading can involve some confusing steps but offers greater flexibility. Overall, BigCommerce is the winner of this round due to its hassle-free services and management.
Customer support
BigCommerce offers 24/7 direct customer assistance via email, live chat, and phone. Moreover, it has a help center full of knowledgeable content and useful guildes. Furthermore, it has an active online community helping with useful and prompt replies. WooCommerce on the other hand doesn’t offer any dedicated customer assistance but it has a bursting online community with useful resources and guides. Moreover, users can choose a reliable hosting service like Bluehost that offers 24×7 customer assistance via phone, email, and live chat.
BigCommerce vs WooCommerce: Final Words
Here is your detailed BigCommerce vs WooCommerce. In a nutshell, BigCommerce is ideal for larger and faster-growing online businesses that require hassle-free services. Whereas WooCommerce is suitable for smaller and static online stores that already have a WordPress website.
If you are just getting started, choosing the best eCommerce platform for beginners depends on your comfort level with technical setups. BigCommerce may appeal more to non-tech-savvy users due to its fully hosted nature, whereas WooCommerce is perfect for those who want more control and customization.
Whether you prioritize ease of use or full customization, comparing BigCommerce pricing vs WooCommerce pricing can help determine the best eCommerce platform for your specific business goals. So, it is your decision to choose BigCommerce and WooCommerce. Either way, let us know your decision in the comment section below.