BigCommerce
Shopify's closest hosted rival, with no platform transaction fee.
32
sovereigntyBigCommerce is a hosted platform in the same shape as Shopify with one meaningful difference: it charges no additional platform fee for using your own payment provider, which for a store negotiating its own card rates is real money. It also allows deeper API access and headless use on lower tiers than Shopify does. It is proprietary and hosted, so the sovereignty position is no better — but if the driver is the payment levy specifically rather than ownership, it addresses exactly that.
SOURCE-AVAILABLEProprietary (hosted service)
LicenseProprietary (hosted service)
PricingPlans from roughly $39/month with no additional platform transaction fee on your chosen gateway. Annual revenue thresholds move you up tiers.
Open sourceNo
Self-hostableNo
Local-first dataNo
What it does well
- +No platform fee for using your own payment provider
- +Strong API and headless support on standard tiers
- +More built in before you reach for paid apps
- +Migration from Shopify is comparatively straightforward
Where it falls short
- −Proprietary and hosted — the ownership problem is unchanged
- −Revenue thresholds force tier upgrades whether you want them or not
- −Smaller app ecosystem and theme market than Shopify
- −Still a platform whose roadmap is not yours
BigCommerce as an alternative to
Where BigCommerce shows up in our comparisons, and how it ranked.
BigCommerce head-to-head
Straight comparisons against the tools people weigh it against.