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Based on weighted criteria below
Low Pricing icon

Low Pricing (weighted 10%)

BigCommerce

29.95 USD/ month + 1.5% transaction fee
Upload an unlimited amount of products, use reporting tools, accept payments through PayPal and credit cards. Bandwidth and storage is unlimited, and you receive social media buttons, discounting, timed promotions and coupons. Keep in mind that the checkout is not hosted on your domain for this plan.

79.95 USD/ month
Create unlimited products and incur no transaction fees. Post listings on eBay and comparison sites. Receive tools for pricing rules, omni-channel sales, real-time shipping, and payment providers. The checkout is hosted on your domain, and no transaction fees are required.

199.95 USD/ month
You get everything from the previous plan, high volume security and analytics, fraud monitoring and product filtering.

Custom Pricing for Enterprise Plan
Receive support for unlimited products, along with zero transaction fees. Everything from the previous plans is provided, and you get integration with Google trusted stores, site wide HTTPS, priority support and a dedicated account manager on your team.

All plans offer responsive designs, 24/7 support, coupon codes, discounting, a 15 day trial, unlimited products, reporting, credit card and PayPal support and time-limited promotions. Keep in mind that you save about 10% when opting for a yearly plan.

WooCommerce

Free
No fees are incurred when you download WooCommerce, since it's a WordPress plugin that is completely free of charge.

With the download you receive an open source tool with support from people all over the world, along with features like mobile responsiveness, five pre-installed payment gateways (with the option to include more,) integration tools for compatible WordPress themes, default currency controls, automatic taxes, geo-location support, unlimited products, shipping calculations and customer relationship management tools such as customer accounts and product variables.

WooCommerce stands alone as a WordPress plugin, while Bigcommerce is a commercial package, where you pay a monthly fee for a pre-built site.

Design icon

Design (weighted 10%)

BigCommerce

Select from 16 free themes. Around 42 paid themes are also offered, all of which look great. It's much easier to search and find a viable solution through the store, as opposed to looking for third-party themes in WooCommerce.

Both platforms allow for the modification of HTML and CSS files. Also, both provide connections through FTP, but Bigcommerce is a little easier to understand, since you don't need a third party tool.

WooCommerce

Choose from around 52 themes in the WooCommerce library. A handful of them are free, but you can expect to pay at least $39 for the premium options.

Themes are of high quality, with more customization options than Bigcommerce. However, they aren't as easy to use, since you must customize them yourself by going through the WordPress dashboard or implementing your own code.

The plugin is open source, so thousands of other themes are available across the internet. In short, the amount of themes is much greater, but you may need some development experience.

Frontend Features icon

Frontend Features (weighted 10%)

BigCommerce

The frontend is a more cookie-cutter look than that of WooCommerce, since it's all built into the system, and the themes are fewer, so they have similar features since they come from the same company.

It's a clean look, offering features such as social media buttons, gifting, blogging, image zooming, reviews and relevant products. In addition, you receive coupon codes, live chat, product search and wishlists, but these depend on the plan you select.

Built-in features are plentiful, whereas WooCommerce doesn't have many. Apps are also provided if a feature isn't available.

WooCommerce

Frontend features depend largely on the theme selected to pair with the plugin. Therefore, one theme could have lots of frontend features like gifting options, social media integration and product search, while others may not.

However, the plugin is mobile friendly and automatic taxes are generated for customers. In addition, you receive shipping calculations, coupons and product reviews. The built-in frontend features are minimal, but extensions, plugins and certain themes can change this if you have the technical knowledge.

Backend Features icon

Backend Features (weighted 10%)

BigCommerce

Backend guidance is much nicer, with videos and tours to get you started. The dashboard looks somewhat similar to WordPress, making it easy to move around. However, all of the tools are better organized and complemented with hints.

All settings are organized in tabs to the left, providing options for analytics, content, marketing, products and customers. The dashboard offers a list of key steps you should take to setup your store, whereas nothing like this is offered in WooCommerce.

More built-in features are shown in the product pages, with options for custom fields and bulk pricing.

Although you can generally achieve the same tasks with both platforms, more is built-in with Bigcommerce, while you must go for plugins and extensions when using WooCommerce.

 

WooCommerce

If you're familiar with the WordPress backend, you shouldn't have any problems managing the backend. However, newbies may need training.

Most of the settings are modified on the left hand side of the WordPress dashboard under a WooCommerce tab, with options for Orders, Coupons, Reports, Settings and Add-ons. The Bigcommerce settings look similar, but the dashboard is more friendly for showing you the order in which steps should be taken.

Upload products quickly, and add tags and categories for organizing products. Both platforms provide enough tools for adding products, with features and tabs for everything from inventory to videos.

Other tabs included on the WooCommerce product page are shipping, inventory, linked products and attributes.

 

Marketing icon

Marketing (weighted 10%)

BigCommerce

SEO

SEO options are quite useful, with Google Shopping integration, header and title tags, 301 redirects, hosting on fast CDNs, reviews, microdata and product specific keywords.

Not to mention, sitemaps and robots.txt generation is included.

Social Media

If you'd like to sell on Twitter, Pinterest or other platforms, this is not the choice for you. However, it has a built-in Facebook Like button for placing on product pages.

Use the Facebook OpenGraph, and sell products through Facebook with a tool called SocialShop.

Newsletter

Integrate with options like MailChimp and iContact. The system doesn't have a built-in newsletter management program, but the integration is there.

Export CSV email list files, and implement settings for newsletter popups, check boxes, welcome emails and double opt-ins.

Built-in promotion options

The discounting rules engine is quite powerful, and the gifting options provide functionality for areas like gift wrapping and certificates.

Time limited promotions are also nice, and you can try extensions for additional promotional tools.

Support of other selling channels

Sell through various channels such as Google Products and Amazon. Listings on eBay are also supported, and depending on your plan you can get a Google Trusted Stores integration. Several other markets are available through the app store.

WooCommerce

SEO

WooCommerce runs on WordPress, so it's considered one of the more search engine friendly solutions out there. Although WordPress automatically generates items like title and header tags, if you'd like to customize these areas, you must utilize a WordPress plugin.

This isn't that hard to complete, but if you use something like the Yoast SEO plugin, it requires manual inputs.

In addition, standard options you would find in Bigcommerce, such as reviews, Google Shopping integration, 301 redirects and sitemaps, all require additional plugins to function.

Social Media

Social media is not supported if you call into the WooCommerce team, and there are no provided buttons or integration solutions for sharing or sending people to your social pages.

However, a simple WordPress plugin helps you solve this problem. Bigcommerce wins on this front.

Newsletter

A few paid and free newsletter extensions are sold through the WooCommerce library, and you can consider using a WordPress plugin if you can't find anything. As with many areas of this platform, there is nothing built-in to support your need to collect email addresses.

Built-in promotion options

This is one of the areas where a few built-in tools are provided, with a simplified coupon system for including or excluding tax with your discounts, discount codes and coupons, support of other selling channels, product reviews and owner verification for those product reviews. Additional tools for things like points, rewards and wishlists are offered through extensions.

Support of other selling channels

No features are provided for selling through other channels. However, a few plugins and extensions offer this functionality. For example, a Sell Through Facebook extension is located in the WooCommerce store.

Statistics icon

Statistics (weighted 10%)

BigCommerce

Stats are strong, with a roundup in the dashboard and reports to see how many people come to visit your store. Understand where traffic is coming from, view order reports and analyze the abandoned cart reports.

WooCommerce

Analytics and statistics come in strong for the platform, with sales reports for showing net and gross sales amounts. The dashboard has a quick view area for seeing information for sales orders and traffic.

You can also track sales and growth trends from the dashboard, but other capabilities like Google Analytics, EU VAT rules, cost of goods, Cart reports, customer history and report emails require extensions, some of them paid, some of them free.

Hosting & Security icon

Hosting & Security (weighted 10%)

BigCommerce

Hosting and security is strong with Bigcommerce, since the hosting runs on SAS 70 Type II certified servers, and it's all included with your plan.

Hosting offers a domain name, CMS and shopping cart, so you don't have to go out and find them yourself. The Level 1 PCI compliance protects you and your customers.

WooCommerce

No hosting is offered when you download the free WooCommerce plugin. You must setup your own hosting and buy a domain name separately.

The WordPress system is then installed on the hosting account and domain, independent of the shopping cart plugin. Security completely depends on your hosting account.

Although the plugin code is audited and secure, it's not completely compliant unless you find a hosting solution that is.

Extensibility icon

Extensibility (weighted 10%)

BigCommerce

The app store is one of the best in the business, but it's tough to match up to the amount of plugins provided with the open source WordPress and WooCommerce markets. The apps take only a few minutes to setup.

WooCommerce

Hundreds of extensions are offered through the WooCommerce store along with WordPress plugins created directly from the team at WooThemes.

The extensions and plugins require downloads, which then must be uploaded to the WordPress dashboard, a process that is a little longer than that of Bigcommerce.

Support icon

Support (weighted 10%)

BigCommerce

Get help at any time of the day, since 24/7 support is provided. Chat live online, or call in to speak with a representative.

Chatting on the forum is common, and emailing the support team is an option as well. In addition, you receive access to the blog and knowledge base.

WooCommerce

You don't get 24/7 email, phone or chat support, but help is provided through the My Account tab in your dashboard. A knowledge base, documentation center and blog also come with the plugin.