You might have heard or read somewhere on the internet about BigCommerce, Shopify, and SquareUp if you’re trying to launch your own online store or are searching for a better e-commerce platform.
These are the top three best e-commerce platforms on the market as of today, each platform has a unique set of features and advantages for small to large business sizes.
Today we will compare and contrast the three platforms in this post to assist you in selecting the one that is most appropriate for your c-Commerce company.
Overview of BigCommerce vs Shopify vs SquareUp
All three are well-known e-Commerce platforms and provide inbuilt features to set up your own online store.
you can set up the site structure, theme, payment, discounts, offers, or anything related to the e-Commerce site as per your company.
Every company has different pricing plans, features, integration with other apps, and many more, so let’s explore them one by one.
- BigCommerce: You can develop and manage your online store with this so it’s an all-in-one e-commerce platform. A lot of features are available in BigCommerce, such as domain hosting, online payment processing, inventory management, and others. Additionally, it offers a mobile app also, so you can run your online store while on the mobile as well.
- Shopify: The first successful e-commerce platform is Shopify, which offers a user-friendly interface for setting up and running your online business. Endless features are available, such as site hosting, 3rd party payment gateway integration, inventory management, and others. Additionally, it offers a mobile app so you can run your store can run on Android, iOS, and Windows mobile phones as well.
- SquareUp: You may take credit card payments both online and offline with the help of SquareUp, a platform for secure credit card payment processing and POS (Point of sale) solutions to run their online and offline business. unlike BigCommerce and Shopify, it doesn’t offer a complete e-commerce platform.
Pricing Comparision
Every e-Commerce platform has different pricing and plans. So as per your budget and company requirements, you can choose the best one.
Let’s explore Bigcommerce vs Shopify pricing including Squareup plans.
| Shopify | BigCommerce | Squareup | |
| Basic plan | $29/m | $29/m | $0/m + 2.9% + 30¢ processing fees |
| Advance Plan | $92/m | $79/m | $29/m +2.9% + 30¢ processing fees |
| Pro Plan | $379/m | $299/m | $79/m +2.6% + 30¢ processing fees |
| Enterprise plan | Contact Sales Team | Contact Sale Team | No – Check Here |
Bigcommerce Pricing Plans
Squareup Pricing
Shopify Pricing
Features Comparision
Let’s understand the key features of each e-Commerce platform in a summarised way so that you can take the right decision.
We are covering the basic plans of each platform, you can explore more on their official website.
| Feature Name | Shopify | BigCommerce | Squareup |
| Staff Accounts | 2 | Unlimited | 1 |
| Transaction Fee | 0.5% (3rd party payment gateway) | No | 2.9% + 30¢/T |
| Products Listing | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Domain Connection | Yes | Yes | No |
| Can sell on Amazon | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Responsive Website | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Can sell on Walmart | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Can sell on Facebook | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Can sell on Instagram | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Can sell on Twitter | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Free SSL | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Real-Time Shiping Cost | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Discount Code | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Giffting Code | Yes | Yes | No |
| Real Time Shiping Cost | No | Yes | No |
| Product Review | Yes | Yes | No |
| Support Hours | 24×7 | 24×7 | 6 AM – 6 PM |
| Language Translation | Yes | No | No |
| API Integration | Yes | No | No |
| check on the site for more | Check on-site for more | Check on site for more |
There are many other features available on each platform that can benefit your business, so please check out those and decide which one is the best platform for your business.
Theme Designs
The theme of your online store is the most important part.
The theme design is the main UI design to present your products, colors scheme, product placements, offers, sales code placement, images, video placement on the online store, and many more things which decide how your online store looks when it opens users’ machine or mobile.
so make sure, your online store theme should be optimized, and responsive for every device, the color combination should be attractive, and the structure should be like every product should be visible correctly when it opens on the browser.
Shopify Themes Store – Shopify platform provides 12 free theme templates which you can use initially, these themes do not have more features so you have to do a lot of customization.
Shopify theme store has enough 122 trusted paid themes which you can leverage but before making a purchase check out the theme features and ratings.
BigCommerce Theme store – BigCommerce provide more than 12 free and 100+ paid themes in their theme store, all themes are categorized, responsive, and trusted.
You can customize as per your requirement and use other 3rd party themes or your own custom theme in the online store.
Check out the complete list of themes here
Squareup Themes – it provides a lot of theme templates, but pricing plans are different. in a free subscription, you will be charged a processing fee + transaction fee and paid they have different plans.
These templates are available almost for every industry, easy customization, drag-and-drop features, allow custom coding, and many other features.
Check out the complete list of theme templates here
Free Trials
Before purchasing any subscription if that software or platform is giving a free trial even for a few days, that gives an extra advantage to explore the system without paying any money, and when you are comfortable with features, you can make the final decision and purchase the subscription.
Shopify provides a 3-day free trial without adding a credit card and after that 3 months at a $1 cost and after that you can go for the full $29 per month subscription.
BigCommerce provides a 15-day free trial without adding a credit card and after that, you can go for a paid subscription plan.
Squareup provides lifetime free with limited features, that’s really amazing for a startup company, they charge on every transaction and if you need more features then you can go for paid plans.
Integrations and Add-ons
when we talk about the comparison between BigCommerce vs Shopify vs SquareUp, integration with other applications, cloud systems, SAAS-based software, and add-ons work as the backbone of any online store.
Shopify does support every software, and application integration that you are using, it has 6000+ apps in the Shopify app store which you can use to integrate with other systems like social media, shipping, taxation, invoice generation, email marketing, SEO tools, etc.
Shopify has its own point-of-sales hardware machine which you can use offline in your store to make payments. It can easily integrate with your Shopify store as well as other eCommerce stores.
marketplace integration app for Amazon, eBay, Etsy, etc, and Dropshipping integration, selling on social media like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and blog, these apps are secure and trusted for use by Shopify.
So you can use them or purchase them comfortably to make your online journey smooth. explore more about Shopify apps on the app store
The best part is Shopify has a large skilled community to help you grow, whatever your requirement is, you will find the self-guide solution as well as paid in the community in terms of coding development, and changes in the themes, apps, and APIs, and you can find the developers at reasonable pricing.
BigCommerce also provides 1500+ apps and integration facilities to connect with other systems and work from the BigCommerce dashboard.
BigCommerce doesn’t have a point of sales system or apps like Shopify has, but 31 popular POS apps are available in app store for integration supported by Bigcommerce, you can use any of them in your store.
It has email configuration with Microsoft, Google, and other providers as well. Easy integration with social media feeds, and marketplace integration to sell on other places from BigCommerce platform.
Explore more about apps and integration on the app store.
Squareup has more integration and apps of financial type of applications like QuickBooks, Zapier, and B2C, as reviews kind of apps like UberEats, PlanDay, ThunderTixs, Ovation, and many more.
Squareup pos app – you can install this pos app on your mobile or tab (iPad, iPhone, Android) and take payments from customers. Squareup pos app available in the play store and app store. It has all the features required to take payment from the customers in the offline store.
Explore more apps and integration on the Squareup app store
Pros and Cons of BigCommerce vs Shopify vs SquareUp
Let’s have quick points of what is good and bad in each e-Commerce platform.
BigCommerce
Pros
- The platform is secure and scalable that can handle high-traffic volume during sales days.
- A 15-day trial without a credit card is a plus point.
- wide range of 300+ free and paid themes, multiple apps, and integrations available.
- No processing or transaction charges.
- Unlimited products and staff accounts can be added.
Cons
- Expensive pricing for a starter or small business or mid-size company.
- Costly paid themes and integration apps.
- Customization options are very limited.
- Limited SEO and Digital marketing inbuilt tools.
Shopify
Pros
- A highly scalable platform, it can handle millions of traffic per day.
- $1 per month charges for the first 3 months.
- World’s largest e-commerce platform hosting 10M+ online stores.
- Store data never expired, you can recharge and start the store whenever you want.
- User-friendly, low code platform, easy to set up the online store by own or take community help.
- Large skilled developers community to help in the development issues.
- 24×7 support facility for all subscription plans.
- Built on advanced and robust technology which makes it highly secure.
- Best for Dropshipping and other marketplace selling through Shopify.
Cons:
- Free apps and themes are limited.
- Paid themes are very expensive for a starter company.
- 3rd Party payment options are limited across the world.
- Limited features with the basic plan.
Squareup
Pros
- $0 charge for a started company, You heard right ZERO charge for the basic plan.
- In the basic plan, once you will make a sale, you have to pay a transaction fee only.
- Inventory, sales, invoicing, and payment all can be managed in one place, no 3rd party app is required.
- Secure and robust platform for small businesses or startup companies
- other plans also very less in comparison with others
- Easy payment processing with multiple options
Cons
- It does not provide complete e-commerce solutions, so not fit for only e-commerce store
- No support for basic plans
- Not highly scalable for a large organization with 1 M traffic per day.
- Customization options are limited.
- In-built themes and apps are limited.
Final Recommendation
If you are looking for the final answer based on the above comparison of BigCommerce vs Shopify vs SquareUp.
We recommend based on our experience, Shopify is the Best option to go with and set up your online store. even if you are a small business, first 3 months you can run only for $3 cost, there are multiple ways you can scale up your business and generate more sales in 3 days.
The hidden part is, if you miss the Shopify payments for 1 or 2 months, your store will not be stopped.
They have a threshold limit of due payment, if you are under that amount your store will keep running even after paying after 3rd or 4rth month.
For example, the threshold limit is 500$, if your due amount is below, then your store will keep running but if it exceeds, they will pause your store and make it password protected.
One more thing, at any point in time, if you think want to stop selling, you can cancel the Shopify subscription, but your store data, product photos, content everything will be safe forever.
You can restart once again by recharging the subscription fee.
Remember one thing, Best is always the best, considering the wide community for help, and ease of developers available in the market, Shopify has captured 30% e-Commerce market in the world. It’s better to go with the Shopify platform to set up your dream online store.
Check out the Shopify plans, features, and more details on the official site.
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