In the fast-moving and changing world of eCommerce and amidst all the available options, what you look for in an eCommerce platform is ease of use, cost-effectiveness, and scalability, as your business thrives. Two of these widely used and highly famous eCommerce platforms are WooCommerce and BigCommerce. But how do you know which one is best suited for your business in 2024? Let us find out in this in-depth comparison of WooCommerce vs Big Commerce.

Regardless of whether you're weighing the benefits between WooCommerce vs BigCommerce, considering migration choices from BigCommerce to WooCommerce or vice versa, or simply looking forward to learning more about what each platform can do for you, this is going to be the resource guide that helps in making an informed decision. So let's examine the key features of WooCommerce and BigCommerce and choose which is best for your online store in 2024.

Woocommerce vs BigCommerce for eCommerce: In Brief

WooCommerce: History, Main Features, and User Base

WooComerce is an open-source eCommerce plugin for WordPress, developed and launched by WooThemes in 2011. Within no time, it gained huge popularity as it easily integrates with WordPress and provides an extensive collection of different plugins and themes with the option to customize. It allows users to turn their WordPress sites into fully featured eCommerce stores. The main features of the WooCommerce plugin include a large number of payment gateways, multiple shipping options, high control over inventory, and excellent SEO capabilities. 

Also, having millions of active installations, WooCommerce takes the lead in powering up to 28% of all online stores, making it possibly the most popular eCommerce platform in the market. Unlike BigCommerce, deep customization options are available with WooCommerce, just like WordPress. However, since this is based on WordPress, it requires a bit more technical knowledge, especially for those who are new to building and managing websites.

BigCommerce: History, Main Features, and User Base

Eddie Machaalani and Mitchell Harper founded BigCommerce in 2009 with a mission of providing all-in-one, hosted eCommerce solutions. Contrary to WooCommerce, BigCommerce is a SaaS (Software as a Service) platform that handles hosting and maintenance itself so that one can continue running his business hassle-free. The key features and distinctions of BigCommerce include built-in SEO tools, comprehensive multi-channel selling, robust security, and an integrated set of payment choices at one service.

BigCommerce is known to be a scalable solution, thus suitable for any business, be it large or small. The platform supports over 60,000 merchants worldwide, including notable BigCommerce website examples like Ben & Jerry’s, Skullcandy, and Woolrich, showcasing its ability to handle high-volume eCommerce needs. When considering WordPress vs BigCommerce, BigCommerce offers streamlined and out-of-the-box solutions that don't require several different plugins and third-party integrations, all aiming to give users an all-in-one place for eCommerce.

The key features on which we compare the two big eCommerce platforms are given below:

Let us now look at the most important features of BigCommerce vs WordPress in detail, in the next section.

Ease of Use: Woocommerce vs BigCommerce

For setting up an online store, ease of use is the first and foremost thing for a small business. Let's compare WooCommerce and BigCommerce in light of the former.

WooCommerce

The user-friendliness of this WordPress plugin is directly related to the familiarity with WordPress. If one feels comfortable using WordPress, then setting up WooCommerce will not be too difficult. It has a friendly user interface and very extensive documentation. However, for others, especially beginners, it may be difficult to set up and configure at the very beginning, as it requires hosting, installing WordPress, and configuration of the plugin. Personalization options are numerous, although in most cases, they require additional plugins and knowledge of coding.

BigCommerce

BigCommerce is an entirely hosted eCommerce platform that has put the interest of the user in mind It has an easy setup process with no hosting or technical setup required. It offers drag-and-drop functionality, giving users an easy time designing stores without requiring coding skills. BigCommerce has many built-in features, making it friendlier to beginners compared to WooCommerce.

Which is Better: BigCommerce or WooCommerce?

Either of the two is easy to use, but BigCommerce turns out comparatively easier to use than the other, especially for those who don't have experience with WordPress. Beginners like BigCommerce because of its hand-picked dashboard and wonderful inbuilt functionality. On the contrary, WooCommerce is preferred if you're more familiar with WordPress and have basic technical knowledge.

Pricing and Payment Options: Woocommerce vs BigCommerce

WooCommerce

WooCommerce comes for free because it is a WordPress plugin, so it is a cost-effective platform for those who are already using WordPress. However, there are a few added costs as explained below:

• Hosting and Domain: One has to buy hosting and a domain separately. It is going to cost about $3 to $15 per month for shared hosting.
• Premium Themes: Though free themes exist, premium themes add extra design and functionality features for between $50 and $130 per year. 
• Extensions: Since your store might need elements beyond what the central WooCommerce plugin offers, you might have to pay for paid extensions. 
• Payment Gateways: WooCommerce has support for many gateways, among which are PayPal and Stripe. Each of them has its transaction fees with a beginning of 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction.

The pricing model for WooCommerce can be very flexible, and one could start with very minimal costs, and then scale with features and plugins added. 

BigCommerce

BigCommerce operates under a subscription-based model and provides hosting with security and built-in features. Their pricing plans are as follows: 

• Standard plan: It costs about $29 per month if billed annually, and it allows online sales of up to $50,000 per year.
• Plus Plan: Costs $79 per month when billed yearly and offers up to $180k per year of online sales 
• Pro Plan: It costs $299 per month supporting up to $400k per year of online sales and advanced-level features.
• Enterprise: Custom pricing for large businesses, with additional features and 24x7 priority support.
• Payment Gateways: They integrate more than 65 different payment processors, including PayPal, Stripe, and Apple Pay and their transaction fees start at 2.59% + $0.49 per transaction.

All BigCommerce plans come with unlimited products, bandwidth, and staff accounts. There are no extra transaction fees other than the ones incumbent upon payment gateway providers. 

Which is Better: BigCommerce or WooCommerce?

WooCommerce is affordable, being a free plugin; however, it requires separate hosting with added costs. BigCommerce offers structured plans with inclusive features that make budgeting easy. On the part of the payment gateways, both platforms support a wide range of options; however, WooCommercel gives more flexibility in terms of choosing and managing payment gateway fees.

Themes, Customization, and Flexibility: BigCommerce vs Woocommerce

WooCommerce

WooCommerce comes with over 85 themes for different industries, with more than 40 block themes to support easy customization. Some of these WooCommerce themes are responsive enough to work on mobile devices as well. WooCommerce never hurts your pocket since all its themes cost between $80-$100. In some cases, it offers three free themes.

BigCommerce

BigCommerce includes about 200 themes, thereby giving users more variety. Themes can be filtered by industry and catalog size, which makes them highly optimized for integration. Paid themes cost between $100 and $400, while BigCommerce hosts 12 free themes.

Which is Better: BigCommerce vs WooCommerce?

WooCommerce is best for those looking for more affordable themes and advanced customization while BigCommerce offers more free themes and has simple customization.

You can choose WooCommerce for budget-friendly options and flexibility while BigCommerce is a better option for a diverse theme selection and user-friendly customization.

SEO and Marketing: Woocommerce vs BigCommerce

SEO is very important for better ranking in search engine results and driving heavy traffic. Both WooCommerce and BigCommerce are really powerful tools for SEO and marketing, but their approaches are different.

WooCommerce

• SEO Features: WooCommerce makes use of all the strong SEO features of WordPress, with control over meta descriptions, titles, URLs, and alt text, using plugins like Yoast SEO. Being open-source in nature, it allows custom SEO changes to schema markup and robots.txt modifications. It provides optimized performance and security with any web hosting services, which is critical to SEO. 
• Content Marketing: WooCommerce does an exceptional job, stemming from the WordPress roots in blogging, which easily creates SEO-friendly content.
• Tools for Marketing: There is the facility for email marketing with extensions of Mailchimp, social media integration support, and advanced coupon management.

BigCommerce

• SEO Capabilities: BigCommerce has built-in SEO that is fully customizable, along with URLs, automated sitemaps, and support from Google AMP. It is a hosted platform, so the performance is optimized and an SSL certificate is included for free. 
• Content Marketing: It helps with the integration of a blog for content marketing that helps in SEO optimization.
• Marketing Tools: It has comprehensive in-built marketing tools, with email, social media marketing, and abandoned cart recovery. It integrates with Google Ads and Facebook Ads.

Which is Better: WooCommerce or BigCommerce?

WooCommerce provides more flexibility and customization in SEO and, therefore is a better deal for people who want customization. BigCommerce has strong in-built SEO and comprehensive marketing tools, suitable for beginners with an all-in-one solution for marketing tools.

Support and Community: Woocommerce vs BigCommerce

WooCommerce

There are multiple community support options in the form of forums, groups on Facebook, and Slack channels. These are all user-created contact centers and peer support channels.

WooCommerce comes with extensive documentation and setup wizards to help users get started. One of the limiting aspects is that, in WooCommerce, one gets e-mail and live chat customer support only if a premium extension user.

BigCommerce

BigCommerce has 24/7 customer support available to customers via phones, chat, and support tickets. Any user will find the BigCommerce support phone number to ensure that they can get immediate help if there is any problem. Clients on enterprise plans have priority support, which includes faster response times and experienced support agents. BigCommerce has detailed documentation and an active community support forum wherein users can get answers and share experiences.

Which is Better: BigCommerce or WooCommerce?

BigCommerce offers better support, available 24/7. This includes the BigCommerce support phone number and the chance for live chat, making it more reliable for instant and dedicated customer support. This will ensure that help is always a call away, highly beneficial for solving pressing issues. WooCommerce, although strong in community support, requires premium extensions for direct support, and that in itself may not be very accessible to all people.

Migration and Integration: Woocommerce vs BigCommerce

WooCommerce

• Migration: As open-source in nature, WooCommerce provides maximum flexibility to migrate. This includes providing the tools that will transfer data from Shopify, Magento, BigCommerce, or any other similar platforms to WooCommerce. This flexibility supports businesses looking to migrate from BigCommerce to WooCommerce.
• Integration: This platform has a great ecosystem of plugins and extensions that enable easy integration with most of the third-party tools and services, as required. It supports popular options of payment gateways, shipping solutions, marketing tools, and more. Hence, it makes it adaptable for businesses switching between platforms.

Big Commerce

• Migration: BigCommerce has an easy process for migration, dedicatedly backed by tools and services. From the migration team to in-depth guides, all help businesses looking to migrate product catalogs, customer data, and orders from, WooCommerce to BigCommerce.
• Integration: BigCommerce offers robust integration capabilities, including built-in connections with major payment gateways, ERP systems, and marketing tools. Multiple APIs make custom integration suitable for particular business needs, greatly easing migrations from WooCommerce to BigCommerce or any other. 

Which is Better: BigCommerce vs WooCommerce?

WooCommerce is best for businesses that require flexibility and customizability in migration and integration. This supports and assists a business in transitioning from any platform to WooCommerce and vice versa.

BigCommerce is second to none in terms of ease of migration and strong integration features which make it an excellent choice for businesses desiring to be on a managed and out-of-the-box solution while changing platforms.

The choice between WooCommerce and BigCommerce greatly depends on specific business needs and your technical comfort. WooCommerce is ideal for businesses seeking extensive customization options, especially if already familiar with WordPress. It provides flexibility in its pricing, customization, and integration with its huge plugin ecosystem. On the other hand, BigCommerce offers a simple, robust, and out-of-the-box solution that is helpful to businesses trying to scale easily and with strong SEO possibilities and customer support.

Go through the key features of both eCommerce platforms and make an informed decision based on your specific needs. 

Good Luck!

FAQs on WooCommerce vs Big Commerce

1. Which is better for using SEO, WooCommerce or BigCommerce?

WooCommerce, a WordPress plugin, makes use of other SEO plugins, such as Yoast SEO, for enhanced SEO capabilities and greater customization, but BigCommerce comes with integrated SEO features and automatically generated sitemaps, which make it simpler for beginners to use.

2. Which platform—BigCommerce or WooCommerce—offers better customer service?

Big Commerce, as it offers 24/7 customer support via phone, chat, and tickets, including a detailed help center while WooCommerce relies on community forums and premium support for extensions.

3. What platform offers cheaper services: WooCommerce or BigCommerce?

WooCommerce is free but requires separate costs for hosting, themes, and plugins. BigCommerce operates on a subscription model with different pricing tiers based on business size.