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BigCommerce Fees 2021: Transaction fees, Monthly fees Calculator

Last updated: August 01, 2024
Written and researched by experts at AvadaLearn more about our methodology

By Sam Nguyen

CEO Avada Commerce

Up to the present, BigCommerce is considered one of the most popular eCommerce sites for online retailers. Its helpful tools have attracted many people’s attention. However, when e-tailers are looking for a platform to build their online brand, they would most likely get to know more about the total cost for running a store on each eCommerce site.

For this reason, in today’s article, we will tell you all about BigCommerce fees - everything you have to pay for when opening your store on BigCommerce. If you are interested in BigCommerce transaction fees or just simply considering it, keep reading!

What are BigCommerce fees?

BigCommerce

BigCommerce is a platform designed for eCommerce businesses to develop their brands by setting up their own website and selling their products. There is no need to purchase any web hosting or software; as long as online merchants are connected to the internet, they can customize their online store from every location.

BigCommerce was created for those that do not have much of a visual design background yet are technically inclined and able to adjust their website front page. It will provide you with nearly everything you need to strive for success ranging from themes, templates, SEO and marketing tools, partners, and a long list of other extra services.

On the other hand, to make use of their spectacular features, you have to pay a certain amount of money as a monthly fee. The drawback is that BigCommerce will require you to upgrade to a more expensive pricing plan as your store gains a higher volume of sales. And some of the tools will be charged in BigCommerce while other alternatives do not.

Introducing BigCommerce Pricing Plans

BigCommerce pricing plan fees

BigCommerce’s biggest goal is to attract as many customers as possible. It could be startup companies, small and medium-sized businesses, or huge corporations. This is the reason why BigCommerce has developed four different pricing plans, which the Enterprise Plan will be customized based on the user’s preferences.

Be careful while choosing the most suitable pricing plan for your online business as once your store has reached several orders, BigCommerce will change your plan into a more costly one. Plus, the price between plans varies a lot, especially from the Plus to the Pro Pricing Plan. But don’t be too scared because the higher the BigCommerce fee you are paying, the more ability to approach numerous settings, and your customers are going to love that!

In case you are attempting to purchase the Plus or Pro pricing plan, it is advisable to pay annually instead of monthly as you can save up to 10% for the total BigCommerce transaction fees.

Below is the simple comparison among four BigCommerce pricing plans on the criteria of features, BigCommerce fees, targeted users, and annual sales:

BigCommerce Standard

Despite the fact that this is the cheapest plan you can get from BigCommerce, it offers online merchants unrestricted product listings, bandwidth, file storage, and accounts for team members. So even if your volume of sales increases rapidly, there is no need to worry about not having enough space. Additionally, you can also gain 24/7 support service and are free of BigCommerce transaction fees.

Let’s take a look at its awesome features:

  • Apple Pay, Google Pay, Amazon Pay, PayPal One Touch: these are all acceptable payment options, but it is more critical than you choose one.

BigCommerce Apple Pay

  • Discounts, coupons, and gift cards: using coupons, promotions, and gift vouchers can help you to increase your sales.
  • Real-time shipping: Our clients will still be paying accurate delivery prices, and we can gather them from UPS, USPS, or FedEx at the time of shipment.
  • Data reporting: you can track how people come to your site, what they do while they are there and how much revenue you make out of it.
  • Free HTTPS and SSL: ensure your payment mechanism is secure and improve your search engine optimization
  • Customer ratings and reviews: a favorable product ranking and evaluation will enhance your store’s performance in the long run.
  • Responsive design: make your website look nice even on a diverse of devices.
  • Blogging: if you want to build a blog for your store or customers, the BigCommerce Standard pricing plan provides all the tools at a basic level.

Although the Standard pricing plan was designed for no specific type of online store, it is recommended for small businesses. If your sales hit $50,000 per year, BigCommerce will update your plan into the Plus version.

The Standard pricing plan will cost retailers $39 monthly as the BigCommerce fees.

BigCommerce Plus

This is the most well-known BigCommerce pricing plan. It includes everything that has been mentioned in the Standard Pricing Plan section plus several extra features to help online merchants to evaluate their conversion rate.

Some of the BigCommerce Plus Pricing Plan can be listed out are:

  • Abandoned Cart Saver emails: One of the most outstanding features of BigCommerce. If the system notices your customers are leaving some of the products inside their shopping carts, it will automatically send them an email with the hope of winning them back.
Abandoned Cart Saver emails
  • Credit Cards information saving: storing your customers’ credit card numbers can reduce the amount of time they spend filling in the information again Plus it is safe, too!
  • Persistent cart saving: customers have the tendency to leave the products in their carts without making any final transactions. They need time to think about whether or not they should purchase them and a Persistent cart can help to save information so that your consumers do not have to spend time searching for the wanted items one more time.
  • Creating groups of consumers: you will be able to give your customers coupons or discount gifts for their loyalty towards your brand and grouping them can fasten the process.

After all, paying a little bit more BigCommerce fees means that you will have the access to more useful tools. Within only the Abandoned Cart Saver, online store owners can increase the number of customers up to 15% in total.

The price for each BigCommerce Plus Pricing plan you will have to pay is $105 monthly.

BigCommerce Pro

A more expensive option for BigCommerce monthly subscription fee is the Pro pricing plan. Here you will be unlocking:

  • SSL customization tools: This is for the case you have already purchased the SSL system from somewhere else instead of BigCommerce; you can quickly integrate it with your BigCommerce website.
  • Advanced searching bars: online merchants can divide their products into smaller filters like size, colors, types of clothes so that your customers can easily find goods.
  • Google customer reviews: whenever your customers have successfully received their items, Google will ask for their ratings and reviews about them.
whenever your customers have successfully received their items, Google will ask for their ratings and reviews about them

Because the target group for this pricing plan is large companies with a high volume of sales and budgets, the monthly BigCommerce fee for it varies considerably compared with the Plus one, standing at $399.

Therefore, think carefully before coming to your final decision!

BigCommerce Enterprise

This is a special BigCommerce pricing plan as it does not offer any certain amount of subscription fee for customers. Just like its name, BigCommerce Enterprise pricing plans were born for super large businesses that have to make profits of at least $400k annually.

And with the most costly pricing plans, BigCommerce provides these users with the best features ever, including:

  • API calls: there is no limit to the number of phone calls you are allowed to make to upgrade your website.
  • Price range offerings: not only your price for customers are publicly available but also the retail and wholesale prices.

Apart from these, you will be prior to receiving support from BigCommerce as well as requests from experts. As we have talked about, the BigCommerce fee for this pricing plan is customized on the basis of your company’s sales.

Free trials

BigCommerce trial version

But you are still not sure that BigCommerce will be the best alternative for your online store? It’s totally fine!

They do offer free trial versions for potential customers to experience their service in a 15-day span time. During this time, you can try out almost every feasible feature and no BigCommerce fee is required at all. If you are not yet satisfied with their platform, the plan will be canceled after the span and none of your credit card information will be saved.

So there are no reasons to take a quick look at BigCommerce, right?

Recommendation: How to Get 15, 30, 60, 90 Days BigCommerce Free Trial

Calculating BigCommerce monthly transaction fees

Here comes the main section of this article, you may be wondering that the only BigCommerce fee that you have to pay is the pricing plan monthly subscription. However, it may require you a much larger amount of money in order to keep your online businesses running smoothly.

Don’t worry because we will break down everything you need to know of BigCommerce fees so that you can quickly estimate the total budgets before actually purchasing any pricing plan.

Software fee

Based on their capabilities, types, and service quality, each eCommerce system delivers different price ranges. For this reason, choosing the right one contributes enormously to the success of your online brand. You need to take into account the differences, advantages, and disadvantages of several possible choices in your list.

Some of the most popular eCommerce service providers can be named BigCommerce, Shopify, Magento, etc. You can look for their information anywhere online!

Domains fee

Every company needs to update its own domain name. This represents their professionalism and reliability in the industry. And most domain providers will charge you annually rather than monthly like your subscription fee. BigCommerce fee for your domain ranging from $2 to $20 per year, according to GoDaddy.

The reason why there is a big difference between the lowest and the highest cost is the dependence on extension. If you prefer the “.shop” to “.com” or you are buying them from an auction as a private vendor, then it is obvious that BigCommerce will charge you more.

Hosting fee

If it is your first time registering for a domain name, then you must also seek an eCommerce platform hosting service simultaneously. But if you are using BigCommerce, their hosting fee has already been counted in the monthly pricing plan fee. This ensures that you do not have to look for or face the problems of not having a third-party hosting provider.

Conversely, you have the full ability to host your online store on your own; then, you may have to compensate an amount between $80 and $730 a month in relation to your site’s traffic, features, and services.

It is best recommended to pay for an eCommerce solution’s pricing plan since it is much cheaper than doing it by yourself.

Further Reading: BigCommerce Hosting Review: Pros and Cons

SSL certificate fee

BigCommerce SSL fees

Even though an SSL certificate can be one of the cheapest aspects of your total BigCommerce fee, it protects your consumer’s private data from being stolen or hacked while visiting and ordering any product of your brand.

By paying from $20 to the maximum of $70 a year to purchase one SSL certificate, online merchants can assure their security system with the customers and effortlessly increase the profits.

Furthermore, there are even several hosting companies that do not charge you the SSL certificate fee separately. They are likely to cover it as a part of the pricing plan cost.

Themes and designs fee

Developing an online business means that you also have to design a unique visual identity, which shows the brand’s spirit in the industry. Plus a stunning look will definitely draw the attention of more consumers.

BigCommerce theme collection

That is why most e-tailers pay a lot to design their signature colors, shapes, and looks. Fortunately, BigCommerce offers a wide range of free theme templates for you to apply to your store.

In contrast, if you wish to create a theme on your own or make use of the premium theme collection, you may have to add $60-$200 into your BigCommerce fees.

The one thing that makes BigCommerce so special is that even though you are using their free themes, they will provide you the full package of designing tools, and most of them are responsive, too.

Payment gateways fee

BigCommerce payment fees

At first glance, the cost for multiple payment methods might not be that significant but they can be added up quickly. It all varies depending on your main payment service provider. For instance, the BigCommerce fee for PayPal will be different from using credit cards for transactions. Besides that, the location of your online store is also taken into consideration.

Follow that is the BigCommerce transaction fees for several payment gateways:

  • Stripe: 2.9% and $0.30 of every transaction
  • PayPal: 2.9% and with transactions over $10, they will charge you an extra of $0.30
  • Authorize.net: It is a little bit more expensive than the other two. Along with the 2.9% and $0.30 of every transaction, you will have to pay $25 more as the monthly fee.

BigCommerce is considered one of the eCommerce platforms which charges users the lowest price for payment gateways.

Extended fee

It is not so strange that you would always want more for your website, but not all eCommerce platforms can satisfy your needs. They can provide retailers with a wide scope of features and tools for maintaining their online store but not everything.

Because of that, there is a high chance that you will need to pay another expense for add-on, plugins, and extensions. In BigCommerce, you can pick out one for free or from the premium package at an affordable price.

Even if you are using its premium add-on or plugins, BigCommerce will save you around $5,800 to $30,000 a year. Now, your BigCommerce fee has decreased a lot!

Supporting fees

BigCommerce customer support
BigCommerce customer support

You will most probably find yourself in a position that does not know what to do and how to solve eCommerce-related issues while running your store. Either you only need little technical help, system checking, or building the whole thing from the very beginning, BigCommerce is here for you.

The best solution for this case is to hire an expert in website development or design. But looking for the right one will be time-consuming since you can not just pick randomly some guy you find on Craigslist.

These are three promising programs supported by BigCommerce for eCommerce assistance. Don’t forget to count it in your BigCommerce fees.

Help from a BigCommerce consultant

The quickest way you can ask for advice in boosting your website’s productivity is by dialing BigCommerce’s hotline (1-888-248-9325) located on the BigCommerce front page. This consultancy line would not cost you a penny. It’s free!

Actually, it is designed specifically for answering any questions you might have while building your websites. So, if you have any urgent questions about BigCommerce functionality or price ranges, it’s time to pick up the phone and get in touch with them.

Technical support

In fact, not all of BigCommerce users are familiar with the technology. They might have to learn everything while building their online store, so it is normal for them to run into problems during the process.

All you have to do is call the BigCommerce customer support team, and they will try to give you the answers and some guidance you might need. This comes with a $0 price, so you don’t have to add up your BigCommerce fee if you are using this program’s services.

BigCommerce Partner Program

BigCommerce partners

If your website demands more complicated acts of development like customizing, increasing profits, or SEO marketing solutions, then it’s time to hire somebody to take care of these matters.

BigCommerce Partner Program is where all the experts in different fields are gathered together to help you. Retailers can collect information about these companies and collaborate with them if it is necessary.

These BigCommerce partners have been verified by BigCommerce of their productivity, functions, and results. Based on that, you don’t have to distress too much!

BigCommerce divides them into two categories:

  • Agency Partners: focusing on progressing your SEO searching tools, conversion rates, and marketing fields.
  • Technology Partners: they will help you design the store’s themes or any additional features to gain a better shopping experience.

The BigCommerce fee for this program relies on what service you are asking for their help and which company you are partnering up with.

Comparing BigCommerce fees with its competitors

For further understanding of the BigCommerce transaction fees, we have also included other alternatives like Shopify and Volusion. Therefore, you can easily evaluate and compare the fees of the three most well-known eCommerce platforms derived from pricing plans, transaction fees, and their applications.

Let’s get right into it!

Pricing Plans

The pricing plans and prices for each of these three eCommerce solutions are not very different from each other. All BigCommerce, Shopify, and Volusion decided to offer their users three pricing plans, from the lowest to highest cost:

  BigCommerce Volusion Shopify
Basic $39 $29 $39
Medium $105 $79 $79
Top tier $399 $299 $299

An interesting feature of BigCommerce plans is the unlimited staff accounts but this might be restricted when it comes to Shopify and Volusion pricing plans. So if you are attempting to use one of the two latter choices, you have to take it seriously with picking which team member will have the access to your account.

In addition to that, if you are using Volusion basic and medium plans, the number of items you can make a sale from is also limited. Unlike 600 variants available in BigCommerce, Shopify only approves 100 as the maximum number.

Transaction fees

While both BigCommerce and Volusion do not charge online merchants any transaction fees, Shopify does. The only BigCommerce transaction fees you have to pay is in case your payment gateway provider charges you but not the eCommerce platform.

Shopify will take 2% of the total receipt that your customers pay for your products through the payment gateway solution you are using. And if you are using their premium plans such as the Medium and Top-tier plans, you only lose 1% and 0,5% sequentially.

Applications

All three channels deliver applications free of charge and free ones. If you are fond of constantly upgrading your online website with the latest technology and features, then additional apps can be really serviceable. They will be your assistance in improving customer satisfaction, marketing tools, or even account management.

Each platform has a wide variety of additional features. If Volusion provides around 100 apps, hundreds of them appear in the BigCommerce App Marketplace. Surprisingly, the number of Shopify applications is up to thousands.

The worst-case scenario that could happen is none of the mentioned eCommerce pricing plans work with your initial plan, then maybe you can check out other potential BigCommerce preferences such as WooCommerce or Wix.

Final thought

In conclusion, BigCommerce fees sound to be the most money-saving solution for opening an online business. It comes with reasonable pricing plans paired with productive features that can be very helpful for the eCommerce industry.

We hope that the article today will clear your thoughts towards BigCommerce transaction fees, whether or not it is too expensive for your online brand. Is the money that you have to pay for them worth it? So that your path of managing your store will be smoother than ever!


Sam Nguyen is the CEO and founder of Avada Commerce, an e-commerce solution provider headquartered in Singapore. He is an expert on the Shopify e-commerce platform for online stores and retail point-of-sale systems. Sam loves talking about e-commerce and he aims to help over a million online businesses grow and thrive.

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