BigCommerce vs Volusion Comparison: Which is better?

Ready to launch your online store but struggling to choose between BigCommerce and Volusion? This head-to-head comparison can support you explore the strengths and weaknesses, features, payment, customer support, etc. of each platform, and then come to the decision on which one aligns best with your business goals.

BigCommerce vs Volusion: Pros & Cons

BigCommerce

Pros	Cons
✅Wide variety of shop templates	❌Single shipping facility for goods
✅Templates are easier to use, and you can personalize your online store’s look and feel more	❌The abandoned shopping cart feature in the base plan is not accessible
✅Flexible choices for goods
✅Bulk editing and importing of goods, including stock changes
✅Advanced software for SEO
✅Quick, intuitive user interface back-end.
✅Flexible guidelines and vouchers for discount
✅Numerous implementations and integrations by third parties are possible.
✅Solid analytics

Volusion

Pros	Cons
✅A wide variety of templates	❌Does not make it possible for fulfilling firms to export open orders
✅Broader, more customizable product choices and less supply power than BigCommerce	❌The template is very challenging to modify and needs specialized experience.
✅Bulk editing and product import, including stock changes
✅Source goods from many warehouses and deliver the versatile origin-based shipment
✅Can be edited in Specialized SEO Software by the storefront
✅Abandoned shopping cart functionality in base plan accessible
✅Flexible guidelines and coupons for deals
✅Numerous implementations and integrations by third parties are possible

BigCommerce vs Volusion: Pricing & Plans

BigCommerce Pricing and Plans

BigCommerce offers a straightforward and competitive pricing structure that caters to a wide range of business sizes, from small startups to large enterprises. Let's break down their latest pricing and what each plan includes (with a 15-day free trial available for all plans):

• Standard Plan - $39/month: Ideal for new e-commerce businesses, this plan allows you to create a beautiful online store with no additional transaction fees. You get unlimited products, file storage, and bandwidth, as well as unlimited staff accounts.
• Plus Plan - $105/month (Most Popular): This plan includes all the Standard plan features, along with the ability to create up to three multi-storefronts (with additional storefronts costing $30/month each) and various advanced features. It is perfect for growing businesses that need additional marketing tools to increase conversion
• Pro Plan - $399/month: Designed for scaling businesses, the Pro plan offers a comprehensive set of features. It includes everything in the Plus plan but with up to eight multi-storefronts (additional storefronts at $100/month) and a higher online sales threshold.
• Enterprise Plan: Custom pricing is available for large businesses that require a full-service platform with premium features and support. To obtain a quote, contact BigCommerce sales directly.

All plans have many benefits, including multi-currency support, real-time shipping quotes, and professional reporting tools. Moreover, regardless of your chosen plan, you won't be charged additional transaction fees, and you'll have access to 24/7 technical support.

Remember, if you opt for annual billing, you can enjoy a 25% saving on these prices.

Volusion Pricing and Plans

Volusion has revised its plans to cater to different business needs more effectively. Here's the most recent breakdown of what each plan offers (with a 14-day free trial available for all plans):

• Personal Plan - $35/month: Suitable for small businesses, this plan supports up to $50K in Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV) per year and allows for a maximum of 100 products. It includes one staff account and support through live chat and email.
• Professional Plan - $79/month: This plan aims to grow businesses with a GMV cap of $100k and allows up to 5,000 products. You get support for five staff accounts and the same support options as the Personal plan.
• Business Plan - $299/month: With a significant jump in GMV to $400k, the Business plan is for larger stores that need more product listings, as it provides unlimited products. It supports up to 15 staff accounts and adds phone support to the existing live chat and email.
• Prime Plan: This top-tier plan is for high-volume businesses and offers unlimited GMV and product listings. It includes unlimited staff accounts and prioritizes support with VIP response times. Pricing for the Prime plan is custom and can be obtained by contacting Volusion sales.

These plans also have numerous features across all levels, such as a seamless native checkout solution, industry-leading payment solutions, and a modern, mobile-first approach to themes. 

Furthermore, all plans now include free web hosting, unlimited bandwidth, and continuous PCI compliance, ensuring your online store is secure and scalable.

The verdict

BigCommerce is the winner when it comes to pricing plans, offering more value for money with its feature-rich plans across all tiers. Volusion’s tiered pricing structure can lead to unexpected costs as your business grows, with some essential features locked behind higher-priced plans.

BigCommerce vs Volusion: Features

Marketing tools

BigCommerce

BigCommerce boasts a wide range of built-in marketing features, including abandoned cart recovery, email marketing tools, and social media integrations. According to a study by MarketingProfs, abandoned cart emails have an average conversion rate of 18.64%, highlighting the potential impact of BigCommerce's built-in tools on recovering lost sales. 

BigCommerce's built-in abandoned cart recovery

BigCommerce also integrates seamlessly with popular marketing platforms like Google Ads and Facebook Ads, making it easier for businesses to create and manage effective advertising campaigns.

Volusion

Volusion also offers various marketing tools, such as email marketing, social media integrations, discount-adding feature, etc.. However, it lacks some advanced features found in BigCommerce, such as abandoned cart recovery and automated email sequences. 

Volusion discount adding feature

Additionally, Volusion's SEO capabilities are considered less robust than BigCommerce's, potentially impacting organic traffic and search visibility for online stores.

The verdict

BigCommerce wins, offering a wider range of built-in marketing features like abandoned cart recovery, automated email sequences, and robust integrations with popular platforms. This empowers businesses to create comprehensive and effective marketing campaigns to drive traffic and boost sales. 

Volusion, while offering essential marketing tools, lacks the depth and variety of BigCommerce's offerings.

SEO optimization

BigCommerce

BigCommerce is widely recognized for its robust built-in SEO features, offering customizable URLs, automatic sitemaps, and optimized page elements. As Neil Patel, a renowned digital marketing expert, puts it, "BigCommerce has some of the best built-in SEO features of any e-commerce platform." 

BigCommerce Search engine optimization

These tools empower businesses to improve their organic search visibility and drive more traffic to their online stores. Here is the list of SEO optimization tools of BigCommerce:

• Customizable URLs: Control your page URLs for better SEO.
• Automatic sitemaps: Help search engines crawl your site more easily.
• Microdata (schema markup): Improves search result appearance.
• 301 redirects and URL rewrites: Maintain SEO value when changing URLs.
• Automatic image optimization: Optimizes images for faster loading and better SEO.
• Canonical URLs: Avoid duplicate content issues.
• AMP support: Enables faster loading for mobile pages.
• CDN integration: Improves site speed for global audiences.
• Robots.txt editor: Control search engine crawling.
• SEO-friendly themes: Built with SEO best practices in mind.
• Integration with Google Search Console: Monitor and troubleshoot SEO performance.

Volusion

While Volusion does provide basic SEO functionalities like customizable meta tags and product descriptions, it lacks some of the advanced features found in BigCommerce, such as automatic image optimization and 301 redirects. 

Volusion sitemaps

As a result, businesses using Volusion may need to rely on third-party apps or plugins to fully optimize their websites for search engines, adding to the complexity and potential costs. Below is the list of Volusion SEO tools:

• Customizable meta tags: Edit title tags, meta descriptions, and keyword tags.
• Product-specific SEO fields: Optimize individual product pages.
• Blog integration: Create SEO-friendly blog content.
• Sitemaps: Help search engines index your pages.
• SSL certificate: Improves security and can boost SEO.
• Mobile-friendly themes: Responsive design for mobile devices.

The verdict

BigCommerce wins this battle with its comprehensive and automated SEO tools, including customizable URLs, automatic sitemaps, and optimized page elements. These features help businesses improve their search engine rankings and drive organic traffic. 

Volusion, while offering basic SEO functionalities, lacks the advanced capabilities of BigCommerce, potentially hindering a website's visibility in search results.

Blogging features

BigCommerce

Switching to BigCommerce from Volusion, I was pleasantly surprised by their seamless integration with WordPress, a powerful and versatile blogging platform. This allowed me to create engaging blog posts with rich media and easily share them on social media, driving more traffic to my store. 

BigCommerce's flexibility in integrating with external blogging platforms ultimately proved to be a better solution for my content marketing efforts.

Volusion

I initially chose Volusion for my e-commerce store due to its integrated blogging feature, thinking it would be convenient to manage content alongside my products. However, I quickly found the blogging interface clunky and limited in customization options, making it difficult to create visually appealing blog posts that matched my brand's aesthetic.

The verdict

BigCommerce is the obvious winner since it offers a clear advantage with its seamless integration with WordPress, the world's most popular blogging platform. This allows for easy content creation, customization, and distribution, aiding in content marketing efforts. 

Volusion's built-in blogging tool is more basic and lacks the flexibility and features of WordPress.

Apps & Integration 

BigCommerce

BigCommerce boasts a vast app marketplace with over 1,200 apps spanning various categories like marketing, accounting, and shipping. This extensive selection allows businesses to easily expand their store's functionality and integrate with third-party tools. 

However, the sheer number of BigCommerce integration apps can be overwhelming for some users, making it difficult to find the right ones for their specific needs.

Volusion

Volusion's app marketplace is smaller than BigCommerce's, with around 150 apps available. While this might limit the options for customization and integration, it also means that the available apps are more curated and tailored to Volusion's specific features. 

However, this might not be sufficient for businesses with complex needs or those looking for niche solutions.

The verdict

BigCommerce is clearly a better choice than Volusion, with over 1,200 apps, providing endless possibilities for customization and integration. This enables businesses to tailor their online stores to their specific needs and connect with various third-party services. 

Volusion's app marketplace is significantly smaller, limiting the options for expansion and integration.

Management of inventory

BigCommerce

Utilize BigCommerce was a game-changer for my inventory woes. Their built-in inventory management tools, coupled with seamless integrations with popular inventory apps like Skubana, allowed me to automate stock level tracking and reorder processes. I was also able to set up alerts for low stock items, ensuring I never missed a beat in fulfilling customer orders and maintaining a healthy inventory balance.

Volusion

In my early days of running an online store on Volusion, I struggled to keep track of my inventory levels, often leading to overselling or stockouts. Volusion's inventory management system felt basic and lacked features like automated low-stock alerts, making it difficult to manage my growing product catalog efficiently.

The verdict

BigCommerce emerges as the winner with its robust built-in inventory management system and seamless integration with popular inventory apps. This enables efficient tracking, automated reordering, and streamlined fulfillment processes, ensuring accurate stock levels and preventing overselling or stockouts. 

While Volusion does offer basic inventory management, it lacks the advanced features and integrations that BigCommerce provides for seamless inventory control.

BigCommerce vs Volusion: Payment

BigCommerce Payment 

BigCommerce – is renowned for being really nice in his regards, since it provides 40 payment gateưays, with several well-known brands on the industry. They still have an exclusive agreement with PayPal, which offers a discount and smoother offer than many other payment providers. Then you can link your site to the payment processor you choose.

Volusion Payment 

Volusion – also provides about 30 payment gateways and an in-house, self-powered, but just US tradespeople, named Volusion Merchant Services. It allows the retailers to profit from discounted prices and their companies. However, several reviews of this service have posed questions about cancelation costs, secret charges and unequal agreements.

The verdict

BigCommerce is the clear winner in terms of payment gateways. It offers a wider range of payment gateway options, including popular providers like PayPal, Stripe, and Square, with no additional transaction fees on any plan. This flexibility allows businesses to choose the payment methods that best suit their customers and avoid unnecessary costs.

Volusion, while offering a decent selection of payment gateways, does charge additional transaction fees on some of its plans. This can add up and eat into profits, especially for businesses with high sales volumes. Additionally, Volusion's limited options compared to BigCommerce might not cater to all businesses' specific needs.

BigCommerce vs Volusion: Ease of use

BigCommerce

When using BigCommerce, I was pleasantly surprised by its user-friendly interface and drag-and-drop page builder. Even without coding knowledge, I could easily customize my store's layout, add new sections, and create visually appealing pages. 

Moreover, the intuitive navigation and clear instructions made the entire process a breeze, allowing me to focus on growing my business rather than wrestling with technical complexities.

Volusion

In contrast with the BigCommerce experience, my experiment with Volusion is not so good. Initially, I found Volusion appealing due to its clean interface and seemingly straightforward setup. 

However, as I delved deeper into customization and adding functionalities, I encountered limitations and a lack of intuitive options. Navigating through menus and settings became cumbersome, hindering my ability to personalize my store effectively.

The verdict

BigCommerce is the clear winner in terms of ease of use. Its intuitive interface, drag-and-drop page builder, and extensive theme customization options make it easy for even non-technical users to create and manage a professional-looking online store.

Volusion, while not overly complex, has a steeper learning curve and less intuitive navigation compared to BigCommerce. Some users have reported difficulty finding specific settings and features, making it less beginner-friendly.

BigCommerce vs Volusion: Support

BigCommerce

BigCommerce provides exceptional customer support, offering 24/7 phone, live chat, and email support to all users, regardless of their plan. A review on TrustRadius states, "BigCommerce's customer support is top-notch. They're always available to help, and they're very knowledgeable." Their comprehensive knowledge base and community forums also provide valuable resources for self-help and troubleshooting.

Volusion

Volusion's customer support has faced criticism for being less responsive and helpful compared to BigCommerce. Some users have reported long wait times for email responses and difficulty reaching live chat support. A review on G2 Crowd mentioned, "Volusion's customer support could be improved. They're not always available when you need them, and their responses can be slow."

The verdict

BigCommerce is the clear winner in terms of customer support. Their 24/7 availability through various channels (phone, live chat, email) ensures that users can get assistance whenever they need it, regardless of their time zone or issue. Additionally, their comprehensive knowledge base and active community forums offer a wealth of self-help resources.

Volusion's customer support, while available 24/7, is primarily limited to email and phone, with live chat only accessible during specific hours. This can lead to delays in response times and less immediate assistance compared to BigCommerce's more comprehensive support system.

So, which is the better platform overall?

Based on my experience and research, BigCommerce is the clear winner in this comparison for several reasons:

• Robust Features Across All Plans: Unlike Volusion, which limits features to higher-priced tiers, BigCommerce offers a wealth of built-in features even on their most basic plan. This means you get essential tools like abandoned cart recovery, real-time shipping quotes, and a wide range of payment gateways right out of the gate, without having to pay extra.
• Superior SEO Capabilities: When I migrated my store from Volusion to BigCommerce, I saw a significant improvement in my organic search rankings. BigCommerce's automatic sitemaps, customizable URLs, and focus on technical SEO gave me a clear advantage in driving more traffic to my site.
• Extensive App Marketplace: BigCommerce's app marketplace is a treasure trove of integrations and extensions. Whether I needed a specialized marketing tool or a unique shipping solution, BigCommerce had me covered. This allowed me to customize my store to my exact needs and streamline my operations.
• Excellent Customer Support: Whenever I encountered a hurdle, BigCommerce's 24/7 support was always there to help. Their knowledgeable and responsive team provided timely solutions, ensuring my store ran smoothly with minimal downtime.

Overall, BigCommerce's comprehensive feature set, superior SEO, vast app marketplace, and excellent customer support make it a more powerful and scalable platform for businesses of all sizes.

BigCommerce vs Volusion: Which is for you?

Even though BigCommerce is the better choice overall, there will be certain audiences that may find Volusion a more appropriate platform. Here are our suggestions of perfect audiences for either BigCommerce or Volusion:

BigCommerce is best suited for:

• Growing businesses: Those looking to scale their online store with a wide range of features and integrations.
• Multi-channel sellers: Merchants who want to sell across various platforms like Amazon, eBay, and social media.
• Businesses prioritizing SEO: Those who need strong built-in SEO tools for better organic visibility.
• Tech-savvy users: Individuals comfortable with customization and exploring a wide range of features.

Volusion is best suited for:

• Small businesses with limited budgets: Those seeking a simple and affordable platform to get started quickly.
• Businesses with simple needs: Merchants who don't require extensive customization or advanced features.
• Non-technical users: Those who prefer a more streamlined interface with fewer options to manage.
• Businesses focused on data analysis: Volusion's reporting features might appeal to data-driven businesses.

Conclusion

Although BigCommerce vs Volusion in several categories are neck and neck, BigCommerce eventually wins out. BigCommerce is the winner of this comparison with its diverse theme range, more functionality set and highly praised customer service.

This does not make Volusion a poor choice, however. You can have a deeper look at Volusion if you are searching for a SaaS solution at a lower price point and don’t want to skip a couple of functions. Maybe it’s not what you want.

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