BigCommerce pricing: what each plan costs and its sales limit

BigCommerce pricing by plan

BigCommerce sells three self-service plans, Core, Growth and Scale, and a fourth plan, Performance, with custom pricing, starting at $1,499 a month billed annually. Two things set your plan price: whether you are billed monthly or once a year, and how much your store sells. Core, Growth and Scale each cover sales up to a limit, so your sales help decide which plan you pay for.

Core starts at $39 a month, or $29 a month billed annually. The table lists every plan as BigCommerce's pricing page shows it. Prices are in US dollars, excluding sales tax, GST and VAT.

Paying for a year up front saves 25% on Core, Growth and Scale. On Core, that is the difference between $39 a month and $29 a month billed annually.

BigCommerce offers a 15-day free trial, and it says there is no credit card needed to sign up.

How BigCommerce sales limits and automatic upgrades work

Annual sales are calculated on a trailing 12-month basis, so each month the oldest month drops out of the total and the newest one is added.

The figure BigCommerce uses is GMV, which it defines as gross order value minus 10%. Sales count as product price after discounts, plus taxes and shipping. Orders from other channels count too: sales through Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter, and through the eBay and Amazon integrations. Because of the reduction, a store's gross orders can run a little above a plan's limit before the limit is reached.

When a Core or Growth store passes its limit, the store is notified and moved to the next plan automatically. From then on the store pays the bigger plan's price, whether or not it needs that plan's extra features.

• Core covers up to $30K of GMV a year. Above that, the store moves to Growth at $105 a month, or $79 a month billed annually.
• Growth covers up to $100K of GMV a year. Above that, the store moves to Scale at $399 a month, or $299 a month billed annually.
• Scale includes up to $33,333 a month in GMV. Instead of moving the store up a plan, BigCommerce charges 0.9% on GMV above $33,333 a month.
• Once a Scale store reaches $2 million in yearly GMV, it is moved to Performance, which has custom pricing, starting at $1,499 a month billed annually.

If your sales are close to a limit, budget for the next plan's price rather than the one you sign up for.

BigCommerce transaction fees: embedded and open payment providers

BigCommerce sorts payment providers into two groups. Embedded payment providers include BigCommerce Payments, Adyen, Affirm, Afterpay, Amazon Pay, Klarna and PayPal Braintree, plus PayPal Complete Payments, PayPal Wallet, Sezzle, Stripe and Worldpay, among others. Orders paid through any of them carry a $0 fee from BigCommerce on every plan. BigCommerce notes that the list may change over time, and changes apply to future orders only.

Any provider outside that list is an open payment provider. Orders paid through one carry an Open Payment Provider fee, a percentage of the order's GMV that is billed to the merchant as a separate line on the monthly BigCommerce invoice. The rate falls as the plan goes up.

BigCommerce says the Open Payment Provider fee is separate from any fees your payment provider charges, so it is added to the processing cost. A store that takes every payment through an embedded provider pays BigCommerce no order fee, only the provider's own processing fees.

BigCommerce Payments card rates by plan

BigCommerce Payments is BigCommerce's built-in payment service, built with PayPal's infrastructure. Its card rate drops on higher plans, so the plan you are on also changes the processing cost of every sale.

For now, BigCommerce Payments is available only to US-based merchants on self-serve and retail plans. The rates below are for eligible US merchants, as BigCommerce's payments page lists them.

Stores that use PayPal Braintree instead pay a card rate that begins at 2.89% + $0.29 per transaction. American Express payments on Braintree cost 3.50% with no fixed fee.

What a $30 sale costs on BigCommerce and other store builders

The same $30 card sale on BigCommerce Core and on the entry plans of other own-store builders, using each platform's own published rates.

How to estimate what BigCommerce will cost your store

You need two things: a rough figure for a year of sales, and a decision on how you will take payments.

1. Estimate a year of sales

   Add up the orders you expect over the next year, including tax and shipping. BigCommerce turns that into GMV, which is gross order value minus 10%.

2. Find the plan your sales fall into

   Core covers up to $30K of GMV a year and Growth up to $100K of GMV a year. If you expect to pass Core's limit during the year, budget for the Growth price from that month on.

3. Choose monthly or annual billing

   Annual billing saves 25%. If you expect to move up a plan soon, check how an upgrade is billed before you pay a year ahead.

4. Add card processing

   With BigCommerce Payments, each card sale costs 2.89% + $0.30 on Core, 2.59% + $0.30 on Growth and 2.39% + $0.30 on Scale. On a $30 sale, the Core rate comes to $1.17.

5. Add the fees that apply to you

   If you use a payment provider outside the embedded list, add 2.0% of eligible order GMV on Core. Add any extra storefronts and paid apps you plan to use.

Other BigCommerce costs: storefronts, support and apps

Beyond the plan price and the card rate, the costs below apply only if you use the feature.

Multi-storefront lets you run several storefronts from one BigCommerce dashboard, for example one for each brand. Each extra storefront has its own monthly price, and each plan caps how many you can run.

Phone support is included on Growth, Scale and Performance. On Core, phone support is an add-on that is coming soon, with pricing and timing to be shared separately. Chat and email support are available on all plans.

BigCommerce's app marketplace has over 1,200 apps. Check each app's listing for its price before you install it.

BigCommerce free trial, contracts and cancelling

BigCommerce's pricing page lists no free plan: the cheapest plan is Core at $39 a month. New stores get a 15-day free trial, and a store can launch and take payments during the trial once a payments partner is set up.

If the trial ends and you do not choose a plan, BigCommerce keeps your data for 90 days. During that time customers cannot access the store, and the owner can only log in to choose a plan. If no plan is chosen, the store is deleted automatically after 90 days and cannot be restored.

BigCommerce states that there is no contract on Core, Growth or Scale, and you can cancel at any time. It also says billing stops immediately when you cancel, and that contracts are available for the Performance plan.

Where Nation fits

Questions about BigCommerce pricing