If you're doing somewhere between $2M and $50M a year online, the platform question usually comes up for a reason. Maybe the site is slow, the team is fighting the admin, a B2B channel is on the way, or the current setup can't connect to the tools you need.
Shopify, WooCommerce, and BigCommerce can all run a store at this size. They fit different teams. This is a framework for choosing between them, not a ranking.
Start with your constraints, not the platform
Before you compare features, write down what your business can't compromise on:
- Team skills. Who will manage the store day to day? A merchandiser who lives in the admin needs something different than a team with in-house developers.
- Catalog complexity. Number of products, variants, bundles, and custom options.
- B2B or wholesale needs. Company accounts, customer-specific pricing, and approval flows.
- Content strategy. If articles, guides, and landing pages drive a lot of your traffic, how easily can your team publish and structure them?
- Integrations. ERP, inventory, shipping, reviews, email, and analytics. List the ones that matter most.
If you can't answer these yet, you're not ready to pick a platform. Fix that first.
Platform-by-platform summary
Shopify
Strengths: It's hosted, so Shopify handles servers, security updates, and uptime. Merchants get a polished admin and a large app ecosystem. Its B2B features, including company profiles and per-customer pricing, are available on the Basic, Grow, Advanced, and Plus plans, according to Shopify.
Trade-offs: You work within Shopify's structure. Deep customization of checkout or catalog behavior can take more effort, and apps add cost and page weight over time. Shopify also charges transaction fees in some cases when you use a third-party payment provider, so check its current terms if you're tied to a specific processor.
WooCommerce
Strengths: It's open source and runs on WordPress. WooCommerce says you fully own your site, code, and data, and its marketplace lists more than 1,000 extensions. If content is central to your growth, having commerce and publishing in the same system is a real advantage. Developers can change almost anything.
Trade-offs: You're responsible for hosting, updates, security, and performance, or for paying someone who is. Quality varies across extensions, so a plugin audit matters. WooCommerce rewards teams with development support. Without it, maintenance can pile up.
BigCommerce
Strengths: It's hosted, with strong built-in catalog features and open APIs. BigCommerce's pricing page says it doesn't charge a transaction fee on orders processed by its embedded payment providers, on any plan. It also offers a B2B edition and multi-storefront options.
Trade-offs: The plan structure is tied to online sales volume. According to its pricing page, plans scale by trailing twelve-month sales, and the Scale plan moves to the Performance plan once sales reach $2 million, so businesses in our range should expect to talk to sales. The app and agency ecosystem is smaller than Shopify's or WordPress's.
When headless or custom builds make sense
Headless means a custom front end connected to a commerce platform through APIs. It can deliver a very specific experience and fast pages, but you take on more to build and maintain. It tends to make sense when you have unusual front-end needs, several brands or regions on one back end, or a development team that can own it. It's rarely the right first move for a team without that capacity.
Decision matrix
This is a general guide. Your situation might change the answer.
| Factor | Shopify | WooCommerce | BigCommerce |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hosting and upkeep | Hosted by Shopify | You or your host manage it | Hosted by BigCommerce |
| Cost drivers | Plan, apps, themes, payment fees | Hosting, extensions, development, maintenance | Plan tier tied to sales, apps, development |
| Flexibility | High within the platform, apps fill gaps | Highest, since you control the code | High through APIs and built-in features |
| B2B | Built in on Basic and above | Through extensions or custom work | B2B edition available |
| SEO control | Strong, within the platform’s URL and template patterns | Most direct control, with WordPress tools | Strong, with more built-in catalog features |
| App ecosystem | Largest of the hosted platforms | Large, with uneven quality | Smaller |
| Performance | Good by default, apps can slow it | Depends on hosting and build quality | Good by default |
| Data and analytics access | APIs and exports | Direct access to your own database | APIs and exports |
Cost deserves a note. The sticker price of a plan is rarely your total cost of ownership. Count apps or extensions, theme and development work, payment fees, hosting, and the staff time to run it.
Migration realities
Whichever way you go, a platform move puts organic revenue at risk if it's handled casually. Plan to protect:
- URLs and redirects. Every URL with traffic or backlinks needs a mapped 301 redirect.
- Data. Customers, order history, reviews, and product data should all move intact.
- Tracking. Analytics, ad platform pixels, and conversion events need to work on day one. Otherwise your reporting has a gap exactly when you need to compare before and after.
Where to go from here
If you're weighing a move, start by ranking your constraints, then test each platform against your top three. If you'd like a second opinion, our web development team works across Shopify and WooCommerce, and we can talk through the tradeoffs for your catalog, team, and growth plans. Scope depends on your project, so we don't offer fixed pricing here.
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