Quick Answer

Shopify Plus is the stronger choice for high-growth DTC and Omnichannel brands that need fast deployment and a large app ecosystem. BigCommerce Enterprise wins for B2B-heavy operations, complex pricing rules, and businesses that want more built-in functionality without relying on third-party apps. Both platforms support $10M+ operations — the right choice depends on your business model, not the platform’s brand name.

“Published January 8, 2024 by Alex Rivera, Senior eCommerce Developer at NCM Technology — 10 min read”

Introduction

When evaluating Shopify Plus vs BigCommerce Enterprise, the stakes at the enterprise level are high — the wrong choice can cost months of replatforming work, six figures in migration fees, and a year of stunted growth while your team rebuilds what you already had.

In early 2024, the Shopify Plus vs BigCommerce Enterprise debate dominates the conversation for mid-market and enterprise brands evaluating their next platform. Both are SaaS platforms built to handle serious transaction volumes, complex catalogs, and multi-channel selling. Both have strong agency ecosystems and dedicated support. And both are actively used by companies doing $10M, $50M, and $500M+ in annual revenue.

So which one is right for your business?

This Shopify Plus vs BigCommerce Enterprise comparison covers the six areas that matter most for enterprise teams making this decision in 2024.

At NCM Technology, we build on both. This guide is our honest breakdown — not a pitch for one platform over the other, but a practical comparison based on what we see working for different types of enterprise clients across retail, B2B, and wholesale.

What “enterprise” actually means on these platforms

Before comparing features, it is worth clarifying what you are actually getting at the enterprise tier on each platform.

Shopify Plus starts at approximately $2,000 per month as of 2024, scaling based on revenue. At this tier you get access to Shopify’s Checkout Extensibility — the ability to customize your checkout without touching Liquid code — along with Shopify Functions for custom discount and pricing logic, unlimited staff accounts, dedicated launch support, and exclusive APIs not available on lower plans.

BigCommerce Enterprise is custom-priced, typically negotiated based on GMV. It includes unlimited API calls, dedicated account management, advanced B2B features through the B2B Edition add-on, price lists and customer groups, custom SSL, and priority support. Unlike Shopify Plus, BigCommerce charges no transaction fees regardless of which payment gateway you use.

Both platforms are genuinely enterprise-ready. The differences are in the details and those details matter a great deal depending on how your business operates.

Head-to-head: 6 areas that matter most

1. Checkout customization

This is where Shopify Plus pulled significantly ahead going into 2024. Checkout Extensibility allows developers to add custom UI components, validation logic, and third-party integrations to the checkout flow without forking Shopify’s core checkout code. This means your customizations survive platform updates a major pain point with the older checkout.liquid approach that many enterprise stores had relied on.

BigCommerce offers the Checkout SDK, which gives developers control over the checkout experience through a JavaScript-based API. It is powerful and flexible, but requires more engineering effort to implement and maintain compared to Shopify’s app-based extensibility model.

Winner for checkout customization: Shopify Plus — especially for teams that want flexibility without heavy ongoing engineering overhead.

2. B2B and wholesale functionality

This is BigCommerce’s strongest differentiator heading into 2024. The BigCommerce B2B Edition, available as an add-on, provides native support for company accounts with multiple buyer users, customer-specific price lists and negotiated pricing, purchase order workflows, quote management, invoicing with net payment terms, and shared shopping lists across buyer accounts.

Shopify Plus does support B2B selling through its dedicated B2B sales channel, but many of the same capabilities require third-party apps — which adds monthly cost and integration complexity at scale.

As Alex Rivera, Senior eCommerce Developer at NCM Technology, puts it: “For a manufacturer selling wholesale to 500 accounts with custom pricing for each one, BigCommerce B2B Edition removes a layer of app dependency that would otherwise cost $800 to $1,500 per month in third-party tools alone.”

Winner for B2B and wholesale: BigCommerce — if wholesale or B2B represents a significant portion of your revenue, BigCommerce’s native feature set is more complete and more cost-effective at scale.

3. App ecosystem and integrations

Shopify’s app marketplace has over 8,000 apps as of early 2024. For almost any business requirement — subscriptions, loyalty programs, advanced search, reviews, upsells — there is a well-supported Shopify app available. The quality varies, but the breadth is unmatched in the industry.

BigCommerce has a smaller marketplace, but takes a different approach: more functionality is built into the platform natively, reducing reliance on third-party apps. This means fewer monthly app fees but potentially less flexibility for niche requirements.

For enterprise teams integrating with custom internal systems, both platforms offer robust REST and GraphQL APIs. Shopify’s API documentation and developer community are widely considered the stronger resource for complex custom integrations.

Winner for ecosystem breadth: Shopify Plus. BigCommerce wins if you prefer native features over a larger app dependency stack.

4. Multi-storefront and international selling

Shopify Markets, significantly improved through 2023 and into 2024, allows a single Shopify Plus store to sell across multiple countries with localized currencies, languages, domains, and pricing all managed from one admin panel. For DTC brands expanding internationally, this is a significant operational advantage.

BigCommerce supports multi-storefront at the Enterprise tier, allowing separate storefronts under one account with shared back-end catalog management. This is particularly useful for brands managing distinct B2B and B2C storefronts simultaneously, or regional storefronts with different product lines and pricing structures.

Winner Tie — Shopify Markets is smoother for international DTC expansion. BigCommerce multi-storefront is better for structurally separate brand or channel management within one organization.

5. Headless commerce

Both platforms support headless architecture — decoupling the front-end presentation layer from the back-end commerce engine — but their approaches differ in meaningful ways.

Shopify released Hydrogen, its React-based headless storefront framework, in 2022. By early 2024, Hydrogen had matured significantly and is deployable on Shopify’s own Oxygen hosting infrastructure, simplifying the DevOps side of headless considerably. For teams that want a managed headless solution, Hydrogen plus Oxygen is the most turnkey option in the market.

BigCommerce has supported headless commerce since 2019 through its open storefront APIs. In late 2023, BigCommerce launched Catalyst, a Next.js-based reference storefront that gives development teams a production-ready headless starting point built on widely familiar tooling.

Winner: Shopify Plus for teams wanting a more integrated and managed headless solution. BigCommerce for teams already invested in Next.js or wanting maximum front-end architectural freedom.

6. Total cost of ownership

This is where many enterprise platform decisions are ultimately made — and where the comparison gets more nuanced than most guides acknowledge.

Shopify Plus transaction fees are waived when using Shopify Payments. If you use a third-party gateway, Shopify charges between 0.15% and 0.30% per transaction — which at high GMV adds up significantly. Add the cost of a full enterprise app stack, often $500 to $2,000 per month in third-party subscriptions, and total platform costs can grow well beyond the base license fee.

BigCommerce charges no transaction fees regardless of payment gateway. Fewer required third-party apps for B2B functionality means a potentially lower total monthly platform cost, though the negotiated base fee may be comparable at similar revenue volumes.

Custom development costs are similar on both platforms. Expect $150 to $250 per hour for a US-based agency in 2024, with enterprise projects typically ranging from $60,000 to $250,000 or more depending on scope, integrations, and whether a headless architecture is involved.

On total cost of ownership: it depends. Shopify can cost meaningfully more at high GMV if you are using a third-party payment gateway and a heavy app stack. BigCommerce often carries a lower ongoing platform cost for pure B2B operations at scale.

Which platform should you choose?

Here is our honest take on the Shopify Plus vs BigCommerce Enterprise decision, based on what we see working across enterprise client engagements at NCM Technology.

Choose Shopify Plus if:

• Your primary model is DTC or omnichannel retail
• You want faster time-to-market and a mature developer ecosystem
• Checkout customization and conversion optimization are priorities
• You sell internationally across multiple currencies and languages
• Your team is comfortable managing a curated stack of best-in-class apps

Choose BigCommerce Enterprise if:

• B2B or wholesale represents a significant share of your revenue
• You want more built-in functionality and fewer third-party app dependencies
• You use a third-party payment gateway and want to avoid per-transaction fees
• You need to operate distinct storefronts for separate business units or brands
• Your engineering team prefers a more open, API-first architecture with fewer platform constraints

Still deciding? The honest truth is that both platforms can serve most enterprise use cases well. The more consequential decision is usually the quality and experience of the development team building on top of it — a great agency on either platform will outperform a poor one on the other.

At NCM Technology, we scope projects on both platforms and make recommendations based on your business model, not platform preference. Enterprise projects typically start at $60,000. If you are evaluating either platform for a significant build or migration, we are happy to walk through what makes sense for your specific situation.

Frequently asked questions