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June 6, 2023

Magento vs WooCommerce – Which one is Better? (Comparison)

Are you trying to decide between Magento vs WooCommerce for your online store?

Magento and WooCommerce are two popular eCommerce platforms on the market. Both offer multiple features for creating an online store and making money online.

In this article, we will compare Magento vs WordPress and explain their pros and cons, so you can choose the best platform for your needs.

Overview: Magento vs WooCommerce

Before we get into details, let’s take a quick look at both popular eCommerce platforms and what makes them stand out.

What is Magento

Magento, now also known as Adobe Commerce, is an eCommerce platform that allows businesses to create online stores, accept payments, and manage products.

It has an open-source community edition available for free download. It also has paid solutions that come with additional features, cloud hosting, and support.

What is WooCommerce?

WooCommerce is an open-source eCommerce platform built on top of WordPress, which is the world’s most popular website builder.

It allows you to easily create an online store, accept payments, manage inventory, and more. It runs on top of WordPress, which gives you access to thousands of WordPress plugins and themes to grow your eCommerce business.

Both platforms are open-source software and can be extended with extensions, and utilize templates for design. However, they both have different pros and cons which make them unique.

What to Look for in Your eCommerce Platform?

If you are just starting out, then you would want to keep a few things in mind when choosing a platform. These basic factors are crucial when deciding which eCommerce solution will be better for your business.

Budget – Cost of starting your store and recurring expenses that would affect your business.
Ease of Use – How easy is it to use for beginners
Payment Methods – It should support multiple payment gateways. If you require certain payment methods, then you need to make sure that it supports them.
Scalability – Your eCommerce platform should be able to scale with your growing business needs

These are just some of the basic things you need to look at. Depending on your business, you may also want to consider how the platform does other things like inventory, taxes, invoices, and more.

That said, let’s compare Magento vs WooCommerce. You can click the links below to jump ahead to any section:

Cost: Magento vs WooCommerce
Ease of Use: Magento vs WooCommerce
Payment Methods: Magento vs WooCommerce
Extensions and Integrations: Magento vs WooCommerce
Scaling Your Business: Magento vs WooCommerce
Magento vs WooComemrce: Which One is a Better E-commerce Platform for You?

Cost: Magento vs WooCommerce

For most startups, the cost is one of the most significant factors in decision-making. When starting your eCommerce website, you need to evaluate the cost while factoring in how those costs will grow as you need more resources, add-ons, and other services.

Cost of Magento Ecommerce Platform

Magento offers 2 different versions. First, you have a Magento open-source version, also known as the community edition.

You can download and install this yourself on any hosting provider. It does not include all features, and it does not come with any support.

Second, you have Adobe Commerce which includes 2 paid plans. The Commerce Pro plan includes Adobe application, support, deployment tools, CDN, 50GB of testing, DDoS protection, WAF, and more.

On the other hand, there is a Manager Services plan which offers additional features like designated cloud infrastructure, custom site monitoring and personalized run book, go-live process coaching, dedicated escalation management, and more.

To find out the prices for each of these plans, you’ll need to get in touch with the sales team and request a quote.

Having that said, even the Magento community version is not cheap. The core software you can download for free, but you will need at least a VPS hosting plan or a cloud host like Amazon Web Services to run it.

This means even though you will be using the free version, your hosting bill will still be quite higher than a shared hosting plan.

If you purchase paid extensions and themes, or hire a developer to work on your Magento store, then all these will significantly increase your costs.

Cost of WooCommerce

WooCommerce is available as a free software that anyone can download and install. It runs on top of WordPress which means you can install it on any WordPress website.

WooCommerce itself is free. However, you will need to register a domain name, ensure you have a SSL certificate, and purchase WordPress hosting to start your WooCommerce store.

Normally, you can buy a domain name for $14.99 / year, an SSL certificate for $69.99 / year, and hosting for $7.99 / month. This is cheaper than the self-hosted Magento community edition, but still, it is a lot of money for a startup.

There are several specialized WooCommerce hosting companies that are now offering discounted hosting plans which reduce your starting cost significantly.

Bluehost, an officially recommended WooCommerce and WordPress hosting provider, has agreed to offer WPBeginner users free domain names, SSL certificates, and discounts on hosting.

This offer will help you start your online store for as low as $9.95 / month.

The cost of starting a WooCommerce store is a lot lower than the Magento community edition. There are a lot more choices available for WooCommerce hosting plans than Magento, which helps you choose a plan that fits your budget.

Apart from hosting, using paid extensions and themes for WooCommerce will also affect your costs. However, WooCommerce gives you access to more than 60,000+ WordPress extensions and thousands of free WordPress themes.

You can easily find free WooCommerce plugins as alternatives to paid extensions. There are also tons of free WooCommerce themes that you can use to further reduce your costs.

With affordable hosting plans, and an abundance of low-cost free extensions and themes, WooCommerce is clearly less costly than Magento.

Winner: WooCommerce

Ease of Use: Magento vs WooCommerce

Most folks starting an eCommerce business are not programmers or web developers. They need a platform that they can use easily without paying someone a fortune to help them do basic things.

Even experienced users prefer an easy-to-use platform that helps them focus on growing their business instead of struggling with software.

Let’s take a look at Magento and WooCommerce to see which one is more easy to use.

Magento – Ease of Use

Magento is a powerful eCommerce-specific platform, packing tons of built-in features that work out of the box. It comes with an advanced setup process that can be complicated for new users.

It is not easy to install, and most hosting companies do not offer pre-configured installers for Magento. The installer language is very developer-centric which may leave beginners a bit clueless about several important settings.

After the setup, you will have to spend some time learning the basics. Installing extensions or customizing themes is not always easy, and you may need to seek help to set them up.

You can find tutorials and documentation online, but most often they are written for developers and not for DIY users.

Overall, Magento is extremely powerful and comes packed with a ton of features, but it is not the easiest-to-use eCommerce platform.

WooCommerce – Ease of Use

WooCommerce is a little easier to use compared to Magento. The installation is simple as many WooCommerce hosting providers will automatically install it for you along with WordPress.

Since WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin, you will need to install WordPress first. Even if your host doesn’t automatically install WordPress, chances are that there would be an auto-installer that would let you do it with just a few clicks.

WooCommerce comes with a setup wizard that will walk you through the initial setup like creating pages, setting up payments, choosing the currency, set shipping and tax options.

Once you are up and running, you will find plenty of help to do almost anything. WooCommerce themes and plugins are easy to install and come with their own settings.

WooCommerce still has a bit of a learning curve, but overall it is far easier to use than Magento.

Winner WooCommerce

Payment Methods: Magento vs WooCommerce

As an eCommerce store, you will accept online payments on your website. There are many payment gateway companies that allow you to take credit cards and other services, like PayPal or AliPay.

Some payment gateways may not be available in all regions. You need options that are available for both you and your users.

Let’s see what payment options are available to Magento and WooCommerce stores.

Magento – Payment Options

Magento comes with PayPal, Authorize.net, cash on delivery, bank transfer, and purchase order payment methods by default. It also has extensions available for many popular payment gateways including Stripe, 2Checkout, Braintree, WePay, Google Checkout, Skrill, Venmo, and more.

Magento’s APIs allow developers to easily integrate payment gateways. If the payment gateway you are looking for is not yet available, then you can hire someone to create a custom extension for that.

WooCommerce – Payment Options

WooCommerce offers PayPal and Stripe payments by default. It also supports all major payment gateways through extensions and addons.

WooCommerce even supports many regional and lesser-known payment companies. Since it is so easy to extend, any payment company can create an add-on for WooCommerce support.

We feel that both Magento and WooCommerce do an equally great job in terms of payment support. Both platforms have options for multiple payment choices.

Winner: Tie

Extensions and Integrations: Magento vs WooCommerce

There is a limit to the features your eCommerce platform can add to the core software. This leaves room for third-party extensions, tools, and integrations to extend the platform by offering additional features.

Both Magento and WooCommerce have extensions, themes, and support offered by third-party integration providers.

Magento Extensions

Magento has an active community of developers, agencies, and freelancers. There are plenty of free and paid third-party extensions available for Magento that you can use.

These extensions allow you to easily add new features and integrate other tools and services into your online store.

Currently, Magento Marketplace has 3,783 extensions. Out of those 1,071 were available for free. That’s a decent amount of extensions considering that Magento has a lot of functionality in the core software.

WooCommerce Extensions and Addons

Since WooCommerce runs on top of WordPress this gives you access to more than 60,000 free WordPress plugins and thousands of paid plugins.

Whether you want to add contact forms, lead generation forms, Google Analytics, or any other feature imaginable, chances are that there is already a plugin available that you can use.

A large number of extensions means you can connect your WooCommerce store to any third-party service like your email marketing company, payment gateways, CRM software, and more.

Winner: WooCommerce

Scaling Your Business: Magento vs WooCommerce

Growing your eCommerce business comes with its own challenges. As your website traffic and sales grow, you will need more server resources to keep up with your business goals and growth trajectory.

Both Magento and WooCommerce can handle large eCommerce stores with huge spikes in traffic. However, they are two different platforms which affects their scalability and infrastructure requirements.

Let’s take a look at how Magento and WooCommerce handle scalability on large eCommerce websites.

Scaling Magento

Magento is designed from the ground up to be a robust eCommerce platform. However, when it comes to scaling, your costs and technical challenges will skyrocket.

If you are using the community edition of Magento, then you will have to do it on your own. Magento is a resource-intensive software, which means if you are on a VPS hosting, then you will have to upgrade to a dedicated server and then to a cloud hosting service like Amazon Web Services.

You will also need to optimize your store for caching, manage backups, protect against DDOS attacks by using a website firewall, and more. If you don’t have experience in managing large websites, then you will need to hire Magento specialists.

If your business can afford the growing costs, then the easier option would be to switch to Adobe Commerce plans.

Scaling WooCommerce

WooCommerce stores will face the same technical challenges as Magento. However, the good thing is that you have a lot more options to continue growing while keeping your costs low.

First, you have several easy caching options to improve performance which can be implemented even by beginners. This will keep your server resources low and allow you to continue growing for a while.

Next, you can move to managed WordPress hosting providers like WPEngine or Liquid Web. These WordPress hosting companies allow you to easily scale your website to meet your growing business.

Finding WordPress specialists to help scale your online store is not as costly as Magento. Even at the enterprise level, your eCommerce store would be able to perform well at much lower costs.

Winner: WooCommerce

Magento vs WooComemrce: Which One is a Better E-commerce Platform for You?

Magento and WooCommerce are both full-featured eCommerce platforms that you can use to build any kind of online store. However, it comes down to costs, and your personal skills to choose between them.

WooCommerce obviously has the advantage of a large user base and market share. It runs on WordPress which is already the world’s most popular website builder. WordPress users would feel at home when working on WooCommerce.

It also beats Magento in terms of ease of use, and cost of building and running an eCommerce store at scale.

If you want an easy-to-use, cost-effective, and easy-to-scale eCommerce platform, then WooCommerce is the perfect fit for you.

Magento, on the other hand, is more suitable for enterprise-level businesses with their own development teams or businesses who can spend money on hiring someone.

We hope this article helped you compare the pros and cons of Magento vs WooCommerce. You may also want to see our side-by-side comparison of Shopify vs WooCommerce and how to create a WooCommerce popup to increase sales.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post Magento vs WooCommerce – Which one is Better? (Comparison) first appeared on WPBeginner.

February 19, 2020

7 Best Free Ecommerce Platforms for 2020 (Compared)

Are you looking for the best free eCommerce platform to build your eCommerce website?

In the early days, eCommerce platforms used to cost thousands which kept many small businesses from creating an online store. Luckily now there are several popular eCommerce platforms that offer free or low cost options.

In this article, we will compare the best and most popular free eCommerce platforms that you can use to start an online store. We have a detailed pros and cons analysis for each, so you can choose the best eCommerce website builder for your needs.

How to Choose the Best Free eCommerce Platform

Let’s be honest, there is no such thing as a 100% free eCommerce platform.

Even when the eCommerce platform itself is free, you will have to pay for domain, web hosting, payment processing fees, and other extension costs.

We have a detailed guide on the real cost of building eCommerce websites.

With that said, your goal should be to find an eCommerce platform that helps you get started at the lowest to no cost, without putting severe limitations on how you run or grow your business.

You would also want the platform to be easy to use, full-featured, with the ability to accept payments using your preferred payment methods.

Keeping these things in mind, let’s take a look at the best free eCommerce platforms that you can use to make money online and grow your business.

1. WooCommerce

WooCommerce is the world’s most popular eCommerce platform. It’s a completely free software that you can download and run on any web hosting provider.

Since WooCommerce doesn’t provide hosting for you, you’ll need to buy web hosting and a domain name to make sure your website can be accessed by users worldwide.

We recommend using either Bluehost or SiteGround. They are both among the largest hosting companies in the world and are officially recommended by WooCommerce.

Bluehost is even offering WPBeginner users a free domain name + SSL certificate, and a generous 60% discount on hosting. Basically, you can get started for $2.75 per month.

→ Claim This Exclusive Bluehost Deal ←

Pros

It’s easy to get started with WooCommerce. You can create an online store quickly even if you’re a total beginner.
You’ll be hosting your website yourself, which gives you full control. Although you’ll need to pay for WooCommerce hosting, but this doesn’t have to cost a lot.
There are loads of WooCommerce themes (designs), giving you the opportunity to create a store that truly reflects your brand.
There are thousands of WooCommerce plugins that you can use to add new features and grow your business.
You can sell anything with WooCommerce whether its physical products, digital downloads, membership plans, dropshipping store, or affiliate products.
WooCommerce doesn’t charge you any transaction fees at all. You’ll only have to pay your payment service provider like PayPal or Stripe, or your bank.

Cons

If you’re a total beginner, WooCommerce is a bit trickier to get started with than some other options. You’ll need to buy hosting and a domain name, for instance.
You’ll be responsible for maintaining your online store as it grows. This might mean upgrading your hosting plan or paying for a security plugin for WordPress.

To help beginners get started, we have the most detailed WooCommerce tutorial on the web that helps you build an eCommerce website with WooCommerce.

2. Constant Contact’s Website Builder

Constant Contact’s website builder has a free plan that allows you to create an online store without spending anything at all. Constant Contact will host the store and even provide you with a free subdomain.

You’ll only be able to have up to 3 products in your store, but if you’re just starting out, this might be enough. If you want to add more products, you can upgrade to a paid plan.

It’s worth noting that Constant Contact does charge a 3% transaction fee if you’re on the Free or the Starter plans.

Pros

You can build an online store for free with Constant Contact’s website builder. You can get a free branded domain name too, in the format storename.constantcontactsites.com.
You can sell both physical and digital products through your store. You can use Constant Contact to track your inventory.
There’s 24/7 email and live chat support available, even with the free plan.
You can add a blog to your store’s website for free, though the blogging software is very basic and doesn’t offer the same features as a blogging platform like WordPress.

Cons

You can’t use your own domain name with the free plan. Instead, you’ll need to use the Constant Contact branded domain name.
Constant Contact will display their ads on your site if you’re using the free plan.

You can use Constant Contact online store along with your WordPress website and easily link to the store from the menu. This is a good option for small businesses who want to sell few products without the overhead of managing a self-hosted eCommerce platform like WooCommerce.

3. BuyNow Plus

BuyNow Plus is not a full eCommerce platform. Instead, it lets you create “buy now” buttons that you can put on any website.

You’ll need to create a free Stripe account in order to use BuyNow Plus.

Pros

The transaction fee is pretty low at just 2% per transaction. Keep in mind that Stripe charges its own transaction fees on top of this, though.
You can use BuyNow Plus to handle recurring payments on credit cards without your customers needing to set up an account. If you’re selling recurring memberships for offline items, then this is a really handy feature.
You can put the button links on social media as well as on your website, or you can even use them in emails.
There’s no limit to how many different products you can sell using BuyNow Plus.

Cons

BuyNow Plus doesn’t offer anything extra, like inventory tracking or website creation.
You could do something similar by using Stripe directly on your website. That way, you wouldn’t need to pay BuyNow Plus’s transaction fee. You’d need your own SSL certificate, but it’s possible to get an SSL certificate for free.

4. BigCommerce

BigCommerce is a fully hosted (or all-in-one) eCommerce platform that you can use to create your eCommerce store. There’s also a WordPress plugin available, if you have an existing site that you want to use with BigCommerce.

While they don’t have a free plan available, there is a free trial which lets you set up your shop and get started without paying anything.

Pros

You don’t have to enter any credit card details to take the free trial.
BigCommerce is really easy to get started with. You can just sign up, enter details about your store, and start adding products.
You can get a free domain like mystore.mybigcommerce.com if you don’t want to pay for a custom domain name.
BigCommerce gives you plenty of different ways to take payments. It has built-in integration with lots of payment platforms, including PayPal powered by Braintree, Stripe, Authorize.net and more.
There are lots of third-party apps that you can add to your BigCommerce store to extend its functionality.

Cons

The free trial only lasts for 15 days, which doesn’t give you long to start making money from your store. After that, you’ll need to pay $29.95/month or more to keep your store going.
BigCommerce is an all-in-one platform, which means you’re limited to using their addons and themes. You won’t have the range of choice that you’d have with some other eCommerce options.

Related: See our comparison of WooCommerce vs BigCommerce for more details.

5. Shopify

Shopify is another fully hosted eCommerce platform. Shopify also offers a 14 day free trial and, like BigCommerce’s free trial, this doesn’t require a credit card.

Pros

It’s really easy to get started with Shopify. Their website builder has a drag and drop interface that means even total beginners can create a great looking online store.
If you want to add extra features to your store, there’s an app marketplace with lots of add-ons that you can buy.
There’s 24/7 support available, through live chat, phone, email, and Twitter.
Shopify Payments (Shopify’s built-in payment gateway) charges 2.9% plus 30 cents per transaction. Since this is a built-in feature which has the same price as Stripe or other gateways, this makes it easier for users to get started.

Cons

If you use other payment gateways, like PayPal or Stripe, Shopify charges a 2% transaction fee. This is on top of the fee charged by the third-party payment gateway.
The free trial only lasts 14 days. After that, you’ll need to move onto a paid plan. The cheapest is $29/month.

Related: For more details see our comparison of Shopify vs WooCommerce.

6. Weebly

Weebly isn’t quite so well known as some other eCommerce platforms, like Shopify and WooCommerce, but they offer a free trial where you can test out the platform.

Pros

You can add any kind of physical or digital products to your store
The drag and drop interface is easy to use to build your site and manage items in your store.
There are around 100 different themes (designs) you can choose from, so you should be able to find something that’s just right for your site.
Built-in inventory, shipping, taxes management features.
As well as the community forum, the free plan gives you access to live chat, email, and even phone support.
If you do want to upgrade to a paid plan, these are affordable even for very small businesses. Ecommerce starter plan starts at $12 per month paid annually.

Cons

Weebly charges a 3% transaction fee. That’s in addition to the transaction fee that your payment gateway charges.
If you’re on the free or Personal ($9/month) plans, Weebly will show ads and branding from Square, Weebly’s parent company.
Even with the paid starter plan you are limited to sell only 25 products at a time.

7. Big Cartel

Big Cartel is a hosted eCommerce platform that’s designed especially for artists and creatives. If you want to have a store selling handmade products or similar, it could be a great option for you.

Pros

The free plan doesn’t have any transaction fees. You will need to pay Stripe or PayPal fees, though (these are the only options Big Cartel offers for payment processing).
Your free shop URL can be customized. It has to be in the format name.bigcartel.com, but you can choose whatever you want for the name. Many other platforms assign you a specific URL based on your username or store name and you can’t change it.
You can have up to 5 products on your free plan, which makes it more generous than other hosted free plans.
It’s quick to get your store set up and it’s easy to add your products. Big Cartel walks you step by step through the process.

Cons

If you want to customize your website theme, you’ll need to edit the theme’s HTML. This definitely isn’t as beginner-friendly as most other eCommerce platforms.
The free plan only has limited features. You need to upgrade to a paid plan if you want to use things like inventory tracking or discount codes.

Choosing the Best Free eCommerce Platform

So which is the best free eCommerce platform for you? That depends on what you’re looking for.

If you want to start cheap and have full freedom to grow your business, then WooCommerce is the best option.

Using our exclusive Bluehost deal, you can get started for $2.75 per month. That’s less than a cup of coffee.

If you want to use a totally free eCommerce platform, then Constant Contact website builder is easier and free. However, it is limited in terms of features and flexibility that you get with other platforms.

If you want to try out an online store for free, but you’re happy to pay for something that’s a good fit for your business, then BigCommerce and Shopify are great full-featured options.

We hope this article helped you learn about the best free eCommerce platforms to get started with. You may also want to see our guide on the best email marketing services and best live chat software for eCommerce, so you can increase your store sales.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post 7 Best Free Ecommerce Platforms for 2020 (Compared) appeared first on WPBeginner.

May 7, 2019

BigCommerce vs WooCommerce – Which One is Better? (Comparison)

Do you want to create an online store? Are you confused about whether to use BigCommerce or WooCommerce?

If so, then you’re not alone.

WooCommerce and BigCommerce are two of the most popular eCommerce platforms in the market. The competition is fierce, but both of them have their own pros and cons.

In this article, we will compare BigCommerce vs WooCommerce and show the differences between them, so you can choose the best platform for your needs.

What to Look for in Your eCommerce Platform?

Before we begin our WooCommerce vs BigCommerce comparison, let’s cover some important things to look for when choosing your eCommerce platform.

Ease of Use – The platform you choose should be easy to use and beginner-friendly, so you can quickly handle issues at the time of need.
Budget – If you want to start your store on a budget, then you should check the initial cost of starting a website. Also, check the recurring (yearly or monthly) expenses.
Payment Methods – Check if the platform supports the payment gateways you want to use. It is better to choose a platform that supports multiple gateways.
Scalability – Make sure that the platform has ability to scale up to meet your needs when your store grows.
Support – It should offer reliable support to solve any problem immediately.

These are the fundamental requirements that you need to consider when planning to start your eCommerce business. Besides these, you may need additional features to manage invoices, taxes, inventory management, shipping, SEO etc.

That being said, let’s compare how WooCommerce and BigCommerce stack up against these requirements.

Table of Contents – BigCommerce vs. WooCommerce

Overview
Ease of use
Cost comparison
Payment options
Integrations and addons
Scalability
Support
Conclusion: BigCommerce vs WooCommerce – Which is better?

Overview – WooCommerce vs BigCommerce

As we mentioned above, WooCommerce and BigCommerce are among the top eCommerce platforms on the market.

According to the eCommerce technology stats from BuiltWith, WooCommerce is the most popular eCommerce platform that covers 21% of the entire eCommerce market. The same report shows BigCommerce as the fifth popular platform used by 3% of the total eCommerce sites online.

If you compare the search terms ‘BigCommerce’ and ‘WooCommerce’ with Google Trends, then you can see a similar trend of ‘interest over time.’

WooCommerce saw a rapid growth in search trends, but in recent years BigCommerce is catching up. It still has a lot more catching up to do, but it is surely growing in popularity.

What is BigCommerce?

BigCommerce is a fully hosted eCommerce platform. It means that BigCommerce gives you a whole package of services including hosting, design, content, SEO, payments, and marketing features needed to create an eCommerce store.

It is therefore called software as a solution (SaaS) or all-in-one platform. You can create a BigCommerce store easily and quickly by purchasing a subscription plan.

The downside of using BigCommerce is lack of customization abilities because you will be limited to the tools available in the BigCommerce platform.

The biggest advantage comes with BigCommerce WordPress plugin which allows you to run a fully functional BigCommerce store along with your existing WordPress site.

What is WooCommerce?

WooCommerce is the most popular eCommerce plugin for WordPress. It helps you easily transform any WordPress blog or website into an eCommerce store easily.

To start a WooCommerce store, you need to buy and set up web hosting, install WordPress, WooCommerce, and different marketing tools yourself. The process may look somewhat complicated at first; however, it is not as complex as it sounds.

We will explain more about the user-friendliness of the two platforms in the next section below.

Ease of Use – BigCommerce vs WooCommerce

Choosing an easy to use platform has many benefits. For example, you can quickly make changes or fix issues, so you have plenty of time to spend on growing your business.

If you’re a non-techy user, then you want a solution that allows you to easily manage and run your online store without hiring developers.

Let’s compare BigCommerce vs WooCommerce to see which is easier to use.

BigCommerce – Ease of Use

With BigCommerce, starting and maintaining an eCommerce store is easy. Since it is a fully hosted platform, you don’t need to set up hosting or install any software. You also don’t need to think about security, backups, and performance issues.

To get started, you can simply sign up with their trial plan and set up your store in 3 easy steps. All you need to do is enter your email, contact address, your store’s name, and a few details about your store.

It takes a few minutes to setup a store on BigCommerce. Once done, you can see your BigCommerce dashboard with quick options to preview your store, add products, and customize.

You can start by previewing how it looks on the frontend. If you want to change its design, then you can change the theme or customize your existing theme with the available design options. After that, you can add products to it.

You can find all other settings and options in the admin panel on the right-hand side. It includes options to manage orders, products, customers, marketing, analytics, apps, and more.

If you are starting a completely new business, BigCommerce will provide you a subdomain for free. A BigCommerce subdomain name looks something like this: https://mystore.mybigcommerce.com.

If you want a custom domain name, then you can buy it directly from BigCommerce or any other domain name registrar.

If you run an existing WordPress site, then you use the BigCommerce WordPress plugin which allows you to run an eCommerce store along with WordPress.

You will be able to use BigCommerce to manage eCommerce while still using WordPress to manage your content.

WooCommerce – Ease of Use

WooCommerce is not a hosted platform like BigCommerce. It is a WordPress eCommerce plugin which you need to install in your WordPress website to work.

If you are starting a new store, then you need to buy a domain name and hosting account. After that you need to install WordPress and the WooCommerce plugin.

If you choose a WooCommerce hosting provider, then you will not need to install them manually because hosting services like Bluehost eCommerce hosting come pre-installed with WooCommerce.

For step by step instructions, see our guide on how to start an online store with WooCommerce.

Once WooCommerce is installed, you can get started by running the setup wizard. It helps you to quickly setup your WooCommerce store with basic things like creating pages, payments, currency, shipping, taxes, and more in a few minutes.

Once the setup is complete, you can start adding products to your store.

While that’s all you need to make an online store with WooCommerce, you will need to do more work to make your store powerful and useful.

You can change a theme to improve design and use WooCommerce plugins and extensions to add more eCommerce features.

Also, you need to take care of the security, backups, caching, and performance aspects yourself.

WooCommerce platform has a bit of learning curve in comparison to BigCommerce. Hence, BigCommerce is easier of the two platforms in comparison.

Winner: BigCommerce

Cost Comparison: BigCommerce vs WooCommerce

Another critical factor you need to consider while choosing your eCommerce platform is the cost of starting and maintaining your store. Let’s compare the cost differences between WooCommerce and BigCommerce.

What Is the True Cost of Using BigCommerce?

BigCommerce is a subscription-based eCommerce platform which comes with different pricing plans. There are mainly four pricing plans; 3 Essential plans for small businesses and Enterprise plan for large agencies.

The most basic plan is ‘Standard’, which is available for $29.95 per month. This price offers everything you need to launch your online store with a BigCommerce subdomain.

If you want to use a custom domain name, then you need to buy a domain name. You can buy a domain name directly from BigCommerce for around $12 per year or from any domain registrar.

All plans include no transaction fees, unlimited products, unlimited file storage, unlimited bandwidth, and unlimited staff accounts. However BigCommerce does have thresholds for your total sales. For example, the total sales limit for the ‘Standard’ plan is $50k per year.

If you’re making more sales, then BigCommerce will automatically upgrade your store to a bigger plan. In case you are already using their biggest Essential plan ‘Pro,’ they will charge you an additional $150 per month for each additional $200k in online sales.

In addition to these costs, you may need to spend more money if you want to use a premium theme and app. The paid BigCommerce themes cost a minimum of $170.

What Is the True Cost of Using WooCommerce?

WooCommerce is an open-source WordPress plugin which you can download and use on unlimited sites free of cost. However, you’ll need other paid services to set up a WooCommerce store.

First of all, you’ll need a domain name, a website hosting account, and an SSL certificate. Typically, a domain name costs $14.99 / year, web hosting around $7.99 / month, and SSL Certificate around $69.99 / year.

When these costs sum up, the total amount seems very expensive for small-budget startups. But thankfully, there are some hosting companies providing specialized WooCommerce hosting services at an affordable price.

Among them, Bluehost WooCommerce hosting is a remarkable option. Bluehost is an officially recommended WooCommerce hosting provider.

They are offering WPBeginner users discount on hosting + free domain name and SSL certificate. Basically, you can get started for just $6.95 per month.

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With a Bluehost eCommerce plan, the cost of starting an online store is a lot lower than any of the BigCommerce plans.

If you want to use a premium WooCommerce theme or paid extensions, your expenses will go up. But luckily, there are plenty of free WooCommerce plugins and free WooCommerce themes that you can use instead.

In conclusion, the WooCommerce platform is clearly a more cost-effective platform than BigCommerce when you’re first starting out.

Winner: WooCommerce

Payment Options: BigCommerce vs WooCommerce

There are many different payment providers companies in the market. Sometimes, the payment gateway may not be available in your region or your customers’ regions.

This is why it is crucial to choose a platform that offers the payment gateways you need. Let’s take a look at how BigCommerce and WooCommerece compare when it comes to payment integrations.

Payment Options in BigCommerce

BigCommerce offers plenty of payment options to let you accept payments. It has built-in native integrations with the best payment platforms in the industry, including PayPal powered by Braintree, Square, Adyen, Stripe, Authorize.net, and CyberSource.

The processing fee for debit and credit cards starts at 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction, but it decreases as your BigCommerce store grows.

Also, it has built-in integrations with popular digital wallets including PayPal, Amazon Pay, Masterpass and Apple Pay. Adding these trusted digital wallets to your store helps to significantly improve your mobile conversion.

Payment Options in WooCommerce

WooCommerce offers PayPal and Stripe payments by default. It also supports all major payment gateways through extensions and addons.

Because WooCommerce is an open-source platform, many regional and less popular payment services have also built an integration for WooCommerce. Therefore, you can find an integration for almost any payment gateway you want to use.

Winner: Tie

Integrations and Addons: BigCommerce vs WooCommerce

No matter how powerful an eCommerce platform is, the core software will always have a limited set of features.

That is when the integrations and addons come in handy. The most sought integrations for eCommerce websites are email marketing tools, lead generation, analytics, and outreach services.

Now, let’s take a look at where BigCommerce and WooCommerce stand in terms of available third-party integrations for each.

BigCommerce Addons and Integrations

BigCommerce comes with hundreds of third-party apps and integrations to help you add powerful features to your BigCommerce store. There are both free and paid addons available in the BigCommerce app marketplace.

It has six featured app collections categorized as must-haves, shipping essentials, design, marketing, and payments. You can quickly choose apps from these collections for your store.

Furthermore, there are dozens of apps in categories like accounting and tax, analytics and reporting, CRM and customer service, product sourcing, and more.

WooCommerce Addons and Integrations

WooCommerce is an open-source plugin built on top of the most popular content management system (CMS) software, WordPress. This gives you access to more than 55,000 free WordPress plugins and thousands of premium plugins.

You can find these plugins at the official WordPress.org plugin repository, official WooCommerce website, and plugin websites. The official WooCommerce extensions store contains over 250 free and premium extensions to extend your eCommerce features.

With such an extensive collection of plugins, you can get a plugin for almost any feature imaginable. There are plenty of choices for adding contact forms, lead generation forms, analytics, SEO, performance optimization, and more.

Most of the popular third-party services have built their own plugins to integrate with your WooCommerce store. Also, you can create a WooCommerce addon just for your store if you have coding skills or by hiring a developer.

Winner: WooCommerce

Scalability: WooCommerce vs BigCommerce

Scalability features are essential because you need more resources when your website grows. Let’s see how scalable WooCommerce and BigCommerce platforms are.

Scalability on BigCommerce

Since BigCommerce is a fully hosted solution, you don’t need to worry about any of the technical things like storage, backups, downtimes, updates, or security. As your business grows, you’ll need to upgrade your plan, and BigCommerce will handle the rest.

BigCommerce gives you a hassle-free solution to scale up your business.

Scalability on WooCommerce

WooCommerce is a self-hosted platform that makes you entirely responsible for managing resources, backups, updates, and security of your website.

Most of the top WordPress hosting companies allow you to upgrade your hosting plan to meet the needs of your growing website. However, the upgrading process can involve some confusing steps with some companies.

You can use a managed WordPress hosting provider like WP Engine that does make hosting WooCommerce easier.

In conclusion, both BigCommerce and WooCommerce have plenty of scalability options; however, BigCommerce may be a better choice for businesses looking for a hassle-free solution.

Winner: BigCommerce

Support: BigCommerce vs WooCommerce

Support is another critical factor you need to check out while selecting your eCommerce platform. You need instant and quality support.

Let’s see how you can get support on BigCommerce and WooCommerce platforms.

Support Options for BigCommerce

As a fully hosted platform, BigCommerce comes with excellent support options. You can access multiple support options right from your BigCommerce dashboard which includes phone support, email support, live chat support, community support, and more.

When you get into an issue, you can simply click on any of these options and request support. The BigCommerce support is available 24/7.

The BigCommerce help center is very helpful for finding answers to your questions. It has a rich knowledge base to help you properly use BigCommerce, Question and Answer community, and blog for the latest news on BigCommerce.

Support Options for WooCommerce

WooCommerce is a self-hosted platform, and there are several platforms where you can seek support for your store.

For WooCommerce core plugin related issues, you can visit the WooCommerce support forum on WordPress.org or the official WooCommerce website. In these support forums, you can see already solved problems and also post new issues.

WooCommerce website has a support page including highly extensive documentation, tutorials, and guides to let you find solutions by yourself.

If you have issues related to your WooCommerce theme and extensions, then you can get support from their respective developers. Your web hosting company will be responsible for helping with any server related issues.

Also, you can find plenty of WooCommerce related tutorials on WordPress blogs like WPBeginner. Due to its popularity, there are plenty of support options for WooCommerce.

Winner: BigCommerce

Conclusion: BigCommerce vs WooCommerce – Which is the better eCommerce platform?

BigCommerce and WooCommerce are both powerful platforms that you can use to start your eCommerce store. Since you have to choose one, it comes down to your technical skills, estimated budget, and personal preferences.

BigCommerce platform is a lot easier because it is an all-in-one solution. You don’t need to set up anything, and you can get started quickly.

They also manage everything from backups, security, and scalability, so it’s a true hassle-free solution.

The best part is that it works seamlessly with WordPress.

The downside of using BigCommerce is that you have limited control over your store. There are fixed pricing plans, limited themes and integration apps, and certain ways to scale up your business. You cannot use any tool outside the BigCommerce.

WooCommerce is a self-hosted platform that gives you full control over your website. You are free to compare pricing for different services and start with the best-priced plan. That is why you can start a WooCommerce store at a lot lower investment than on BigCommerce.

The disadvantage of using WooCommerce is the learning curve for beginners, and the scalability challenges that you face as you grow.

We hope this article helped you to compare the pros and cons of BigCommerce vs WooCommerce. You may also want to see our side-by-side comparison of Shopify vs WooCommerce.

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