BigCommerce Pricing in 2026: Plans, Fees and Real Costs

Last updated: June 2026

BigCommerce offers four plans in 2026: Core at $39 a month ($29 with annual billing), Growth at $105 ($79 annual), Scale at $399 ($299 annual), and Performance with custom pricing from $1,499 a month billed annually. But the subscription is the smallest part of what changed.

On June 1, 2026, BigCommerce cut its revenue caps by up to 44% and introduced a payment provider fee of up to 2%. This guide breaks down every number.

In this post, you will learn:

• What actually changed in the June 1, 2026 restructure
• How the new GMV caps force plan upgrades earlier
• Who pays the new Open Payment Provider Fee, and how to avoid it
• How BigCommerce now compares against Shopify on real cost
• Whether to stay, restructure payments, or migrate

Key takeaways:

• Headline prices barely moved. The real cost moved into fee mechanics.
• GMV caps fell from $50K to $30K and from $180K to $100K. The same revenue now forces an upgrade one tier earlier.
• Orders processed outside the embedded gateway list now pay up to 2%.
• Taxes and delivery charges count toward the cap that decides your plan.
• The no transaction fee pitch against Shopify is over. The two platforms are now priced almost identically.

Where did the costs actually move?

The plans you knew are gone. Standard, Plus, Pro, and Enterprise are now Core, Growth, Scale, and Performance. The revenue thresholds that force plan upgrades were cut by 40-44%, and a new Open Payment Provider Fee of up to 2% now applies to orders processed outside an approved gateway list. BigCommerce published the full mechanics in its 2026 plan and pricing update, which I cite throughout this guide.

Shero Commerce is a BigCommerce partner as well as a Shopify Premier agency, so we have skin on both sides of this comparison.

When a platform keeps the sticker price flat and moves the cost into fees and thresholds, most merchants do not notice until the invoice changes. This guide walks through every number so you know in advance.

The June 1 restructure in plain terms

Three mechanics changed at once. Each one looks small on its own. Together they reshape what BigCommerce costs at every revenue level.The three mechanics of the June 1 restructure at a glance.

First, the plan names and tiers. Standard became Core, Plus became Growth, Pro became Scale, and Enterprise became Performance. Performance now has a published starting point of $1,499 per month billed annually, where Enterprise pricing used to be entirely quote-based.

Second, the sales caps dropped. The entry-tier cap fell from $50,000 to $30,000, and the mid-tier cap fell from $180,000 to $100,000. The same revenue that kept you on a $79 plan last quarter can now push you to a $299 plan.

Third, the no transaction fee promise that set BigCommerce apart for years, now has conditions. Orders processed through an approved Embedded Payment Provider carry no platform fee. Orders processed through anything else pay 2% on Core, 1% on Growth and 0.6% on Scale.

That is the single biggest change in this update, and I cover it in depth below.

One more housekeeping note. The parent company rebranded to Commerce.com in August 2025. The BigCommerce product name and platform did not change, so do not let the corporate name throw you when reading investor or press coverage.

BigCommerce plans and pricing in 2026

Here is the full plan structure as published on the BigCommerce pricing page as of June 2026. Annual billing saves roughly 25% on the three self-service plans.

The live BigCommerce pricing page on June, 2026, annual billing toggled. Source: bigcommerce.com/pricing.

Core: $39 a month, $29 annual

The entry plan for stores under $30,000 in trailing twelve-month GMV. You get unlimited products, staff, and bandwidth, plus reviews and a blog out of the box. Support is chat and email only, with a paid phone add-on coming.

• Watch for: the 2% open provider fee, the highest rate on any tier.
• Watch for: no customer groups, no abandoned cart recovery, no stored cards.

Growth: $105 a month, $79 annual

The plan most stores land on, covering up to $100,000 in GMV. It unlocks segmentation, abandoned cart recovery, stored cards, and 24/7 phone support. This is the tier where BigCommerce earns its keep for a small store with steady revenue.

• Watch for: the cap that used to sit at $180,000 now sits at $100,000.
• Watch for: a 1% fee on orders settled outside the embedded list.

Scale: $399 a month, $299 annual

Built for stores past $100,000 in GMV. It adds product filtering and Google customer reviews, and replaces hard upgrade jumps with a continuous overage: $33,333 of monthly GMV is included, then 0.9% above that. I break the overage math down later in this guide.

• Watch for: the overage line is not discounted by annual billing.
• Watch for: auto upgrade to Performance near $2 million in trailing GMV.

Performance: custom, from $1,499 a month

The enterprise tier, billed annually on contract. It is the only plan with Price Lists for B2B custom pricing, a structure we covered in our BigCommerce B2B Edition review, and the only one where the open provider fee negotiates to zero. The published starting price is new, and I'd suggest you use it as a negotiation anchor.

• Watch for: B2B custom pricing lives here and nowhere else.
• Watch for: contract terms decide your real rate, not the published number.

Monthly versus annual pricing across the four 2026 plans. Performance is custom quoted with a published starting price.

Two things stand out. The self-service ladder still starts cheap, and the jump from Growth to Scale is steep.

A merchant crossing $100,000 in trailing twelve-month GMV nearly quadruples their base subscription overnight. That cliff used to sit at $180,000.

The new GMV math forces upgrades earlier

BigCommerce plans are assigned based on the trailing twelve-month gross merchandise value (GMV). Per their official FAQ, GMV is now calculated as your gross order value minus 10%, and eligible sales include product price net of discounts plus taxes and delivery charges. Marketplace and social orders from Amazon, eBay, Facebook, and Pinterest count toward the total.

To reiterate, taxes and delivery charges count toward the cap that decides your plan. A store selling $28,000 in product can cross the $30,000 Core threshold on tax and freight alone.

Forced upgrade thresholds before and after June 1, 2026. The mid-tier cap fell 44%.

When you exceed your cap, the upgrade is automatic. You get notified and moved to the next plan. There is no opt-out and no published grace period.

On the upside, BigCommerce replaced the old hard jumps at the top of the ladder with a continuous overage on Scale, which I will get to shortly.

The Inclusive GMV definition from the official BigCommerce plan update FAQ, captured June, 2026.

One detail from that FAQ deserves its own line. The 10% reduction factor is itself new.

It moved from 3% as part of this change, which means the number BigCommerce calculates will not match your own records or your processor reports. Check your dashboard against your cap before the change goes into effect.

Here is the practical math I run with clients. A store doing $95,000 in product sales with an 8% average tax and $7,000 in delivery revenue grosses roughly $109,600.

Apply the 10% reduction and GMV lands near $98,600. That store sits within $1,400 of a forced move from $79 a month to $299 a month.

Bottom line: track your GMV the way BigCommerce calculates it, not the way your processor reports it. The two numbers now diverge by design.

The Open Payment Provider Fee ends the no transaction fee era

For a decade, the BigCommerce sales pitch leaned on one line: no transaction fees, unlike Shopify. As of June 1, that line needs an asterisk.

BigCommerce maintains a list of roughly 21 Embedded Payment Providers, including BigCommerce Payments, Stripe, Adyen, PayPal Braintree, PayPal Complete Payments, Klarna, Affirm, Afterpay, Amazon Pay, Checkout.com and Worldpay. Orders settled through any of these carry no platform fee.

Orders settled through any provider not on that list pay a monthly fee billed directly to you, not your shoppers. The rate is 2% of eligible order GMV on Core, 1% on Growth, and 0.6% on Scale. Performance merchants may be able to negotiate it to zero under contract.

Annual platform fee per $100,000 of GMV processed through a gateway outside the embedded list.

One nuance from the official FAQ that most coverage missed: the fee is attributed per order, to the provider that actually processed it. Offering an embedded provider as a checkout option does nothing if the shopper pays through an open one. A store offering PayPal Wallet alongside cards on NMI still pays the fee on every NMI order.

Per-order fee attribution from the official BigCommerce plan update FAQ, captured June 12, 2026.

So who actually pays it? Most B2C merchants on Stripe, PayPal, or BigCommerce Payments will pay nothing. The merchants exposed chose BigCommerce specifically because it supported their gateway:

• Regulated verticals like CBD and firearms on specialty processors
• B2B sellers on niche or industry-specific gateways
• International merchants settling through regional providers

These are exactly the segments BigCommerce courted with its open payments positioning. The list can also change over time, and updates apply to future orders. A gateway that is free today is not guaranteed to stay free.

Moreover, BigCommerce did not hide the strategy. Austin Comer of BigCommerce, responding publicly to the criticism in the company's June 2026 pricing explainer, described the move as a long-term bet on “going narrower and deeper with our payment partners” rather than maintaining wide but shallow integrations with every provider in the market. Commerce.com argues that fewer, tighter integrations mean better checkout experiences and conversion.

That is a legitimate product strategy, and Comer is right that depth beats breadth in payments engineering. It is also the end of payments neutrality as a BigCommerce differentiator, and the company is pricing that change rather than just announcing it.

When a platform publishes a fee schedule for the behavior it wants to discourage, take the schedule at face value.

The conclusion is that the fee is avoidable for most stores, but avoiding it means letting BigCommerce pick your payments partner. That tradeoff is the real price.

What each plan unlocks

The feature breakdown carried over from the old structure, with one notable change at the top. Here is where the differences sit now.

The Price Lists restriction is the one B2B merchants should fully understand. Custom pricing per customer group, the backbone of wholesale selling, still requires the top tier. If your B2B revenue depends on negotiated pricing, your starting cost on BigCommerce is now a published $1,499 a month.

Shopify went the opposite direction in April 2026 and now includes B2B company profiles, catalogs, volume pricing and payment terms on every plan from $39, with a three-catalog cap below Plus and unlimited catalogs on Plus. We covered the structure in our Shopify B2B platform guide.

Phone support also moved. Core merchants get chat and email only, with a paid phone add-on coming. Growth and above keep 24/7 phone support.

One more limit worth knowing before you pick a tier. Inventory locations scale with the plan, from four on Core to eight on Scale, which constrains merchants running multiple warehouses or retail stores on a lower tier.

How the Scale overage model works

The old Pro plan charged $150 per month for every $200,000 of revenue above its cap. Scale replaces that with a smoother formula. The plan includes $33,333 of GMV per month, and GMV above that line is charged at 0.9%.

As an example, a store doing $60,000 in monthly GMV pays the $299 base plus 0.9% of the $26,667 overage, about $240.

Total platform cost ends up being near $539 for the month. At $100,000 in monthly GMV, the overage runs about $600, and the total cost passes $899.

The overage interacts with annual billing in a way most merchants miss. The 25% discount applies to the $299 base, not to the overage line, so a high-overage store saves proportionally less by prepaying the year. Model both lines before committing to twelve months.

Scale auto upgrades to Performance once trailing 12-month GMV exceeds roughly $2 million. At that point, you are in custom contract territory, and the published $1,499 starting price can become your negotiating anchor.

In my experience negotiating enterprise SaaS agreements, when there's a published number, it helps the merchant. Use it.

What a BigCommerce store really costs to run

The subscription is the smallest line on the invoice for most mid-market merchants. Here is where the rest of the money goes.

Themes and design

BigCommerce includes free themes, and paid marketplace themes run $150 to $400 as a one-time purchase. A custom Stencil theme built from a developer typically runs $2,000 to $10,000 for theme work alone, and full custom site builds for mid-market merchants run $20,000 to $80,000+, depending on integrations.

Apps

BigCommerce includes more out of the box than Shopify at comparable tiers, including reviews, real-time delivery quotes, and a page builder. The gap narrows as you grow. Past roughly $1 million in revenue, most stores I audit use paid tools for email, search, subscriptions, and personalization regardless of platform, at $300 to $1,500+ on average a month combined.

Payments

Processing rates are now negotiated with your provider rather than pre-packaged through a single Braintree deal. Budget 2.5 to 2.9% plus 30 cents for standard card volume, less at scale. Add the Open Payment Provider Fee if your gateway sits outside the embedded list.

Support and maintenance

Hosting, security patching, and PCI compliance stay bundled in the SaaS fee, which remains a genuine advantage over self-hosted Magento or WooCommerce. Ongoing agency support retainers for a growing store range from $2,000 to $10,000 per month, depending on scope. Those ranges hold across platforms, and we publish the Shopify side of them in our Shopify pricing guide.

Estimated annual run costs for a $1M GMV store on Scale. Agency scope, not the subscription, drives the total.

BigCommerce vs Shopify pricing in 2026

The honest comparison is closer than either platform admits. Shopify charges $39, $105, and $399 per month for its core plans, according to the Shopify pricing page, with Plus starting at $2,300 per month on a three-year term. BigCommerce now mirrors those self-service prices almost exactly.

The structural difference that survives the restructure is the cap mechanism. Shopify never forces a plan change based on your revenue. BigCommerce does, twice, before you reach $100,000 in GMV.

For a fast-growing brand, that means your platform cost on BigCommerce is a function of your success rather than your feature needs.

The gateway penalty is now a wash. Both platforms charge you for processing payments outside their preferred payment gateways.

The difference is that Shopify has run this model for years and priced it into its ecosystem, while BigCommerce merchants chose the platform partly to avoid it. For the full architecture comparison beyond pricing, see our Shopify vs BigCommerce comparison and the deeper TCO analysis.

Shopify also gets something back for that fee: Shop Pay. A Shopify-commissioned study by a Big Three consulting firm found Shop Pay lifts conversion by up to 50% against guest checkout and beats other accelerated checkouts by at least 10%, a network of saved buyer identities BigCommerce has no answer to.

Bottom line, the platforms now match on advertised price. The differences that decide your bill are the caps, the B2B restrictions, and the app gap.

When BigCommerce still wins on price

I will argue against my own thesis for a moment, because the restructure does not make BigCommerce a bad platform.

If you process through Stripe, PayPal, or BigCommerce Payments, the new fee never touches you. If your revenue sits comfortably inside a tier, the caps never touch you either. A stable $60,000 store on the Growth plan pays $79 per month, billed annually, and gets segmentation, cart recovery, and phone support that Shopify packages differently.

The published Performance starting price of $1,499 also undercuts Shopify Plus at $2,300, and BigCommerce still allows more flexibility on checkout customization and URL structure at the enterprise tier without extra fees. Multi-storefront remains strong. If you run several brands on one contract and your gateways are embedded, BigCommerce Performance can be the cheaper enterprise seat.

Multi storefront is the other quiet win, with one correction to the conventional wisdom. Shopify Markets now runs regional storefronts, localized pricing, and translated catalogs under a single subscription, so international expansion alone is no longer a reason to pick BigCommerce.

The advantage that survives is distinct brands. A holding company running three or four separate brands on self-service plans keeps them under one BigCommerce account and one contract, where Shopify requires a separate store for each brand below Plus.

Still, catalog flexibility remains a BigCommerce strength across plans. Shopify now allows 2,048 variants per product, compared to BigCommerce's 600, but still caps each product at 3 options, whereas BigCommerce has no option cap and supports unlimited modifiers for customizations like engraving. Complex option structures do not force an upgrade on their own. Revenue does.

So, what does this all mean? Stores between $30,000 and $180,000 in GMV that just lost headroom, and any merchant on a niche gateway. If that is you, the economics genuinely changed this month.

Stay, restructure, or migrate

Now that you made it so far, what happens next? Three moves, depending on where you sit.

If your gateway is embedded and your GMV has headroom, stay. Switch to annual billing for the 25% saving and revisit at your next growth inflection.

If you are paying the open provider fee, restructure payments first. Moving settlement to an embedded provider is almost always cheaper than 1-2% of GMV, unless your vertical makes the niche gateway mandatory.

If the caps or the B2B restrictions are forcing you upward, run the migration math. A forced jump to Scale or Performance often costs more annually than a one-time replatform. Our Shopify migration cost guide breaks down what that one-time number really looks like.

The decision framework we walk through with merchants evaluating the restructure.

Conclusion

Here is my prediction, and you can hold me to it. By mid 2027, the embedded provider list will shrink rather than grow, and the open provider fee rates will look like the minimum, not the maximum.

Platforms that publish a fee mechanism rarely retire it. Price your next two years on BigCommerce against that assumption, not against the 2025 brochure.

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