Making the work
Growing an audience
Running the business
Both cover digital products & storefronts and monetization & payments. Here is what separates them on price, billing, what you can take with you, and coverage.
A hosted store priced against how much you sell
A store that bolts onto a site you already have
BigCommerce | Ecwid | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price (they differ) | From $29 | From $5 |
| Pricing model (they differ) | Free trial, then paid | Paid subscription |
| Free tier | No | No |
| Billing | Not stated | Not stated |
| Free trial | Not stated | Not stated |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Data export |
Shaded rows are where the two answers disagree and both listings have answered. A row where one side has not stated a fact is left plain, because silence is not a difference.
A hosted store priced against how much you sell
BigCommerce is a hosted storefront whose tiers are drawn around sales volume rather than around features, so the question at signup is what a shop turns over rather than which capabilities it needs. Crossing a tier's ceiling moves the account up on its own, which is worth knowing before the first busy quarter. The platform adds no transaction fee of its own on top of the payment provider's. Anybody below the first threshold is paying for headroom they will not use for a while.
Our note
The automatic upgrade is the thing to plan for, because a good quarter moves you a tier without anybody approving it and the jump from $29 to $79 arrives at $30,000 of sales. Compare with Shopify on the card rate rather than the subscription, since that is where the two platforms actually differ.
A store that bolts onto a site you already have
Ecwid adds a shop to a site that already exists rather than asking anybody to rebuild on a new platform, which is what makes it the answer when the site is fine and only the selling is missing. It will also stand on its own with an included site builder and a free subdomain. Plans are separated by product count first: ten on the cheapest, a hundred on the next. Selling through Instagram and Facebook, the mobile management app and automated tax all start one tier above the entry plan.
Ratings are the average of reviews readers left. The facts are stated by each tool’s own listing and are not verified by CloutStack. How we make money.
| Not stated |
| Not stated |
| Their cut | Not stated | Not stated |
|---|
| Runs on (they differ) | Web | Web, iOS, Android |
|---|
| Covers | Digital Products & Storefronts, Monetization & Payments | Monetization & Payments, Digital Products & Storefronts |
|---|
| Works with | Nothing in particular | Nothing in particular |
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| Founded | Not listed | Not listed |
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| Reader rating | No reviews yet | No reviews yet |
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| Live deals | None right now | None right now |
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Our note
Count your products before choosing, because the jump from ten to a hundred is the whole difference between the first two tiers and it is not a soft limit. If the shop is going to be the main event rather than an addition, pay for Shopify or BigCommerce now instead of migrating in a year.