BigCommerce vs SamCart Comparison 2026
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
Checkout pages built for testing offers
At a glance
- BigCommerce starts cheaper, at $29.
- Neither has a free tier.
Side by side
BigCommerce | SamCart | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price (they differ) | From $29 | From $79 |
| Pricing model (they differ) | Free trial, then paid | Paid subscription |
| Free tier | No | No |
| Billing | Not stated | Monthly or annual |
| Free trial | Not stated | Not stated |
| API | Yes | Not stated |
| 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.
BigCommerce
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.
SamCart
Checkout pages built for testing offers
SamCart is a checkout designed to be tested: one-page carts, order bumps, upsells taken after the card has cleared, and recovery mail for the ones who left. It sits beside whatever hosts your product rather than replacing it, which is why people run it alongside a course platform. Courses are on the entry plan now, and used to be an upgrade.
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.