Shift4Shop vs BigCommerce (2024): The Straightforward Comparison Guide

Shift4Shop vs BigCommerce: Which website builder and ecommerce platform should you choose for your growing business? Both of these tools have excellent reputations among online retailers, combining a host of intuitive features, with ease-of-use.

BigCommerce has a fantastic 4.2 rating on G2 (out of 5), and Shift4Shop isn’t far behind, with an average rating of 3.9. Additionally, both platforms have many of the same capabilities to explore, from built-in sales tools, to integrations with external apps, and dynamic website building templates.

So, how do you make the right choice? We’ve taken a deep dive into both platforms, to help you make the right decision for your ecommerce store.

Shift4Shop is the best option if…

You’re looking for an affordable, simple solution for ecommerce. Shift4Shop has a free plan available through “Shift4”, as well as hundreds of free themes to choose from, AI-driven fraud protection tools, and a convenient template editor. However it lacks some of the advanced capabilities and scalability offered by BigCommerce.

BigCommerce is the best option if…

You’re looking for a highly scalable and flexible ecommerce platform. BigCommerce is one of the most feature-rich website builders available, with built-in tools for marketing, analytics, omnichannel selling and more. It even supports headless commerce. Plus, the company has a great reputation for exceptional customer service, though plans can be a bit more expensive than those from Shift4Shop.

BigCommerce vs Shift4 Shop Quick Comparison Table

Overall, we recommend BigCommerce as the go-to solution for any business looking for a scalable, flexible, and intuitive ecommerce platform.

Here’s a quick run-down of how both platforms compared when we examined their ease of use, sales features, pricing, and more:

	BigCommerce	Shift4Shop
Ease of Use	Slight learning curve due to all of the in-built features, but the dashboard is cleaner and more intuitive than Shift4Shop’s.	Straightforward solution with step-by-step guidance to help get you started. However the dashboard can be a little complicated.
Design and Themes	Excellent range of themes with end-to-end customization options included. You can also edit CSS, HTML, and JavaScript	Broad selection of free and premium themes with HTML and CSS access.
Sales features	Support for multiple payment methods, multiple currencies, omnichannel sales, and tons of discounts and promotions.	Excellent range of payment options, customizable checkout, and integrations for order tracking tools.
Integrations and add-ons	App market, as well as support for API and SDK workflows, headless commerce and commerce as a service.	Decent selection of integrations, as well as a developer portal and REST API.
Marketing tools and SEO	Built-in SEO solutions for fast-loading pages, AMP pages, and building blogs and landing pages.	Excellent SEO capabilities, ultra-fast loading speeds, and customer segmentation for personalized marketing.
Pricing	Free plan in the US for customers using Shift4 to process $500 in transactions per month.	Plans starting at $39 per month for up to $50k in sales.
Customer Support	Self-help resources, chat, email, and phone support.	Chat, email, and phone support, plus extensive help center and unique self-help resources.

Ease of Use: Which Platform is Simpler?

The good news is that both Shift4Shop and BigCommerce are designed to be as intuitive and user-friendly as possible.

Shift4Shop was specifically created to help small businesses and entrepreneurs design an attractive website and storefront with minimal effort.

From the moment you sign up for a Shift4Shop account, the platform will provide you with useful resources, such as instructions and video tutorials to guide you through setting up your store. The backend dashboard is relatively clean and straightforward.

However, it’s worth noting the navigation menu can be a little complex at first, as certain sections (such as design) aren’t easy to find. Instead of having their own tabs, they’re hidden in other segments, like the “Settings” page.

On the plus side, Shift4Shop does have a fantastic drag-and-drop core theme editor, which allows you to change your brand colors, organize products and more without coding skills.

The simplicity of BigCommerce can depend slightly on which features you’re using. BigCommerce is an incredibly robust ecommerce platform, which includes access to headless commerce, multi-storefront solutions, international, and omnichannel sales tools.

Since there are so many tools already built into the platform, it can take a while to learn how to use all of the features effectively. However BigCommerce offers some fantastic resources for beginners, such as articles, guides, webinars, and even the “BigCommerce University”.

Once you sign up, you’ll get step-by-step instructions to help you get your site up and running. Plus, navigating the dashboard is simple, thanks to a clearly-labelled navigation menu. Plus, like Shift4Shop, BigCommerce offers access to a visual theme editor for site customization.

Design Tools and Themes

Both BigCommerce and Shift4Shop ensure companies can design highly professional and attractive websites, with minimal effort. Shift4Shop comes with access to dozens of premium and free themes, all built to with responsivity in mind for mobile users.

All themes are built on the Shift4Shop “core template engine”, which includes automatic integration of Google AMP for your product pages. Plus, these templates include optimized code for fast page loading times, and layouts designed to increase conversions.

The core theme editor makes it simple to customize your design, allowing users to change colors, fonts, and images as they see fit. Plus, you can access and edit your HTML and CSS files if you have the coding knowledge to do so.

In our opinion, BigCommerce far outperforms Shift4Shop when it comes to templates, themes, and design options.

There are hundreds of themes to choose from, organized by category and industry in BigCommerce’s theme store. Plus, with the visual editor, you can rapidly customize your site’s appearance and functionality with drag-and-drop tools.

BigCommerce also offers access to CSS, HTML, and JavaScript customization options, and all themes are automatically designed for mobile responsivity. You can even customize the checkout experience on BigCommerce, with server-to-server checkout APIs and SDKs.

Plus, BigCommerce has a fantastic Stencil CLI tool for previewing sites before publishing, and there’s even a WordPress integration if you prefer to build your site using another CMS.

One point worth noting is that BigCommerce’s premium themes can be a little more expensive than those available from Shift4Shop, but they also feature more integrated features and customization options to help your website stand out from the competition.

Ecommerce and Sales Features

If you’re looking for the best ecommerce tools, both Shift4Shop and BigCommerce have some unique features worth mentioning.

Shift4Shop comes with a conversion-optimized checkout experience, which you can customize to suit your needs. You can define what happens when a customer clicks the “add to cart” button, and create a fully unique purchasing journey.

You can also allow customers to save, view, and edit their shopping carts, reducing the risk of lost conversions. Companies can even create one-page, or three-page checkout flows, depending on their customer’s preferences, and allow users to create accounts, or leverage guest checkout tools.

Shift4Shop also has a built-in integration with Shift4 Payments, a payment provider that supports credit cards, debit cards, and alternative payment types like Apple Pay.

You can also set up eChecks, create custom payment types, and connect Shift4Shop to an in-person POS system.

What’s more, Shift4Shop includes options for shipping integrations and order tracking tools, tax automation software, and even automatic invoice follow-ups. Users can even send automatic “abandoned cart” emails to their customers.

While Shift4Shop offers a robust ecommerce solution to business leaders, BigCommerce is a lot more advanced. It supports B2B, B2C, omnichannel, and in-person sales strategies.

Plus, there are built-in payment processing tools that allow customers to pay using Google, Amazon, and Apple Pay, PayPal, credit and debit cards, and more.

With BigCommerce, companies can boost conversions with custom product recommendations and API merchandising tools. You can also create over 70 different native discounts and promotions, and sell across Amazon, eBay, and Google Shopping.

BigCommerce even integrates seamlessly with social media channels for social shopping. Plus, it supports multi-storefront management for businesses with multiple different stores.

BigCommerce also supports multi-currency and multi-language sales, cross-border fulfillment through integrations with tools like ShipperHQ, and B2B flexible payment methods.

Integrations and Add-Ons

Quick verdict: BigCommerce is the more flexible option, with hundreds of pre-built integrations, API access, unique SaaS solutions, and headless commerce. Retailers can even work with BigCommerce to create automated workflows based on their business needs.

If you’re looking for a way to align all of your sales, marketing, and business management tools, BigCommerce and Shift4Shop are both quite flexible. Shift4Shop has a developer portal and Rest API, which allows users to create automated workflows and connect different tools.

The platform also supports integrations with marketplaces like Etsy, dropshipping and print on demand tools, and Zapier. The Shift4Shop app store also includes access to tools like Tidio Chat, Klaviyo, GetResponse, and more.

Once again, however, BigCommerce edges just ahead of Shift4Shop in this category. The platform has a comprehensive app marketplace, where you can find pre-built integrations for tools like MailChimp, QuickBooks Online, and various fulfilment tools.

Plus, BigCommerce offers API access to developers, as well as “commerce as a service” options, and headless commerce tools. This means you can build an entirely unique experience with BigCommerce, that aligns with all of your sales goals and strategies.

Marketing Tools and SEO

When it comes to growing your online store, access to the right marketing tools is essential. Shift4Shop bakes search engine optimization components into its templates and platform.

All themes are mobile responsive and support AMP pages. You can also create a blog to help promote your website with content, and you can design landing pages and product guides.

Shift4Shop also allows you to create “buy buttons” for social media and other marketing strategies. Plus, it comes with tools for creating coupons and discounts to increase sales. You can also use integrations with tools like MailChimp to create comprehensive email campaigns.

BigCommerce offers all of the marketing features and SEO enhancements of Shift4Shop, and then some. For technical SEO, BigCommerce leverages the Google Cloud Platform and Cloudflare CDN for super-fast loading speeds.

You can create custom SEO-friendly URLs, robots.txt files, and metadata. Plus, there’s a faceted search solution to enhance user experiences.

To help strengthen your chances of sales, BigCommerce allows you to build customer groups and segments for your advertising campaigns, packed with useful data. You can produce and share content in multiple languages, and access in-depth reports and analytics to help increase your marketing ROI.

Plus, integrations with social media, as well as countless email marketing, landing page builder, and sales funnel tools all ensure you can grow your business with phenomenal speed.

Pricing Plans: Which Option is More Affordable?

So, which platform is the most affordable for store owners? Shift4Shop allows companies to create a site for their online business for free, provided they use the Shift4 payment processing service.

However, you do need to process a minimum of $500 through Shift4 each month. Plus, this plan is only available to merchants in the United States.

It’s also worth noting there are payment processing fees to consider here too, starting at 2.9% plus 30 cents per transaction. If you want to use a third-party payment processor like PayPal, plans start at $29 per month for the “Basic Store” option with 2 staff users, and unlimited products.

Information about the other plans is only accessible upon request, but the basic options include:

• Plus Store: $79 per month for up to 5 staff users, and all the features of Basic.
• Pro Store: $229 per month for up to 15 staff users and all the features of Plus.

All plans include unlimited bandwidth, API access, and 24/7 tech support. Plus, there’s a 10% discount if you pay annually, instead of monthly.

BigCommerce is a little more expensive, although you can save 25% by purchasing an annual plan. Options include:

• Standard: $39 per month for up to $50k in sales per year, no transaction fees, unlimited accounts for staff, 24/7 support, integrations with payment gateways, special card rates on PayPal, single page checkout, marketplace and social integrations, POS integrations and a free SSL. You also get real-time shipping quotes, the BigCommerce mobile app, product ratings and reviews, discount rules, gift cards, and more.
• Plus: $105 per month: All the features in the Standard plan for companies selling up to $180k annually. You also get advanced customer groups and segmentation, an abandoned cart saver and persistent cart, and stored credit card options.
• Pro: $399 per month: All the features of the Plus plan for companies selling up to $400k annually, as well as faceted search and a custom SSL.
• Enterprise: Custom pricing for all the features on the Pro plan, as well as custom product filtering, price lists, unlimited API calls, no selling limits, express routing, priority support, API support, strategic account management and more.

You can also build a comprehensive headless commerce solution with BigCommerce, the price for which will vary depending on your specific needs.

Customer Support

If you’re looking for extra support when leveraging your ecommerce software, both Shift4Shop and BigCommerce have some great resources on offer.

Shift4Shop’s website includes a comprehensive help center, dropshipping and selling guides, and a frequently updated blog. You can also contact the company via phone, or live chat.

BigCommerce has a massive help center, brimming with useful information, as well as its own podcast, webinars, videos, community forum, and blog. Plus, there’s the BigCommerce university for those who want hands-on training. You can also contact the team via live chat, phone, or email.

BigCommerce vs Shift4Shop: Final Verdict

Both BigCommerce and Shift4Shop are excellent tools for entrepreneurs looking to start or grow their ecommerce business. They both come with support for multiple sales channels, access to plugins and integrations, and powerful SEO tools.

However, BigCommerce is the more comprehensive solution overall, particularly for growing businesses, enterprise companies, and those in need of extra customization options.

Of course, you can always consider alternatives to both tools too, such as Squarespace, Magento, WooCommerce or Shopify.

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