Shopify vs Squarespace vs BigCommerce 2024 – Which is Best?

If you’re looking for a reliable Shopify vs Squarespace vs BigCommerce comparison, you’re in the right place.

Here, we’re pitting these three ecommerce giants head to head to see who comes out on top.

However, if you don’t have the time to read my entire review, here’s the bottom line:

Shopify vs Squarespace vs BigCommerce Comparison Chart

1. Our pick:
   
   Full Review

   Features	10/10
   Ease of Use	9/10
   Pricing	9/10
   Templates & Design	9/10
   Inventory	9/10
   SEO & Marketing	8/10
   Payments	9/10
   Security	9/10
   Customer Support	10/10

   More details

   Free Trial, From $39, SEO Friendly, Offline Store, App Store, 24/7 Support

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2. For large businesses:
   
   Full Review

   Features	8/10
   Ease of Use	7/10
   Pricing	8/10
   Templates & Design	8/10
   Inventory	7/10
   SEO & Marketing	8/10
   Payments	8/10
   Security	9/10
   Customer Support	8/10

   More details

   Free Trial, From $29.95, Built-In Blog, SEO Friendly, App store

   Visit site
3. Best for small business:
   
   Full Review

   Features	8/10
   Ease of Use	7/10
   Pricing	8/10
   Templates & Design	9/10
   Inventory	6/10
   SEO & Marketing	5/10
   Payments	8/10
   Security	7/10
   Customer Support	8/10

   More details

   Free Trial, From $8, Mobile Friendly, Free custom domain, 24/7 Support.

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Shopify vs Squarespace vs BigCommerce at a Glance

	Shopify	Squarespace	Wix
Value for money winner: Shopify	Shopify only has a three-day free trial. However, charging $1 monthly for the first three months is enticing.	Squarespace has a 14-day free trial, low transaction fees, and affordable pricing tiers	Although a 15-day free trial is generous,  BigCommerce’s pricing is on the expensive side.
Ease of use winner: Squarespace	Shopify is easy to use, and its dashboard is intuitive.	Squarespace’s latest drag-and-drop editor allows complete design freedom and is effortless to use. Plus, its dashboard is easy to navigate.	BigCommerce is also easy to use but has a steeper learning curve – especially for beginners.
Design winner: Squarespace	Shopify offers 12 free themes and a range of paid-for ones – all of which are customizable. However, Shopify’s editor isn’t drag-and-drop. Plus, design customization is relatively limited to the scope of your chosen theme.	Squarespace offers 100+ stunning free themes, and its editor is simple to navigate. However, if you use Squarespace 7.1, you can’t switch templates (whereas you can with Shopify and BigCommerce).	BigCommerce offers a drag-and-drop builder plus 12 free themes and 200+ paid-for themes.
Sales features winner: BigCommerce	Shopify provides a solid range of sales features, including POS, product analytics, waitlists, customizable automated emails, and more.	Like its competitors, Squarespace offers POS, product reviews, product status, and staff permissions to help you manage your store.	BigCommerce has the most potent sales features. Plus, you can manage multiple storefronts from one dashboard.

Shopify vs Squarespace vs BigCommerce: Pros and Cons

Shopify Pros and Cons

Squarespace Pros and Cons

BigCommerce Pros and Cons

Which Is the Most Cost-Effective?

🏆 Winner: Shopify

When assessing the cost-effectiveness of any eCommerce platform, there are two things to consider:

1. Recurring monthly/annual subscription fees
2. Transaction fees

We’ll discuss each in turn. Unfortunately, we don’t have time to explore what’s included in each plan, but I’ll provide ‘further reading’ resources that cover that.

Shopify

Shopify Pricing Breakdown

Free trial	Subscription Plans	Transaction Fees
At the time of writing, Shopify offered a three-day free trial. After that, your first three months are just $1 a month.	Basic: $39 a month or $29 a month if you opt for annual billing Shopify: $105 a month or $79 a month if you opt for annual billing Advanced: $399 a month or $299 a month if you opt for annual billing Although the above packages are Shopify’s primary subscription plans, Shopify also offers the following: Starter: $5 a month Retail: $89 a month Shopify Plus: Starting at $2,000 a month Commerce Components: Contact Shopify for a custom quote	Basic: 2.9% + 30¢ for online transactions and 2.7% + 0¢ for in-person Shopify: 2.6% + 30¢ for online transactions and 2.5% + 0¢ for in-person Advanced: 2.4% + 30¢ for online transactions and 2.4% + 0¢ USD for in-person

Further Reading

• Shopify Pricing Plans and Fees 2023: Which One is Right for You?

Squarespace

Squarespace Pricing Breakdown

Free Trial	Subscription plan costs	Transaction fees
Squarespace offers a 14-day free trial on all its plans with no credit card details required.	Personal: $23 a month or $16 a month if you opt for annual billing Business: $33 a month or $23 a month if you opt for annual billing Commerce Basic: $36 a month or $27 a month if you opt for annual billing Commerce Advanced: $65 a month or $49 a month if you opt for annual billing	As you can’t sell online via the Personal plan, transaction fees don’t apply.  Business: 3%  Commerce Basic: 0% Commerce Advanced: 0%

Further Reading

• Squarespace Pricing Plans (2023) – Which Squarespace Pricing Plan Should I Pick?

BigCommerce

Free Trial	Subscription plan costs	Transaction Fees
BigCommerce has a 15-day free trial.	Standard: $39 a month or $29 a month if you opt for annual billing Plus: $105 a month or $79 a month if you opt for annual billing Pro: $399 a month or $299 a month if you opt for annual billing Enterprise: Contact BigCommerce’s sales team for a custom quote	BigCommerce doesn’t charge extra transaction fees on the 55+ payment providers it integrates with.  However, if you wish to accept customer payments via Braintree, the rates are as follows: Standard: 2.59% + $0.49 Plus: 2.35% + $0.49  Pro: 2.05% + $0.49  Enterprise: 2.05% + $0.49

Further Reading

• BigCommerce Pricing Plans (2023): How Much Are You Going to Pay With BigCommerce

Which Is Easier to Use?

🏆 Winner: Squarespace

It’s worth highlighting that Shopify, Squarespace, and BigCommerce all boast straightforward CMSs, intuitive dashboards, and easy-to-use website editors.

However, upon further research users seem to find Shopify and Squarespace easier to learn and use than BigCommerce. However, this might be because, by comparison, BigCommerce is built with scalability in mind, and as a result, isn't as beginner-friendly as Shopify and Squarespace.

Adding Products

When adding products to your Shopify, Squarespace, or BigCommerce store the process is pretty easy.

Shopify users just go to the ‘Products’ tab on the left-hand menu, select ‘Add product,’ fill out the product details, and click ‘Save.’

You can then keep an eye on your product and sales data from Shopify’s easy-to-view dashboard.

For Squarespace users just click the ‘Selling’ tab on the left-hand menu, and select the kind of product you wish to sell:

• Physical
• Service
• Download
• Gift card
• Member site
• Video on demand
• Scheduling
• Course

Then follow the on-screen prompts to complete the product listing (product name, description, images, prices, categories, tags, etc).

Lastly, for BigCommerce users, navigate to the control panel and select ‘Products’, followed by ‘Add.’ You can then add your product's details (including any info about product variants or modifiers). It’s also worth noting you can import products in bulk via a CSV file.

Designing

Each builder has a different approach to design:

Unfortunately, Shopify doesn’t offer a drag-and-drop editor. Instead, the look of your online store is somewhat restricted to your chosen theme (unless you have coding smarts to make granular customizations).

To modify the look of your Shopify theme, head to your Shopify Admin. Then, select ‘Online Store’ followed by ‘Themes.’ Now hit ‘Customize.’ From here you can adjust your content, layout, colors, typography, etc.

Elsewhere, with Squarespace, if you opt to use its most recent version (7.1), you can use the Fluid Engine website builder. This allows you to place blocks anywhere on a fully flexible grid (even overlapping with other blocks).

You can also:

• Resize blocks on the page
• Create two layout designs- one for desktop users and the other for mobile (You can toggle between the two).

Lastly, with BigCommerce you can build web pages using its drag-and-drop builder. Just grab a web page element and drop it wherever you want it to appear. It’s pretty intuitive and really flexible.

Which Has the Better Design Capabilities?

🏆 Winner: Squarespace (but not if you want to change templates)

All three builders offer a choice of free and paid-for themes in a range of designs, colors, layouts, and so on.

With each platform, themes are organized into industry categories (more on that below). In addition, Squarespace themes are categorized by the type of website you’re trying to create, e.g. a blog, online store, and so on.

Where free themes are concerned, Shopify users can access 12 free themes boasting an ample variation of layouts, colors, and style options. On top of that, Shopify also has over 140 paid themes, typically requiring a one-off payment ranging from $150 to $390. You can switch themes anytime.

Themes are categorized by the following industries:

• Food and drink
• Arts and crafts
• Clothing
• Electronics
• Services
• Pet supplies
• Home and garden

…and lots more.

You can also filter through the themes according to various features like:

• Layout style
• Age verifier
• Infinite scroll
• Sticky header
• EU translations
• Countdown timers

…and lots more.

All of Squarespace’s 100+ templates are free to use with any subscription plan and are created by ‘world-class’ designers.

Squarespace’s templates are organized into the following categories:

• Online Store
• Portfolio
• Memberships
• Blog
• Scheduling
• One Page
• Courses
• Services

Alternatively, you can search for templates by industry:

• Art and design
• Photography
• Health and beauty
• Personal and CV
• Fashion
• Professional services
• Local business
• Community and non-profits
• Food
• Entertainment
• Travel
• Restaurants
• Media and podcasts
• Events
• Weddings
• Real estate and properties
• Home and decor
• Nature and animals
• Fitness

With regards to switching templates, that isn’t possible with Squarespace version 7.1

Like Shopify, BigCommerce also offers 12 free themes plus more than 220 paid ones. These typically require a one-time payment of $195 – $400.

Themes are organized into industries:

• Animals and pets
• Arts and crafts
• Automotive and industrial
• Books and entertainment
• Electronics and computers
• Fashion and jewelry
• Food and beverage
• Gifts and specialty
• Health and beauty
• Home and garden
• Sports and recreation
• Toys and games

Which Has the Best Sales Features?

🏆 Winner: BigCommerce

Shopify: Key Sales Features

• Search and discovery: Speedy site search and discovery features help shoppers find relevant products.
• Subscriptions: Sell subscriptions to enable customers to receive products on a recurring basis.
• Discounts: You can create discount codes, set up automatic discounts, and discount individual products.
• Pre-orders: Sell products that aren’t available yet
• Try before you buy: Ship orders before collecting payment and then charge customers at a pre-set date in the future. 
• Draft orders: You can create a draft order and send it to shoppers as an invoice.
• Tokengated Commerce: Use NFTs and smart contracts to provide specific customers exclusive products and discount access.
• Shop app: This is a free tracking app developed by Shopify that customers can download and use on their iOS and Android devices.
• Product analytics: Review insights into product performance over the last 90 days.
• Omnichannel sales: Promote products on Google Shopping, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and more.
• Sales reports: Monitor sales over time, per product, or by channel.
• Staff permissions: If you have a team, you can grant them permissions to use specific Shopify features. 
• POS: Sync payments, inventory, and customer info, plus offer local pickup.
• Donations: Create a new product named ‘Donation’ and set the price as the donation amount.
• Customer reviews: After a customer purchases a product through the Shop app or your online store, they can leave a product review on the Shop app.
• Customer notifications: You can customize the automated emails sent to your customers. 
• Accounting: You can export sales data as a CSV file directly from the Shopify admin. 
• While Shopify doesn't have an in-built tool for displaying stock and availability badges, it does provide the flexibility to customize your theme's code to achieve this.
• Shopify doesn't have an in-built waitlist feature. However, several apps in Shopify’s App Store can help you manage waitlists for out-of-stock items. 

Squarespace: Key Sales Features

• Search block: Add search fields to your site to help visitors find what they’re looking for.
• Related products: Suggest related products for customers to explore.Subscriptions: Sell subscriptions to enable customers to receive products on a recurring basis.
• Discounts: Create discount codes, offer free shipping, and set automatic discounts to market individual products/product categories.Invoices: Send branded invoices to customers via email.
• Order tracking: If you added a tracking number to a fulfilled order, you can check its shipping status from your site admin or the Squarespace app. Alternatively, customers can track orders from the info in their shipping confirmation email or customer account.
• Customer notifications: Customize automated emails 
• Sales analytics: Track sales by product, purchase funnel, and abandoned cart over set time periods. 
• Staff permissions: Assign your team permissions to limit access to areas relevant to their workDonations: Add a donations block to your site to collect and manage donations.
• Product reviews: Collect and publish customer reviews
• Product status: Display stock and availability badges on your product pages
• Waitlists: Manage waitlists for out-of-stock products
• Omnichannel sales: Promote products on Google Shopping, Facebook, and Instagram
• POS: Collect in-person customer payments with Square and the Squarespace app.
• Customer notifications: Customize automated emails sent to your customers.  
• Accounting: Download sales data as an Excel file.
• Buy now, pay later: Offer customers Afterpay or Clearpay payment options so they can shop now and pay later in installments.

There's no built-in feature to accept pre-orders for out-of-stock products.

BigCommerce: Key Sales Features

• Site search: Use a built-in search to allow shoppers to easily find products on your store. 
• Related products: Upsell five related products to the one the customer’s looking at.  
• Discounts: Create customer coupons, including bulk promotions.
• Invoicing: Customize invoices and automatically send them to customers after a purchase. 
• Pre-orders: This feature can also also be used to accept backorders.
• Buy now pay later: Offer interest-free PayPal Pay Later as a ‘buy now, pay later’ payment option. 
• Order tracking: Customers can check their order’s progress via a link sent via email
• Built-in reports: Generate 11 different reports on a range of topics, including shopper behavior and merchandising. 
• Permissions: Assign permissions to multiple users to help you run your store.
• Product reviews: Use BigCommerce’s built-in comment system to showcase and manage customer reviews. 
• Omnichannel sales: Create and manage several unique storefronts from your BigCommerce dashboard. You can also sell on Amazon, eBay, Walmart, Facebook, and Instagram
• BOPIS: BigCommerce offers APIs and UI to enable you to offer customers a ‘Buy Online, Pickup in Store’ option 
• Customer notifications: Customize automated store emails (like confirmation notifications)
• Accounting: Download sales data as an Excel file
• Product status: Display stock and availability badges on your product pages
• There isn’t a built-in waitlist feature. However, you can manage waitlists via an integration with Waitlist Manager.
• Similarly, BigCommerce doesn’t have a native donations feature, but this is doable via the Shopping Gives app integration

Shopify vs Squarespace vs BigCommerce: My Final Thoughts

So that brings us to the end of my Shopify vs Squarespace vs BigCommerce review!

As you might have guessed, this battle doesn’t have one clear winner. It really depends on what you’re looking for. So, here’s a quick recap to help you decide:

You should use Shopify if you want:

• A popular all-rounder
• An easy-to-use platform offering 12 free themes
• Access to lots of in-built features
• Access to an extensive Shopify app store

You should use Squarespace if you want to:

• Access to a wide selection of free and attractive themes
• Ample design freedom using an intuitive drag-and-drop website editor
• Book customer appointments, manage donations, and more.

You should use BigCommerce if you want:

• To run multiple online storefronts from one dashboard
• A platform that focuses on in-depth, in-built eCommerce tools
• Launch an omnichannel sales strategy (that includes Walmart)
• Offer pre-ordering to your customers.

Have you decided between Shopify vs Squarespace vs BigCommerce? Let us know in the comments below.