Shopify vs WooCommerce vs BigCommerce: the sticker price is not the real cost

Almost nobody who picks an e-commerce platform based on the plan price ends up paying that price six months later. That's not cynicism, it's just how each of these three actually bills.

Shopify's subscription fee is only the start. Most real stores install 10 to 20 apps from the App Store, averaging $10–50/month each — a typical store's app bill alone runs $100–300/month on top of the plan. Then there's the transaction-fee structure, which scales with revenue: a store doing $200,000/year on the Basic plan pays roughly $4,000/year in transaction fees, invisible on the pricing page because it's a percentage, not a line item.

WooCommerce flips the model — the plugin itself is free, but you're buying your own hosting, themes, and effectively becoming your own sysadmin. Real-world total cost lands somewhere between $75 and $6,500 a year depending on store size, with hosting typically $25–100/month. The one structural advantage: WooCommerce **never takes a percentage of your revenue**, at any size, which matters enormously once a store is doing real volume.

BigCommerce sits in the middle at $39–399/month, hosted like Shopify but with **zero transaction fees on every plan** — its actual counter to Shopify's revenue-share model. The trade-off arrived this year: BigCommerce added a payment-provider fee in its 2026 pricing update that Shopify doesn't charge, and it auto-upgrades your plan once you cross a revenue threshold, whether or not you asked for the extra features that come with it.

| | Base price | Where the real cost hides |
|---|---|---|
| Shopify | plan fee + tx fees | app subscriptions ($100–300/mo typical) |
| WooCommerce | free plugin | your own hosting + dev time |
| BigCommerce | $39–399/mo | new 2026 payment-provider fee, forced upgrades |

None of these three is objectively cheaper — they're built for different levels of technical involvement. Shopify if you want the most polished ecosystem and are willing to pay in apps and transaction fees for it. WooCommerce if you or someone on your team can manage hosting and want to avoid revenue-based fees permanently. BigCommerce if you want Shopify's hosted simplicity without the transaction-fee model, and can live with a pricing structure that still finds other ways to grow with your revenue.