Category pricing · Ecommerce platforms and operations
Ecommerce platform pricing — Shopify, BigCommerce, and the operations stack
The marketing-website monthly price is a small fraction of the real bill once transaction fees, payment processing, and the operations stack are added.
28 tools in this category. Every row in the table below links to the full per-tier pricing page for that vendor, with hidden fees, recommended tier by team size, and tier-jump pain spelled out.
About Ecommerce platforms and operations
Ecommerce platform pricing has two layers. The store layer (Shopify, BigCommerce, Wix Commerce) prices on tier + transaction-fee + payment-processing — the headline per-month number is misleading because Shopify Basic at 39 USD per month adds 2 percent to every payment that doesn't run through Shopify Payments. The operations layer (subscription billing on Recharge or Stripe Billing, inventory on Cin7 or Linnworks, shipping on ShipStation or Shippo, returns on Loop) prices on order volume, SKU count, or shipment count. The pages below show the headline tier on each platform plus the transaction-fee math for stores doing 10K, 100K, 1M USD per month so you can see the real all-in cost rather than the marketing-website price.
28 ecommerce platforms and operations compared
Entry-tier price below is the cheapest paid per-seat or per-month tier each vendor publishes. Custom-quote tiers and usage-based add-ons aren't included; click any tool to see the full per-tier breakdown.
Best for
- DTC founders choosing between Shopify, BigCommerce, and headless
- Operations teams sizing subscription billing, inventory, or returns SaaS
- Finance teams modelling the full ecommerce stack cost at projected GMV
What to evaluate
- Headline per-month tier and the included GMV / order ceiling
- Transaction fee on each tier and whether the vendor's payment processor is required
- App-store / extension cost (often the dominant line on Shopify)
- SKU and order-count ceilings on each tier
Frequently asked questions
What does Shopify really cost at 100,000 USD GMV per month?
Shopify Basic is 39 USD per month base. At 100K USD GMV per month, using Shopify Payments, the credit card fee is 2.9 percent + 0.30 USD per transaction (about 2,900 USD on a 100K month), and there is no platform transaction fee. Using a third-party payment processor adds 2 percent platform fee on top of the processor's own fee, which on 100K is an additional 2,000 USD per month — usually enough to make Shopify Payments the right choice. Shopify Plus (the next major step) is 2,500 USD per month with platform fees waived.
Is BigCommerce cheaper than Shopify above 1M USD GMV?
BigCommerce has no platform transaction fee on any tier, which makes it structurally cheaper than Shopify (Basic / Shopify / Advanced) for merchants who can't use Shopify Payments. The crossover where BigCommerce Pro (399 USD per month base, no transaction fee) beats Shopify Advanced (399 USD per month base, 0.5 percent platform fee on non-Shopify-Payments transactions) is anywhere above 80K USD per month of non-Shopify-Payments volume.
What does a subscription billing platform like Recharge actually cost?
Recharge Standard is 99 USD per month base + 1.25 percent of subscription transactions + 0.19 USD per transaction. For a subscription business doing 50K USD per month in subscription revenue, that's roughly 99 + 625 + per-transaction fees, landing around 800-900 USD per month. Stripe Billing is 0.5 percent of recurring charges with no monthly base, often a cheaper alternative below 50K USD per month in subscription revenue but lighter on the merchandising features.