If you’ve got a Bigcommerce website you should be aware of some upcoming price changes to the price plans that they offer. BigCommerce say that around 80% of Bigcommerce merchants will not see a change in current monthly pricing, or will enjoy an actual decrease. That does of course leave around 1 in 5 merchants facing a raise in their fees.
The reason for the change is historically Bigcommerce plans failed to take into account merchant growth. They say that they have a number of merchants who started off on their basic plan paying $30 a month who have grown their businesses and now turn over $10m-$30m in annual sales. Maintaining service for these users has a cost which far outweighs the fees that they currently pay and according to Bigcommerce reduces their ability to invest in new features for all users.
To address the situation, Bigcommerce will eliminate transaction fees but will introduce an order cap based on the trailing 12 month period. If a merchant grows beyond the order cap then they’ll be automatically upgraded to the next plan.
The Bigcommerce standard plan costing $29.95 will have a 12 month order cap of 500. The Plus plan allows for up to 1000 orders in a 12 month period at a cost of $79.95 and a new Pro Plan costing $199.95 will come with 1000 order increments. There will also be an Enterprise plan with fees and growth adjustments on a negotiated basis.
Bigcommerce point out that since fee calculations are based on a trailing 12 months, seasonality shouldn’t result in merchants being forced to upgrade based on peak sales, only when their business grows to require further investment.
Merchants on Enterprise plans may already have been contacted by Bigcommerce. Other merchants will start to receive communications in Q1 of 2016. If you’ve paid annually for a plan you won’t see a change until your plan expires.
We know that fee changes will always upset those who are facing an increase in their monthly invoices and it’s likely that a proportion of Bigcommerce merchants will face a reasonably large fee hike under the new plans. If that’s you then it’s time to add up the value that you receive from Bigcommerce and consider the alternatives. Whilst any increase in costs is undesirable it may well turn out that sticking with Bigcommerce is still value for money.
A full statement from Brent Bellm, Bigcommerce CEO, is available on the Bigcommerce forum, although you’ll need to register and log in to view it.
8 Responses
This post is not only 3 weeks late it’s inaccurate as of Monday this week. They have now said the first two plans have an annual turnover limit of $50k and $125k. Once you go over $125k you’re on the pro plan which is $200 per month for the first 2000 orders based annually and then $80 per month for each additional 1000 orders. So if you do 3000 orders a year you’re looking at a monthly fee of $280!
Of course it could all change as they seem to be making it up as they go along. Totally unprofessional! How a $250k turnover business is being compared to a $10 million one is bizarre.
I can’t see anything about this on their website. I am considering a BigCommerce store and investing the time and effort into setting it up. Should I reconsider if they are being less than fully transparent on pricing?
BigCommerce informed me my fee is increasing from $24.95/mth to $1080/mth. This isn’t a type-o.
I’m now building out a WooCommerce webstore so nothing like this ever happens to me again.
Big Commerce has sent us an offer that is 69 times what we are currently paying. I could understand increasing our price by 5 times based on our current value, but this is insane. We do 93% of our business B to B. Merry Christmas from Big Commerce
As Paul says, Big Commerce definitely seem to be making this up as they go along. I only found out about it when I spotted it on their forum today. No email or anything – I guess if I hadn’t spotted it, I’d have just had a big shock when they took the payment.
How $80 per 1000 orders isn’t just a variation on the transaction fees they claim not to charge is beyond me ! It’s also a bit naughty of them to make this announcement at a time when they know we’ll all be too busy to immediately do anything about it.
Like so many E-Commerce businesses, ours is based on a high volume, low ATV model, and margins can be pretty tight. So I guess I should be thankful that our projected increase is “only” likely to be from $150 to $629 a month.
I make that about £4000 a year at today’s exchange rate, which should cover the cost of moving to an alternative platform.