BigCommerce vs Mercado
BigCommerce
bigcommerce.comMercado
mercado.africaSide by side
| Figure | BigCommerce | Mercado |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $29/mo | $15,000/mo |
| Free plan | — | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| iOS | Yes | — |
| Android | Yes | — |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 5 | 5 |
| Spec score · Ecommerce platforms | 9.2 (#8) | 8.9 (#34) |
| App marketplace | Yes | Yes |
| Free plan | No | Yes |
| Hosting model | hosted | hosted |
| Inventory locations | 8 | 50 |
| Payments | BigCommerce supports 250+ local payment methods across 100+ countries and 65+ payment providers, including 20+ embedded providers without added fees. | Supported payment methods listed are Paystack, Flutterwave, Stripe, bank transfer, cash and mobile money. |
| Sales channels | omnichannel | Merchants can sell through a storefront, WhatsApp, POS terminal, and marketplace using the same catalog, prices, and inventory. |
| Transaction fee | varies | The homepage states a fee of 1.4% + ₦50 per transaction and says the core free tier requires no card. |
| What it does | BigCommerce is an open ecommerce platform that helps businesses build, manage, and scale online stores. | Mercado presents itself as an African commerce operating system combining storefront, ledger, inventory and payments. |
Plans
BigCommerce
- Core$29 a month
- Growth$79 a month
- Scale$299 a month
- Performance$1,499 a month
- PerformancePriced on request
Mercado
- Growth$15,000 a month
- Scale$75,000 a month
- EnterprisePrice not published
- StarterFree
- EnterprisePriced on request
In their own words
BigCommerce
BigCommerce is a hosted ecommerce platform for building and managing online stores. Store design tools include templates, drag-and-drop editing, real-time collaboration, and storefront customization. Merchants can manage multiple brands, regions, and customer segments from one backend, and synchronize products across channels such as Google, Meta, TikTok, Amazon, and eBay. The platform supports digital products, abandoned-cart recovery, and eight inventory locations. Payment support includes more than 250 local methods across over 100 countries and more than 65 providers. B2B features include customer-specific pricing, quotes, purchase orders, invoicing, net terms, buyer accounts, and company hierarchies. Other offerings include AI product-content generation, AI discovery across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Copilot, and Catalyst, a composable storefront framework built on Next.js and React. BigCommerce advertises over 1,200 apps and integrations. Plans start at $29 a month when billed annually, and a 15-day trial is available. If users do not upgrade, store data is kept for 90 days after the trial before deletion.