Elastic Path vs Mercado
Elastic Path
elasticpath.comMercado
mercado.africaSide by side
| Figure | Elastic Path | Mercado |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | — | $15,000/mo |
| Free plan | — | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | — |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 20 | 5 |
| Spec score · Ecommerce platforms | 9.2 (#9) | 8.9 (#34) |
| Company legal name | Crunchbase lists the legal name as Elastic Path Software Inc. | The site footer identifies the maker as Mercado Commerce, Inc. |
| Free plan | No | Yes |
| Hosting model | hosted | hosted |
| Integrations | Composer provides managed no-code integrations, low-code integration building, workflow orchestration, monitoring, and alerts. | The site names Paystack, Flutterwave, Stripe, MTN MoMo, WhatsApp, Instagram catalogs, Okta, Azure AD and Google SSO/SAML. |
| Payment integrations | The pricing page names Stripe, Adyen, PayPal, and Worldpay as supported payment service providers, with no processor surcharge stated. | Mercado lists Paystack, Flutterwave, Stripe, bank transfer, cash, and mobile money, with split settlement, partial refunds, and automatic journal reconciliation. |
| Product | Elastic Path describes its offering as composable commerce software for commerce businesses. | Mercado describes itself as a commerce operating system for Africa that combines storefront, ledger, inventory, and payments. |
| Sales channels | omnichannel | Merchants can sell through a storefront, WhatsApp, POS terminal, and marketplace using the same catalog, prices, and inventory. |
| Security | Elastic Path says it has completed a SOC 2 examination and offers a third-party report describing its security practices. | Official security claims include audit archiving, AES-256 encryption at rest and in transit, PCI-DSS processing through certified processors and an EU data-residency option. |
| Transaction fee | none | The homepage states a fee of 1.4% + ₦50 per transaction and says the core free tier requires no card. |
| What it does | Elastic Path provides a composable, headless, API-first commerce platform for complex B2B and other digital commerce models. | Mercado presents itself as an African commerce operating system combining storefront, ledger, inventory and payments. |
Plans
Elastic Path
- Entry — order basedPrice not published
- Professional — order basedPrice not published
- Enterprise — order basedPrice not published
- Entry — GMV basedPrice not published
- Professional — GMV basedPrice not published
- Enterprise — GMV basedPrice not published
- Subscriptions + EntitlementsPriced on request
- Subscriptions + Entitlements add-on$0.50, paid once
- Entry (GMV-based)$49,500 a year
- Entry — GMV Based Pricing$49,500 a year
Mercado
- Growth$15,000 a month
- Scale$75,000 a month
- EnterprisePrice not published
- StarterFree
- EnterprisePriced on request
In their own words
Elastic Path
Elastic Path is composable commerce software for businesses that sell across channels. Its modular capabilities are available through APIs and can be used separately or together. The platform lists B2B tools for account hierarchies, quoting, pricebooks, rule-based catalogs, buyer tools, and dynamic bundles, alongside Intelligent Commerce features such as MCP servers, an AI storefront builder, semantic search, and agents. Composer supports managed no-code integrations, low-code integration building, workflow orchestration, monitoring, and alerts. It names Stripe, Adyen, PayPal, and Worldpay as payment providers and states there is no processor surcharge. Self-Managed Commerce can run on-premise, in a customer’s cloud, or through Elastic Path Managed Hosting. Listed Entry pricing is $49,500 a year, either for up to $5M GMV per year or up to 15,000 orders per year. The platform also lists unlimited SKUs, catalogs, storefronts, brands, and business users, with no per-seat fees. Elastic Path was founded in 2000.