This Volusion vs BigCommerce review will look at features, pricing, and services to determine which hosted shopping cart solution is the best deal. In comparing Volusion and BigCommerce there are a number of similarities but few apparent differences. This can make it hard to choose whether Volusion or BigCommerce will be the best deal for your website. When it comes to a hosted shopping cart comparison the key differences that are going to make or break the deal are pricing, features, and service so we will start by seeing how Volusion compares with BigCommerce in each of these three areas.
Volusion pricing starts at $15/mo, if you choose to purchase a domain name (highly recommended for any serious business website) that will be an extra $7.99 per year. Accepting credit cards is another issue, at Volusion you can apply for a Authorize.net account for free and you don’t have to pay any setup fee, you will have processing fees per transaction, as determined by Authorize.net. An SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate for payment security is also highly recommend and will cost an extra $79 per year if you choose a Volusion SSL. Volusion does offer a 14 day free trial so that you can test out the software, see how the management system works and make sure that you are going to have all the features and maintenance options you need. There is no setup or transaction fee with this basic Volusion Mini plan.
To compare BigCommerce pricing starts at $24.95/mo. To get a new domain name or transfer an existing domain name to BigCommerce will cost you $12.27 per year. For accepting credit cards BigCommerce is partnered with PayLeap, the Starter plan is $14.95/mo with the $99 setup fee currently waived. A 2.48% transaction fee an .45 cent per transaction fee will apply. The Starter plan includes your payment gateway, merchant account, and fraud tools. SSL certificates are offered by Volusion through GeoTrust. A Standard GeoTrust QuickSSL certificate for one year is $79. BigCommerce also offers a free trial for 15 days.
Conclusion of Volusion verses BigCommerce pricing, BigCommerce appears cheaper at a glance but when you add in the price of domain name registration, a plan for accepting credit cards (essential for any business selling products online), and an SSL certificate you are looking at a grand total for a year of BigCommerce: $570.07 in comparison Volusion for one year is $434.99 (pricing includes one year of monthly payments, 1 year domain name registration, ability to accept credit cards, and an SSL certificate for one year). Volusion beats BigCommerce pricing by more than $130!!
Features comparison of Volusion vs BigCommerce. The main difference to pay attention to in overall features is how many products you can list and how much data transfer you have. This affects how many products you can have in your online store and how much traffic your website is going to be able to handle. At Volusion you can have up to 100 products and will have a 1 GB data transfer fee. BigCommerce also allows up to 100 products and 2 GB of bandwidth. One of the biggest issues we have most often found discussed in forums is free templates and design. Both BigCommerce and Volusion offer free website templates but it is generally thought that the BigCommerce templates are better quality, more up-to-date and easier to customize. Volusion templates are more what you see is what you get. Many Volusion users feel that the Volusion templates are out-of-date and hard to customize.
In the last section of our Volusion vs BigCommerce review and comparison we will look at customer support. Volusion boasts a 24/7/365 live phone, live chat and email support. Most Volusion customer support reports say that the Volusion phone support is good for general issues, the ticket support is more spotty and very technical support is sometimes lacking. BigCommerce does not have 24/7/365 live support but is hoping to be there soon. BigCommerce live support hours are currently 7AM-9Pm Central time Mon-Friday and 9AM-2PM on Saturdays. BigCommerce talks a lot about the training that all of their customer support staff goes through and we really didn’t find much in way of complaints about BigCommerce customer support, usually a pretty good indication that it is decent. When people have a bad experience they like to tell about it!
Overall conclusion from our BigCommerce vs Volusion review is that Volusion is cheaper and offers all the basic features of BigCommerce. If you need cheap and aren’t too worried about a lot of technical help or the latest store design, go with Volusion. If you can afford the extra $100 for better templates and more technical support you may want to consider BigCommerce. Both Volusion and BigCommerce offer a decent hosted shopping cart solution. Use our links below for the best price on Volusion and BigCommerce.
