BigCommerce Free Trial: The Ultimate Guide for 2024

BigCommerce offers companies a lot of the same benefits as Shopify, including excellent inventory management tools, flexible selling options, and exceptional scalability. Plus, BigCommerce gives business leaders a 15 day free trial they can use to test out all of the features of its incredible “Plus” package. That’s a lot longer than Shopify’s 3-day free trial.

The question is, how do you access that free trial, what can you do with it, and is there any way to extend the trial length (like you can with Shopify)?

Here’s everything you need to know if you’re thinking of launching an ecommerce store with BigCommerce, or migrating from another platform.

An Introduction to BigCommerce

BigCommerce is a highly versatile ecommerce platform, offering companies everything they need to design and promote an attractive website (with built-in templates), manage orders and inventory, and even scale sales across a variety of channels.

It’s similar to Shopify in a lot of ways, with a secure single-page checkout, included SSL certificates on all plans, marketplace and social media integrations, and support for a wide range of point of sale solutions (such as Square and Clover).

BigCommerce also has its own mobile app, gives you access to real-time shipping quotes, and allows you to choose from a range of payment gateways, without paying any transaction fees. You’ll even get unlimited staff accounts on any plan, and support for selling both digital and physical products.

However, all of the functionality you get from BigCommerce comes with a price. Packages range from $29 to $299 per month (paid annually), or $39 to $399 per month (paid monthly).

Even the basic plan can be pretty expensive if you’re not sure if BigCommerce is the right platform for you. That’s why BigCommerce allows you to “try” the platform before you pay for anything, with a 15-day free trial.

The Current BigCommerce Free Trial: What You Get

Currently, BigCommerce offers users a 15-day free trial, which includes access to all of the features you’ll get on the “Plus” plan (usually $79-$105 per month).

This means you’ll get all of the features you’d get on BigCommerce’s standard plan, plus a range of extras. This is BigCommerce’s way of encouraging you to choose a higher-priced plan later.

The free trial includes access to:

• Support for up to $180k in annual sales
• No transaction fees
• Unlimited staff accounts
• 24/7 support
• Integrations with popular payment gateways
• Special credit card rates via PayPal (2.5% +30c)
• A single page checkout
• Social media and marketplace integrations
• POS integrations
• A free HTPPs dedicated SSL
• The BigCommerce mobile app
• Real-time shipping quotes
• Coupons, discount rules, and gift cards
• Product ratings and reviews
• Processing fees from CommBank
• Abandoned cart saving
• Persistent cart
• Stored credit cards
• Customer groups and segmentation

How to Access the 15-Day Free Trial

Getting your free trial of BigCommerce is simple. All you need to do is visit the official BigCommerce website, visit the pricing page, and click on “Essentials”.

Then scroll down to the “Start Free Trial” button. Click it, and you’ll be taken to a page that asks for a few details about you and your business:

You won’t need to enter any credit card details. Once you’re done filling everything out, BigCommerce will “create your store”, and take you to your home dashboard. You can even sell products while you’re still using the free trial.

Can You Extend the BigCommerce Free Trial?

When I was researching BigCommerce for this review, I noticed a lot of people talking about 30-day, 45-day, 60-day and even 90-day free trials for BigCommerce. I couldn’t find any information about those extra trial options on the BigCommerce website, so I dove a little deeper.

In the past, it seemed like you could increase your 15-day free trial to a 30-day trial if you chose a specific BigCommerce Essentials plan. However, this doesn’t seem to be an option anymore.

Similarly, you could previously access a 60-day free trial from BigCommerce with a special affiliate link if you were signing up for the “Pro” plan (Usually $299-$399 per month). However, I couldn’t find an option to do this anymore either.

The only place where I could find information about a 90-day free trial, was on the Avasam website. When Avasam launched its integration and partnership with BigCommerce, it encouraged companies to sign up for both platforms at the same time, with a 90-day BigCommerce trial.

However, you need to create an account with Avasam to access this trial, and send a message to the service team to get an exclusive “code” to use with your BigCommerce store:

Outside of exploring these methods, the only way I think you’ll be able to extend your free trial is by contacting BigCommerce directly. Reaching out to the sales team and asking them for an extension might encourage them to give you a few extra days on your trial, but there’s no guarantee.

The Benefits of Using the BigCommerce Free Trial

Even if you can only access the BigCommerce free trial for 15 days, it still give you an excellent opportunity to explore the platform, and familiarize yourself with all of the features.

It’s definitely worth taking full advantage of that time in my opinion, as I think BigCommerce has a slightly higher learning curve than some of the other platforms I’ve reviewed.

Once you’ve signed up for your free trial, I recommend:

• Exploring the platform: Take some time to get used to BigCommerce’s dashboard, interface, and various features. You can experiment with settings, design your storefront, connect your website to other sales platforms, and even upload products information, saving you time when you decide to eventually launch your store.
• Taking note of the features you use: Since the free trial gives you access to BigCommerce Plus, it’s worth paying attention to whether you use any features on this plan that you would miss if you “downgraded” to the Standard package, such as the abandoned cart saver, or the customer group and segmentation options.
• Explore add-ons and integrations: Check out BigCommerce’s range of integration options for things like CRM systems, marketing tools, and POS solutions. While there aren’t as many integrations here as you’ll get from Shopify, there are still plenty of ways to extend your store’s functionality.

I’d also pay attention to how many sales you’re getting if you decide to start selling products immediately. Remember, BigCommerce places revenue caps on all of its plans, so if you expect to sell more than $50k a year, you’ll need more than just the Standard plan.

How to Set Up Your Store During the Free Trial

As I mentioned above, you’ll have unlimited access to many of BigCommerce’s features, including it’s website builder and selling tools on your free trial. So it’s worth taking this time to start setting up your store. Here are some of the key steps worth taking in your first 15 days.

Configure Your Store Settings

Before you do anything else with your BigCommerce store, head into your dashboard and click on the “Settings” tab. This will take you to an environment where you can enter and change various details about your store. At the very least, I’d recommend dealing with the initial “Setup” settings.

This means creating your store profile, choosing currencies and payment methods, selecting locations and pick-up methods, and implementing shipping and tax rules.

If you want to go a little deeper, you can continue scrolling through the settings page to alter things like your URL structure, inventory alerts, domain name, 301 redirects, and checkout details.

Start Adding your Products

Next, head into the “products” tab to start adding products to your website. BigCommerce will give you a handy list of example products you can access for insights into how to name your products, set stock levels, enter SKUs, and choose prices.

Keep in mind, it can take quite a bit of time to upload all of your product information, create categories and options, and choose price lists manually. If you already have a list of products, or SKUs, you can import them in bulk, which can save you a little effort.

Choose and Edit a BigCommerce Theme

Once your products are uploaded, you can choose a theme for your store, and start making changes to your site’s appearance. To do this, click on the “Storefront” tab, followed by “Theme marketplace”.

You can browse through themes relevant to your industry or desired features, and import them into your store’s dashboard. Then all you need to do is click on the “Themes” tab followed by the “Customize” button next to your theme to start making changes.

I’d also recommend exploring some of the other features in the “Storefront” section while you’re here. For instance, you can create home page carousels, update your logo, design a blog, and even start uploading gift certificate templates and images.

What to Do When the BigCommerce Free Trial Ends

BigCommerce shows you a handy countdown timer at the top of your dashboard on every page, so you can see exactly how much time you have left in your trial. If you don’t want to continue using the platform for ecommerce, you don’t actually have to do anything.

Since you haven’t entered your credit card details yet, BigCommerce won’t charge you anything when your trial runs out. However, your won’t be able to run or launch your store if you don’t upgrade. Eventually, all of your information will simply be deleted.

If you’re impressed by BigCommerce and its features, the only way to keep accessing the store you’ve begun to build is to select a paid plan.

The BigCommerce Pricing Plans

There are three core “paid plans” available for BigCommerce, and an Enterprise plan, which features custom pricing, depending on your needs. All of these plans include certain core features, like access to unlimited staff accounts, real-time shipping rates, and sitewide SSL.

However, there are some core differences between them too:

• Standard: $29 per month (annually) or $39 per month (monthly): Support for 50k in sales per year, unlimited products, file storage, and bandwidth. Unlimited staff accounts, integrations with a range of payment gateways, POS systems, and other tools.
• Plus: $79 per month (annually) or $105 per month (monthly): Support for $180k in sales per year, all the features of Standard, plus abandoned cart recovery, customer groups and segmentation, and 5 inventory locations.
• Pro: $299 per month (annually) or $399 per month (monthly): Support for up to $400k in annual sales, all the features of Plus, custom SSL certificates, Google Customer reviews, faceted search, and 8 inventory locations.
• Enterprise: Custom pricing: Unlimited annual sales, up to 50 inventory locations, advanced support, and broad customization options.

Ultimately, the right plan for you will depend on your required features, and how much revenue you’re planning to earn each year. If you exceed your revenue threshold, you’ll automatically be upgraded to a more expensive plan.

Are There any Limitations to the BigCommerce Free Trial?

I’d definitely advise anyone considering using BigCommerce to take advantage of the free trial first. It gives you an opportunity to get used to all the features and capabilities the platform offers, even if you only have 15 days to work with.

You can create and edit your storefront, upload products, and even sell items during your free trial, with no restrictions (aside from your annual sales limitations). However, you will be limited to the functionality offered by BigCommerce’s Plus plan.

This means you won’t have access to Google Reviews and faceted search, and you won’t get BigCommerce’s enterprise-level customer support. However, you’ll still be able to access support via phone, email, and live chat, if you have any issues.

Start your BigCommerce Free Trial

Whether you’re launching an online store for the first time, and you’re looking for a flexible ecommerce platform, or you want to migrate your store from another competing platform, BigCommerce’s free trial is a great way to discover what the platform can offer.

Although you’ll only get 15 days for free as standard, it’s still worth using that time to your advantage, to decide whether BigCommerce is right for you.

Plus, it’s worth keeping in mind that BigCommerce may choose to change its free trial offers in the future, so it’s worth taking advantage of the full 15 days while you can. There’s nothing stopping the company to reducing this trial to only 10 days, or 3 days, like Shopify.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)