BigCommerce Web Development Company: BigCommerce Development Services, Web Design, Migration and Developers to Hire

Updated October 2026 · Written and maintained by the Progression Agency strategy team

A BigCommerce web development company turns a hosted platform into a store that fits your catalog, your price lists and the systems behind your orders. This page covers BigCommerce development in the order a store gets built: whether the platform fits, Stencil theme development, BigCommerce web design for category, product and checkout pages, apps and integrations, B2B and headless options, migration from Magento, Shopify or WooCommerce, and how to hire a BigCommerce developer or an agency. We build ecommerce sites on BigCommerce and Shopify, with no partner revenue from either, and we scope every store in writing before work starts.

What does a BigCommerce web development company do?

A BigCommerce web development company designs, builds and connects a store on BigCommerce’s hosted platform. The work of a BigCommerce development company runs from the theme and templates through catalog data, apps and integrations, the move from a previous platform and the checks before launch. The sections below follow that order.

What a BigCommerce development agency builds

A BigCommerce development agency typically delivers a theme with the templates your catalog needs, the data loaded into the store, integrations with the systems that hold stock, prices and orders, a migration when the store comes from another platform, and launch checks. Each item is named in a written scope, so you can see what is included and what is left out. Our ecommerce development services page covers the platform-neutral version of the same work.

Merchants this page is written for

The reader is a business that sells online: a retailer with a large catalog, a brand selling direct, a wholesaler with buyer accounts, or a company running more than one storefront. Some already sit on BigCommerce and want better templates or fewer slow apps. Others are on Magento, Shopify or WooCommerce and are weighing a move. Everyone here is a business owner or an ecommerce lead.

Build, SEO and platform choice are three separate jobs

Building the store, earning search traffic to it and choosing the platform in the first place are different pieces of work with different people. Search work lives on our BigCommerce SEO services page, and the choice between platforms is laid out in BigCommerce vs Shopify. This page picks up once the decision is made and a store has to be built, changed or moved.

Why choose BigCommerce? When the platform fits a store

People ask why use BigCommerce when other hosted platforms exist. The platform fits best when the catalog is large, products carry many variants, or buyers need their own prices, because those needs are built in rather than bolted on.

Large catalogs, many variants and B2B price lists

A store with thousands of products, several options per product and different prices for different buyers puts weight on the data model and the pricing rules. BigCommerce keeps price lists and a catalog API in the platform, so a developer can load and adjust that data without a pile of extensions. The side-by-side comparison, including where Shopify is the better pick, is on our BigCommerce and Shopify comparison.

Is BigCommerce open source? What hosted SaaS means for your code

No. BigCommerce is software as a service, and its own article on open source ecommerce draws that line, calling only Catalyst, its headless framework, open source. In practice you own your theme files and can export your catalog, customers and orders, but you do not own or host the platform core. That removes server patching and also removes the option to edit the platform itself.

When another platform is the better answer

A small catalog with standard checkout often does better on a simpler hosted plan, and a store that depends on WordPress content may belong on WooCommerce. Read about a Shopify ecommerce agency, a Magento development company or a WooCommerce development company before you commit. We say so in the first call when another platform serves the business better.

BigCommerce development services: what the work covers

BigCommerce development services fall into six kinds of work, from theme changes to integrations. The table shows what each one changes and what usually prompts the request, and the sections after it take the main ones in turn.

BigCommerce theme development on Stencil

BigCommerce theme development happens in Stencil, which the platform describes in its Stencil documentation as its Handlebars-based theme engine. Developers install the Stencil CLI to edit and preview a theme locally before anything touches a live storefront, then push the finished theme to the store. Good BigCommerce Stencil theme development starts from the reference theme, changes templates deliberately and keeps the diff small so later updates stay manageable.

BigCommerce custom development: scripts, widgets and Page Builder

BigCommerce custom development usually means three things. Scripts, added through Script Manager or the Scripts API, handle analytics, chat and similar tags. Widgets pair a JSON configuration with a Handlebars template. Page Builder then lets the merchandising team place those widgets by dragging them, which is how a banner or product row changes without a developer.

Integrations with ERP, PIM, OMS, payments, shipping and tax

An integration is a project inside the project, so a scope names each system and the direction of every data flow: does the ERP push stock to the store, does the store push orders to the ERP, who wins when two prices disagree. Our live scope wording gives each integration its own allowance instead of folding them into one number. For the back-office side see ERP development.

What programming language does BigCommerce use?

Stencil themes use Handlebars templates, with custom Sass for styling and JavaScript for behavior. Data work goes through the REST Catalog API, which covers products, categories, brands and bulk pricing rules, and through the GraphQL Storefront API, which headless storefronts are built on. Catalyst, the headless storefront framework, is a Next.js and React application. Details are in the Sass guide, the Catalog API and the Storefront API pages.

BigCommerce web design: what a BigCommerce web designer works on

BigCommerce web design is design that fits how the platform builds pages: templates for categories, products, the cart and content, each with limits on what can change. A BigCommerce web designer works inside those limits and knows which ones to push on and which to leave alone. BigCommerce website design is judged on the pages shoppers actually use.

Category, product and brand templates

Category pages decide whether a buyer finds the item, so filters, sort order and mobile controls get the most attention. Product templates carry the variant picker, media, stock messages and the custom fields that show specifications. Brand pages and landing pages come last. A designer should hand over the templates as components the merchandising team can reuse, not as one-off layouts.

The checkout: what can be changed and what cannot

The default is BigCommerce’s Optimized One-Page Checkout, and its settings cover guest checkout, order comments, address autocomplete, the coupon field, terms acceptance and similar options. Its styling can be edited, though BigCommerce asks that class names stay and elements are not nested. Deeper change goes through the Checkout SDK, which BigCommerce warns may affect PCI-DSS compliance. We never promise a fully custom checkout.

BigCommerce website designer or a general web designer?

A general designer can make a handsome page that the platform then cannot build. A BigCommerce website designer already knows the template set, the theme limits and what Page Builder can hand to editors afterward. If the store is part of a wider brand build, pair the platform specialist with ecommerce website design and UI and UX design so layouts and templates are worked out together.

How a BigCommerce web design company runs a store build

A BigCommerce web design company that works well in writing runs a store through the same nine stages we publish on website design and development: discovery, architecture, content plan, design, build, content production, QA, redirect mapping, and launch with verification. For BigCommerce store development, catalog work sits inside the first two stages and integration work inside the build.

Catalog and data model before design

Decide what a product is before anything is drawn: which attributes are options, which are custom fields, how categories nest and which customer price tiers exist. Designs drawn first tend to break when the real data arrives. Our ecommerce development services page treats the same step platform-neutrally; here it decides the template list.

Templates, theme build and data loading in parallel

Once the model is fixed, the theme is built on a development copy while the catalog is loaded in rehearsal imports. Running them side by side shows problems early, such as an option that does not fit a filter or an image set that is too heavy for a category page. The final import is repeated at launch with fresh data.

Checking checkout, tax, shipping and email before launch

Place real test orders on a phone: a guest order, an account order, a refund, an order to each tax region, each shipping rule and each payment method. Then read every transactional email the store sends. A store that has been through this once before launch spends the first week selling, not patching.

BigCommerce app development and plugin development

BigCommerce app development builds software that connects to a store through its APIs, either for one merchant or for the marketplace. Merchants often search for BigCommerce plugin development, but the platform’s extension model is apps, so the question is whether a store needs a new one at all. Custom app delivery is an option a scope can name, and we confirm it with you before it is written in.

Single-click apps, private apps and API accounts

BigCommerce describes single-click apps as the recommended kind, installed through an OAuth flow when the merchant clicks Install. Connector apps work from store-level API credentials that an authorized user generates and enters. A draft app is a visibility level: registered but never submitted for approval. For one store’s internal workflow, API credentials and a private integration are often enough.

What the App Marketplace review checks before a public listing

BigCommerce’s publishing guide says every listing field is reviewed, a privacy policy and terms of service are required, support contact details are listed, and scopes must be set explicitly because apps asking for every scope are not approved. Submission carries a review and listing fee, and the guide advises testing first. A marketplace listing is a separate product with its own costs, not a by-product of a client build.

When an existing app beats a custom one

An existing app wins when it does the job well, has a maintained roadmap and adds little script weight. A custom one wins when the workflow is unusual, the monthly fees of several apps add up, or an app slows the pages. Count cost of ownership: fees, updates to track, and what happens when a vendor changes direction. Compare these before choosing either route.

BigCommerce B2B development: B2B Edition, price lists and quotes

BigCommerce B2B development covers the features that let a store sell to businesses: company accounts, buyer roles, negotiated prices, quotes and invoices. Every paragraph below describes options a scope can include. B2B Edition and Multi-Storefront work are items we confirm with you before they enter a scope. Our B2B website design page covers the wider buyer-portal question.

What B2B Edition adds

BigCommerce lists company accounts, sales quotes, invoice management for purchase orders on net terms, user roles for buyers and staff, sales agent roles, and a Buyer Portal where company users request quotes and pay invoices. The portal can run in its default form or as a custom build for Stencil or headless storefronts. BigCommerce’s B2B overview adds custom buyer pricing and a quoting engine. Whether a store needs all of it is a scoping question.

Customer price tiers and price lists without B2B Edition

Price lists let a store keep several versions of catalog pricing at the variant level and attach them to customer segments or to a sales channel, with a stated order of precedence when more than one applies. For many wholesale catalogs, customer price tiers built on price lists are enough, and the cost of a full buyer portal is not justified. Map your tiers on paper before anyone configures them.

Wholesale and retail on one store: Multi-Storefront

Multi-Storefront lets one back end run several storefronts, each with its own domain, currency and theme, while products, customers and orders are managed in one place. It suits a brand that sells wholesale and retail under one catalog or runs regional stores. It adds scope: more themes to maintain, more checkouts to test.

Headless BigCommerce and Catalyst: when it pays and when it does not

A headless build separates the storefront from the commerce engine, so the front end can be written in any framework and reads data through APIs. It earns its cost for some stores and wastes money for most. Any Catalyst delivery is a scope item we confirm with you, not past work.

What Catalyst is

BigCommerce Catalyst is the company’s storefront framework for headless commerce. It is built on Next.js and React, reads store data from the GraphQL Storefront API, and can be paired with the Makeswift visual editor. When we read the Catalyst documentation in October 2026, it described a production-ready B2C storefront and said its hosting option was in closed beta. Check the current state before planning around it.

When a headless storefront earns its cost

A headless front end earns its cost when content is central to the brand, when the experience cannot be built in a theme, or when one storefront must feed several channels. It also needs somebody technical available after launch, a point we make on our website design page. Read headless CMS vs traditional CMS for the content side of that choice.

When a Stencil theme is still the right call

Stencil remains the better call for smaller teams, for stores that lean on apps that install into a theme, and for budgets that cannot carry a custom front end and its upkeep. A theme gets Page Builder and the checkout settings with no extra work. Choose headless on evidence that the theme is the bottleneck, not on fashion.

BigCommerce migration services: moving a store without losing data

BigCommerce migration services move a store’s data, rebuild its theme and carry its addresses to the new platform. A BigCommerce migration touches three layers: data, design and redirects. Data moves by export and import, the theme is rebuilt for the new platform, and the redirect map protects the old addresses.

Magento to BigCommerce migration

A Magento to BigCommerce migration usually replaces Magento extensions with BigCommerce apps or custom work, so the extension list is the first inventory. Customer price tiers and tiered prices need a deliberate mapping to price lists. Layout and theme code do not carry over. Any B2B logic that sits inside Magento modules should be traced before it is lost. Our Magento development company page covers the other direction of that move.

Shopify to BigCommerce migration and WooCommerce to BigCommerce migration

A Shopify to BigCommerce migration swaps one hosted platform for another, so the work is mostly mapping data and replacing apps with equivalents. A WooCommerce to BigCommerce migration also moves hosting and removes the plugin stack. Both reorder URL structures, which makes the redirect map essential. BigCommerce’s migration page invites merchants to switch from Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento and others.

What moves and what has to be rebuilt

BigCommerce data migration covers products, customers, orders and reviews, which move as data. Themes, apps, integrations and tracking are rebuilt. Customer passwords are the usual surprise: BigCommerce’s own help article says customer passwords cannot be exported by CSV, and customers imported without a password go through the reset process. Plan a clear message to returning customers.

The search side of a migration

Rankings depend on redirects, preserved content and fast pages, and that work has its own page: read migrating to BigCommerce without losing rankings for it. General platform moves are covered in our website migration services. On this page the redirect map is simply a deliverable made before the build.

How do you migrate to BigCommerce? A cutover checklist

To migrate to BigCommerce, export the data, rebuild what cannot move, rehearse the import, freeze the old store, run the final import, switch the domain and test orders, then watch the first weeks closely. The grid is a BigCommerce migration checklist in one picture, and the three sections after it break it down.

Before the move: exports, redirect map and an app inventory

List every app and what it does, export products, customers, orders and reviews, and write the redirect map from the old address list. Rehearse the import into a development store and compare counts against the source. Agree the freeze date, the traffic window and who approves go-live. Any step skipped here costs more during cutover week.

Cutover week: freeze, final import, DNS and test orders

Freeze catalog edits on the old store, run the final import of orders and customers placed since the rehearsal, point the domain at the new store and place test orders in the real checkout. Keep the old store reachable by its private address until the checks pass. Choose a quiet trading period; a busy sales week is the wrong week.

After the move: order flow, feeds and integrations watched daily

For the first weeks, check that orders reach the ERP, that stock updates flow both ways, that product feeds and ad accounts still match the catalog, and that confirmation emails send. Look at crawl errors and redirect hits as well. Most problems after a move are small and quick to fix when someone is looking every day.

Hire a BigCommerce developer, a freelancer or a BigCommerce agency?

To hire BigCommerce developer help for a fix, a single person is enough. A BigCommerce agency fits when design, data, integrations and migration meet in one project. Mid-sized stores often use both at different times.

Should I hire a BigCommerce developer or an agency?

Hire one developer for a bounded job such as a template fix, a script or a small integration. Hire an agency when more than one discipline is involved, because someone has to coordinate design, catalog data, apps and testing. A BigCommerce freelance developer can be an excellent fit for the first case; the risk in the second is that nobody owns the whole result.

Dedicated BigCommerce developers versus a scoped project

Some businesses want to hire dedicated BigCommerce developers who work as an extension of their team. Others hire BigCommerce developers for a fixed project with a written scope and a price. Ongoing roadmaps and constant small changes suit the first; a launch, a migration or an integration suits the second. Decide which you are buying before you compare quotes.

What a BigCommerce expert should answer before you sign

Ask any BigCommerce expert how they would handle your catalog’s variants, which apps they would avoid and why, how they test checkout, what they do with redirects, and who holds the logins. A good BigCommerce consultant answers in specifics and offers to show a live store. The same applies when you speak to several BigCommerce experts: compare the answers, not the pitch.

Top BigCommerce developers: how to judge a shortlist

Lists of top BigCommerce developers rank names, not fit, so judge a shortlist on evidence you can check yourself. Ask each of the BigCommerce developers on it for live stores, an explanation of the architecture and a written scope.

Live stores you can click through

Open the stores. Check how fast category pages load on a phone, whether filters work, whether checkout is smooth and whether the theme looks like a stock theme with a logo. Ask what part of the store the BigCommerce web developer built and what the merchant changed afterward. A portfolio of screenshots proves little.

Partner directories and certifications: what they do and do not tell you

BigCommerce keeps a partner page with separate directories for technology partners and for agency partners, where agencies carry reviews. A listing among BigCommerce agency partners is one input, and a certification covers one person’s training; neither proves fit for your catalog. Progression is independent: the ecommerce build line on our comparison page says we earn no partner revenue from BigCommerce, and we claim no partner tier. Ask any BigCommerce development partners you consider what their listing required.

Warning signs in a BigCommerce quote

Four signs: a theme-only quote with no data model, every feature solved by installing another app, no redirect map for a migration, and accounts that will be registered in the agency’s name. Any one is a reason to ask more questions. Quotes that cannot say what is out of scope will cost more than they claim.

• No catalog or data model in the quote
• An app for every requirement, with the monthly fees left out
• No redirect map for a store that is replacing another
• Store, domain or app accounts held by the agency
• No written list of what is excluded

BigCommerce website examples: patterns from strong stores

Searches for BigCommerce website examples usually want inspiration, so this section describes patterns in our own words rather than naming stores. Websites built with BigCommerce tend to fall into three families, each with its own priorities.

Large catalog stores

These stores put category navigation, filters and search first. Facets are limited to what buyers actually use, product cards stay light, and pages stay fast when hundreds of items load. Variants are shown in a picker rather than as separate products.

B2B and wholesale portals

Here, pricing is tied to the buyer, ordering is quick for repeat items, and quotes and invoices live in an account area. The public catalog may show less than the logged-in one. Navigation favors reorder paths over browsing.

Brand-led direct-to-consumer stores

A smaller catalog gets room for story, photography and content. Product pages carry more narrative, and the homepage works as an editorial front door. These stores often consider a headless front end because content matters as much as checkout.

Speed, accessibility and PCI on a BigCommerce store

Three checks matter on every BigCommerce store: how much code the pages load, whether people using assistive tools can use them, and who is responsible for card data safety. The platform helps with some of it and leaves the rest to the merchant.

Third-party scripts and app weight

Page speed on a hosted store is mostly decided by what is added to it: each app can inject scripts, and the store pays for them on every visit. Audit scripts in Script Manager, remove apps that no longer earn their place and load the rest late. Our website speed optimization page explains how we measure.

WCAG 2.2 AA on a Stencil theme

Our website standard is WCAG 2.2 level AA, and a store theme has to meet it: contrast, keyboard access, visible focus, labeled form fields and usable zoom, including in filters and the variant picker. Building to it is cheaper than retrofitting. See ADA compliant website design for the wider picture.

PCI DSS: what the platform covers and what the merchant still owns

BigCommerce says in its PCI guidance that it is validated annually as a PCI DSS compliant service provider and offers its attestation of compliance. The merchant still completes a self-assessment questionnaire, and anyone who builds a storefront or app must do it in a PCI-compliant manner. The standard itself is published by the PCI Security Standards Council.

BigCommerce website maintenance and support after launch

BigCommerce website maintenance is lighter than on a self-hosted platform because the vendor runs the servers, but it is not zero. Themes, apps, scripts and integrations all age.

What maintenance means on a hosted platform

There are no core updates to run. The work is theme updates, app reviews, script audits, integration monitoring and small content changes. A quarterly look at which apps are still needed pays for itself in speed and fees.

Theme updates without losing customizations

Keep customizations in clearly separated files, record every change to the base theme, and test an update on a copy before it reaches the live store. The smaller the difference from the reference theme, the easier the next update.

Support terms

Our live maintenance wording is $50 to $250 a month for a small site; larger stores are quoted after a written scope. Maintenance is optional, and you can run it yourself or use anyone. See website maintenance for the list of what is covered.

How AI assistants answer “who builds BigCommerce stores?”

Buyers now ask ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot and Google’s AI Overviews who builds BigCommerce stores, and the answers come from pages that state plain facts. Nobody outside each assistant knows its full inputs, so the safe plan is to publish clear, consistent facts.

What assistants draw on when asked for BigCommerce developers

They tend to draw on agency pages with plain facts, directories, reviews and forum threads. Google states that its AI features need no special optimization: the same SEO basics apply, a page must be indexed and eligible for a snippet, and important content should be in text. Nothing here is a promise of a mention.

Store facts a merchant should publish for assistants

Put shipping times and costs, returns, sizes, availability and contact details on the page as text, not only in images. Keep names and descriptions the same everywhere the store appears. Our AEO for ecommerce page covers the full method.

How much does BigCommerce development cost?

BigCommerce development cost depends on the catalog, the systems connected and the front end, so we quote BigCommerce work after a written scope. Searches for BigCommerce website cost usually want a number first; the tables give reference points and say what each one is.

What moves the price

Five things move it: how many products and variants, how many integrations, where the store is migrating from, whether custom apps are needed, and whether the front end is a theme or headless. Design polish matters less than data and systems. A bigger catalog with clean data can cost less than a small one with messy data.

BigCommerce plan fees and apps on top

Plan fees and app subscriptions are paid to BigCommerce and the app vendors, not to the agency. BigCommerce’s pricing page ties its plan tiers to a store’s trailing twelve months of online sales, so the plan can change as sales grow, on the page we read in October 2026. Ask for the current plan terms before budgeting.

How long does a BigCommerce build take?

Our fixed-scope table gives 12 to 18 weeks for ecommerce under 200 SKUs and 20 to 32 weeks with integrations and data migration. Content and approvals cause most overruns, not development. A BigCommerce schedule is set in the written scope, because a migration or a B2B option moves it.

How to choose a BigCommerce development company

The best BigCommerce web development company for you is the one whose written scope matches your catalog, systems and budget. Compare scopes, not hourly rates. Our marketing agency pricing and website development cost pages show how we price in general.

Questions to put to any BigCommerce development company

Ask for live stores, who built what, how the data model is handled, which apps are avoided, how checkout is tested and what the quote leaves out. Ask what happens if the project runs long. A BigCommerce development company that answers plainly is usually one that will write plainly.

Who owns the theme, the data and the accounts

You should. On our projects the domain, hosting and DNS stay in your name at a provider you can log into, and the source files transfer on final payment. Get the same in writing from anyone you hire: the store account, app logins, theme files and exports all belong to the business.

More services that sit beside BigCommerce development

These pages cover the work around a store build, from platform choice to marketing.

• BigCommerce SEO services
• BigCommerce vs Shopify
• Ecommerce development services
• Ecommerce web development services
• Ecommerce website design
• Ecommerce website redesign
• Website migration services
• Magento development company
• WooCommerce development company
• Shopify ecommerce agency
• Shopify vs WooCommerce
• Ecommerce app development
• Website design and development
• Custom website development
• Ecommerce SEO
• Ecommerce marketing agency
• Ecommerce advertising agency
• Ecommerce email marketing
• Ecommerce product configurator
• B2B website design
• Headless CMS vs traditional CMS
• Best headless CMS
• React development company
• ERP development
• CRM development
• UI and UX design
• ADA compliant website design
• Website speed optimization
• Website maintenance
• Conversion rate optimization
• AEO for ecommerce
• Website development cost
• Marketing agency pricing

Frequently asked questions