Orbit Commerce vs BigCommerce.
BigCommerce packs more into the box than most hosted platforms — strong B2B, multi-storefront, unlimited staff accounts. For UK businesses the catches are structural: you're billed in dollars, and every plan has a sales cap that upgrades you automatically as you grow. Here's the honest comparison.
| Orbit Commerce | BigCommerce | |
|---|---|---|
| Billing currency for UK stores | Pounds sterling | US dollars (exchange-rate exposure + possible card FX fees) |
| Entry plan | Solo — £25/mo (£19/mo billed yearly) | Core — $39/mo (~£29) ($29/mo billed yearly) |
| Mid plan | Team — £59/mo (£44/mo yearly) | Growth — $105/mo (~£78) ($79/mo yearly) |
| Top standard plan | Pro — £249/mo (£187/mo yearly) | Scale — $399/mo (~£295) ($299/mo yearly) |
| Sales limits | None on any plan | Core $30K, Growth $100K trailing-year sales → automatic upgrade; 0.9% overage on Scale |
| Payment fees | One published card rate per plan — no surcharges | 0% on embedded providers (Stripe, PayPal…); 0.6–2% fee on others |
| Staff accounts | 1 / 10 / 40 by plan | Unlimited on every plan |
| Native B2B (price lists, quotes, company accounts) | Wholesale features via plan + plugins | Strong native B2B; full B2B Edition is an enterprise add-on |
| Free trial | 14 days, full platform, no card required | Free trial available |
The sales-cap escalator.
BigCommerce's pricing isn't just a number — it's a number that changes as you grow, whether you asked or not.
Every BigCommerce plan carries a trailing-twelve-month sales threshold, and the platform upgrades you automatically when you cross it. As of June 2026 those caps are $30,000 a year on Core and $100,000 a year on Growth — both significantly lower than the old limits. A UK store turning over around £2,000 a month already outgrows Core; around £6,500 a month outgrows Growth and lands on Scale at $399 a month. Above roughly $400,000 a year, Scale adds a 0.9% overage fee on the excess.
Orbit doesn't do thresholds. Plans differ by features and card rates — never by how much you're allowed to sell. A Team store doing £500,000 a year pays the same £59 a month as a Team store doing £50,000, and upgrading to Pro is a choice you make for the features (best card rates, API access, priority support), not a letter you receive.
A worked example: a growing store passing £12,500/month (~$190K/year)
BigCommerce
- Crossed Growth's $100K cap → auto-upgraded to Scale
- Scale — $299–$399/mo (~£221–£295)
- Billed in USD — cost in pounds varies with the exchange rate
- Card fees per your gateway (e.g. Stripe UK ~1.5% + 20p)
≈ £221–£295/month + card fees
Orbit (Team, annual)
- No cap crossed — Team continues at £44/mo
- Upgrade to Pro (£187/mo yearly) only if you want its features
- Billed in pounds, same every month
- Card fees 1.7% + 25p (1.5% + 25p on Pro)
≈ £44/month + card fees
Illustrative, using published prices and thresholds at the time of checking, and approximate June 2026 exchange rates. Card fees depend on your mix of cards and gateway either way.
Fees, features and fair play.
Where BigCommerce is genuinely good — and the June 2026 small print.
BigCommerce's classic pitch — no platform transaction fees on any gateway — is still mostly true: Stripe, PayPal, Adyen, Klarna, Worldpay and other "embedded" providers carry no platform fee. Since June 2026, gateways outside that list cost an extra 2% on Core, 1% on Growth or 0.6% on Scale of those orders. Orbit's position is simpler: your plan plus one published card rate — what's on the pricing page is the whole cost, with no surcharges layered on top.
It also ships real depth in the box: unlimited staff accounts on every plan (Orbit caps at 40 on Pro — BigCommerce genuinely wins here), native customer groups, real-time carrier shipping quotes, multi-currency and multi-storefront. The flip side merchants most often cite: a steeper learning curve, a weaker page-building experience, a thinner theme market — and for UK stores, dollar billing with US-first documentation. Orbit's page builder and UK-first setup (pounds, UK VAT handling, UK-based team) are the counterweights.
Powerful, if you can drive it.
Feature depth is only useful if your team can actually drive it.
The most consistent theme in BigCommerce reviews after pricing is complexity. The dashboard has a steeper learning curve than its rivals, the built-in page builder is widely described as clunky, and the theme market is thin — a handful of free themes, paid ones at $150–$400, and deeper design changes requiring Stencil, BigCommerce's Handlebars-based theme framework. Stencil developers are scarcer and pricier than the WordPress or Liquid equivalents — $100–$200 an hour, with custom theme builds quoted at $2,000–$10,000+. Its headless route (Catalyst) is genuinely modern, and squarely agency-budget territory.
Orbit's approach is the opposite: the drag-and-drop page builder is the primary way you design your store — no theme framework to learn, no specialist developer market to hire from. And when you do want something bespoke, Orbit's in-house team builds custom storefront components and integrations on the platform — scoped and quoted before any code is written, and you own what's built.
Who should pick which.
Different businesses, different right answers. Here's our honest take.
Choose Orbit Commerce if…
- You want UK pricing in pounds with no exchange-rate surprises on the platform bill.
- You never want revenue to trigger a forced plan upgrade — growth should be good news, not a price rise.
- You want subscriptions, gift cards and cart recovery included rather than via apps.
- You value a modern drag-and-drop page builder and a platform built UK-first.
Choose BigCommerce if…
- B2B is your core business — native price lists, quote management and company accounts are the strongest of the mainstream hosted platforms.
- You need multiple storefronts run from a single dashboard.
- You want unlimited staff accounts on every plan.
- You’re enterprise-scale and headless — its Catalyst framework and APIs are genuinely capable (with an agency budget to match).
Questions, answered.
Straight answers from the team building it. If we don't know, we'll tell you.
BigCommerce pricing and features checked 10 June 2026 against bigcommerce.co.uk (pricing & June 2026 plan updates) and other published sources, and reviewed regularly. BigCommerce is a trademark of its respective owner; all figures exclude VAT unless stated. Spotted something out of date? Tell us.
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