BigCommerce's own published cost bands put a basic ecommerce site at $0 to $5,000, an SMB build at $5,000 to $25,000, a mid-enterprise project at $25,000 to $80,000 or more, and a complex enterprise project at $80,000 to $250,000 or more. Those ranges are a starting point. Actual 2026 numbers skew higher on B2B and headless projects and lower on theme-only customization. The variance inside each band is almost entirely driven by integration depth and QA rigor, not by feature count.
This page breaks down the ranges by project type, surfaces regional rate variance, and calls out the hidden line items that separate a transparent proposal from one designed to collect change orders. The agency selection guide covers what the pricing differences actually mean when evaluating a partner, and the Stencil versus headless breakdown covers the architecture decision that shifts cost most dramatically.
The BigCommerce platform plan underneath the build
Four plan tiers shape the starting point. Standard runs $39 per month, Plus runs $105 per month, Pro runs $399 per month, and Enterprise is quoted individually based on annual GMV. BigCommerce does not charge additional transaction fees on top of the payment processor, which is a structural cost advantage over Shopify's non-Shopify-Payments surcharge that compounds over time on higher-revenue stores. Annual sales thresholds promote stores up through the plan tiers automatically once they cross published GMV limits.
B2B Edition sits as an add-on, not a standalone plan, and typical 2026 pricing lands in the low four figures per month depending on feature set. The exact number is quoted per customer by the BigCommerce account team. Expect the conversation to tie pricing to annual B2B GMV and company account count.
Theme customization: $2,000 to $8,000
The range covers Cornerstone-based customization or light work on a purchased marketplace theme. Scope typically includes brand color and typography alignment, header and footer adjustments, homepage layout using Page Builder, product page template refinement, and mobile responsiveness verification. The work runs two to five weeks depending on designer and developer availability.
The $2,000 end of the range is a one-developer engagement using an existing design file with no revision rounds. The $8,000 end adds a designer, two to three revision rounds, multiple template customizations, and targeted performance work to hit Lighthouse mobile above 85. Beyond $8,000, the scope usually has shifted into full theme development rather than customization, which belongs in the DTC build category.
Custom app development: $5,000 to $25,000
A custom BigCommerce app typically hits the API layer for an internal tool, a storefront enhancement, or an integration that marketplace apps do not cover. Scope examples include a bulk product updater for a catalog team, a custom loyalty points calculator with tier management, a widget that displays inventory across multiple warehouses, or a small internal dashboard that surfaces cross-store data.
The lower end of the range covers a single-view app hosted on a serverless platform with minimal state. The upper end covers a multi-screen app with its own database, authenticated user roles, and a published marketplace listing. Apps with ongoing API sync load (thousands of webhook events per day) need additional engineering attention on rate limiting and error handling that the initial build cost does not always include.
Full DTC store build: $15,000 to $60,000
A full DTC build on Stencil includes design, theme development, product catalog setup, content migration, one payment gateway, one shipping configuration, Google Analytics 4 and Meta Pixel installation, basic SEO on-page work, and a limited marketing integration set. Timeline runs 6 to 16 weeks depending on product count and custom feature depth.
The $15,000 end uses Cornerstone with brand customization, under 200 products, manual content entry, and a simple payment setup with Stripe or Braintree. The $60,000 end uses a custom Stencil theme, over 1,500 products with custom fields and modifiers, bulk content migration from a prior platform, two payment methods, multiple shipping zones with real-time carrier rates, a Klaviyo or similar ESP integration with behavioral flows, and a Gorgias or similar helpdesk integration. Catalyst rebuilds for similar functionality run 2 to 3 times the Stencil cost and should be scoped using the Stencil versus headless framework.
B2B Edition builds: $25,000 to $80,000 and up
B2B starts at the upper end of DTC pricing because the platform surface area is larger and the discovery work is deeper. The $25,000 floor covers B2B Edition activation, company account setup for under 30 accounts, a simple price list structure, a standard quote workflow, and a minimal ERP integration via a marketplace app. The $80,000 level covers 200 to 500 company accounts, multi-level hierarchy, custom price list inheritance, a tailored quote approval workflow, a full NetSuite or SAP Business One integration via middleware (Celigo, Jitterbit, or a custom connector), and a QA cycle that exercises every role at every hierarchy level.
Beyond $80,000, most projects are enterprise-class with multi-storefront, custom buyer portal work, or a headless Catalyst frontend layered over B2B Edition. Those projects land in the $100,000 to $400,000 range and timelines stretch to 20 weeks or more. The B2B setup guide covers the scope drivers in detail.
Hourly rates by region
Published 2026 rate data clusters by region with consistent patterns across multiple sources. The ranges below reflect the middle of the reported bands for BigCommerce-focused developers and agencies.
| Region | Freelancer range | Agency range |
|---|---|---|
| North America (US, Canada) | $40 to $100 | $120 to $300 |
| Western Europe | $36 to $85 | $100 to $220 |
| Eastern Europe (Poland, Ukraine, Bulgaria) | $25 to $55 | $60 to $140 |
| Latin America (Mexico, Brazil, Argentina) | $25 to $45 | $55 to $120 |
| South and Southeast Asia (India, Vietnam, Philippines) | $18 to $35 | $30 to $75 |
| Africa (South Africa, Kenya, Egypt) | $15 to $30 | $28 to $65 |
Rate alone does not predict delivery quality. A $40 per hour freelancer with three shipped Stencil projects and strong communication will outperform a $180 per hour agency assigning a new hire to the build. Rate predicts staffing overhead, time zone availability, and the bench behind the named engineer. Each of those matters on a project with any complexity.
Ongoing maintenance retainers
Retainers price by scope rather than hours. A basic retainer at $300 to $700 per month covers security-relevant theme updates, content refreshes a few times per month, and response to support questions within two business days. A mid-tier retainer at $1,500 to $3,000 per month adds a named account manager, monthly performance reports, scheduled CRO optimization work, and response-time SLAs during business hours. An enterprise retainer at $3,000 to $5,000 and up covers integration drift management, active conversion rate optimization, feature work on a committed monthly hour budget, and on-call coverage for checkout and payment incidents.
Stores with active integrations almost always need the mid or upper retainer tier. An ERP integration that drifts silently costs more to fix reactively than to maintain proactively, and most drifts are simple (a new product field in NetSuite that was not mapped, a webhook endpoint that changed URL, a rate limit hit during a bulk update) but hard to diagnose without the historical context a retainer team carries.