6 Best SaaS Ecommerce Platforms in 2024 [Features, Pros, Cons, and Price]

What is SaaS ecommerce?

SaaS ecommerce business models provide a distributed platform for businesses to sell products. These platforms are hosted on cloud servers. Businesses can access the software from browsers using the internet, instead of downloading them. The service providers own the software and maintain it themselves. And they license it to users based on subscriptions.

Benefits of SaaS ecommerce

There are plenty of benefits to SaaS e-commerce platforms. Let’s discuss some key benefits of using SaaS ecommerce platforms for businesses.

1. Cost-effective

SaaS ecommerce platforms are sold on subscriptions. This means that you need not invest a lot of money upfront. You can use these platforms by paying for monthly or yearly subscriptions with multiple tiers. This makes them more cost-effective than traditional software solutions that require substantial upfront investments.

2. Ease of use

Most SaaS ecommerce platforms are easy to use. As users want less complex platforms to run their stores, service providers invest in offering intuitive dashboards, drag-and-drop functionalities, and pre-built templates. Further, you can integrate third-party apps and plugins quickly to make the platform simple.

3. Scalability

SaaS solutions can easily scale to accommodate your growing business needs. Thanks to this benefit, you don’t have to worry about increasing traffic, adding more products, or expanding to new markets. As these platforms are designed to grow with the business, you can trust them to handle your growth.

4. Automatic updates and maintenance

The service provider manages the maintenance of these SaaS platforms. It handles everything from maintenance, security, and software updates to ensuring the platform is up-to-date and secure, which can save you from troubles and challenges down the road.

5. Security

Customers need ecommerce SaaS platforms to have the most robust security measures. And these platforms invest heavily in data encryption, secure payment gateways, and ensuring compliance with industry standards like PCI-DSS to make them trustworthy. Hence, you don’t need to worry about your data.

Top 6 SaaS Ecommerce Platforms

Finding the right SaaS ecommerce platform for your business from a long list is tiring and confusing. That’s why we bring you a curated list of the 6 best SaaS ecommerce platforms in the market.

We have used and tested them on multiple projects to understand what makes them unique and how they can meet your business’s unique goals.

1. Shopify

Rating: 4.5/5 (4500+ Reviews on G2)

Shopify is one of the best SaaS ecommerce platforms in the world. Over a million businesses from more than 170 countries use the Shopify platform to start their online stores. Apart from offering a range of online capabilities, functionalities, and business support features, Shopify also focuses on building a strong community of businesses, developers, and creators from across the world. Whether you are a small entrepreneur or a large company trying to go online, Shopify has everything you need to support your unique business growth objectives.

Top features and benefits

• Drag-and-drop website creator to make it easy for everyone to create Shopify online stores according to your vision. And the best part is that you don’t need any expertise in coding to use it.
• A variety of professionally developed templates to make your brand look impressive and aesthetic. With diverse built-in features and long-term support, these templates are designed to help you sell online.
• Expand the functionalities and capabilities of your Shopify store with plugins and applications from hundreds of verified developers. Never limit your store’s functionality, as there is a plugin for everything you need.
• Sell worldwide with Shopify by integrating various payment gateways and supporting multiple currencies. You can now easily reach customers worldwide and expand your brand.
• Shopify offers an excellent marketing toolkit with tools for email marketing, social media promotion, and customer engagement. Use these tools to effectively reach your target audience and ideal customers and improve your return on investments.

Pricing plans

• Basic: USD 39/month
• Shopify: USD 105/month
• Advanced: USD 399/month
• Plus: USD 2,300/month

Shopify offers a 3-day free trial to use the platform. And by paying USD 1/month, you can use it for three months. You can also get 25% off when choosing annual plans.

Pros

• Shopify is easy to set up and use for even those without technical skills.
• 160+ themes on the official theme store optimized for the platform.
• Shopify’s own order fulfillment network for better delivery.
• Automate your business operations with Shopify Flow.
• Extensive integration capabilities with 6000+ options.

Cons

• Limited options when it comes to theme customizations.
• Additional fees on sales upon basic charges.
• Limited free themes.

2. BigCommerce

Rating:4.2/5 (520+ Reviews on G2)

Another top SaaS ecommerce platform, BigCommerce, brings advanced technologies and ecommerce capabilities to the unique needs of each business. It combines the flexibility and ease of use of SaaS and API to create an uber-performing ecommerce platform for all types of companies. It offers a plethora of features that diverse kinds of businesses need according to their business models, such as B2B, B2C, headless, multichannel, etc.

Top features of BigCommerce

• Design highly aesthetic and unique websites with the platform’s storefront design capabilities, including a drag-and-drop editor, theme customization, checkout customization, etc., to deliver the best user experience for all visitors.
• Sell any number of products using the platform without worrying about the limits on products or bandwidth.
• Improve your storefront conversion with various strategies, such as coupons, discounts, merchandising, digital wallets, and more. These ecommerce strategies help you improve your conversion rates and ROIs.
• Take advantage of the multi-channel ecommerce options available at BigCommerce to sell anywhere, like social media channels, marketplaces, and even retail stores.
• With BigCommerce’s online capabilities, such as multi-currency, multi-language, and cross-border fulfillment, you can cater to your customers’ requirements worldwide.

Pricing of BigCommerce

• Standard: USD 39/month
• Plus: USD 105/month
• Pro: USD 399/month
• Enterprise: Custom price

Pros

• BigCommerce platform is easy to scale as your business grows.
• Optimize your store for SEO and improve search engine ranks.
• BigCommerce does not charge any transaction fees.
• Use marketplaces to sell products and services.
• You can add any number of product variations.

Cons

• Setting up the platform with advanced features is complex.
• BigCommerce is more expensive than others.
• Lack of intuitive content editor.

3. WooCommerce

Rating: 4.4/5 (1,150+ Reviews on G2)

WooCommerce is a SaaS ecommerce platform for businesses that run on the WordPress CMS. It is a plugin that you can use to transform your regular WordPress site into a full-featured ecommerce store. It is free to use and easy to use. As millions of businesses use WordPress to run their websites, WooCommerce is their first choice when adding ecommerce functionalities to their stores. If you are a business with a WordPress site, the best way to start your ecommerce store is to use this free plugin.

Top features of WooCommerce

• WooCommerce offers multiple payment options for customers, and they can choose their preferred choice, including 140+ location-specific payment gateways when buying products from your store.
• Manage your orders and products on the go using the Woo Dashboard, built on WordPress’s similar interface. It enables you to manage your store easily and quickly with no room for errors.
• Use the platform to sell anything to your customers, from physical products to appointments and members-specific digital content. You can also empower your customers to choose from any product or service variation they prefer.
• Sell your products on leading marketplaces such as Goole and Facebook, and promote them using email marketing and other cross-channel sales strategies.
• Install free or paid extensions from the Woo Marketplace to add new features and expand existing functionalities. These top-notch plugins can make your site user-friendly and top-performing.

Pricing of WooCommerce

WooCommerce is free to install. However, you need to purchase a domain, WordPress website, and hosting service to run it.

Pros

• Add more functionality with free and paid WordPress extensions.
• An extensive range of WordPress themes to use on your store.
• A huge online community to help with any issue.
• Dynamic pricing options for higher profits.
• Sell across the world.

Cons

• Too many subscriptions for extensions, plugins, hosting, etc.
• WooCommerce has a high learning curve.
• Unreliable user experience at times.

4. Wix

Rating: 4.2/5 (1670+ Reviews on G2)

Wix is not a typical SaaS ecommerce platform. It is a website builder. However, the platform can create high-performing and top-notch ecommerce stores for any business that wants to go online. It offers everything you need to design and build a beautiful website according to your brand’s personality. Apart from letting you create an excellent ecommerce store, Wix also brings you all the allied services–web hosting and a custom domain with a complete business solution customized to your business needs.

Top features of Wix

• Wix offers extensive platform-building features, using intuitive AI capabilities to build aesthetic and robust online stores with as many functionalities as needed.
• Take advantage of the in-built business solutions to manage your online store, its products and inventory, and other operations from an easy-to-use dashboard.
• An intuitive drag-and-drop website builder to customize your online store as per your needs using 1000+ web design capabilities.
• Wix also offers a comprehensive SEO solution to optimize your ecommerce store to ensure better search engine performance and organic traffic.
• Take advantage of the enterprise-grade infrastructure offered by Wix to build robust and high-performing ecommerce stores to sell products online.

Pricing of Wix

• Light: USD 17/month
• Core: USD 29/month
• Business: USD 36/month
• Business Elite: USD 159/month

Pros

• Numerous website templates optimized for mobiles.
• Free and secure website hosting for all businesses.
• Easy shipping rate management options.
• Diverse payment options.

Cons

• Limitations due to not being a dedicated ecommerce platform.
• Not suitable for high-traffic online stores.

5. Adobe Commerce

Formerly Magento Commerce, Adobe Commerce is among the most reliable and robust SaaS ecommerce platforms in the world. This platform is suitable for large and enterprise businesses that need extensive flexibility and granular editing capabilities. It offers all the features you need to successfully manage massive product catalogs, fulfillment operations, customer relationships, marketing campaigns, etc. With its focus on security and scalability, the platform is adept for businesses with high-volume online stores.

Rating: 4/5 (505+ Reviews)

Top features of Adobe Commerce

• It offers pre-built integrations with various Adobe software products for diverse design and editing activities.
• Adobe Commerce offers a world-class ecommerce experience for users with the help of personalized experiences, custom pricing and catalogs, and self-service customer portals, ensuring easy account management.
• With Adobe Commerce, you can sell your products and services anywhere you prefer and create a holistic shopping experience for the users across channels, brands, stores, and locations from a single platform.
• Deliver personalized promotions, self-service conveniences, and multichannel fulfillment options to visitors using Adobe Commerce to improve their overall shopping experience.
• Use diverse tools to drive insights from user data and improve users’ overall shopping experience in real-time. Also, use custom dashboards and visualizations for superior business intelligence.

Pricing of Adobe Commerce

Adobe Commerce offers custom plans for each business. Contact the Adobe Commerce team to learn about the pricing.

Pros

• Create compelling content with a page builder without a developer.
• Quick and easy ERP integrations for better store management.
• Fully integrated payment options for easy payments.
• Mobile optimization for better user experience.
• Real-time order and inventory management.

Cons

• Lack of automated version and feature updates.
• Too expensive for smaller businesses.
• Longer learning curve.

6. Volusion

Rating: 3.2/5 (65+ Reviews on G2)

Volusion is a SaaS ecommerce platform that makes it easy to build customizable ecommerce stores. The platform offers a feature-rich site builder and multiple themes to create responsive themes even without coding knowledge. The platform also helps manage your online store efficiently with various features for easier inventory and product management, payment collection, limitless product options, and more. And the best part is that you can grow your store without worrying about scalability issues.

Top features of Volusion

• Sell any number of products and product variations with the platform, as there is no limit to the number of products that you can sell with Volusion.
• Use suitable themes and templates from a huge collection to match your brand’s personality and identity.
• The platform offers a visual website builder that makes creating online stores easy without a developer’s help or any coding knowledge.
• Calculate the shipping costs and taxation automatically within the platform to save time and avoid errors in calculation.
• Get access to reliable and professional SEO experts, website developers, and marketing strategists via the platform’s Marketing 360 to grow your business.

Pricing of Volusion

• Personal: USD 35/month
• Professional: USD 79/month
• Business: USD 299/month
• Prime: Custom pricing

Pros

• One-click checkout for returning users.
• Multiple payment gateways.
• Mobile-friendly themes.
• Easy order fulfillment.
• Dynamic pricing.

Cons

• Additional fees may lead to higher costs.
• Limited scalability options.

Conclusion

Choosing the right SaaS ecommerce platform is crucial for the success of your online business. While many of these SaaS ecommerce platforms offer similar features, you need to evaluate each based on your business needs. As each business is different from another, you need a platform that will meet your specific requirements. In addition to picking the right platform, you must hire a reliable agency offering ecommerce development services that meet your project expectations.

If you are looking for such an agency, Dolphin Web Solution is the best choice. With a team of expert ecommerce developers having profound skills and experience in the field, we can help you with all your ecommerce development needs.

Talk to our client support team to get a free consultation now!