BigCommerce for agencies: its partner programme vs your own platform

BigCommerce has a well-known partner programme and a powerful platform for growing brands. But it is a referral programme: your client becomes BigCommerce’s customer. Here is how it compares with running client stores on your own white-label platform.

BigCommerce is a serious ecommerce platform with a large network of agency partners. If you build stores for growing brands, you have probably been asked to work on it, or considered joining its partner programme. Before you do, it helps to be clear about what kind of programme it is, how you earn, and what that means for your agency’s income over time.

This article explains the BigCommerce Partner Program and compares it with running client stores on a white-label platform of your own. It is part of our guide to the best ecommerce platform for agencies. The BigCommerce facts were checked on BigCommerce’s own pages, and on the partner terms published by its parent company, Commerce, on 21 October 2026.

What is the BigCommerce Partner Program?

BigCommerce has two kinds of partners. Agency partners design and build storefronts for merchants, with low or no code, headless set-ups, or both. Technology partners build apps, themes and integrations. BigCommerce lists these benefits for partners:

• a 20% commission
• a partner portal for resources and registering prospects
• a sandbox store for staging and testing
• sales engineering support on its Enterprise plans
• a channel account manager, plus marketing kits and a partner community

Partners move up through badges, which BigCommerce’s published referral terms name Certified, Preferred and Elite. The terms also set, for each tier, a minimum amount of monthly revenue referred in the previous year, which some commissions depend on.

How do agencies earn as BigCommerce partners?

You earn in two ways: your own fees for building and looking after the store, and a commission from BigCommerce on clients you refer. BigCommerce’s published terms (revised 22 June 2026) list a 20% commission on referred BigCommerce Essentials subscriptions, which are its standard plans, and separate rates by tier for its larger Performance plan, with lower rates at renewal for some tiers. Launch bonuses on Performance stores come with conditions, such as submitting a launch form within 30 days of the store’s first live order.

BigCommerce also ran a public affiliate programme for referrals. Its affiliates page now says that programme ended on 17 May 2025.

This is the same model as most platform partner programmes: you bring the client, the platform bills the client, and you receive a share on the platform’s terms. We explain how it differs from reselling and white label in white-label vs reseller vs affiliate programmes, and look at Shopify’s version in Shopify Partner Program vs a white-label platform.

What are BigCommerce’s strengths?

It is worth being fair about why agencies choose BigCommerce:

• An open platform to build on. BigCommerce describes an “open, innovative, and API-rich platform” for partners, which suits agencies with developers.
• Headless options. Agencies can build custom front ends while BigCommerce runs the commerce side. See headless or hosted? Choosing a stack for client stores.
• Growth features. Extra storefronts can be added as a paid add-on on each plan, customer groups come from the Growth plan, and price lists per customer group on Performance.
• A trial for clients. A 15-day free trial with no card needed.

What does BigCommerce cost the client?

Your client pays BigCommerce. Its pricing page lists four plans: Core, Growth, Scale and Performance. Core is for businesses with up to $30K in sales over the past 12 months, and Growth up to $100K; when a store passes the limit, the plan moves up automatically. Scale charges 0.9% on sales above its monthly cap.

BigCommerce also charges an “Open Payment Provider fee” on orders paid through providers outside its built-in list: 2.0% on Core, 1.0% on Growth and 0.6% on Scale. Clients who choose a local payment provider need to know this. We cover the same question for Shopify in Shopify transaction fees: what agencies should explain to clients.

When a client’s plan moves up as their sales grow, their monthly cost rises without any change from you. Explain this before they sign, so the increase isn’t a surprise that lands on your relationship.

A partner programme or your own platform?

Neither model is wrong. A referral programme suits agencies that build large, custom stores for a few clients and earn mainly from projects. A white-label platform suits agencies that look after many smaller stores and want income that grows with every client they add. If your client list includes stores on several platforms, including older Magento builds, read Magento (Adobe Commerce) agencies: when a hosted white-label platform makes more sense.

How DripFunnel handles this

DripFunnel’s partner programme is white-label, not referral. More than 75 partners across the globe use it to run client stores under their own brand.

• The client is yours. Your clients sign in to a merchant portal with your product name, logos and colours, on your own address, with your support contact and legal pages.
• You set the price. You build your own plans with their features, limits and trials, and set monthly and yearly prices in each currency your contract allows.
• The margin is visible. You pay a wholesale fee per store per month, agreed per plan in your contract. The plan editor shows DripFunnel’s fee and what you keep on every price. Work through it in agency margin maths.
• No fee on your clients’ orders, whichever payment method they use.
• Revenue you can track. Reports show your monthly recurring revenue by plan, growth, store performance and usage, with CSV export.
• A checked start. You agree terms with us, complete a set-up checklist (branding, portal address, email sender, at least one priced plan, legal pages) and submit it. We test it as a merchant and usually decide within 2 business days. See join the partner programme and go live.

DripFunnel is a hosted platform, not a headless toolkit, and there is no partner-level API yet. If your work depends on deep custom builds, BigCommerce may suit those clients better. Payments for shops are available today in India and the United States, not yet in the UAE.

Which one fits your agency?

Ask yourself where your income comes from today, and where you want it to come from in three years. If it is large builds for a handful of brands, a partner programme like BigCommerce’s fits. If it is a growing list of client stores, each paying you every month, your own white-label platform puts the price and the relationship in your hands. The overview in white-label ecommerce: what it is and how agencies use it is a good next read.

To see how it works, visit the DripFunnel partner programme, or tell us about your agency and your clients.

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