Sana Commerce vs. BigCommerce B2B: What separates the two B2B e-commerce platforms?

Which platform has more B2B features, Sana Commerce or BigCommerce B2B? If that's the only question you’re asking, it’s a close call. BigCommerce's B2B Edition includes company accounts, quoting, and a buyer portal out of the box, and Sana checks the same boxes. The question that actually separates them is what’s happening under the hood: BigCommerce runs on a retail core holding a synced version of your ERP data, while Sana runs on the ERP itself.

For many businesses, that difference rarely matters. But for manufacturers and wholesalers whose buyers order by part number, buy on contract terms, and expect the store to match the ERP on every visit, it matters on a daily basis.

Below, we compare the two platforms on their core architecture, their approach to ERP integration, and the growth tooling they include out of the box.

BigCommerce B2B at a glance

BigCommerce, now the flagship product of Commerce.com following its parent company's 2025 rebrand, is an open SaaS e-commerce platform built to run B2C and B2B from one back end. Its B2B capabilities come through B2B Edition, a first-party feature set owned and developed by BigCommerce.

B2B Edition handles the fundamentals well. It offers company accounts with parent-child hierarchies and role-based permissions, a buyer portal where customers manage orders, quotes, and invoices, sales quoting, customer-specific price lists, and a Quick Order pad that accepts SKUs or a CSV upload. The platform's open APIs also support headless builds, and its app marketplace gives merchants a wide range of extensions to choose from.

To connect to an ERP system such as SAP or Microsoft Dynamics, BigCommerce relies on ERP-vendor tools, third-party apps, and integration partners. It ships no first-party connector of its own for SAP, any Dynamics version, or NetSuite. Your ERP data is synced into BigCommerce through that middleware layer. Depending on the integration architecture, some implementations support real-time API calls, though most rely on scheduled syncs to stay in step. Either way, BigCommerce maintains its own version of your prices, products, and customer accounts, and keeping it aligned with the ERP is work that belongs to your team or integration partner.

Sana Commerce at a glance

Sana Commerce has spent nearly two decades on one problem: giving manufacturers and wholesalers who run SAP or Microsoft Dynamics a webstore that behaves like part of the ERP rather than a separate system beside it. Founded in Rotterdam in 2007, it now serves customers around the world, in industries from industrial equipment and spare parts to construction, chemicals, medical supplies, and electronics, and has been named in the Gartner ® Magic Quadrant for Digital Commerce four years running.

With Sana Commerce, your store is anchored in real-time ERP data, your ERP is connected across your wider systems, buyer and seller touchpoints come together in one place, and guided intelligence turns what the data shows into action you can take. Everything you need for a complete store ships in the box, including complex product offerings, content management, order management, a self-service portal, and guided buying tools fed by live ERP data.

With Sana, each time a buyer opens a product list, a product page, or the checkout, the platform reads the price, the stock level, and the account terms from your SAP or Dynamics at that very moment. One database means no sync, and no sync means no data waiting to catch up.

Sana Commerce Cloud is a SaaS platform and a certified SAP and Microsoft Gold Partner, with native, certified ERP integration for SAP and Microsoft Dynamics ERPs, including:

• SAP ECC
• SAP S/4HANA
• SAP Business One
• Microsoft Dynamics AX, F&O/SCM
• Microsoft Dynamics NAV and Business Central

The first difference: An edition of a platform, or the entire platform

B2B Edition is exactly what its name says: a version of BigCommerce. The core product began as an open SaaS platform built for retail, and the edition adds the business-buyer layer on top, with company accounts, quoting, and a buyer portal that are first-party rather than bolted on through third-party apps. But an edition inherits aspects of its platform, and that platform may not be equipped to handle your specific needs.

The search, the catalog model, the merchandising, and the data architecture underneath B2B Edition use BigCommerce's retail machinery and extend it to a second audience. Sana Commerce has nothing to extend and no second audience to serve. The entire platform, from the catalog model to the checkout logic, was designed around one buyer: a manufacturer's or wholesaler's customer ordering technical products against an ERP-managed account. 

Where you'll feel this difference

• Catalog depth

  BigCommerce's catalog model is capable, but it's a retail catalog extended to technical products, so guided technical search and cross-reference tools for complex parts aren't built into the platform. Sana built its catalog for exactly those product ranges and handles large, multi-attribute technical catalogs natively.

• Parts buying

  BigCommerce's Quick Order pad and shared shopping lists move known SKUs fast, but they’re built for the buyer who already knows what to order. Sana's visual and guided part search, exploded views, and BOM support are built for the buyer who may need to identify the right component first, by machine or by image, before committing to reorder.

• Account complexity

  B2B Edition's company accounts handle parent-child hierarchies and role-based permissions, but that structure lives inside BigCommerce, parallel to the account structure your ERP already holds. Sana doesn't rebuild your accounts in the store. Hierarchies, contract terms, and customer-specific pricing come from the customer master in SAP or Dynamics, the one your sales and finance teams already maintain.

• Reorder behavior

  BigCommerce's buy-again tools draw on the order history the platform holds, which out of the box means orders placed through the store. An integration can push ERP orders in, but that's more middleware to build and maintain. Sana reads order history live from the ERP, so a buyer's portal shows every order on the account, whether it came through the webstore, a rep, or an EDI feed, and any of them can be reordered in a couple of clicks.

The second difference: Where your ERP data lives

BigCommerce connects to your ERP through middleware, meaning third-party apps, connectors, and integration partners. Some of those partner connectors are officially promoted, but the platform ships no ERP connector of its own for SAP or any Dynamics version. Data from your SAP or Dynamics environment is synced into BigCommerce and maintained there as the platform's own version of your prices, products, and customer accounts. Well-built partner connectors can push updates frequently, and some support event-driven syncing for near-real-time data, but the architecture is the same either way. Two systems hold the same information, and the middleware layer is responsible for keeping them in agreement.

Sana removes the second system. The store is native to the ERP, so when a buyer loads a product list, a product page, or the checkout, Sana reads the price, stock, and account terms from SAP or Dynamics at that moment, using your ERP's own logic for every order. There's no real-time synchronization project to build, because there's nothing to synchronize.

What this means once you're live

• Pricing accuracy

  Sana shows each buyer their exact contract price on every visit, pulled live from the ERP's pricing conditions. With BigCommerce, pricing lives in the platform's price lists and is as current as the connector's last update, so accuracy depends on how the sync is built and how well it's running.

• Data upkeep

  With Sana, your team maintains one system, the ERP you already run. With BigCommerce, product, price, and customer data exist in two places, and keeping them aligned is a permanent line on someone's job description. The level of synchronization and ongoing integration management depends on the chosen integration architecture.

• Upkeep after updates

  Every ERP patch, platform release, or API change is a moment a middleware connection can need attention, and with a third-party connector that attention comes from your team or your partner. Sana's ERP-native connectors are built and maintained by Sana, so keeping the connection current through updates is the vendor's job.

• Implementation

  Sana arrives with certified, pre-built connectors for SAP ECC, S/4HANA, Business One, and the Dynamics versions listed above. On BigCommerce, an SAP or Dynamics integration is a project scoped, built, and owned outside the platform, because there's no first-party option to start from.

The third difference: Growth tooling in the box, or in the app store

Sana's growth tooling ships with the platform. Built-in analytics and a Commerce Console put your performance data and next steps in one place, surfacing reorder and replenishment patterns guided by your own customer and order data. Layered on top is Workflows, a no-code automation tool where you set a rule based on a condition, such as a buyer who hasn't ordered in 60 days or an account that's dropped below its usual spend, and Sana runs the follow-up automatically, whether that's a reminder email, an internal alert, or sending data to another system. Sana also partners with third-party tools like Tweakwise to layer AI-powered product suggestions and personalization onto the storefront, with more of its own AI capability actively in development.

BigCommerce's answer is its ecosystem, and it's a genuine strength. The platform's native merchandising is strong, its search and recommendations have improved with AI, and its app marketplace gives you an app for nearly any growth motion you can name. The difference is where the assembly work lands. BigCommerce's built-in automation centers on the cart and the checkout, such as recovering abandoned carts with automatic emails. Automating account-level follow-up, the kind Workflows handles, means wiring up a third-party platform such as Zapier, Make, or Power Automate, and the analytics picture is assembled from the platform's reporting plus whatever apps you add. Where those tools act on ERP-mastered data, meaning your prices, stock, and account information, they read BigCommerce's synced version of it, so what they act on is as current as the integration keeping it aligned with the ERP.

Where you'll feel this difference

• Where insights live

  With Sana, reorder and replenishment patterns surface in Commerce Console out of the box, drawn from the live ERP data the store already runs on. With BigCommerce, that picture is built, assembled from platform reporting and third-party analytics apps, each one reading the platform's synced copy of your ERP data.

• Follow-up

  Sana's Workflows lets an e-commerce manager act on a buying pattern without a developer, from spotting the lapsed account to sending the nudge. BigCommerce automates the cart natively, but the same account-level follow-up is an integration project on a third-party automation platform, owned and maintained alongside the store.

• What the tooling is built around

  Sana's analytics and automation are shaped for B2B rhythms, meaning reorders, replenishment, and account growth. Much of BigCommerce's native tooling and app ecosystem leans toward retail motions, meaning merchandising, campaigns, and conversion, which is exactly right for the retail side of its audience and less pointed for a parts business.

Sana Commerce vs. BigCommerce B2B: Feature comparison

Here's a full look at how the two B2B commerce platforms compare:

Where BigCommerce B2B has an edge

BigCommerce's standing in SaaS commerce is deserved, and for the right business, it's a strong pick:

• Speed to launch

  A BigCommerce storefront can be live quickly, and B2B Edition's fundamentals work from day one without third-party apps to assemble. If the priority is getting a capable store up fast, that counts. Note that B2B Edition itself is an Enterprise-tier product, so the low entry price of BigCommerce's starter plans doesn't apply to the B2B feature set.

• One back end for B2C and B2B

  BigCommerce runs retail and business buying from the same platform, with Multi-Storefront support for separate front ends. For companies with a real consumer channel alongside wholesale, that consolidation is a genuine advantage.

• Open SaaS flexibility

  Open APIs, headless support, and an app marketplace with an app for nearly any capability mean teams that like composing their own stack will find plenty to work with, and platform extensibility matters when your needs outgrow any single product.

• Retail-grade merchandising

  Promotions, discounting, and storefront presentation are core BigCommerce strengths, sharpened by years of serving retail. If your buying motion looks more like retail than like a parts counter, those tools earn their keep.

That flexibility carries a cost. Every capability the platform doesn't ship, from ERP integration to automation to parts search, becomes an app to license, a connector to maintain, or a project to scope. The pieces are all available. Assembling and owning them is the work.

Where Sana Commerce has an edge

For manufacturers and wholesalers on SAP or Microsoft Dynamics, Sana offers what an assembled stack can't easily reach:

• Built for how parts buyers actually buy

  Buyers search by machine, by image, or from an exploded view, land on the exact component, and reorder it in a couple of clicks. That kind of part-finding isn't built into BigCommerce, so getting there means assembling search apps and custom work into something similar. With Sana, it's how the product is meant to be used.

• Analytics that point to the next order

  Commerce Console and Insights pull performance data and recommended next steps into one view, guided by your own customer and order data, flagging reorder and replenishment patterns before they slip past you. No third-party analytics apps to select, connect, and reconcile.

• ERP integration depth for SAP and Dynamics

  The ERP is Sana's foundation, not a connected data source, with certified connectors Sana builds and maintains for both SAP and Dynamics. There's no integration partner to brief and no app to evaluate, because the connection is the product.

• Data accuracy at the point of transaction

  Every buyer sees pricing, stock, and account terms that match your ERP at that exact moment, not as of the last sync. That matters when 75% of B2B buyers say they'd switch suppliers for a better online experience, and a wrong price is one of the fastest ways to lose them.

• Lower total cost of ownership for the ERP connection

  No middleware to license, no connector app subscription, and no integration partner on retainer. The TCO of the channel stays close to the platform subscription itself, and the risk of integration failure drops with the moving parts.

• Faster time-to-value

  ERP-native connectors do the integration work for you, so connecting SAP or Dynamics doesn't add a scoping phase or a custom build to your launch.

• A single source of truth

  Your prices, stock, customer data, and order logic live in the ERP and nowhere else, with no second copy to keep in sync and no question about which system is right.

Which platform fits the way you sell?

Both platforms are solid choices with real strengths. Choosing the right e-commerce platform comes down to your ERP, what your buyers come to do, and how much of the stack you want to assemble versus receive.

When to choose Sana Commerce

• You sell equipment, parts, or consumables that run out and get reordered again and again. Buyers can find the exact filter, belt, fitting, or anything in between by machine or image, and reorder in seconds, no part number memorized, no phone call.
• SAP or Microsoft Dynamics runs your business. Your store shows live ERP data on every visit: real contract pricing, real stock, real account terms, on product lists, product pages, and at checkout.
• You want analytics and follow-up without a side project. Commerce Console highlights the reorder patterns and next steps that drive growth, guided by your own customer and order data, and Workflows acts on them without a developer.
• You want less to run, not more. One system of record, ERP-native connectors Sana maintains, and no middleware or connector apps sitting between your store and your ERP.

When to choose BigCommerce B2B

• You sell across B2C and B2B on one platform. Running both from a single back end is a real consolidation win if the consumer channel is more than a side business.
• Your buying motion looks like retail. If discovery, promotions, and merchandising matter more to your model than part identification and contract reordering, BigCommerce's retail-grade tooling fits.
• Speed to launch leads your criteria. A capable storefront can be live quickly, with B2B fundamentals working out of the box, as long as you've budgeted for the ERP integration project alongside it.
• You want to compose your own stack. Open APIs, headless support, and a deep app marketplace suit teams with the appetite and resources to assemble, integrate, and own their tooling.

What to ask in every demo

During a demo, be sure to ask these questions:

• "Is pricing read from our SAP or Dynamics version live at the moment the page loads, or synced into the platform?" This tells you whether prices are right every time or as current as the copy the platform holds.
• "Name the app, connector, or partner that handles our ERP integration. What does it cost annually, and what does its SLA cover when the sync breaks?" With BigCommerce, the answer names a third party. You want the full picture before you sign, not after the first outage.
• "Walk us through a buyer who knows the machine but not the part number." This separates a platform built for parts buying from one with a quick-order pad. Pick a real product family with variants or substitutes so you can see how it actually handles.
• "How does our catalog fit your variant model, per product and per storefront?" If your technical products span hundreds of variations, have each vendor load a real product family and show the buying experience, not a simplified demo product. For BigCommerce, ask how the answer changes with Multi-Storefront enabled.
• "Where does order history come from?" Ask whether buyers see every order on their account, including rep and EDI orders, or only what was placed through the store, and if the answer involves importing ERP orders, ask who builds and maintains that feed.
• "Which plan tier and which add-ons does everything you just showed us require?" For BigCommerce, confirm what belongs to B2B Edition and Enterprise versus the base platform, so the demo and the quote describe the same product.
• "What's the timeline for a company on our exact ERP?" A specific, ERP-aware answer beats a generic range, and for BigCommerce it should include the integration project, not just the storefront build.

Why the ERP decides this comparison

Strip away the feature lists and one question remains. Do you want a storefront that keeps its own version of your business data, or a storefront that runs on the system where that data already lives?

BigCommerce is genuinely capable at B2B fundamentals, and it's surrounded by an ecosystem that can extend it in any direction, with the ERP connection assembled from that ecosystem and maintained alongside it. If your buying strategy resembles retail and your ERP is one system among several, that architecture serves you fine.

For a manufacturer or wholesaler on SAP or Microsoft Dynamics, the ERP isn't one system among several. It holds your contract prices, your stock, your account structures, and your order logic, and every gap between the ERP and the store is a wrong price, stock that isn't there, or a buyer calling to check. Sana closes that gap by never opening it. The store is built on the ERP, every page reads live data, and the part-finding and growth tooling on top are worth trusting because the data underneath is what your business actually runs on.

If you're ready to see what a live, ERP-built connection looks like with your own catalog and pricing, start a conversation with the Sana Commerce team and request a demo.