Brightpearl by Sage vs. Shopify Plus

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Brightpearl
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
Brightpearl’s retail operations platform is designed to handle peak trading, integrates with the full retail tech ecosystem, and is omni-channel native. Additionally, the vendor says their solution is the system of record for key trading data, provides real-time trading insights and is automated so users can stay in control and manage by exception. According to the vendor key differentiators include: Software and Service. Service is an integral part of Brightpearl's offer. The…N/A
Shopify Plus
Score 8.9 out of 10
N/A
Shopify Plus is an eCommerce solution built for enterprise-level companies that enables them to sell online and offline across social channels like Facebook , Pinterest, and marketplaces like Amazon and eBay.N/A
Pricing
Brightpearl by SageShopify Plus
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
BrightpearlShopify Plus
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeRequiredNo setup fee
Additional DetailsBrightpearl is for merchants trading $1M or above, or those that expect to be in the next 12 months. Pricing is designed to suit the needs of fast-growth and larger merchants.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Brightpearl by SageShopify Plus
Considered Both Products
Brightpearl
Chose Brightpearl by Sage
We selected Brightpearl because we had experience with them from our other stores. Although they weren't perfect, they were manageable and agile to a certain extent.

With respect to NetSuite, Brightpearl is not nearly as powerful unfortunately. That being said, NetSuite is aimed …
Chose Brightpearl by Sage
If you like a single system with some app integration that gives you a place for your e-commerce and marketplace channels then Brightpearl will get you there with good financial management. However, [I believe] it is not worth the price tag. If you want a set of fairly priced …
Shopify Plus
Chose Shopify Plus
Shopify is definitely more intuitive and easier to get running than Magento. Think of it as Shopify being built for the user and Magento being built for the developer. Overall, they both have similar capacities but I would choose Shopify every time over Magento. Brightpearl has …
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Brightpearl by SageShopify Plus
Online Storefront
Comparison of Online Storefront features of Product A and Product B
Brightpearl by Sage
-
Ratings
Shopify Plus
8.6
29 Ratings
11% above category average
Product catalog & listings00 Ratings9.027 Ratings
Product management00 Ratings8.028 Ratings
Bulk product upload00 Ratings6.126 Ratings
Branding00 Ratings10.027 Ratings
Mobile storefront00 Ratings10.028 Ratings
Product variations00 Ratings7.127 Ratings
Website integration00 Ratings8.025 Ratings
Visual customization00 Ratings9.028 Ratings
CMS00 Ratings10.027 Ratings
Online Shopping Cart
Comparison of Online Shopping Cart features of Product A and Product B
Brightpearl by Sage
-
Ratings
Shopify Plus
8.0
28 Ratings
5% above category average
Abandoned cart recovery00 Ratings7.127 Ratings
Checkout user experience00 Ratings9.028 Ratings
Online Payment System
Comparison of Online Payment System features of Product A and Product B
Brightpearl by Sage
-
Ratings
Shopify Plus
10.0
28 Ratings
18% above category average
eCommerce security00 Ratings10.028 Ratings
eCommerce Marketing
Comparison of eCommerce Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Brightpearl by Sage
-
Ratings
Shopify Plus
6.4
29 Ratings
16% below category average
Promotions & discounts00 Ratings6.128 Ratings
Personalized recommendations00 Ratings4.123 Ratings
SEO00 Ratings9.028 Ratings
eCommerce Business Management
Comparison of eCommerce Business Management features of Product A and Product B
Brightpearl by Sage
-
Ratings
Shopify Plus
7.3
27 Ratings
7% below category average
Order processing00 Ratings8.027 Ratings
Inventory management00 Ratings7.126 Ratings
Shipping00 Ratings7.126 Ratings
Custom functionality00 Ratings7.127 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Brightpearl by SageShopify Plus
Small Businesses
Lightspeed Retail
Lightspeed Retail
Score 6.2 out of 10
Ecwid by Lightspeed
Ecwid by Lightspeed
Score 10.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Epicor Eagle
Epicor Eagle
Score 8.2 out of 10
IBM Digital Commerce
IBM Digital Commerce
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises

No answers on this topic

IBM Digital Commerce
IBM Digital Commerce
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Brightpearl by SageShopify Plus
Likelihood to Recommend
9.5
(158 ratings)
3.3
(29 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.2
(12 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
4.7
(8 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.1
(135 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
In-Person Training
1.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
7.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
6.5
(104 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
7.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
6.9
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Brightpearl by SageShopify Plus
Likelihood to Recommend
Brightpearl by Sage
Brightpearl is very well suited for small-medium companies that are growing quickly and need a way to improve their operational systems and functionality to handle increasing volume of orders. Particularly if you use multiple SKUs, sales channels, and/or warehouses, the features offered by Brightpearl are excellently well suited to handle these types of needs. I don't believe Brightpearl would be very applicable for very small companies with a small number of SKUs, as many of the features offered would be unnecessary and underutilized.
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Shopify
Any business that needs to keep track of orders and payments would benefit from Shopify Plus. Customers information, orders, and payments are all saved and available for reference. You are able to refer to past orders to review trends and offer future purchase suggestions. Shopify Plus is also easy to use so it does not take long to train employees how to use this system.
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Pros
Brightpearl by Sage
  • Brightpearl tracks order changes and communications very well. It documents all activity in a feed that anyone can see, including status changes, notes made, emails sent, etc.
  • Brightpearl makes it incredibly easy to find orders fitting certain criteria through the use of statuses that you can customize. For example, as a multichannel seller, we can easily create statuses for each channel that we sell from, where our orders will (oftentimes automatically) land in. We also deal often with things like back ordered items; we can also create statuses for certain brands, so that when we expect a shipment in from that company, our back order specialist can easily sort through her orders that are waiting on that shipment.
  • Brightpearl makes it easy to take orders over the phone. Everything I need is right there on one screen; not often do I find myself needing to deviate to other tabs. The steps I take (from "new order" to finish) are straightforward and understandable, and go in steps that make sense.
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Shopify
  • Scales incredibly well. Forget about hardware concerns, load balancing, downtime, etc. and focus on eCommerce. We've seen merchants go from a few thousand dollars per month to having million dollar days, all on Shopify without having to worry about performance or scaling systems.
  • Great new features consistently being added, ahead of the curve on almost everything
  • Solid API to build on and work with, a few annoying quirks here and there for super complex use cases but overall very well documented and works well
  • Most Merchant Success Managers are good and genuinely want to be helpful
  • A fantastic user interface, very logical and easy to use
  • Tons and tons and tons of out of the box integrations. Easily the best integration marketplace of the e-commerce platforms. There's an app for that.
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Cons
Brightpearl by Sage
  • Supports only a small number of marketplaces and in a limited way only. When I signed up with Brightpearl they claimed that you could list directly onto eBay from within Brightpearl but this turned out to be untrue as Brightpearl did not support eBay postage policies (eBay's semi literate way of saying shipping tables).
  • Not only can you not list directly onto eBay, you cannot list directly from within Brightpearl to any marketplaces whatsoever. With other software you can list directly to all the marketplaces they integrate with.
  • Brightpearl is abysmal at VAT. Brightpearl calculates VAT on Channel Islands and Canary Islands orders even though there is no Vat in either of them. So when you pay HMRC you will be paying them a bit extra unless you check all your orders which makes the software somewhat redundant.
  • When I signed up they advertised Brightpearl as the software to automate your online selling. But it didn't really do that. A couple of years later at considerable extra cost they released an add-on app called Brightpearl Automation that does seem to deliver on automation. However other software offers that at no extra cost.
  • Brightpearl claims that it integrates with Amazon, but this is only partially true as they have completely ignored the new marketplaces that Amazon have opened. If you list on those marketplaces you have to input the orders manually and Brightpearl will not update the stock, putting you at risk of negative feedback. Other software integrates fully with all Amazon marketplaces.
  • Now that I am leaving it was suggested that I might benefit from read-only access so that we could easily double check things like warranty claims. They offered me a year's read-only access for £10,080 which is more than double my yearly contract for full use of the software. Now, if that isn't taking the mickey, I don't know what is!!!
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Shopify
  • The Account Managers/Reps have become more scripted and seem like they are busier and handling more clients than before. It doesn't seem as personal and special anymore like when we first upgraded to Plus.
  • Shopify still has missing features in their software that might not have an app in their app marketplace available that fills this void.
  • The 24/7 support doesn't seem as dedicated as they once were.
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Likelihood to Renew
Brightpearl by Sage
Brightpearl has proved to work out for our company and we have no need or intention to let it go. Rather we intend to build on what we've accomplished and it will no doubt help us scale our business and meet our ambitions.
Read full review
Shopify
No answers on this topic
Usability
Brightpearl by Sage
Brightpearl can be a little confusing to begin with, there are a lot of options to look through and working out the intricacies takes some time depending on what you would like to be able to do on it and what your account is set up to do. It is however very thorough and once you can work your way around it most of the functions are fairly simple to use and very detailed.
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Shopify
No answers on this topic
Reliability and Availability
Brightpearl by Sage
Brightpearl is always easily accessibly anywhere that you can find an internet source. I have checked our stock levels when we have been off site at Ham Rally's at home and on my way home or to work if needs be. That is probably one of the best features of this system.
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Shopify
No answers on this topic
Performance
Brightpearl by Sage
Brightpearl performs very well and integrates very well with our Metapak packing and despatch system. IT also intergrates very well with Amazon and we have used Ebay although there have been complications with Ebay and stock levels. We use Ebay mostly for second hand items of which we only have one so have skipped using Brighpearl for these products.
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Shopify
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Brightpearl by Sage
Brightpearl was ALWAYS great at responding to us. Their customer service was quick and responsive. Unfortunately, the responses were often that "engineers were working on it" but nothing seemed to ever come of that. I realize that Brightpearl is a large company that a lot of businesses rely on. But when you can't hit "enter" when trying to search in the front-end POS, that type of behavior should be changed very quickly and it never was. Admittedly, small things, but those annoyances tend to ultimately affect the overall experience.
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Shopify
Always are quick to answer our questions and help us find a solution
Read full review
In-Person Training
Brightpearl by Sage
No in house training was given.
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Shopify
No answers on this topic
Online Training
Brightpearl by Sage
The online training was very helpful in the areas we were shown and was implemented very well via a Skype call and an presentation done via the internet. However it was not thorough enough for all of our needs in certain areas. More training in person on site would have been very helpful.
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Shopify
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Brightpearl by Sage
Implementation was generally perfect, but if you are coming across from Sage I personally would recommend doing this as baby steps.
We tried to import our entire Sage history in one batch and that was a bad idea hence the 9/10. That was mainly our fault and nothing on Brightpearl.
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Shopify
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Brightpearl by Sage
Initially we went with Brightpearl because it was an all in one solution. Salesforce CRM capabilities right out of the box far surpass Brightpearl's, but there's no inventory or accounting system pre-built in. We are currently moving away from Brightpearl for both CRM and accounting functions however.
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Shopify
Shopify had the quickest go-to-market and most robust API among the products we compared. CommerceCloud required a VERY LONG integration phase that we just didn't have time for. BigCommerce fell short on the number of features and API coverage that we needed. Overall Shopify gave us the most bang for the buck.
Read full review
Scalability
Brightpearl by Sage
Brightpearl's ability to increase or expand its capacity and retain its performance levels to accommodate growth were acceptable but not fantastic. The program was constantly making changes which can be useful, but was also confusing & hard to keep up with since we were never updated that changes were about to be made or had been made.
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Shopify
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Brightpearl by Sage
  • It's really difficult to say. While everything is now in one place, we've spent a ton of time with support and figuring things out on our own.
  • We've also had to spend a ton of money with our CPAs fixing our financials every month.
  • However, the sales piece has streamlined our process for shipping orders out in a timely basis.
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Shopify
  • Shopify Plus has been a very cost effective solution for us.
  • As our business grows, it's easy to train new hires on how to use Shopify Plus.
  • What we've lost in the missing features of Shopify we've made up for in the other areas.
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ScreenShots

Brightpearl Screenshots

Screenshot of Customer timeline giving you insight into pending orders, previous purchases and potential marketing opportunitiesScreenshot of Deep insight in your customers, product and sales channel through Brightpearl's Minubo integrationScreenshot of Fully integrated POS for access to all product inventory information at the tillScreenshot of Managing suppliers and purchasing inventory is quick and easy, says the vendorScreenshot of Provide top-notch service by having access to your customers’ full interaction history and personalize your marketing communication with product-interest tagging.Screenshot of Brightpearl’s flexible inventory management has all of the features you need to stay in control of your inventory and make fast, effective business decisions. Redistribute your staff towards growth strategies and reduce the time spent on costly admin overheads.

Shopify Plus Screenshots

Screenshot of The home screen of your Shopify admin, including proactive home cards and reporting and live view insights.Screenshot of Your Shopify Plus store is ready for mobile commerce. Customers can browse and buy from your store with an optimized experience on device.Screenshot of Editing products across sales channels.Screenshot of Easily edit colours, typography, settings, and drag and drop sections for each of your store's templates with the theme editor.