WP Engine has announced a strategic partnership with Commerce, the AI-driven commerce company formerly known as BigCommerce Holdings. The partnership introduces WP Engine Commerce Connect for BigCommerce, a solution designed to help growing mid-market businesses modernize their commerce stack without rebuilding their existing WordPress websites. Commerce, which rebranded in August 2025, is the parent company of BigCommerce, Feedonomics, and Makeswift.
According to the announcement post, the offering allows businesses to preserve their existing WordPress themes, custom front-end experiences, and SEO investments while upgrading their commerce platform. The company also says sites remain online during migrations, helping reduce implementation risk and business disruption.
In a LinkedIn post announcing the partnership, Heather Brunner, Chairwoman and CEO of WP Engine said, “Brands should never have to choose between a rich, creative digital experience and scalable commerce infrastructure. With this launch, we are bridging that gap, allowing businesses to preserve their hard-earned WordPress SEO and design while unlocking enterprise-grade commerce capabilities.”
She also described the launch as a response to changing customer behavior driven by AI-powered discovery, “The future of digital growth lies in unifying content and commerce. In an AI-powered world, content is the storefront. It’s how customers discover, trust, and engage with products.”
BigCommerce also acknowledged the announcement on LinkedIn, writing, “This partnership is all about giving brands more flexibility. Excited to partner with the WP Engine team on this.”
Commerce CEO Travis Hess said brands increasingly need flexible commerce platforms as they sell across more channels and adapt to AI-powered shopping experiences. “Commerce is becoming more complex as brands compete across more channels, more customer touchpoints, and now AI-powered buying experiences. Our partnership with WP Engine gives brands and agencies an open, flexible foundation that brings content and commerce together.”
Continuing WP Engine’s Enterprise Push
The partnership follows a series of enterprise-focused announcements from WP Engine this year. In January, the company acquired Big Bite, an enterprise digital agency known for developing editorial workflows for global brands and media organizations. It followed that acquisition with the launch of WP Engine Newsroom platform in February, expanding its offerings for enterprise publishers.
Commerce Connect builds on that strategy by extending WP Engine’s focus beyond content management into enterprise commerce.
A New Option for WordPress Commerce
Although WooCommerce is never mentioned in the announcement, the comparison is difficult to avoid. WooCommerce remains the dominant eCommerce solution for WordPress and is owned by Automattic. According to GravityKit’s 2026 analysis, WooCommerce was detected on 6.64% of all measurable web origins as of May 2026.
Rather than competing directly with WooCommerce as a plugin, Commerce Connect offers an alternative architecture where WordPress serves as the presentation layer while BigCommerce handles commerce operations. It introduces another enterprise-focused commerce option for organizations that want to continue using WordPress without relying on WooCommerce.
Matt Mullenweg Responds
WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg reacted to the announcement on X: “Wow, @wpengine and @BigCommerce…. maybe two turkeys can make an eagle? Congrats on the partnership! I look forward to seeing how you combine revolutionary Open Source with legacy proprietary commerce, with the strings being held by extractive PE, hat tip @silverlake_news.”
Mullenweg also shared Commerce.com Inc.’s long-term stock price chart, highlighting the company’s decline since its public listing. The chart shows the stock has fallen by roughly 96% from its peak, dropping from well over $100 per share to just above $3.
Brian Gardner, Head of Community at WP Engine, shared, “I love that we can give growing brands true enterprise power while keeping them right where they want to be—on WordPress. 🩵”.