Can you cut costs by moving to SuiteCommerce?
The SuiteCommerce license is significantly more affordable than SuiteCommerce Advanced, which has led many SCA users to ask whether migrating to SuiteCommerce is a viable way to reduce their annual costs.
The good news: for many businesses, it is a great option. Here is what you need to know before you decide.
- Codebase
- Shared with SCA
- Updates
- Automatic, every six months
- Customizations
- Through the extensibility API
Understanding the key differences
As we explained in our article SuiteCommerce vs SuiteCommerce Advanced, both platforms share the same codebase. The primary difference is that SuiteCommerce runs as software-as-a-service (SaaS), with automatic updates every six months.
When you migrate to SuiteCommerce, following best practices for customizations matters more than ever:
- Use the extensibility API. This keeps customizations compatible with automatic updates.
- Avoid overriding or extending core code. If a customization relies on extended core code, changes made during an automatic update could break your site.
Following these practices keeps your platform stable and up to date.
Is your site a good fit for migration?
To help you decide whether SuiteCommerce suits your business, we offer detailed assessments. We have run dozens of them, and each one follows three steps:
- Review your customizations. We identify which customizations can be implemented with the extensibility API and flag any that cannot.
- Provide workarounds. We discuss alternatives for customizations that are not API-compatible.
- Walk you through the results. One of our technical experts reviews the assessment with you one-on-one, covering the specific advantages and challenges of migrating your site.
The advantages of SuiteCommerce
One of the biggest benefits of SuiteCommerce is automatic updates: your platform always has the latest features and security enhancements.
There are no manual upgrade projects to plan, which simplifies maintenance and saves time and effort in the long run.
Migration costs
The cost of migrating depends on the current state of your site:
- Newer SCA versions. If your site already uses extensions, the cost is relatively low. We activate those extensions and make minor adjustments so everything works properly.
- Older SCA versions. If your site predates the extension architecture, customizations need additional engineering work to be rewritten as extensions. The migration then looks closer to a new implementation, though not as extensive.
Ready to explore your options?
If you are considering a move to SuiteCommerce, request a migration assessment. Our team will review your customizations, share detailed findings, and walk you through the process so you can make an informed decision.
Weighing a move off SuiteCommerce altogether? See how AwaCommerce Next compares with SuiteCommerce Advanced.
