Shopify pricing starts at $29 per month for the Basic plan, which provides users with access to a full-featured online store with unlimited products. For a basic checkout link for social sellers and online creators, the Starter plan at $5 per month is also an option, although it does not allow you to create a full-featured online store.
For more advanced features to build an online store, like staff accounts, shipping rates, and lower transaction fees, you’ll need to pay for the Grow ($79 per month) or Advanced ($299 per month) plans. Shopify also has the enterprise-facing Plus plan, which costs $2,300 per month on a three-year contract.
Shopify does not have a free plan, but it does offer a special deal that gets you access to the platform for $1 per month for the first three months, acting as a low-commitment starting option to test out the website builder.
Key Takeaways
- Starting price: The most affordable Shopify plan costs $29 per month if you opt for a one-year contract and $39 per month when billed monthly.
- Pricing plans: The Grow ($79 per month), Advanced ($299 per month), and Plus ($2,300 per month) offer more advanced features for larger online stores.
- Transaction fees: Shopify transaction fees range from 2.4% + 30¢ to 2.9% + 30¢ depending on which pricing plan you sign up for.
- Free plan: Shopify does not offer a free plan, but it does offer a special deal of $1 per month for the first three months, which is essentially a long-term free trial.
- Competitors: Shopify is more expensive than other website builders, with a starting price and enterprise-level plans costing more than the industry average.
How Much Do Shopify Pricing Plans Cost?
Shopify has four pricing plans for full-featured online store, Basic, Grow, Advanced, and Plus, as well as the Starter plan for creators and social sellers. Here’s a breakdown of how much they cost, what kind of features are available, and what kind of transaction fees you can expect:
| Plan | Price (1-year contract) The price per month you'll pay if you choose to be billed annually | Price (1-month contract) The price per month you'll pay if you choose to be billed monthly | Staff accounts | Reporting | Gift cards | Online credit card rates | In-person credit card rates | Transaction fee if not using Shopify Payments | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | | | | | |||||
| $5 per month ($1 for first month) | $39/month ($1 for first 3 months) | $105/month ($1 for first 3 months) | $399/month ($1 for first 3 months) | N/A | |||||
| 1 | 2 | 5 | 15 | Tailored | |||||
| Basic | Basic | Standard | Advanced | Bespoke | |||||
| | | | | | |||||
| 5% + 30¢ | 2.9% + 30¢ | 2.7% + 30¢ | 2.5% + 30¢ | Bespoke | |||||
| 5% | 2.6% + 10¢ | 2.5% + 10¢ | 2.4% + 10¢ | Bespoke | |||||
| 5% | 2% | 1% | 0.6% | Bespoke |
How much does the Shopify Basic plan cost?
The Shopify Basic plan costs $29 per month billed annually, $39 per month billed monthly.
This plan is aimed at solopreneurs, as it only allows for one user to access the online store platform. You’re still allowed to add unlimited products, though, and you get access to all Shopify sales channels, marketing features, third-party app integrations, and 24/7 live chat support.
As far as starting plans go, the Shopify Basic plan is quite expensive. Other top-tier solutions like Wix ($17 per month) and Squarespace ($16 per month) are more affordable and still allow you to create an online store, although neither all for unlimited products.
We found a wide range of effective email marketing templates available with Shopify. Source: Tech.co testing
Transaction fees on the Basic plan
The biggest difference between the Basic plan and other options is the transaction fees, which are a bit more expensive. Here are some of the important transaction fees to know for the Basic plan.
- Online standard card rates: 2.9% + 30¢
- In-person card rates: 2.6% + 10¢
- Third-party fees (without Shopify Payments): 2%
Transaction fees are more affordable on the more expensive paid plans from Shopify, so if you sell a lot, you could actually save money by opting for the high-tier options.
Shopify Grow Plan ($79 per month)
The Shopify Grow plan costs $79 per month billed annually, or $105 per month billed monthly.
This plan is geared towards smaller teams, allowing for up to five users on the platform with different staff accounts. This plan also makes Shopify a bit more customizable, allowing for full data access for custom apps, and it offers users more competitive shipping discounts from DHL Express, UPS, and USPS.
For mid-tier plans, the Shopify Grow plan is also on the more expensive end. In fact, compared to other options like GoDaddy ($23.99 per month) and Hostinger ($13.99 per month), $79 per month represents a cost more than double the most expensive plans available.
We found that generating a gift card was easy with Shopify. Source: Tech.co testing
Transaction fees on the Grow plan
Transaction fees on the Grow plan are a bit more affordable than the Basic plan, allowing you to save a bit more money depending on how much you sell online. Here are some of the transaction fees you should know that are different than the Basic plan:
- Online standard card rates: 2.7% + 30¢
- In-person card rates: 2.5% + 10¢
- Third-party fees (without Shopify Payments): 1%
Shopify Advanced Plan ($299 per month)
The Shopify Advanced plan costs $299 per month billed annually, or $399 per month billed monthly.
As you can likely guess from the price, the Advanced plan from Shopify is geared towards larger teams, allowing for up to 15 users to access the platform with their own staff accounts. On top of that, this plan unlocks enhanced live chat support, with faster response times, third-party calculated shipping rates built in, and local storefronts to change depending on where your potential customer visits from.
There’s no sugar-coating it, the Shopify Advanced plan is quite expensive. It’s the most expensive standard ecommerce website builder plan across our research, with premium options like Wix only getting as high as $159 per month at its most expensive.
The Shopify App Store allowed us to expand our site with additional functionalities and third-party integrations. Source: Tech.co testing
Transaction fees on the Advanced plan
The biggest perk of the Advanced plan is that the transaction fees are decidedly discounted compared to the other options. Check out how the transaction fees for the Advanced plan match up to your other options:
- Online standard card rates: 2.5% + 30¢
- In-person card rates: 2.4% + 10¢
- Third-party fees (without Shopify Payments): 0.6%
Shopify Plus Plan ($2,300 per month)
The Shopify Plus plan is a custom plan that requires businesses to reach out to get a quote, but prices start at $2,300 per month. There is also no monthly option; you’ll have to sign up for either a one-year or three-year contract.
Shopify Plus is designed for enterprise-level businesses and very high-volume merchants. There’s no set price, as you have to call up and get a quote directly from Shopify. This plan is aimed at businesses with more than $750,000 in annual revenue, and prices start from $2,300 per month, so you’ll need to be in with the high rollers to make this plan worth it.
The Shopify sales dashboard helps users track products sold. Source: Tech.co testing
Transaction fees on the Plus plan
Shopify does not list the transaction fees for the Plus plan, because it’s a customized plan that will have different rates depending on what you end up deciding with Shopify. The website notes that there are “competitive rates for high-volume merchants,” so at least that sounds promising.
Does Shopify Offer a Free Plan?
If you’re looking to build an ecommerce store for free, you’ll be out of luck with Shopify. Shopify doesn’t currently offer a free plan. The popular provider does let users get a taste of the product with a 3-day free trial, however. With this trial, you’ll be able to test out most of Shopify’s features, themes, and apps, but you won’t be able to sell products until you upgrade to a paid plan.
After that, you can take advantage of the special deal from Shopify to use any of the pricing plans for only $1 per month for the first three months. That means you’ll get access to the platform for 90 days for only $3, so as far as trials go, it’s still quite competitive.
When it comes to building a website, cutting corners with a free solution isn’t always a good idea. However, if you’re willing to put up with drawbacks like on-site ads and default domains, they can be a good way to grow your business presence without blowing your budget.
Take a look at our guide to the best free website builders to see how the best complimentary options compare
Is Shopify Good Value For Money?
Shopify is one of the most expensive website builders on the market, but the value is clearly there for businesses that want to sell online. Given its robust tools for larger businesses, including additional staff accounts and inventory management, Shopify’s value lies in its ability to scale with your online store, particularly given its ability to sell unlimited products across all paid plans.
There are better solutions out there when it comes to value, though. Hostinger, for example, costs only $13.99 per month and still offers a lot of the ecommerce functionality you need for an online store. Square Online is another viable option at a low price, as it allows you to create an online store for free, charging only transaction fees when you actually make a sale.
All that to say, there are a lot of options if you’re looking for low cost, but when it comes to value, Shopify is a clear choice for those larger businesses that take selling online seriously, or at least want to in the future.
Additional Shopify Solutions
In addition to the standard ecommerce website builder platform, Shopify also offers some other systems that can help you sell online and beyond, which might be a better fit for your particular business.
Shopify Starter ($5 per month)
For extra small operations, the Shopify Starter plan provides rudimentary online store tools and social selling functionality, so you can get started for cheap with a price of only $5 per month.
You won’t have access to the actual Shopify online store platform, but you can list products with an image and a description and share them across your channels to make money quickly and easily.
Shopify’s Starter plan lets you sell on various social media channels, including Instagram and TikTok. Source: Shopify
Shopify Retail ($89 per month)
If you also sell in-store, you’re in luck as Shopify offers a seamless integration with its POS service.
Shopify’s main POS plan, Retail, costs $79 per month and offers unlimited user access, as well as advanced customer relations and product management capabilities. On top of this, you’re able to access help 24/7 through Shopify’s phone, live chat, and email channels, and the service also allows you to manage online and in-person sales through one integrated platform.
Learn more about the plan in our Shopify POS price and feature review.
Shopify Hidden Costs
Shopify’s pricing is pretty transparent but as ever, there are some extra costs and little technicalities that are worth being aware of.
Shopify Payments rates
The most important thing to be aware of with Shopify is its in-house payment processing — Shopify Payments.
If you choose to use Shopify Payments as your chosen payment processor, you’ll pay 2.9% + 30¢ for online credit card transactions and 2.7% for in-person transactions on the Basic Shopify plan — these fees drop slightly as you start using more expensive plans.
However, if you choose to use a different payment processor — Square or Stripe, for example — you will have to pay 2% of the cost of every transaction to Shopify, plus the credit card and in-person processing rates of your chosen provider. This drops to 1% with the Shopify plan and 0.5% with the Advanced plan.
If you’re not careful, these costs could start mounting up and eating into your profit margins. If you’re committed to Shopify, it’s worth choosing Shopify Payments but if you’re not sure, we’d recommend looking into some other ecommerce platforms.
Premium themes cost extra
Shopify isn’t known for creating beautiful websites — check out Squarespace for those — but it does let you build clean, easily navigable ecommerce-specific websites.
However, it only offers ten free website themes. This means that, while you’ll be able to create a decent online store, there’s a chance it will end up looking like thousands of other Shopify-based stores.
But Shopify does offer more than 60 premium themes for your delectation. These paid themes cost between $140 and $180 — no small investment.
Paid Shopify apps
Shopify runs an app store that will let you add integrations and features to your site that might not be offered in the base Shopify platform.
Email marketing integrations, dropshipping apps, and landing page builders are all available to be added to your site, but you might also have to pay extra. For example, the PageFly Landing Page Builder app lets you build responsive, SEO-friendly landing pages for your site.
However, while it offers a free plan, PageFly also has three pricing plans that start from $19 per month. You’ll be able to build a single page with the free version, but extra pages will cost more.
Custom domain names
By default, all Shopify stores come with .myshopify.com at the end of their URL. This, obviously, doesn’t look very professional.
If you want, Shopify will let you buy a custom domain for $11. It will last you for one year and that domain name is yours to keep forever, even if you leave Shopify. If you already have a domain name purchased from another company, you can import it into a Shopify store easily.
Learn what else you get in the provider’s web building packages in our Shopify review.
Verdict: Is Shopify Worth It?
Shopify offers a lot of features, some serious power, and in-depth inventory tools to get your business going. You’ll be able to get your store set up, be able to monitor how you’re doing, and make quick changes, whether you’re a small business or a large business.
The ecommerce website builder also stands out for its range of third-party integrations, which can be added to dramatically expand the functionality you need — Shopify can quite literally do anything you want it to. For this reason, yes Shopify is worth it if you’re an established business that’s serious about increasing sales.
Shopify is moderately expensive, though, especially if you want to unlock more advanced capabilities like custom reports. This makes Shopify less suitable for newer businesses with tighter margins unless they’re only planning on selling via social channels through Shopify’s Starter plan.
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