Shopify Pricing 2024: Is the Website Builder Good Value?

Shopify offers the best sales features of any ecommerce builder we’ve tested, making it ideal for businesses looking to expand their horizons. Better yet, it offers a vast range of third-party integrations, and its user experience is up there with some of the best ecommerce website builders – but this level of quality doesn’t come cheap.

While Shopify’s pricing for ecommerce starts at $29 per month when billed annually – or $1 for the first month with its current deal – its prices can exceed $2,000 per month for larger sites. 

Shopify’s plans might seem expensive, but they’re good value if you’re going to make the most of its excellent sales tools. If not, it may be better to opt for a builder with more affordable packages. 

We dissect each of Shopify’s pricing plans, their offerings, and how the value of each plan compares to competitors, to help you understand if the website builder is right for you.

In this guide:

• Shopify Pricing Plans Explained
• What Shopify Plan Should You Go For?
• Is Shopify Good Value For Money?
• Hidden Costs with Shopify
• Shopify Hosting Costs
• Shopify Alternatives
• Verdict: Is Shopify Worth It?
• Frequently Asked Questions

One thing to bear in mind with Shopify is that some features – customer reviews for example – are only available as third-party apps, and they might require some additional cost to use at scale.

The Shopify Starter Plan

• A good choice for small businesses with existing non-Shopify sites with occasional in-person sales
• $5 per month

Shopify Starter is the cheapest plan offered by Shopify, but it doesn’t offer access to the Shopify online store platform.

Instead, you can use the Shopify sales platform to sell on Facebook and communicate with your customers using Messenger. You can also use Shopify Starter to sell products on another website you already own. For example, if you use WordPress, Squarespace or Tumblr, you can add Buy Buttons for each of your products and turn your existing site into an online store.

This plan is ideal for businesses looking to sell on online social media channels, especially if they already have a website set up with another provider.

Shopify’s Starter plan lets you sell products through social channels like Instagram, TikTok, and more

The Shopify Basic Plan

• The best fit for new ecommerce businesses with occasional in-person sales
• $29 per month billed annually; $39 per month billed monthly

Shopify Basic is designed for small businesses just starting out on their online sales adventure. It allows for just two staff accounts, and while it does offer the Shopify point-of-sale app for offline sales, you don’t get access to some of the hardware support available to the other plans.

Shopify’s entry-level commerce plan does let you sell an unlimited number of products. This gives Shopify Basic the edge over Wix’s equivalent Core plan – which lets you sell up to 50,000 products – for businesses retailing large volumes of stock.

This plan also gives users access to Shopify Sidekick, the platform’s very own “personal ecommerce assistant”, which is able to respond to queries like ChatGPT and Claude. This makes This plan makes the plan especially useful to users with little prior ecommerce experience.

See how Shopify’s AI capabilities compare to other builders in our guide to the best AI website builders.

Shopify Basic lets you promote and sell your products across multiple different channels too, including through social platforms. However, if you’re in a pinch this capability is available for cheaper elsewhere, with GoDaddy’s Commerce plan letting you sell 50 or less for $20.99 per month.

Shopify offers tons of top tier marketing features. I found its AI-generated email marketing tool to be a great way to drum up brand awareness quickly. Source: shopify.com

Limitations of Shopify Basic

One of the main drawbacks with Shopify Basic compared to the other plans on offer is the higher credit card rates you’ll have to pay with Shopify Payments. On the Basic plan, you’ll be charged 2.9% of each transaction, plus 30¢. In-person card uses will cost just 2.7% per transaction, however (a discount that Shopify just rolled out in 2023). If you’re selling lots of cheap products, this likely won’t make much of an impact. However, if your products are expensive these payments rates will add up fairly quickly.

However, Shopify Basic offers some features at lower prices than rivals like Squarespace. For example, you’ll be able to get abandoned cart recovery tech to try and push customers toward completing orders, whereas Squarespace reserves this feature for its $49 per month Advanced plan. You’ll also get access to gift cards which can be great for making the most of seasonal shopping events.

Learn how Shopify compares to the best website builders for beginners, for those building a site for the first time.

Who is Shopify Basic best for?

Due to Shopify Basic’s scaled-back feature package, and affordable price tag it a great for for solo entrepreneurs or small businesses that are primarily online. It’s ideal for businesses that have recently launched too, as users are easily able to upgrade their Shopify package as their needs develop.

Learn about the best website builders for small businesses.

The Shopify Plan

• The best choice for growing businesses that regularly sell online and in-store
• $79 per month billed annually; $105 per month billed monthly

Shopify’s confusingly named middle plan, Shopify, is designed for businesses that are looking to grow. If your site is earning around $4,000 in monthly revenue, or you’re looking to expand into point of sale transactions, this is the plan for you.

The improved point of sale functionality offered by the Shopify plan is the biggest advantage over Shopify Basic. For example, essential hardware peripherals such as barcode scanners and label printers will be integrated into your platform and you’ll also be able to set up register shifts to manage how much your staff’s hours. With the Shopify plan, you also get unlimited Shopify POS app staff PINs — meaning that you can hire more people. Plus, third-party POS apps will be supported, should you need them.

You’ll also be able to operate up to five stores, ideal if you’re looking to expand.

Advantages of Shopify over Shopify Basic

The Shopify plan also gives your online store some upgrades. For example, you’ll be able to set up five staff logins, meaning that more employees can edit, analyze, and update your store. Plus, you’ll be able to dive deeper when analyzing your sales and customer traffic with Shopify’s professional report building tools

What’s more, credit card processing rates are reduced. You’ll now pay 2.6% of every transaction, plus 30¢. In-person credit card rates drop to 2.5%. That might not sound like a big difference when compared to the Shopify Basics plan, but the reduced fees will add up to potentially big gains. This being said, with other builders, like Squarespace letting you sell for free for as little as $27 per month, better value options exist for businesses with a keen eye on their bottom line.

Read our Squarespace review to learn more about the design-focused builder.

It’s also worth noting that the fees aren’t as reduced as they once were: At the start of 2023, this Shopify plan only charged 1.9% plus 30¢ for cards, with a 1.6% fee for in-person card transactions.

Shipping discounts with USPS, UPS, or DHL Express improve from up to 77% with Shopify Basic to up to 88% with the Shopify plan. With the ecommerce economy growing nearly three times faster than the overall economy in recent years, this plan could help your company boost growth to keep pace.

Who is the Shopify plan best for?

The Shopify plan’s generous staff limits and mid-range price point make it a perfect option for small teams. Its reduced credit card rates also make the plan ideal for businesses ringing in decent sales, especially if they’re looking to expand.

Shopify lets businesses get started for $29 per month, but you’ll have to upgrade to pricier packages to unlock perks like gift cards. Source: shopify.com

The Advanced Shopify Plan

• Best for scaling businesses that require advanced reporting
• $299 per month billed annually; $399 per month billed monthly

While the jump from $79 per month to $299 per month might seem excessive, the Advanced Shopify plan is designed for seriously established on- and offline businesses.

As such, the biggest improvements from the Shopify plan are to be found in the post-sale area. You’ll get access to Shopify’s advanced report builder, which gives you all the tools to seriously understand your customers and improve the sales journey. Don’t underestimate the impact this could have on your business, as the International Journal of Educational Research & Social Sciences highlights how important ease of use is to ecommerce performance.

You’ll also be able to save any custom reports you build, making it great to track individual marketing campaigns, for example. However, if this feature is important to you, you’ll be able to access the same benefit for less with Wix’s Business Elite Plan, which costs $159 per month.

Learn more about Wix’s costs in our Wix pricing guide.

Benefits for buyers on Advanced Shopify

Third-party calculated shipping rates become available, meaning that customers will be able to see how much it will cost them to get your delightful products delivered. This can be a huge trust signal for potential buyers and will almost definitely prevent customers from dropping off at the last hurdle.

Credit card processing rates drop again. Online transactions cost 2.4% plus 30¢, while in-person rates drop to 2.4%. You’ll also be able to open up to eight store locations.

Who is the Advanced plan best for?

If you’re serious about growing your business and you’re willing to invest in improving your store’s performance, Shopify Advanced is right for you. Shopify Advanced offers very affordable credit card processing fees, which will make its monthly price worth it for businesses with high sales volumes.

Check out our guide to the Best Website Builders for more information on Shopify’s rivals.

The Shopify Plus Plan

• Best for enterprise-level businesses with bespoke platforms and functionality developed by Shopify
• Starting at $2,000 per month

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 direct from Shopify. This plan is aimed at businesses with more than $750,000 in annual revenue and prices start from $2,000 per month, so you’ll need to be in with the high rollers to make this plan worth it.

Shopify lets you track your business’s performance in a variety of ways, including by measuring your tracked sales and achieved goals. Source: shopify.com

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 payments 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 from $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.

Shopify Alternatives

While we think Shopify offers the best sales features of any web builder we tested, Wix is the best overall, due to its slightly more competitive web-building features and design functionality.

Learn more about Wix in our Wix review and about how the builders weigh up in our Wix vs Shopify comparison guide.

Wix’s value for money is stronger than Shopify’s too, with the builder securing a 3.5/5 in the category compared to Shopify’s lackluster 2.4/5. This is because of the affordable average price of Wix’s ecommerce plans, and its generous free version, which lends the builder better to smaller businesses and solo entrepreneurs.

If you’re new to ecommerce website building, Squarespace offers the best user experience out of any ecommerce builder we’ve tested, because of its intuitive interface and shallow learning curve. Squarespace also performed the best in our value category – securing a score of 4.2/5 – because of its high quality features and affordable plans.

Squarespace doesn’t match Shopify when it comes to sales features, however, so for businesses looking to elevate their sales strategy Shopify will remain the best option.

See how Shopify vs Squarespace compare here.

There are tons of competitive ecommerce builders to choose from, each with something unique to offer. See how our favorites compare in our table below:

Shopify Pricing FAQs