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Shopify can be as cheap as $26 per month (paid annually in advance). However, this rises steeply to as much as $299 per month for huge scale online stores. Fortunately, you can try Shopify before you buy, thanks to a 14-day free trial.
Shopify’s plans might seem expensive, but we think they’re worth it given that you’ll be making a significant return on the investment.
Shopify is one of the biggest and best ecommerce builders on the market, allowing you to create and manage an online store and loads of different sales channels. Obviously, this level of quality doesn’t come cheap. But, reassuringly, Shopify has some good-value plans perfectly suited to a smaller ecommerce store.
In this guide we’ll run through each pricing plan, what features they give you, which pricing plan is right for your business, and how Shopify compares to its competition.
- Shopify Pricing Plans Explained – Which plan is the best for you?
- Shopify Basic Plan – The best plan to start with
- Shopify Plan – The best plan for growing businesses
- Shopify Advanced Plan – The best plan for large businesses
- Shopify Lite Plan – Ideal for side hustles
- Shopify Plus Plan – Bespoke plans for the largest businesses
- Shopify Hosting Costs – How much does hosting cost for a Shopify-powered site?
- Shopify Alternatives – We look at how BigCommerce and other ecommerce platforms compare
- Shopify FAQs – We answer all your burning questions about Shopify quickly and easily
Shopify Pricing Plans Explained
Shopify offers five pricing plans in total: Shopify Basic, Shopify, Shopify Advanced, Shopify Lite and Shopify Plus. The first three are designed to for small to medium-sized businesses; Shopify Lite is a cut-back package which only allows for sales on Facebook; and Shopify Plus is a bespoke package for large businesses and high volume merchants.
Let's take a closer look at the three Shopify pricing plans, below:
|
Plan |
Cost (paid monthly) |
Cost (paid annually) |
Staff accounts |
Abandoned cart recovery |
Gift cards |
Online credit card rates |
In-person credit card rates |
Shopify POS app |
Hardware peripheral support |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
$29 | $79 | $290 | |||||||
$312 | $852 | $3,192 | |||||||
2 | 5 | 15 | |||||||
2.2% + 30c | 1.9% + 30c | 1.6% + 30c | |||||||
1.7% | 1.6% | 1.5% | |||||||
Depending on what type of business you run, these are the pricing plans you should go for:
- If you want to run a giant online store – Start with Shopify Basic, then move up the chain
- If you’re running a small online business – Go with Shopify Basic
- If your business is on and offline – Choose Shopify
- If you sell products as a side hustle – Go for Shopify Lite
- If you already sell on different websites – Go for Shopify
The Shopify Basic Plan
Ideal for fledgling businesses
$29 per month, $312 per year
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.
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¢. 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 rate will add up fairly quickly.
However, Shopify Basic offers some features at lower prices than some of its big rivals. For example, you'll be able to get abandoned cart recovery tech to try and push customers towards completing orders. You'll also get access to gift cards which can be great for making the most of seasonal shopping events.
The Shopify Plan
The best choice for growing businesses
$79 per month, $825 per year
Shopify’s confusingly named middle plan, Shopify, is designed for businesses which 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, analyse, and update your store. Plus, you'll be able to dive deeper when analysing your sales and customer traffic with Shopify's professional report building rools
What's more, credit card processing rates are reduced. You'll now pay 1.9% of every transaction, plus 30¢. In-person credit card rates drop to 1.6%. 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.
Shipping discounts with USPS, UPS, or DHL Express improve from up to 64% with Shopify Basic to up to 72% with the Shopify plan.
The Advanced Shopify Plan
Designed for big businesses
$299 per month, $3,192 per year
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 big 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 (ease of use is a major factor in strong ecommerce sales).
You'll also be able to save any custom reports you build, making it great to track individual marketing campaigns, for example.
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.
The Shopify Lite Plan
A decent choice for sole traders
$9 per month
Shopify Lite 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 Lite 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.
The Shopify Plus Plan
Bespoke plans for the biggest businesses
$POA
Shopify Plus is the plan 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 typically start from $1,500 per month, so you'll need to be in with the high rollers to make this plan worth it.
Already know the right plan for your business? Get started with Shopify today.
Shopify Pricing — What Are Its Hosting Costs?
As soon as you sign up for one of Shopify’s premium plans (with the exception of Shopify Lite), you get website hosting thrown in for free.
You can use a new or existing domain name, plus your store will have unlimited bandwidth and SSL and card payment security.
Pros
- Unmatched sales and reporting features
- Simple to set up, use and edit your store
- Excellent and varied support options
- Fantastic design options
Cons
- Can become more expensive than rivals
- Charges transaction fees unless you use Shopify Payments
Shopify Alternatives
While we think Shopify is the best all-round ecommerce platform in the business based on our testing, there are several alternatives.
It has several serious competitors, including BigCommerce and Volusion, which offer similar online store and sales channel management products. However, you can also use website builders such as Squarespace to create an online store.
In our testing, we found that Shopify excelled in its sales functions and had good website customization. However, BigCommerce had a lot of website functionality which was unavailable on Shopify, including blogs and website forms.
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Test Score
Our score is based on independent assessments of ease of use, features, ecommerce functionality and value for money
|
Verdict |
Cheapest Ecommerce Plan (per month) |
Priciest Ecommerce Plan (per month) |
Physical Product Sales |
Digital Product Sales |
Service Sales |
Try
Click to check for deals, discounts and tiers of plans
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
BEST FOR SMALLER STORES 
| BEST FOR LARGER STORES 
| BEST FREE 
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4.5
| 4.5
| 4.2
| 4.2
| 4.0
| 3.8
| 3.6
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Wix is our top choice ecommerce website builder. It makes creating an online store brilliantly easy, and it's perfect for smaller or boutique stores. | The best ecommerce website builder for larger businesses, with outstanding features, great websites, and a scalable platform | A genuinely high quality way to launch an ecommerce site for free, and also perfect for anyone already using Square POS. | Runs Shopify close with great sales features and has a Free Trial, but a small knowledge base and weaker website design let it down. | Can't match the scalability of the its rivals, but you'll get a great-looking, easy to use sales website. | A good alternative to BigCommerce with better web design. Can be confusing to use, though. | Has some advantages over Wix when it comes to sales features, but Weebly's overall platform isn't as compelling. | |||
$20 | $29 | Free | $29.95 | $26 | $26 | $25 | |||
$45.90 | $299 | $79 | $249.95 | $40 | $269 | $46 | |||
✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | |||
✔ | App required | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✗ | ✔ | |||
App required | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | App required | ✔ | |||
Squarespace for Ecommerce
Squarespace can't quite match Shopify for large on- and offline businesses. However, it is a brilliant choice for small boutique online stores.
As a website builder first and foremost, Squarespace can make creating an online store incredibly easy. Its powerful editor makes adding design elements or ecommerce tools straightforward — even for first-timers.
Plus, Squarespace has been adding a range of new features to make it better as an ecommerce product. For example, you it has dedicated tools for tracking and analysing sales performance and an exceptional range of ecommerce templates..
Squarespace is also very strong when it comes to online marketing. For example, there's a built-in email campaign manager and you can add tools such as chatbots to help shoppers find what they need.
Squarespace is cheaper than Shopify, as well. Ecommerce prices range from $26 per month to $40 per month, which makes it a great choice for smaller businesses.
BigCommerce
BigCommerce is Shopify's, erm, biggest rival when it comes to large on- and offline businesses.
It provides a very similar range of accounting and reporting tools to Shopify, plus you'll be able to integrate loads of sales channels into BigCommerce's platform.
One important advantage that BigCommerce has over Shopify is that it doesn't charge transaction fees on the sales you make. Plus, you're able to use third-party payment processors without incurring a penalty. However, BigCommerce does place a limit on the amount you can make monthly depending on which plan you choose.
BigCommerce also can't quite match Shopify for online store customization. BigCommerce's designs don't look bad per se, but they're not quite as nice as Shopify's.
Check out our Best Ecommerce Website Builders guide for more information on Shopify's rivals
The next plan up is simply called Shopify. It costs $79 per month, which might seem like a big jump but you're getting a lot more bang for your buck. You get access to gift cards and hardware peripheral support — both of which could easily cover the $50 per month price bump. It's important to remember when choosing an ecommerce platform that you will be making money as a result of using the service so it pays to think of Shopify and its rivals as overhead business costs rather than unecessary services.
Shopify's final plan is Shopify Advanced and it costs $299 per month. Again, this is a big jump from the $79 per month Shopify plan. However, if you're investing in this plan its likely that your business will have several employees — you really don't need it if you're just starting out. You'll be able to set up 15 staff accounts and you'll get access to an advanced report building tool which can be useful for optimizing sales performance.
There's also the Shopify Lite plan which costs $9 per month. This restricts you to selling on Facebook and using Facebook Messenger to communicate with customers. There's also the Shopify Plus plan — a bespoke pricing tier for large, enterprise level businesses. You'll have to go to Shopify directly for a quote.
If you don't choose to use Shopify Payments, you'll have to set-up with a third-party payment provider. This third-party company will charge Shopify a fee for managing payments, and Shopify will pass this cost onto you — fees vary by payment provider so make sure you size-up your options before committing.
If you're using Shopify Payments, the time it takes for you to get paid varies from country-to-country. If you're in the US or Australia, you'll get paid in two business days. If you're in other countries you might paid within three to four days. You can find out how long it'll take you here.
If you're not using Shopify Payments, the time it takes you to get paid will vary according to your payment provider.
Customers will still be able to check out using PayPal regardless of which payment provider you use, as long as you have it set up as an option.
Shopify also has some of the best back-end functions of any ecommerce platform. Its accounting and reporting tools, for example, are powerful but extremely easy to use.
Shopify has excellent support options, including 24/7 phone and live chat support. Plus, it has a huge knowledge base and forums to help users fix their own problems quickly and easily.
It might be a touch more expensive than some of its rivals, but we think that Shopify's quality more than makes up for its slightly more expensive plans.
Shopify's cheapest plan that we would seriously consider is Shopify Basic. It costs $29 per month and gives you a full online store, a free website domain, and gives you access to the Shopify point-of-sale app for in-person selling. The Shopify Basic plan is comparable in price to many of its ecommerce competitors but we think Shopify has the edge when it comes to features and ease of use.
It gives you all the features you'll need to start an online store and grow your ecommerce business. You could opt for the middling Shopify plan straight away, however we feel that most small businesses won't be able to make the most of the extra features on offer — initially, at least.
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