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Shopify pricing for ecommerce plans can be as cheap as $29 per month billed annually. However, this rises steeply to as much as $299 per month for huge scale online stores. Fortunately, Shopify now offers a deal that gets you the first three months for only $1 per month.
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. Here's how they match up against each other:
Shopify Pricing Plans Overview
- Basic – $29 per month billed annually, $39 per month billed monthly
- Shopify – $79 per month billed annually, $105 per month billed monthly
- Advanced – $299 per month billed annually, $399 per month billed monthly
- Starter – $1 per month for the first three months; $5 per month after that
- Plus – Starts at $2,000 per month
Use the links above to get started with Shopify, or scroll for the full details of each plan.
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. Better yet, it offers a vast range of third-party integrations, making it so flexible that virtually any business need can be met, small or large.
Obviously, this level of quality doesn’t come cheap. 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
Shopify offers five pricing plans in total: Basic, Shopify, Advanced, Starter, and Plus. The first three are designed for small to medium-sized businesses; Starter is a cut-back package that only allows for sales on Facebook, and Plus is a bespoke package for large businesses and high-volume merchants.
- Basic – the best fit for new ecommerce businesses
- Shopify – ideal for growing businesses that sell online
- Advanced – perfect for scaling businesses in need of advanced reporting
- Starter – best for small businesses with existing non-Shopify sites
- Plus – aimed at enterprise-level businesses with bespoke platforms
All Shopify plans are 25% off if you opt to be billed annually rather than monthly. If you want to know exactly how these plans compare when it comes to pricing, features, and support, take a look at this comparison table for a deeper dive:
| Plan | Price paid annually The price per month you'll pay if you choose to be billed annually | Price paid monthly 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 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | | | |||||||
| Basic | Shopify | Advanced | |||||||
|
$1/month for first 3 months | $79/month | $299/month | |||||||
| $39/month | $105/month | $399/month | |||||||
| Two | Five | 15 | |||||||
| Basic | Standard | Advanced | |||||||
| | | | |||||||
| 2.9% + 30¢ | 2.6% + 30¢ | 2.4% + 30¢ | |||||||
| 2.7% | 2.5% | 2.4% | |||||||
| 2% | 1% | 0.5% |
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.
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
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.
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 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 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
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 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 Starter Plan
A good choice for small businesses with existing non-Shopify sites with occasional in-person sales
$1 per month for the first three months; $5 per month after that
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 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
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.
Already know the right plan for your business? Get started with Shopify today.
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.
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.
Put simply, Shopify is the best ecommerce platform on the market at the moment. It excels across every category of our testing, from ease of use, to customer support, to the all-important sales features. But just don't take our word for it- try it out yourself, for free. Click the button below to get started.
- Starts at $9/month
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.
| Test Score Our score is based on independent assessments of ease of use, features, ecommerce functionality and value for money | Starting Price | Priciest Ecommerce Plan (per month) | Digital Product Sales | Service Sales | Sales Features Based on our research: number and quality of sales features | Value for Money Based on our research: feature offering vs average price plan price | Ease of Use Based on our research: customer and user testimonials | Try Click to check for deals, discounts and tiers of plans | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BEST OVERALL  |  |  |  |  |  |  | ||||
| 4.8 | 4.8 | 4.7 | 4.6 | 4.5 | 3.6 | 3.3 | ||||
|
| Free | $29 per month | $35 per month | Free | ||||||
|
| $72 per month | $299 per month | $269 per month | $19.99 per month | ||||||
| App required | | | | | | | ||||
| | App required | | | | App required | | ||||
| 4.6 | 4.4 | 3.4 | 3.6 | 4.6 | 3.5 | 2.4 | ||||
| 3.0 | 3.6 | 4.0 | 4.8 | 3.0 | 2.8 | 3.2 | ||||
| 3.7 | 4.4 | 4.4 | 3.9 | 3.3 | 3.2 | 3.7 | ||||
Wix for Ecommerce
Wix is already tremendously well known for its website builder functionality, powering everything from personal blogs to complex business portfolio sites. However, Wix is also an ecommerce powerhouse, following years of development of its ecommerce platform.
Can Wix compete with Shopify as an ecommerce platform? Absolutely – in fact, there's an argument that for first-time website builders or those launching smaller boutique stores, Wix is an even better choice.
First of all, Wix has regular discounts on its already great value plans. This makes it a tremendously good value option for small businesses starting out and keeping a keen eye on costs.
But, Wix also has all the ecommerce functionality you'd need for a growing, ambitious online store. Its killer feature is the remarkably sophisticated and easy-to-use website design toolset – you can simply answer a few questions about the type of store you are launching, and Wix will magic up a professional-looking template in moments. It's then simplicity itself to add your own imagery, text, logos, and store product catalog.
How does Wix pricing compare to Shopify?
Wix is, on paper, cheaper than Shopify. Its pricing starts from $27 per month rather than Shopify's $29 per month Basic plan.
However, while Wix is cheaper for small online stores, Shopify offers a greater range of features. Shopify also offers deep integration with its POS system — essential for selling in-person — while Wix offers no native POS integrations.
If you're running a small online store with no real plans to expand, we'd choose Wix. However, if your online business is selling a lot of products and you also want to sell in-person, Shopify is the better choice.
See our full guide to Wix Pricing for more
| Plan | Price paid annually The price per month you'll pay if you choose to be billed annually | Storage | Support | Verdict | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | | | |||
| Business Basic | Business Unlimited | Business VIP | |||
| 50 GB | 100 GB | Unlimited | |||
| 24/7 | 24/7 | Priority | |||
| A decent choice for new ecommerce businesses | Handy email tools for growing your business but nothing too substantial | Extra support tools make this plan almost essential for large online stores |
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, it has dedicated tools for tracking and analyzing 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.
How does Squarespace pricing compare to Shopify?
Squarespace is cheaper than Shopify, as well. Ecommerce prices range from $27 per month to $49 per month, which makes it a great choice for smaller businesses.
However, you do lose out on features. Abandoned cart recovery, for instance, isn't included on Squarespace's cheapest plan but is on Shopify's. Squarespace does offer point-of-sale integrations through Square, unlike Wix, which makes Squarespace a better fit for online and offline businesses.
| Plan | Price paid annually The price per month you'll pay if you choose to be billed annually | Price paid monthly The price per month you'll pay if you choose to be billed monthly | Domain included | Hosting included | Bandwidth | Storage | Abandoned cart recovery | Gift cards | Transaction fees | Point-of-sale support | Support | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| | | ||||||||||||
| Squarespace Commerce | Squarespace Commerce | ||||||||||||
| Basic | Advanced | ||||||||||||
| With 1-year contract | With 1-year contract | ||||||||||||
| | | ||||||||||||
| Unlimited | Unlimited | ||||||||||||
| Unlimited | Unlimited | ||||||||||||
| | | ||||||||||||
| | | ||||||||||||
| 0% | 0% | ||||||||||||
| | | ||||||||||||
| 24/7 | 24/7 |
BigCommerce
BigCommerce is Shopify's 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.
How does BigCommerce pricing compare to Shopify?
BigCommerce and Shopify have very similar pricing plans — perhaps too similar. However, there are some big differences between the providers.
BigCommerce, for example, has sales caps on its plans while Shopify doesn't. BigCommerce's Standard plan, for example, will only let you sell $50,000 worth of products per year. Shopify, on the other hand, doesn't have any sales caps.
BigCommerce's cheapest plan also doesn't offer abandoned cart recovery while Shopify's does. BigCommerce also doesn't offer built-in payment processing, unlike Shopify, which means you'll have to pay another company to manage your payments.
All told, we think that Shopify is slightly better value than BigCommerce.
Check out our Best Ecommerce Website Builders guide for more information on Shopify's rivals
| Plan | Price paid annually The price per month you'll pay if you choose to be billed annually | Bandwidth | Storage | Abandoned cart recovery | Gift cards | Transaction fees | Maximum sales | Point-of-sale support | Support | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| | Best Value Plan | | | |||||||
| Standard | Plus | Pro | Enterprise | |||||||
| $29/month | $79/month | $299/month | On request | |||||||
| Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | |||||||
| Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | |||||||
| | | | | |||||||
| | | | | |||||||
| 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | |||||||
| $50,000 | $180,000 | $400,000 | Unlimited | |||||||
| | | | | |||||||
| 24/7 | 24/7 | 24/7 | Premium |
Verdict: Is Shopify Worth It?
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.
Yes, Shopify is moderately expensive, so don't go blowing your budget on it if you don't have flexible finances. However, if you've got the money to invest and expect that you're going to need the firepower, Shopify is one of the best options out there, particularly for ecommerce businesses. Get started with Shopify right now, so you can improve your business.
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.
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'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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