Shopify Pricing: Store Plans, Hidden Fees and Transaction Charges

Shopify pricing 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. 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.

In this guide:

• Shopify Pricing Plans Explained
• 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.

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, $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 that regularly sell online and in-store

$79 per month, $825 per year

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, $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 good choice for small businesses with existing non-Shopify sites with occasional in-person sales

$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

Best for enterprise-level businesses with bespoke platforms and functionality developed by Shopify

From $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.

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 $23 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

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 $26 per month to $40 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.

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

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.

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.

Shopify Pricing FAQs