Shopify Pricing: How Much Does the Ecommerce Website Builder Cost?

Shopify pricing starts at $29 per month for its ecommerce website builder, which represents one of the more expensive options on the market in 2025. However, given its advanced functionality for building an online store, including inventory management, it still remains a popular option for those looking to sell online.

Even better, Shopify consistently offers a special deal that allows you to get access to the platform for only $1 per month for the first three months. That, on top of the 3-day free trial, will allow you to test out the platform before making a financial commitment. There’s also a $5 per month Starter plan that provides very basic functionality, like selling on social media and messaging apps.

In this guide, you’ll learn about Shopify pricing, including the ecommerce website builder plans, the alternative solutions like Retail and POS, and how the platform compares to other options on the market.

In this guide:

• Shopify Pricing Plans Explained
• Does Shopify Have a Free Plan?
• Shopify Plans For Nonprofits
• Is Shopify Good Value For Money?
• Additional Shopify Solutions
• Hidden Costs with Shopify
• Shopify Pricing vs Competitors
• Verdict: Is Shopify Worth It?

Shopify Pricing Plans: Overview

Shopify offers four different pricing plans for its ecommerce website builder platform. Here’s how much they cost:

• Basic – $29 per month
• Grow – $79 per month
• Advanced – $299 per month
• Plus – $2,300 per month

All Shopify plans are 25% off if you opt to be billed annually rather than monthly. So, if you want a month-to-month plan, you’ll have to pay $39 per month for the Basic plan, $105 per month for the Grow plan, and $399 per month for the Advanced plan. The Plus plan is not available on a monthly basis.

Shopify also offers a special deal that will give you access to the Basic, Grow, and Advanced plans for only $1 per month for the first three months. After that, standard pricing will resume. This effectively acts as a paid trial, as the free trial for Shopify only lasts for 3 days.

Shopify Basic Plan ($29 per month)

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 ($20.99 per month) and Hostinger ($7.99 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

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’s Plans For Nonprofits

Shopify offers two different plans for non-profit organizations: NPO Lite and NPO Full. To be eligible for both, you need to be a verified charity. Read on to learn more about their offerings and how they compare.

NPO Lite 

• Best for smaller nonprofit organizations 
• $29 per month

Shopify’s standard NPO plan offers everything that’s available in Shopify Basic, alongside the ability to accept donations through Shopify Payments, unlimited staff accounts, real-time carrier shipping, 1% transaction fees if you’re using a third-party payment provider, and Shopify plan rates if you’re using Shopify Payments.

NPO Full

• Best for more established nonprofit organizations 
• $99 per month

If you’re a larger nonprofit that’s able to spend more each month, you’ll gain access to everything in Shopify’s namesake plan, alongside unlimited staff accounts, real-time carrier shipping capabilities, and the ability to accept donations through Shopify payments.

The biggest perk of the plan? You won’t be charged card processing fees if you’re using a third-party payment provider. You’ll also be charged lower processing fees than with the Shopify plan if you’re using Shopify Payments.

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.

What Are The Best Shopify Alternatives?

As we’ve mentioned a few times now, Shopify is expensive, specifically compared to other website builders on the market in 2025. How expensive? Here’s a quick breakdown of some of the other options on the market, and how much more affordable they are than Shopify.

Shopify pricing vs Wix pricing

Shopify’s starting price of $29 per month is notably higher than Wix, which starts at only $17 per month. Considering we found Wix to be the best website builder overall, because of its website and design features, and for ecommerce, thanks to its multi-channel integrations, it’s safe to say Wix might be a better bet if cost is your prime issue.

If, however, inventory management is important to you, Shopify is unmatched, particularly if you have a larger team. Shopify allows for up to 15 users on its plans, while Wix tops out at 10. All that to say, larger teams might find Shopify a clearer choice, even with the higher price.

Check out our Wix pricing guide for more info

Shopify pricing vs Squarespace pricing

Squarespace is the easiest website builder to use in our research, and at only $16 per month, it’s a huge value choice for businesses that want to get started with a beginner-friendly website builder. Even Squarespace’s most expensive plan is only $99 per month, which is a fraction of the Advanced plan from Shopify.

Squarespace has some clear blind spots for ecommerce compared to Shopify, though. A lack of POS compatibility is a big one, so businesses with physical stores will absolutely have to go with Shopify over Squarespace. Still, if you’re a creative who values design and customization, Squarespace provides a clear option.

Check out our Squarespace pricing guide for more info