Shopify Plans: How Much Does Shopify Cost?

Understanding Shopify plans and pricing can help you choose the right plan and prevent overpaying for features you may not need. Shopify caters to complete beginners and seasoned merchants who want to migrate their stores to Shopify.

Read this guide where we break down Shopify plan prices and features to help find the right option for your store.

Shopify pricing and plans

Shopify has 5 plans to offer for businesses of any size – Starter, Retail, Basic, Grow, Advanced, and Plus. The Starter and Retail plans are the cheapest but very limited and provide you with features to build a simple storefront with the Spotlight theme rather than a complex website.

All of the other plans come with unlimited products, themes, Analytics, unlimited hosting, free SSLs, collaborator accounts, and more.

Here’s a quick Shopify plan comparison and their monthly vs yearly plans:

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The Shopify annual cost is way lower than the monthly cost, helping you save 25% in total. If you already see a suitable Shopify plan option, jump straight to it. But if you’re unsure, let’s review the main features and limitations that come with each plan.

Shopify Starter – $5/month

Transaction fees: 5% + 30¢ per transaction

Shopify Starter is the most cost-effective plan to create a simple storefront, starting from $5/month. It’s a very limited option that won’t let you create a fully functional site. Here’s what you can do with it:

The main limitation of the Starter plan is that it’s very limited in terms of customization. You can’t use any other themes except for Spotlight or create custom pages except for default home, product, contact, 404, cart, and checkout pages. Plus, there’s no option to add product collections.

What business is the Shopify Starter plan for?

Shopify Starter is the right plan for:

• stores that plan to make most of their sales through social media
• one-product stores that don’t need a full eCommerce website
• anyone looking to test the potential of eCommerce without big commitments

Shopify Basic – $29/month

Transaction fees: 2.9% + 30¢

The Basic Shopify plan cost starts from $29/month, and it’s the cheapest option to build a full-scale eCommerce store with unlimited products and a handful of marketing features. Here are the main features you get with it that you wouldn’t get with the Starter plan:

The limitations of the Basic plan are that you get no staff accounts and limited reports. Plus, while transaction fees are lower than with the Starter plan, it’s the highest compared to other standard plans.

What business is the Basic plan for?

The Basic plan is sufficient for Shopify stores that have a limited budget and want to create a simple, functional store or run a blog. It’s only suitable for solopreneurs who don’t have any additional staff. If you need more staff accounts or custom reporting, you should look into the Grow or Advanced plan.

Shopify Grow – $79/month

Transaction fees: 2.7% + 30¢

Shopify Grow plan prices start from $79/month, and it’s the best plan for businesses with a small team. The main features that it comes with aside from the features offered in the Basic plan are:

The limitations of the Grow plan is that staff accounts are limited to 5, which is lower than the Advanced plan (15 accounts). It also doesn’t offer local storefronts or let you estimate or collect duties and import taxes.

What business is the Grow plan for?

The Grow plan is an ideal option for stores with up to 5 staff members who need access to Shopify or for getting high online sales to offset transaction fees. It’s also the ideal option for US merchants who want to get shipping insurance and cubic pricing.

Shopify Advanced – $299/month

Transaction fees: 2.5% + 30¢

Shopify Advanced pricing starts at $299/month and is great for larger businesses that need top-notch features. These include:

The Advanced plan is the most feature-rich plan for small to large businesses and has the lowest transaction fees compared to other standard plans. However, even as the most expensive plan, this option gives you free access to 3 markets only. You can add up to 50 markets for an additional cost.

What business is the Advanced plan for?

Shopify Advanced is the pick for your store if you’re a large business with a team of 6 to 15 staff members who need access to the store. It’s the optimal solution for in-depth tracking of your goals with custom reporting and displaying varying currencies and import tax rates to international clients.

Shopify Plus – $2,300/month

Transaction fees: Custom

The Shopify Plus plan is for the enterprise-level players in the market and comes with custom pricing starting from $2,300/month. It offers the same features as the Advanced plan, plus:

Shopify Plus is the ultimate plan you can get for a VIP experience. However, to find out the final price for your business, you’ll have to get in touch about Shopify Plus through the team.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Shopify Plus is a truly VIP experience for both your customers and your team.

What business is the Shopify Plus plan for?

Shopify Plus is a great choice for managing a full-fledged enterprise and providing a seamless shopping journey for your customers. This plan is for you if you’ve already outgrown the Advanced plan and want to sell internationally.

The Plus plan is also the best choice for established businesses with a large customer base that want to migrate from other eCommerce platforms.

Shopify Retail – $79/month

Transaction fees: 2.9% + 30¢ USD

Shopify Retail plan is a good plan for selling in person while creating a simple online presence for $79/month. It comes with the same features as the Starter plan. Here are the main things you get with the Retail plan:

Like with the Starter plan, the main limitation is that the site isn’t as customizable. You can’t access other themes other than Spotlight and get fewer features than you would with standard plans like Basic.

What business is the Retail plan for?

Shopify Retail plan is best for businesses with physical locations that primarily sell in person. It comes with great POS features, such as unlimited registers, customer relationship tools, and inventory management tools.

Is there a free Shopify trial?

Yes, you can try Shopify for 3 days with absolutely zero commitment. After that, you get to use the Basic, Grow, or Advanced plan at just $1/month for the next 3 months.

During your Shopify free trial, you get access to all store management features and can set up Shopify Payments and prepare your store for launch. If you decide to stick to Shopify and push your store live, all of your progress will be available to you.

Costs not included in Shopify plans

Remember that Shopify monthly fees, including the plan price and transaction fees, won’t be your only expenses. Let’s review additional costs you might come across when running a Shopify store.

Additional transaction fees

With Shopify, you can use a native checkout provider called Shopify Payments or use third-party providers. With Shopify Payments, there are no transaction fees, only specific credit card processing fees.

But if you decide to use third-party payment providers, you’ll get additional transaction fees. Their size depends on the plan:

• Basic – 2%
• Grow – 1%
• Advanced – 0.6%
• Plus – 0.2%

So, if possible in your region, I highly recommend sticking to Shopify Payments to save more money.

Shopify Payments is not available in certain regions. Check Shopify Payments supported countries in advance to avoid issues later on.

Domain name

Domain name is the main URL of your store, usually the same or similar to your store name. It can look something like this:

https://yourstorename.com/

Unfortunately, domain name prices aren’t included in Shopify plans. However, you can purchase a domain through Shopify or other domain name registrars.

The exact price will depend on the TLD (e.g. .com, .org., .co) you choose for your domain name. Most sit at around $15 per year, but you can get a better idea if you check with the Shopify domain name generator.

Domains are purchased for a year and renewed annually, independently of your monthly Shopify fees.

Pro tip: SSL certificate is already included with all Shopify plans. You do not need to purchase it together with your domain.

Email hosting

Email hosting is important for looking professional and building trust when communicating with your customers through email. With it, your email could look like this:

[email protected]

Instead of:

[email protected]

Shopify does not provide email hosting, so you can only get it through a third-party email hosting service. You can explore various platforms to find the best option for you. Shopify recommends Zoho Mail (starting from $1/month) or Google Workspace (from $7/month).

Shopify apps

Although Shopify has loads of functionalities to build a functional store, you may find some custom needs that require getting third-party apps.

The final cost depends on how many apps you need and for what. What’s important is that you don’t install too many apps for different purposes. Instead, look for the best Shopify apps that offer a comprehensive list of features.

Having too many apps will add up in terms of price and may even slow down your website.

Shopify themes

Let’s start by saying that your Shopify theme doesn’t have to cost you anything.

Plenty of free Shopify themes are optimized for speed, responsive, and slick-looking. That being said, some stores might opt in for paid themes with necessary features or more support.

In that case, good Shopify themes can cost you anywhere between $100 – $450 depending on quality, features, and design.

Of course, you always have the option of hiring developers to create a theme from scratch. While it sounds exciting, think very carefully because it might be hard to justify the costs.

How to reduce Shopify store costs?

There are many ways to actually keep your store costs at a minimum. Here are legitimate ways you can reduce your Shopify store costs:

• Start with the free Shopify trial
• Opt in for yearly discounted plans (save up to 25%)
• Choose a free Shopify theme (Dawn is the most popular one)
• Use Shopify Payments to avoid additional transaction fees
• Choose only necessary and multifunctional Shopify apps
• Upgrade based on your monthly income to benefit from lower transaction fees
• If you have a highly seasonal business, don’t be afraid to pause your Shopify store in the down season

Shopify plans and pricing: summary

Shopify offers flexible pricing for businesses of any size. Although the right option depends on what features you need, here’s a quick summary of the Shopify plan prices and what they’re best suited for:

• Starter ($5/month) – mini stores selling on social media or physical locations
• Retail ($79/month) – mini stores focused on in-person selling
• Basic ($29/month) – small businesses without any staff
• Grow ($79/month) – small-to-medium stores with up to 5 staff members
• Advanced ($299/month) – large businesses for international selling and up to 15 staff members
• Shopify Plus ($2,300/month) – enterprises with unlimited staff accounts and international selling

Whatever plan you choose, note that it will come with additional costs. Don’t forget to take into account such things as transaction fees, themes, app integrations, a custom domain, and more.

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About the author

Kristina Jaruseviciute

Kristina is a Senior Writer at TinyIMG responsible for informing and educating readers on all things Shopify-related. In her writings, she covers a broad range of topics, from the best apps and themes for Shopify merchants to tips on how to optimize your website for SEO, performance, and higher conversion rates.