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Shopify is one of the most famous online e-commerce website builders that allows anyone to create a store to sell products online in just an hour. You can start with a free trial to explore features, then continue for just $1 in the first month.  But when it comes to choosing a plan, the real question is, which one is right for you, and which one offers the best value?⠀

There are no completely free plans on Shopify Plans. Each plan provides different features and comes for a subscription fee. However, apart from the subscription fee, you need to consider additional costs, such as those for Shopify apps, and different transaction rates applicable to different plans and payment methods. Below, we will explore the five Shopify pricing plans and provide a roadmap to help you determine which Shopify pricing plan is best for you.

What are the Shopify plans?

When considering which plan is best for you, start with the features list on Shopify's pricing page. There are five Shopify pricing plans you can choose from, offering different transaction rates, number of staff accounts, reporting tools, shipping discounts, and inventory locations:

• Shopify Starter: for creating a simple store and selling across social media platforms.

• Shopify Basic: for creating an e-commerce website with core features.

• Shopify: for creating an e-commerce website with additional features.

• Shopify Advanced: for creating an e-commerce website with more advanced features.

• Shopify Plus: for creating an enterprise-level e-commerce solution.

You may be wondering why Shopify Starter hasn't been included in the table. In short, this plan, offered for $5/month, plus 5% and 30¢ per transaction, is very different from other plans. It doesn't offer a full e-commerce website; instead, it just provides core payment and inventory functionality for social media sales.  But what is more important is that it is only available for new merchants and accounts in the free trial period and is not available for downgrading from existing plans. 

Let's examine the features and pricing of each of the plans in more detail:

Shopify Starter for social selling

Pricing: $5/month, plus per transaction:

• 5% and 30¢ online

• 5% and 30¢ in person

• extra 2% for 3rd-party payment providers

Shopify Starter allows you to create product pages without a standalone e-commerce website. It enables sharing and selling across social media and messaging apps using Shopify's core sales functionality. You'll also get a Shopify admin page to manage orders and view sales reports.

On Shopify Starter, you can add photos and descriptions through the Spotlight theme and get shareable links containing your products information. You can share corresponding links on direct messages, such as WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, and other platforms, directing people straight to checkout pages. This plan also allows you to share your products through SMS, email, and any other means you can think of.

Main Features:

• Unlimited product pages

• A basic set of other website pages (e.g., shopping cart pages, contact page for customer inquiries)

• Ability to directly link product pages to Linkpop, a link-in-bio tool that lets you sell products with shoppable links.

• Ability to sell in-person using Shopify's point of sale, POS Lite

• Product and inventory management tools and tax rates (like in other Shopify plans, excluding marketing features)

• Access to Shopify's full suite of order management tools, including Shopify Shipping and Shopify Fulfillment Network for product storage

• Basic reports and analytics

• Access to Shopify apps

Limitations:

• No web hosting and custom domain

• Customization options and other themes, except for Spotlight, are not available

• Adding staff accounts, grouping products into collections, and activating third-party carrier-calculated shipping are not available

• No marketing features (e.g., discounts, coupons, abandoned cart saver)

• The highest transaction fee at 5%

• Not available for downgrading from existing plans

Best for: 

• Anyone who doesn't need a full-fledged e-commerce website but is looking for an affordable entry point to sell products without much overhead cost and promote them anywhere—via direct messages, social media, and other websites. Best for influencers, content creators, or bloggers, who have built their audience on social media platforms, messaging apps, or other influencer-friendly platforms.

Basic Shopify for new businesses and solo entrepreneurs

Pricing: $39/month, plus per transaction:

• 2.9% and 30¢ online.

• 2.6% + 10¢ in person

• extra 2% for 3rd-party payment providers

The Shopify Basic plan is the platform's entry-level plan.  In contrast to Shopify Starter, Shopify Basic provides a fully-fledged e-commerce website that is complete with core features. Shopify handles the backend stuff like hosting and security and offers a default domain name. With this plan, you get a customizable website editor with various themes you can choose from. It also allows you to share an unlimited number of products with 10 inventory locations and offers marketing tools like 10,000 free emails monthly, customer segmentation, and abandoned cart recovery tools.  With a built-in blogging engine, you can host a blog to post articles, update customers about events and promotions, and receive their comments and feedback.

Main Features:

• Fully customizable online store, you can choose between 13 free and 180+ paid templates

• Unlimited products

• Includes free SSL certificates to encrypt your online store's content and ensure a secure server and browser connection

• Offer abandoned cart recovery to identify and contact potential customers who leave your store without completing their purchase.

• Allows collaborator accounts to give designers, developers, and marketing experts limited access to your store 

• Ability to sell in-person using Shopify's point of sale, POS Lite

• 10 inventory locations

• Ability to enjoy Shopify shipping discount up to 77%

• Much more competitive transaction fee

• Ability to use International, a cross-border management tool for International commerce that lets you configure specific settings for each international region.

• Essential reports and analytics

• Shipping insurance

Limitations:

• Adding staff accounts and activating third-party carrier-calculated shipping are not available

Best for: 

• Newbies in the e-commerce industry who need an online store with inventory management. It may also be a good fit if you already have an established business with a small team. 

Shopify (the standard plan) for expanding businesses and small teams

Pricing: $105/month, plus per transaction:

• 2.7% + 30¢ online

• 2.5% + 10¢ in person

• extra 1% for 3rd-party payment providers

Shopify (standard) is very similar to the Basic plan with lower transaction fees, and better sales and customer reporting. You can upgrade from Basic to this plan if your business grows and needs additional staff accounts. This plan helps you improve sales with better insights from reporting tools and effective marketing campaigns.

Main Features:

• Everything in the "Basic" Plan, plus:

• 5 additional staff accounts

• Ability to enjoy Shopify shipping discounts of up to 88%

Limitations:

• Activating third-party carrier-calculated shipping is still not available

Best for: 

• Ambitious businesses that are growing and need more advanced tools and additional staff accounts. 

Shopify Advanced for scaling your operations

Pricing: $399/month, plus per transaction:

• 2.5% + 30¢ online

• 2.4% + 10¢ in person

• extra 0.6% for 3rd-party payment providers

Shopify Advanced plan is designed to help you scale your efforts and operations, especially if you anticipate handling a high volume of transactions. With this plan, you can access better automation tools and customized reports. To make the most of this plan, ensure your sales volume or average order value is high enough to cover the subscription cost to maintain profitability.

Key features:

• Everything in the Shopify (Standard) plan, plus:

• The most competitive transaction fees

• Enhanced 24/7 customer support

• 10 more staff accounts

• Carrier-calculated shipping by integrating with third-party shipping services to provide customers with up-to-date shipping rates and options at the time of order placement

• Most comprehensive custom reports and analytics to track business performance

• 10x improved checkout

• Ability to increase to up to 50 markets at an additional cost

• Includes duties and import tax calculations at checkout to give customers total cost clarity.

Limitations:

• Complexity in managing advanced features and customizations

• Potential need for additional third-party apps to fully utilize certain features

Best for:

• Businesses that work or intend to work with various markets and need features like currency conversion, website translation, and regional domains.

Shopify Plus: Enterprise Solutions for Large Businesses

Shopify Plus pricing: Starting at $2,300/month, plus per transaction:

• credit card fees vary by country and are based on credit card sales volume. For instance, for US customer's credit card fees Visa and Mastercard, the transaction fee is 2.15% + $.30. 3.15% of the transaction + 30 cents for American Express & international cards.

• extra 0.2% for 3rd-party payment providers; if you use Shopify Payments, this fee is waived meaning you only pay the standard Shopify Payments transaction fees.

Shopify Plus is not just another Shopify plan. It is an upgraded version of Shopify designed for large businesses with high-volume sales and millions of monthly orders, bringing over $1 million in annual revenue. We have devoted one of our previous blog posts comparing Shopify plans and Shopify Plus, Check it here. The price tag starts at $2,300 on a 3-year term or $2,500 for a 1-year term, monthly, and the final fee you'll have to pay is based on sales volumes. Once you reach a specific limit in monthly sales, the charging system will change to the Shopify revenue and business model, where you pay Shopify 0.25% of sales (up to a maximum of $40,000).  This plan is significantly more expensive than other Shopify plans but offers many highly advanced features. 

Main Features:

• A dedicated account manager for one-on-one support, assisting with any inquiries 

• The Merchant Success Program to receive the best guidance for business growth, and Shopify Plus Academy for interactive, on-demand courses

• Shopify Plus Partners Program to connect with various professionals,  like a dedicated launch engineer, who can help build and launch your site

• Customized checkout process via Checkout Extensibility through predefined APIs and UI extensions

• Unlimited staff accounts for an unrestricted number of employees that can have individual access to the store's admin panel

• 40x improved checkout

• Access to some exclusive Shopify Plus APIs and exclusive Shopify Plus apps, like Shopify Launchpad

• Multi-store & multi-currency management

• Shopify Plus Wholesale for managing your B2C (business-to-consumer) and B2B (business-to-business) sales from one integrated dashboard

• Advanced analytics with real-time tracking feature

• Shopify POS Pro is included in the plan

• Ability to create multiple international online stores without creating multiple accounts for each store. 

Best for:  

• Large enterprise-level companies with both the funds and the need for a higher level of support. 

Shopify Prices: Monthly vs Annual Plans

While the pricing for each Shopify plan (except for Shopify Starter) mentioned above is based on monthly payments, if you're considering a longer commitment, you can opt for an annual subscription and get a 25% discount on those prices. Upgrading to an annual plan can result in significant savings over time, and it's definitely worth considering if you're confident in using Shopify long-term. However, the monthly plan may be your best choice if you are just starting or still experimenting with different e-commerce platforms. It allows you to evaluate Shopify's features without committing to a long-term plan since fees for Shopify subscription plans are non-refundable. It means that you will not be able to receive a refund for your subscription plan if you decide to cancel or degrade it.

Are there additional expenses you should take into consideration?

Additional Payments transactions

To process payments through Shopify you can use a third-party provider or Shopify's proprietary payment solution, Shopify Payments.  Shopify Payments supports main credit and debit cards like VISA, MasterCard, and American Express. It involves a stringent security check to verify the legitimacy of the credit card owner for each transaction. If you decide not to use Shopify Payments, using a third-party payment provider will incur extra transaction fee. These  additional third-party transaction fees are:

• Shopify Starter: 2%

• Shopify Basic: 2%

• Shopify (regular): 1%

• Shopify Advanced: 0.5%

• Shopify Plus: 0.15%

Custom Domain

When you sign up for Shopify, you will receive a free "myshopify.com" domain. You can only change this default domain name if you purchase a custom (optional) domain. You don't have to move to another site; you can buy your domain name on Shopify. You can also purchase it from a third party like GoDaddy. But it's worth noting that changing the default domain to your own without the "Shopify" extension will not only give your store a personal touch but will also make your store look more professional and make customers more likely to choose it.  A custom domain name is a great deal you shouldn't miss, and the prices for it start at 9 USD per year.

Shopify Apps

Currently there are over 8,000 apps available in the Shopify App Store that you can use to extend and customize your website's functionality. Regardless of the Shopify plan you choose, it will not cover the costs of these third-party apps. There are some good free apps, and we've dedicated an article to the ten best free Shopify apps that you can check out here. Other apps are available for an additional fee that varies by app starting from $5 to several hundred dollars per month. As you'll likely want to use at least a few apps, don't forget to count these expenses.

Shopify Email

Email marketing is an important aspect of e-commerce sales, so Shopify offers its own email service. Users can use Shopify Email instead of a third-party service like MailChimp. Shopify Email, available on all Shopify plans except for the Starter plan, allows you to send up to 10,000 manual or automatic monthly emails for free. After that, you'll pay $1 for every additional 1,000 emails, which is one-tenth of a cent per email. It seems like a small amount, but every dollar counts, and if you have a large customer base, this could result in additional fees that you should also consider.

So, when choosing a Shopify plan, consider the following factors:

Budget: Determine your budget and select a plan that offers the best value for your money. Consider whether you can benefit from the 25% discount by using an annual plan. Take into account transaction fees and additional app costs. Different plans have varying transaction fees. Higher-tier plans generally offer lower fees, which can be cost-effective for high-volume businesses.

Business Size and Sales Volume: Match the plan to your business size and sales volume.  Startups may benefit from lower-cost plans like Shopify Starter or Basic. Higher-tier plans like Standard, Advanced, or Plus with lower transaction fees offer features that benefit larger businesses with higher sales to maximize profitability.

Features and Functionality: Identify the features you need to run your business efficiently. Basic plans offer essential e-commerce features, while higher-tier plans provide advanced tools like custom reports, multiple staff accounts, international commerce features, and third-party integrations, which can be critical for growing businesses. 

Target Market: Ensure the plan supports the payment gateways and shipping options that are popular in your target market. If you plan to sell internationally, look for plans offering features like multi-currency support, regional domains, and translation tools. 

Future Growth: Choose a plan that can scale with your business growth. Advanced and Plus plans are designed for businesses that already have or anticipate rapid growth. 

But what if you are already using one of the pricing plans? What are the main signs you need to upgrade? 

Performance issues: Monitoring your store's performance metrics and identifying bottlenecks can indicate the need for more powerful tools and resources. If customers provide feedback about limitations or issues that could be resolved with advanced features, it's a sign to upgrade.

Absent essential features: If you plan to sell internationally, upgrading can provide you with necessary features like multi-currency support, regional domains, and international shipping options. When you need more customization options for your store or advanced APIs, it's time to consider upgrading.

Significant and consistent sales increase: If your store handles a significantly higher number of transactions, you might benefit from lower transaction fees in higher-tier plans.

Need for More Staff Accounts: If your team is growing and you need more staff accounts that are not covered by your current plan.

 Bottom Line

Choosing a Shopify plan is not a difficult choice. The plan you choose should suit your needs and fit within your budget. When choosing a Shopify plan, consider its features, subscriptions and transaction fees. Don't forget about additional costs like app subscriptions, domain fees, and Shopify email fees. You can avoid extra transaction fees by using Shopify Payments and save 25% with Shopify's annual plan. If you are hesitating, it is wise to start with a lower plan as you can always upgrade or even downgrade your subscription in the future, except the Starter plan.