Shopify Pricing Australia (2023): From Monthly Plans to Credit Card Rates

Shopify's primary user base is in the United States, followed by Great Britain. But Shopify use in Australia has increased dramatically, making it the 3rd highest concentration of Shopify users in the world.

If you're an Australian Shopify user, or someone in Australia who's considering Shopify for your ecommerce platform, it's important to understand all fees and pricing plans to expect. Is it the same pricing in Australia as it is in the US? Should you expect unique credit card rates or prices for buying Shopify themes? We answer all these questions in this guide on Shopify pricing for Australia.

Here's what we cover in this article:

• Is Shopify pricing in Australia different from other places in the world?
• Shopify pricing plans in Australia
• Free trials for Australian Shopify users
• Credit card fees when running an Australian Shopify store
• Domain pricing in Australia
• Pricing for Shopify themes
• Pricing for Shopify apps
• Shipping fees and savings for Shopify
• Shopify point of sale pricing in Australia
• Hosting fees
• Bandwidth fees
• Security and SSL certificate fees in Australia

Keep reading to learn all about Shopify pricing in Australia!

Is Shopify Pricing in Australia Different from Other Places in the World?

Yes, a bit.

When compared to Shopify pricing in the US, Australian Shopify plans actually look rather similar. You can expect the same $29, $79, and $299 per month plans for the main plans. And those prices, even on the Australian site, get listed in USD.

But, Australia uses the Australian dollar, so although it seems like the same prices as the US, it's not exatcly, due to the conversion.

So, sometimes you might find that Australian prices are more expensive, less expensive, or about the same as the price US customers pay. As of this article, the Australian dollar is a little weaker than the US dollar, so Australians are technically paying US prices with AUD, which makes it more expensive for Australians in general.

However, Shopify pricing in Australia varies from other countries because of its unique credit card processing rates, and because of:

• Bancontact rates
• iDEAL rates
• Other third-party or alternative payment gateways used that are unique to Australia

Finally, we've found that Australian pricing for things like point of sale systems, the Shopify Starter plan, and even some Shopify themes look fairly similar to the rest of the world.

So, take a look at our thorough analysis below to figure out what you should expect to pay when working with Shopify in Australia.

Shopify Pricing Plans in Australia

These are the Australian Shopify pricing plans:

1. Starter
2. Basic Shopify
3. Shopify
4. Advanced Shopify
5. Shopify Plus

The #2-4 plans are most prominently advertised to users, which makes sense, considering Shopify Plus is a niche plan for enterprises, and the Starter plan works best for rather simple websites that need a quick way to sell a few products; the Starter plan lacks a full online store with shopping cart functionality.

All Australia Shopify plans have their standard prices, but you can save by opting for:

• Yearly payments: Save 10%
• Biennial payments: Save 20%

Australian users can also take advantage of a free trial, which we'll talk about more below. Keep in mind that you can always change your Shopify plan to a higher or lower priced option, and all billing gets placed on your monthly Shopify invoice in the dashboard.

Is There a Free Trial for Australian Users?

Yes. All Australian Shopify users get to start with a 14-day free trial, without typing in any credit card information.

Once the trial ends, or whenever you'd like to activate payments and publish your online store, you must choose a payment plan and punch in your payment details.

If you don't decide on a payment plan, and your free trial lapses, the content still gets saved on Shopify, but you must select a plan in order to continue with any of Shopify's functionality.

Here are the Shopify pricing plans offered in Australia:

Starter: $5 USD per month (~$7 AUD)

The Starter plan from Shopify sells for $5 per month, which, at the time of this article, comes out to $7.27 AUD per month.

The plan doesn't get you a shopping cart and complete online store on your own domain. Rather, it provides a simple dashboard for creating product pages that you can sell anywhere online.

The idea behind this plan is:

• To allow current website owners the option to list some products on their non-ecommerce websites.
• To give people who don't own websites an option for selling online, since you can use the Shopify product page links to share on places like email and social media.

What features come with the Starter plan for $5 per month?

• Quick product pages for selling anywhere online, with tools to add product photos, descriptions, and pricing.
• A Buy button for all products that get processed through Shopify.
• Social sharing tools for selling on places like Instagram and WhatsApp. It's actually possible to share your products on any social platforms, or other websites and messaging apps.
• A Linkpop page for adding a shortened link to your Instagram bio or other social media pages. This allows you to generate the shortened link and make a sleek landing page that leads to all of your product pages.
• Order management for fulfilling, managing, and receiving orders through a simplified version of the Shopify dashboard.
• Analytics that show information like sales and customer data.

The Starter plan used to be $5 USD per month, so it's clear that Shopify has made it the ultimate budget-friendly version of ecommerce platforms. However, we encourage you to consider the pros and cons of the Starter plan, since it's not a complete ecommerce platform with a product gallery and shopping cart. You also don't get important tools like an online store builder, site theme, and abandoned cart recovery.

Also, keep in mind that all transactions processed through the Starter plan are still subject to the standard credit card fees we'll cover later in this article.

Basic: $29 USD per month (~$42 AUD)

At $29 per month USD, or roughly $42.16 AUD, the Basic Shopify plan is one of the most affordable ecommerce platforms on the market, considering you gain access to a full website builder, shopping cart, and payment processing system.

The plan gives you everything you need to construct an online store with ease, while also managing aspects of your business, like inventory management and marketing. We see the Basic plan as an introductory package, where you can sell with no limits and even connect to an in-person POS system. After you've grown your business, it's easy to upgrade to the more value-packed Shopify plan for more features.

The Basic plan includes the following features and benefits:

• A complete online store with unlimited products, 2 staff accounts, and 24/7 support.
• Multiple sales channels for selling on social media, marketplaces, and other websites.
• Up to 4 inventory locations.
• A free SSL certificate.
• Tools to create manual orders.
• Support for discount codes and gift cards.
• Basic reporting and sales analytics.
• Customer segmentation for grouping your customers and filtering throughout the crowd.
• Abandoned cart recovery with automation and messaging.
• Several marketing automation options with templates and custom workflows.
• An unlimited number of contacts, whether customers or business associates.
• Shipping discounts and affordable payment processing rates.
• Simplified shipping labels with no need for any special equipment.
• Fraud analysis tools.
• POS support.
• International commerce features like market management, market domains, sub-folders, language translations, local payment methods, and currency conversions.
• Custom domain support.

Shopify: $79 USD per month (~$115 AUD)

The Shopify plan has a price tag of $79 USD per month, or currently about $114.86 AUD each month. The price increase comes with a myriad of added features, making it ideal for growing ecommerce sites in need of more staff accounts, superior reports, or ecommerce automations for growing your business. The plan also features decreased payment processing rates when using Shopify payments, and even when using Bancontact or iDEAL.

Overall, the Shopify plan has the best value overall, considering you receive just about every feature available from Shopify, improved shipping and credit card rates, and some necessary features required for rapidly scaling your business, including ecommerce automations and better reporting.

Here's what to expect from the Shopify plan:

• A complete online store with support for unlimited products and 5 staff accounts. You also get 24/7 customer support.
• Sales channel options like social media and marketplace selling.
• Up to 5 inventory locations.
• Manual order creation.
• Discount codes
• Free SSL.
• Abandoned carts.
• Gift cards.
• Standard reports, which are more detailed than the Basic reports from the previous plan.
• Customer segmentation.
• Marketing automation.
• Unlimited contacts.
• Ecommerce automations for speeding up manual tasks and creating workflows throughout your store.
• Shipping discounts and improved credit card rates.
• Fraud analysis.
• POS support with Shopify POS Lite and Shopify POS Pro (extra charge).
• All international commerce tools from the previous plan, including local payment methods, language translation, market domains, sub-folders, and international market management.

Advanced: $299 USD per month (~$434 AUD)

The Advanced Shopify plan has a price point of $299 per month in USD, which comes out to around $434.38 AUD at the time of this article.

The plan makes the most sense for scaling businesses that need advanced reporting and the potential for additional staff accounts and inventory locations. There's also the benefit of decreased credit card rates and added international commerce tools.

We see this as the plan that most businesses want to get to in the first few years, because it provides the highest potential for increasing margins and having a full view of what's going on with your business.

Here are the features from the Advanced plan:

• A full online store with unlimited products, 15 staff accounts, and 24/7 support.
• Sales channels for selling elsewhere, like on social media and in marketplaces.
• Support for up to 8 inventory locations.
• Manual orders.
• Discount codes and gift cards.
• Free SSL.
• Abandoned carts.
• Advanced reports for the highest level of analysis.
• Third-party calculated real-time shipping rates for more transparency with customers and control over what you pay for shipping.
• Customer segmentation.
• Marketing automations.
• Unlimited contacts.
• Ecommerce automations.
• Shipping discounts.
• Shipping labels.
• Fraud analysis.
• Decreased credit card transaction fees, even for 3rd party payment providers, iDEAL rates and Bancontact. PayPal isn't included with these discounts.
• Shopify POS Lite and Pro.
• All international commerce features from the previous plans, plus duties/import taxes and custom pricing by market.

The Advanced Shopify plan still has the essentials like domain name support, SEO, hosting, and abandoned cart recovery, but it expands upon the basic ecommerce business tools by adding essential international commerce features, advanced reporting, and increases in things like inventory locations and staff accounts. As you can see, it's simply for larger, or faster growing businesses, and the monthly fee definitely makes for a solid value because of the stronger discounts.

Shopify Plus: Starting at $2,000 USD per month (~$2,906 AUD)

Shopify costs a minimum of $2,000 USD per month when opting for the Shopify Plus (Enterprise) package. In Australia, that's more like $2,906.19 AUD at the time of this article. If you use Shopify Payments, the credit card rates are bound to decrease as well. Just keep in mind that the $2,000 per month price is where the pricing starts, so it's more of a customizable plan where you may end up spending much more than that, depending on your needs as a business.

Here are the highlights:

• Re-platforming support.
• No hosting or infrastructure costs.
• No performance or load testing.
• No security patches or upgrades.
• Completely managed hosting.
• A faster checkout and higher conversion rates with Shopify Pay.
• Advanced product pages with AR, 3D media, and video.
• Localization for shopping experiences, with tools for multiple currencies, stores, and languages.
• A 99.99% uptime.
• Full customization of your checkout.
• Advanced shipping rates and discounts.
• Management of all stores, staff, and workflows from one dashboard.
• Automations for discounts, campaigns, and other processes.
• Deep integrations with any of your tech tools.
• Free and simple migrations from other ecommerce platforms and previously existing websites.
• Certified partners and developers, all of which you can partner with for improving your store.
• Support for multi-channel selling on places like Amazon, Etsy, and other marketplaces and social outlets.

Shopify Plus doesn't have any additional fees, but you can opt for a variable fee structure if your business is more complex or it has higher volume. We also like that you receive everything from the previous plans for retail business, including the POS, card reader, and inventory management tools.

Shopify Credit Card Fees in Australia

Credit card processing fees are inevitable for all online businesses, and that's no exception when working with Shopify. You must pay a small credit card fee whenever a customer purchases something from your store, even with the Starter and Shopify Plus plans. Keep in mind that this doesn't mean Shopify takes a transaction fee; it's actually a fee charged by the credit card companies, so there's no avoiding it by going to another platform. In fact, Shopify has some of the best rates in the market because of its Shopify Payments processor. Essentially, you can save money on credit card fees as you upgrade your Shopify subscription, which eventually means you pay far less than the industry standard.

For credit card payment fees, it all depends on your Shopify plan and the payment provider you choose.

It's wise to go with Shopify Payments, since that gets you no transaction fees and the lowest overall credit card rates. You can, however, opt for a third-party processor for your ecommerce store, but the rates will be a little higher.

What's the credit card pricing for Shopify in Australia? Luckily, Shopify lists these rates in AUD, allowing you a stronger grasp on your potential expenses.

Credit Card Rates for the Basic Plan:

• Online credit card rates in Australia: 1.75% + 30¢ AUD
• Online credit card rates for Amex and international cards: 2.9% + 30¢ AUD
• Rates when using Bancontact: 2.9% + 30¢ AUD
• iDEAL rates: 2.9% + 30¢ AUD
• Debit card and in-person rates: 1.9% + 0¢ AUD
• Third-party processing fees (when not using Shopify Payments – this is an extra fee on top of the credit card rates): 2.0%

Rates for the Shopify Plan:

• Online credit card rates in Australia: 1.6% + 30¢ AUD
• Online credit card rates for Amex and international cards: 2.8% + 30¢ AUD
• Rates when using Bancontact: 2.8% + 30¢ AUD
• iDEAL rates: 2.8% + 30¢ AUD
• Debit card and in-person rates: 1.7% + 0¢ AUD
• Third-party processing fees (when not using Shopify Payments – this is an extra fee on top of the credit card rates): 1.0%

Credit Card Rates for the Advanced Plan:

• Online credit card rates in Australia: 1.4% + 30¢ AUD
• Online credit card rates for Amex and international cards: 2.7% + 30¢ AUD
• Rates when using Bancontact: 2.7% + 30¢ AUD
• iDEAL rates: 2.7% + 30¢ AUD
• Debit card and in-person rates: 1.5% + 0¢ AUD
• Third-party processing fees (when not using Shopify Payments – this is an extra fee on top of the credit card rates): 0.5%

Domain Pricing in Australia

Domain pricing isn't much different when buying through Shopify as it is purchasing a domain through the main domain name registrars (GoDaddy, Namecheap, Google Domains), and other platforms like Squarespace.

You should expect to pay around $10 to $25 AUD per year for a domain name, so it's a rather small expense whether you buy it through Shopify or a third-party. Our suggestion is to buy domains through Shopify, since that means you don't have to go through the process of transferring a domain.

Pricing for Shopify Themes in Australia

Shopify themes, even on the Australian Shopify Theme Store, get listed with USD prices.

The theme prices aren't any different from what you would have to pay in a different country. Everyone pays the same flat USD price for Shopify themes. Right now, those appear to be anywhere from $200 to $400 per theme, and that's a onetime fee. You receive all future updates without paying for a subscription.

Shopify also still has a handful of free themes to choose, but they're getting less plentiful as Shopify grows, and they aren't nearly as feature-rich as the premium options. However, the free themes work well for newer, smaller online stores.

In Australian Dollars, your pricing, at least at the time of this article, should look a little higher (since the USD is stronger than AUD). So, a $200 theme would cost around $289 AUD.

Pricing for Shopify Apps in Australia

The Shopify App Store also lists its products in USD.

Pricing for Shopify apps ranges from free to hundreds of dollars per month. You shouldn't feel required to pay for apps, because you can usually find free alternatives. However, there's a good chance that growing businesses end up paying for a few apps, most of which will cost anywhere from $5 to $50 per month.

Right now, that means the AUD price for an app should be a little higher (since AUD is weaker than USD). So, a $5 USD app (per month) would cost around $7.24 AUD per month.

Shipping Fees and Savings for Shopify Australia

There are always shipping fees with ecommerce platforms, but it all depends on which shipping providers you use and whether you decide to pass along the shipping fees to your customers.

The good news is that Shopify provides shipping discounts of up to 44.2% to Australia online shop owners. This doesn't change based on your Shopify payment plan (like it does in the US) so there's a standard discount across all plans.

Furthermore, Shopify offers shipping labels without the need to use special equipment. Simply setup a regular printer and Shopify does the rest for you.

Shopify Point Of Sale Pricing in Australia

Shopify has two POS products:

• Shopify POS Lite: An online interface with physical card swipers for accepting in-person payments.
• Shopify POS Pro: An advanced POS for adding workflows, staff permissions, and many other inventory features.

In Australia, Shopify POS Lite comes free with every Shopify pricing plan. However, you can upgrade to the Shopify POS Pro product for an extra $89 per month USD (~$129 AUD).

Hosting Fees ($0)

There are no hosting fees with Shopify. You could say that it's technically wrapped up into your monthly fee, but it's at least nice that you never have to think about shopping for hosting, managing hosting, or worrying about the problems that often come with hosting, like security issues, uptime, and performance.

This managed hosting already has everything you need for a high performance website, including elements like a CDN, caching, and state-of-the-art cloud servers.

Overall, hosting is free for Australian Shopify customers, or at least you don't have to think about it at all since it's already included with your plan.

Bandwidth Fees ($0)

Bandwidth, like hosting, is free and unlimited for all Shopify plans. In today's world, bandwidth isn't as much of a concern for hosting companies, so although this isn't a huge advantage when compared to other platforms, it's still nice knowing that you're not limited to certain levels of bandwidth due to your pricing package. Your site is always up, ready to accept thousands, even millions, of users, and it handles surges in traffic, especially during the holidays and other busy times.

Security and SSL Certificate Fees for Shopify ($0)

All security is already built into Shopify, allowing you to rest easy while running your business. It's still recommended that you run automated backups, but there are protections from hacking, malware, and even fraud protection, all without the extra fee you would find with other platforms.

Furthermore, each Shopify plan comes with a free SSL certificate, protecting your transactions and keeping your store in line with the law.

Our Conclusion on Shopify Pricing for Australia

Here's a roundup of what you should know about Shopify pricing in Australia:

1. All plans are listed in USD, so the value of your purchase depends on the value of AUD against USD.
2. Pricing plans range from $5 per month to $2,000+ per month, with the most popular plans being $29 and $79 per month.
3. Credit card fees are listed in AUD for Australian Shopify users.
4. Credit card fees decrease as you upgrade your monthly Shopify plan.
5. Standard online credit card rates start at 1.75% + 30¢ AUD.
6. You don't have to pay for SSL certificates, hosting, or bandwidth.
7. Shopify themes cost several hundred dollars and are listed in USD. There are some free themes to choose from.
8. Shopify apps—also listed in USD—cost anywhere from free to several hundred dollars per month. Most are cheaper, at like $5 to $50 per month.

If you have any questions about Shopify pricing in Australia, or would like to share your experience as an Australian Shopify user, drop us a comment in the section below.