Volusion is known as one of the more “out-of-the-box” ecommerce solutions since it provides options for small businesses to get set up and selling in a quick and easy manner. The cheaper templates are fairly simple, but they do the job. You also have the option to spend a little more money to get something truly unique. Find out how to easily select the best Volusion pricing plan and other tips and tricks about this ecommerce platform.
Volusion is an extremely affordable option, and I recommend trying out the 14-day free trial if you want to test the system out first. However, it’s tough to figure out which payment plan is right for you after your trial. In the last year, Volusion has completely restructured their pricing plan based on both customer feedback and also so they align more competitively with Shopify and BigCommerce.
That’s why I have put together an in-depth review of each pricing plan, outlining everything you can expect to pay for if you choose the Volusion platform. Read on to see which plan would fit your business now.
How Much does Volusion Cost?
Volusion has a selection of four price plans to choose from, starting with the $29 per month personal plan. The Professional plan is $79 per month, and there’s a Business plan for $299 per month. The prime custom plan is designed for your business from the ground up and comes with a unique price point. You’ll save 10% on each subscription if you pay annually.
Comparing Volusion Pricing Plans
If you’re thinking of using Volusion to build your online store, then you’ll need to consider a number of things, from the kind of features that you can get from this software, to the fantastic customer support available.
However, the most important consideration for most business owners will almost always be budget. Even the best shopping cart and ecommerce software is no good if you can’t afford to pay for it.
Volusion isn’t the cheapest eCommerce service on the block. Compared to some other tools designed specifically for beginners, like Squarespace or Wix, it can be a little expensive. However, you do get a lot of features built-in for the price that you pay. What’s more, while Volusion benefits from being feature rich, the capabilities that you can access don’t come at the expense of ease of use.
Let’s take a closer look at the pricing plans you might be able to consider if you’re planning on investing in Volusion.
Volusion Personal Plan
The Volusion Personal Plan is designed for small retailers and has a cap of £50k sales per year and a maximum upload of 100 products. What's great about Volusion is that no transaction fees are required across any of their plans, additionally, credit card fees are set at 2.15% which is fantastic when compared with seemingly bigger competition such as Shopify (2.9% + 30c) and BigCommerce (2.9% + 30c).
In the last year as well Volusion have offered unlimited bandwidth across all of their plans, which is in check with their competitors. Previously they had only offered up to 1G on their lowest plan which was quite restrictive and had put off a lot of startup companies.
On the personal plan as well you only have access to one staff account. This means that everyone logging in will have the same role and be given the same level of permissions. Again, this is why it is set up for a small company. If you have a slightly larger team and want to divide out the level of access for certain departments then you may consider the Professional plan.
Support
On the personal plan, you only have access to the online chat system. The support can be reached 24/7 and they typically take a few hours to reply. It is worth noting that Volusion's main support team is based in their headquarters in Austin, Texas. Therefore it may take longer if you're not a US based seller.
Volusion also offers a help center that is broken up into different categories to support your needs as a store owner:
- Get Started
- Launch Your Business
- Grown Your Business
- Run Your Business
- Design Your Website
- Know Your Numbers
- Extend Your Site
- Release Notes
- Connect With Customers
- Developers
Within each section, there is a whole range of articles which will help you get your store off the ground. This is particularly helpful for new starters and you can rate each article based on how helpful it is. These articles are updated very regularly, for example, the whole ‘Launch Your Business' system was updated last week.
Volusion Personal Plan: Features
With the personal plan, you are offered a secure checkout as well as being able to securely accept payments. This is vital in obtaining confidence from your customers and to ensure that they complete their checkouts.
You have access to a total of 11 free responsive themes from their store. This doesn't seem like a lot, but there is some great variety on offer so you can ensure you find something that encapsulates your brand.
Volusion has a social media integration on their personal plan which allows you to post a product or category from your dashboard directly to your social media channels. Facebook will automatically generate the image from the product page, however, Twitter doesn't offer the functionality to include an image.
You can also take advantage of Volusion's built-in SEO tools. Simply just head to Inventory > Categories and you can add a meta title, meta description and meta keywords to your products or category pages.
Volusion also has a handy tool to help you manage your inventory, by identifying your products by SKU numbers so you don't waste time digging about. It also allows you to keep track of returns via a handy return merchandise authorization system, so you can easily identify which product has been returned and by which customers so you can quickly credit them.
Price: $29 per month (monthly), $26.10 per month (annually)
Who is Volusion Personal Best For?
The Personal Plan is the barebones option for all ecommerce sellers. It’s ideal for the company just testing the waters in terms of ecommerce selling. The 100 products are plenty to see if Volusion, or online selling in general, is right for you. I also like this for small companies or inventors who only sell a handful of unique items. You really can’t go wrong with the $29 rate per month as well.
Volusion Professional Plan
The Professional Plan is the second one up in Volusion's pricing plan and is designed for ecommerce sellers who sell up to $100k a year, which equates to double of the personal plan.
Again there are no transaction fees and the bandwidth is unlimited. There is a real jump up in regards to products with the professional plan as you can list up to 5,000. You also have access to 5 staff accounts so you can delegate responsibilities and access level out as a store owner.
Support
The Professional Plan offers both access to the help centre and live chat support as well as phone support.
You have 24/7 access to phone support and there is support available in three countries the US, UK and Australia. The contact numbers are:
1.800.646.6517 – US
0800.520.0312 – UK
1800.55.28.65 – Australia
You can also schedule a call within your Volusion dashboard with a representative at your personal convenience.
Volusion Professional Plan: Features
The Volusion Proffessional Plan amps up the features quite a bit from the Personal plan.
Abandoned cart reports are available with the Professional Plan, helping you to bring back those hesitant customers. Ratings and reviews are also included with this plan, for building a community and showing how much other customers like your products. People trust other peoples opinions so this is a fantastic conversion tool.
You also get tools for email marketing newsletters. That means you can send and analyze the results of your campaigns right from your Volusion dashboard.
You can also import and export data to your store via a CSV file. Most companies already have lists of customers and products, so it’s nice to have the functionality to simply import a spreadsheet to get your store up and running.
You can also process orders that happen via phone on the Professional Plan, this is particularly helpful if you have quite complicated or high-end products and customers feel that they want to speak to a human being before purchasing.
Lastly, you can also take advantage of Volusion's CRM system. So if you receive any inquiries from your customers based on products or orders you can store these in the system. This ensures that communications between your internal staff and customers are running as they should.
(Image from Volusion)
Price: $79 per month (monthly), $71.10 per month (annually)
Who is Volusion Proffessional Best For?
Volusion Proffessional is perfect for the small business that is already seeing some cash flow, so they want to implement more advanced systems such as product ratings and product imports. The abandoned cart reports show that you already have a strategy for the future and you are willing to spend a little extra money to forecast with these reports and even send out email marketing messages to bring back your customers. As mentioned previously the phone support is particularly helpful if you sell expensive products.
Volusion Business Plan
The Volusion Business Plan is where the real high-end customers come in. The plan caps at $500k a year in online sales (not counting phone orders). Again there are no transaction fees and you have unlimited bandwidth. You can also list an unlimited amount of products, this is great if you are looking to take advantage of the import and export functionality available to you.
You also have access to 15 staff accounts so there is more flexibility to designate responsibilities in your team. This can extend to office staff as well as inventory or warehouse staff.
Support
You have access to the online and phone support as you would with the professional plan, however you are given priority access and will have your calls dealt with before users on the two lower pricing plans.
As well as support you also have a dedicated success team who offer you advice on your ecommerce journey.
Volsuion Business Plan: Features
Along with all the features from the previous plans, Volusion Business comes with an Amazon and eBay integration.
This allows you to sell seamlessly across both Amazon and eBay. You can create your listings for these channels directly within your Volusion store and also fulfil and shop your orders without leaving your admin area.
You can also better focus on your customers by offering a daily deal and a loyalty plan. The daily deal, as shown below, allows you to advertise a certain product on your website as well as your email and social media campaigns.
The Volusion Business Plan gives you the option to offer something to your customers based on the number of reward points that they have acquired.
API access is the major standout feature on this plan since it allows you to truly customize the look and functionality of your site so that you can really bring out the most in your brand and it makes your store look unique.
You can go beyond the standard reporting which is offered on the other two pricing plans. You can track and compare sales against two products or categories as well as building custom reports.
Additionally, you get to integrate with Volusion's trusted shipping partners in FedEx, UPS and the United States Postal Service. This means you no longer have to guess what the best rate is to charge to your customers. Live rates are pulled from the providers and shipping rates are then calculated.
As well as 3rd party shipping options you also have access to over 30 different payment gateways. This gives your customers the ability to pay on your website via PayPal and Amazon, which can only speed up the checkout process and increase your conversions.
In the setup stage, one of Volusion's ecommerce consultants will help you customize your design as well as having it up and running quickly so you can focus on how you are going to advertise the launch.
Price: $299 per month (monthly), $269.10 per month (annually)
Who is Volusion Business Plan Best For?
The Volusion Business plan is for midsize to large companies that have a solid marketing budget in place. If you hire a website design person or have someone with those skills on your team, this plan provides access to the site API so you don't have to settle for the pre-designed Volusion templates.
Overall, I would recommend it for the company that has made some money already and wants to expand with new marketing techniques like loyalty programs and deals of the day.
Volusion Prime Plan
On Volusions's Prime Plan the monthly price is all based on your annual sales and is designed for sellers who are making more than $500k a year.
You have an unlimited amount of staff accounts for the system which is ideal for the enterprise or high-end sellers.
Volsuion Prime: Support
As well as phone and online support, you are also given VIP support which is one step up from priority support. You get exclusive access to support agents who can assist you with Design, Finance, Marketing and Engineering. All of these agents can offer varied and dedicated support to help you achieve your maximum potential.
Volsuion Prime: Features
As well as everything on the business plan you also receive a dedicated account manager from Volusion.
The idea behind this is to help you spend more time on your own business, letting the account manager give you tips for optimizing your site and even sitting you down for a personal coaching session. You still have to manage most of your site, but the account manager is your personal contact in case you have any questions or any problems arise along the way.
Price: Custom
Who is This Plan Best For?
The Volusion Prime Plan works best for stores that need tons of room for expansion. If you plan on scaling fast or selling thousands of products on your store, this is the option for you. I wouldn’t assume that the account manager is going to run the whole store for you, but it’s always nice to have a personal contact in case anything goes wrong.
How Much You’re Going to Spend on Domains and Hosting with Volusion
Keep in mind that Volusion does not provide an enterprise level ecommerce solution, but they recommend Mozu in case your business requires that. You will need to contact Mozu for a quote.
In terms of domains, Volusion sells these directly through its site. They generally run at about $11.99 for the first year.
Technically, Volusion hosting is provided for free when you pay for one of the plans that we talked about above. However, you must purchase a secure SSL certificate to remain legal and show your customers that you are protecting their information. These certificates are $89 for one year or $149 for two years.
What About Volusion Apps and Themes?
Volusion offers most of the tools that you need to run an eCommerce store as part of its packages, including the option to take various payments through everything from Stripe to PayPal. Since this isn’t a full Volusion review, we’re not going to cover everything that you can and can’t do with Volusion here.
However, it is worth giving a quick reference to the plugins and add-ons available with Volusion, as some of these products can increase the price you pay for Volusion overall.
Although Volusion provides powerful features in its standard packages, you may want to add more versatile functionality, for tasks like shipping refunds or small business accounting. The Volusion App Store has everything you need for this, including Quickbooks integrations and tools that help you to track inventory from your point of sale. Many of these are free, but depending on what you’re looking for, you may end up paying a flat or monthly fee. For example, the Order Cup Shipping Tool is $20 per month.
You could also consider looking into apps to help your business grow online. A lot of companies use plugins from Volusion and other eCommerce tools to improve their Google Optimization strategy. SEO plugins that can help you get found on Google search engine pages can ramp up your chances of greater revenue, so you have more money to spend on your eCommerce tools.
Alternatively, you might decide to look into third party apps to help you with your marketing or payment processing. Although Volusion comes with various marketing tools built in, including newsletter management, there’s always the option to ramp things up with some greater functionality. You might even decide to link your website to your facebook store, to access more sale opportunities over time. Or perhaps you want to link your Volusion store to a payment processor like Authorize.net for contactless payments and credit card transactions on-the-go. This can be a great option for people who want to turn their digital store into a pop-up shop.
Ecommerce website themes from Volusion are called templates, and the more basic options are free. That said, if you want to improve the look of your site, you may end up spending anywhere from $50 to $1000. Design services are also available, but you must call Volusion to receive a quote.
Volusion Pricing: Is it right for you?
There are a lot of different website builders out there today, each with their own selection of features to consider. The key to choosing the right product for your needs, is getting something that delivers all the features that you need, for a price you can afford.
Fortunately, most companies consider Volusion plans to be excellent value for money, particularly for businesses that are in the process of growth.
Volusion‘s restructuring of their pricing plans has been a massive improvement. They now have parity with their competitors such as Shopify and BigCommerce as they have been more generous with their bandwidth. Their tactic to offer 0% transaction fees and low credit card fees of 2.15% means that they are way ahead of their contemporaries in this area.
Annual discounts of up to 10% are a nice touch to save money and to reward their customers who plan on staying passed a year. Volusion's plans are suitable for a one-person band, right through to an enterprise business and they can match you as your business grows.
Volusion Pricing: Conclusion
While Volusion still isn’t the cheapest product on the market when it comes to building a virtual storefront, it’s worth noting that you do get a lot of value in exchange for the price that you pay. If you’re looking for an eCommerce site builder that has support for unlimited products, customization options with HTML and CSS, and various extra features available, then you really can’t go wrong with Volusion.
The Volusion payments that you make might be a little higher than the cost that you would pay for something like Square’s online store, but you will have access to more functionality too, including tools for blogging, mini SEO and google tools built-in, CRM technology, and so much more. Honestly, if you paid for all the individual tools that you get in Volusion, from dropshipping services to email marketing separately, you’d probably pay a lot more.
Drop a line in the comments section if you plan on going with Volusion or if you have any additional questions before signing up.
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