Shopify Pricing and Fees: Which Plan Is Right For Your Online Store In 2023

As the leading ecommerce platform, Shopify is a popular choice for businesses, but selecting the best pricing plan can be a challenge. Which Shopify pricing plan is right for me?

To start a Shopify store, you can choose from several pricing plans. The Basic Shopify Plan is available for $32 per month, while the Shopify Plan costs $92 per month. The Advanced Shopify plan comes in at $399 per month, and there are also a Starter Plan at $5 per month and an enterprise plan called ‘Shopify Plus.'

The service offers a 3-day free trial, which is great for testing out if you have any interest in Shopify at all.

Keep reading to learn about the actual costs you can expect when going with Shopify, and view our recommendations for each Shopify pricing plan below.

Shopify Pricing – Quick Overview

Shopify Pricing Plans Comparison

To get you familiar with Shopify and its price options, it’s important to note that there are 3 main plans available from Shopify, aside from the Starter and Plus versions.

The three main Shopify pricing options are:

• Basic Shopify costs $32 per month ($29/mo if paid yearly) and is the cheapest option available. It comes with all the basics you need to start a new online business, including 2 staff accounts, 24/7 support, unlimited products, an online store with blog, and sales channels. You also get a free SSL certificate, discount codes, manual order creation, some International commerce features, Shopify POS software, tax features, shipping labels, abandoned cart recovery, and marketing automations.
• Shopify: This is the standard, and slightly more expensive option. Shopify, as it’s standard pricing plan, is available for $92 per month ($79/mo if paid yearly). It comes with everything you get in your Basic Shopify plan, plus gift cards, 5 staff accounts, ecommerce automations, cubic pricing for shipping, and lower credit card rates.
• Advanced Shopify costs $399 per month ($299/mo if paid yearly) – It's the second most expensive option from Shopify but well worth it for growing and international businesses. The Advanced Shopify plan comes with 15 staff accounts, and everything you get from the Shopify package. You’ll also have access to an advanced report builder and third-party shipping rates. Other features include decreased credit card rates and a tool for estimating and collecting duties and import taxes.

Shopify Pricing Plans: A Closer Look at the Options Available

Shopify Starter Plan

The Shopify Starter plan goes for $5 per month and gives you tools for selling on social media, accepting credit card payments and using Buy buttons. It's not exactly a real online store with a shopping cart, but it does the trick for content creators, influencers, and smaller brands. It's an excellent choice if trying to install a few basic Buy buttons on an existing website, like for your blog or podcast website.

A new addition involves the Facebook Messenger app, which is included with Shopify Starter and allows you to chat with customers through the Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok and other social media pages. This is perfect for customer support. The plan lays out a wonderful infrastructure for content creators with social platforms.

Here are the main features:

• Analytics to understand where sales come from
• Order management for receiving, managing, and fulfilling orders from one dashboard
• Monetization of your content-based website, with a Linkpop landing page; this generates a shortened link to put in social bios, along with a landing page for listing products
• Selling through social sites like Instagram and social messaging apps like WhatsApp
• A quick product creation process where you upload a photo, add a description, and list the item with a price tag
• Payment processing through Shopify Payments

Who is this Shopify Pricing plan best for?

Shopify Starter won’t work just by purchasing a hosting plan – the intent with Shopify Starter is to add ecommerce functionality to something you already have like a blog or information site. Therefore, you need a full website already configured with hosting, a domain and everything. For example, you could install Shopify Starter on a WordPress site. However, social sites can provide that hosting for you. Essentially, Shopify Starter lets you sell products on any platform that's already hosted. That's why it makes so much sense on places like Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. The possibilities for influencers to make money with the Starter plan seem endless.

Basic Shopify Plan

The Basic Shopify Plan takes it up a notch since you receive a discount code engine, fraud analysis tools and the ability to upload an unlimited number of products to your Shopify store. The primary step up is the fact that you gain a fully functional website and blog through Shopify. Therefore, all of your products and orders are managed through Shopify, and you won't need a separate website to make it work.

Some other perks include a free SSL certificate, manual order creation, shipping labels, unlimited file storage and 24/7 support.

The pricing structure for the Basic plan is set at $32 per month + 2.9% and 30¢ per transaction, which is a bit higher than the Starter Plan, but it gives you the freedom to expand your Shopify store with tons of products. Also keep in mind that the Basic plan only costs $29 per month if you sign up for a yearly payment plan.

Some exciting additions to the basic plan include:

• Currency conversion to automatically convert prices and show customers the pricing in their own currency.
• Other international selling tools like product pricing by market, local payment methods, language translation, and domains and subfolders for specific markets.
• Complete international market management with help from the Shopify Markets features, allowing you to define geographic locations and localize content.
• Access to Shopify POS Lite for free, and Shopify POS Pro for an extra $89 per month on top of your Shopify ecommerce plan.
• Tax calculations, liability tracking, product categorization for taxes, and automatic tax updates.
• Fraud analysis that's built into your payment processor, detecting suspicious purchases and flagging orders with strange information like non-matching billing and shipping addresses.
• Shipping perks like shipping labels and discounts, going up to 77% off the usual rates for major providers like UPS, USPS, and DHL.

For small businesses, the Basic Shopify pricing plan is a great option as it includes a variety of features that can be highly beneficial. These features include customer segmentation, marketing automation, abandoned cart recovery, unlimited contacts, and up to 1,000 inventory locations, all of which make it a highly effective choice for launching and managing an online store as the company grows.

It's important to remember the power of abandoned carts, and how the Starter plan lacks that functionality. Abandoned carts are one of the main reasons merchants choose the Basic plan over the Starter.

In short, abandoned cart tools notify customers with promotions or prompts to return to a cart they left without buying. This obviously shows that the person was somewhat interested, so you can contact them later to prompt a purchase. The coolest part is that the abandoned cart tool sends out automated emails based on your own preferences. For example, if a user abandons a cart in your shop, you can choose to send them a promo or reminder message within six hours.

This feature is a huge deal, since on average 67.89% of shoppers abandon their shopping carts, but these abandoners spend 55% more when they are remarketed to.  It's imperative to reach out to these customers and figure out why they are leaving early.

Who is' Basic Shopify' best for?

If you need a beautiful and functional online store, but you don't want to pay for the additional features in the more expensive Shopify plan, this is the sweet spot for you. It's also the plan you go with if you don't already have a website that you can pair with the Starter plan.

Here are some questions that might guide you to the Basic plan:

• Are you a business that needs a full ecommerce store (as opposed to an influencer or content creator trying to sell a few products on their current site)? Consider the Basic plan over the Starter plan.
• Do you need international selling tools? Pick the Basic plan over the Starter plan.
• Do you need things like discount codes, abandoned cart recovery, and multiple sales channels? Go with the Basic plan instead of the Starter plan.
• Are you okay with basic reports? You can skip the Shopify Plan and stick with the Basic plan.
• Does your business have no need for ecommerce automations just yet? Skip the Shopify Plan and go right for the cheaper Basic plan.
• Is it important to have international selling features, but you have no need for duties and import taxes? Choose the Basic plan instead of upgrading all the way to the Advanced plan (which is required for import taxes and duties).

Shopify Plan

As the most popular pricing option, the Shopify Plan goes for $105 per month + 2.6% and 30¢ per transaction, which is quite the jump up from the Basic Shopify Plan, yet you receive pretty much every feature Shopify has to offer. And for a better value ($79 per month) sign up for the yearly plan.

Create an unlimited number of products, and take advantage of everything you would get with the Basic Shopify Plan. In addition, you gain access to 5 staff accounts, standard reports, and ecommerce automations. The ecommerce automation feature is one of the main reasons people tend to opt for the Shopify Plan since it's one of the best ways to streamline ecommerce processes and bring customers back to your store.

On top of that, the Shopify Plan grants higher shipping discounts to its merchants, allowing you to cut costs through providers like USPS, UPS, and DHL. The shipping features are expanded as well, with included shipping insurance, USPS parcel select cubic pricing, and USPS priority mail cubic pricing. Those cubic pricing offerings provide discounted rates for packages that weigh less that 20 lbs and measure less than 1 cubic foot, and for both priority and parcel select shipping. The shipping insurance is a way to cover all packages you send to customers, all the way up to $200 per parcel.

Another advantage of the Shopify plan is its discounted online credit card rate (and decreases in international, Amex, and in-person rates). The credit card fees for online transactions drop to 2.6% + 0.30 cents, as opposed to the 2.9% + 0.30 cents in the Basic plan. Transaction fees for third-party payment processors are decreased as well.

Who is ‘Shopify' best for?

The Shopify Plan works nicely for companies that plan on scaling up quick, since the unlimited products and unlimited storage ensure that all of your items fit well into the site. If your site brings in more than $5,000 per month, the Shopify plan is a good idea, since the transaction fees drop due to the volume (when using Shopify Payments or third-party processors). You also get the coveted standard reports and ecommerce automation. There's no telling how much faster you can build your business by automating certain daily processes.

If you're debating between the Basic and Shopify plans, answer these questions:

• Would you like lower transaction fees? Then consider the Shopify plan.
• Do you need more than 2 staff accounts. Definitely look into the Shopify plan (or perhaps the Advanced plan).
• Does your company require more in-depth reporting? Look into the Shopify Plan for their Standard reports.
• Would you like to streamline manual tasks and build ecommerce workflows? Pick the Shopify Plan over the Basic plan, due to its ecommerce automations.
• Is it important for your brand to have steeper shipping discounts, insurance, and specific parcel and priority mail pricing? The Shopify Plan is much better than the Basic plan in this respect.

Advanced Shopify Plan

The Advanced Shopify Plan is priced at $399 per month + 2.4% and 30¢ per transaction (or a significant savings with the yearly plans, coming in at $299 per month), which gives you all the features from the previous plans along with an advanced report builder and third-party calculated shipping rates. Unlimited product uploads are still available, and your transaction percentage fees go down a bit when using external payment gateways.

The best part of the Advanced Shopify pricing plan is that you can expand quite a bit into International selling due to its support for duties and import taxes. A feature like this cuts down on the frustrations many International businesses have, since Shopify automatically estimates and collects duty fees and import taxes for all international transactions. With a system like this, merchants minimize the risk of returns and parcel refusals, and provide a clearer view of what customers actually spend on a product.

The Advanced plan comes with all features from the Basic and Shopify plans, so you still receive essentials like the Shopify POS and automated tax calculations. One unique thing about the Advanced plan is its upgrade to advanced reports, delivering a wide variety of reports that you can control and customize for proper forecasting. On top of that, the Advanced plan supports up to 15 staff accounts, and you get the benefit of paying even lower transaction fees. The online credit card rates, international rates, Amex rates, and in-person rates all decrease. The same can be said for the third-party transaction fees if you're not using Shopify Payments.

Who is ‘Advanced Shopify' best for?

The Advanced Shopify Plan serves companies that would rather have their shipping handled by a third party. It's also nice for high-revenue companies that crave advanced reports, which allow for testing and projecting. You save a bit of money with the decreased transaction fees and increased Shopify shipping discounts, making it ideal for companies bringing in over $10,000 per month. In addition to all of that, we like it for internationally focused brands that need to estimate and collect duties and import taxes from customers.

If you're still debating between the Shopify plan and the Advanced plan, consider these questions:

• Does your company need to estimate and collect duties and import taxes for international sales? Go with the Advanced plan.
• Are you interested in the lowest credit card fees offered by Shopify? The Advanced plan has lower fees than the Shopify plan.
• Is it important that your company has advanced reports for forecasting and customizations? If so, the Advanced plan is right for you.
• Do you require support for up to 15 staff accounts? Consider the Advanced plan, since the Shopify Plan only provides 5 staff accounts.

‘Shopify Plus' Pricing

Shopify Plus is the enterprise level system when you need additional, customized resources to focus on things like inventory management, marketing, and international selling. Your site is fully hosted, and there's potential for negotiating a low credit card fee. You can migrate a store and launch it for the world with help from a Shopify representative. Shopify Plus is known for its powerful automations and high-performing workflows, along with its top-notch customization options for a completely unique solution for your brand.

In addition to its customization prowess, Shopify Plus touts impressive performance, with a 99.98 uptime record, rapid checkout process (support for more than 10K checkouts per minute), and built in security. The security elements include data encryption, bot protection, fraud scanning, and compliance elements.

Another reason rapidly growing brands opt for Shopify Plus is due to its options for developers to add integrations. You can link a wide range of app with the Shopify App Store, but Shopify Plus expands upon that with developer resources and API access.

With speed and optimization at the forefront of what makes Shopify Plus great, it's also worth mentioning that the plan helps brands sell through any channel they want, and it's all controlled from one dashboard. All data and communications are centralized, and you're not limited to the channel apps provided in the Shopify App Store.

Price: You must contact Shopify to receive a quote; subscriptions start at $2000 per month.

When Does it Make Sense to Upgrade to Shopify Plus?

Huge companies like DodoCase or the Los Angeles Lakers. This doesn’t negate smaller companies, but if you have a large team, and you don’t want to spend too much time on managing your orders, this is the way to automate that.

In short, Shopify Plus makes sense for brands that have either reached the maturity stage or plan to grow rather quickly. It's the automations and workflows that make Shopify Plus essential for brands like these, but also the speed in which the checkout module can process thousands of transactions at one time, without losing any performance. Other brands using Shopify Plus are Magnolia, Ruggable, Rothy's Knix, Allbirds, and Brooklinen.

For more info check out our Shopify reviews or Shopify Plus Review.

The Current Shopify Free Trial

Shopify Pricing: Monthly vs Annual Costs

There’s a drastic discount on all Shopify pricing if you choose to pay for an annual plan. Your annual plan will get a 25% discount on all prices per month when paid up front.

To demonstrate:

• The Basic Monthly plan costs $32 per month; the Basic yearly plan decreases that to $29 per month.
• The Shopify Plan paid on a monthly basis costs $92 per month; the Shopify Plan paid on a yearly basis costs $79 per month.
• The Advanced plan paid monthly costs $299 per month; the Advanced plan paid yearly drops to $299 per month (a savings of $1,200 per year!).

Shopify Pricing: Transaction Fees and Credit Card Rates Explained

If you utilize the Shopify Payments processor, you don't have to worry about transaction fees. However, all payment processors (including Shopify Payments) still collect credit card fees to pay companies like Amex and Visa. Shopify Payments credit card rates start at 2.9% + 0.30 cents and decrease as you upgrade your Shopify subscription.

If you choose an option like PayPal or Authorize.net, you can expect to pay somewhere around 3% + 30¢ per transaction. Not only that, but Shopify charges for not using Shopify Payments, and this ranges from 0.5% to 2% (on top of the credit card rates).

The amount you pay for your transaction fees and other Shopify costs will depend on what your specific plan offers. For instance:

• Basic Shopify Plan: 2.9% plus 30 cents per purchase. That’s the credit card rate from Shopify. The in-person rate is 2.7% per transaction.
• Shopify Plan – 2.6% plus 30 cents for every transaction. The in-person rate is 2.5% per purchase.
• Advanced Shopify – 2.4% plus 30 cents for each transaction. In-person processing rates are 2.4% per transaction.

What Else Might You Spend Money on with Shopify?

When building an online store, extra fees tend to accumulate as the business grows. You'll require more features, process a higher number of payments, and potentially expand with more employees and warehouse locations.

Below, we'll explain other potential expenses you'll encounter when using Shopify; some are totally optional, others necessary to run a business (like a domain name).

Shopify Apps

Apps come in many different shapes and sizes, and they are all provided in a handy Shopify App Store for you to browse. The apps assist you with everything from email marketing to automated receipts, and many of them are given away for free.

However, some Shopify apps require payments. For example, S Loyalty runs at $19.99 – $199.99 per month depending on your plan. That app also offers a free plan.

As a bit of advice, I'd recommend avoiding the paid apps as much as you can. Most of the time you can locate a solid solution that doesn't require a payment. However, sometimes you stumble upon a paid app that's too good to pass up. In that case, keep the paid apps to a minimum and only select ones that will pay for themselves quickly.

Shopify Themes

A Shopify theme cuts out the need to design a website from scratch. It provides a professional presentation for your storefront with pre-picked formatting, colors, and typography. All you need to do is install it to your store. Shopify used to have a large collection of free themes, but that has changed. You now have access to about 5 free themes, but the templates with features suitable for growing businesses are reserved for the premium themes.

Shopify themes:

• Range in price from $0 to $500.
• Generally have the best features when you get into the $300+ range.
• Only cost you once; there's no recurring subscription to use a Shopify theme.
• Can be found elsewhere online, from third-party developers, for cheaper.
• Provide multiple styles, making it easier to stand out from the other brands using the same theme.

Additional Shopify Costs

There are also additional costs to consider beyond whatever your plan offers, if you want to add more functionality to your Shopify experience.

For instance:

• Shopify POS (point of sale) hardware and software: From the Shopify POS software to devices like Shopify POS Go, it's possible that your online business needs in-person POS machines to process payments, like at trade shows, craft fairs, or if you also run a retail shop and need direct access to your inventory and payment processing. The Shopify POS Go + Case bundle sells for $428 + tax, but you can choose from a wide range of other hardware such as stationary terminals, cash drawers, receipt printers, and more. They all range in pricing. When it comes to point of sale software, merchants have access to Shopify POS Lite for free, or Shopify POS Pro for an added $89 per month.
• Shopify app store costs: Some of the third party app providers in the Shopify app marketplace charge a small fee for you to add other functionality to your ecommerce store. If you want the benefits of extra plugins and apps, like an app that can sign your customers up for memberships for instance, or a plugin that supports dropshipping and Google analytics, you may need to pay for them.
• Domain name: Your domain name is another cost that you’ll need to consider when you’re using Shopify. You can register your unique domain name directly through Shopify for a price of around $10-$14 for a one year registration. There’s also the option to buy your name elsewhere and migrate it into Shopify too.
• Email hosting: Shopify doesn’t provide email hosting as an internal option, but you can set up email forwarding to your Shopify domain via a third-party hosting service. Usually, you will need to pay for that email hosting service as part of your website hosting package.

Can You Avoid Shopify's Credit Card Fees?

Although the fees for Shopify transactions aren’t that bad when you consider the amount of payment processing features your small business gets in return, many companies aren’t happy paying them. To understand why you need to deal with transaction fees at all, let’s take a look at how they work.

Whenever a customer buys a product from your Shopify POS, a transaction fee is charged. The transaction fee changes depending on the kind of Shopify plan you have. Although this seems unfair at first, it takes power and processing bandwidth for Shopify to handle things like your file storage and checkout process. Shopify charges you for the work that it does to keep your business up and running – even when you have thousands of visitors on your site at the same time.

While it’s easy to assume that the monthly plan you pay for with your Shopify store will cover this expense, the truth is that what you’re actually paying for is the sales tools and software. Your monthly fee covers the support for an unlimited number of products on your store, as well as excellent support and real-time hosting for store owners.

If you still think that the transaction fees are unfair, consider the fact that most other companies charge these fees too. For instance:

• BigCommerce doesn’t charge a platform transaction fee for every sale that you make. However, if you generate more sales than usual one month, you’re automatically bumped up to higher plans, so you’re forced to pay more for your services. This is something that Shopify doesn’t do. And, of course, there are credit card processing fees through Bigcommerce, which start at 2.59% plus 0.49 cents per transaction. One advantage Bigcommerce has over Shopify is that it doesn't charge an extra transaction fee for using a third-party payment processor (whereas Shopify bills you anywhere from 0.5 to 2.0% on top of credit card fees.
• Wix doesn’t charge you any regular transaction fees, but when you want to sell products through the service, you need to be on the VIP or ecommerce plan. That means that you pay a little more for your service each month. At the same time, you have to pay a percentage for each purchase managed to a payment gateway provider as well. The credit card rate through Wix Payments is 2.9% plus 0.30 cents in the US.
• Squarespace requires you to pay for one of its Commerce plans to gain ecommerce functionality, meaning you're not able to take advantage of a low cost plan like the $16 per month Personal plan. The Business plan has a transaction fee of 3%, and that's on top of the credit card fees. Those vary depending on whether you choose PayPal, Square, or Stripe as your payment processor.

Of course, if you refuse to deal with the Shopify credit card fees fees (or the third-party processing transaction fees), then you can always switch to Shopify Payments, and Shopify will remove the fees completely. Shopify payments helps you to process payments from your clients and move it into your bank account. If you use this application, then Shopify earns the credit card fees, which means that the transaction fees can be waived. Instead of paying transaction fees plus any credit card fees, you pay just the credit card fees.

This means that Shopify Payments can actually save you a lot of money in the right circumstances. The credit card rates that you pay with Shopify on its own are usually a lot lower than the fees that you’ll get from PayPal. This means that you can keep your costs consistently low.

Is It a Good Idea to Use Shopify Payments?

When you’re looking for a way to upgrade your sales strategy from selling products on Amazon and eBay, Shopify is a great option. It comes with it’s own app store, and a range of delightful Shopify apps to help you customize every transaction. Additionally, Shopify stands out as one of the more reliable and secure solutions in the marketplace today.

However, since you only get to use Shopify free for a very short period of time, you’re going to need to come to terms with the costs before you can start running your business entirely through this platform. If transaction fees are something that you hate, then Shopify Payments could be an excellent way to avoid them. You’ll save more money with Shopify Payments than you would using other ecommerce website builders too!

Thanks to things like unlimited bandwidth, Shopify gives you a way to grow your business flexibly, for as long as you like using their service. What’s more, with Shopify Payments, you can avoid those pesky transaction fees completely. That’s probably why Shopify suggests that around 85% of their users are using Shopify Payments when it’s an available option.

Shopify POS Pricing

If you’re keen to take your Shopify strategy to the next level, you might decide to use the Shopify Point of Sale system too. Shopify POS is the software solution available for today’s offline sellers who want to sell offline, as well as building a presence as an online retailer.

The Shopify POS works alongside your eCommerce system to ensure that you can sell conveniently offline or online. The good news for today’s business owners is that it’s extremely easy to access Shopify POS. Here are the available options:

Shopify POS Lite

The Lite version of the solution comes with all Shopify Plans.

No matter what kind of Shopify package you choose, you’ll have access to Shopify POS Lite, complete with access to mobile and hardware accessories. With Shopify POS Lite, you can use the Shopify customer profiles to manage your sales, and order and product management tools too. There’s also support for in-person credit card rates starting at 1.5%.

Shopify POS Go

For brick and mortar sales at a higher level, we recommend Shopify POS Go for the utmost flexibility, cost effectiveness, and mobility. Shopify POS Go is a handheld device with access to the entire Shopify Point of Sale system. This makes it ideal for all retailers, where salespeople can look up customers while on the floor, check on product information, and process payments, all with a small device instead of going back to a centralized point of sale monitor.

For an extra $89 per month, you can complement Shopify POS Go with the Shopify POS Pro system, which is the traditional, centralized setup with a checkout desk, scanner, and receipt printer. We suggest building the foundation of your point of sale on the Shopify POS Go, then perhaps adding Shopify POS Pro hardware if you think some customers still like the centralized checkout area.

Shopify POS Pro

The Shopify POS Pro solution comes with everything you got from Shopify POS Lite, as well as extra features like:

• Unlimited registers
• Unlimited store employees
• Intelligent inventory management
• Support for staff roles and permissions
• In-store reporting and analytics
• Omnichannel selling features

Keep in mind that hardware is also required to run the Shopify POS software. We're talking registers, iPad docks, cash registers, and receipt printers.

Overall, the most logical and affordable way to configure a physical point of sale infrastructure is to go with the Shopify POS Go, which is a handheld device that gives you access to everything in Shopify POS, including inventory, products, payment processing, and customer data.

This way, retailers can move around the floor and talk to customers with a POS on hand. There's also the potential to bring the Shopify POS Go with you to trade shows, events, and to the curbside to accommodate waiting customers. You can pair the POS Go with other more traditional configurations if you'd like to have a more centralized hub for customers to checkout.

The pricing for Shopify POS hardware varies, but the Shopify POS Go (plus a case) sells for $428 + tax. You also have the option to only buy the POS Go (without the case) for $399. With support for tap, chip, swipe, and QR code scanning, you can't go wrong with the POS Go.

👉 Read our full Shopify POS review.

Shopify Shipping and Fulfillment

There are several costs to consider when shipping out products:

• Shipping labels
• The actual cost of shipping
• Fulfillment fees

Some merchants choose to self-fulfill or dropship. But if you opt for 3PL (3rd party logistics), this means you pay an extra fee for another company to store, package, and ship products. The Shopify Fulfillment Network is perhaps one of the most affordable options for fulfillment, especially if you're already using Shopify as your ecommerce platform.

Shopify Fulfillment:

• Has no upfront costs
• Only charges based on the weight of each product
• Offers discounts on multi-item orders
• Requires some extra fees for special projects

As such, here are examples of potential pricing to fulfill products with Shopify:

• Bicycle helmet (0.41 lbs): $6.59 for fulfillment
• Duvet (6.1 lbs): $15.54 for fulfillment
• Purse (1.8 lbs) $8.75 for fulfillment

Compared to other fulfillment methods, the Shopify Fulfillment Network is a steal. Plus, you get low storage fees and no limits.

How to Choose the Best Shopify Plan for Your Business?

Shopify plans are a lot like stores. They come in a wide variety of sizes. Getting the right package for you means figuring out exactly what you need from your online store.

This sometimes means thinking about what kind of products you plan on selling, how many customers you’re working with, and so on.

When to go with the ‘Basic Shopify' plan?

Basic Shopify is the cheapest entry-level solution for people who want to start off with something small. With this version of Shopify, you get access to support for an unlimited number of products. If you have a wide product range, you’re going to need that flexibility.

Shopify doesn’t limit your file storage or selling solutions with Shopify Basic, which is why it’s so much more appealing than Shopify Starter for people with a growing online presence. Basic Shopify also comes with abandoned cart recovery components, and telephone support. You won’t have access to things like professional analytics or gift cards.

When to go with the ‘Shopify' plan?

This is the standard plan for people who want a great way to continue growing their website and even their offline presence too. Although the pricing gap between Basic and Shopify is quite large, it’s definitely worth the extra cost if your business wants room to scale.

The Shopify plan comes with everything you need to sell in today’s digital world. The rate you have to pay for credit card transactions is lower than it is on Basic, and you get standard reports. Analytics make it easier to see where you need to focus to increase your revenue. You can also access things like gift cards through this package. This makes it easier to connect with your customers and keep them coming back for more. Several shipping benefits are also possible in the Shopify plan.

When to go with the ‘Advanced Shopify' plan?

Advanced Shopify is the more expensive plan. The credit card payment is the lowest available, and it provides better shipping conditions for the US too. This plan is the ideal option for anyone who needs to accelerate their sales strategy fast. If you need things like real-time carrier shipping to strengthen your connections with customers, this is the solution for you.

Advanced Shopify has a powerful reporting and analytics system that allows companies to customize their reports according to their needs. And it provides duties and import taxes.

When Does it Make Sense to Upgrade to Shopify Plus?”

This is the enterprise solution for much larger businesses that need to scale at a rapid pace. Most starting businesses won’t need anything close to Shopify Plus, as it’s intended for companies that are bringing in a lot of revenue every month. The pricing difference between Advanced Shopify and Shopify Plus is huge, so be ready for extreme customizations and powerful automations.

Shopify Plus makes sure that teams have what they need to succeed. You’ll have a dedicated support team to help you generate an exciting new launch opportunity. Plus, your developers get more access to the Shopify system for customization, dedicated APIs, and cart scripting. This means that you can make your store more unique to you.

Shopify Starter Plan: Key Deciding Factors?

In our opinion, is unlikely to be enough for a lot of growing companies. However, if you want to get started with digital sales and you don’t have a high budget, then Shopify Starter could help you to move in the right direction.

Shopify Starter only allows you to sell on your existing website or through social media. This makes it a great fit for influencers and content creators looking to sell a few products on their blogs or social media platforms.

Shopify Starter also includes a Facebook Messenger app which allows you to communicate with your customers and serve their needs better. Furthermore, it's possible to create a shortened link for social bios, which leads to a customizable landing page to sell products. We like it best for creators who want to monetize their current content.

Choosing your best Shopify plan means thinking about not just what you’re trying to accomplish right now, but what you want to do in the future, ask yourself:

• How many products do I have to sell?
• What kind of products am I selling? (physical or digital)
• How big is my team, do I need Shopify access for staff members?
• How many customers do I have?
• How much revenue am I creating each month?
• How much can I afford to spend on transaction fees?
• How important is it to have additional features like analytics?

Most smaller companies will start with a taster of Shopify through either the Starter package or Shopify Basic. However, as your business grows, it’s likely that you’ll need to upgrade to the options with a higher range of features. Don’t be afraid to take your package to the next level when you need to.

Shopify Pricing FAQ

That's it for learning which Shopify plan is right for you.

Here are some common questions about Shopify fees and answers from our experts.

How expensive is Shopify?

There are 3 main tiers when it comes to Shopify pricing: Basic Shopify ($32 / mo), Shopify ($92 / mo), Advanced Shopify ($399 / mo). If you sign up for a whole year upfront, you will get a spectacular 25% off discount:

• Basic: $29 per month
• Shopify: $79 per month
• Advanced: $299 per month

Apart from the main fee, there are also separate fees on transactions and credit card processing, as explained in the next section.

Does Shopify have transaction fees? What are the credit card rates and processing fees?

Yes and no. When you use Shopify Payments – Shopify's own payment gateway – there are no fees on transaction processing. When using external payment gateways (such as PayPal or Stripe), you will pay additional fees based on your subscription plan:

• Basic Shopify Plan – 2% per transaction
• Shopify Plan – 1% per transaction
• Advanced Shopify Plan – 0.5% per transaction

Regardless of your payment gateway, you will also be charged online credit card processing fees if your customer chooses to use a credit card when making the payment. The specific rate also depends on your subscription plan:

• Basic Shopify Plan – 2.9% + 30¢ per transaction
• Shopify Plan – 2.6% + 30¢ per transaction
• Advanced Shopify Plan – 2.4% + 30¢ per transaction

What are “Shopify Payments”?

Shopify Payments are Shopify's own payment processing gateway. If you choose to use it, you will not be charged additional per-transaction fees on top of the standard credit card processing fees.

If you choose to use an external payment gateway (such as PayPal or Stripe), you will pay additional fees based on your subscription plan:

• Basic Shopify Plan – 2% per transaction
• Shopify Plan – 1% per transaction
• Advanced Shopify Plan – 0.5% per transaction

Credit card fees (not transaction fees) still apply to those using Shopify Payments. That goes for whether you're processing cards through a Shopify POS Go device, your online store, or a standard retail cash register with Shopify POS.

Read our comprehensive Shopify Payments review.

Are there any Shopify setup fees?

No. There are no additional fees on top of your regular Shopify monthly cost and the per-transaction fees.

Is Shopify free to use?

No, but you can get started with Shopify on their 3-day free trial. During the trial, you can build your store and make it available to the public.

However, in order to receive sales, and after your trial is done, you will have to choose one of the paid plans:

• Basic Shopify ($32 / mo, or $29 / mo with yearly payments)
• Shopify ($92 / mo, or $79 / mo with yearly payments)
• Advanced Shopify ($399 / mo, or $299 / mo with yearly payments).

Shopify doesn't offer a free plan at this point.

Do I need a credit card to start a Shopify trial?

No. Shopify has a 3-month free trial with no strings attached. You can test the system, see how you like it, even build your store and make it visible to the public. You get to do all this without entering your credit card details. It's at the end of your trial when you decide if you want to convert to a paid plan, and enter your credit card then.

Which Shopify plan is the best for a new store?

The Basic Shopify plan is usually the best fit for a small business that's just getting started online. It costs $32 when paid monthly. If you opt to pay for a whole year, there's a 25% discount.

There are no setup fees associated with launching your online store. Each transaction you receive can be subject to additional fees. See one of the questions above.

Is Shopify cheaper than WooCommerce?

Generally, no. But you sort of get what you pay for with both setups. For example, launching a new store on Basic Shopify and paying for it annually will cost you $348 / year. Running a similar WooCommerce store will set you back $15 for the domain name and $70-$120 for WordPress hosting. This is indeed cheaper than Shopify, but, with WooCommerce, you also have to be familiar with building websites and ecommerce stores on your own.

With Shopify, all the heavy lifting is done by Shopify itself. This includes setup, maintenance, security, etc., so you can just focus on handling the sales.

Can my whole team work on the store?

Shopify allows you to set up staff accounts, but their number depends on the Shopify plan that you've chosen:

• Basic Shopify Plan – 2 staff accounts
• Shopify Plan – 5 staff accounts
• Advanced Shopify Plan – 15 staff accounts

How many products can I sell on Shopify?

Shopify doesn't limit the number of products you can have in your offer in any way. You can sell unlimited products on every Shopify plan.

How much sales and web visitors can I receive?

There are no restrictions or fees associated with how popular your store can get. You can receive unlimited visitors and unlimited orders/sales on all Shopify plans.

Further reading:

• Shopify Reviews: Is Shopify the Best Ecommerce Platform? Shopify Pros and Cons
• What is Shopify & How Does Shopify Work? – Learn from scratch how to start selling on Shopify in these 8 simple steps.
• Shopify vs Shopify Plus: What is the Difference? (Feb 2020)What are the Key differences between Shopify and Shopify Plus?

Shopify Pricing: Finishing Thoughts

Shopify fees are one of the many things that some business owners can find difficult or challenging when they’re first building their online store. After all, it can be confusing to discover that aside from a monthly fee, you also need to pay transaction fees (if not using Shopify Payments) and credit card costs too.

Still, while the pricing can be difficult to process at first, Shopify continues to be one of the most reliable and most popular hosted ecommerce building tools on the market today. With a huge range of ecommerce tools to choose from, a broad app store, and a wide community of theme designers and experts to take advantage of, Shopify is a great choice for any business owner.

Though Shopify isn’t the cheapest ecommerce solution on the market today, it may be the best option for business owners that are serious about investing in the growth of their store. Shopify prices aren’t outrageously or unreasonably expensive – particularly when you think about the value that you get in return. However, they’re not suitable for the small companies that just don’t have much budget to spend on their online site yet.

On the other hand, if you have enough money to invest in one of the higher tier options from Shopify, or you want to add Shopify Payments to your plan, you can keep your costs relatively low, and access a wide range of functionality and eCommerce features at the same time.

Hopefully, this Shopify prices guide will have given you the extra information that you need to make the right decision about your Shopify experience.

Now it's your turn to contribute, so let us know in the comments section below if you've had a chance to play around with the Shopify selling tools. If so, what would you say is the ideal Shopify pricing plan for your business? Do you find it easy to upgrade or downgrade your site if you would like to change your site capabilities? Share your thoughts below!

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