Shopify Pricing Plans and Fees - How much does Shopify cost in 2024?

Knowing exactly how much Shopify is costing you each month is often confusing.

This is because your bottom line costs depend on your Shopify plan, payment gateway, and other secondary factors.

In particular, Shopify promotes its in-house payment processor called Shopify Payments, which brings you competitive card processing fees. However, failing to use it results in extra transaction fees.

In this article, we’ll provide you with a detailed breakdown

At a glance, the Shopify Pricing plans are:

1. Shopify Starter – $5/month

2. Basic Shopify – $29/month

3. Shopify – $79/month

4. Advanced Shopify – $299/month

5. Shopify Plus – $2000/month

6. Shopify Retail - $89/month

Six plans may sound like a lot, but in reality, most online merchants can discard the Shopify Starter, Shopify Plus, and Shopify Retail plans.

Starter’s features are too limited for most cases, Plus is an enterprise solution, while Retail is only applicable if you have a brick-and-mortar store that needs a POS.

It’s a good solution for people just starting out in e-commerce as it allows them to leverage Shopify’s backend and streamline their sales.

However, it’s no replacement for having a standalone store.

Thus, most merchants on Shopify find everything they need with:

1. Basic Shopify – $29/month

2. Shopify – $69/month

3. Advanced Shopify – $299/month

Apart from the monthly costs and features, Shopify’s plans differ when it comes to credit card processing rates and transaction fees. These may not sound like a lot at first, but they become increasingly important as the number of your orders grows.

Before we jump into Shopify’s active plans, let’s take a look at Shopify’s cheapest option - their 3-day free trial followed by a 3-month trial for $1.

With Shopify's free trial, you can build and customize your store, add products and collections, and you can play around with the admin settings for managing and fulfilling orders.

You can also explore Shopify’s extensive apps and integrations to extend your store’s functionality.

Overall, Shopify’s free trial is a low-risk way to understand Shopify's features and see if they align with your business needs before committing.

Moreover, you can have a development store free of charge, where you can build anything you want, without being able to sell.

However, the Shopify free trial is limited by an inactive checkout or a storefront password.

This means customers can't add products to their cart or make purchases. To start selling, you need to choose a paid Shopify plan.

With the Starter plan, you can effectively manage your entire sales process from Shopify's backend.

This includes order processing, inventory management, and customer communications, all centralized in one user-friendly interface.

Moreover, the Starter plan makes it easy to integrate various social platforms into Shopify’s platform and to share product links directly with your audience.

This streamlines and simplifies the entire sales process.

Overall, the Shopify Starter plan is a cost-effective solution for those just getting started with their e-commerce journey.

They can explore many of Shopify’s features at a fraction of the cost of other plans.

With Basic Shopify, you can list an unlimited number of products and take advantage of features like abandoned cart recovery, which are common across Shopify's plans.

You can customize your store and make it an omnichannel sales machine, controlled from Shopify’s admin panel.

If you use Shopify Payments, you won’t face any other transaction fees.

However, if you use a different payment gateway, you’ll have to pay its processing fees, and an extra 2% to 0.15% transaction fee to Shopify, depending on your plan.

The Shopify plan, priced at $69 per month, is tailored for small businesses experiencing rapid growth and in need of a more robust e-commerce toolbox.

This plan builds upon the features offered in the Basic Shopify plan, providing additional tools and capabilities essential for scaling businesses.

Some of its features include:

• Advanced data reporting

• Reduced processing and transaction fees

• Features for international sales

• Abandoned cart recovery

• Gift card functionality

If you use Shopify Payments, you won’t have to pay any extra fees.

However, if you use a different payment gateway, you’ll have to pay them a processing fee, and an extra 1% transaction fee to Shopify.

Shopify Advanced Plan, available at $299 per month when paid annually, is tailored for medium to large businesses focused on substantial growth and expansion.

The Shopify Advanced plan brings a variety of features to the table, such as:

• Advanced reporting and analytics

• Third-party calculated shipping rates

• Lower transaction fees

• 15 staff accounts

• Unlimited storage

• Cart recovery

• Discount codes

• Gift card support

The plan also boasts lower transaction fees than the Shopify Basic and Shopify plans.

It’s an all-in-one solution for multi-channel selling, built for performance and scalability.

The platform excels in performance, handling over 10,000 checkouts per minute, and provides advanced security and fraud protection.

Moreover, Shopify Plus offers 24/7 priority support, customizable checkout experiences, and a vast ecosystem of apps and integrations.

With its ability to support large-scale operations, Shopify Plus is an ideal choice for businesses aiming for significant growth and requiring a platform that can accommodate high traffic volumes and complex operational needs.

To maximize the potential of Shopify Plus for your business, see how our team of Shopify Plus Experts can help you.

Moreover, the extra transaction fee that you pay to Shopify if you use a payment processor other than Shopify Payments is just 0.15% of your transaction. Again, if you stick to Shopify Payments, there are no extra transaction fees.

Overall, while these exact numbers may change, Shopify Plus offers the cheapest card processing and transaction fee rates out of any Shopify plan.

For more up to date information, see Shopify Plus pricing.

With Shopify Retail, businesses can effectively manage their staff and inventory by controlling POS access and getting low-stock alerts from a single location.

Moreover, it’s much easier for businesses to capture rich customer data and generate insights for customer loyalty, LVT, and preferences.

Lastly, Shopify Retail supports brick-and-mortar businesses to start seamlessly selling across channels.

Overall, Shopify Retail works well for businesses that have a lot of foot traffic, multiple tiers of staff, or a large inventory catalog.

*All monthly cost values refer to annual payment

When you compare Shopify to other website builders and e-commerce platforms, it stands as a slightly more high-end solution.

In terms of e-commerce features, Shopify’s closest match is Bigcommerce.

The two platforms are very close with regard to their pricing.

Shopify’s Basic and Standard plans are slightly more affordable than Bigcommerce, but the difference is even greater, if it’s your first year on Shopify, due to the $1 three-month trial period.

However, Shopify and Bigcommerce differ in their transaction fees.

Shopify has between 2% and 0.15% transaction fees if you aren’t using Shopify payments, whereas Bigcommerce has none.

However, Bigcommerce has sales limitations for each plan and will bump you up to a more expensive plan, once you cross your plan’s sales limits.

When it comes to value for your money, Shopify is somewhat middle of the pack compared to other website builders and e-commerce platforms, due to its higher price point. It’s the iPhone of e-commerce.

It has some of the best features to support your e-commerce journey and empower you to move with speed and confidence.

Platforms like Woocommerce may have lower costs upfront, but are more complicated to maintain and may require having a dedicated developer or administrator on your team.

When you buy apples in your local supermarket and pay by card, the supermarket has to pay a processing fee to their payment processor to collect payment from your bank and deposit it into their bank.

It’s the same when you sell anything on Shopify, but you are the one who has to pay the processing fee. The exact rates depend on your Shopify plan, but the more expensive your plan, the lower your processing fees will be. This is one of Shopify’s main levers for enticing merchants to move to a more premium plan.

Extra transaction fees on Shopify are applicable to all transactions that aren’t made through its in-house payment processor Shopify Payments.

However, Shopify Payments is currently available only in these countries:

• Australia

• Austria

• Belgium

• Canada

• Czechia

• Denmark

• Finland

• France

• Germany

• Hong Kong SAR

• Ireland

• Italy

• Japan

• Netherlands

• New Zealand

• Portugal

• Romania

• Singapore

• Spain

• Sweden

• Switzerland

• United Kingdom

• United States

If Shopify Payments isn’t available in your country, you have nothing to worry about. Shopify has integrations with over 100 payment providers across the world.

** Transaction and card processing fees are applied only once, regardless of the number of items within the order.

*** All % are for merchants based in the US.

Shopify POS is included with all Shopify plans at no additional cost. This basic version offers essential POS functionalities suitable for businesses just starting with in-person sales.

Shopify POS Pro is an upgrade for retail locations, offering advanced features for in-person selling. The cost for POS Pro is $89 USD per month for each location.

You may find information stating the contrary and this is likely because it hasn’t been updated.

As of 2020, Shopify updated its terms of service to no longer refund card processing fees.

Absolutely not! Shopify is transparent with its prices and you shouldn’t be surprised by anything on your invoice. However, there are additional costs for domain names, premium themes, and apps, which we will discuss more in the following section.

Getting started on Shopify doesn’t require more than paying for a monthly plan.

However, customizing your store, extending its functionality, and transforming it into the shop of your dreams will cost you extra. 

The Shopify App Store currently boasts over 8,000 apps. Each of them is designed to solve a specific problem that merchants face.

Apps can help you improve customer experiences, automate processes, extend and customize your store’s functionality, scale and streamline your operations, and more.

All in all, if you have specific business requirements, you may have to include Shopify apps in your budget.

Shopify boasts a variety of free themes. However, they are limited in terms of functionality and customization options.

Another cost that’s not covered by your Shopify plan is your domain name. Although Shopify, can get you started with a myshopify domain ending, most businesses find that unprofessional so they opt for a custom domain. A domain name will typically cost you around $15 per year.

The first 10,000 emails are free, and then each 1,000 emails cost $1, but this price gets lowered after your first 300,000 emails.

However, we consider Shopify emails to be an entry tool. For more sophisticated email marketing, we recommend integrating Kklavyio.

While the Starter, Plus, and Retail plans cater to specific niches, most merchants find their needs met within the Basic, Standard, and Advanced plans.

Each plan comes with its own set of features and credit card processing rates, with higher-tier plans offering lower transaction fees.

Shopify's pricing is transparent, with no hidden fees, but merchants should budget for additional costs like apps, premium themes, domain names, third-party email hosting, and partner services.

Yes, Shopify has affordable plans that equip small businesses with all the tools they need to begin selling effectively online.

Moreover, Shopify’s robust backend, user-friendly interface, and rockstar customer support ensure that even non-tech-savvy owners will have an easy time setting up their online store.

The right Shopify plan for you will depend on your exact situation and business needs.

Generally speaking, if you are generating less than $5,000 per month you can stick to Shopify Basic, and if you are generating over $10,000 a month in sales, you can consider looking into the Advanced Shopify Plan.

Large companies and enterprises should check out Shopify Plus.

If you’d like some help finding out which is the best Shopify plan for you, you can get in touch with our team for a free Shopify consultation.

Yes! Shopify offers a free 3-day trial, followed up by a 3-month deal for $1!

You can also create a development store with which you can play around, but won’t be able to sell.

Exact credit card and transaction fees on Shopify depend on your Shopify Plan, as well as your payment processor, and the exact type of card.

Generally, more premium plans offer lower card processing costs and transaction fees.

If you’re using Shopify Payments, you aren’t charged any extra transaction fees, apart from the card processing fee.

Shopify templates or themes can cost anywhere from $50 to over $300 as a one-time purchase.

However, more advanced themes offer extended functionalities and customization options, which larger organizations require.

It’s difficult to put an exact number. Many apps have free, as well as paid versions.

Some apps cost a few bucks, while others can cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars every month, while others depend on your usage.

Your monthly Shopify subscription is billed every 30 days. Apps that have subscription-based charges for merchants operate on their own independent 30-day billing cycles.

The cost of a headless Shopify build is usually in the tens of thousands and is dependent on multiple factors.

The price of a headless Shopify setup can vary based on several factors, including the scale and intricacy of the project, the geographical location of the developer, the nature of the development, the technology used, any bespoke features, integrations, and licensing fees.

If you are serious about exploring the possibility of a headless Shopify build, you can reach out to our team for a free consultation.

When it comes to saving money with Shopify there are two things you can always do.

First, paying for your plans annually or even 2 or 3 years in advance can make a big difference, compared to paying for it month for month.

Second, merchants should keep an eye on all the apps they use and cancel subscriptions that they don’t need since it’s common to forget about some apps altogether.

Another thing that many people miss is the ability to pause your Shopify subscription if you need to take a break from the platform or your priorities change.

Shopify’s prices are mid to high-tier compared to other e-commerce platforms when it comes to their more advanced plans.

However, their cheaper plans pack a mighty punch and offer features that competitors at Bigcommerce offer only in their more premium plans.

Moreover, the utility, user-friendliness, global performance, hassle-free maintenance, and stellar customer support make Shopify one of the global e-commerce leaders.

See also: Hire Shopify Experts from a Certified Shopify Agency