If you’re planning to launch an online store powered by Shopify, you might wonder what’s the difference between subscription plans and how to choose the most suitable one. Comparing Shopify plans, you’ll see what features you need and pay only for what you will actually use.
In this post, we’ll discover the capabilities included in each Shopify plan and what types of stores will benefit from those capabilities.
Let’s start from the basics: how many different Shopify monthly plans are out there and how much they cost. All plan features and prices are updated according to the changes introduced in February 2024.
There are three major plans offered by Shopify: Basic, Shopify, and Advanced. But actually, there are more: Starter and Lite for selling without creating a store, and Shopify Plus. We’ll go through their functionality starting from the cheapest options and moving to the most feature-rich and expensive plans.
Shopify Starter: $5 per month
This is a new plan introduced by Shopify in August 2022. Starter is designed for those who want to start from social selling without creating a website.
How does it work?
Shopify Starter allows you to create product pages: you add photos and descriptions using the Starter theme, and get shareable links with your product information. You can send those links to customers via social platforms, messengers, emails, etc. Shopify takes care of the checkout process: when people follow your links, they can add products to the cart and pay for their orders. You, in turn, get a Shopify admin to manage orders and view analytics on your sales.
How much does this Shopify plan cost?
Shopify Starter costs as little as $5 per month. Plus, you'll have to pay 5% transaction fees on Shopify Payments.
What’s included?
Shopify Starter offers you the following:
- Unlimited number of product pages
- Secure checkout
- Contact page
- Shopify Inbox
- Linkpop (for featuring links in your bio on social media)
- Order management and fulfillment network
- Analytics
- 24/7 support
Who is it for?
This plan suits you well if you're seeking an easy way to start selling. Shopify Starter is a barrier-free entrance to e-commerce that allows controlling anything even from a single smartphone. If you're interested in more features, check out other plans. If you start with Starter, you can later upgrade to any plan that includes having your own website.
Shopify Lite: $9 per month
The Shopify Lite plan exists for those who don’t want to create a store but want to add products and checkout functionality to their existing website. It’s also suitable for selling on social media and in person. This plan only works for existing merchants and won't be supported in the future.
How does it work?
- For existing websites: with the help of Shopify Lite, you can add buy buttons to any site (it can be based on another CMS or custom-made). The Buy Button option in Shopify admin allows you to create a piece of code and then insert it on a website.
When your customers click on the buy button, they will be transferred to checkout on the Shopify domain. Since the Lite plan doesn’t involve building your site, you can’t use your own domain for checkouts. All transactions are handled by Shopify Payments.
- For selling on Facebook and Messenger: you can also sell products on social media with Shopify Lite. To do so, you need to have a business Facebook account and connect it to Shopify. Note that the Facebook sales channel will soon be managed by Meta. Learn more about migration here.
- For offline selling: you can take advantage of Shopify Lite if you’re selling in person, for example, at fairs and craft shows. The Lite plan gives you an opportunity to use Shopify’s virtual POS system: it’s an app that accepts payments through card swipes. It’s available at no additional cost. Choose Point of Sale in the Sales Channels menu and set it up from there.
- For invoicing: finally, Shopify Lite can become handy if you’re selling not through a website but in direct communication with customers, for example, over the phone. This plan allows for creating and sending invoices which will redirect customers to a payment gateway.
How much does this Shopify plan cost?
The monthly price for Shopify Lite is just $9. Additionally, you’ll pay a 2% fee for each transaction if you use an external gateway (Shopify Payments come with no fees.
What’s included?
With Shopify Lite, you get:
- Unlimited number of products to add
- Admin dashboard with financial report and analytics
- One additional staff account
- Access to Shopify apps
- Shopify POS app for free
- Gift cards and discount codes
- Manual order creation and invoicing
- 24/7 support via email and chat
Who is it for?
It’s a decent set of features if you don’t need a new website. If you already have a site or mostly deal with sales in person and over the phone, this might be a great solution.
If you do want to create a Shopify-based store and access more features, check out other pricing plans.
Basic: $32 per month ($24 if paid annually)
The Basic plan is a great place to start with e-commerce. It’s the cheapest monthly website plan on Shopify that takes care of all technical details: hosting, security, and a default domain name.
How much does it cost?
The monthly price of the Basic plan is $32. You can pay even less if you sign up for a year right away (Shopify annual plans cost 25% less). Note that the price may vary depending on your location.
You’ll also pay 2% for each payment processing on an external gateway.
Note that you might have additional expenses:
- Custom domain name. It’s not a good idea to sell products under the store.myshopify.com domain. You can purchase the name you like either directly from Shopify or from other providers.
- Email hosting. The Shopify Email app allows sending 10,000 emails in a month for free and charges $1 for each additional 1,000. If you like some third-party email solution better, then you’ll need to pay for it separately.
- Apps. While Shopify does a great job of combining everything you need to design a store, its capabilities in customizing navigation, building pages, and launching marketing campaigns are quite limited. You might want to install additional programs—for example, apps for creating upsells and cross-sells. There are apps for practically any imaginable task on the Shopify App Store: some of them are free, but most will charge you a monthly subscription.
What’s included?
With the Basic plan (and any higher tier), you get an online store builder with everything needed for a set-up: pre-defined, modifiable themes, navigation elements, checkout options, etc.
What you get includes the following:
- Unlimited number of products
- Website hosting and free TLS certificate
- Customizable website editor with up to 20 themes to use
- Blogging functionality in addition to product and collection pages
- 1,000 inventory locations with tracking
- Abandoned cart recovery feature
- Customer segmentation
- All standard reports
- 3 custom markets
- 10,000 free emails per month sent from your domain
- Access to Shopify apps
- Shopify POS Lite
- Gift cards and discount codes
- Manual order creation and invoicing
- Shipping labels
- Shipping discounts from DHL, UPS, and USPS of up to 77%
- Localization features: currency conversion, website translation, regional domains
- 24/7 support via email and chat
Who is it for?
Shopify’s Basic plan is perfect for those who are just entering the world of e-commerce and looking to create their first online store. But it doesn’t mean it’s only for newbies: if you have an already established business and these features cover your needs (you don’t have a large team to give access to Shopify admin, you don’t need more than 4 inventory locations, and you’re not interested in more advanced reporting), it might be the right choice.
If you’re not sure where to start after getting your account, read our guide to setting up a Shopify store.
Shopify: $92 per month ($69 if paid annually)
The next tier is the Shopify plan meant for growing businesses. The most significant difference from the Basic plan lies in more insightful reports and lower transaction fees.
How much does it cost?
For the Shopify subscription, you’ll have to pay $92 per month. Note that the price may vary depending on your location. As for the transaction costs, you’ll pay 1% per each if you’re not using Shopify Payments.
Similarly to any other plan that involves an online store, you might have additional expenses on Shopify apps, email provider, and domain name.
What’s included?
With the Shopify plan, you get:
- Unlimited number of products
- Website hosting and free TLS certificate
- Customizable website editor with up to 20 themes to use
- Blogging functionality in addition to product and collection pages
- 5 additional staff accounts
- 1,000 inventory locations with tracking
- Abandoned cart recovery feature
- Customer segmentation
- All standard reports
- 3 custom markets
- 10,000 free emails per month sent from your domain
- Access to Shopify apps
- Shopify POS Lite
- Gift cards and discount codes
- Manual order creation and invoicing
- Shipping labels
- Shipping discounts from DHL, UPS, and USPS of up to 88%
- Localization features: currency conversion, website translation, regional domains
- 24/7 support via email and chat
Note that if you start from Basic and then switch to the Shopify plan, new reports will still include the data from the time you used Basic.
Who is it for?
The Shopify plan is a more comprehensive solution in terms of marketing and analytics. With the help of the aforementioned reports, you can finetune your campaigns and understand store visitors and customers better.
For instance, if you run an offline store along with an e-commerce one, you’re probably using some software to track sales. If you choose the Shopify plan, you can control everything in one place: it will be much easier than dealing with data fragmented across several solutions.
Speaking of how affordable this pricing option is for different-sized businesses, experts from Ecommerce Platforms recommend going with the Shopify plan if the store generates over $5,000 in monthly revenue.
Advanced: $399 per month ($299 if paid annually)
The Advanced plan caters to the needs of large-scale merchants who are handling a lot of transactions and might need automation tools and custom reports.
How much does it cost?
The monthly cost of Advanced is $399. Note that the price may vary depending on your location. Transaction fees on external gateways are 0.5%.
Don’t forget about additional expenses that you might have, for instance, Shopify apps. They are also mostly subscription-based, and the more features you need the more they charge.
What’s included?
With the Advanced plan, you get:
- Unlimited number of products
- Website hosting and free TLS certificate
- Customizable website editor with up to 20 themes to use
- Blogging functionality in addition to product and collection pages
- 15 additional staff accounts
- 1,000 inventory locations with tracking
- Abandoned cart recovery feature
- Customer segmentation
- All standard reports
- Custom reports
- 3 custom markets
- Custom report builder
- Automation tools
- 10,000 free emails per month sent from your domain
- Access to Shopify apps
- Shopify POS Lite
- Gift cards and discount codes
- Manual order creation and invoicing
- Duties and taxes at checkout
- Shipping labels
- Shipping discounts from DHL, UPS, and USPS of up to 88%
- Calculation of third-party shipping rates
- Localization features: currency conversion, website translation, regional domains
- Custom pricing by location-specific market
- 24/7 support via email and chat
Who is it for?
The Advanced plan can be beneficial to e-commerces that actively work with different national markets and seek powerful localization. This Shopify pricing plan allows for customizing international pricing, and also providing customers with accurate third-party carrier rates and transparent information on duties and taxes.
Finally, don’t forget about lower transaction costs compared to other plans.
Here’s a simplified Shopify plan comparison. Let’s say you get 1,000 online transactions per month with an average value of $100.
As you can see, for the Advanced pricing to pay off, you’ll need to have higher sales volumes or a higher average order value.
However, don’t compare transaction fees in isolation from other features and expenses that come with different plans. For comprehensive Shopify plan calculation, you should weigh all costs associated with your store: apps, external marketing tools, payment gateways, etc.
The Shopify Plus plan
Out of 1.6 million Shopify-based stores, over 17,000 run on Shopify Plus. It’s an enterprise-level solution that doesn’t have a fixed price. To get this type of subscription, you’ll discuss your needs with Shopify’s representatives, and they will provide you with a quote.
How much does this Shopify plan cost?
The monthly cost starts from around $2,000, but you’ll get a custom estimate after contacting Shopify.
What’s included?
Shopify Plus offers some helpful tools for enterprise e-commerce businesses:
- Organization admin for managing several stores under one roof
- 9 expansion stores
- Up to 100 themes
- Customizable checkout
- Unlimited staff accounts with permission settings
- Separate wholesale channel
- Shopify POS Pro
- Additional API calls for app integrations
- Assisting Launch Team
- Merchant Success Program, Shopify Plus Academy, Shopify Plus Partner Program, Shopify Plus Community on Facebook
- Flow app for automated workflows
To learn more, check out our post on the benefits of Shopify Plus.
Who is it for?
Shopify Plus is the only plan that allows for multiple stores. You can manage multiple stores with other subscriptions as well, but in that case, you’ll have to create an individual account for each store and pay for it separately. Under the Shopify Plus plan, you can add up to 10 stores in total and control them under one admin panel.
It makes sense if you want to create sub-brands to target different audiences or have completely separate stores for different countries.
So, which Shopify plan is the best for you?
To know what Shopify plan should you choose, you need to consider the expected number of monthly transactions, localization requirements, and reporting needs. Here are the most important differences (besides the price of Shopify plans):
You don’t have to make a final decision right away. In a 14-day free trial, you can evaluate the possibilities of most Shopify subscription plans (except Shopify Plus).
FAQ about Shopify plans and prices
Does Shopify have a free plan?
Shopify offers a 3-day free trial, but after that, you need to pay a monthly fee.
What Shopify plan should I choose?
Your choice should rely on your particular business needs. Analyze the features of Shopify plans and see which ones you require.
How much does shopify take per sale?
That depends on the plan you choose and your country. With Shopify Basic it's 2.9% + 30¢, Shopify standard is 2.6% + 30¢, and Advanced is 2.4% + 30¢ in the United States.
Are there discounts for an annual subscription?
Yes, Shopify annual plans are 25% off.
How many Shopify stores can I have?
Under Basic, Shopify, and Advanced subscriptions, you can only have one store with up to 3 localized storefronts per account. However, you can create international subdomains. For multiple stores, consider Shopify Plus.
What are Shopify POS plans?
Shopify offers its POS functionality to any plan for free, even Lite, which doesn’t come with a website. But if you need Shopify POS Pro that includes advanced inventory management tools and access levels for staff, it costs $89 per month for each POS location.
How can I switch to another plan?
You can upgrade or downgrade any time from your Shopify admin. A new billing cycle will be started immediately. For more information, check out Shopify’s help.
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