Shopify Pricing: Plans, Fees and Real Store Costs

Shopify pricing depends on the plan, billing term and payment setup, and it's easy to misread. Shopify Basic costs $39 per month when paid monthly or $29 per month when billed yearly. Shopify Grow costs $105 per month when paid monthly or $79 per month when billed yearly. Shopify Advanced costs $399 per month when paid monthly or $299 per month when billed yearly. Shopify shows prices in local currencies and at different rates by country, so these are the US dollar figures.

Shopify Plus starts at $2,300 per month on a three-year term, and a one-year term costs more. Shopify quotes it per contract. Payment processing, third-party transaction fees, paid apps and operational labor can make the actual bill very different from the subscription, and that's where budgets clearly slip.

Shopify pricing plans at a glance

Shopify sells a progression, from Basic for a lean store to Grow for team access, Advanced for more complex operations and Plus for enterprise requirements. The subscription alone doesn't decide the right tier because payment rates, staff access and checkout requirements differ.

Shopify monthly versus annual billing

Shopify's monthly option gives a store far more billing flexibility while the annual option reduces the published monthly equivalent. A merchant shouldn't overlook either: check both the immediate cash commitment and the chance they'll switch platforms before committing to a yearly term.

Shopify plan	Paid monthly (USD per month)	Billed yearly (USD per month equivalent)
Shopify Basic	$39	$29
Shopify Grow	$105	$79
Shopify Advanced	$399	$299

The annual figures are monthly equivalents of a longer commitment, not prices you'd get with month-to-month cancellation. The merchant's store country, payment setup and taxes can change what appears on the final checkout page, so it won't always match the table.

Shopify payment processing fees

Shopify payment costs combine card processing and, for qualifying payment methods, third-party transaction fees. Shopify Basic online standard card rates start at 2.9% plus 30 cents, Grow starts at 2.7% plus 30 cents and Advanced starts at 2.5% plus 30 cents. The exact rate can depend on card type and location, so it isn't always the headline number.

Shopify Basic third-party transaction fees are 2%, Grow fees are 1% and Advanced fees are 0.6% on qualifying third-party payment transactions. These platform fees aren't applied to every order, so using one blended rate without checking the payment mix can clearly exaggerate the cost.

Shopify's help center says that third-party transaction fees aren't returned when an order's refunded. The refund and chargeback workflow belongs in the financial model, especially for stores with high return volumes.

Which Shopify plan is best for staff and inventory?

Shopify Basic fits an operation that's got a compact team, while Grow and Advanced support more staff accounts and lower advertised standard online card rates. The right tier should remove a real workflow constraint, not add features the business won't use.

Shopify Basic, Grow and Advanced each support 10 active inventory locations, so location limits don't separate the tiers. Staff access does: Basic includes 2 staff accounts, Grow up to 5 and Advanced up to 15. The team should map fulfillment apps separately from physical warehouses and verify how stock moves between locations. That's really where errors start.

• Lean hosted store with minimal additional staffEvaluate Basic, then calculate payment costs.
• Team members need more admin accessEvaluate Grow and its staff allowance.
• Larger team and lower standard card rateCompare Advanced with Grow using actual order data.
• Customized checkout or complex organizationRequest a Plus quote and validate the contract.

Shopify total cost of ownership for a real store

Shopify total cost of ownership includes subscription fees, card processing, conditional third-party transaction fees, paid apps, external services and staff time. A plan comparison shouldn't mix assumptions. It should use the same sales mix and operational assumptions across all candidate tiers.

Cost component	Shopify Basic	Shopify Grow	Shopify Advanced
Plan fee (USD per month, billed yearly)	$29	$79	$299
Standard card processing	Apply Basic rate to actual orders	Apply Grow rate to actual orders	Apply Advanced rate to actual orders
External gateway transactions	Apply only to eligible orders	Apply only to eligible orders	Apply only to eligible orders
Apps and other services	Use current invoices	Use current invoices	Use current invoices
Staff and maintenance	Use internal cost records	Use internal cost records	Use internal cost records

An operator can calculate a useful estimate by exporting order volume by payment method and assigning each segment the applicable published rate. The result may favor a higher plan, but there's no generic sales threshold that can replace the store's own payment mix.

The calculator below shows how the plan fee and card rate trade off at different sales volumes.

Shopify apps and inventory create costs beyond the plan

Shopify apps and integrations can add recurring fees, while inventory mismatches create work that doesn't appear in the subscription. Stores should identify who owns each SKU, the source of truth for availability and the person who reconciles refunds and settlement reports.

A product feed can become inconsistent with the storefront even when checkout works, and nobody's alerted. Feed monitoring can catch missing attributes, duplicate IDs and unexpected changes in public XML, CSV or TSV feeds, but it isn't a replacement for product feed management.

Shopify pricing versus other ecommerce platforms

Shopify pricing shouldn't be compared on the lowest advertised monthly amount. It should be compared against competing operating models. BigCommerce has sales-volume tier rules and a provider-fee policy, WooCommerce has free core software but merchant-managed hosting, and Wix or Squarespace combine site editing with commerce.

Our best ecommerce platforms comparison covers inventory, migration and payment assumptions.

When Shopify pricing makes sense

Shopify pricing makes sense for a team that benefits from hosted commerce operations and can quantify its gateway costs and app stack. A store with highly customized backend requirements should simply test those requirements before assuming the subscription covers them. They're often the real cost driver.

The Ecom Director checks and monitors small public product feeds for data drift, but it doesn't rewrite, optimize or distribute feeds. That's a separate operational safeguard rather than an ecommerce platform feature.

Shopify pricing FAQ

Shopify pricing questions usually concern the true monthly bill, the difference between annual and monthly subscriptions and whether external payment providers add platform charges.