Shopify Pricing Plans For Beginners: Value And Hidden Costs

So, how much does Shopify cost? That’s the question that most people ask. 

Here, we’ll provide a quick guide to help you select the best Shopify pricing plans that suit your needs.

Shopify is one of the best ecommerce platforms since it helps you quickly set up your store.

You can get a store up and running in a matter of hours, but one of the most common questions that most people or companies looking to build their online store ask is what kind of Shopify pricing plan will suit them.

There are 4 Shopify Pricing Plans offered by the Shopify team, which you can choose from. These plans include:

1. Shopify Lite
2.  Basic Shopify
3.  Shopify
4.  Advanced Shopify

Determining which one to choose can be challenging since you don’t want to spend money on features you don’t necessarily require.

Therefore, learning about every plan and its actual costs is essential to help you choose the Shopify pricing plan that will suit you. Read on to learn more and see our recommendations for each Shopify plan.

Shopify Pricing Plans Overview

Below is the Shopify pricing plan breakdown to help you understand each plan better:

• The basic plan costs $39 monthly plus 2.9% and 30¢ per transaction.
•  Shopify plan costs $105 monthly plus 2.6% and 30¢ per transaction.
•  Advanced Shopify plan costs $399 monthly plus 2.4% and 30¢ per transaction.

The Shopify Lite Plan starts at $9 monthly and allows you to sell on your website or social media pages.

There is also Shopify Plus, an enterprise plan starting at $200 per month plus 2.15% per transaction.

With Shopify Plus, you have a massive advantage since it provides all the tools needed for large operations.

However, it is highly recommended that you contact Shopify to help you establish a customized rate and all the necessary features.

Sign up for a free trial and enjoy 3 months of Shopify for $1/month on Select Plans.

The good thing is that this is a highly customized plan, which means we do not need to cover it.

You only need to talk to Shopify if your store requires this support.

All the Shopify Pricing Plan Costs per Month and Fees

Here is all the information you need regarding Shopify pricing plans per month and all other fees involved on Shopify.

Hosting, Domains and Cancellations

Shopify provides domains for $11 per year.

However, other alternatives exist, such as GoDaddy, Namecheap, HostGator, and Bluehost.

You can use a free Domain Name Generator to check for creative and unique domain name ideas before you buy it.

These are places to shop and buy a suitable domain for your store.

There’s also an update, which, unlike before, doesn’t require merchants to access OpenSRS if they want to change any information on their domains purchased through Shopify.

There is a domain section where they can access all that information.

As a merchant, there are various things you can do from the admin panel, which include:

• Change your A records, CNAME, MX records, TXT records, as well as AAAA records;
•  Efficiently set your Zoho and G Suite email accounts
•  Turn on or off auto-renew
•  Add subdomains

Shopify has considerable monthly and yearly payment options, plus you can always upgrade or even downgrade your account at any time without any extra charges.

However, we highly recommend choosing the monthly plans if you are starting.

The reason is that it allows you to modify your plan or stop using Shopify since you won’t be stuck in a yearly cycle, which would be a loss if you opt out of the program or stop using the platform.

However, if you already have an established business and you’re just looking to migrate to Shopify to make your operations more accessible, then a yearly plan would be the best option to consider.

An annual plan is also ideal if you’ve been operating on Shopify successfully for a year.

But if you are a startup or inventor, you should choose the monthly plan if anything happens and you need to shut down.

The good thing is that with monthly plans, Shopify allows you to cancel your plan at any time without any other fees being charged. However, with yearly Shopify pricing plans, your payment won’t be reimbursed, and that is another reason why you need to stick to a monthly plan as you start.

What Shopify plan is ideal for you? Let’s examine each plan in more detail to understand better which one might suit your needs.

Shopify Pricing Plans Comparison

Before discussing all the Shopify pricing options, let’s examine the three available options. The free trial option is always open to new Shopify users.

1. Basic Shopify

The Basic Shopify plan costs $39 monthly and is the cheapest option. It includes all the essential features to start a new online e-commerce business, including two staff accounts, 24/7 customer support, unlimited products, an online store with a blog section, and sales channels.

An abandoned cart recovery option is also included in this package.

2. Shopify

The Shopify plan is the standard option and a bit more expensive. It costs $105 monthly and includes everything in the Basic Shopify plan, including gift cards, five staff accounts, and professional reports.

3. Advanced Shopify

The Advanced Shopify is the most expensive plan, which costs $299 per month. It features 15 staff accounts and everything you get from the Shopify package.

The plan also provides access to a well-advanced report builder and third-party shipping rates.

There are different Shopify payment terms options included in each plan. For example, your online and credit card rates include the following:

• 2.2% plus 30 USD cents for the Basic Shopify plan
•  2.6% plus USD cents for the Shopify plan
•  2.4% plus 30 USD cents for the Advanced Shopify plan

The in-person credit card rates include:

• 2.7% for the Basic Shopify plan
•  2.4% for the Shopify plan
•  2.4% for the Advanced Shopify plan

Other additional fees apply to using all the payment providers except Shopify Payments, including 2% for the Basic Shopify plan, 1% for Shopify, and 0.5% for Advanced Shopify.

The Basic Shopify plan includes the Shopify POS app and other third-party POS apps.

The Shopify and Advanced Shopify plans include hardware support, staff POS pins, multiple store location options, and register shifts.

4. Shopify Lite

The Shopify Lite plan costs $9 monthly and provides users with all the tools needed to sell on Facebook, use Buy buttons, and accept credit card payments.

Although it’s not an online store with a shopping cart, it does well for small companies. It is also suitable for installing a few Buy buttons on a website, for instance, on your blog or podcast site.

There is an addition, which includes the Facebook Messenger app that comes with the Shopify Lite plan. It enables you to chat with your customers easily.

That is a good feature for customer support – to answer customer questions or resolve any issues faster.

Who Is this Plan Suitable for?

The Shopify Lite plan doesn’t work just by purchasing a hosting plan. This package only intends to provide the functionalities of an e-commerce business and an existing website.

Therefore, you need a website with hosting already configured, a domain, and other essential things. A good example would be installing Shopify Lite on your WordPress website.

Basic Shopify

The Basic Shopify package involves a bit more since it includes a discount code engine, the ability to upload as many products as you want on your store, and tools for fraud analysis.

The main thing about this package is that you get a fully functional site and a blog through this plan. You won’t need a separate website to make it work.

Other beneficial perks included in this plan include manual order creation, a free SSL certificate, 24/7 customer support, shipping labels, and unlimited file storage.

Shopify pricing for this plan is $39 monthly plus 2.9% and 30¢ for every transaction. That is a bit higher than the Shopify Lite plan.

However, with the Basic Shopify plan, you can expand your store to include many other products.

Who Is this Plan Suitable for?

This plan is suitable for someone who needs a well-designed and functioning online store but needs more funds to pay for the features included in the more advanced Shopify plans, which are pretty expensive.

It is also a good package if you don’t have a website to work with the Shopify Lite plan as is required. Therefore, we can say it is a good Shopify package.

Shopify Plan

This is the most popular Shopify plan, and it goes for $105 per month plus 2.6% and 30¢ for every transaction.

That is quite a considerable jump from the Basic Shopify plan, but you receive every feature offered by Shopify.

With this plan, you can create many products and take advantage of everything you would get from the Basic Shopify plan.

Additional features include access to the Shopify POS, abandoned cart recovery, gift cards, and professional reports.

One of the primary reasons people choose the professional plan is that they will receive the abandoned recovery tool.

The tool is quite efficient, providing a great way to get contact information from potential buyers who have yet to complete their orders.

This shows that the person who didn’t complete their order was somehow interested in your products, which means you can contact them to prompt a purchase.

Another great feature is that this tool can send automated emails based on your preferences.

A good example is if a user abandons a cart on your online store, you can send them a promo code or even a message to remind them to complete their purchase after 6 hours.

The feature is quite beneficial because it is estimated that an average of 67.89% of shoppers abandon their shopping carts.

However, the abandoners spend about 55 percent more when they are remarketed to.

Therefore, you must contact customers who abandoned their carts and find out why that happened.

Who Is this Plan Suitable for?

This Shopify pricing plan is ideal for companies planning to scale up quickly, as it includes unlimited products and storage features.

Therefore, if you have a business earning $5,000 per month, this is a good Shopify plan for you. It is also very suitable because the transaction fee drops to the volume if you use external payment gateways.

You will also get the coveted abandoned cart recovery tool, which can significantly improve your sales without requiring much work.

Advanced Shopify Plan

The advanced Shopify package costs $399 monthly plus 2.4% and 30¢ for every transaction. It provides users with all the features from the other plans, an advanced report builder, third-party calculated shipping rates, and unlimited product uploads.

The advantage of this plan is that the transaction percentage fees are lower when you opt to use external payment gateways.

This plan is even more beneficial because everything is unlimited, so you get unending storage capabilities.

You can upload unlimited products, post as many videos and images as you want, and drive all the traffic you need to your store.

The abandoned cart recovery also includes an unlimited package, which ensures that you can reach high sales numbers; this makes the increased price plan for this package worth it.

The feature for the abandoned cart comes with a handy area to help you manage all the customers who have left their carts early to see if they have received an email or even find out why they left early.

What’s more, the Advanced Shopify plan includes a dashboard that allows up to 15 users and offers the best shipping discount compared to other plans.

Who Is this Plan Suitable for?

The advanced Shopify plan is ideal for companies that are okay with letting third-party services handle their shipping.

The plan is also suitable for companies with high-end revenue but still crave advanced reports, which allow them to test and project.

An advantage of this plan is that it has a decreased transaction fee and shipping discounts, which make it suitable for businesses that earn up to $10,000 per month and above.

Shopify Plus

The Shopify Plus plan is an enterprise-level system that requires resources to focus on design and marketing instead of order management.

Your website will be fully hosted and won’t incur transaction fees. There is also 200TB storage, which is more than enough to handle the robust stores.

Regarding pricing for this plan, we recommend contacting Shopify for a personalized quote, depending on your needs.

However, this plan can cost you around $2,000 or more monthly.

Who Is this Plan Suitable for?

This plan is suitable for large companies like the Los Angeles Lakers. However, it is also ideal for smaller companies.

Therefore, this plan can automate that process if you have a large team and want to save time managing orders.

Monthly vs. Annual vs. Biannual Costs

All Shopify pricing plans offer a slight discount if you opt for an annual payment plan.

Your annual plan offers a 10% discount on all monthly prices when you pay upfront. However, your biannual payment plan provides a 20% discount.

Transaction Fees and Credit Card Rates

You won’t have to worry about fee processing if you choose to use the Shopify payments processor.

However, if you opt for a payment option like PayPal or any other, you are expected to pay around 3% plus 30¢ for every transaction. Shopify will charge you based on your turnover, which may range between 0.5% and 2%.

Credit card rates and transaction fees are some of the things that are most annoying when it comes to implementing part of any sales channel or POS solution into your online store.

If that weren’t the case, all store owners would have the opportunity to take high-volume sales and ramp them up on their monthly revenue without paying even a penny.

However, all eCommerce platforms and checkout tools charge at least a basic fee for credit card payments and transactions.

The money you pay from other Shopify costs and all your transaction fees highly depends on what is offered in your specific plan.

Here are the common examples:

• Basic Shopify plan—This plan is available at $39 per month. It features everything you need to launch your business fast, including essential solutions for your e-commerce store. The transaction fee charged in this plan is 2.9%, and an additional 30¢ for every purchase. From Shopify, that is the highest price.
•  Shopify Plan—The Shopify standard account option has an annual plan of $105 per month and slightly different credit card rates. If you plan on taking credit card payments when subscribed to this plan, you must pay 2.6% plus an additional 30¢ per transaction.
•  Advanced Shopify plan includes the highest monthly charges but offers lower transaction rates. With this plan, you must pay 2.4% and an additional 30¢ for every transaction.

Therefore, looking at all the above plans, which have different charges and features, we can conclude that the higher you pay for the Shopify app and POS solution, the fewer transaction fees you’ll incur in the long run.

This means that if you are worried that you may be paying for everything from credit card rates to shipping rates when selling many products in your store, it might be worth upgrading to the Advanced Shopify pricing plan to process your payment.

The good thing is that the advanced plan has extra features that are very beneficial for running your business.

These include options to customize your sales channels, social media integrations, support for high-volume sales, and advanced monthly revenue reports.

Notable Things to Spend Your Money on Shopify

You need to know that since apps are different, they all come in various shapes and sizes. You can get them on the Shopify App Store, where you can browse and select the ones that suit your business.

The free apps provided on the Shopify app store assist with everything that you may need, including email marketing and automated receipts.

Some Shopify apps require monthly payments, although this will depend on plans in your business.

Therefore, we recommend avoiding apps requiring you to pay monthly subscriptions when you start. Most of the time, you can find a suitable solution even without paying monthly.

But, sometimes, you might stumble upon a paid plan app that may be too good to pass. Therefore, if such a thing happens, try as much as possible to keep the paid apps to a minimum amount and only choose the ones that will eventually start paying for themselves as soon as possible to avoid ending up in losses.

Additional Costs on Shopify

It would be best if you also consider other additional costs beyond what is offered in your Shopify plan. These only occur when you want extra functionality on your Shopify store.

• Costs of Shopify app store—Some third-party app providers in the Shopify marketplace may charge a small fee to add other necessary functionality to your store. If you are looking for the benefits of extra plugins and apps, such as an app that supports Google Analytics and Dropshipping, then you may be required to pay for them.
•  Domain name—Your domain name is another cost you must consider when using Shopify. Shopify allows you to register a unique domain name for $11 to $14 for a one-year registration. Another good thing is to buy your domain name from elsewhere and then migrate it into Shopify.
•  Email hosting – Unfortunately, Shopify doesn’t provide email hosting as an internal option. However, you can set up email forwarding to your Shopify domain through third-party hosting. Typically, you must pay for the email hosting service as part of a website hosting package.

Are Shopify Transaction Fees Affordable?

Although Shopify transaction fees are fair when considering the amount required for processing payment features your small business will get in return, most companies may be unhappy.

We need to look in-depth at how transaction fees work to help you understand why you need to deal with them.

When customers purchase a product from your Shopify POS, they are charged a transaction fee, which changes depending on your Shopify pricing plan.

Although it may seem unfair at first, Shopify requires a lot of power and processing bandwidth to handle tasks such as storing files and processing checkouts.

Shopify charges you for the work it does to help keep your business up and running. That dramatically helps, even when thousands of visitors to your site are purchasing products simultaneously.

Although it is easy to assume the monthly plan you pay for with your store can cover this expense, you need to know that you are paying for the software and sales tools.

Your monthly fee covers support for an unlimited number of products in your store, excellent support, and real-time hosting for store owners.

If you believe the transaction fees are unfair, you should consider that most other companies charge these fees, too. For example:

• Wix doesn’t charge you regular transaction fees, but when you sell products through their service, you need to be on the VIP or ecommerce plan. This means you pay a little more for your service each month. Moreover, you must pay a percentage for each purchase a payment gateway provider manages.
•  BigCommerce – They don’t charge any fee for any sales you make, but if you generate more sales in the usual month, you automatically get bumped up to higher plans. That means that you will be forced to pay more for the services. Shopify doesn’t do that.
•  Volusion – This platform limits the bandwidth you have access to every month. That means you will be restricted to the number of people visiting your online store. Compared to Shopify, you know that you are not limited in bandwidth like Volusion. But, the catch with Volusion is that you won’t be required to pay transaction fees, and the downside is that you will not have plenty of sales opportunities.

Shopify Payments

You also need to know that if you don’t want to deal with Shopify transaction fees, you can switch to Shopify payments, allowing Shopify to remove the fees.

Shopify payments enable you to process payments from your clients and then move them into your bank account.

Using this application, Shopify can earn the fees charged on credit cards, meaning that the transaction fees can be waived.

Therefore, instead of paying fees plus credit card fees, you pay only the fees charged on credit cards.

In simple terms, Shopify payments help you save money in the right ways.

The credit card rates you pay with Shopify are lower than the fees you would get from a payment gateway like PayPal. Therefore, that significantly helps to keep your costs very low.

Is Shopify Payments Idea?

Shopify can be a great option if you are looking to upgrade your sales strategy from selling products on eBay and Amazon.

The platform includes its app store and many other delightful Shopify apps to help you customize all the transactions.

Moreover, Shopify is currently among the marketplace’s most reliable and secure solutions.

However, since you can use Shopify for free for a very short time, you need to understand all the associated costs before you consider running your online store entirely on the platform.

If you hate transaction fees, consider opting for Shopify Payments to avoid them.

The reason is that you will save more money with Shopify Payments than you would with other e-commerce website builders.

Unlimited bandwidth from Shopify provides an excellent opportunity to scale your business flexibly as long as the services offered by Shopify appeal to you.

Another advantage is that Shopify Payments helps avoid pesky transaction fees altogether.

These are among some of the main reasons why Shopify states that approximately 85 percent of their users use Shopify Payments when they have it available.

Shopping Pricing FAQs

In this section, we will discuss some of the most common questions, their answers about Shopify fees, and solutions from experts.

Is Shopify expensive?

When it comes to Shopify pricing, there are three primary tiers of Shopify pricing, and they include:

1. Basic Shopify plan – $39 per month

2. Shopify – $105 per month

3. Advanced Shopify – $399 per month

You get a good discount if you sign up for a year or more upfront. The discounts include:

• 10% off when you sign up with Shopify for an annual plan
•  20% off when you sign up for 2 years
•  25% off when you sign up for 3 years upfront

In addition to the main fee, there are separate transaction and credit card processing fees.

Sign up for a free trial and enjoy 3 months of Shopify for $1/month on Select Plans.

Are there transaction fees on Shopify? What are the processing fees and credit card rates?

The answer to this question is yes and no. There are no transaction processing fees when you are using Shopify Payments.

However, when you use external payment gateways, such as PayPal, Stripe, or any other, you will pay additional fees depending on your subscription plan.

They include:

• Basic Shopify plan – 2% for every transaction
•  Shopify plan – 1% for every transaction
•  Advanced Shopify plan – 0.5% for every transaction

No matter the payment gateway you choose, you will still be charged credit card processing fees if your customer decides to use a credit card when paying for purchased items. You also need to know that the specific rate highly depends on your subscription plan. This includes:

• Basic Shopify – 2.9% plus 30¢ for every transaction
•  Shopify plan – 2.6% plus 30¢ for every transaction
•  Advanced Shopify plan – 2.4% plus 30¢ for every transaction

What is “Shopify Payments”?

Shopify Payments is the Shopify payment processing gateway. Using it will help you avoid additional fees from customer transactions, such as credit card processing fees.

However, if you decide to use an external payment gateway like Stripe or PayPal, you will incur additional fees based on your subscription plan. That includes:

• Basic Shopify plan – 2% for every transaction
•  Shopify plan – 1% for every transaction
•  Advanced Shopify plan – 0.5% for every transaction

Are there Shopify setup fees?

The answer is no. When setting up your Shopify store, you will not incur additional fees in addition to your regular Shopify monthly cost and the per-transaction fees.

Unless you want to hire a professional Shopify store developer or buy a ready-to-launch store like our Prebuilt Store.

Is Shopify free to use?

Unfortunately, Shopify is not accessible to use. However, there is a free trial period that you can get started with, and it will significantly enable you to build your store and make it available to the public as soon as possible.

However, if you want to keep on receiving sales after your trial period is done, you are required to select one of the paid plans:

• Basic Shopify plan, which only costs $39 per month
•  The Shopify plan, which costs $105 per month
•  Advanced Shopify, which costs $399 per month

Currently, Shopify doesn’t offer any free plans.

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

No, currently, Shopify offers $1 Per month for the next 3 months, which means you only spend $3 at the end of this trial;, which doesn’t require you to have a credit card. This allows you to test the system and see if you like it; you can even build your store and make it available to the public very fast.

Only at the end of the trial period, when you want to upgrade to a paid plan, will you need a credit card to pay for it.

Which Shopify plan is suitable for a new store?

The Basic Shopify plan is usually the most suitable one for a new store that is just getting started and hasn’t made any sales yet. The plan costs only $39 per month, and if you choose to pay for an entire year, you will get a 10% discount. If you pay for 2 or 3 years, you will get 20% or 25% off, respectively.

Is Shopify cheaper compared to WooCommerce?

No, generally speaking, Shopify is not cheaper than WooCommerce. However, when it comes to setting up both of them, you get what you pay for.

Can my whole team work in the store?

Yes, you can have a team working on the store. However, your team number will depend on your Shopify plan. For instance:

• You get 2 staff accounts for the Basic Shopify plan
•  5 staff accounts for the Shopify plan
•  15 staff accounts for the Advanced Shopify plan

How many products am I allowed to sell on Shopify?

The good thing is that Shopify allows you to sell unlimited products in your store.

How many sales and web visitors can I receive?

Still, there are no restrictions or fees associated with your store’s popularity. On all Shopify plans, you can receive as many visitors as possible and unlimited orders.

Shopify Pricing: Conclusion

Shopify pricing is one of the main things most business owners need help dealing with when building their online stores.

However, when you know what you need and all the features that will suit your store, you will eventually have the right option to choose from all the Shopify Pricing plans offered on the platform.

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