Shopify is a versatile e-commerce platform that’s designed to make selling products and services online a breeze. Established in 2004, Shopify has evolved to become the go-to platform for small business and large corporations alike. The company offers feature-rich service, regardless of the specific plan you choose to go with. Plenty of apps for e-mail marketing, shipping, and even accounting are available, allowing you to customize your shop and online business how you please.
With all that being said, great service comes at a price. Shopify offers a number of different plans to fit the needs of shops big and small. Like all e-commerce platforms, the pricing structure can be a bit confusing. In addition to paying a monthly fee, Shopify charges for each transaction. While the fees may seem small at first, they can quickly add up if you’re making hundreds of sales each month.
Here’s a breakdown of Shopify’s pricing to help you get a better idea of what you’re paying for and how much you can expect to spend. You can use this information to get a ball-park estimate of how much your monthly fees with Shopify will be based on the size and needs of your business.
Shopify Basic
The Basic Shopify plan is great for those who are just getting started with selling products online. You can use this plan to create a dedicated online store or use it to sell the occasional product on your WordPress blog. This plan can even help you sell on social media platforms and marketplaces. Whatever you decide to do, the Basic plan provides you with all the tools you need to succeed.
It includes the ability to sell an unlimited amount of items, which is great if you have a large product offering. There’s also no limit on the number of files you can store. Because it is the most affordable option, the Basic plan does have the highest transaction fees.
Pricing
- Monthly fee – $29.00
- Online credit card rates – 2.9 percent + $0.30
- Online AMEX credit card rates – 3.9 percent + $0.30
- In-person credit card rates – 2.9 percent
- External transaction fees – 2.0 percent
Basic Plan Features
- 2 staff accounts
- Multiple sales channels
- Ability to use discount codes
- Free SLL certificate
- Abandoned cart recovery feature
- Up to 64-percent savings on shipping from USPS, UPS, and DHL
Shopify Plan
The Shopify plan is one of the most popular. It offers the flexibility of a smaller plan with the power and robust features of a higher-tier plan. It includes all of the same features of the Basic plan. However, it also throws in the ability to sell gift cards. Professional reports also come with this plan.
The professional reports are great for getting an in-depth analysis of how your online shop is doing. These reports can give you a good look at what items are selling best, what kind of income you’re generating, and much more.
Pricing
- Monthly fee – $79.00
- Online credit card rates – 2.6 percent + $0.30
- Online AMEX credit card rates – 3.6 percent + $0.30
- In-person credit card rates – 2.5 percent
- External transaction fees – 1.0 percent
Basic Plan Features
- 5 staff accounts
- Multiple sales channels
- Ability to use discount codes
- Free SLL certificate
- Abandoned cart recovery feature
- Up to 72-percent savings on shipping from USPS, UPS, and DHL
- Create gift cards
- Generate professional reports
Advanced Shopify Plan
The Advanced Shopify plan is the most expensive option that’s available to smaller businesses. While it does come with a substantially higher monthly fee, which is over $200 more than the previous tier, the transaction fees and credit card rates are a bit lower. Plus, you can take advantage of some great advanced features.
The most noteworthy is the shipping rate calculator. Instead of having to make an estimate on how much it would cost to ship an item to your customer, there’s a tool to get the rate in real-time. This is done with third-party apps from the Shopify app store.
Pricing
- Monthly fee – $299.00
- Online credit card rates – 2.4 percent + $0.30
- Online AMEX credit card rates – 3.4 percent + $0.30
- In-person credit card rates – 2.4 percent
- External transaction fees – 0.5 percent
Basic Plan Features
- 15 staff accounts
- Multiple sales channels
- Ability to use discount codes
- Free SLL certificate
- Abandoned cart recovery feature
- Up to 74-percent savings on shipping from USPS, UPS, and DHL
- Create gift cards
- Generate professional reports
- Advanced report builder
- Real-time shipping calculator
Included Features
While the three plans have radically different price points, Shopify offers some pretty great features across them. There are a few features that are standard with every plan. They can help to enhance your store, increase sales, and maximize profit.
Abandoned Cart Recovery
The Abandoned Cart Recovery feature is incredibly useful. With most e-commerce platforms, this feature comes with an added cost. However, it’s included on all three plans. Essentially, it’s designed to attract customers who may have thought about buying something and ultimately change their mind.
Shopify will make note if someone puts an item in their shopping cart but doesn’t end up buying the item. The platform can then help you create a targeted drip email chain. It can remind customers of the potential sale, increasing the odds of them coming back to finalize their purchase.
SSL Certificate
SSL certificates are a must-have with any e-commerce platform. With all the online threats out there, customers want to know that all of their valuable financial data is secure. Shopify provides a free SSL certificate with every account. It encrypts the contents of your e-commerce store and publishes it using the HTTPS protocol. It’s a more secure connection than standard ones, providing you and your customers with some peace of mind.
Shipping Discounts
Shipping is an added cost that many new business owners fail to take into account. It can get expensive sending items to your customers. Fortunately, Shopify has a great relationship with many carriers. You can take advantage of discounted rates from USPS, UPS, and DHL Express. The exact discount you can receive will depend entirely on your pricing plan. However, any savings compared to the standard retail shipping rate can do a lot to help your bottom line.
Customer Support
If you have any issues with your Shopify store, you’ll be happy to know that you can contact the platform’s customer support center 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It’s included with all plans. While you may think that customer support should be a given, there are many e-commerce platforms that reserve 24-hour support to high-tier plans. That’s not the case with Shopify.
The support team can be reached around the clock through a live chat function on their website, telephone, and e-mail. There’s also a pretty detailed help center with guides, frequently asked questions, and troubleshooting tips.
Shopify Plus
Shopify Plus is more of an enterprise-level pricing plan. It’s designed for large businesses that are making hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales each month. While the previous plans all have their own set features that you can expect to use with your shop, Shopify Plus is a bit more flexible. It’s a scalable solution that can meet the unique needs of a large business.
So what comes with Shopify Plus? The biggest perk is dedicated support. You’ll receive priority assistance if an issue ever comes up. A team will also work with you directly to help get your e-commerce shop up and running. If you have your own developers, you can also gain more unrestricted access to the system. This opens up a world of possibility for custom scripting and APIs.
The price of Shopify Plus varies based on your company’s needs. Typically, it starts at around $2,000 per month. However, it can be much higher if you demand more features and services. If your company makes more than $800,000.000 in sales every month, the pricing plan moves to a percentage-based fee. You’ll pay 0.25 percent of your monthly revenue instead of a fixed rate.
Shopify Lite
For just $9.00 a month, you can take advantage of some of Shopify’s most useful features. The Shopify Lite plan is designed for small home-based sellers who operate on social media platforms and in-person. Tools to create a shop page on Facebook are available. If you have your own WordPress website or Tumblr blog, you can also install a buy button to make things easier for your audience to buy items.
It’s a very easy and flexible system that can be used on an off the Internet. Doing a pop-up sale at your local flea market? Shopify Lite lets you take credit card payments right on your smartphone. Need to create an invoice for a custom order creations? You can create manual orders in the Shopify Lite platform and send invoices directly to your customers.
Understanding Transaction Fees
One of the most confusing parts of any e-commerce platform, whether it’s Shopify or BigCommerce, is the transaction fees. Transaction fees are charged with each sale made regardless of the amount. They’re an added cost on top of the monthly fee. It’s important to understand how these fees work so that you can be better prepared for the costs of running your online store.
You may have noticed that there are a few different fees that vary from plan to plan. The credit card rates are charged with every purchase. It’s a small piece of the final purchase price in addition to a flat rate. Higher plans get a bit of a discount on the credit card rate. It should be noted that this fee goes to the credit card company, so there’s no way that Shopify can eliminate it completely.
Then, there’s the separate transaction fee. Essentially, this is a fee that Shopify charges with each transaction whenever you use an external payment gateway, provider, or merchant account. You may have your own merchant account that accepts a wide range of accepted payment methods. While this can make your shop more accessible to people around the world, Shopify will charge you extra to do this. The fee ranges from 0.5 percent up to 2.0 percent of the final purchase price.
Shopify Payments
The e-commerce platform does give you a way to avoid transaction fees altogether. Shopify Payments is the company’s own in-house payment system that can be fully integrated throughout your online store. It also has many additional features that give you sales metrics, financial data, and more. All of this happens in one single system, making it very easy to use.
Shopify Payments is available on all accounts and can be used with a wide variety of payments methods. Whether your customers are using PayPal or their debit card, you can avoid that additional transaction fee. Shopify Payments is not available in all countries. Currently, it’s an available payment option for accountholders in:
- United States
- United Kingdom
- Spain
- Singapore
- New Zealand
- The Netherlands
- Japan
- Ireland
- Hong Kong
- China
- Germany
- Canada
- Australia
Shopify Payments does not eliminate the fee you have to pay when a customer uses a credit card. You must still take care of that fee, as it’s out of Shopify’s hands. However, it’s still recommended that you use Shopify payments to avoid any additional transaction fees.
Shopify Bulk Discounts
While Shopify pricing plans are advertised with a month-to-month model, the e-commerce platform does offer yearly contracts. These year contracts allow you to save some money over the course of your service term. It requires a larger upfront payment, but you will receive a discount.
Basic Shopify Plan
1-year plan: $312, equivalent to $26 a month
2-year plan: $558, equivalent to $23.25 a month
3-year plan: $783, equivalent to $21.75 a month
Shopify Plan
1-year plan: $852, equivalent to $71 a month
2-year plan: $1518, equivalent to $63.25 a month
3-year plan: $2133, equivalent to $59.25 a month
Advanced Shopify Plan
1-year plan: $3192, equivalent to $266 a month
2-year plan: $5640, equivalent to $235 a month
3-year plan: $7884, equivalent to $219 a month
Free Trials, Guarantees, and Refunds
The Shopify free trial is a great way to give the platform a try before you commit. The trial lasts for 14 days and includes most of the Basic features for you to test out. Best of all, the free trial doesn’t require you to register your credit card information. While most companies out there take your financial information and charge you at the end of the trial, Shopify only requires your e-mail address. As a result, you can see if the platform works for you without any pressure. The trial is for the Basic plan, not the higher-tier options.
One big downside with Shopify is its lack of any type of guarantee. Because they offer a generous trial period, the company does not have a money-back guarantee. Nor do they do refunds of any kind. For this purpose, it’s highly recommended that you take the company up on their free trial offer. Also, pay the month-to-month fee for a little bit until you’re absolutely sure that the platform can benefit your business.
Domain Pricing
To help new online sellers get started on their Internet endeavors, Shopify does offer domain names. You can purchase and renew your domain name directly from Shopify. The domain is yours after purchase, even if you leave the platform. Prices for the domain vary based on the extension. Though, prices typically start at $11.00. Shopify also offers domain privacy as well for an added cost. You can also set up your account for automatic domain renewals to ensure that you don’t lose your name.
No email accounts are provided with the domain. So, you’ll have to find another place to host an email account. However, the platform does do unlimited email forwarding.
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Frequently Asked Questions About Shopify Pricing
Does Shopify charge any setup fees?
There is no charge to set up your Shopify store. It’s free for every plan.
Is there an additional charge for manual payments or credit card inputs?
Manual payment methods, such as bank transfers or cash, are not charged an extra fee by Shopify. When it comes to typing in credit card information, the fee is the same as the online credit card rate. There’s no extra fee for having to type in the information.
Do I need a separate hosting service?
You do not need to invest in a separate web hosting service with Shopify. The e-commerce platform includes hosting service in all of their plans except Shopify Lite. If you want a dedicated store that’s not on a social media platform or blog, you will need to upgrade to at least Shopify Basic to get hosting.
Can Shopify handle heavy traffic?
Shopify does a pretty good job at hosting online shops. Each plan has unlimited bandwidth. As a result, you don’t have to worry about throttling or access issues due to heavy traffic.
Can I change my plan?
Whether you want to upgrade or downgrade your plan, you can do so at any time. This can be accomplished within your account settings. Once you choose your new plan, you will start a brand-new billing cycle. The old plan will be prorated and any extra funds are applied to your new plan.
Can I use Shopify for my online shop and physical store?
The great thing about Shopify is that you can use it for your entire business. Shopify POS is the physical counterpart of the commerce platform. Your inventory, product information, and prices are all synced between your online and physical stores so that you can easily keep track of things no matter where you’re making your sale. Shopify also has a dedicated Point of Sale app for those who want to make quick sales at pop-up shops and fairs through their mobile device.
Conclusion
Shopify pricing can get pretty complicated, especially when you’re just starting out and don’t know what to expect in terms of sales. Luckily, Shopify does offer a lot bang for your buck. The service is quite feature-rich, offering tools to push your business further.