• Masifa Bukhari
• Shopify
• 11 July, 2024

In today’s competitive market, a solid online presence is a necessity for survival. Businesses, big and small, need to reinforce their presence and market dominance with a solid e-commerce store. However, for entrepreneurs who are venturing into the digital space, the monumental task of choosing the right platform to build a solid foundation for your brand can leave them spinning.

Choosing the wrong platform for your store can lead to problems such as limited functionality, a user-unfriendly interface, security vulnerabilities, integration challenges, scalability issues, and mounting hidden costs. To avoid this dilemma, it is essential that you look for a comprehensive e-commerce solution like Shopify.   

Shopify has been designed to empower businesses of all sizes to establish a dominant online presence for the long term. Shopify pricing plans offer the best value for money in the market and offer long-term solutions to you. In this blog, we will examine Shopify’s pricing plans and see whether it is truly worth it.

What is Shopify?

Shopify is a popular e-commerce website builder that provides all of the tools you need to create and manage an online store.

Shopify began as a standalone platform, allowing businesses to incorporate Shopify directly into their website or route customers to a secure Shopify page to complete their transactions. However, it grew exponentially, and it now offers website hosting as well as help for selling on other online marketplaces such as Amazon and eBay.

Its user-friendly interface allows businesses to communicate with clients, increase sales, and manage operations. Shopify offers five distinct plans, ranging from basic to advanced. Here is a breakdown of each offering, including pricing.

5 Shopify Plans and Costs You Should Know

No matter your business size, there is undoubtedly a Shopify plan that meets your requirements and budget. It’s also a very scalable platform, so even if you start small, you can easily scale up as your business expands.

All five plans include basic Shopify platform features such as 24/7 support and a number of tools for entrepreneurs, as well as automatic changes to orders, goods, and inventory. The higher tier plan you select, the more additional services are available, including anything from shipping discounts and labels to fraud detection and language translation.

1. The Shopify Starter Plan

The Shopify Starter Plan is the most affordable among all Shopify pricing plans. It doesn’t offer access to Shopify’s online store platform. You can use the Shopify sales platform to sell on Facebook and communicate via Messenger. The same is true for other social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram, etc. You can also use this plan to sell products on a website that you already own. Even if you have a store on WordPress, Tumblr, Wix, or Squarespace, you can easily add a Buy Button for each of your products and turn your website into an e-commerce store.

Who is Shopify Starter best for?

This plan is a good choice for small businesses that have existing non-Shopify websites. Moreover, it only costs $5/month if you’re looking to sell on online social media channels.

Limitations of the Shopify Starter Plan

• With the Starter plan, you can’t add a full online store. You are restricted to selling through a buy button that is embedded in an existing website or social media channel.
• You cannot use a custom domain name, and you have limited control over the design and branding of your online store.
• You cannot use features like gift cards, discount codes, staff accounts, and abandoned cart recovery.
• There is limited access to data and reports about your store’s performance.
• There’s a 5% transaction fee on each sale.

2. The Shopify Basic Plan

Shopify Basic is meant for small businesses that are just entering the world of e-commerce. It includes the Shopify point-of-sale app for offline sales; you do not have access to some of the hardware support found on other levels.

Shopify’s entry-level commerce account allows you to sell an infinite number of products. This gives Shopify Basic an advantage over Wix’s similar Core plan, which will enable you to sell up to 50,000 products for businesses that sell a lot of inventory.

The basic plan also includes access to Shopify Sidekick, the platform’s own “personal e-commerce assistant” that can reply to queries such as ChatGPT or Claude. Moreover, Shopify Basic lets you sell and promote your products across a variety of channels as well as social platforms. Moreover, Shopify Basic provides several features at a lower price than competitors such as Squarespace. For example, you can use abandoned cart recovery technology to encourage users to complete orders, whereas Squarespace only offers this option with its $49 per month Advanced plan. You’ll also have access to gift cards, which are helpful in taking advantage of seasonal buying events.

The Shopify Basic plan is $19/month and is billed annually, but it is $25/month if billed monthly.

Limitations of Shopify Basic

Here are some limitations of Shopify Basic:

• Shopify Basic doesn’t let you add staff accounts to your business. This can often be inconvenient if you need multiple people to manage inventory, customer service, and orders.
• This plan doesn’t have third-party carrier-calculated shipping rates. Hence, you’ll have to enter shipping costs manually or rely on Shopify’s basic shipping options, which is often not the ideal choice.
• The basic feature does offer reports; however, they are often less detailed than higher plans. Hence, gathering deeper insights into your store’s performance isn’t possible.
• Shopify Basic has increased credit card rates, and you’ll have to pay through Shopify Payments. For the Basic plan, you will be charged 2.9% of each transaction + 30¢. However, in-person card transactions will cost only 2.7%.
• There isn’t a strict limit on the number of products you can upload to your account. However, Shopify’s API limits uploading 1000 new products or variants after exceeding 50000 products.

Who is Shopify Basic best for?

Shopify Basic’s limited feature set and low cost are ideal for solo entrepreneurs or small businesses that operate online and have occasional e-commerce sales. It’s also great for recently started businesses, as customers can simply upgrade their Shopify plan as their needs change.

3. The Shopify Plan

The Shopify Plan is an excellent choice for businesses looking to grow. If your website is earning around $4000 in monthly revenue or you’re looking to pursue POS transactions, this plan is ideal.

The Shopify plan also offers unlimited Shopify POS app staff PINs. Hence, you can hire people to improve functionality. Third-party POS apps are also supported. Moreover, you’ll be able to operate five stores if you’re looking to expand.

The Shopify Plan is for $65/monthly and $49/annually.

Benefits of the Shopify Plan

Here are a few benefits of upgrading to the Shopify plan:

• This plan allows you to add more than two staff accounts. Hence, you can delegate tasks to others and focus on the strategic direction of the company. This lets you manage tasks and manage your store with a team.
• This plan lets you use carrier-calculated shipping rates, which can provide customers with accurate shipping costs at checkout. This plan can improve customer experience and reduce cart abandonment problems.
• This plan helps you create a more detailed report about your store’s performance. This data is crucial for making informed decisions about inventory, marketing, and the overall business strategy.
• This plan lets you create discount codes, promotional offers, and gift cards to attract customers and boost sales.
• You can recover abandoned carts and improve your conversions.
• It has lower transaction fees than the Basic Plan. This will help you save money on processing costs as your sales increase.

Who is the Shopify plan best for?

The Shopify plan’s broader workforce limitations and mid-range pricing make it ideal for small teams. Its lower credit card rates make the plan perfect for businesses that generate good sales, especially those trying to expand.

4. The Advanced Shopify Plan

While the increase from $65 to $299 per month may seem like a lot, the Advanced Shopify plan is designed for well-established online and offline businesses.

As a result, the most significant upgrades to the Shopify strategy are found in the post-sale section. You’ll have access to Shopify’s powerful report builder, which provides all of the tools you need to understand your customers and truly optimize the sales journey.

You will also be able to store any custom reports you create, which is ideal for tracking individual marketing initiatives. If this feature is vital to you, Wix’s Business Elite Plan, which costs $159 per month, provides the same advantage at a lower cost.

This plan is $299/month if billed annually and $399/month if billed monthly. While this might seem like a lot of money, it is designed for well-established formal businesses.

Benefits of the Advanced Shopify Plan

Here are the benefits of the Advanced Shopify plan:

• Advanced Shopify is the best Shopify plan that provides the best reporting suite when compared with all the Shopify plans. It allows you to create custom reports, predict values for future trends, and gain deeper insights into customer behavior and sales performance.
• The advanced plan offers customers real-time shipping costs based on weight, destination, dimensions, etc.
• The advanced plan is ideal if you plan to sell internationally. It allows you to manage settings for different regions, calculate taxes, and control product pricing for other markets.
• This plan allows you to manage your Shopify store with a larger team. It supports up to 15 staff accounts and allows you to delegate tasks and manage your store effectively.
• This plan has the lowest transaction fee among Shopify plans, which means you’ll save significantly on costs.
• Shopify flow lets you create workflows to automate repetitive tasks, such as sending abandoned cart emails or updating inventory. This saves time and streamlines your operations.
• This plan includes enhanced 24/7 chat support, which ensures faster and more efficient assistance from Shopify when needed.

Who is the Advanced plan best for?

If you are developing your business and prepared to spend money to increase your store’s performance, Shopify Advanced is your best bet. Its relatively low credit card processing rates make its monthly pricing worthwhile for enterprises with big sales volumes.

5. The Shopify Plus Plan

Shopify Plus is intended for enterprise-level businesses and extremely high-volume retailers. There is no predetermined price; you must ask Shopify directly for a quote. This plan is geared toward organizations with more than $750,000 in annual revenue, and prices begin at $2,000 per month, so you’ll need to be among the high rollers to make this plan worthwhile.

Benefits of the Shopify Plus Plan

• Shopify Plus is built to handle massive traffic surges and complex product catalogs. It offers features like API scalability and unlimited bandwidth to ensure that your store runs smoothly, even during rush hours and peak seasons.
• Shopify Plus gives you higher control over your store’s look and feel. You can use custom code through the ScriptEditor to create optimized user experiences.
• It has B2B e-commerce features like custom pricing tiers, quote generation, and volume discounts.
• Shopify Plus is all about going global. To scale beyond international commerce, you can simultaneously manage multiple currencies, regional tax regulations, languages, and other factors.
• You can receive personalized support from a dedicated Shopify Plus account manager. It helps ensure that you have access to expert guidance and assistance.
• You gain access to a wide collection of apps that are specially designed for high-volume businesses on the Shopify Plus App Store.

See our latest relevant exploration Shopify Website Development Cost

Few Additional Costs of Shopify

The overall cost of Shopify fluctuates with your business needs because some extra costs can slowly add up as you scale your business. Here, we’ve discussed the three major costs:

1. Shopify Payments

The most essential feature of Shopify is its in-house payment processing, Shopify Payments. If you utilize Shopify Payments as your payment processor, you’ll pay 2.9% + 30¢ for online credit card transactions and 2.7% for in-person transactions for the Basic Shopify plan. These fees decrease significantly as you start using more expensive plans.

If you use a different payment processor, such as Square or Stripe, you will have to pay Shopify 2% of the cost of each transaction, in addition to your chosen provider’s credit card and in-person processing fees. This decreases to 1% with the Shopify plan and 0.5% with the Advanced plan.

You need to monitor these costs. If you’re not careful enough, they’ll start mounting up and impact your ROI.

2. Premium Theme Cost

Shopify isn’t known for building extremely unique and beautiful websites, but it allows you to create clean, readily navigated e-commerce-specific websites. But it only provides ten free web themes. This implies that, while you may be able to develop a decent online business, it may appear similar to other Shopify-based stores.

However, Shopify does have over 60 premium themes for you to choose from. These paid themes range in price from $140 to $180, making them a significant investment.

3. Paid Shopify Applications

Shopify has an app store that allows you to add connectors and functionality to your site that may not be available on the standard Shopify platform. For example, you can add email marketing connectors, dropshipping tools, and landing page builders to your site, but you may need to pay extra for them.

See our latest relevant exploration Shopify Website Development Cost

Which Shopify plan is the best?

Here’s a cross-plan analysis to help you choose a platform that is best for your business needs:

Is Shopify Worth It?

In light of our discussion above, Shopify is the best choice for any business looking to establish a solid online presence. With its advanced report builders and analytic tools, you can set up your store and monitor its performance. You can also make quick changes to your website without any technical expertise.

Shopify offers a wide variety of plans and has a range of built-in marketing features. It also has a large number of apps that make your store more functional. It is easy to use and offers 24/7 customer support. Its versatility, functionality, and scalability position it as an ideal choice for entrepreneurs.

Pricing Comparison (Shopify, Wix, Squarespace)

Feature	Shopify	Wix	Squarespace
Starting Price	$5 per month (Starter plan)	$17 per month (Light plan)	$16 per month (Personal plan)
Ease of Use	It is very user-friendly and offers a ton of features.	It is a beginner-friendly platform.	It has a simple store builder.
Technical Features	Shopify themes App IntegrationsStore Integrations	Built-in support for 100+ languages Great SpeedSupport for store integrations.	Design Features App Integrations
Marketing and Sales Features	Email Marketing FormsBlogging FeaturesMarketing AutomationSegmentationSEOSMMDiscountsLoyalty ProgramsAbandoned Cart Recovery	Email Marketing Blogging FeaturesSMMSEOCRM System Website AnalyticsForms	Email Marketing (through a Monthly Subscription) Blogging FeaturesSEO ToolsSocial Media IntegrationContact ManagementCustomer Engagement Features
Customer Support	24/7 customer support.	24/7 customer support.	Support is available through live chat, email, and the help center.

However, Shopify is a little more expensive than its competitors, especially if you use the advanced plan. If you’re looking to build a store for a new business, then you must consider this factor before making any decision.

How can Coding Pixel help you create a Shopify store?

Coding Pixel is a leading Shopify development company. It can assist you in creating a Shopify store that meets your business needs. Our experts can help you with everything, whether it be plan selection, designing a custom Shopify store for your business, or ongoing maintenance services.

We can help you build a scalable and functional website for your business. See our Shopify Website Development Service

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

How much does Shopify cost per month?

Shopify offers several pricing plans, ranging from $5/month (Starter plan) to $399/month (Advanced Plan). The Shopify Plus plan is usually for large organizations, and you’ll have to pay at least $2300/month.

Is Shopify $1 a month?

No, Shopify isn’t $1/month. It offers a special pricing plan that allows users to pay $1/month for the first three months after they subscribe. However, this plan is only available to new Basic Shopify plan subscribers.

How much does it cost to set up a Shopify store?

There is no specific/fixed amount that you need to establish your Shopify store. The amount varies from one business to another and from one industry or niche to another. However, our experts say that a good estimate would be between $2000 and $3000.