Shopify's headline price is the smallest part of the bill. The plan fee is easy to find, but card processing, third-party gateway penalties, staff limits and a pile of paid apps decide what you actually pay each month. If you're budgeting for a store, treat the plan price as a floor.
Here's the 2026 plan ladder, how the fees really work, and what a realistic store spends.
Short answer: Most new stores belong on Basic ($29/month billed annually, $39 monthly) using Shopify Payments. Move to Grow ($79 annual) when you have a small team or roughly enough volume that the lower card rate and 1% gateway fee pay for the difference. Advanced ($299 annual) only makes sense at serious volume. Budget another $50 to $300 a month for apps, depending on how much you bolt on.
The plan ladder
Prices from Shopify's pricing page, checked October 20, 2026. Annual billing saves about 25 percent on the three main plans.
| Plan | Monthly | Billed annually | Online card rate (Shopify Payments) | Third-party gateway fee | Staff accounts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | $39 | $29/mo | 2.9% + 30c | 2% | None included |
| Grow | $105 | $79/mo | 2.7% + 30c | 1% | Up to 5 |
| Advanced | $399 | $299/mo | 2.5% + 30c | 0.6% | Up to 15 |
| Plus | From $2,300 | n/a | From 2.25% + 30c | 0.2% | Unlimited |
There's also a low-cost Starter tier (around $5/month) aimed at selling through social links rather than running a full storefront. New merchants typically get a 3-day free trial, then $1/month for the first three months on the main plans. There are no setup fees.
Where the money really goes
1. Payment processing
This is usually the biggest cost after about the first few thousand dollars in sales. On Basic, every online card sale costs 2.9% plus 30 cents. A $50 order costs $1.75 to process. In-person rates are lower (2.6% + 10c on Basic), which matters if you also sell at markets or a shop.
The upgrade math is simple. Moving from Basic to Grow drops the online rate by 0.2 points and raises the plan cost by $50 a month (annual billing). Break-even is where 0.2% of monthly sales equals $50, so around $25,000 a month in online sales on rate savings alone. Below that, Grow only wins if you need the extra staff accounts or the cheaper gateway fee.
2. The third-party gateway penalty
Shopify wants you on Shopify Payments, and it prices that preference in. If you use PayPal as your main processor or another gateway, Shopify adds its own fee on top: 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow, 0.6% on Advanced. That's on top of whatever your processor charges. Checking out with PayPal as an optional extra button is a different thing from running a separate card gateway, so read how your payment setup is classified before you assume you're exempt.
Shopify Payments isn't available in every country, and some product categories get declined, so the penalty can be unavoidable for some merchants. If that's you, factor it into your plan choice: a 2% penalty on Basic is a strong argument for Grow once you have volume.
3. Apps
The base platform is deliberately lean. Reviews, email and SMS marketing, subscriptions, upsells, loyalty, shipping rate calculators, and advanced search are mostly apps. Many are $10 to $30 a month on their own, and several price by order volume or contact count, so they get more expensive as you succeed. A store running reviews, email, a subscription tool and a page builder can easily add $100 to $200 a month without anything unusual happening.
My advice: add apps one at a time, with a reason, and check the billing page every quarter. Stores accumulate apps the way phones accumulate subscriptions.
4. Themes, domain and the rest
The free themes are decent. Paid themes run roughly $200 to $400 one time. A custom domain is around $15 to $20 a year. Staff beyond your plan's limit need a higher plan. POS Pro is $89 a month per location if you want the full in-person toolkit.
What a realistic store spends
These are illustrative scenarios, using the published plan and card rates above. Your product mix and average order size will move the numbers.
| Scenario | Plan | Monthly sales | Plan fee | Card fees (est.) | Apps (est.) | Rough total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Side project | Basic, annual | $2,000 | $29 | ~$75 | $30 | ~$135 |
| Growing brand | Basic, annual | $15,000 | $29 | ~$520 | $120 | ~$670 |
| Small team | Grow, annual | $40,000 | $79 | ~$1,250 | $200 | ~$1,530 |
| Serious volume | Advanced, annual | $120,000 | $299 | ~$3,500 | $350 | ~$4,150 |
Notice that the plan fee is under 10 percent of the total once you pass the side-project stage. Card fees are the main event, and that's why negotiating or optimizing processing matters more than shaving a plan tier.
Pros
- ▸Fast to launch. Checkout, hosting, security and payments come as one package. You can be selling in an afternoon.
- ▸Predictable plan pricing. The plan fee is published, with no per-order platform surcharge when you use Shopify Payments.
- ▸Huge app ecosystem. If you need a feature, someone has built it.
- ▸Solid checkout. Conversion-tested and well supported across devices and wallets.
- ▸Discounts for annual billing are real, about 25 percent.
Cons
- ▸Third-party gateway fees penalize you for using anyone but Shopify Payments.
- ▸App costs creep. The cheap base plan is only cheap if you can live without add-ons.
- ▸Basic includes no extra staff accounts, which pushes teams up a tier sooner than you'd expect.
- ▸Plus is a big jump from Advanced ($299 to $2,300 or more), with little in between.
- ▸Payments availability varies by country, so some merchants can't avoid the gateway fee.
Alternatives worth pricing
If the fee structure bothers you, check WooCommerce (free plugin, but you pay for hosting, extensions and your own maintenance time), BigCommerce (no transaction fees on its own plans, with revenue-based plan tiers), and Squarespace or Wix for simple catalogs. None of them is automatically cheaper once you count hosting, plugins and your time. For a store under about $10,000 a month, the difference is usually small, so choose on workflow rather than on the sticker price.
How to keep the bill down
A few habits make a bigger difference than any plan choice.
Pick annual billing once you're sure. The 25 percent discount is the single easiest saving, but only after your first few months. Use the trial period to confirm the store works, then switch. Paying for a year of a store you abandon in month three is the worst outcome.
Audit apps on a calendar. Every quarter, open the billing page and ask what each app earned. If you can't point to a result, uninstall it. Some apps keep charging, or leave code behind in your theme, after you stop using them, so check that removal is clean.
Look at order value before volume. The 30 cent fixed fee hurts low-priced products. On a $10 item, 2.9% plus 30 cents is $0.59, almost 6 percent. Bundling, minimum order thresholds and higher-priced offers all cut the effective rate.
Know your real break-even for Grow. Don't upgrade because the plan sounds more professional. Upgrade when the processing savings, a cheaper gateway fee, or the extra staff seats cover the extra $50 a month. If a second person needs access and Basic includes none, that alone can justify the move.
Don't pay for Plus early. Plus starts at $2,300 a month and is built for high-volume brands with custom checkout and multi-store needs. If you're asking whether you need it, you probably don't. Advanced at $299 on annual billing covers a lot of ground.
Who should and shouldn't use Shopify
Shopify is a good fit if you sell physical or digital products, want checkout handled for you, and would rather spend time on marketing than on servers. It's a weaker fit if your catalog is huge and highly customized, if you need unusual checkout logic on a small plan, or if you're allergic to monthly app fees. Content-heavy sites that sell a few items are often happier on a general website builder or a WordPress setup.
Bottom line
Shopify is expensive in the way that useful tools often are: the entry price looks small and the total grows with your success. For most stores, the right move is Basic on annual billing with Shopify Payments, a strict app budget, and a plan review whenever monthly sales cross a new tier. Run the math on your own volume before you upgrade, and don't assume a bigger plan saves money until your sales actually justify it.
Pricing was checked against Shopify's published page on October 20, 2026 and can change. Check the current page before you buy.