How Much Does Shopify Cost? The Complete Plan and Fee Breakdown

Shopify costs between $39 and $2,300+ per month depending on plan, but the subscription price typically accounts for only 30 to 50 percent of what a real store spends. Payment processing, apps, and a premium theme push the number significantly higher before you sell a single item.

Key takeaways

• Plans in 2026: Starter $5, Basic $39/mo, Grow $105/mo, Advanced $399/mo, Plus from $2,300/mo (annual billing cuts Basic to $29, Grow to $79, Advanced to $299).
• Shopify Payments eliminates the third-party gateway surcharge (0.6% to 2.0% per sale depending on plan), so gateway choice is often the biggest cost lever.
• Break-even for upgrading Basic to Grow with Shopify Payments is roughly $33,000/month in GMV; Grow to Advanced is roughly $147,000/month.
• Apps regularly cost more than the plan itself: email, reviews, loyalty, and SEO tools each add $20 to $150/month.
• Shopify Plus is not worth evaluating until you are past around $2M in annual revenue, where checkout customization, B2B, and multi-store operations justify the base fee.

The five plans and what they actually cost

Shopify restructured its mid-tier naming in late 2024, renaming the "Shopify" plan to "Grow" to reduce confusion with the brand name itself. As of October 2026, the published US prices are:

Annual billing saves roughly 25 percent on Basic through Advanced. The catch is that the full year is charged on day one: $348 for Basic, $948 for Grow, $3,588 for Advanced. If you upgrade or downgrade mid-year, Shopify credits unused time but does not refund it.

Shopify also offers a 3-day free trial and promotional pricing of $1/month for the first three months on Basic, Grow, and Advanced plans for new accounts, which is a low-risk way to validate a store before committing to full pricing.

Payment processing: where the real money goes

The platform fee is visible. The processing rate is where most merchants either leave money on the table or pay an unnecessary premium.

Shopify Payments rates (US, online)

Three things worth internalizing:

• The $0.30 fixed component punishes low-AOV stores disproportionately. On a $15 item, the fixed fee alone is 2% of revenue before you count the percentage.
• The third-party surcharge is additive. If you use Stripe, PayPal, or any processor other than Shopify Payments on the Basic plan, you pay 2.9% + $0.30 to your processor AND an extra 2.0% to Shopify. That is effectively a 4.9% + $0.30 rate on every online sale.
• Currency conversion adds another 1.5% on cross-border sales on all plans below Plus. If you sell internationally at any volume, that line adds up faster than most merchants expect.

The plan upgrade break-even: the math that actually matters

Every plan upgrade is a trade: pay more subscription, get a lower processing rate. The formula is simple:

break-even GMV = (higher plan cost - lower plan cost) / processing rate difference

Using Shopify Payments and the 2026 published rates:

• Basic to Grow: ($79 - $29) / (2.9% - 2.7%) = $50 / 0.002 = $25,000/month
• Grow to Advanced: ($299 - $79) / (2.7% - 2.5%) = $220 / 0.002 = $110,000/month

(Monthly billing widens the gap: Basic $39 vs Grow $105 puts the Basic-to-Grow break-even at $33,000/month.)

If you use a third-party gateway, the surcharge difference is much larger, so the break-even drops sharply. On a third-party processor, the gap between Basic and Grow is 1.0 percentage point (2.0% vs 1.0%), which puts the break-even at just $5,000/month. That is why a store using Stripe on Basic at $8,000/month is probably paying $80/month in unnecessary surcharges.

Rule of thumb I use when auditing stores: pull the Shopify admin Finance > Payments report for the last 90 days, sum the transaction fees column, and compare against what the next plan up would have cost. Most stores on Basic past $20K/month are leaving money on the table.

Hidden costs: what the pricing page does not mention

The subscription is the smallest line item for most functioning stores. Here is what accumulates quickly:

Apps

Shopify is deliberately lean at the platform level, meaning features like advanced email marketing, product reviews, loyalty programs, subscriptions, and SEO tooling require third-party apps. A minimal but functional stack for a growing brand typically looks like this:

• Email marketing (Klaviyo, Omnisend): $20 to $150/month depending on list size
• Reviews (Okendo, Judge.me, Yotpo): $0 to $119/month
• Loyalty or referral (Smile.io, Referral Candy): $49 to $199/month
• SEO or sitemap tools: $20 to $60/month
• Upsell / cross-sell (ReConvert, Zipify): $30 to $99/month

On the 10,000+ SKU catalog I maintain, the app line alone runs north of $400/month before you touch any bespoke tooling. That number is not unusual for a mid-market store. Premium themes from the Shopify Theme Store cost $150 to $400 as a one-time fee, which is easy to forget when projecting monthly TCO.

Domain and email hosting

A .com domain through Shopify or a registrar like Namecheap runs $10 to $20/year. Professional email (Google Workspace or similar) adds $6 to $12/month per user. Neither shows up on the Shopify pricing page.

What a real store costs by size

(Processing estimates use Shopify Payments online rates. App spend is illustrative; actual stacks vary.)

Shopify Plus: when does it actually make sense?

Plus starts at $2,300/month on a 3-year term or $2,500/month on a 1-year term. The extra $200/month for the shorter contract buys you flexibility if you are unsure about your trajectory or planning a replatform within 18 months.

Above a monthly GMV threshold (reported by multiple sources as around $800,000 to $1,000,000/month), Shopify moves very high-volume stores from the flat fee to a variable platform fee. The exact percentage and cap are not publicly published and vary by contract, so any number you see cited online is an estimate based on disclosed merchant contracts rather than official documentation. Verify directly with your Shopify account manager.

What Plus actually unlocks that is relevant for a developer or technical merchant:

• Checkout Extensibility: custom checkout UI components via checkout extensions (replacing the deprecated checkout.liquid).
• Shopify Functions: server-side logic in WebAssembly for custom discounts, shipping, payment methods, and cart transforms.
• B2B native: company profiles, net payment terms, quantity rules, and price lists without a separate app.
• 20 POS Pro locations included (vs $89/location/month on standard plans).
• Up to 9 expansion stores at no extra platform fee (additional stores cost $250 to $300/month each).
• Unlimited staff accounts (Basic is owner only; Grow adds 5, Advanced adds 15).

For the full feature-vs-cost case study behind a Plus migration decision, see the headless and Plus cost breakdown published earlier on this blog.

How to verify your actual cost in the Shopify admin

Do not rely on estimates. Pull the real numbers:

1. Finance > Billing shows every charge Shopify has raised: plan, apps, theme purchases, and any overage.
2. Finance > Payments > Payouts breaks down gross sales, Shopify Payments fees, and refunds per payout period.
3. Analytics > Reports > Finances summary gives a period view of fees as a percentage of revenue.
4. Add your app subscriptions manually (most are not surfaced in the Finance summary; check each app's billing page or your credit card statement).

Once you have a full 90-day picture, run the break-even formula above against the next plan tier. Most stores I audit have not done this calculation in over a year, and at least one plan tier decision is outdated.

Conclusion

The direct answer to "how much does Shopify cost" is: $29 to $299/month on annual billing for most stores, plus processing fees that typically dwarf the subscription, plus an app stack that grows with the business. The subscription is the price of admission; processing and apps are the ongoing operating cost. Make the plan decision based on volume math, not the feature checklist, and revisit it every time your GMV crosses a meaningful threshold.