Shopify Pricing 2026: Real Costs by Revenue Level
The number on Shopify’s official pricing page – $39, $105, $399 – is the subscription. It is not what running a Shopify store costs you in a given month. Card processing eats a percentage of every sale. Apps get added one at a time until the bill is bigger than the plan itself. A theme, a domain, an email tool – none of that shows up on the page where you picked your plan.
Most “Shopify pricing” articles stop at the subscription number and a features table. This one doesn’t. It builds a real cost model – plan plus processing plus apps plus the small recurring stuff – and runs it across nine revenue levels, so you can see roughly where your own store would land instead of guessing from a features chart.
Quick answer
Shopify’s paid plans run from $5/month (Starter) to $399/month (Advanced) before annual-billing discounts, with Plus starting around $2,300/month for larger operations. That’s the full list price range, and it’s genuinely useful for comparing plans against each other.
It’s a poor stand-in for “what will this cost me,” though, for three reasons. First, card processing is a percentage of revenue, not a flat fee – a store doing $25,000/month in sales pays roughly $900 in processing before anything else is added, more than 20 times the subscription. Second, a third-party payment gateway (PayPal alongside Shopify Payments, or a processor Shopify Payments doesn’t support in your market) adds an extra fee on top of the card rate, and that extra fee is easy to miss until the first statement arrives. Third, apps are priced and billed separately from the plan, and a working store rarely runs on zero of them.
The practical takeaway: compare total operating cost against your expected revenue, not subscription price against subscription price. The rest of this guide gives you the formula and the numbers to do that.
The real Shopify cost formula
Here’s the actual structure of what a Shopify store spends in a typical month:
Estimated monthly Shopify cost =
| Cost Component | Cost Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Plan subscription | Fixed | Monthly Shopify plan cost |
| Card processing fees | Variable | Scales with sales volume |
| Third-party gateway fee, if used | Variable | Applies only if Shopify Payments is not used |
| Apps / software | Semi-variable | Grows with store complexity |
| Domain | Fixed, small | Usually a relatively small annual cost |
| Email / SMS marketing tool | Semi-variable | Often free below a subscriber threshold |
| Theme | One-time | Not a monthly cost; see the first-year cost section below |
Two of those lines are fixed regardless of how the store performs: the plan and the domain. Everything else scales with either revenue (processing fees) or with how much the store owner is trying to do (apps, marketing tools). That distinction matters, because it means a slow month costs less across the board – but a store that never generates enough revenue to cover even the fixed costs is still bleeding money every month it stays open.
Cost by revenue level
The table below applies that formula across nine revenue scenarios. Each one assumes a plausible order count and average order value (AOV) for a store at that size, uses Shopify Payments (not a third-party gateway – see the section below for how that changes things), and picks a sensible plan for that revenue level.
These are illustrative models built from Shopify’s published rates, not figures from real merchant accounts. Your own AOV, app stack, and order volume will differ – use this to sanity-check your own numbers, not as a prediction.
| Monthly revenue | Suggested plan | Est. orders | Est. AOV | Payment processing | Apps/software | Domain | Est. total/month | % of revenue |
| $0 (pre-launch) | Basic | – | – | $0 | $0–$30 | $1.50 | $29–$60 | n/a |
| $500 | Basic | 20 | $25 | $21 | $30 | $1.50 | ~$81 | 16.2% |
| $1,000 | Basic | 40 | $25 | $41 | $35 | $1.50 | ~$107 | 10.7% |
| $3,000 | Basic | 150 | $20 | $132 | $40 | $1.50 | ~$203 | 6.8% |
| $5,000 | Basic | 200 | $25 | $205 | $60 | $1.50 | ~$296 | 5.9% |
| $10,000 | Basic | 357 | $28 | $397 | $100 | $1.50 | ~$528 | 5.3% |
| $25,000 | Grow | 800 | $31 | $915 | $250 | $1.50 | ~$1,246 | 5.0% |
| $50,000 | Grow | 1,429 | $35 | $1,779 | $350 | $1.50 | ~$2,209 | 4.4% |
| $80,000 | Advanced | 2,000 | $40 | $2,600 | $450 | $1.50 | ~$3,351 | 4.2% |
Payment processing = (revenue × card rate for that plan) + ($0.30 × order count), using Shopify Payments’ online rate. Card rate used: 2.9% on Basic, 2.7% on Grow, 2.5% on Advanced.
Two patterns worth noticing. Shopify’s total cost as a share of revenue drops as a store grows – from over 16% at $500/month down to roughly 4% at $80,000/month – because the fixed costs (plan, domain) matter less against a bigger revenue base, and the card rate itself improves on higher plans. And at every single revenue level in this table, processing fees are a bigger line item than the plan subscription. That second point is the one most pricing comparisons miss entirely.
What $0 in revenue actually costs
Before a single sale happens, a new Shopify store already has bills. This is the part beginners tend to underestimate, because all the marketing around Shopify centers on the $1/month trial offer.
A store that’s live but hasn’t sold anything yet is typically carrying:
| Item | Typical monthly cost | Notes |
| Shopify plan | $0 during the 3-day free trial, then $1/month for 3 months, then $29–$39/month | Based on Shopify’s currently stated trial terms |
| Domain | $1–$2.50/month | Roughly $10–$30/year through most registrars, per Shopify’s own guide to domain pricing |
| Apps (optional) | $0–$30/month | Many essential app categories have usable free tiers at low volume |
| Email/SMS tool | Usually $0 | Most platforms are free below a small subscriber threshold |
| Premium theme (optional, one-time) | $0 if using a free theme | See the first-year section below – this isn’t a monthly charge |
So realistically: somewhere between $1 and $35/month in pure fixed cost before any revenue exists, and that number climbs toward $29–$60/month once the promotional trial period ends. It’s a small number in absolute terms, but it’s not zero, and a store that sits pre-revenue for six months has spent $150–$350 by the time it makes its first sale. Worth budgeting for that stretch rather than being surprised by it.
The Basic-to-Grow break-even, step by step
Grow costs more than Basic. In exchange, the card rate drops by 0.2 points and – if a third-party gateway is in the mix – the gateway penalty drops from 2% to 1%. Whether that trade is worth it depends entirely on your revenue and your payment setup, and the honest answer requires doing the actual division rather than assuming “the bigger plan is more efficient.”
The formula:
Break-even revenue = (Grow plan cost − Basic plan cost) ÷ (rate savings)
Scenario A: You use Shopify Payments only
The only saving here is the 0.2-point card rate difference (2.9% → 2.7%).
- Billed monthly: extra cost is $105 − $39 = $66/month. Break-even = $66 ÷ 0.002 = $33,000/month in card revenue.
- Billed annually: extra cost is $79 − $29 = $50/month. Break-even = $50 ÷ 0.002 = $25,000/month in card revenue.
That’s a real amount of revenue. Below it, the extra $50–$66/month costs more than the rate improvement saves you – the upgrade isn’t paying for itself on rate alone.
Scenario B: You route some volume through a third-party gateway
Here the bigger saving kicks in: the gateway penalty drops a full point, from 2% to 1%.
- Billed monthly: break-even = $66 ÷ 0.01 = $6,600/month processed through that gateway.
- Billed annually: break-even = $50 ÷ 0.01 = $5,000/month processed through that gateway.
That’s roughly a fifth of the revenue needed in Scenario A. If a meaningful share of your sales runs through PayPal or another non-Shopify-Payments processor, Grow can pay for itself at a revenue level most people would still call “small.”
What this means in practice: don’t upgrade to Grow purely for the card-rate savings unless you’re already doing serious volume on Shopify Payments. Do run the numbers if a real chunk of your revenue is going through a third-party gateway – the math favors Grow much sooner than it looks from the plan comparison page. Staff-account limits and reporting depth are separate reasons to upgrade and don’t depend on this calculation at all.
What people get wrong about Shopify pricing
“$39/month means my store costs $39/month.” It’s the floor, not the ceiling. Processing fees alone typically exceed the subscription cost once a store has any meaningful sales volume, as the table above shows.
“Shopify Payments means there are no payment fees.” Shopify Payments removes the extra third-party gateway penalty. The underlying card processing rate (2.5–2.9%) still applies – that’s standard for essentially every card payment processor, not a Shopify-specific charge. Stripe’s own published rate, for comparison, is 2.9% + 30¢ for domestic cards – nearly identical to Shopify Basic’s, because both are pricing the same underlying card-network costs.
“Starter is just a cheaper Basic.” Starter is built for selling through social, DMs, and a simple product link – it doesn’t include a full customizable storefront or blog, and its transaction fee (5%, confirmed on Shopify’s Starter plan page) is meaningfully higher than Basic’s. It’s a different tool for a different use case, not a discount tier of the same one.
“Annual billing cuts every Shopify-related expense by 25%.” It cuts the plan subscription by roughly that much. It does nothing to processing fees, app costs, or the domain – those are billed the same regardless of how you pay for the plan.
“Apps are included in the subscription.” None of them are. Every app on the Shopify App Store is billed separately by its developer, on its own schedule, often with its own free-tier and paid-tier structure.
“A premium theme is a recurring monthly cost.” Theme purchases are one-time. A $200 theme doesn’t show up on next month’s bill – it shows up once, in the month you bought it. Treating it as a recurring cost overstates ongoing spend.
“A higher plan automatically means lower total costs.” Only true past a revenue threshold, and that threshold depends on your payment setup, per the break-even math above. Below it, a higher plan is simply a higher fixed cost with no offsetting saving yet.
First-year cost vs. ongoing annual cost
Year one carries expenses that don’t repeat. Lumping them into “monthly cost” overstates what a store spends in year two and beyond.
| Cost type | Timing | Typical range |
| Domain registration | One-time (renews annually) | $10–$30 |
| Premium theme (if purchased) | One-time | $180–$350 |
| Initial app setup/onboarding | One-time, varies | $0–$200 |
| Store design/setup time | One-time | Varies widely – DIY vs. hired help |
| Ongoing plan + processing + apps | Recurring, every month | See the revenue table above |
A first-year budget for a small store might realistically include $200–$500 in one-time setup costs on top of the monthly recurring total. Year two typically drops those entirely, leaving only the recurring line items – which is one reason the “cost as % of revenue” figures in the table above tend to look more favorable in a store’s second year than its first.
Shopify vs. WooCommerce: a $10,000/month example
The current article already flags WooCommerce as an alternative worth considering in some cases. Here’s what that comparison actually looks like in numbers, using the same $10,000/month, 357-order scenario from the table above. WooCommerce’s own pricing page confirms the core software is free, with hosting costs generally running $25–$350/month depending on the provider and traffic – the estimate below sits toward the lower end of that range, appropriate for a store at this size.
| Cost item | Shopify (Basic) | WooCommerce |
| Platform/hosting | $29/month (plan) | $20–$80/month (managed WooCommerce hosting) |
| Payment processing | ~$397/month (Shopify Payments, 2.9% + 30¢) | ~$397/month (Stripe or similar, comparable rates) |
| Domain | ~$1.50/month | ~$1.50/month |
| Apps / plugins | ~$100/month | ~$30–$80/month (often fewer paid add-ons needed for core functionality) |
| Theme | One-time, $0–$350 | One-time, $0–$200 |
| Maintenance / technical management | Not applicable – Shopify is fully hosted | $0 if self-managed, $50–$300+/month if outsourced (updates, security, troubleshooting) |
| Estimated recurring total | ~$528/month | ~$449–$559/month, depending on maintenance approach |
Processing fees land in roughly the same place either way, since both use comparable card-processing rates – that’s the biggest line item on both sides, and it’s not a Shopify-versus-WooCommerce difference at all. The real divergence is maintenance: a self-managed, technically comfortable WooCommerce owner can often run cheaper than Shopify, because WooCommerce itself is free and plugin costs tend to be lower. Someone who’d need to pay a developer for updates, security patches, and troubleshooting can end up paying about the same as Shopify, or more, once that labor is priced in.
Neither platform is categorically cheaper. Shopify trades a bit more in fixed platform cost for effectively zero technical maintenance burden. WooCommerce trades lower software costs for more setup work and an ongoing maintenance responsibility that either costs time or costs money.
Which Shopify plan should you choose?
Choose Starter if you’re selling primarily through Instagram, TikTok, or DMs and don’t need a full storefront yet. It’s $5/month, and the trade-off is a 5% transaction fee and no real website.
Choose Basic if you’re building an actual store, working solo or without regular staff logins, and your monthly card-processed revenue is well under the Grow break-even points calculated above (roughly $25,000–$33,000 on Shopify Payments, lower if you use a third-party gateway).
Consider Grow if you need more than one staff account, your third-party gateway volume clears the $5,000–$6,600/month break-even, or your Shopify Payments revenue is approaching the $25,000–$33,000 range where the card-rate saving starts paying for the higher plan on its own.
Consider Advanced if you need deeper reporting (cohort analysis, more granular sales attribution) or your team has grown past Grow’s 5-staff-account limit. Below that need, Advanced is mostly unused headroom at $299–$399/month.
Consider Plus if you’re running complex B2B pricing, high-volume multi-currency operations, or need enterprise-level customization and support – starting around $2,300/month, this is a different tier of business than the rest of this article is written for.
None of this is about which plan pays a bigger commission to an affiliate site – it’s about matching the plan to what the business actually needs right now, and upgrading when the numbers (not the marketing) say it’s time.
When Shopify may not be the right choice
Shopify is a strong general-purpose platform, but “strong” and “right for every situation” aren’t the same claim.
Very low or no revenue, long-term. If a store has been live for months with minimal sales, the recurring plan cost is a bigger problem than which plan it’s on. That’s a demand problem, not a pricing problem, and no plan change fixes it.
Occasional or hobby sellers. Someone selling a handful of items a few times a year is often better served by a marketplace (Etsy, for physical/handmade goods) where fees are transaction-based rather than a flat monthly subscription that runs whether or not anything sells.
Blog-first businesses with a handful of products. If the core of the business is content and a small side shop, the ongoing subscription and processing overhead of a full commerce platform can outweigh what a simpler WooCommerce or Etsy setup would cost for the same handful of SKUs.
Existing WordPress businesses. A site with an established WordPress presence, SEO history, and content already migrating to Shopify is a nontrivial project – sometimes worth it, sometimes not, depending on how much of the existing setup would need to be rebuilt.
Highly specific technical requirements. Businesses needing deep, unusual backend customization sometimes find Shopify’s app-based extensibility model more limiting (and, over time, more expensive in app fees) than a self-hosted platform they can modify directly.
Extremely thin-margin businesses. At very low margins, even Shopify’s modest processing fees represent a real chunk of profit. Worth running the numbers from the table above against your actual margin before assuming any platform “just works.”
None of these rule Shopify out – they’re situations where it’s worth doing the comparison seriously rather than defaulting to the most-recommended platform.
Methodology and assumptions
This article’s calculations were built as follows, so the numbers can be checked or adjusted for your own situation.
Pricing verification date: August 19, 2026, checked directly against shopify.com/pricing and shopify.com/starter.
Primary sources: Shopify’s official pricing and Starter plan pages for all plan costs, card rates, and third-party gateway fees. Shopify’s domain-cost blog post for domain pricing ranges.
Payment fee calculations: (monthly revenue × the online card rate for the relevant plan) + ($0.30 × estimated order count). Order counts were derived by dividing the revenue scenario by an assumed average order value, chosen to be plausible for a store at that size rather than pulled from any dataset.
App/software cost estimates: Based on independent cost-breakdown reporting on typical Shopify app spend by store maturity (see sources), not Shopify’s own published figures, since Shopify doesn’t publish aggregate app-spend data. Treated as directional ranges, not fixed numbers.
One-time expenses: Domain registration, theme purchases, and setup work are treated as one-time costs and excluded from the recurring monthly totals in the main cost table – they’re addressed separately in the first-year section, to avoid overstating ongoing spend.
Why these are illustrative, not real merchant figures: Actual order volume, AOV, app selection, and payment-processing mix vary enormously between stores even at identical revenue levels. These examples are calculations built from a stated, transparent formula – not financial records from real Shopify merchants – and they’ll diverge from your own numbers to the extent your store’s inputs differ from the assumptions stated above.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does Shopify actually cost per month? The subscription runs $5–$399/month depending on plan (Plus starts around $2,300). Add card processing (2.5–2.9% plus $0.30/order), apps, and a domain, and total cost typically lands at 4–16% of revenue depending on store size – see the table above for specifics at your revenue level.
What’s the cheapest Shopify plan? Starter, at $5/month, but it’s built for social/DM selling rather than a full storefront. Among plans with a real website, Basic at $29/month (annual) or $39/month (monthly) is the cheapest.
Is Shopify cheaper if billed annually? The plan subscription drops roughly 25% on annual billing for Basic, Grow, and Advanced. Nothing else – processing fees, apps, domain – changes based on billing frequency.
Does Shopify charge transaction fees on top of card processing? Only if you use a payment gateway other than Shopify Payments. That extra fee is 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow, 0.6% on Advanced, and 0.2% on Plus. Using Shopify Payments avoids it entirely – you still pay the standard card rate either way.
How much should I budget for Shopify apps? Roughly $30–$100/month for a lean new-store stack, climbing to $250–$450/month for a more established store running more automation. These are directional estimates, not fixed costs – see the methodology section for how they were derived.
Is Shopify or WooCommerce cheaper? It depends mainly on whether you’re paying for technical maintenance. At comparable revenue, processing fees are similar on both. WooCommerce can be cheaper if self-managed; Shopify can come out even or ahead once developer/maintenance time is priced in. See the comparison table above.
What’s the difference between Starter and Basic? Starter ($5/month, 5% transaction fee) is for social and DM selling with no full storefront. Basic ($29–$39/month, standard card rates) gives you an actual customizable website. They serve different use cases rather than being cheap/expensive versions of the same thing.
When should I upgrade from Basic to Grow? When the math in the break-even section above says the rate savings exceed the extra plan cost – roughly $25,000–$33,000/month on Shopify Payments alone, or as low as $5,000–$6,600/month if a meaningful share of revenue runs through a third-party gateway. Staff-account needs are a separate, valid reason to upgrade regardless of revenue.
What does Shopify cost before making any sales? Roughly $1–$35/month in fixed costs during and just after the trial period, rising to $29–$60/month once trial pricing ends – see the dedicated $0-revenue section above.
Is Shopify Plus worth the cost? Only relevant past a certain scale – complex B2B pricing, high multi-currency volume, or enterprise support needs. At $2,300+/month, it’s not a consideration for most stores this article’s cost table applies to.
If you’re still deciding whether Shopify is the right platform in the first place, [Shopify vs WooCommerce: Which Should You Actually Pick?] and [Is Shopify Worth It in 2026? An Honest Answer] cover that decision in more depth than the comparison above. If the bigger question is what it takes to launch a store at all – inventory, marketing, and setup costs beyond the platform itself – How Much Does It Cost to Start an Online Store in 2026? walks through that separately.
Once you’ve matched a plan to your revenue using the numbers above, [you can check Shopify’s current plans and trial directly here] – the 3-day trial doesn’t require anything beyond what’s already listed in this guide.
