How much does Shopify cost? The honest answer is that the subscription on Shopify's pricing page is only the starting point. A store's real monthly cost is the plan, plus a percentage of every sale, plus the apps you install, plus the theme and development work that make the store yours. We build Shopify stores for clients, and our founder has been Head of Marketing for a Florida-based resort wear brand since 2016, so this is the same breakdown we walk founders through before they commit.
We have deliberately left dollar figures out of this guide. Shopify revises plan prices and processing rates from time to time, and they differ by country, so confirm current numbers on the official Shopify pricing page. What rarely changes is the structure of the costs, and the structure is what decides whether your budget holds.
How Much Does Shopify Cost? The Four Cost Layers
| Layer | What it covers | How it is billed |
|---|---|---|
| Plan subscription | Hosting, admin, checkout, staff accounts, reporting depth | Monthly, or annually at a discount |
| Payment processing | Card fees on each order through Shopify Payments or a third-party gateway | Percentage plus a fixed amount per transaction |
| Apps and theme | Reviews, email, search, subscriptions, bundles, a premium theme | Monthly per app, one-time for most themes |
| Build and upkeep | Design, development, migration, ongoing fixes | Project fee or monthly retainer |
How Much Does Shopify Cost per Month and per Year?
Per month, Shopify costs your plan subscription plus the processing fees on that month's orders and whatever apps you run, so two stores on the same plan can pay very different totals. Per year, the subscription is lower if you prepay annually, because Shopify discounts annual billing on the standard plans.
The Shopify plans ladder is short: Basic, the middle plan simply called Shopify, Advanced, and Shopify Plus for high-volume brands. There is also a low-cost Starter plan built for selling through social links and chat rather than running a full storefront.
Moving up a plan buys three things that matter financially: lower card processing rates, a lower surcharge when you use a third-party payment gateway, and more capability (more staff accounts, more inventory locations and deeper reporting). The subscription rises, but on a store with enough volume the lower percentage per order can outweigh the higher monthly fee. That break-even point is the single most useful number to calculate before you choose.
When Shopify Plus makes sense
Shopify Plus is sold on a contract rather than a simple list price, and for larger stores the platform fee is tied to sales volume. Brands usually move to Plus for capability, not savings: B2B selling from the same store, checkout customization through Checkout Extensibility, Launchpad for scheduled sales events, additional expansion stores for other markets, and higher API limits for heavy integrations. If none of those apply yet, Plus is an expense you can defer.
Shopify POS costs for in-person selling
If you sell at markets, pop-ups or a shop, POS Lite comes with the standard plans and covers basic in-person checkout. POS Pro is a paid add-on billed per location, and it adds staff roles, advanced inventory and store reporting. Budget separately for card readers and other hardware, and note that in-person card rates differ from online rates.
How Much Does It Cost to Sell on Shopify?
Selling on Shopify costs a card processing fee on every order, plus an extra Shopify transaction fee if you use a third-party gateway. This is the layer that grows with you. With Shopify Payments you pay a card rate on each online order: a percentage of the order value plus a small fixed amount, and the percentage is lower on higher plans. If you use a third-party gateway instead (for example, a processor your bank requires), Shopify adds its own transaction fee on top of that gateway's charges, and that extra fee also shrinks as you move up.
Two practical points about Shopify fees. First, run the math with your real average order value and monthly order count. On a store with a low average order value, the fixed per-transaction amount matters more than the percentage. Second, Shop Pay and the wallet buttons work best, and in many cases only, with Shopify Payments active. Switching Payments off to save a fraction of a percent can cost more in lost conversions than it saves, which our checkout optimization guide covers in detail.
Apps: The Line Most Budgets Miss
A typical growing store ends up paying for apps that handle product reviews, email and SMS (Klaviyo is the common choice), site search and filtering, subscriptions, upsells, and shipping or returns. Each carries its own monthly fee, and many price by order volume or contact count, so the app bill rises as the store grows.
Audit your apps every quarter and look for three things:
- Forgotten tests: apps installed to try a feature and never removed.
- Native overlap: Shopify now publishes its own free apps for bundles and subscriptions, which cover simpler needs without a third-party fee.
- Speed cost: apps that load scripts on every page. Older apps can also leave code in your theme after you uninstall them, so check the theme files afterward.
How Much Does It Cost to Build a Shopify Website?
Building a Shopify website costs anywhere from nothing beyond the plan (a free theme you set up yourself) to a full project fee for a custom theme, and the scope decides which end you land on. You can launch on a free theme such as Dawn, or buy a premium theme from the Shopify Theme Store as a one-time purchase that includes updates. Custom work is where costs vary most, and it usually falls into one of four scopes:
- Theme setup: a premium theme configured with your brand, collections, navigation and policy pages. Right for new stores still testing demand.
- Customized theme: the same base with custom sections, metafield-driven product content and app integrations. Most growing brands sit here.
- Custom theme build: a theme designed and coded around your catalog. Worth it when merchandising or page speed is a real constraint.
- Migration: moving from WooCommerce, Magento or BigCommerce, including products, customers, order history and 301 redirects.
If you want a partner for this layer, our Shopify development team handles builds, customization and migrations, and the store, theme code and accounts stay in your name.
How Much Does It Cost to Hire a Shopify Expert?
Hiring a Shopify expert costs an hourly rate, a fixed project fee or a monthly retainer, depending on how the work is scoped and who you hire. Freelancers usually bill hourly or per task, agencies usually quote fixed fees for builds and retainers for ongoing work, and Shopify's Partner Directory lets you compare listed experts by service.
Three things move the number more than the hourly rate. The first is how clearly the job is defined: "fix the product page" invites open-ended hours, while "add a size guide metafield and section to the product template" can be quoted exactly. The second is whether the expert has to untangle previous work, such as leftover app code or an edited theme with no version history. The third is who owns the result. Ask for the theme code in your store, a short handover note, and admin access you control, so the next person does not start from zero.
Costs Outside Shopify
- Domain registration and yearly renewal.
- Email marketing, usually priced by the size of your list.
- Sales tax compliance and filing, whether through Shopify Tax or a service like Avalara or TaxJar.
- Shipping labels, packaging and any 3PL fees.
- Refunds and chargebacks. Check whether processing fees are returned on refunds in your region, because often they are not.
- Marketing. A store does not bring its own traffic, so paid ads, SEO and email need their own budget.
How Much Does It Cost to Start a Shopify Store?
Starting a Shopify store costs the first months of your plan, a theme, your day-one apps and your launch marketing, and the easiest way to price it is a first-year budget built in this order:
- Forecast orders and average order value. Use a conservative monthly order count and a realistic average order value. Every other number depends on these two.
- Price each plan against the forecast. Add the subscription and the processing cost for each plan and choose the lowest total, not the lowest subscription.
- List the apps you need on day one. Separate must-haves from nice-to-haves and add the nice-to-haves only once revenue supports them.
- Add one-time build costs. Theme, customization, product photography, copy and any migration.
- Add a maintenance line. Theme updates, app changes and small fixes happen every month, even on a stable store.
- Add marketing. This is usually the largest line, and the one that decides whether the rest pays off.
Common Mistakes That Inflate Shopify Cost
- Choosing a plan by subscription price and ignoring processing rates at your actual volume.
- Installing an app for every small feature instead of using theme settings or metafields.
- Paying for a custom theme before product-market fit is proven.
- Upgrading to Plus for prestige rather than a specific feature you need.
- Skipping redirects during a migration and losing organic traffic you then pay to replace.
Once the store is live, the cost that matters most is acquiring customers. Our Shopify SEO checklist and ecommerce SEO checklist cover organic traffic, and if you want a second opinion on your current setup, request a free marketing audit. More practical guides are on the 95 Solutions blog.