Shopify costs $29 to $299 per month (billed annually) for its three core plans: Basic, Grow, and Advanced. Plus, there are alternative options available for social selling, retail, and enterprise businesses.
After over 300 hours of research and hands-on user testing, we’ve taken a closer look at Shopify, our top-rated ecommerce website builder, and its pricing. Shopify’s plans offer unparalleled sales features for business owners looking to sell and grow online.
- Shopify has three core plans, costing $29 to $299 per month (billed annually)
- You can test out Shopify with its three-day free trial, but you’ll need to subscribe to an annual plan to get Shopify’s introductory offer of your first three months for $1 per month
- All Shopify plans let you sell unlimited products and unlock agentic commerce, but you’ll get better sales features as you upgrade
- There are additional costs to consider with Shopify, including a custom domain name, premium templates, apps, and processing fees
- You can remove third-party transaction fees if you use Shopify Payments
We’ve carried out independent research, data collection, and user-led testing to review ecommerce website builders like Shopify.
Our research process looks specifically at seven key areas of investigation: sales features (30%), design features (15%), help and support (15%), website functionality (15%), pricing (10%), user experience (10%), and reputation (5%).
For pricing reviews, we focus on the pricing category, where we look at plans, what features you get for your money, free plan or trial options, and general value.
How Much Does Shopify Cost?
When billed annually, Shopify’s pricing for its core plans ranges from $29 to $299 per month — you can save 25% when paying for a yearly subscription instead of monthly.
Shopify has three core plans for building a full online store (Basic, Grow, and Advanced), as well as specialized plans, like Starter for social media selling and Plus for enterprise-level corporations.
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Plan Name
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Monthly price (paid annually)
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Monthly price (paid monthly)
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Online credit card rates
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Third-party transaction fees
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Shipping discount
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Recommended for
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
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Basic |
Grow |
Advanced |
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$29 |
$79 |
$299 |
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$39 |
$105 |
$399 |
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2.9% + $0.30 |
2.7% + $0.30 |
2.5% + $0.30 |
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2% |
1% |
0.6% |
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Up to 77% |
Up to 88% |
Up to 88% |
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For smaller businesses |
For established businesses |
For large-scale businesses |
Can I Build an Online Store With Shopify for Free?
Shopify doesn’t have a free plan, but there is a three-day free trial period. This doesn’t give you much time to become familiar with the platform and all of its features. However, when it’s time to upgrade, you can get your first three months for $1 per month with Shopify’s introductory deal. You’ll then pay the standard rate after the first 90 days.
Shopify Pricing Plans Explained
Shopify offers three main website builder plans: Basic, Grow, and Advanced. I’ll explore the differences in price and available features in the dedicated sections below.
How Much Does Shopify’s Basic Plan Cost?
- Annual price: $29 per month ($348 upfront for the year)
- Monthly price: $39 per month
- Online credit card rate: 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction
- Third-party transaction fees: 2%
- Refund policy: No refunds on plans
The Shopify Basic plan costs $29 per month (billed annually) and is best for small businesses needing unlimited products and AI automation.
According to Shopify, the Basic plan is the most popular option among merchants, offering agentic commerce and a customizable checkout experience. If you’re selling online already and pursuing long-term growth, Basic will set you up with the essentials, while providing room to scale.
You can expect the following features on Shopify’s Basic plan:
- Unlimited products
- Agentic commerce support so your products can be found and purchased through AI chats
- A customizable checkout experience
- Up to 77% shipping discount
- 10 inventory locations, which optimize fulfillments with faster, cheaper deliveries, and help to prevent wasting money on dead stock
- Standard analytics so you can monitor your website’s performance and traffic
- 24/7 support through its AI-powered assistant (Shopify Sidekick) — I got a response in three seconds when testing, and Sidekick can support with data insights, tasks, and content generation
- Localized features, such as site translation and currency conversion, to help you sell internationally
- Multichannel selling so you can connect your online store to marketplaces and social media channels, like TikTok — supported via Shopify Marketplace Connect
- In-person selling — use your mobile’s Tap to Pay or a card reader to take payments
- Abandoned cart recovery and personalized discount codes help maintain sales amid reduced consumer spending
- Security features, including a free SSL certificate and fraud analysis detection
- Shopify Tax provides a critical tax compliance automation for teams struggling to keep up with manual reporting
- Marketing and ecommerce automations, such as inventory alerts, customer segmentation, and order fulfillment, allow small teams to optimize operations without the overhead of additional hires
How Much Does Shopify’s Grow Plan Cost?
- Annual price: $79 per month ($948 upfront for the year)
- Monthly price: $105 per month
- Online credit card rate: 2.7% + $0.30 per transaction
- Third-party transaction fees: 1%
- Refund policy: No refunds on plans
Shopify’s Grow plan costs $79 per month (billed annually), unlocking advanced inventory tools that allow you to optimize stock to avoid the idle asset drain on your profit margins.
The Grow plan is designed for established businesses seeing substantial growth in sales and team size, particularly since you can add multiple staff accounts.
In addition to what’s included with the Basic plan, the Grow plan provides further support for expanding online stores:
- Up to 87% shipping discount
- Five staff accounts — a useful feature for businesses of scale with multiple employees
- Shipping insurance if using Shopify’s native payment solution, Shopify Payments — get up to $200 coverage with every Shopify Shipping label
- USPS discounts for shipping products
How Much Does Shopify’s Advanced Plan Cost?
- Annual price: $299 per month ($3,588 upfront for the year)
- Monthly price: $399 per month
- Online credit card rate: 2.5% + $0.30 per transaction
- Third-party transaction fees: 0.6%
- Refund policy: No refunds on plans
The Advanced plan is Shopify’s most expensive core plan, starting from $299 per month (billed annually). This plan goes the extra mile to support very large businesses by providing even more features than its predecessors, such as custom analytics.
For the steep price point, the Advanced plan is only suitable for businesses seeing a high sales volume every month, since you’ll need the additional power to support your online store.
Unlock everything on Shopify’s Grow plan, plus:
- Custom reports and analytics, so you can filter your store’s data with ease
- Enhanced 24/7 chat support for urgent situations
- Up to 15 staff accounts — the difference in staff accounts between the Grow and Advanced plans is a good indicator of the size of the business each plan supports
- Third-party calculated shipping rates
Which Specialized Shopify Plans Are Available?
In addition to Shopify’s three core plans, you can also subscribe to these alternative plans: Starter, Plus, Enterprise, Agentic, and POS Pro. These are available at varying price points with different ecommerce capabilities, from retail support to selling in AI channels.
| Shopify plan | Starter | Plus | Enterprise | Agentic | POS Pro |
| Starting price | $5/mo (billed annually) | $2,300/mo (billed annually, on a 3-year term) | Custom pricing | No monthly fee – card rates from 2.9% + $0.30/online sale | $89/mo/location |
| Special offer | N/A | $399 for your first month | N/A | Try for $0 | $67/mo/POS Pro location with Shopify plans |
| Purpose | Sell across social media and messaging apps | Provides scalable and customizable solutions for high-growth businesses | Personalized plan to support industry-leading businesses | Sell products directly in AI channels, no online store necessary | Sell products in person and bridge the gap between in-store and online sales |
| Best for | Side hustlers and entrepreneurs | Established businesses | Industry giants needing limitless growth | Business trendsetters and small budget sellers | Retailers |
Can I Upgrade or Downgrade My Shopify Plan?
You can easily upgrade or downgrade your Shopify plan in your account settings. Click “Plan,” then “Change plan,” before deciding which plan you want to swap to.
If you’re upgrading your plan, the change is immediate and the fee is prorated based on the date you start the new plan. If you’re downgrading your Shopify plan, your new plan will update once your current billing cycle ends.
How Can I Choose the Right Shopify Plan?
When choosing the right Shopify plan for your business, you need to consider key factors such as budget, your selling needs, team size, and targeted market.
| Business need | Recommended Shopify plan | Plan benefits |
| Small budget | Basic ($29/mo) | Cheapest Shopify plan to build an online store |
| Sell on socials | Starter ($5/mo) | Low cost way to sell via socials, SMS, WhatsApp, and email |
| Large team | Grow ($79/mo) | Unlocks staff accounts to support with store management |
| International shipping | Grow ($79/mo) | Best shipping discount (up to 87%) |
| High-volume of sales | Advanced ($299/mo) | Lowest card rates and advanced sales tools |
Does Shopify Have Hidden Fees?
Shopify’s plans are expensive from the start, and there are additional costs to consider, such as premium templates and third-party apps. To put it simply, Shopify isn’t a cheap website builder.
Your overall spend with Shopify can increase because of:
- Premium templates: Shopify’s premium themes range from $100 to $500 as a one-off cost
- Paid apps: You can add functionality by paying for third-party features from Shopify’s app store (prices vary across the 8,000+ apps)
- Domain name: This isn’t included with your Shopify plan (a standard .com domain through Shopify costs $16 per year)
- Transaction fees and credit card rates: If you don’t use Shopify’s native payment gateway, Shopify Payments, each transaction will incur both third-party transaction fees and credit card rates (third-party fees only apply if you use a different payment gateway)
Shopify’s transaction fees and credit card rates can be seen in the table below:
| Basic | Grow | Advanced | |
| Online credit card rates | 2.9% + $0.30/transaction | 2.7% + $0.30/transaction | 2.5% + $0.30/transaction |
| In-person credit card rates | 2.6% + $0.10/transaction | 2.5% + $0.10/transaction | 2.4% + $0.10/transaction |
| Third-party transaction fees (without Shopify Payments) | 2% | 1% | 0.6% |
How Can I Save Money With Shopify?
To keep your outgoings to a minimum, there are a few ways to save money with Shopify, from opting for a longer subscription to relying on AI design support:
- Save 25% by signing up for an annual plan
- Use Shopify Payments to avoid third-party transaction fees
- Pick one of the 24 free templates instead of a premium theme (or use Shopify’s built-in AI theme generator)
- Get your domain name from a cheaper domain registrar
With Shopify’s three core plans, you can earn 1% back on all sales you make through Shopify Payments and get up to $10,000 in credit (towards your subscription).
This promotion runs during your first six months or until you hit your plan’s credit limit. Get up to $5,000 in credit with Basic, up to $7,500 in credit with Grow, and up to $10,000 in credit with Advanced.
For example, with the Basic plan, you can earn up to $5,000 in credit if you process $500,000 worth of sales.
This Shopify feature is currently in early access and only available to select Shopify merchants.
How Does Shopify Compare With Competitors?
Shopify’s plans are more expensive than Hostinger’s, it’s not as easy to use as Squarespace, and Shopify lacks the versatility of Wix. Despite Shopify being our leading ecommerce website builder, it won’t be the right fit for every online store.
| Website builder | Shopify | Wix | Squarespace | Hostinger | GoDaddy |
| Free plan or trial | 3-day free trial | Free plan | 14-day free trial | 14-day free trial | Free plan |
| Starting price | $29/mo | $17/mo | $16/mo | $2.99/mo | $9.99/mo |
| Cheapest ecommerce plan | $29/mo | $29/mo | $16/mo | $3.99/mo | $20.99/mo |
Our video review covers the top ecommerce builders in more detail so you can see why Shopify is our number one choice for online stores:
How We Test Website Builder Pricing
Through our research process, we carried out over 300 hours of analysis, data collection, and hands-on testing across seven primary categories:
- Sales features (30%): We look at the ecommerce capabilities of a platform, from payment options to multichannel selling
- Design features (15%): We review the templates and design options available for online stores
- Help and support (15%): We test the available support channels and business resources
- Website functionality (15%): We look at the range and quality of features, including blogging tools, AI, and SEO
- Pricing (10%): We examine what you can get for your money with each plan
- User experience (10%): We test the ecommerce builder ourselves to assess how easy they are to use
- Reputation (5%): We compare each builder against its competitors and look at how each platform performs in the market
To determine whether Shopify’s plans are worth spending your money on, we specifically examine:
- The quantity and quality of features available for the price you pay
- The average cost of Shopify’s plans
- Whether there’s a free trial or free plan available to test out the platform
Based on its performance in this category, Shopify received a pricing score of 3.4 out of 5 because of its expensive plans and short free trial.
Is Shopify Worth the Cost?
Shopify is the best ecommerce website builder in 2026 and it offers three core plans, ranging from $29 to $299 per month (billed annually).
Because of its expensive entry point for small businesses, Shopify is best for established online stores with extensive inventories. We recommend starting on the $29 per month Basic plan to access unlimited products and agentic commerce. Then, upgrade as your business grows to unlock advanced features, such as shipping insurance.
Shopify Pricing: FAQs
You can save 25% by paying for your Shopify subscription annually instead of monthly. For example, the Basic plan costs $39 per month, if billed monthly. This translates to $468 for the year. If you choose to be billed annually, it’s $29 per month, or $348 for the year. In this example, you’ll save $120 each year.
If you don’t use Shopify Payments, you’ll be charged a standard credit card rate, as well as third-party transaction fees. These third-party fees range from 0.6%–2%, depending on your Shopify plan. If you use Shopify Payments, you’ll only be charged a credit card rate per transaction.
If you’re looking to sell in person, you’ll need to pay and budget for a few features. Firstly, your Shopify plan — in-person selling is included with all core premium plans, ranging from $29 to $299 per month (billed annually). The second factor to consider is transaction fees, which will vary depending on your plan, payment method, and if you’re selling online or in a physical store.
Finally, you’ll need to pay for each Shopify POS Pro location. This is an additional $89 per month (billed annually) per location.
Shopify doesn’t have dedicated hosting plans, but hosting is included with its website builder subscription. Shopify’s premium plans range from $29 to $299 per month (billed annually).
If you want to create Shopify websites for other individuals or businesses, the rates you set will depend on your skill level, what you’re including in the package, and the time you spend working on the project. You can also choose to charge someone with an hourly rate or a set rate for the website as a whole.
On average, typical fees for a Shopify website range from $40 to $250 per hour.
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