Shopify plans overview
Shopify currently offers three main plans for standard sellers, plus Shopify Plus for enterprise. All prices are monthly; annual billing typically saves 25%.
Basic Shopify — $39/month: Everything you need to launch. Unlimited products, 2 staff accounts, basic reports, Shopify POS Lite. Online credit card rate: 2.9% + $0.30.
Shopify — $105/month: Adds 5 staff accounts, professional reports, and USPS cubic pricing through Shopify Shipping. Online credit card rate: 2.6% + $0.30.
Advanced Shopify — $399/month: Adds 15 staff accounts, custom report builder, and third-party calculated shipping. Online credit card rate: 2.4% + $0.30.
Payment processing fees in detail
If you use Shopify Payments (available in most countries), no additional transaction fee applies — you pay only the credit card processing rate. If you use a third-party payment gateway (PayPal, Stripe, Square), Shopify charges an additional transaction fee: 2% on Basic, 1% on Shopify plan, 0.5% on Advanced.
In practice, most sellers should use Shopify Payments unless there's a specific reason not to. The third-party transaction fee on top of your payment processor's fee adds up significantly. On $100,000 in revenue, the 2% third-party fee alone costs $2,000/year — more than the upgrade from Basic to the Shopify plan.
Processing rates for in-person POS payments are lower than online rates on all plans. If you also sell at markets or pop-up shops, factor in the POS-specific rates for those transactions.
Per-sale cost calculations by plan
For a $50 sale using Shopify Payments:
Basic: 2.9% × $50 + $0.30 = $1.75 processing + plan cost allocation
Shopify: 2.6% × $50 + $0.30 = $1.60 processing + plan cost allocation
Advanced: 2.4% × $50 + $0.30 = $1.50 processing + plan cost allocation
The plan cost allocation matters. At 100 orders/month: Basic adds $0.39/order ($39 ÷ 100). At 1,000 orders/month: Basic adds $0.039/order — negligible. The monthly plan cost becomes a smaller factor as volume increases, while the processing rate differential becomes the dominant variable.
When to upgrade plans
The decision to upgrade from Basic to Shopify is purely mathematical. The Shopify plan costs $66 more per month but saves 0.3% per transaction. Break-even: $66 ÷ 0.003 = $22,000 in monthly revenue. If your Shopify store processes more than $22,000/month (about $264,000/year), upgrading saves you money on processing fees alone.
The decision to upgrade from Shopify to Advanced follows the same logic. The Advanced plan costs $294 more per month and saves another 0.2%. Break-even: $294 ÷ 0.002 = $147,000/month ($1.76M/year). Most small businesses don't reach this threshold — Advanced is for high-volume operations.
App costs: the expense most sellers underestimate
Shopify's app ecosystem is extensive — and expensive if you're not careful. Common app categories and their costs: email marketing ($0–$80+/month depending on list size), reviews apps ($0–$50/month), SEO apps ($0–$30/month), upsell and cross-sell apps ($30–$100/month), subscription management ($50–$200+/month), loyalty programs ($50–$200/month).
App costs for a mature Shopify store can easily reach $200–500/month before accounting for the subscription plan. At $300/month in apps on a Basic plan, your total platform overhead is $339/month — which needs to be covered by your gross margin before you can claim any profit.
Audit your installed apps quarterly. Keep only the apps that drive measurable, attributable revenue. Delete trials that have expired and apps you installed speculatively.