Shopify's pricing tiers are designed to scale with you — and to nudge you toward upgrades as your revenue grows. The right plan is not always the cheapest; the breakeven points are mostly driven by payment processing savings, not by the headline plan price.
The plan tiers
- Basic — $39/month: For new merchants. Includes Shopify Payments at 2.9% + 30¢, two staff accounts, basic reports. Suitable for stores under ~$25k/month revenue.
- Shopify — $105/month: Drops processing to ~2.6% + 30¢, adds five staff accounts and professional reports. The sweet spot for most growing stores.
- Advanced — $399/month: Drops processing to ~2.4% + 30¢, adds 15 staff accounts, custom report builder, third-party calculated shipping. Worth it when revenue passes ~$200k/month.
- Shopify Plus — from ~$2,300/month: Enterprise tier with custom checkout, B2B features, Shopify Flow automation, dedicated account team. Aimed at $1M+/month merchants.
Annual vs. monthly billing
Shopify offers 25% off plan fees with annual prepay. For an established store, the savings on the Shopify plan alone are about $315/year — worth it once you are committed to the platform.
Where the real cost lives
For most stores, the plan fee is a small slice of total Shopify spend. The bigger costs are:
- Payment processing fees — 2.4–2.9% of every sale. On a $50k/month store, that's $1,200–1,450/month — vastly more than the plan fee.
- App subscriptions — Typically $50–300/month for small stores, $500+ for larger ones.
- Transaction fees if not using Shopify Payments — An extra 0.5–2% on top of your gateway's fees. See Shopify transaction fees.
When to upgrade
The math: a 0.3% drop in processing on $50k/month revenue is $150/month — almost covering the $66 upgrade from Basic to Shopify. The breakeven from Shopify to Advanced sits around $150–200k/month. Below those thresholds, the extra features are nice but not financially mandatory. For broader fee context see Shopify fees.