Key takeaways
- The sticker price is the smallest part of your Shopify bill. The real cost is the plan + card fees + apps, and there's exact math for when each plan pays for itself.
- Basic ($39/mo) is the right plan until you're doing about $33,000 a month — upgrading earlier costs you money, not less.
- Grow ($105/mo) only beats Basic past ~$33k/mo in sales; Advanced ($399/mo) only beats Grow past ~$147k/mo.
- The plan price doesn't include apps ($100–$300/mo is typical on real stores), premium themes, POS Pro ($89/mo per location), or the 2% "tax" if you don't use Shopify Payments.
Every week, someone asks us some version of this: "Which Shopify plan should I pick?"
And every week, I see store owners on the wrong one. Most of them are overpaying — sitting on Grow or Advanced when Basic would leave hundreds of dollars a month in their pocket. A smaller number are under-planned: doing $50k a month on Basic and quietly paying a higher card rate than they need to.
This is a money question, not a feature question. So here's the money answer: exact 2026 prices, the exact revenue level where each upgrade pays for itself, and the costs no plan-comparison page puts in the table.
The plans, stripped to what actually matters
Here are the four plans, US monthly pricing and the card rates that actually drive the math. Prices below are monthly billing — yearly billing knocks roughly 25% off.
| Plan | Monthly | Yearly (per mo) | Online card rate | Fee if you skip Shopify Payments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | $39 | $29 | 2.9% + 30¢ | 2% |
| Grow | $105 | $79 | 2.7% + 30¢ | 1% |
| Advanced | $399 | $299 | 2.5% + 30¢ | 0.6% |
| Plus | from $2,300 | contract | 2.25% + 30¢ | 0.2% |
(Rates confirmed from Shopify's official pricing page, October 2026. There's also a $5/month Starter plan for selling through social links with no full store — fine for testing an idea, not a real store.)
Notice the pattern: every step up costs more per month and takes a smaller cut of every sale. That means there's an exact revenue level where the higher plan becomes cheaper in total. Below that level, you're burning money on prestige.
The only math that matters: when each upgrade pays for itself
This is the calculation most "Shopify pricing" guides skip, and it's the one that decides everything.
Basic → Grow. Grow costs $66 more per month ($105 − $39). It also takes 0.2 percentage points less of every sale (2.9% vs 2.7%). The month the lower rate saves you $66, the two plans cost the same: $66 ÷ 0.002 = $33,000 in monthly sales. Under that, Basic wins. Over that, Grow wins.
Grow → Advanced. Advanced costs $294 more ($399 − $105) and saves another 0.2 points (2.7% vs 2.5%). $294 ÷ 0.002 = $147,000 in monthly sales before Advanced is cheaper than Grow on fees alone.
Advanced → Plus. Plus starts at $2,300 — $1,901 more than Advanced — for 0.25 points off (2.5% vs 2.25%). $1,901 ÷ 0.0025 = about $760,000 a month, or $9M a year, before Plus is cheaper on transaction fees alone.
| Upgrade | Break-even monthly sales | What it really means |
|---|---|---|
| Basic → Grow | ~$33,000/mo | Until then, Grow is a $66/mo donation to Shopify |
| Grow → Advanced | ~$147,000/mo | Advanced is a features play, not a savings play, for most stores |
| Advanced → Plus | ~$760,000/mo | Move to Plus for checkout/B2B power, not fee savings |
The 30¢ per-order fee is identical on every plan, so it cancels out of the comparison completely. When people compare plans by "fees," most of the numbers they argue about don't even change.
One honest caveat: yearly billing lowers every price, but the gaps shrink proportionally — the break-even levels barely move. And if you sell high-ticket items with few orders, the math shifts slightly in favor of staying on cheaper plans longer, since the fixed 30¢ matters less per dollar of revenue.
The bill Shopify doesn't show you
The subscription is the entry ticket. Here's what the plan price doesn't include — and what we typically see on real client builds:
| Cost | What we typically see | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Apps | $100–$300/mo | Reviews, subscriptions, upsells, loyalty, search — a real store usually runs 5–10 paid apps |
| Premium theme | $140–$450 one-time | Free themes are genuinely good; pay for a premium one only if it replaces two paid apps |
| Card processing | 2.9% + 30¢ and up | Premium cards (3.5% + 30¢) and international orders (+1%) push your real rate above the headline number |
| Third-party processor "tax" | 2% of every sale on Basic | Skip Shopify Payments and Shopify takes this on top of your processor's own fees — it alone can justify a plan change |
| POS Pro | $89/mo per location | Only if you have a physical store or pop-ups; the basic POS features are included |
| Shopify Email | Free up to 10,000 emails/mo, then paid | Fine for small lists; a serious email program lives on Klaviyo anyway (budget $20–$100/mo) |
Add it up for a typical new store: $39 plan + ~$150 in apps + card fees on actual sales. That's a $200+/month reality, not a $39 one. Budget for it honestly or the "cheap platform" surprises you every month.
So which plan should you actually pick?
Decision by revenue band — fees first, then features:
Under ~$33k/month: Basic. No debate.
Basic is the best value in all of ecommerce software, and almost nobody says that loudly enough. Full store, unlimited products, the same world-class checkout Plus stores use, discount codes, gift cards, abandoned-cart recovery — the stuff that actually moves revenue is all here. Two staff accounts is plenty when you're small.
Grow at this level buys you a lower card rate that hasn't paid for itself and staff seats you don't need. That $66/month difference is $792 a year that could have gone to ads or inventory.
$33k–$147k/month: Grow, usually for team reasons
Past ~$33k/month, Grow is cheaper in total — the math says so. But notice how many stores in this band upgrade for the features: up to 5 staff accounts, better reporting, and automation tools that start mattering when you have a team running the store daily. If you're a solo founder doing $60k/month, Grow still wins on fees alone — take it, just know why you're taking it.
$147k+/month: Advanced, as a shipping and data play
Almost nobody should upgrade to Advanced to save on card fees — the break-even is $147k/month. Upgrade for the actual features: carrier-calculated shipping rates (real-time rates from USPS/UPS at checkout), up to 15 staff accounts, and the custom reporting that a seven-figure store's team actually uses. If your checkout shipping is guesswork and it's costing you margin, Advanced pays for itself in accuracy, not percentages.
$1M+/year with complexity: Plus
Plus is not "Advanced but bigger." It's a different product: checkout customization, B2B catalogs, up to 10 storefronts, wholesale channels, and API limits that survive flash sales. The fee math only works at ~$9M/year, so if you're moving to Plus, it should be because checkout customization or B2B unlocks revenue the lower plans structurally can't — not because the rate looks nicer.
The most common mistake we see: a store doing $8k/month proudly on Advanced "because we're serious about growth." Growth doesn't change the break-even point. Revenue does.
Four mistakes that cost store owners real money
- Starting on Grow "to look professional." Your customers never see your plan. Shopify doesn't give Grow stores a better checkout or better ranking. Start on Basic and upgrade the month the math says to — Shopify prorates the change, so there's zero penalty for waiting.
- Not using Shopify Payments where it's available. On Basic, a third-party processor means paying their ~2.9% plus Shopify's 2% on every sale. That's a 4.9% haircut before you've bought a single ad. Unless you have a specific reason (a market Shopify Payments doesn't support), this is the single most expensive checkbox on the platform.
- App sprawl. Every app is $10–$50/month forever, and they stack silently. Audit quarterly: if an app hasn't earned its keep in 90 days, kill it. We've seen stores paying $400/month in apps that three built-in features could replace.
- Paying monthly when you're staying. Once you're committed past month three, yearly billing saves roughly 25% — $120/year on Basic, more higher up. But don't prepay year one: if you pivot off Shopify in month two, that "saving" was a donation.
The two-minute decision checklist
- Doing under $33k/month? Basic. Put the $66/month difference into your ad budget.
- Crossed $33k/month consistently (not one good month)? Grow.
- Need carrier-calculated shipping, 6+ staff seats, or real custom reporting? Advanced — for the features, not the fees.
- Need checkout customization, B2B, or multiple storefronts? Talk to Plus sales — and negotiate; Plus pricing is a contract, not a price tag.
- Using Shopify Payments? If no, fix that before you touch your plan.
- When did you last audit your apps? If the answer is "never," that's your cheapest win this week.
Shopify's pricing is genuinely fair — the platform eats hosting, security, PCI compliance, and uptime so you never think about them. That's what the subscription buys, and it's worth it. Just buy the tier your revenue justifies, budget the real total cost, and let the math — not the marketing — pick your plan.
If you're choosing between Shopify and WooCommerce first, read our honest Shopify vs WooCommerce breakdown — and if you want a real number on what a store build costs before the monthly fees even start, see our pricing. Not sure your current store is pulling its weight? Get a free site audit and we'll tell you straight — or book a call and we'll scope the build properly.
