Note: What is written in this article was accurate to the best of our knowledge at the time of publishing and we encourage you to double check all claims with Shopify before making decisions about the direction of your business.
Let’s say Shopify is your choice of ecommerce website. You already use it to run your store or are planning to open a Shopify site. How do you know which of the five plans to choose? And how will you know if you’re ready to upgrade to a higher tier?
The five Shopify plans offer various features and levels of flexibility. The lower tier plans are basic and suitable for low-income entry level stores. Meanwhile, the highest offering, Shopify Plus, is ideal for high-income enterprise level stores with numerous transactions. Merchants can upgrade their plan as their requirements change.
We discuss the different options below and how to decide what’s best for you, and you can also use our Shopify Plan Calculator* to help you make an informed decision.
*This calculator was accurate at the time of publishing on 2021-07-19.
Do you own a small store with sales of less than US$5,000 per month? Perhaps you’ve just started a business or sell a limited range of bespoke products. If this is the case, then you may want to consider one of Shopify’s entry level plans: Shopify Lite, Basic Shopify, or Shopify (standard).
Shopify Lite costs $9/month and is often used by people who sell through other websites like Facebook or a WordPress blog. Basic Shopify costs $19/month and is ideal for start-ups with a low budget and that only need limited features. It allows for two staff accounts. Both plans charge 2% per transaction and are suitable for stores with sales of less than $2,000 per month.
Merchants often move from Basic Shopify to the Shopify plan because they save on the lower transaction fees of 1%. This plan costs $49/month and is suitable for new stores that are growing fast or established stores with low to medium volume sales of between $2,000 - $5,000. It allows for five staff accounts and has more features like gift cards, a report builder, and POS features.
Are you an up-and-coming business with sales of between $5,000 and $50,000 per month? Do you need a store with more features and functionality? If you’ve answered yes, then the Advanced Shopify plan may be best for you.
This plan costs $299/month and charges 0.5% transaction fees. It allows for 15 staff accounts, has advanced reporting features, and offers third-party calculated shipping rates.
Advanced Shopify as well as the three entry level plans can be trialed for free for 14 days.
The jump from Advanced Shopify to Shopify Plus is a big one. Plus is Shopify’s highest offering and with a base fee of $2,000/month, it is significantly more expensive than the Advanced plan. So how do you know if you’re ready to make the leap?
Are you a larger, more established store with sales of more than $50,000 per month? Do you plan to sell internationally? Do you need more features and more flexibility to customize? If so, you may seriously want to consider moving to or start with Shopify Plus.
Shopify Plus looks and works in the same way as the other Shopify plans – with the same editor and dashboard. The benefit of this plan is how much more it can do compared to the other plans, with greater setup and customization control. In addition, Shopify Plus can handle an impressive 10,000+ transactions per minute!
Shopify Plus offers the option for up to nine clone stores which means you can sell in many different places. It is ideal if you have international customers. You can have international stores (for example, US and UK), a separate wholesale store, or a staging or test site to test big changes. These stores can of course also use different languages and currencies.
Shopify Plus’s multi-currency functionality allows stores to offer payments in various mainstream currencies based on the site URL or on the users’ IP address.
The wholesale channel offers restricted access to a basic, restricted-access store. It includes customer-specific pricing, product availability, and payment options. This B2B option includes options for tiered pricing and bulk discounts.
Having unlimited staff accounts is ideal for businesses with big teams, developers and other consultants who all need access to the store.
Shopify Plus comes with no transaction fees until you break through the threshold of $800,000 per month. Beyond that amount they charge 0.25% per transaction instead of the fixed $2,000/mo.
The Script Editor lets you create scripts, or rules, for discounting products, running promotions, shipping logistics, based on different variables or tags.
Shopify Flow allows you to automate various tasks and functions based on certain ‘rules’. You can change shipping rates for high-volume customers, provide discounts for customers that meet a certain criteria, or flag fraudulent orders.
Merchants can use Shopify Launchpad to plan and schedule activities in advance. This may include adding or disabling products, executing a flash sale or product launch, or scheduling bulk changes.
Shopify Plus users can customize their store’s checkout. This includes creating custom messaging or fields, adding address autocomplete, or enabling social logins.
Shopify offers a launch manager to assist merchants during the migration to Shopify Plus. It then assigns a merchant success manager to help with ongoing support.
Shopify Plus offers advanced analytics with detailed data and information.
It is important to note that if your monthly sales are more than $800,000 per month, the Shopify Plus plan can cost up to $40,000.
ShopCreatify are Shopify and Shopify Plus experts. Get in touch if you need advice about whether to upgrade your plan.
