As of 2022, Shopify is acknowledged as the most efficient e-commerce platform online. The platform owes this popularity to the wide choices it provides to its users. The users can choose from a variety of different plans to match their aims. In a way, they are paving their way to success by choosing what is best for them and their brand.

Please note that Shopify grants its users 14 days of free usage before their choice of the desired plan. After that, five plans would be available to choose from, with Shopify Starter being the plainest one, which is unsuitable for maintaining an online store. Yet there are three different plans that we will touch upon this time: Shopify Basic, Shopify, and Shopify Advanced. Each of them provides different benefits through different pricing. Let’s dive deeper into their details.

PLAN A: Shopify Basic
Shopify Basic is the option with the least features to maintain your online store on Shopify. The plan will provide you with the basic needs of E-Commerce such as having your store, hosting, SSL certificate, and major requirements. These will prove to your customers that your store can be relied upon while making transactions. Moreover, distributing information about your discounts, products, collections, and basic reports plus some awesome features such as abandoned cart e-mails will be available as well. Of course, Shopify Basic Plan includes 7/24 support from the Shopify help team.

The Shopify Basic Plan would cost $24 per month and takes approximately a 2% commission fee for every transaction. Further research is advised.

PLAN B: Shopify
As the simplicity of its name suggests, this plan is in the middle of all tiers. Apart from including all the features that come with the Basic plan, this plan offers Professional reporting tools that help you with data analysis. These tools are also helpful while producing reports for sales, customer reports, etc. The Shopify Plan adds 3 additional staff accounts (making it a total of 5) and allows you to choose from 5 different locations while managing inventory.

The Shopify Plan would cost $69 per month and takes approximately a 1,7% commission fee for every transaction. Further research is advised.

PLAN C: Shopify Advanced
The Shopify Advanced Plan is recommended for people who want to make their business grow rapidly. Its main difference from the former tiers is that you can have up to 15 staff members who can be added to your account. Furthermore, location selection choices for your inventory are now up to 8 different places. Detailed reports would also be presented to the user. Lower rates for credit cards would be applied. Last but not least, third-party shipping rates would be available for your customers to see during checkout if you have your account integrated with a shipping carrier. 

This plan is preferred by stores that sell lots of products and those that want to generate data for specific collections or types of products. The Shopify Plan would cost $299 per month and takes approximately a 1,5% commission fee for every transaction. Further research is advised.

The Fifth Plan: Shopify Plus

The Shopify Plus Plan is made for brands exceeding revenue of $1 million. Although every brand has the option to apply for it, its hefty price tag of $2,000 per month isn’t right for all businesses.

As of now, we don’t find this plan to be suitable for our customers. If you want to learn more about its details, click here.

Other Pricing Considerations Through FAQ

When should I upgrade my Shopify plan?
For start-ups, we recommend the Shopify Basic Plan and progress on a feature requirement basis. We think the right way is to upgrade with the growth and scale of your business.  This will help you to get away from unnecessary expenses. You can see a Shopify pricing comparison table here.

Apart from necessities, your current revenue is also an indicator for changing plans. If it is less than $5,000 per month, we recommend you continue with Shopify Basic. Under $10,000 per month is ideal for the Shopify Plan and over $10,000 per month for the Shopify Advanced Plan. If your revenue is over $750,000 - $1 million per year, consider switching to the Shopify Plus Plan.

Which payment gateway should I use?
Shopify Payments is the most effective payment gateway for Shopify store owners. Choosing an alternative payment gateway would make you subject to some fees plus Shopify's additional third-party payment provider fee. Depending on your plan, Shopify payment fees range from 1.6% - 2%. Some examples of price changes are:

Through Paypal – approximately 3.4%
Through Worldpay – approximately 2.75%
Through Sagepay - £19.95 per month for up to 350 transactions, £45 per month for up to 500. Pricing continues to get higher according to transaction count.
Through Amazon Pay – approximately 2.7%

How does Shopify's payment pricing compare to other platforms?

Here are some payment fees from other platforms:

Amazon Store – 7 to 45%, depending on the item
eBay - 10% of the entire cost, including shipping
Etsy – approximately 5%

Costs of Shopify Apps
Apart from Shopify’s built-in functions, there is a huge library of apps to extend the platform’s functionality. If you visit the Shopify App Store, you would find a large number of free and paid apps. Some apps have monthly costs and include a tiered level based on usage. Further research is advised before using these apps.

Buying a Pre-Built Theme
After subscribing to one of the five plans of Shopify, you can choose pre-built themes for your store from the themes marketplace here. All you need to do is add needful content and your products. If you wouldn’t want to be limited by design and don’t want a branded feel, we don’t recommend you buy such themes.

Buying Another Shopify Store
Shopify's Exchange Marketplace allows you to buy a Shopify store that is already functioning and trading. These are vetted by the Shopify Team before their listing and their pricing ranges from hundreds of dollars up to millions, depending on the store’s revenue and customer base.