How much does Shopify cost per month?

Five plans, one big range: Shopify's monthly bill can be $5 or $2,300. In 2026, the lineup is Starter, Basic, Grow (formerly the "Shopify" plan), Advanced, and Plus — with each tier aimed at a different stage of revenue, from first sale to eight figures a year.

The three core plans are where most merchants land. Basic runs roughly $27–$49 per month depending on billing cycle and currency, Grow sits around $72–$105, and Advanced spans $299–$399. Starter is a $5/month entry point for selling through social channels, while Plus starts at $2,300 per month on a three-year term — and switches to a percentage-of-revenue model once stores pass roughly $800K in monthly sales. Because sources disagree on exact figures (CAD versus USD pricing, and different publication dates), treat these as ranges and check Shopify's official pricing page for current numbers.

A few things shape which plan fits which business:

• Starter ($5/month) — testing the waters with a few products sold through link-in-bio and social channels
• Basic — stores doing roughly $8K–$20K per month in revenue
• Grow — established stores in the $8K–$50K per month range
• Advanced — high-volume merchants doing $50K–$500K monthly, where lower card rates start to pay for the plan
• Plus ($2,300+/month) — brands at $2M+ annual revenue that need customization and wholesale features

Two pricing details are worth knowing before you commit. Annual billing saves about 25% across every plan, though you pay the full year upfront. And new stores get a 3-day free trial plus a $1/month introductory rate for the first three months on Basic, Grow, or Advanced — a genuinely low-cost way to launch.

One caution: the sticker price is rarely the real price. Most merchants run 6–10 apps, adding $100–$500 per month, and mid-market brands commonly spend $350–$1,400 monthly on apps alone. Add transaction fees, premium themes, and the labor of running the store yourself, and Shopify's own blog estimates established merchants spend $500–$2,500+ per month all-in.

That total matters if you're comparing options. A fully managed service like AI Business Sites charges a flat $497/month that includes hosting, content, SEO, and CRM — comparable to what an active Shopify merchant actually spends once the apps and fees stack up, but without the assembly required. The right choice depends on whether you want to build and run the store yourself or have someone run it for you.

The monthly plan is only the entry fee. The real cost of Shopify is what accumulates on top of it — and for an active store, those extras often rival the subscription itself. As one analysis puts it, "the published price is rarely the real price."

The biggest hidden cost is the third-party payment gateway penalty. If you don't use Shopify Payments and instead run PayPal, Stripe, or another processor, Shopify charges an extra fee on every sale: 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow, 0.6% on Advanced, and 0.2% on Plus, according to Shopify's official pricing page. On a $20,000/month store on the Basic plan, that penalty alone runs roughly $400 per month.

Credit card processing rates also vary by tier, starting at 2.9% + 30¢ on Basic and dropping to about 2.15% + 30¢ on Plus. The math adds up quickly. A $10,000/month store on Basic pays $389 per month total with Shopify Payments — but $589 with a third-party gateway, a $200 monthly difference driven entirely by gateway choice.

Then there's the app ecosystem. The average merchant runs 6–10 apps, and Commerce-UI research found that mid-market brands commonly spend $350–$1,400 per month on app subscriptions. Premium themes add another $180–$400 as a one-time cost, and chargeback fees run $15 each. If you sell in person, POS Pro costs extra per location — roughly $89–$119 monthly depending on region.

• Third-party gateway penalty: 2% on Basic down to 0.2% on Plus
• App subscriptions: commonly $100–$1,400 per month
• Premium themes: $180–$400 one-time
• Chargeback fees: $15 per dispute

Shopify's own blog acknowledges this, estimating that established merchants spend $500–$2,500+ per month all-in once apps, transaction fees, marketing, and fulfillment are included. That's why total cost of ownership — not the sticker price — is the question worth asking before committing to any platform.

It's also worth noting what a flat-fee alternative looks like by comparison. A managed service like AI Business Sites charges $497 per month with hosting, content, SEO, and CRM included, so there are no app subscriptions to stack or transaction penalties to calculate. Whether that model or a Shopify build suits you better, the lesson holds either way: budget for the fees behind the subscription, because they're where the real cost lives.

The sticker price on Shopify's pricing page tells you almost nothing about what you'll actually pay. Once apps, transaction fees, and add-ons stack up, the real number can be triple the subscription — sometimes ten times it.

Shopify's own blog estimates real-world all-in costs by business stage: solopreneurs run $30–$100/month, growing businesses $100–$500, and established merchants $500–$2,500+. Those figures include apps, themes, marketing, and fulfillment — the costs the pricing page leaves out.

The worked examples make this concrete. A Basic-plan store doing $30K/month in revenue runs roughly $939/month all-in — a $39 subscription plus $900 in processing, apps, and fees. Scale up and the gap widens: a Grow-plan store at $150K/month spends about $4,185, and an Advanced store at $500K/month hits $13,199.

Apps are the quiet budget killer. The average merchant runs 6–10 apps adding $100–$500/month, and mid-market brands commonly spend $350–$1,400/month on their app stack alone. With 13,000+ apps in the store, the subscriptions creep up one "just $9.99/month" at a time.

Here's the honest breakdown of where the money goes:

• The subscription itself — $39 to $399/month for the core plans, $2,300+ for Plus
• Payment processing — a $10K/month store on Basic pays $389 with Shopify Payments but $589 with PayPal or Stripe
• Apps — $100 to $1,400/month depending on stage
• One-time costs — premium themes at $180–$400, domains, POS hardware

As one Shopify Plus agency puts it, "How much does Shopify cost?" is the wrong question — total cost of ownership is the right one. The published price is rarely the real price.

This is why flat-fee models are worth comparing. AI Business Sites charges $497/month for a managed website, content engine, SEO, and CRM — a number that looks expensive next to Shopify's $39 Basic plan until you compare it to what an established Shopify merchant actually spends all-in. The fair comparison is never subscription versus subscription; it's everything you'll spend versus everything you'll spend.

Here's a number that never appears on any Shopify invoice: your time. Shopify is a platform, not a service — every plan, from Starter to Plus, assumes someone on your end is running the store. That someone is usually you.

Shopify's own cost breakdown is honest about this. Its guide to ecommerce website costs lists app subscriptions, theme customization, marketing, fulfillment, and even email hosting as responsibilities the merchant handles separately from the subscription. The platform gives you the storefront; everything that makes the storefront perform lands on your plate.

In practice, that means a recurring to-do list most owners underestimate at signup:

• Researching, installing, and managing apps — the average merchant runs 6–10 of them, and someone has to keep them updated and compatible
• Theme updates and design tweaks every time the brand or a promotion changes
• Writing product descriptions, blog posts, and page content that actually ranks
• SEO, email marketing, and social promotion — none of which the subscription does for you
• Following up with leads, abandoned carts, and customer questions

Now do the real math. Say you're on the Basic plan at roughly $39 a month, and you spend a conservative 10 hours a month on the tasks above. If your time is worth $50 an hour — and for most business owners it's worth more — that's a $539 website, not a $39 one. The subscription is the smallest line item in the true cost.

The app layer makes it worse. Analysis of real merchant spending finds those 6–10 apps typically add $100–$500 a month, and mid-market brands report $350–$1,400. But even six duct-taped subscriptions don't run themselves — each one has a dashboard, a learning curve, and a settings page waiting for your attention. You're not just paying for the stack; you're staffing it.

Shopify's own blog estimates all-in costs of $500–$2,500+ per month for established merchants — before counting a single hour of owner labor. Add the labor, and the gap between the sticker price and reality gets wide fast.

This is the DIY gap in one sentence: a cheap plan is only cheap if your time is free. It's also the reason a flat managed fee — like the $497/month model we run at AI Business Sites, where the content, SEO, updates, and follow-up are done for you rather than delegated back to you — often costs less in practice than a "$39" platform. One price buys the tools and the team running them, instead of the tools plus your evenings.

None of this makes Shopify a bad product. It makes it a product with a hidden job description attached — and it's worth reading that job description before you sign up for it.

By the time most established merchants tally their Shopify invoice, the sticker price is a distant memory. Shopify's own blog puts all-in costs for established merchants at $500–$2,500+ per month once apps, themes, transaction fees, and marketing tools are counted — a figure far above the $39 Basic plan that drew them in.

That's the math worth comparing against. A $497 flat fee sounds expensive next to Shopify's published prices, but it sits squarely inside what active stores actually spend. Mid-market brands alone typically add $350–$1,400/month in app subscriptions on top of their plan fee, according to agency pricing analysis, and Shopify cost breakdowns consistently warn that "the published price is rarely the real price."

The difference is what the number buys. With Shopify, $497 gets you a platform subscription — you still assemble everything else and run it yourself. With a flat-fee managed service like AI Business Sites, one price covers the whole operation:

• A custom-built website with hosting and maintenance included
• 14+ SEO content pieces published every month
• A built-in CRM with lead capture and instant follow-up
• Online selling via your own Stripe account — money flows straight to you
• Full management by a team that keeps the system improving

The Stripe detail matters more than it looks. Shopify charges a penalty of up to 2% on Basic when merchants use a third-party gateway instead of Shopify Payments — a $10,000/month store pays roughly $589 instead of $389 for that reason alone, per plan comparison data. A flat-fee model with your own Stripe account has no such penalty, because you own the payment relationship outright.

Ownership extends beyond payments. You keep the code, content, domain, and lead data — and there are no long-term contracts. It's month-to-month with 30 days' notice, which shifts the burden in the right direction: the provider has to keep earning the fee by doing the work, not by holding you to a term.

If you're weighing Shopify's real-world totals against a done-for-you alternative, the honest next step is a conversation, not a checkout page. Book a free strategy call to talk through your business, your selling needs, and whether a flat-fee model actually costs you less than what you're spending now. No obligation, no pitch — just the math.