How much does Shopify cost?

Short answer: the plan price is the smallest number in your bill and the only one most articles quote. Shopify serves subscription prices by country and changes them, so the dollar figure worth trusting is the one on Shopify's own pricing page today — not one copied into a guide. What does not change is the shape of the bill: subscription, card processing on every order, apps you sign up for yourself, and shipping. Processing overtakes the subscription early, usually in the first few thousand dollars of monthly sales. Shopify's published surcharge for using a payment gateway other than Shopify Payments is 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow, 0.6% on Advanced and 0.2% on Plus, checked August 13, 2026. This guide walks the whole stack and ends with a worksheet you can fill in ten minutes.

Search for this question and you get a confident dollar amount in the first paragraph of every result. Most of those numbers were true on the day someone wrote them.

Shopify plans, pricing and features change; always verify the current details on shopify.com before deciding.

That is not a disclaimer we bolt on. It is the actual reason this article is built the way it is: the structure of the bill is stable and worth learning, while the specific plan price is a live number you should read at the source.

The bill has four lines, and the plan is the small one

The Shopify plan comparison calculator compares Basic, Grow and Advanced at your order volume, including apps and an allocated theme budget.

Every Shopify bill is built from the same four lines. They behave very differently as the store grows, and only one of them is fixed.

The subscription. Predictable, billed monthly or annually, and the only line most people budget for.

Card processing. A percentage of everything you sell plus a fixed amount per order. It starts small and quietly becomes the largest Shopify line in the bill.

Apps and add-ons. Subscriptions you sign up for yourself, usually in the first two weeks, and usually forgotten by month three.

Shipping. Not a Shopify charge at all. It comes out of the same margin, and for most physical-product stores it is the biggest number on the page.

Notice what that ordering implies. Choosing between plans is a decision about a fixed line that shrinks in importance every month you grow. How customers pay you, and what it costs to ship them a box, are the decisions that keep mattering.

Why we won't quote you a plan price

Disclosure: this article contains affiliate links to Shopify. If you sign up through one, this site earns a commission at no extra cost to you.

Subscription prices are set per country, and the page Shopify served us on August 13, 2026 returned euro amounts rather than dollars. So this guide states no US dollar price for Basic, Grow or Advanced.

That is a deliberate editorial choice, not a gap. A price copied into an article goes stale silently: the page keeps its old number, the reader budgets from it, and nobody finds out until the first invoice. Shopify's pricing page is never stale.

What we can report, because Shopify publishes it as structure rather than as a local price, is everything below: how the plans differ, how processing is charged, which surcharges exist, and which costs live outside the pricing page entirely.

How to read the pricing page in two minutes

Open the page and look for four things in this order. It takes less time than reading a comparison post.

The plan price, and whether the number shown is monthly or annual billing. Annual billing charges the full year upfront and displays a lower effective monthly rate. Two prices, one plan, and the bigger number is the one you pay if you want flexibility.
The promotional offer. Shopify has been running a short free trial followed by a heavily discounted introductory period. It is a promotion, so read the current terms rather than an article's memory of them.
The processing rates. They sit lower down the page and are listed by payment method, not just "credit card". You want the standard rate, the American Express rate and the international-card rate.
The third-party transaction fee row. This is the surcharge described below, and it is the row that changes which payment provider makes sense.

If you only check two, check the processing rate and the surcharge row. Those two decide more of your bill than the plan you pick.

Card processing is the line that grows

Here is the arithmetic that explains why processing wins.

Your subscription is flat. Your processing is a percentage. Sell nothing and you pay only the subscription; sell steadily and the percentage compounds against every order while the subscription sits still.

For a store doing a few thousand dollars a month, processing is usually already the larger line. For a store doing five figures a month, the subscription is a rounding error and the rate is the only number that matters.

That has two practical consequences.

Compare plans on their processing rates, not their headline prices. Each step up the plan ladder buys a lower rate. Whether the step pays for itself is pure arithmetic: multiply your monthly card sales by the rate difference, and compare that with the price difference between the plans.

Watch the fixed per-order component. Every published Shopify rate has a percentage and a flat amount per transaction. On a $95 order the flat part is noise. On a $9 order it can be a larger cost than the percentage. Low average order values are expensive to process, and no plan upgrade fixes that.

Standard and premium cards are not the same rate

This is the US-specific detail that ruins otherwise careful budgets, and it is documented rather than folklore.

Shopify's Help Center splits US cards into two categories. Standard covers "domestic consumer cards issued by Visa, Mastercard, Discover, and Diners Club". Premium covers "domestic commercial, corporate, or business-tier cards, such as Visa Business, and all domestic American Express cards", checked August 13, 2026.

Premium cards carry a higher rate. So if you sell to businesses, or your customers habitually pay with a rewards card that happens to be a business-tier product, your blended rate is not the advertised standard rate.

The same page adds two things worth knowing. In-person payment rates typically cost less than online rates. And manually entered payments — you keying in a card number over the phone — incur higher fees than a card presented at checkout.

Shopify does not publish those US rates on that Help Center page. It directs you to the rates shown in your own Shopify admin, which is the only place they are authoritative for your account.

The gateway surcharge, and why it backfires

This is the most expensive mistake the pricing page permits, and it is usually made for a good reason: a merchant already has a processor, or has been quoted a lower rate elsewhere.

Use a payment gateway other than Shopify Payments and Shopify adds a surcharge on top of whatever that provider charges you. Shopify publishes the tiers as 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow, 0.6% on Advanced and 0.2% on Plus, checked August 13, 2026.

Read the size of the Basic tier against any normal card rate. A 2% surcharge is in the same range as an entire processing rate. Your outside processor has to beat Shopify Payments by more than the surcharge before the switch saves you a cent — and on Basic, almost nothing does.

The Help Center is specific about the exemptions: "you aren't charged third-party transaction fees for orders that are processed through Shopify Payments, Shop Pay, Shop Pay Installments, and Paypal Express". It also states there are "no transaction fees on manual payment methods such as cash, cash on delivery (COD), and bank transfers".

That last exemption is worth real money to wholesale sellers. An invoice paid by bank transfer carries no Shopify transaction fee at all.

Selling in person changes the math

A physical counter shifts two things.

In-person rates are lower. Shopify's documentation states that in-person payment rates typically cost less than online rates. If a meaningful share of your sales happen face to face, your blended cost per dollar is lower than an online-only model suggests.

Point of sale has its own subscription. Shopify POS Pro is priced per location, per month, on top of your plan. Two locations mean two subscriptions. For a stall that trades a few weekends a month, that is a real line — let POS Pro follow the revenue rather than the ambition.

The costs that never appear on the pricing page

Four lines surprise nearly everyone, in the order they usually arrive.

A theme, if you buy one. The theme store lists free themes alongside paid ones, and the browse page we read on August 13, 2026 showed prices without stating a currency — check the amount at checkout. A paid theme is a one-time purchase for a single store, not a subscription. The free themes are genuinely enough to launch.

Apps. Shopify publishes no typical monthly figure, and this guide will not invent one. What can be described is the mechanism: each app looks small on its own, and nothing in the admin totals them for you. Keep the list in a spreadsheet with monthly prices and review it every month.

A domain. Registrar pricing, not Shopify pricing, and billed annually. Small, but people forget it exists until the renewal notice.

Marketplace syncing. Shopify's pricing page includes a set number of synced marketplace orders per month and charges a percentage, capped monthly, beyond that. Irrelevant if you sell only through your own store, easy to miss if you don't.

There is a fifth, hidden inside the price your customer sees. Shopify's documentation describes a currency conversion fee built into the displayed price when you sell in a currency other than your store's. It is stated as either 1.5% or 2%, depending on where the store is based. It never appears as a line on your invoice, which does not make it free.

Shipping is usually the biggest line of all

For most physical-product stores, shipping costs more per month than everything above combined, and no article can price it for you.

Rates depend on weight, dimensions, origin ZIP code, destination and service level. The United States Postal Service (USPS), United Parcel Service (UPS) and FedEx Corporation (FedEx) each publish their own, and they change on their own schedules.

USPS, business shipping: https://www.usps.com/business/
UPS, shipping rates: https://www.ups.com/us/en/support/shipping-support/shipping-costs-rates.page
FedEx, rates and transit times: https://www.fedex.com/en-us/online/rating.html

Price your three most common shipments before you set a flat rate or a free-shipping threshold. A threshold below your true worst-case cost turns every large or distant order into a loss, and you won't see it until the quarter closes.

One plan detail belongs here: real-time carrier-calculated shipping rates are not available on the entry-level plan. If you need live carrier rates at checkout, that is a plan decision, not an app decision.

Sales tax is not a Shopify cost, but it hits the same margin

This section is general orientation, not tax advice. Your obligations are set by each state's revenue department, and a CPA is the right person to confirm them.

There are two questions here, and they get mixed up constantly.

The fees Shopify charges you are a business expense, and how it is treated in your books is a conversation with your accountant.

What you collect from customers is the part that changes your pricing. After South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc., states can require out-of-state sellers to collect sales tax once they cross that state's economic nexus threshold, and every state writes its own rules.

The cost consequence is indirect but real. Collecting tax means filing, and filing means either your time or a service you pay for. Both come out of the same margin as everything else in this article.

The ten-minute worksheet

Six lines. Fill them in with your own numbers and you will have a better estimate than any article can give you. Try our Shopify fee calculator to see what you keep per sale.

Line	Where the number comes from	Your figure
Plan	Shopify's pricing page today, for the billing period you'll actually choose
Processing	Your expected monthly card sales × the plan's rate, plus the fixed amount × your order count
Apps	Your own shortlist, priced monthly — zero is a valid answer at launch
Theme	One-time, or zero if you use a free theme
Domain	Registrar price, divided by 12 for a monthly view
Shipping	Your three most common shipments, priced on a carrier's site, × expected volume

Two rules make the worksheet honest.

Work from your real average order value, not a round number. The fixed per-order component makes small baskets disproportionately expensive, and rounding hides that.

Run it twice. Once at the volume you have, once at the volume you're planning for. The second run is what tells you when the plan upgrade pays for itself — and the answer is usually later than you'd guess.

What we'd actually do

Four decisions, in the order they come up.

Start on the entry plan, billed monthly. The annual discount is real money and a twelve-month commitment at the same time. Pay monthly for the first quarter, then commit if the store is still there.

Stay on Shopify Payments unless you have a specific reason not to. On the entry plan, the third-party surcharge alone is in the range of an entire card rate.

Keep the app stack near zero until something is genuinely broken. Apps are the only line here you add to yourself, one small decision at a time.

Upgrade on arithmetic. Multiply your monthly card sales by the rate difference between two plans. If that number is smaller than the price difference, the cheaper plan is still the right plan.

The setup steps those decisions sit on top of are in our guide to how to start a Shopify store.

This is an independent educational site. It is not operated by, affiliated with, or endorsed by Shopify Inc.

Frequently asked questions

Is there a free Shopify plan?

No. Shopify has been running a short free trial followed by a discounted introductory period, checked August 13, 2026, but that is a promotion rather than a free tier. Card processing applies to real orders throughout, and any apps you install bill at their normal price during the promotional months. Read the current terms on the pricing page, since promotions change.

How much does Shopify take per sale?

It depends on your plan and on how the customer pays. Every published rate has a percentage plus a fixed amount per transaction. Shopify's US documentation also splits standard cards from premium cards, which include all domestic American Express and business-tier cards. Manually entered payments cost more. Your exact rates appear in your Shopify admin, which is the authoritative place for your account.

Does upgrading my plan save money?

Only above a certain volume, and the test is arithmetic. Each plan step lowers your processing rate; multiply your monthly card sales by the rate difference and compare it with the difference in plan price. Below that crossover point, the cheaper plan wins even though the more expensive plan looks better in the comparison table.

Can I use my own payment processor instead of Shopify Payments?

You can, and Shopify charges you for it. The published surcharge is 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow, 0.6% on Advanced and 0.2% on Plus, checked August 13, 2026, applied on top of your processor's own fees. Orders through Shopify Payments, Shop Pay, Shop Pay Installments and Paypal Express are exempt, as are manual methods like cash and bank transfer.

What does Shopify cost per year?

Take the monthly plan price you see on the pricing page today, multiply by 12, and then treat that as the smallest part of the answer. Add processing on everything you expect to sell, your app subscriptions, a domain, a theme if you buy one, and shipping. For most stores, the annual total is dominated by processing and shipping rather than the subscription.

Is Shopify worth it for a small store?

That depends on volume, and the honest test is arithmetic rather than opinion. At very low sales, a fixed monthly plan is a large share of revenue and a marketplace listing may cost less overall. Above that, the subscription becomes a small line and the questions that matter are your processing rate and your shipping. Shopify publishes no break-even figure, and nobody should publish one on its behalf.

Sources

Shopify, "Pricing". https://www.shopify.com/pricing — retrieved August 13, 2026.
Shopify Help Center, "Pricing plans and billing overview". https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/intro-to-shopify/pricing-plans/pricing-overview — retrieved August 13, 2026.
Shopify Help Center, "Shopify Payments rates in the United States by card type". https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/payments/shopify-payments/transactions/credit-card-rates — retrieved August 13, 2026.
Shopify Help Center, "Shopify Payments" (fees). https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/payments/shopify-payments/fees — retrieved August 13, 2026.
Shopify Help Center, "Currency conversions and exchange rates". https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/international/pricing/exchange-rates — retrieved August 13, 2026.
Shopify Theme Store. https://themes.shopify.com/themes — retrieved August 13, 2026.
Shopify, "Shopify POS pricing". https://www.shopify.com/pos/pricing — retrieved August 13, 2026.
United States Postal Service, business shipping. https://www.usps.com/business/ — retrieved August 13, 2026.
United Parcel Service, shipping costs and rates. https://www.ups.com/us/en/support/shipping-support/shipping-costs-rates.page — retrieved August 13, 2026.
FedEx, rates and transit times. https://www.fedex.com/en-us/online/rating.html — retrieved August 13, 2026.