Get alerts
All products/E-commerce platforms/Shopify

Shopify pricing, price hikes and cheaper alternatives

Shopify (shopify.com) is a e-commerce platform. Tiered monthly plans with a yearly discount; a third-party payment gateway adds a 2% (Basic) to 0.2% (Plus) transaction fee instead of using Shopify Payments.. Free plan: No free store plan (the 3-day trial does not count); Agentic is $0 but sells only in AI channels..

What Shopify costs

  • Starter store: $39/mo (Basic $39/mo monthly on Shopify Payments, which charges no platform fee (the $29 yearly rate is not used). The $0 Agentic plan does not qualify because it sells only in AI channels and no custom-domain store is listed.)
  • Growing store: $105/mo (Grow $105/mo monthly, which includes up to 5 staff accounts and abandoned checkout recovery, on Shopify Payments with no platform fee. Basic has no extra staff accounts, so it cannot cover 5 staff.)

Plan compared: Basic. Prices are USD per month on monthly billing (annual-only plans divided by 12) and include the platform's own transaction or per-order fees at the stated sales volume, assuming its native payment option where that waives them. Card processing fees, domains, paid themes, third-party apps and, for self-hosted software, hosting are not included.

What Shopify does

Core: Card payment acceptance, Online store, Product catalog & variants, Built-in checkout, App & theme marketplace, No-code website builder, App & plugin marketplace.

Important: Business bank account, Users, roles & approvals (partly), Interest & treasury, Simple bookkeeping & tax (partly), Accounting software sync (partly), Digital download sales, Recurring billing, Shipping rates & labels, Sales tax & VAT, Multi-currency pricing, In-person POS payments, Marketplace & social selling, Shopper discovery network, Built-in marketing tools, B2B & wholesale, Headless commerce APIs, AI store assistant, Inventory tracking, Mobile admin app, Wallets & local methods, Available to sellers worldwide (partly), Fraud & dispute protection (partly), AI agent checkout, Managed site hosting, SEO controls (partly), Custom code & dev API, Team collaboration & roles (partly), Multilingual website, Email marketing broadcasts, Mobile management app.

Also has: Company cards (partly), Sub-accounts & pockets (partly), Extended deposit protection (partly), Invoices & online payment (partly), Credit cards & financing (partly), Banking API (partly), AI finance features (partly), Non-resident & multi-country onboarding (partly), Multiple legal entities (partly), Embed into existing site (partly), Merchant of record (partly), Software license keys (partly), Affiliate program (partly), Revenue analytics (partly), Crypto & stablecoin payments (partly), Pixel-level design control (partly), Blog & post publishing, Paid memberships & subscriptions (partly), Lead capture forms (partly), AI site generation, Animations & interactions (partly), Export & self-hosting (partly), Agency & client tools (partly), Photo galleries & proofing (partly).

Shopify price hikes

  • Shopify quietly cut what you get · Oct 2, 2026
    Shopify removed the 1% back on sales (capped at $15,000) from Plus, which it had added on Apr 21, 2026. The official pricing page now says Plus has no 1% back.
  • Shopify raised Basic from $29 to $39 a month · Apr 23, 2023
    Monthly list prices rose to Basic $39 (from $29), the mid-tier Shopify plan (now Grow) $105 (from $79) and Advanced $399 (from $299).

Cheaper alternatives to Shopify

At a 50-product store doing $5k a month, Shopify costs $39/mo. 1 e-commerce platform costs less:

  • WooCommerce: free (Free WooCommerce core, self-hosted, with no paid extension needed), covers 69% of Shopify; missing or partial: Online store (partly), Recurring billing (partly), Shipping rates & labels (partly), Sales tax & VAT (partly), Multi-currency pricing (partly)

Shopify alternatives: 2 e-commerce platforms compared, at every size.

Other kinds of products that cover part of Shopify

  • WordPress.com (Website builders): covers 68% of Shopify; missing or partial: Recurring billing (partly), Shipping rates & labels (partly), Sales tax & VAT (partly), Multi-currency pricing (partly), In-person POS payments (partly)
  • Wix (Website builders): covers 60% of Shopify; missing or partial: App & theme marketplace (partly), Digital download sales (partly), Recurring billing (partly), Shipping rates & labels (partly), Sales tax & VAT (partly)
  • Square (Payments & merchant of record): covers 52% of Shopify; missing or partial: Product catalog & variants (partly), Built-in checkout (partly), App & theme marketplace (partly), Digital download sales, Recurring billing (partly)
  • Squarespace (Website builders): covers 48% of Shopify; missing or partial: Product catalog & variants (partly), Built-in checkout (partly), App & theme marketplace (partly), Digital download sales (partly), Recurring billing (partly)
  • Webflow (Website builders): covers 44% of Shopify; missing or partial: Built-in checkout (partly), App & theme marketplace (partly), Digital download sales (partly), Recurring billing, Shipping rates & labels (partly)

Every change we logged

  • Oct 2, 2026 · Limits cut: Shopify removed the 1% back on sales (capped at $15,000) from Plus, which it had added on Apr 21, 2026. The official pricing page now says Plus has no 1% back.
  • Apr 23, 2023 · Price increase: Monthly list prices rose to Basic $39 (from $29), the mid-tier Shopify plan (now Grow) $105 (from $79) and Advanced $399 (from $299). New accounts got the new prices from the late-January 2023 announcement, and existing merchants from April 23, 2023.

Sources

Pricing page: shopify.com/pricing. Prices last checked Oct 16, 2026. Plan prices and yardstick points come from the official pricing page checked 2026-10-17, with Shopify Payments and no platform fee assumed. Hike dates come from ValueAddedResource and ecommerce-platforms.com, which agree on April 23, 2023 for existing merchants; the one-day annual Grow test on Oct 15-16, 2026 was reverted and is not recorded as a hike.