How Much Does It Cost to Sell on Shopify? An In-Depth Look

If you’ve ever thought about opening an online store, chances are you’ve considered Shopify as your ecommerce service provider. After all, Shopify is the most popular ecommerce software platform in the US, and millions of businesses use it to sell online. It’s also among the top choices for Printful users who use the Printful + Shopify integration to kickstart their online sales of print-on-demand products.

Shopify’s advantages include a simple and intuitive setup, integrations with different apps through the Shopify App Store, customization options, scalability, and more. But the service isn’t free, and there are different Shopify fees you have to take into account when signing up for this ecommerce platform.

So, how much does it cost to sell on Shopify? In this article, we’ll break down the costs associated with opening and maintaining a Shopify store. Read on to find out!

How much does it cost to sell on Shopify?

Let’s go through the Shopify costs that may apply to your online business—from monthly recurring fees to one-off expenses charged in specific cases.

1. Monthly fees

To start building your Shopify online store, subscribe to one of Shopify’s plans. When you sign up for Shopify, you can enjoy a three-day free trial. Then, for all plans except Shopify Plus, the first month costs only $1, giving you plenty of time to test out the features.

Source: Shopify

There are five Shopify pricing plan options you can choose from.

Basic

This is the most popular choice for small businesses just starting out. The Shopify Basic plan offers all of the features you’ll need to set up a customized ecommerce store, including Shopify’s own payment processor, Shopify Payments, storefront themes, an intuitive website builder, shipping discounts, unlimited products, third-party app integrations, Shopify Tax services, and more.

Monthly fee: $39 ($29/month if you’re charged yearly)

Shopify

This Shopify plan is suitable for already established (but still small) businesses. Compared to the Basic plan, this option offers higher shipping discount rates if you pack and send orders yourself, additional staff accounts to manage your online store, and more.

Monthly fee: $105 ($79/month if you’re charged yearly)

Advanced

The Advanced Shopify plan is for larger online businesses that can benefit from custom reports and analytics, enhanced live chat support, a higher checkout capacity for periods of high sales activity, and more.

Monthly fee: $399 ($299/month if you’re charged yearly)

Plus

The Shopify Plus plan is for major enterprises that require advanced features like priority support and sell not only to retail customers but also to other businesses (B2B) or wholesale. Unlike the other Shopify subscription plans, which you can end anytime, Shopify Plus requires a longer commitment of at least a year. To subscribe to this plan, you need to contact Shopify first.

Monthly fee: starting at $2,300

While Shopify’s paid plans are tailored to different business needs, it’s worth noting that they also offer another option that can be a smart starting point for new sellers.

Starter

If you’re looking for a simplified solution to set up a Shopify store in just a few minutes, consider the Shopify Starter plan. It lets you launch a simple online store, and it’s convenient if you want to sell your products on social platforms like Instagram or messaging apps like WhatsApp. Simply share a link to your item, and your buyer can purchase it immediately.

Source: Shopify

However, this plan comes with bare-bones features compared to the Basic Shopify plan. Shopify Starter might not be enough if you want to create a more unique shopping experience through a customized ecommerce website.

Monthly fee: $5

2. Transaction fees

If you use Shopify Payments, the Shopify checkout solution available for all subscription plans, you don’t have to pay transaction fees. Only credit card fees apply, which we’ll look at in the next section.

Shopify transaction fees only apply if you use a third-party payment provider. Each Shopify plan has different rates for transaction fees:

• 2% for the Basic plan

• 1% for the Shopify plan

• 0.6% for the Advanced plan

• 0.2% for the Shopify Plus plan

The Shopify Starter plan doesn’t let you set up third-party payment providers, which means you can only use Shopify Payments and don’t have to pay the transaction fees.

3. Credit card fees

Shopify Payments enables your store to accept all major card brands right as you launch, and Shopify charges you credit card fees on each purchase for this service. There are different fees for standard and premium cards (commercial, corporate, business, and all American Express cards).

The payment processing fees depend on the Shopify plan you use for your store:

• Basic: 2.9% + $0.30 for standard cards, 3.5% + $0.30 for premium cards

• Shopify: 2.7% + $0.30 for standard cards, 3.3% + $0.30 for premium cards

• Advanced: 2.5% + $0.30 for standard cards, 3.1% + $0.30 for premium cards

• Plus: the most competitive rates

• Starter: 5%

There’s an additional 1% charge for international credit cards and different credit card fees for in-person purchases.

If you don’t use Shopify Payments, the third-party payment provider you choose will charge its own credit card fees, and the Shopify fees for online transactions don’t apply in this case.

4. Shopify apps

A major benefit that helps Shopify stay on top in the ecommerce platform competition is its extensive App Store. It’s a Shopify marketplace that offers all the additional tools to help you customize your store, get more detailed analytics, connect with new sales channels, and much more.

Shopify offers several dropshipping and other apps that will help you source trending products. For example, if you decide to sell custom t-shirts or other printed products, you can add the Printful app to your store and start designing.

Source: Printful on the Shopify App Store

The fees and expenses here can vary depending on the apps you choose. While some are entirely free, others may offer limited functionality requiring payment to access premium features. Some apps have free trials but will cost money long-term, whereas others require payment upfront.

When calculating how much a Shopify store might cost you, don’t forget to consider the apps you know you’ll want to use.

5. Shopify themes

Another area where you might incur costs is choosing a theme for your ecommerce store—in other words, the look of your storefront. Shopify has a Theme Store with a few free themes you can use and customize with its website builder. If you’re more tech-savvy, you can even build your own theme.

While only a few free templates are available, the Shopify theme store offers over 200 paid themes for those who want something more unique for their store.

The prices for ready-made themes range from $100 to $500, or you can hire someone to build a custom theme just for your store.

6. Custom domain

When you sign up for Shopify, you automatically get a free store domain name that ends with myshopify.com (cuteanimalposters.myshopify.com, for example). You can use this as your store’s website, but many store owners prefer using their own domains (cuteanimalposters.com, for example).

To use a custom domain, you need to buy it and pay a yearly fee to keep the rights. Depending on your chosen domain, the cost is usually around $10 to $20 per year (premium or more niche domain extensions can cost more).

When you open a Shopify store, you can either use a custom domain you’ve purchased from a third-party registrar or buy a domain through Shopify. In this case, the benefit is one less account to deal with—you can manage all domain settings from your Shopify dashboard.

7. Additional fees

There are some other potential fees you may incur, depending on how you use Shopify:

• Shipping label fees—if you send out orders yourself, you can use Shopify’s shipping discounts. If you use a dropshipping supplier like Printful, your fulfillment partner handles shipping, so you’ll have to pay them, not Shopify.

• Email marketing fees—Shopify offers marketing tools to help you promote your products, including an email service. You get 10,000 free emails per month, but if you exceed this limit, you’ll be charged extra ($1 per 1,000 additional emails up to 300,000 emails, $0.65 per 1,000 emails up to 750,000 emails, etc.).

• Currency conversion fee—if you accept a payment in a currency different from your payout currency, Shopify charges a currency conversion fee (1.5% in the US, 2% in all other countries and regions with Shopify Payments).

• Shopify Retail—although Shopify is primarily used as an ecommerce business tool, it also offers point-of-sale solutions for in-person purchases. Shopify Retail costs $89/month, or $79/month if you’re billed annually.

• Shopify Partners services—if you need help with store setup, marketing, or anything else, Shopify offers a network of partners you can hire. The price range differs widely, depending on the service you need.

• Shopify Marketplace Connect fees—Shopify offers a tool to help you list products on marketplaces like Amazon, eBay, and Etsy. If you use this solution, the first 50 orders synced through Shopify don’t incur any fees, but anything above that gets a 1% transaction fee, with a total maximum charge of $99/month.

• Shopify Tax—Shopify’s tool to help you calculate the correct sales tax at the checkout is free for the first $100,000 in US sales per year. After $100,000, you’ll have to pay a 0.35% transaction fee.

Not all of these expenses will apply to you. You can stay within the free limits of these Shopify services or avoid such charges altogether by using alternative solutions (a different email marketing tool, for example). 

Which plan is best for you?

With all the Shopify plans and associated costs outlined, here’s the ultimate question: which plan should you choose for your store?

If you have a large social media following and plan to make sales through these channels, test the Starter plan first. On the other hand, the Shopify Basic plan is an excellent choice for a customized and brand-focused store. If you realize you need the features offered in the Shopify plan, you can upgrade anytime.

Since Shopify offers a short free trial and the first month costs only $1 for all plans except Plus, the best idea is to try them out and see which version fits your store’s needs. Although one month might not be enough time to test absolutely everything, it’s plenty of time to give you a general understanding of what works and what doesn’t in your chosen plan.

The Printful + Shopify integration works with all Shopify plans.

Feel free to experiment to determine what works best for your unique brand.

It’s time to crunch the numbers

As you can see, there are many costs to consider when choosing Shopify as your ecommerce platform, and depending on your needs, they can start to add up.

However, there’s a reason why Shopify is among the top choices for store owners—you get a versatile and easy-to-use service in return for these expenses. Shopify is suitable for beginners and experienced store owners, offering plenty of tools and services to help any store thrive.

So take some time, test what Shopify has to offer, and estimate how much you’d have to invest monthly to maintain your store. If it’s a sum you can handle, go for it, but if it sounds too much, explore other options.