Quick answer: As of 2026, Shopify costs $5/month (Starter), $39/month (Basic), $105/month (Grow), or $399/month (Advanced), with Plus starting around $2,300–2,500/month. But the subscription is the small number — card processing (2.4–2.9% + 30¢) becomes your biggest cost once you're selling. Most new stores should start on Basic with the free trial, which rolls into $1/month for your first 3 months.
Most Shopify pricing pages — including Shopify's own — answer the wrong question. They tell you what the subscription costs. What you actually need to know is what the store costs: plan fee, plus card processing at your revenue level, plus the apps and theme you'll realistically run.
That number changes which plan is right for you, and it changes at predictable revenue thresholds. This guide gives you the full 2026 plan table, then the worked math at $0, $5,000, and $50,000 in monthly revenue, so you can pick a plan on arithmetic instead of vibes.
What are Shopify's plans and prices in 2026?
Here is every Shopify plan as of 2026, with the numbers that actually drive your monthly bill — the subscription, the Shopify Payments online card rate, and the penalty for using an outside payment gateway.
| Plan | Monthly price | Online card rate (Shopify Payments, US) | Extra fee w/ third-party gateway | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | $5 | 5% | 5% | Selling via social links/DMs, no full store |
| Basic | $39 | 2.9% + 30¢ | 2% | New and early-stage stores |
| Grow | $105 | 2.7% + 30¢ | 1% | Stores past ~$33K/month in sales |
| Advanced | $399 | 2.5% + 30¢ | 0.6% | Stores past ~$147K/month in sales |
| Plus | from ~$2,300–2,500 | Negotiated | Negotiated | ~$1M–2M+/year brands |
A few things the table hides:
- In-person rates are lower — 2.4–2.7% depending on plan — so retail-heavy sellers pay less per dollar than the online rates suggest.
- The third-party gateway column is the trap. Use Stripe or PayPal as your primary processor instead of Shopify Payments and you pay that surcharge on top of the gateway's own fees. With Shopify Payments the surcharge is $0, which is why almost every US merchant uses it. We break down exactly how these fees stack in our guide to Shopify transaction and credit card fees.
- Starter is not a store. It's a $5/month checkout you share through links, with the highest card rate of any plan. It's genuinely useful for a narrow group — our Shopify Starter review covers who — but if you searched "Shopify pricing" because you want an online store, your real starting line is Basic.
- Every plan includes Shopify's checkout with Shop Pay, the accelerated checkout that fills in saved payment details for buyers who've used it anywhere on Shopify — which Shopify publishes as a meaningful conversion lift versus guest checkout.
The revenue thresholds in the "best for" column aren't marketing copy — they fall straight out of the fee math, which is the next section.
What does a Shopify store actually cost per month?
Your real monthly cost is four numbers, not one:
Real monthly cost = plan fee + card processing + app spend + (theme and domain, amortized)
- Plan fee: the table above.
- Card processing: your plan's rate times revenue, plus 30¢ per order. At any meaningful sales volume this is the biggest line item — a store doing $20K/month on Basic pays the plan $39 and the processor roughly $700.
- Apps: Shopify's app store has 8,000+ apps, and most stores run a handful. Realistic budgets in our experience: $0–50/month for a lean new store (many essentials have free tiers), roughly $50–150/month for a growing store, and $100–400/month for an established one running reviews, email, subscriptions, and support tooling.
- Theme and domain: free themes are genuinely usable; paid themes are a one-time ~$200–400. A domain runs about $15/year. Amortized, call this $0–10/month.
Two honest notes. First, this formula covers Shopify's costs — not shipping supplies, inventory, or ads, which for most stores dwarf all of it (our true first-year cost breakdown covers the whole budget). Second, app spend is where budgets quietly bloat; the fix is auditing subscriptions before adding new ones, which we cover in hidden Shopify costs and how to avoid them.
Real monthly cost at $0, $5K, and $50K in revenue
Here's the formula applied. Assumptions: US online sales through Shopify Payments, a $50 average order value (so $5K/month ≈ 100 orders, $50K/month ≈ 1,000 orders), and lean-but-realistic app spend for each stage. Rounded to the dollar.
| Monthly revenue | Starter ($5) | Basic ($39) | Grow ($105) | Advanced ($399) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $0 (pre-launch) | $5 | $39 + ~$1 domain | $106 | $400 |
| $5,000 (100 orders) | $5 + $250 fees + $0–25 apps = ~$255–280 | $39 + $175 fees + $0–50 apps = ~$214–264 | $105 + $165 fees + $0–50 apps = ~$270–320 | $399 + $155 fees = ~$554+ |
| $50,000 (1,000 orders) | — | $39 + $1,750 fees + $100–300 apps = ~$1,889–2,089 | $105 + $1,650 fees + $100–300 apps = ~$1,855–2,055 | $399 + $1,550 fees + $100–300 apps = ~$2,049–2,249 |
(Processing = rate × revenue + 30¢ × orders. E.g., Basic at $5K: 2.9% × $5,000 = $145, plus 100 × 30¢ = $30, totals $175.)
What the math actually says:
At $0, cheap is cheap. Before launch you're only paying the plan fee, which is exactly why the free trial plus $1/month promo matters — it takes this stage to almost nothing while you build.
At $5K/month, Basic beats everything — including Starter. Starter's 5% rate means $250/month in processing versus Basic's $175, more than erasing the $34/month subscription savings. And well before $5K, Starter's missing features (discount codes, abandoned checkout recovery, an actual storefront) cost you sales; our Starter review pegs the practical upgrade point around $500–700/month. Meanwhile Grow at $5K costs more than Basic: its 0.2-point rate discount saves you $10 while its subscription costs $66 extra.
The Basic-to-Grow crossover is about $33,000/month. Grow's rate advantage is 0.2 points, worth $2 per $1,000 of revenue. $66 of extra subscription ÷ 0.002 = $33,000/month in sales before the better rate pays for the pricier plan. Upgrade sooner only if you need Grow's features — not to "save on fees," because below that line you won't.
The Grow-to-Advanced crossover is about $147,000/month. Same logic: Advanced's extra $294/month ÷ its 0.2-point rate advantage = $147K/month. Notice in the $50K row that Grow is the cheapest total — Advanced at $50K/month is still overpaying by roughly $195/month unless you specifically need its reporting and shipping features.
The processing line dwarfing the plan line is the real lesson: a store doing $50K/month pays Shopify's processor about $1,650 and Shopify's plan $105. Optimizing your plan choice saves tens of dollars; the plan-fee decision is worth getting right, but it's not where your margin lives.
Which Shopify plan should you pick?
By business stage, as of 2026:
- Testing an idea, selling only through Instagram/TikTok DMs and link-in-bio: Starter at $5/month. Move to Basic by the time you're doing ~$500–700/month or the moment you want a real storefront.
- Launching a store (the default answer): Basic at $39/month. Full store, unlimited products, discount codes, abandoned checkout recovery. Stay here until roughly $33K/month in sales unless a specific Grow feature pulls you up early.
- Scaling past ~$33K/month: Grow at $105/month. The card rate now pays the difference, and you get more advanced reporting to steer growth.
- Scaling past ~$147K/month: Advanced at $399/month. Lowest standard rates, the strongest reporting tier, and the lowest third-party gateway surcharge if you need one.
- Roughly $1M–2M+/year, or complex B2B/international needs: Shopify Plus, from ~$2,300–2,500/month. The math here is less about card rates and more about checkout customization, B2B, and negotiated terms — we've mapped that decision in detail in Shopify Plus vs Advanced: when to upgrade.
If you're between tiers, default down. Upgrading takes two clicks the month the math flips; downgrading after overbuying just means you donated the difference.
How do the free trial and $1/month deal change first-year math?
Shopify's standard onboarding offer in 2026: a free trial to build your store, then $1/month for your first 3 months on Basic, Grow, or Advanced. That reshapes year one:
- Basic: $3 for three months + $39 × 9 = ~$354 for year one, versus $468 at list — about $114 saved.
- Grow: $3 + $105 × 9 = ~$948 versus $1,260 — over $300 saved.
- Advanced: $3 + $399 × 9 = ~$3,594 versus $4,788 — nearly $1,200 saved, though almost nobody should start on Advanced.
Practically, the promo means your first quarter costs $1/month while you're building, photographing products, and getting your first orders — the exact stretch when you have costs and no revenue. Processing fees still apply to sales during the promo, but you only pay those when you're actually making money.
Two related offers worth knowing: the promo terms occasionally shift, so check the current $1/3-months deal before you commit a card, and eligible entrepreneurs in Shopify's 1MBB program can get a 120-day extended trial instead. When you're ready, claim the trial and follow our step-by-step signup walkthrough — a couple of setup choices during signup (store name, plan selection timing) are mildly annoying to change later.
What hidden costs should you budget for?
The pricing table above is complete for what Shopify charges, but four adjacent costs surprise new merchants:
- Third-party gateway surcharges. Covered above, but worth repeating as a warning: running checkout through an outside processor on Basic costs an extra 2% of revenue — $100/month at $5K in sales — on top of that processor's own fees.
- App creep. Apps install in one click and bill forever. A store that adds "just one more" $15–30 app monthly is at $200+/month within a year.
- Paid themes and design work. A ~$200–400 one-time theme is fine; a $5,000 custom design before you've validated demand is not.
- Email/SMS tools that scale with list size. Fine at 500 subscribers, a real line item at 50,000.
None of these are reasons to avoid Shopify — every platform has equivalents, usually with worse base pricing. They're reasons to budget with the full hidden-costs checklist in hand rather than the sticker price.
When is Shopify the wrong choice?
Credibility check, because no platform is right for everyone:
- You sell one or two digital offers through launches or webinars. A funnel platform or creator tool may fit better than a storefront — you'd be paying for catalog infrastructure you don't use.
- You're a hobby seller under a few hundred dollars a month with no growth plans. Marketplace fees on Etsy or eBay may beat a $39 subscription plus processing, since you only pay when you sell.
- You need genuinely free. Shopify has no free tier beyond the trial. Open-source carts are free software — though hosting, security, and maintenance usually cost more than $39/month in practice.
For everyone actually building a product business — physical goods, print-on-demand, a growing digital catalog — the 2026 math above is hard to beat at the entry level, and the thresholds tell you exactly when each upgrade starts paying for itself. You can verify current list prices anytime on Shopify's pricing page.
Bottom line
Shopify pricing in 2026 is simpler than the plan grid makes it look. Start on Basic at $39/month (via the free trial, then $1/month for 3 months). Use Shopify Payments so the gateway surcharge is $0. Keep app spend lean. Upgrade to Grow around $33K/month in sales and Advanced around $147K/month — when the card-rate savings, not the feature list, cover the difference. And remember that processing, not the plan fee, is the number that scales with your success: the subscription is rent, but the rate is your margin.