Shopify Pricing Plans: Basic Shopify vs Shopify vs Advanced Shopify
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Shopify has provided a service to entrepreneurs who don't know how to start an eCommerce store. You can get a store up and running very quickly but the question is, where do you start?
The best thing about Shopify is they provide you with a 14-day trial before you even have to spend any money!
So you can try it for free to see if it's right for you.
With different Shopify pricing plans, the ultimate question you have to ask yourself is…
What plan should you choose?
In this pricing review, we will take a look at the different packages and services you can get for each plan. We will dive deep and see what each pricing structure can offer for your online store.
Let's get started and review the three plans available on Shopify. These are Basic Shopify, Shopify, and Advanced Shopify.
Shopify Pricing: What It Cost To Start A Store
The Shopify Lite Plan is $9 a month. Shopify Basic Plan costs $29 P/m (+ 2.9% + 30¢ per transaction). The Shopify plan is $79 P/m (+2.6% + 30¢ per transaction). The Advanced Shopify Plan is $299 P/m (+2.4% + 30¢ per transaction). Shopify Plus Plan starts at $2000 monthly.
Basic Shopify ($29 Per Month)
This plan comes with a 2.9% + 30¢ transaction fee per credit card transaction.
Anyone who wants to use Shopify for the first time should start on this plan. You can always upgrade later.
It's the cheapest package out of all the Shopify pricing plans, and it is packed with all the features you need to get a store started.
This is what you get if you jump on this basic plan.
Online Store
An online store is an actual website that your customers visit. It's comprised of various pages that display your products, your terms and conditions, refund policies, and more.
With the basic shopify package, you can use any of the free themes. (I recommend The Brooklyn Theme most popular free theme)
The way the themes work is so simple. All you need to do is to choose a free one and then you can modify the content.
Think of it as a template where you just need to fill in the information, the photos, and Shopify will take care of the rest.
You can also modify the color schemes so the borders and website background will match your brand’s colors.
The online store is also equipped with a blog. There is a option on the admin page where you can upload your entries, categorize them and create sections that will turn into drop-downs. This makes it easier for your customers to navigate your blog.
The online store also allows you to create product categories called collections, where you can upload your items for sale in different groupings.
For example, all pants will belong to the Pants collection and all t-shirts will belong to the t-short collection. Different themes have different styles. Most themes are free regardless of the Shopify fees you pay.
Unlimited Products
For this basic plan, you can post unlimited products on your store. What does this mean?
Some e-commerce platforms limit how many products you can display in your store.
The reason they do this is that every word and picture you upload on your store, your website is eating up the server bandwidth.
It can slow down the web host’s services. The thing is, they will charge you more money if you want to put up a bigger store.
Shopify doesn't do this. With the Basic plan, you can upload as many products as you want. This feature is great for entrepreneurs who have large inventories.
This is great for stores that have a lot of inventory like clothing stores. So basically, Shopify won't charge you extra no matter how many products you upload.
Other e-commerce platforms will typically limit you to 50 products. They will then force you to move up to a higher tier or plan if you want to sell more than that.
The problem with that kind of set-up is that you haven’t even sold anything and they might charge you more.
Shopify Staff Accounts
A staff account is the account of someone who will help you manage your website (if you want to use this feature)
For the Basic Shopify pricing plan, you can add two staff accounts including your account, which is the owner account.
Why do you need this? Some entrepreneurs would rather focus on their marketing, and outsource the store management to other people.
With a staff account, you can add a trusted employee to manage your store. The employee can do almost everything that you can do, with the exception of changing passwords, changing your financial or payment methods, and other critical aspects of your business.
This is how you can create a staff account in Shopify.
Your staff can upload products, change the product information and make adjustments to the look and feel of your website.
Your staff can also publish blog posts, or update pages that contain your shipping rates, terms and conditions, and refund policies. Staff members can also process customer orders.
It's important to hire an assistant to fill orders if you run a dropshipping store because it will give you time to focus on other things. The best part about staff accounts is that your team can work remotely.
You can hire someone from the other side of the world and they can access your store’s admin page from anywhere.
24/7 Support
One thing you will definitely need once you put up an online store is support from a Shopify expert. Even if you are new to the business, you will definitely have a lot of questions about your store
Maybe you will need advice on setting up shipping rates, changing theme colors, and adding a domain name.
On the Basic Shopify Plan, all you have to do is to click on the “Contact Us” button on Shopify’s website and you will be given an option to self-diagnose your problem.
If you can't solve it on your own, you can log in to your account and click on the “Help” link where you will also find a section to chat with an agent.
Shopify doesn't have a phone support system.
You can only expect to be serviced via email or via chat. Generally speaking, the agents that support you are very helpful and are knowledgeable about any type of concern you throw at them.
Do not mistake a Shopify agent with an app agent. When you use an app for your Shopify store, that is a different company altogether.
A Shopify support agent can only help you with anything related to Shopify itself. I would recommend checking out Shopify University.
It's the company’s knowledge base where you can find the solution to almost every problem you could possibly encounter in building and operating a store.
Shopify Sales Channels
A sales channel is another website where you can display your products. An example of this is Facebook.
So, what makes this feature interesting?
If you want to sell on social media, you have to create an account for that social media then upload all the products and descriptions on that social media platform.
With the basic Shopify plans you get this for free. What it means is that you simply have to integrate your Facebook account and Shopify will automatically upload all of your products!
Apart from the Facebook page, your consumers can also browse your products through the Messenger app.
Basically, your online sales channel is your website. However, you can add several more. Take note that the availability of these channels depends on your country.
Here are all the sales channels you can use:
Facebook: Integrate a Facebook page you created on Facebook and Shopify will load all your collections in there.
Amazon: If you have an Amazon Seller Account, Shopify will display all your online store products on Amazon.
Pinterest: You can pin your Shopify products in Pinterest from Shopify. All your products in your online store will display in your Pinterest account, and you can sell from there.
Messenger: Shopify will enable a menu in your Facebook Messenger where customers can browse on a carousel. The details of the products will also be there, and they can make a purchase from Messenger.
Instagram: If you are active on Instagram, and if you are an influencer selling goods, you can integrate your Shopify store and tag your product pictures on Instagram.
If this is not enough for you, you can take advantage of other apps found in Shopify specific to social media channels.
Manual Order Creation
There are times when you can make a sale after convincing a person in a a face to face conversation and then take the cash in person. Sometimes, a person may also call you and place an order over the phone.
In this case, this customer never went to your Shopify store and it is very likely that he does not want to go through the hassle of browsing your online store.
If you want to get into dropshipping, how will you fulfill this order considering that you do not have the inventory?
The answer is manual order creation.
It is a process where you manually input the order in your Shopify admin page, then the order will be processed just as usual. To do this, you must use Shopify Mobile. It's an app that lets you accept cash and credit card payments on your phone.
If you don't want to use the app, you can use the default function called Drat Order. The assumption in this order is that it is not yet paid.
The process involves creating an invoice that your customer will receive via email. After they process the payment, your online store will process the order as usual.
Basic Shopify Plan Discount Codes
As an entrepreneur, you want to give your customers the best promotions and give them bang for their buck. The problem with many e-commerce stores is that this process is too difficult to implement.
Shopify made it easy for you to give discounts to your customers through its discount codes application. In the backend, you can create discount coupon codes, and you can distribute this code to everyone.
Once they make a purchase, all they have to do is type the code and your Shopify store will automatically apply the discount upon checkout.
When creating a discount code, you can choose to apply a percentage rate or a flat dollar/currency rate.
You can also control when the coupon expires, so if you want your coupon to stop working a week from now, you can do it from this feature.
One challenge with the discount code in Shopify is that it can't be stacked. What this means is that customers cannot use multiple codes at the same time.
If you created a percentage discount and another one for a shipping discount, your customer must only choose one to apply.
A great thing to mention about the discount feature is that you can create one that only applies to a specific product or collection.
If you created a discount for pants and another for shoes and your customers bought both, they can only use one upon check out.
Abandoned Cart Recovery
There are times when customers will place orders in their shopping carts, only to change their minds and abandon the order altogether. If this happens, you just lost a sale.
There is a process called abandoned card recovery. This works if the customer already filled up the checkout page with their contact information with the email address.
With the Basic Shopify plan, you can take advantage of this because you can send personalized emails to the customers who abandoned their shopping cart.
Once you send this email, you must make sure that you craft it in such a way that you can convince your customer to complete the purchase.
You can create a coupon specifically for that customer, or you can ask the consumer if there is anything in particular that made him abandon his cart.
Shopify also allows you to create automatic emails for all customers who abandoned their carts.
Basically, you will just toggle some settings, but the text you want to send, and Shopify will send it to any customer who added products to his cart.
This feature only works in the online store.
The Shopify Plan ($79 Per Month)
This plan comes with a 2.6% + 30¢ transaction fee per credit card transaction.
This one is a mid-tier plan that has different Shopify pricing. Since it is more expensive, all the things you can get in Basic Shopify are available with this pricing structure.
Right away you can get more staff accounts with this plan, you can get five! This plan is great for an active online store, more so for entrepreneurs who are already receiving a lot of orders.
Here are the other features you can get in the Shopify Plan that are not available in the Basic Pan.
Shopify Gift Cards
If you do not know yet, there are physical cards that eBay sells. You can buy this from 7-11 or Walmart, and that card has a financial value.
You give that card to a person and that person will go to eBay to make a purchase using that card. With Shopify you can also do this but, there is no physical card.
What you can do as a merchant is selling gift cards with different values.
You can also create one and send it to your customer as a gift and that customer can use that to purchase from your store.
In the process, the customer may add some things in his cart that he will pay out of his pocket. It is essentially like a coupon code.
But with a gift card, it is possible for a customer to buy using the card and not spend anything at all. It all depends on the value you give away.
Remember the person, who has this gift card can only use it on your store.
Professional Shopify Reports
Reporting is an important aspect of every online business.
You want to know information such as, what products sell more, where your customers are from, how much is the average sales per day, what is the revenue per day.
The cost of Shopify in this tier takes this feature into account. You need data to be able to make informed decisions about your business.
Here are the things you can view in the reports.
Track sales specific to a particular product
See buying trends
Check sales records by month or by season
Create reports you can use to prepare taxes
See how many customers visited your website
Check customer demographics by country
Have a view if you have repeat customers
Compare sales from first-time customers against repeat customers
In this plan, you can't customize your reports, as this is only available for the Advanced Plan.
Advanced Shopify Plan ($299 Per Month)
This plan comes with a 2.4% + 30¢ transaction fee per credit card transaction.
This is the last plan, and it cost a lot more!
If you get this plan and pay the Shopify pricing fees, you will get everything from the Basic and Shopify Plan. You can add up to 15 staff accounts to this plan.
Here are the two other features included in this plan.
Advanced Report Builder
With this feature, you can create customized reports in the way you see fit. You can modify the custom reports, and you have the option to add or remove some columns that you don't need.
You can also ask your staff members to do this report for you. They can show you pie charts that will make it easy for you to assess your store’s health.
You can create several reports and you can name them accordingly so you can run them anytime after you save them.
Third Party Calculated Shipping Rates
In the Basic and Shopify plans, you need to create the shipping rates, including the locations manually. This is a tedious process if you are shipping in the whole world.
For example, you may have a different shipping rate to the US from the UK. You need to create several shipping rates in the backend of your Shopify store to reflect these values.
With this feature, you can show your customers the different shipping rates form different shippers like UPS, FedEx, or others.
Your customer will choose the shipping company, and the only thing you have to do is to print the shipping label from your home.
This is extremely helpful, provided that you are shipping your own products.
This is not a feature you need if you are selling drop shipping products from other manufacturers who will take care of the shipping.
With this feature, you can print the shipping label from your office or from your home.
If the customer chose FedEx, you can print the FedEx shipping label, put it on the package, and drop it in FedEx the following day.
The best part?
You can all do this from your Shopify admin. You no longer have to log in to a FedEx account. If you are from Canada, you can show the rates of shipping carriers and that of the Canada Post.
This feature is best used by people who are other from the US or Canada because the rates are taken from either the Canadian or US offices of these carriers.
Shopify Plus Plan
Some say that the cost of the Plus Plan is $2,000 per month. While this may be true, Shopify actually has varying prices for this plan.
You can only get a plan after you request it.
This plan is best used by enterprise accounts. Enterprise accounts are big businesses that run global online operations.
With this plan, the entrepreneur can assign unlimited staff accounts, and he will have all the benefits and features of all other plans.
Shopify Lite Plan ($9 Per Month)
The cost of the Lite Plan varies from country to country. This is only great for individuals that need to integrate an existing website into their social media account.
With this, you will use Shopify so your products, which are on a different website, can be shown on Facebook.
This plan does not allow you to create an online store. It only integrates your already existing store to your social media. You can only sell on Facebook through the Shopify integration.
Shopify Transaction Fees
Shopify charges a transaction fee, and the rates vary.
For Basic, the cost is 2%. It gets lesser at 1% in the Shopify plan and then finally, 0.5% in the Advanced plan.
What does this mean? If your customer purchased a $10 shirt, Shopify would take $0.2 out of that if you are in the Basic plan, and you will only receive $9.98.
This is a cost you pay because Shopify processed your transaction. You can also use other processors like PayPal or credit card processors, but all of them also charge fees.
So, there you have it. Choose the Shopify plan that best suits your business needs. Just remember, the costly plans are best used by entrepreneurs who are already up there making massive sales.
Final Shopify Pricing Wrap Up
When it comes to starting your own eCommerce store this you should be going with Shopify!
Start with the $29 plan because you can upgrade at any time.
I recommend Shopify to all my Dropshipping students!
These Shopify pricing plans are very affordable.
Frequently Asked Questions From Our Subscribers
Does Shopify have transaction fees?
Yes, Shopify has transaction fees if you use it to process your payments. The fees range between 0.5% and 2.0% per transaction.
How much does Shopify cost?
The cost varies according to the plan. The Lite Plan costs $9 per month. The most expensive is the enterprise account called Shopify Plus, which costs $2,033 per month.
Do I need a credit card to start a Shopify trial?
Yes, you do. Your credit card information will be taken upon your registration, and Shopify will charge you the subscription free that you selected right after your free trial.
Is Shopify cheaper than WooCommerce?
Yes, it is cheaper. WooCommerce requires that you pay for a myriad of services like hosting, domain, security, and so much more. Shopify charges only $29 per month and it is all-inclusive.
What is the best Shopify Plan?
The best Shopify pricing plan for a beginner is the BASIC PLAN version. For $29 a month, you get everything you need to make a store, sell, and run a business. Other plans are for bigger businesses that need more juice out of the system.
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