E-commerce · Shopify costs
The plan fee is the smallest part for most stores. Card processing, apps and design usually cost more. Here is every line item, as of 2026.
Plans from $29 to $399 a month
Processing grows with your sales
Apps are the cost most underestimate
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As of 2026, a Shopify store costs $29 to $299 a month for the plan on yearly billing ($39 to $399 on monthly billing), plus card processing of 2.5% to 2.9% plus 30 cents per online order with Shopify Payments, plus apps, a domain, and a theme if you choose a paid one. Shopify’s own September 2026 cost guide estimates total monthly running costs of about $30 to $100 for a solo seller, $100 to $500 for a growing business and $500 to $2,500 or more for an established merchant.
Setup is a separate cost. A store built on a free or premium theme can launch for little beyond your time. A professionally designed store costs more, and Shopify’s guide puts custom-built development at $2,000 to $20,000 or more depending on complexity. Card processing is usually the biggest single line once you have steady sales.
From Shopify’s pricing page, as of 2026:
Hosting, security certificates and checkout are included in every plan. Yearly billing saves roughly a quarter on the plan fee if you are confident you will stay.
To estimate, multiply your expected yearly online sales by the percentage rate, then add 30 cents times your expected number of orders. Moving up a plan can pay for itself once your sales are high enough that the lower card rate saves more than the higher plan fee. For example, Grow’s yearly-billed fee is $50 a month more than Basic’s, and its rate is 0.2 points lower, so the break-even is about $25,000 a month in card sales.
Apps add features Shopify does not include: reviews, subscriptions, product options, loyalty, bundles, advanced shipping rules, wholesale pricing and more. Shopify’s help center explains that app charges can be recurring, usage-based or one-time, follow a different billing cycle from your plan, and that refunds are handled by the app developer.
Apps are the cost owners most often underestimate, because each one seems small. Before installing, check whether Shopify already includes the feature, for example Shopify Flow for automation or Shopify Messaging for email. Shopify’s guide says Messaging includes 10,000 free email sends a month on Basic through Plus, then $1 per 1,000 up to 300,000 sends. Review your apps every quarter and remove the ones you no longer use, since uninstalled features often leave code behind that slows the store.
Book a free 30-minute call. We look at your products and plans with you and tell you what we would build first and what to leave for later. No obligation. Pick a time.
Shopify maintains the platform, but a store still needs regular work:
Decide early whether this is done by someone on your team, a freelancer or an agency on a monthly plan. Leaving it to whoever has time is how stores drift out of date.
An illustration only, using Shopify’s published rates. A small store on Basic with yearly billing, selling $100,000 a year online in 2,000 orders through Shopify Payments, pays $348 a year for the plan, about $2,900 in percentage card fees plus $600 in per-order fees, and about $20 for a domain. That is roughly $3,870 a year before apps, theme, design, email marketing and staff time. Add your expected apps and any design work to get your real total.
JLB USA has built websites for growing businesses for more than 15 years, with 500+ clients and 1,000+ projects. We design and build Shopify and Shopify Plus stores, connect them to accounting and CRM, and set up email marketing on Klaviyo, Mailchimp or HubSpot. You can edit your own store and keep it if you leave. See our web design services, our Klaviyo, Mailchimp and HubSpot comparison, and our guide to website maintenance costs.
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As of 2026, Basic is $39, Grow $105 and Advanced $399 a month on monthly billing, or $29, $79 and $299 billed yearly. Card processing, apps and paid themes are extra.
Shopify offers a trial, and free themes exist, but running a store needs a paid plan. You also pay processing fees on every sale.
For most stores with steady sales, card processing. For small stores, paid apps often cost more than the plan itself.
Many themes are free. Shopify’s own guide puts prebuilt themes at $0 to $500, and paid themes in its theme store are one-time purchases.
Only if you use a payment provider other than Shopify Payments: 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow and 0.6% on Advanced, plus that provider’s fees.
