E-commerce · Shopify
Usually yes, for physical products. On a $15,000-a-month store the card fees are several times the plan price, and the apps are the cost that creeps.
Card fees cost more than the plan
Grow pays off near $25,000 a month
Audit your apps every quarter
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For most small businesses that sell physical products, Shopify is worth it. It handles the parts of e-commerce that are dull and easy to get wrong (checkout, payments, hosting, security updates, tax settings) well enough that you can spend your time on products and marketing instead. The plan price is rarely the problem. The two costs to watch are card processing, which you’d pay on any platform, and apps, which are the bill that creeps up while nobody is looking.
It isn’t the right fit for everyone, and I’ll get to the exceptions. First, the real numbers.
Shopify’s pricing page, as of October 2026, lists three main plans. Basic is $39 a month paid monthly or $29 paid yearly; Grow is $105 or $79; Advanced is $399 or $299. Standard online card rates through Shopify Payments are 2.9% + 30¢ on Basic, 2.7% + 30¢ on Grow and 2.5% + 30¢ on Advanced (premium cards, the rewards kind, cost a little more). Shopify Plus starts at $2,300 a month, which is a different conversation.
Worked example. Take a small store selling $15,000 a month online, with an average order of $60, so 250 orders. It pays yearly and runs six apps (reviews, email, upsells, subscriptions, shipping labels, a size chart) costing $150 a month between them. That app figure is an assumption for the sake of the arithmetic, and a modest one.
Two things jump out. First, the card fees are three or four times the plan price. You’d pay something similar on WooCommerce or BigCommerce, because Visa and Mastercard don’t care which platform you use, so it isn’t really a Shopify cost. Second, Basic is cheaper here. Grow costs $50 a month more (on yearly billing) and saves 0.2% on card fees, so it only pays for itself on fees once you sell about $25,000 a month online. Below that, upgrade for the features, not the rates.
One-off costs sit outside these monthly figures: a premium theme from Shopify’s theme store if you want one, design and setup work, and the slow job of getting products, descriptions and photos in properly. Those matter a lot at launch and then fade. The monthly costs are the ones that stay with you, which is why I’d judge the platform on them. Shipping and returns are a separate subject again, and they’re the same whichever platform you choose.
And the apps: $150 a month is $1,800 a year, more than the plan. In my experience that is where small stores overspend, one free trial at a time.
Shopify’s app store is a big part of why it works so well: almost anything you want has an app. The catch is that every app is a small subscription, many start with a free trial that quietly becomes paid, and some charge by order volume, so the bill grows with your success. Shopify’s own help pages note two more snags. Uninstalling a paid app stops future charges but you may still pay for the current billing cycle, and some apps leave code in your theme that isn’t removed when you uninstall them (in my experience, leftover code like that can slow a store down).
So here is the routine I’d suggest, once a quarter:
If you’d like a second opinion on your store, or on whether Shopify is right for what you sell, book a free 30-minute call. We’ll look at what you have and tell you what we’d change first, no obligation.
To be fair to the alternatives, there are cases where I’d point someone elsewhere.
The first is a site that is mainly content with a few things for sale. If you publish a lot and sell a little, WordPress with WooCommerce often fits better, because the content tools are stronger and you control everything. Our comparison of Shopify and WooCommerce goes through this.
The second is complicated B2B selling. Customer-specific price lists, quotes and large catalogs with lots of options can push you toward Shopify Plus or BigCommerce, and the cost changes accordingly. See Shopify vs Shopify Plus.
Then there are businesses that can’t use Shopify Payments at all, because some product categories and some countries aren’t supported. You’d pay the extra transaction fee on top of another provider’s rates, which changes the sums enough to compare platforms properly.
And if you sell only a few items a month, a marketplace may be cheaper until volume justifies a store of your own. We wrote about your own store versus a marketplace.
Be that as it may, for the typical small product business, Shopify is the platform I’d expect to recommend more often than not. We build on Shopify, Shopify Plus, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, Magento, Ecwid and OpenCart, so I have no reason to push one. For a fuller picture of build and running costs, see what a Shopify store costs, or our e-commerce web design page.
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The plan itself is $39, $105 or $399 a month on Basic, Grow or Advanced if you pay monthly, or $29, $79 or $299 if you pay yearly, as listed on Shopify’s pricing page in October 2026. On top come card processing fees, which for most stores are the biggest cost, and apps, which are the cost that grows quietly.
Not if you use Shopify Payments. If you use a third-party payment provider instead, Shopify adds a fee of 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow and 0.6% on Advanced, on top of what that provider charges.
If you sell a handful of products and want a proper store with your own domain, Basic is usually fine. If you’re selling only a few items a month, a marketplace or the cheapest Shopify option may make more sense until volume picks up.
Yes. You can export products, customers and orders. The theme and most apps don’t come with you, so a move means rebuilding the front end, and redirects so your old URLs keep their rankings.
