Amongst the Shopify pricing plans is a variety of features ranging from key functionality for small stores all the way to global enterprise busnesses. Here is our round up of what you get within each Shopify plan based on the specific pricing.
Shopify Starter
Shopify Starter
Shopify Starter is the lowest tier that Shopify offers. It is for small businesses who wish to add Shopify checkout capabilities to their social channels and blogs. Within this package you can use the embed code 'Buy Buttons" and link Facebook Messenger to begin selling online. The idea of this package is to allow brands to sell through other channels rather than having their online store.
It is important to note that the Shopify Starter plan does not give you a full-fledged ecommerce website but instead is aimed towards small businesses who have a website on another platform such as WordPress, Wix and more. The premise works on embedding codes to allow customers to convert non-Shopify stores into a shopping experience. The Buy Now embed codes are not limited to "Buy Now" buttons, but you can embed full collections, product tiles and even a cart. When customers click the checkout button they will then be diverted to Shopify's securely hosted checkout. Note that analytical tracking can be a challenge when you are diverting customers between two different hosts.
If you are also keen to expand your sales to Facebook, Instagram, eBay or other social media channels, then the Shopify Starter plan is great for this! With a few clicks, you can push your products to your Facebook page with
Shopify's native Facebook integration. If you require additioanl sales channels such as an online store, dropshipping, youtube video shopping, tiktok and more then this plan is probably not for you.
Shopify's Starter plan even includes Abandoned cart recovery! Historically this was only available on the mid-level Shopify plans however they've since released this feature to all!
Cart abandonment recovery is a tool that will automatically send a follow-up email to customers who have added items to their cart and started the checkout process (and of course entered their email). Cart abandonment recovery is a great way to boost revenue and win back customers that you'd have otherwise lost. This is a great benefit of Shopify as other providers such as BigCommerce or Wix you'll need to be on their mid-tier plans starting from £65.
We also recommend our merchants to consider more advanced
abandonment email flows with tools such as Klaviyo. This allows you send your customers more than one email at a time-frequency of your choice. You can also split A/B test between different emails and gain insights from reports to further optimise this proven strategy.
Shopify's Lite plan still comes equipped with 24/7 customer support however please note this is limited to email and live chat only and you cannot use phone support when you are a subscriber of this plan.
Lastly, Shopify Starter merchants still can offer the advanced checkout settings that Shopify has to offer such as cross-country VAT pricing and advanced Shipping settings too.
In summary, if you are looking to convert your current website or blog into a shopping experience or need a way to push products to Facebook or Instagram - Shopify Starter is for you. Most merchants will need a higher plan to run a successful ecommerce business. We are the people who can help you expand your ecommerce business to the next step, get in touch!
Is Shopify Starter for me?
- Great for one man bands or small businesses that want to sell on an existing blog or Facebook.
- Sell unlimited products
- Great for when your getting started!
Shopify Basic
This is the lowest tier option to open your very own online store on the Shopify platform. This plan includes all the basics you might need to get selling online. You'll have your store, hosting, SSL certificate and major requirements for your customers to ensure your store is secure and reliable online. From discounts, products, collections, and basic reports plus some awesome features such as abandoned cart emails. Shopify basic and above all include 24/7 support from the Shopify help team so you are never alone.
The main difference between Shopify Lite VS Shopify Basic is that you will gain access to a full-fledged Shopify store
hosted on the Shopify platform. You won't need to pay for hosting or security as this is fully included in all Shopify stores. Shopify has a dedicated team for security and testing so you can focus on your business. Shopify Basic is designed for merchants who do not wish to add ecommerce functionality to an existing store but instead run their entire ecommerce business via the platform. Shopify's hosting is completely secure and offers unlimited bandwidth.
Merchants on the Basic plan can set up unlimited numbers of products, and collections of products and similarly accept unlimited numbers of orders and customers to their store. This plan offers 2 staff accounts to access the Shopify dashboard. The Basic plan also includes 24/7 phone, email and live chat support. Shopify's Basic plan comes equipped with all the major ecommerce functionality you'd expect such as discounts and discount codes, gift cards, manual order creation, printing shipping labels & even fraud analysis built in.
The ability to edit your ecommerce is vital to create a visually engaging experience and updating the store with ease to keep it up to date with new campaigns and product launches - stores that are updated regularly are the ones that really standout. Shopify comes equipped with its powerful store editor tool called
online store 2.0, which allows you to create new pages, customise elements and update content without the need for a
Shopify developer. You can even reuse elements across the website, drag and re-order sections within a page and create entirely new page templates with ease.
Shopify Basic and above all offers internationalisation features to easily launch your store globally and provide the foundations for an international strategy, whether you are starting off here in the United Kingdom or launching a strategy in Canada, it has you covered.
Learn about Shopify international pricing.
Shopify Markets is Shopify’s solution to delivering an international strategy allowing merchants to define specific regions and ensure you are providing a localised experience to customers from all around the world.
Shopify Markets comes equipped with market-specific domains and subdomains allowing you to assign custom web addresses to optimise search results and automatically direct customers to the correct domain name.
Currency control and pricing management come natively out of the box with Shopify's basic plans. Not only can you choose to sell your products in different currencies that are most appropriate for a specific market, but you can customize market prices using a manual currency conversion rate, a percentage price point adjustment, or fixed prices for any products. Providing you are using
Shopify Payments then you offer regional-specific payment providers too to ensure customers trust the checkout experience.
Shopify Markets also includes the ability to display your store in a different language to ensure customers can understand your store wherever they are shopping from. Not only can you assign languages to specific markets but you can use apps such as
Shopify Translate & Adapt or
Weglot to offer AI-driven translations and of course the ability to update the translation too! Easilly translate from your base language such as English to all major languages of your choice.
Shopify Basic is also great for merchants who wish to sell in person as it gives you access to
Shopify POS. Shopify POS can be downloaded on your smartphone or tablet and process orders directly whether you are using the built-in card reader on your phone or a third-party credit card machine. When orders are processed products are synced from your product database within Shopify and inventory remains tracked. Shopify POS leaves Shopify as the centralised dashboard for your business.
For merchants who are looking for slightly more advanced Shopify POS features then Shopify Pro may be the best option. Whilst it does attract an additional $89 per month, it does offer additional features such as faster workflows, staff permissions and advanced inventory tools.
Shopify Basic and above come equipped with Shopify's native blogging and page creation feature. At the core, Shopify gives you a simple rich editor box which can feel fairly simple - however, if you use Online Store 2.0 to generate your templates, then the content editing opportunity is limitless and you can re-use sections from the wider site. Shopify also allows you to create an unlimited number of blogs and blog posts too, and even apply tag-based filtering too! Whilst Shopify was not built to be a primary blogging platform, it certainly is packed with enough features for month merchants.
Is Shopify Basic for me?
- Great for when you need an ecommerce store.
- Sell unlimited products and collections with Shopify.
- Gain access to Shopify POS for in-store selling
- Sell internationally
- Great foundation for new ecommerce stores!
Shopify
"Shopify" is the middle tier of the three major plans on the platform. You, of course, get everything that comes with a basic plan to manage your store however the increased investment does offer professional reporting tools to allow you to dig deep into the data and produce additional reports such as sales, retail sales & customer reports. For a growing business, these tools are vital to staying ahead of the competition. You can also have 3 additional (total 5) staff accounts and up to 5 locations of inventory management.
Shopify's middle tier plan provides enhanced
reporting giving merchants access to more inventory, behaviour & marketing reports whilst also providing reports on orders, retail, profits and most customer reports too. Of course, you can integrate your store with more advanced reporting suites such as
Google Analytics or
Triple Whale with easy and native integrations with Shopify.
Shopify Flow is the automation tool that allows you to set up automation within the Shopify platform and is available to merchants on the 'Shopify' plan or above! Shopify flow even allows you to connect apps and plugins too. Great examples include automatically replenishing products when inventory levels get low, emailing customers when wishlist items are on sale or rewarding customers with loyalty points when they leave a tip! You simply choose the trigger and the action, ultimate flexibility to make your Shopify more efficient!
The middle tier Shopify plan also offers double the number of staff accounts who can individually access your Shopify store bringing the total allowance to 5 from 2 when compared to the basic plan.
Shopify has location-based inventory management built right into the platform! You can easily assign inventory to retail stores, warehouses, pop-ups, or wherever you store products. Shopify's middle tier plan increases the allowance of locations from 4 to 5 when compared to Shopify's Basic plan!
Is Shopify for me?
- All the great Shopify features included.
- Access more detailed reporting.
- Increased staff accounts and locations.
- Great for when you need just a little more!
Shopify Advanced
The advanced Shopify plan is for when you are looking to scale up your business and it certainly doesn't disappoint as you grow. The main difference is, you can have up to 15 team members as staff on your Shopify account and also up to 8 locations for inventory. You also have access to advanced reporting. Again, this is for stores that sell a lot of products, and want to generate data for specific collections or types of products. With this plan, you do benefit from lower rates for credit cards too. The final feature that is unique to Shopify Advanced is third-party shipping rates - if you have your account with a shipping carrier, then you can display your negotiated shipping rates from that carrier to customers at checkout.
Whilst the advanced Shopify plan is the most expensive every month when comparing it to the main free Shopify plans, this plan does offer lower credit card rates across all specific transaction fee criteria including credit cards, AMEX, In-Person credit card rates and of course third-party payment gateway fees too. We always advise our merchants to assess the potential savings you'll receive based on the transaction fees compared to the monthly when making your decision. Don't forget all the additional features that you'll benefit from too! It's usually a decision that considers current revenue and sales, features you need and the savings you can make.
Shopify Advanced offers the highest level of reporting available from within the Shopify platform including complete access to customer reports, but also access to entirely custom reports. If your store is on the Advanced Shopify or Shopify Plus plan, then you can modify default reports and create custom reports using Shopify's filtering and editing features. Custom reports look similar to other Shopify reports, but use filters to show the exact data that you need. Use the Shopify report builder to create reports with the things you need, something we feel is a great feature of Shopify advanced on top of everything else you receive. Your store staff can even access all the reports that you modify or create, and they can duplicate and modify those reports.
Third-party real-time carrier shipping discounts & rates are a great feature of Shopify advanced, meaning shipping rates are calculated at checkout by a third-party shipping carrier based on the details of the order. This helps you charge your customers the exact amount that a shipping carrier, such as UPS or FedEx. You'll then be charged by the carrier directly when you purchase a shipping label via the Shopify dashboard.
Finally, with internationalisation being a major growth strategy for growing Shopify brands around the world, charging the correct duties and import-taxes at checkout can prevent customers from being faced with very high fees to receive their parcels. Shopify advanced allows you to estimate and collect duties and import taxes at checkout to give customers the likely costs of their order and save any unwanted surprises. As you can see there are some great benefits of Shopify Advanced that you should think twice about!
Is Shopify Advanced for me?
- Nothing left out of the Shopify advanced plan!
- Great for single-store international selling.
- Best for bigger teams and bigger businesses.
- Improved transaction and payment fees.
Shopify Plus
Shopify Plus is the enterprise solution for brands exceeding revenue of $ 1 million. Although the platform is not decided by revenue, it does come with a hefty price tag - so isn't right for every business. Shopify Plus comes with a dashboard that is built for large teams so you can effectively manage the store collaboratively. One of the most popular features of Shopify Plus is its ability to have up to 9 additional stores alongside the main store - great if you need to create different stores in different countries whilst running the business from one dashboard. If you sell B2B then you can also utilise the Wholesale Channel to allow your retailers to login with altered tiered prices, order quantity thresholds and unique visibility per customer. Finally, Shopify Plus boasts the ability to automate almost any task to make your team more efficient - you can even schedule changes to the store such as sales and new website launches. Last but not least, Shopify plus includes access to an increased API (back-end technology) and also the code for the checkout page. Shopify Plus is the ultimate solution for large, high-growth businesses.
Click here to learn more about Shopify Plus.
Nic Dunn |
CEO - Charle Agency 
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