If you look at Shopify’s pricing page, the Basic plan says $39 a month.
So, how much does Shopify cost? Technically, $39.
But if you set up a store that actually works, one with a real domain, a couple of apps, and payments running properly, you’re looking at $90 to $120 a month.
Sometimes more, depending on what you add.
That’s not hidden fees. It’s just the difference between paying for a plan and actually running a store, and those are two different things.
Even most guides I saw stop at the plan number and leave you to figure out the rest yourself.
So here’s the rest.
What's Inside
The Plan Fee: What Shopify Actually Charges You
Shopify has five plans right now, and they are pretty different from each other.
| Plan | Monthly | Annual | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | $5/mo | — | Selling through links, social, and messages without a full storefront |
| Basic | $39/mo | $29/mo | First store, solo sellers just getting started |
| Grow | $105/mo | $79/mo | Small teams of 2 to 5 people |
| Advanced | $399/mo | $299/mo | Stores doing serious volume that need the lowest card rates and custom reporting |
| Plus | From $2,300/mo | — | Large brands and enterprise-level businesses |
The Starter plan is $5 a month. It sounds great and looks super affordable, but it is not really a store. It lets you sell through links, social media, and messages.
That means there is no actual storefront where people can browse your products.
But still, it is a good choice for selling a couple of things on Instagram, WhatsApp, or you can easily sell your products virtually anywhere you can post a link, and people click and checkout through Shopify easily.
So yes, this is not the right plan for building a full-featured online store, but if you just want to sell on social, this is the one you need.
And once you have people buying and you have proof that your product sells, you could check out the Shopify Basic plan.
The Basic plan is $39 a month when you pay monthly, or $29 a month if you commit to a full year upfront.
This is the one most beginner sellers end up on, and it’s the right starting point. You get a full online store, unlimited products, access to all the core tools, and 24/7 live chat support.
For a first store, this is what you need.
→ Start your Shopify store today (free for 3 days, then 3 months for $1/mo, then pick a plan)
The Grow plan is $105 a month (or $79 annually). It’s for small teams, gives you five staff accounts, full API data access, and some lower payment processing rates. You don’t need this when you’re starting out.
The Advanced plan runs $399 a month, which is for businesses already doing serious volume and needing custom reporting and the lowest card rates Shopify offers.
Then there’s Plus, which starts at $2,300 a month. That’s simply enterprise-level, for big brands with complex needs. Not relevant for anyone just getting started.
So yes, Basic at $39 is the right plan for a first store. You get to try Shopify free for 3 days, then get 3 months for $1/month. And then you can decide what to do next.
But $39 is where the math starts, not where it ends.
The Costs Shopify Doesn’t Highlight on the Pricing Page
Most people do not pay close attention to this part. And that is usually the exact thing that surprise them up later when they are not expecting it.
1. Transaction Fees
Every time someone buys something from your store, Shopify takes a cut.
If you’re on the Starter plan, that rate is a bit higher, 5% per transaction through Shopify Payments, their built-in payment system. That is the give and take for the $5 a month price.
On the Basic plan using Shopify Payments, that’s 2.9% plus 30 cents per sale for standard card transactions online.
| Plan | Shopify Payments Fee | Third-Party Processor Fee |
|---|---|---|
| Starter | 5% per transaction | N/A |
| Basic | 2.9% + 30¢ online | +2% on top of processor’s fee |
| Grow | 2.7% + 30¢ online | +1% on top of processor’s fee |
| Advanced | 2.5% + 30¢ online | +0.6% on top of processor’s fee |
| Plus | 2.25% + 30¢ online | +0.2% on top of processor’s fee |
So if someone buys a $50 product, you pay $1.75 in processing fees on that one order. Not a disaster, but know that it adds up across dozens of orders a month.
That said, what a lot of beginner sellers also don’t realize is that, if you use a third-party payment processor instead of Shopify Payments, like PayPal, Square, or Stripe, Shopify charges you an extra 2% fee on top of whatever that processor charges.
And whatever that third-party processor is, you also pay their fee AND an additional 2% to Shopify separately.
When Shopify Payments is active, you can still offer payment methods like PayPal Express Checkout as an extra checkout option, and Shopify won’t charge you the extra 2% on those orders.
The same goes for Shop Pay and manual payment methods like cash or bank transfer.
That 2% only comes in when you fully replace Shopify Payments with something else.
On the Basic plan, that is a significant hit. Using Shopify Payments avoids that completely, and it is available in the US and a few other countries, so there is almost no reason not to use it as your main gateway.
2. Your Domain Name
Your Shopify store comes with a free myshopify.com address by default, which looks something like yourstorename.myshopify.com.
That’s fine for testing, but you’ll want a real domain, something like yourstore.com, before you launch publicly.
A .com domain runs about $14 a year, maybe a little more or less, depending on where you buy it. You can either buy it directly through Shopify or from a registrar like Namecheap or Cloudflare and connect it.
But if you want the easiest setup, buying your domain through Shopify keeps the setup simple and keeps everything in one place, and you don’t need to wrap your head around technical steps.
Also, keep in mind that the domain is not included in the Shopify plan fee. It’s a small cost you pay every year, and it does not go away.
3. Apps
Shopify has over 21,000 apps in its app store. They are like addons that add and extend the functionality to your store. The thing is, you don’t need most of them.
But you will probably need a few, and some of them do cost money after the free trial period runs out.
For example, a solid review app to show customer ratings on your product pages typically starts at $15 to $20 a month for a paid plan.
An email marketing tool is another one you’ll likely want eventually.
Shopify’s built-in email tool is more than enough for sending basic campaigns, but if you want proper automation, abandoned cart flows, and segmentation, something like Klaviyo is a good example at around $20 to $45 a month, depending on your contact list size.
Think of it like Shopify gives you a house, and you decide how to make it useful and how to make it feel like home.
At first, you may need a few, like the Pinterest, TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram apps, if you want to sync your products on social media and run ads.
But most of the other apps and the paid features become worth it once you have good enough traffic and sales.
So this cost can genuinely be $0 in month one if you stick to free tiers and grow from there.
4. Your Theme
Shopify includes free themes, and they’re decent. Clean, mobile-friendly, and good enough that most customers won’t even notice you didn’t pay for a theme.
What I’m saying is, you don’t need to spend money on a theme to launch a store.
That said, paid themes exist both inside Shopify and third-party platforms like Envato, and they range from around $29 to $400 as a one-time cost.
They usually look more polished and come with more customization options built in. But for a first store, a free theme does the job fine.
What a Real Beginner Store Actually Costs in Month 1
Let’s put the numbers together in a real-life situation, so it actually makes sense. Say you’re starting a store, you sell physical products, and you make $1,000 in sales your first month.
Here’s what you’d actually spend:
| Cost | Amount |
|---|---|
| Shopify Basic plan (monthly) | $39.00 |
| Domain name (split monthly) | $1.17 |
| One paid app (e.g. reviews app) | $15.00 |
| Transaction fees on $1,000 in sales at 2.9% + 30¢ (approx. 20 orders at $50) | $35 |
| Theme (free) | $0 |
| Total | ~$90/month |
So you’re looking at roughly $90 in your first month for a store doing $1,000 in sales. That’s before you think about the product cost, shipping, or any ads you run to get traffic.
And if you use a third-party payment processor instead of Shopify Payments on that same $1,000? Add another $20 on top of that for the extra 2% fee.
It’s not huge, but it could be money you do not need to spend.
Now, here is what month two or three looks like. By then, you have added a couple more apps, and everything is working the way it should.
Plan at $39, apps at $30 to $50, domain at $1.17, processing fees growing as sales grow. You’re probably around $100 to $120 a month for a small but functioning store.
That’s the real number for a beginner who’s set things up correctly, not perfectly, just correctly.
How to Keep Your Costs Low When You’re Starting Out
The main thing you want to do at the very start is get your store up and running so real people can actually see it, and you want to do that without spending a lot of money.
So here is a way to make that happen while still keeping all the important stuff in place.
Use a free theme.
Like I already mentioned, Shopify’s free themes like Dawn are well-built and also look good on mobile. You do not need a paid theme to launch.
Pick any free one, customize the colors and your logo, and move on.
This is your first online store, so you do not have to get the design perfect right now. You can always go back and decorate later once you have everything set up the right way.
Stick to three apps maximum at the start.
It’s very easy to install ten apps, and suddenly you’re paying $150 a month in subscriptions before you’ve made a single sale.
Only pick the things you really need. Get a reviews app, but try the free version first before you pay for anything. And maybe add one more tool, but only if it fixes a problem you are dealing with right now, not something you think might happen later.
Use Shopify Payments.
If you’re in the US, there’s no good reason not to. It’s already part of the system, it saves you from paying that extra 2% third-party fee, and it’s easy to set up.
PayPal is worth adding as an additional option since many customers prefer it, but run Shopify Payments as your primary.
Take advantage of the $1/month deal.
Shopify currently offers three days free with no credit card required, and then $1 a month for the first three months on the Basic, Grow, and Advanced plans.
That gives you more than 90 days to build and test your store for basically nothing.
You can grab your free trial right here if you have not done that yet.
Use that time to build properly, get your first orders in, and figure out what you actually need before you start adding paid apps.
When Does It Make Sense to Upgrade Plans?
For most beginner sellers, the Basic plan at $39 is the right call for a long time. The main reason to move up to the Grow plan at $105 is the lower transaction fees.
What I mean is, on the Grow plan, online card rates drop from 2.9% to 2.7% per transaction. That difference is small when you’re doing $1,000 a month in sales, but when you’re doing $20,000 to $30,000 a month, the math starts to work in your favor.
The savings on processing fees start to cover the extra $66 monthly cost of upgrading.
So as a good rule of thumb, you can stay on Basic until you’re bringing in more than $20,000.
At that point, run the numbers on what the lower fees would save you each month and see if it’s worth it. It usually is around that level, and not before.
The Grow plan also gives you five staff accounts, which is useful if you’ve got someone helping you manage orders or customer messages.
Don’t just take my word for it. But from what I’ve seen, that alone isn’t a reason to upgrade if the fee math doesn’t work yet.
Is It Worth It?
That simply depends on what you’re comparing it to.
If you’re thinking about WooCommerce, which is technically free to install, the costs of hosting, security plugins, and maintenance often push the real total to just as much or even more than what Shopify charges anyway.
And on top of that, you are the one who has to handle all the technical work yourself or the developer you hire, which is, well, another cost.
Shopify handles hosting, security, SSL certificates, and software updates automatically. For a beginner who doesn’t want to spend weekends fixing technical problems, that’s worth something real.
So, how much does Shopify cost per month for a first store? Around $90 for a store doing $1,000 a month in sales, and yes, it is worth it, as long as you are actually selling something people want.
But another thing not to forget is that sometimes, the platform isn’t the obstacle. The product and the marketing are.
If you want to get started, and you have not done it yet, go ahead and claim your 3-day free trial right here.
Use the trial to build the store. Don’t spend that time changing fonts.
