Home » What’s The Best Shopify Plan? Review and Pricing Guide

What’s The Best Shopify Plan? Review and Pricing Guide

Sezmi

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Shopify allows you to sell online, in-store, or on an online marketplace. Although I have written a detailed Shopify review this post focuses on Shopify Pricing & Plans.

Shopify can be thought of as real estate if you consider eCommerce software to be like a condo or townhome. While your store is yours and your responsibility, Shopify pays someone else to maintain the common areas, security, maintenance, and other aspects.

It can be difficult to separate all fees and costs from the cost of purchasing a condo/townhome. It can be difficult to determine if the plans and pricing are appropriate for your goals and needs.

With this in mind, I offer my opinion on Shopify’s plans and a summary of Shopify’s costs after you have accounted for all ongoing and upfront costs.

Sezmi’s Take

Shopify’s hosted eCommerce platform can do almost everything. This platform is perfect for selling physical products. It allows you to manage your storefront and create SEO-friendly content that makes it easy for customers to find your products. Shopify’s downside is vendor lock-in. This can make it expensive as your business grows. The weakest point of Shopify is its blogging platform.

Shopify Review

9.5 Out Of 10

Shopify Pricing

What is Shopify worth? The plans they offer are very straightforward. All plans come with a 14-day free trial. The differences between the three are mainly based on the number of employees, credit card transaction fees and the ability to create reports.

There are no restrictions on pages, products or design.

If you’re not sure what plan you need, you can start with the Shopify Basic Plan and upgrade as needed. It’s simpler to assume you only need the Basic Shopify plan, unless you have a compelling reason to upgrade to a higher plan. Here is a breakdown of Shopify fees.

Shopify for 14 days free

Shopify Basic Plan

The basic Shopify plan costs $29 per month. This plan includes all functionality needed to create an online shop, such as adding sales channels to Amazon, eBay, Pinterest, and others.

The Basic Shopify plan includes the following:

• There can be only two accounts for staff.
• Inventory can only be allocated to two locations, which includes pop-up shops or fulfillment centers.
• Reports cannot be created for others or yourself. You can create reports using Excel and Analytics.
• Shipping discounts are not as generous.
• Shopify Pay will make your credit card fees slightly higher than those for higher-priced plans.
• You will be charged a Shopify transaction fee of 2% if you use a third party credit card payment gateway.
• International options are limited, particularly in pricing and new domain names.

Shopify Plan

Shopify’s plan is $79 per month, and it is the most popular for Shopify users.

Shopify Plan: You need to be aware of the following:

• Up to five employees can be registered.
• You can have as many as five locations with designated inventory.
• A Shopify report can be created without any advanced filtering.
• Shipping discounts up to 88%
• Shopify’s credit card fees are slightly lower than Shopify Basic, but more than Shopify Advanced. This is based on the average order value of your orders and how many you expect to place in a given month.
• A 1% transaction fee will be charged if you use a third party credit card.
• Shopify makes selling internationally easier because you can easily create an international domain. This is great for SEO. You can also set country-specific pricing.

Shopify Advanced Plan

The Advanced Shopify Plan costs $299 per Month and is very popular with established retailers migrating onto Shopify.

The Shopify Advanced Plan is a great option.

• There are only 15 accounts for staff.
• There are only eight locations you can visit.
• Shipping rates and shipping discounts are more flexible.
• Even compared to credit card payment providers companies, your credit card rate will be much lower. Shopify payments offer a significant incentive.
• Shopify offers all the international tools you need to sell anywhere in the world. You can also customize your product’s price per region with all of Shopify’s international tools.
• Shopify’s platform is still yours, so it’s important to evaluate what your inventory software can do and cannot.
• Shopify Plus plans are recommended for large Magento and SAP commerce stores.

Shopify Plus Plan

Shopify Plus Shopify’s enterprise-level e-commerce solution. Prices can vary depending on the retailer’s specific circumstances, but entry-level pricing is typically around $2,000 per month.

Shopify Plus has a dedicated account manager that can assign Shopify resources like developers and designers to help integrate your existing order systems and inventory into Shopify. It is highly customizable.

The pricing can be very variable so it is best to check my Shopify Plus review and get in touch with Shopify Plus representatives.

Shopify Lite Plans

The Shopify Lite plan costs $9 per month . It is very popular among retailers who don’t need an online shop or prefer a checkout button on their existing websites.

Shopify Lite lets website owners access Shopify’s ordering, inventory, and customer fulfillment features without having to build an eCommerce store.

Shopify Lite is very simple. It is compatible with other digital payment brands such as Square and Gumroad. This is a great option for those who plan to develop Shopify stores in the future but prefer to keep their existing websites or offline operations.

What does Shopify cost?

Shopify costs , just like many other things around the globe.

Shopify is unlike many other ecommerce platforms in the fact that you don’t have to pay any transaction fees or hidden fees when using their Shopify payment system.

Shopify fees are a known, general cost. However, the total cost of running a Shopify retail store will be much more than your Shopify sticker price. Let’s take a look at how to calculate your total cost.

Additional costs

When you first open a store, the upfront costs should be what I advise readers to budget for. These costs are usually one-time. You can smoothen them over 12 months to get an idea of your monthly costs.

Domain Name

A custom Domain name An online brand is built on this foundation. Shopify stores default domain name is yourstore.myshopify.com .

There are two options for setting up your store. Either buy a domain name through Shopify at $14 per year, or you can purchase it from an excellent third party domain registrar (such as Namecheap and GoDaddy) to point the domain name towards your store.

Whatever the case, domains are something you will need to budget for and buy, even though they may be less expensive than other upfront costs.

Design

Shopify websites have the option of using a free Shopify theme. Shopify offers a good selection of plug-and-play Shopify themes. Although it is easy to add your logo and change colors, you can also use the drag and drop editor to modify the layout. However, the design will be identical to other startup Shopify Stores.

You can either buy a premium Shopify theme or customize an off-the-shelf Shopify theme using Shopify’s liquid editor code in the Shopify admin.

As with all web design, prices can vary based on time, scope, budget, and who you hire to do web design .

The budgeting process for a web designer may be a bit beyond the scope of this article. However, it is possible to start by looking at the cost of a Shopify Premium theme or getting quotes from freelancers or agencies on places like Fiverr.

Development & Hardware

Shopify has many features and most Shopify merchants don’t need to have custom web development. You should budget for any assistance with integrating existing software into the store, or basic help setting up the store and installing Shopify extensions and SEO. Shopify also offers a Shopify Expert directory that allows you to get basic, qualified quotes.

You will also need to budget for Shopify POS hardware if your offline store is open.

Recurring costs

Recurring expenses are the costs that occur every month and are part of running your business.

Subscribe to Shopify

Shopify subscriptions are the most direct recurring costs. You can purchase a Shopify pricing plan annually and get a discount. However, you should convert it to a monthly cost so you can compare apples with apples.

Charges for Credit Card Transactions

Every retailer in 21st-century America must pay credit card fees as a recurring expense.

Shopify is a payment gateway that allows you to budget for credit cards based on how much revenue you have and how many orders are expected to be received.

Shopify will add a third-party transaction fee to your credit card processing fees if you use them.

Shopify and 3rd-Party Apps

Shopify offers many extensions and apps for free. These extensions can do everything, from synchronizing your inventory with Amazon and eBay to managing reviews.

Shopify’s strength is their Shopify App Store, which allows you to add third-party extensions and apps to your store without having to hire a web developer.

Many of these extensions and apps are well worth the investment. They do come with costs. Some charge an upfront fee while others charge for transactions. Even if you don’t intend to purchase any, it is worth browsing the Shopify App Store for an idea of how costly some apps can be.

Email Hosting & Miscellaneous Fees

There are other fees and costs associated with operating a business online that are not included in Shopify’s pricing, even though they will be necessary.

Email hosting is the first and most obvious cost. Shopify doesn’t offer email hosting, even though you can purchase a custom domain. You will need to change your MX records to a third party solution such as G Suite, Outlook.

Accounting / bookkeeping software, drive storage, and other requirements are also important. These costs can be affordable, but it is worth adding them all together.

Shopify Pricing Calculator

This Shopify Pricing Calculator will help you calculate your monthly fees / budget (i.e. Shopify price).

Next steps

Shopify’s pricing structure is simple and offers great value when compared to many of their direct competitors. It is important to consider the pricing of Shopify in relation to what you need and your business goals.

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