Shopify review

Why Shopify Payments changes the price

Shopify Payments is only available to businesses based in 40 countries: most of Europe, the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Mexico and the UAE among them. Brazil, India, Turkey, South Africa, Indonesia and most of Latin America and South-East Asia are not on the list, which means every store there pays the third-party fee on every order.

Inside the supported countries the online card rate falls as you move up the plans, from 2.9% + 30¢ on Basic to 2.5% + 30¢ on Advanced in the US, with international cards adding a percentage point. Those rates are what most reviews quote. Outside those countries the rate you should compare is your local gateway's fee plus Shopify's 2%, 1% or 0.6%, which is a very different number.

Themes: 24 free, more than 1,200 paid

The theme store lists 24 free themes and over 1,200 paid ones. The free themes are made by Shopify and are good; plenty of successful stores never leave them. Paid themes are a one-off purchase rather than a subscription, and the first page of the store runs from about $100 to $420.

Themes are written in Liquid, Shopify's own template language. The theme editor covers layout, colours and sections without code, but anything structural beyond that, such as a new product-page layout or a custom filter, means hiring a developer who knows Liquid.

The checkout is the part you rent

Shopify's checkout is fast and it converts well, and that is why Shopify controls it so tightly. On Basic, Grow and Advanced you can add apps that change the thank-you and order-status pages, reorder or rename alternative payment methods, and add post-purchase offers. The information, shipping and payment steps themselves can only be customised on Plus.

There is also a regional wrinkle: in the US and Canada, payment-method customisations below Plus apply only to non-card methods, so credit card options stay exactly as Shopify presents them. If your business depends on something unusual at checkout, such as custom fields, gated payment options or a bespoke flow, price in Plus from day one or choose a platform that hands you the checkout.

Staff, locations and B2B as you grow

Basic has no additional staff accounts, Grow gives you five and Advanced fifteen. Every plan below Plus allows ten inventory locations and up to three B2B catalogues. Retail is an add-on: POS Pro for a physical shop costs $89 a month per location on top of the plan.

Those limits are generous for a young business and they are usually the reason an established one moves up a tier, more often than the headline features.

Apps are where the bill grows

Shopify's app store is its biggest strength and the most common reason a store costs more than its plan. Reviews, subscriptions, bundles, upsells and advanced search are all apps, and most charge their own monthly fee. Before you compare Shopify's plan price with a competitor's, list the three or four apps you know you will need and add them in.

If you ever leave

Your products, customers and orders export as CSV files, so the data is portable. The storefront is not: the theme only runs on Shopify, and your URL structure will change, so a move means rebuilding the design and setting up redirects to keep your search rankings.