Shopify Plan: How to Choose the Right One

Quick Answer: Which Plan Do You Need?

Don't overthink it. Your Shopify plan choice depends on three things: your monthly revenue, your team size, and whether you sell internationally. Here's the shortest possible answer:

Before you commit, check whether Shopify's extended 6-month trial for $1/month is currently available in your region — it gives you six months to validate a plan choice before paying full price.

Decision Framework: 4 Questions to Pick Your Plan

Forget comparing 50+ features across 4 plans. Your plan choice depends on just four factors:

Want a quick recommendation? Take this interactive quiz — it maps your answers to the right plan automatically.

Best Plan by Business Type

Now that you've answered the four framework questions, here's how those answers map to specific business scenarios:

Wholesale on its own no longer forces a Plus upgrade — native B2B has shipped on Basic, Grow and Advanced since April 2, 2026. Our B2B on Shopify Plus guide covers what the Plus tier still adds, the remaining gaps and the 3-year TCO.

Once Plus is the answer, our Shopify Plus migration guide walks through the upgrade itself: who signs, the 1-year or 3-year term and what changes in your admin.

A nonprofit with a charity ID has an option beyond the plans above: Shopify's nonprofit plans, NPO Lite and NPO Full, which you apply for through Support.

Found your scenario? Now let's dive into the details of each plan — you'll know exactly which sections to focus on.

Shopify Plans Explained

Shopify's available plans start with Basic and extend through Plus. All prices are USD monthly rates — annual billing, charged for the full year upfront, lowers the effective monthly price on Basic, Grow, and Advanced.

Outside a promotional trial, switching back from annual to monthly billing takes a request to Shopify Support before the annual cycle ends.

Source: Shopify Official Pricing Page (read September 16, 2026)

Starter — $5/month, closed to new stores

Starter is closed to new stores, but merchants already on it retain a simple product page and Shopify's checkout for selling through social media, messaging apps, or embedding buy buttons on existing websites. There's no customizable online store, no SEO-optimized storefront, and card rates are the highest at 5% + 30¢.

Relevant only if you already have it: Creators, influencers, and social sellers can keep using Starter without building a full store. Anyone opening a store today starts on Basic. If you are on Starter now, our Starter plan guide covers what you keep and the point at which moving to Basic pays.

Basic — $39/month ($29 annual)

Basic is the default starting point for new Shopify stores. It includes everything you need for a real business: unlimited products, a fully customizable online store, abandoned cart recovery, discount codes, shipping discounts of up to 87% on the US pricing page, and Shopify Payments at 2.9% + 30¢.

The main limitation: no additional staff accounts (your owner login does not count as one). If an employee needs their own admin login — a virtual assistant or marketing manager on your team — you'll need Grow; Shopify Partners and freelancers can use collaborator accounts instead, which don't count toward Basic's limit.

Grow — $105/month ($79 annual)

Grow (previously named "Shopify" plan) is the team plan. The headline upgrade: 5 staff accounts with permission controls. Card rates drop to 2.7% + 30¢.

Reporting is not part of the upgrade — the report set and the custom report builder are the same on Basic. Neither is the shipping discount in the US: every paid plan there now shares one published ceiling. Canadian stores are the exception — their pricing page still steps from up to 45% on Basic to up to 53% on Advanced.

Best for: Growing businesses with 2–5 team members who need admin access. The $66/mo price difference from Basic is justified by staff accounts alone — hiring help without giving them platform access creates operational bottlenecks.

Advanced — $399/month ($299 annual)

Advanced is for scaling operations with international reach. It adds 15 staff accounts, calculated third-party shipping rates at checkout, enhanced support, and card rates at 2.5% + 30¢. Third-party transaction fees drop to just 0.6%. What "support" actually includes on each tier — and who gets a phone line — is covered in our Shopify phone support FAQ.

Best for: Businesses doing $150K+/mo or selling internationally where real-time carrier-calculated shipping rates matter. If you're under $150K/mo and don't need the extra staff accounts or shipping features, you're likely overpaying. Upgrading is not the only route to those rates either — Grow stores can add carrier-calculated shipping for an extra monthly fee or by switching to annual billing, and using your own carrier account on Shopify sets out which plans qualify and which five carrier accounts Shopify documents.

Shopify Markets ships on every plan, so cross-border selling isn't gated behind Advanced — our Shopify Markets guide covers what's free versus Managed Markets.

Plus — from $2,300/month

Plus is Shopify's enterprise tier. What it genuinely adds over Advanced: checkout extensibility on the information, shipping and payment steps plus the Checkout Branding API, the Plus-only end of B2B wholesale (unlimited catalogs, direct catalog assignment to a company, deposits and partial payments), Shopify Audiences, bot protection, unlimited staff, and the most competitive card rates. Pricing depends on the term: in USD, $2,500/mo on a 1-year term or $2,300/mo on a 3-year term.

Best for: Businesses doing $800K+ annually where in-checkout customization, the Plus-tier B2B extras, or Audiences can deliver measurable ROI. The specific return depends on your product type, average order value, and current conversion rates.

Feature-by-Feature Comparison

Here's the complete side-by-side breakdown. Focus on the rows that matter for your business — most merchants only need 3–4 of these features to differentiate between plans. For what each row actually does, our Shopify features guide explains every built-in capability and the honest limits by plan.

Source: Shopify Pricing Page (read September 16, 2026). On Basic, Grow and Advanced, B2B catalogs require new Shopify Markets.

Cost vs. Value: What You're Really Paying For

Many merchants obsess over which plan has the lowest card rate, but the real value difference is in operational features. Here's what each plan upgrade actually buys you:

Notice the pattern: card rate savings alone rarely justify an upgrade. The breakeven points assume identical features — in practice, you upgrade because you need staff accounts, shipping rates, or enterprise capabilities. For a complete cost analysis with interactive calculator, see our Shopify Pricing Explained guide.

When to Upgrade: Clear Signals

The most expensive mistake isn't choosing the wrong plan — it's upgrading too early and paying for features you won't use. Here are the clear, unambiguous signals that it's time to move up:

7 Common Plan Selection Mistakes

Bottom Line: Our Recommendation

After analyzing features, fees, and breakeven points across Shopify's four available plans and legacy Starter, here's our clear recommendation:

Frequently Asked Questions