The short version
A store already on Shopify moves to Plus by upgrading in place, from Settings > Plan in the admin or through Shopify's Plus upgrade page, where Shopify says it upgrades the store within 24 business hours of sign-up. Plus starts at $2,300 a month on a 3-year term or $2,500 on a 1-year term, in USD for standard setups, and eligible stores can test it first with a paid trial.
Take the 3-year term only when you are certain and a Plus-only need drives the move, otherwise the 1-year term, and ask for the early-exit terms in writing first: no page we read on October 4, 2026 publishes them. A store on another platform replatforms instead, following Shopify's Plus launch checklist.
The Quick Verdict
Find where your store runs today; the rest of the page is the detail behind each answer.
Your route onto Plus, by starting point
| Your situation | Pick | Why |
|---|---|---|
| On Basic, Grow or Advanced, and sure Plus fits | Upgrade in place: 3-year term if a Plus-only need drives it, otherwise 1-year | Settings > Plan > Select Plus; from $2,300 a month on 3 years or $2,500 on 1 year, USD, standard setups |
| On Shopify, but not yet sure | Start the paid Plus trial, if eligible | 1 to 2 months at $399 USD a month, and it becomes full Plus if you do nothing |
| On Magento, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, BigCommerce or another platform | Replatform onto Plus | Shopify sends Plus stores to its Plus launch checklist, not its general migration guide |
| Several Shopify stores of the same brand you want under one contract | Upgrade the main store, then request the others as expansion stores | Ten stores (one main, nine expansion) at no additional cost, all of the same brand; existing stores join by manual request and must bill in USD or INR |
Upgrade or Replatform: Which Plus Migration Is Yours
Key takeaway
"Shopify Plus migration" covers two different jobs, and their steps barely overlap. Upgrading means an existing Shopify store changes its plan: Shopify's billing help lists Plus beside Basic, Grow and Advanced on the same Change plan screen. Because it is a plan change, the catalog, customers and order history stay in the store you already run.
Replatforming means a store on another platform moves its data into a new Shopify store on Plus. That is a migration project with its own official checklist, and it carries the risks of any platform move: data order, redirects and the domain switch.
This guide assumes the decision to go Plus is made. Whether the plan pays for itself at your revenue is a separate question, answered in our guide to choosing a Shopify plan; here the job is getting onto Plus without breaking anything.
Two ways onto Shopify Plus, side by side
| Upgrade an existing Shopify store | Replatform onto Plus | |
|---|---|---|
| What moves | Nothing — the plan changes on the store you already run | Products, then customers, then historical orders, imported into a new store |
| Where it starts | Settings > Plan > Change plan > Select Plus, or Shopify's Plus upgrade page | Shopify's Plus launch checklist |
| Timing Shopify states | Upgrade within 24 business hours of signing up on the Plus upgrade page | "Future-proof in 90 days or less" — a marketing headline, not a documented timeline |
| Domain | Already connected to the store | DNS details gathered at least four weeks before go-live; an SSL certificate from another provider can't be transferred |
| What you reconfigure | Organization, users, expansion stores, checkout, B2B | The same list, after the data and redirects |
Shopify Help Center: Billing plan changes, Shopify Plus launch checklist, Shopify Plus plan go live guide; shopify.com/plus/upgrade and /plus/migration — read October 4, 2026.
What You Sign: Term, Price and Who Signs
Key takeaway
Three things are settled before the store changes plan: how long you commit for, who signs, and whether you test first with the paid trial.
How much does Shopify Plus cost on each term?
Key takeaway
Shopify prices Plus by the length of the contract, not by billing cycle. Its Help Center sets the USD starting price at $2,300 a month on a 3-year term and $2,500 a month on a 1-year term for standard setups and integrations.
The difference is $200 a month, or $2,400 a year; what the saving costs is length, as the full-term totals in the table show.
Shopify Plus starting price by contract term
| Contract term | From, per month (USD) | Across the full term, at the starting price |
|---|---|---|
| 3-year term | $2,300 | $82,800 (36 months) |
| 1-year term | $2,500 | $30,000 (12 months) |
Starting prices: Shopify Help Center, Shopify Plus plan, and shopify.com/plus/pricing, read October 4, 2026 (USD, standard setups and integrations). Full-term totals are our multiplication of the starting price, not a Shopify quote.
Those are floor prices. The same Help Center page adds that for more complex, higher-volume businesses there might be a variable platform fee based on revenue and business model, and that it differs for B2B and D2C companies. No page we read publishes that fee's rate (the search boundary is in the box below), so for a complex store the figure that governs is the one in its own quote.
On October 4, 2026 we read Shopify's own pages for four things a merchant moving to Plus would expect to find. None of them states:
- Downtime during an upgrade, in either direction — checked on the Help Center pages on changing plans, the Plus trial, deactivating a store, the pricing FAQ, the Shopify Plus plan and organization settings, and on shopify.com/plus, /plus/pricing and /plus/upgrade.
- Terms for leaving a Plus contract early — minimum term, penalty or downgrade conditions — checked on the same billing, deactivation and pricing-FAQ pages, the Terms of Service, the Plus pricing definitions and /plus/pricing. The Plus Agreement those definitions refer to is signed with Shopify and isn't published there.
- The rate of the variable platform fee, and
- A replatform timeline in months — both checked on the Shopify Plus plan page, the Plus pricing definitions, the expansion stores page, the Plus launch checklist and go-live guide, and on shopify.com/plus, /plus/pricing and /plus/migration.
The absence is the finding: ask Shopify for each in writing before you sign.
Total cost of ownership — the subscription plus apps, payments and what is negotiable over three years — is a separate calculation, and our Plus cost model works through it.
Two more things shape the first Plus bill:
- A promotional price doesn't follow you. Shopify's billing help says that if you change to a plan the promotion doesn't cover, such as the Plus plan, the promotional pricing doesn't apply to the new plan.
- The currency depends on where you are. Shopify's billing help says new Plus merchants can be billed in local currency in India (INR), European Union countries (EUR), the United Kingdom (GBP), Australia (AUD), Japan (JPY) and Canada (CAD), and in USD elsewhere. The Help Center's Plus plan page, which lists the price in each billing currency, also gives EUR pricing for 13 more countries and territories, including Switzerland and Norway, so check the currency in your quote. This guide quotes USD.
Who can sign the upgrade, and what to have ready
Key takeaway
Plus is a contract, so who clicks matters. Shopify's pages set three conditions, each on its own path:
- Permission. For any plan change, the store owner or a staff member with the Manage plan permission must authorize it (Help Center, billing plan changes).
- Signing authority. On Shopify's Plus upgrade page, the person who upgrades the plan must be the signing authority for your organization.
- Identity. In the admin, clicking Select Plus starts identity verification through Stripe, and Shopify's instruction is to "Get your government-issued photo ID ready to take pictures of the front and back."
If the person with the Manage plan permission isn't the one who can sign for the company, have the signatory carry out the upgrade rather than lending them a login.
The paid Plus trial: a test run that turns into a contract
Key takeaway
For a store that isn't sure yet, Shopify offers a Plus trial to eligible merchants. It isn't free: the Shopify Plus trial is a paid trial, at $399 USD a month (the currency follows your business location), and it runs 1 to 2 months depending on your store status.
It also doesn't show you all of Plus. Organization-level features — organization settings, groups, analytics and advanced security — aren't available during the trial, even if the feature comparison in your admin says they are. A trial can test Plus-only checkout features, and Plus-only B2B features on a blended storefront only.
The trial's end is the date to put in the calendar, because the default is a contract:
If you don't take any action by the end of your trial, then your store is automatically enrolled in a full Plus plan.
The full plan the store converts to follows the terms and duration you selected during trial setup. If you're convinced before the trial ends, you can upgrade to a full Plus plan early in the admin, confirming a term of 1 year or 3 years as part of it. If you're not, act before the end date — leaving the trial is covered in If Plus doesn't work out.
If Plus Doesn't Work Out: Leaving the Trial vs a Full Contract
Key takeaway
The two ways onto Plus have very different exits, and only one of them is documented in detail.
Leaving Plus: trial vs full contract
| Paid Plus trial | Full Plus contract | |
|---|---|---|
| How you leave | Downgrade before the trial ends; doing nothing enrolls the store in a full Plus plan | Contact Shopify Plus Support to deactivate; a Merchant Success Specialist handles canceling the subscription |
| What Shopify documents | The Plus-exclusive features you lose, automatic deactivation of markets, locations or staff over your new plan's limits, and Plus B2B restored if you return | Who to contact; no page we read publishes early-exit or downgrade terms |
| Refunds | Subscription charges are non-refundable (Shopify's general rule for all plans) | Subscription charges are non-refundable (Shopify's general rule for all plans) |
Shopify Help Center: Shopify Plus trial; Deactivating a store; Pricing plans FAQ — read October 4, 2026.
Downgrading from the trial removes Plus-exclusive features, including:
- Plus-only B2B features
- Hydrogen storefronts
- Shopify Audiences
- Launchpad events
- The Combined Listings app
- App blocks on checkout pages
If you have more active markets, locations or staff than the new plan allows, those over the limit are deactivated automatically after the downgrade. Plus B2B features come back if you upgrade to Plus again.
A full contract is a different exit. Shopify's deactivation page says that if your store is on the Plus plan, you contact Shopify Plus Support for assistance, and that canceling the subscription goes through a Merchant Success Specialist. Shopify's general billing rule says plans are prepaid, so a change to a lower plan takes effect at the end of the current billing cycle; the page doesn't say how that applies to a Plus contract.
That leaves one move for this section: before you sign a 3-year term, ask Shopify for the early-exit and downgrade terms in writing. No page we read publishes them (see the box under the term prices).
Trial, One Year or Three: Find Your Entry Route
The verdict at the top answers by where your store runs today. This quiz adds a second axis: how sure you are, what is pushing you to Plus, and how much the $200 monthly gap between the two terms weighs against the freedom to reassess. Four answers give you an entry route — the trial, a 1-year term or a 3-year term — and the first moves for it.
Trial, one year or three?4 questions → your entry route onto Shopify Plus
What Happens on Upgrade Day
Key takeaway
Shopify describes the upgrade in two places — the Help Center's steps for changing plans in the admin, and its Plus upgrade page — and they cover different moments. Each step below names the page it comes from.
When the new plan starts and when billing changes
Key takeaway
Shopify's billing help sets the general rule for any upgrade: you receive an immediate bill that covers only the subscription fee for your new plan; features of the new plan take effect immediately, and billing adjustments are prorated from the upgrade date. How that proration is calculated is covered in our billing guide's proration section.
The Plus upgrade page describes the Plus path differently: your first bill comes 30 days after you agree to the Shopify Plus Terms. One page states the general plan-change rule and the other is written for the Plus sign-up, so read them separately rather than adding them together, and ask which applies to your contract before you sign.
Plan the switch for a quiet trading period anyway. None of the billing, trial or Plus pages we read describes whether the store is interrupted during an upgrade, in either direction (the pages are listed in the box under the term prices).
Replatforming Onto Plus From Another Platform
Key takeaway
If your store runs on another platform, there is no plan to change: you build a new Shopify store on Plus and move into it. Shopify's general migration guide makes the split itself — "If your store is on the Shopify Plus plan, then refer to the Shopify Plus plan launch checklist instead."
This page keeps replatforming to the Plus-specific points. The platform-by-platform work — what each source exports, redirect maps and tools — lives in our migration guides by platform.
The Shopify Plus launch checklist and the go-live guide it points to set out the work:
For the data itself, the checklist lists four options: CSV import, third-party migration apps, migration services such as LitExtension and Cart2Cart, and custom integrations.
Whichever you use, keep your own copy: Shopify's go-live guide says it does not offer an option to back up your store data, and recommends doing it manually or with an app.
Shopify's Help Center has step-by-step guides for ten source platforms: Amazon, Clover, Etsy, eBay, GoDaddy, Lightspeed, Square, Squarespace, Wix and WooCommerce. Magento, Salesforce Commerce Cloud and BigCommerce aren't on that list, and our own guides cover them:
On timing, Shopify's Plus migration page leads with a marketing headline, "Future-proof in 90 days or less", which is a promise rather than a documented timeline. No page we read gives a replatform duration in months (see the box under the term prices), so your partner's project plan is the timeline that counts.
Historical orders and the Plus fee base
Key takeaway
One Plus-specific detail sits in Shopify's legal terms rather than the Help Center. The Plus pricing definitions describe which transactions count, and imported history is carved out:
“Eligible Platform Transaction” means the net value of any online or retail (POS) consumer or business-to-business transactions processed through the Store(s), excluding any Imported Orders.
Imported Orders are orders processed and paid for on a platform other than Shopify and later imported, or orders first processed on one of your Shopify stores and later imported into another. The same definitions also exclude Imported Orders from Eligible Gateway Transactions. The definitions don't say where either term enters the calculation — the Platform Fee is defined by the Plus Agreement — so if a variable fee is part of your quote, ask how imported history and orders moved between your stores are treated.
What Changes in Your Admin on Plus
Key takeaway
Whichever route brought you here, the admin you land in is bigger. Two areas change most: how stores and people are organized, and which tools are switched on.
Organization, users and expansion stores
Key takeaway
The organization comes switched on: stores on the Shopify Plus plan have access to organization features and settings by default. All stores in the organization move to a single billing account and invoice, and custom organization-level roles become available. The admin's user limit goes from 15 on Advanced to unlimited on Plus.
The contract also brings more stores. Plus organizations can have a maximum of ten stores on their contract with no additional cost — one main store and nine expansion stores, with staging stores outside the count. On a standard contract, each expansion store must be an extension of the main brand, with the same store name and branding and the same types of goods and services; a store of a different brand doesn't qualify, but Shopify says you might be eligible for a multi-brand agreement, which requires each brand to have its own separate Shopify Plus plan subscription. Five expansion store types are pre-approved:
- International stores
- B2B wholesale stores (one free per contract)
- D2C stores for wholesale merchants (one free per contract)
- Employee-only stores
- Physical retail stores
Each expansion store is a separate store, and Shopify is explicit about what that means:
Store settings, products, collections, and inventory aren't synced between stores. They don't share data by default.
Expansion-store rules that shape a migration
| Rule | What it means for your plan |
|---|---|
| A theme license for each store | A license can't be shared across stores, so budget one per expansion store |
| Import only at creation | Themes, products and collections, and files can be imported from another store in your organization only when the new store is created |
| Existing stores join manually | A trial, existing or partner-created store becomes an expansion store through a manual request |
| Billing in USD or INR | Only stores billed in USD or INR can be added to a Plus agreement — the billing currency, not the selling currency |
| Over the contract limit | A store beyond your contract is created as a trial store, and you're prompted to approve an extra fee |
| No store grouping | Plus organizations use expansion stores instead of store grouping |
Shopify Help Center: Expansion stores; Store grouping — read October 4, 2026.
How brands actually split stores — by country, wholesale or retail — and what that does to inventory is covered in Plus expansion stores in practice.
Checkout, B2B and automation: what Plus unlocks
Key takeaway
The second change is the toolset. These are the Plus-only items that most often reshape a migration plan, from Shopify's feature pages:
Plus-only features to plan around
| Plus-only feature | What it changes in a migration plan |
|---|---|
| Advanced checkout customization | Apps on the information, shipping and payment pages, and the Checkout Branding API; Basic, Grow and Advanced get standard customizations only |
| Custom apps built with Shopify Functions | Where custom logic lives now — Shopify Scripts were deprecated on June 30, 2026 |
| B2B past three active catalogs | Basic, Grow and Advanced allow up to 3 active catalogs across all B2B markets |
| Direct company catalogs | Catalogs assigned straight to a company, unavailable on Basic, Grow or Advanced |
| Deposits, partial payments and payment requests per fulfillment | Advanced B2B payments that only Plus offers |
| Launchpad | Scheduled launches and promotions — the app is available only on Plus |
| Flow tasks from custom partner apps | Automations that use tasks built by custom partner apps |
Shopify Help Center: Customize checkout configurations; Shopify Plus plan; B2B features by plan; Launchpad; Shopify Flow; Script Editor — read October 4, 2026.
Don't wait for Plus to start B2B, though: most B2B features — companies, catalogs, net payment terms, self-serve ordering and Shopify Flow automations — are available on all plans. Plus lifts the catalog cap and adds direct catalogs and advanced payments; what a full B2B operation looks like there is in our B2B on Shopify Plus guide.
Checkout is where older migration plans go stale. Shopify's Script Editor page states that as of June 30, 2026, Shopify Scripts has been deprecated, and any Scripts still published have been deactivated. If a plan written before then lists Scripts, rewrite that line for Functions and checkout apps; which checkout surfaces Plus opens is mapped in our checkout extensibility guide.
Reconfiguration Checklist for Your First Weeks on Plus
Key takeaway
Shopify's official checklist is written for stores launching on Plus. The order below is ours, built from what the upgrade changes, for a store that is already live.
Steps 1 to 3 come before you sign; steps 4 to 9 once the store is on Plus. Replatforming? The Plus launch checklist is your main list — use steps 2 and 3 here before signing, and 5 to 9 once the new store is live.
On the trial, steps 5 and 6 wait for the full plan, because organization-level features aren't available during it.
Shopify Plus reconfiguration checklistTick each step as you go; your progress stays in this browser.
Shopify Plus reconfiguration checklist
Tick each step as you go; your progress stays in this browser.
Shopify does not offer a store backup option, so export your data or use a backup app before you restructure anything.
Before you tick this off
- Products, customers and orders exported or covered by a backup app
- A copy of the live theme saved
Make sure the person upgrading owns the store or has the Manage plan permission, is your organization's signing authority, and has a government-issued photo ID ready.
Before you tick this off
- Signatory named
- Signatory is the store owner or has the Manage plan permission
- Photo ID ready for the identity check
Pick a 1-year or 3-year term — from $2,500 or $2,300 a month in USD for standard setups — and settle the billing currency, remembering that expansion stores must bill in USD or INR.
Before you tick this off
- Term chosen, and early-exit terms requested in writing
- Billing currency confirmed for the main store
- Expansion-store billing planned in USD or INR
Use the introduction email's link to join Jumpstart onboarding, and keep the Plus Priority Support contact details it includes.
Before you tick this off
- Jumpstart joined
- Priority Support contacts shared with the team
Review your users and create custom organization-level roles; on Plus there is no staff-account limit, and every store moves to one billing account and invoice.
Before you tick this off
- Users reviewed and roles assigned
- Custom organization-level roles created where needed
- Billing contact confirmed for the single invoice
Decide which stores you need, import themes, products and files when each store is created, request existing stores manually, and buy a theme license for each.
Before you tick this off
- List of expansion stores and their type
- Imports planned for the moment each store is created
- A theme license budgeted per store
Rebuild checkout customizations with apps on the information, shipping and payment pages, the Checkout Branding API or custom apps built with Shopify Functions.
Before you tick this off
- Every checkout change mapped to an app, branding or a Function
- No Shopify Scripts left in the plan
If you sell wholesale, move past three active catalogs, assign catalogs directly to companies, and set up deposits or partial payments where needed.
Before you tick this off
- Catalogs consolidated or expanded past three
- Direct company catalogs assigned
- Deposit and partial-payment terms set
Schedule launches and promotions with Launchpad, and connect Flow tasks from any custom partner apps you use.
Before you tick this off
- First Launchpad event scheduled
- Custom partner app tasks connected in Flow
The Bottom Line
Key takeaway
A Plus migration is mostly decided before anything moves: the route, the term and the way out.
Frequently Asked Questions
Front-end developer specializing in Shopify since 2017. Experienced in building custom Liquid themes, optimizing storefront performance, and integrating third-party apps. Directs the editorial process behind Shopify Ecom: sets its topics and the rules every AI-written page must pass before publication.
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