Shopify vs Shopline: Pricing, Payments and Which to Choose

What Is Shopline?

Shopline is a commerce platform founded in 2013 and headquartered in Singapore, according to its About page, which lists e-commerce, social commerce, point-of-sale and customer-relationship tools and says Shopline is “trusted by over 600,000 merchants” (Shopline's own figure, read September 29, 2026). Shopify's Chinese-language comparison page describes it as a Singapore-based platform serving cross-border merchants. It is a separate company from Shopify, and not Shop, Shopify's shopping app — the two companies met in a New York court, as the lawsuit section below explains.

How Much Does Shopline Cost Compared With Shopify?

Both companies price by country, and Shopline's local pages change more than the currency: in Hong Kong and Taiwan they add a monthly percentage of sales, in Malaysia a 3% “Maintenance Rate” marked “(Online)”, and Taiwan sells yearly billing only. Here are the entry plans side by side, as each company's page for the market showed them on September 29, 2026.

In Singapore, the two lists compare directly. Both are in Singapore dollars, and Shopify Basic and Shopline's Starter plan both cost SGD 39 a month billed monthly; billed yearly, Shopify Basic costs SGD 29 a month and Shopline Starter SGD 390 a year, so Basic costs less.

From the second tier up, Shopline costs less there on either billing cycle. Billed monthly, Essential costs SGD 109 against SGD 132 for Shopify Grow, and Premium SGD 369 against SGD 531 for Shopify Advanced; billed yearly, Shopline lists SGD 1,090 and SGD 3,690 a year against Shopify's SGD 99 and SGD 399 a month.

In Hong Kong, Malaysia and Taiwan, the plan prices are in two currencies. Shopline's pages price in Hong Kong dollars, ringgit or New Taiwan dollars, and Shopify's pages for those markets in US dollars, so compare the plans at the exchange rate you actually pay; this article doesn't convert them. Two billing rules differ too. Shopline's Hong Kong page prices its four plans only per month on yearly billing, and separately advertises a “SHOPLINE Lite” offer at HK$199 a month with no contract, without listing its fees or features; its Taiwan page sells yearly billing only, with a one-time NT$5,000 setup fee on every plan.

On the US-dollar lists, the full ladders compare directly. Both pricing pages lay out four plans, and on the lists a US visitor sees, Shopline undercuts Shopify on every rung where both carry a price. The table pairs the plans by their position on each ladder, not by identical features: the two companies put different things into each step.

At the entry level, the gap is price and seats. On the US-dollar lists, Shopify Basic costs $39 a month, or $29 a month billed yearly, and it includes no additional staff accounts beyond the store owner. Shopline's Starter plan costs less there on either billing cycle and includes 5 staff accounts, which matters as soon as a second person needs to log in.

The trials differ too. Shopline's pricing page offers 14 days free with no credit card required. Shopify's US pricing page starts with a 3-day free trial, after which most plans cost $1 a month for the first 3 months before standard pricing applies; your country's pricing page may show a different amount or currency.

A plan price is only the floor of a monthly bill on either platform. What else lands on a Shopify invoice — apps, themes, payment fees — is broken down in our guide to Shopify pricing.

Payments: What Works in Your Country

Both platforms run a card processor of their own — Shopify Payments and Shopline Payments. So the first question is whether the platform's own processor is open to a business registered where yours is, and the second is what the platform takes from your sales on each route.

Can You Use Shopify Payments in Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia or Taiwan?

Shopify ties its processor to where the business is, not to where its customers are. Its Help Center puts the rule this way:

Malaysia and Taiwan are not on that list. When we read the supported-countries page on September 29, 2026, its 40 countries included Hong Kong SAR and Singapore but not Malaysia or Taiwan, and we found no Help Center page for either country.

Shopline organises its side differently: its help center has Shopline Payments pages for eight countries — Australia, Canada, France, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States — and its Taiwan help center, in Chinese, documents Shopline Payments for Taiwan with rates in Taiwan dollars.

The supported-country list changes over time, so check the current one rather than an older comparison before you plan a store around it. Our Shopify Payments guide lists the supported countries along with what the processor asks of a business.

What Each Platform Takes as a Share of Sales

On the US-dollar list, Shopline's fee disappears with its own processor. Shopline's help center says: “When you activate SHOPLINE Payments as your payment service provider, transaction fees for orders processed through the SHOPLINE checkout system are waived.” Card-processing fees still apply, and on a non-Shopline gateway the US-dollar pricing page lists Shopline's fee at 2% on its Starter plan, 0.8% on Essential and 0.5% on Premium.

Singapore works the same way, with one extra charge. Shopline's Singapore fee table lists 0% on Shopline Payments on all three plans, 2%, 0.8% and 0.6% on an integrated outside gateway such as Stripe, and a commission of up to 2% on methods not integrated with Shopline, such as bank transfer or cash on delivery. Shopline's general list of exempt payment methods includes cash on delivery and custom payment methods, but the Singapore table charges a commission on those.

In Hong Kong, Malaysia and Taiwan, Shopline's price pages list a percentage fee rather than an outside-gateway fee. The table sets every route side by side as a percentage, which needs no exchange rate.

• Hong Kong. Shopline's Hong Kong page lists a monthly “Traffic Maintenance Fee” of 0.8% on Basic with no waiver clause. On Pro, at HK$1,234 a month on yearly billing, and on Social Pro and All-in-one OMO, it adds that the fee “is waived for order transacted with SHOPLINE Payments”, so only the order value paid through it is exempt. The page doesn't define which orders count toward the fee, and Shopline's Taiwan help article on it says Hong Kong stores settle that with their online consultant, so ask whether POS and API orders are included.
• Malaysia. Shopline's Malaysia page lists “Maintenance Rate: 3% (Online)” under each of its three plans, plus a 1% POS Handle Fee on offline sales, and doesn't say the rate is waived on Shopline Payments. The public help pages we read exempt Shopline Payments from the transaction fee and don't mention the Maintenance Rate; the one Shopline help article on the rate that we found sits behind a login. Ask Shopline in writing whether the 3% applies to orders paid through Shopline Payments.
• Taiwan. Shopline's Taiwan page lists a monthly fee of 2% of GMV on its three lower plans and 1.5% on its top plan, 全通路領航員 (“Omnichannel Navigator”, our translation). Its Taiwan help center counts orders from the storefront, the admin, Live, the message center and the Shopper App, and leaves out API, POS, Smart OMO and imported orders; Shopline Payments isn't among those exclusions, and none of the Taiwan pages we read — the price page, this help article and the Shopline Payments rates article — says the fee is waived on it.

On Shopify, the fee is the price of not using Shopify Payments. Shopify adds 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow and 0.6% on Advanced to orders paid through a provider other than Shopify Payments, per its pricing page as of September 2026, and its Hong Kong and Singapore pages list the same percentages.

For a store registered in Malaysia or Taiwan, where Shopify Payments isn't on the list, that fee applies to the card sales you take through the gateway you connect, on top of the gateway's own charges. Even so, at each tier it is at or below the percentage Shopline's Malaysia and Taiwan pages list.

Not every payment method carries Shopify's fee, and the exemptions depend on whether Shopify Payments is active. Which methods are exempt is set out in our guide to when Shopify waives its third-party fee.

Here is what the fees mean at one volume. Take $10,000 a month in online sales, with both stores on an outside gateway and plans billed monthly on the US-dollar price lists: the cheapest Shopline tier comes to $159, a $79 Shopline subscription plus $80 in Shopline fees. The cheapest Shopify tier at the same volume comes to $205, a $105 subscription plus $100 in fees. Card-processing charges come on top on both sides.

The result flips when the two stores are on different routes. In a country Shopify Payments covers where Shopline's help center has no Shopline Payments page, a Shopline store that takes cards through an outside gateway pays Shopline's fee, while a Shopify store pays no Shopify transaction fee on orders paid through Shopify Payments. There, Shopify Basic costs less in plan plus transaction fee than any priced Shopline plan above about $500 a month in sales on the US-dollar lists, billed monthly (about $250 on yearly billing), before card processing; your own country's prices move that point.

The calculator runs the same sum for your market. Pick the US-dollar lists, Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia or Taiwan, enter your monthly online sales in that market's currency, and choose billing and payment route; card processing is left out on both sides.

For Hong Kong, Malaysia and Taiwan it compares only the percentages until you enter your own exchange rate, because Shopline's prices there are in local currency and Shopify's in US dollars, and it holds no rate of its own. In Malaysia and Taiwan it applies Shopline's fee on every route, since the Malaysia and Taiwan pages we read don't say the fee is waived on Shopline Payments, and shows Shopify on an outside gateway.

Card Rates on Shopline Payments and Shopify Payments

On the US-dollar lists, Shopline's pricing page shows a US visitor its rates in US dollars, and Shopify's page shows its US online rates.

Treat the two halves of this table as two price lists, not one comparison: Shopline says its card fees apply “depending on your SHOPLINE subscription plan and store region,” and its pricing page doesn't say which region its US-dollar figures belong to.

Outside the US, read the rate for your market. Each market publishes its own rates, in its own currency:

Three limits apply to this table. Shopline's Hong Kong Payments article names its international-card tiers Starter, Essential and Premium, while the Hong Kong price page sells Basic, Pro, Social Pro and All-in-one OMO, and neither page says which rate goes with which plan. Shopline's Malaysia Payments article lists one card rate for all plans before 8% SST, while its general fees article lists different per-plan Malaysia rates with a different SST rate; confirm your plan's rate with Shopline. Shopline's Singapore rates exclude GST, and Shopify's Hong Kong and Singapore pages don't say whether their rates include tax.

Live Selling, POS and B2B on Each Platform

If live selling is your main channel, Shopline's plan ladder decides the price. Social Commerce is on every Shopline plan, but the in-stream games, comment tag printing and post-based sales campaigns come with Social Commerce Pro, which Shopline's plan comparison table, as read on September 29, 2026, marks on Premium and Enterprise only, though the same page's per-plan view shows a dash for it on all four plans, so confirm with Shopline.

On Shopify, the stream itself lives outside the store. Shopify's Help Center says that “when you're LIVE on TikTok, your viewers can browse and purchase products directly from your LIVE,” and YouTube Shopping lets you “display products on your videos' watch pages and live streams.”

You sell live on Shopify through a sales channel on another platform, such as TikTok, YouTube or Whatnot, rather than from a tool inside the store. Each channel sets its own conditions: Shopify's TikTok Shop channel is open only to stores located in ten countries, including the US but not Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia or Taiwan; YouTube Shopping needs a channel with at least 1,000 subscribers that is approved for monetization, and you must be located in a country the YouTube Partner Program supports; Whatnot takes stores based in nine countries, none of them in Asia.

Both platforms also sell to businesses. Shopline lists B2B & Wholesale on its pricing page with a Lite plan on its three priced tiers; on Shopify, B2B runs on Basic, Grow, Advanced and Plus, with up to 3 active catalogs across all B2B markets on the three plans below Plus, and our Shopify B2B and wholesale guide covers the setup.

What Happened in the Shopify v. Shopline Lawsuit?

BetaKit reported the suit as “accusing the subsidiary of global tech firm Joyy of copying its e-commerce software ‘wholesale’ to build a competing platform.” Shopline, in a statement reported by Ebrun, said the parties “agreed to resolve all claims raised in the lawsuit on a mutual non-admission of liability basis.”

For a merchant, two clauses of the order matter most. Its first clause binds Shopline: “Shopline shall cease distributing Seed and its derivative themes, and any future unauthorized use of the Dawn theme.” Its second dismisses the action and the claims of all parties with prejudice, including Shopify's claims against Shopline merchants. The order also requires the parties to comply with a Confidential Settlement Agreement, and the court kept jurisdiction over Shopify and Shopline to enforce compliance with the order.

Shopline told merchants, in the same statement reported by Ebrun, that they “can continue using the disputed theme templates without substantial changes, and their business operations will remain entirely unaffected.” That is a statement from one party, not the court's wording.

Moving Between Shopline and Shopify

The move is lopsided. Shopline has built an importer for Shopify stores, while the path from Shopline to Shopify runs through tools made by other companies.

From Shopline to Shopify

Shopify has no Shopline guide on the pages we read. On September 29, 2026, Shopify's migration hub listed ten guides — Amazon, Clover, eBay, Etsy, GoDaddy, Lightspeed, Square, Squarespace, Wix and WooCommerce — and neither they nor the Store Migration app's listing named Shopline. Two migration services do publish a Shopline-to-Shopify route:

Which route suits your store — an automated service, a CSV import or a hired developer — is weighed in our comparison of migration methods.

From Shopify to Shopline

Shopline publishes a free route in the other direction. Its guide to migrating a Shopify store describes the Multi-platform Store Migration app as “a one-click migration tool that transfers store data from supported platforms,” and Shopline's migration overview says its tools are free and keep SEO data and original links. One limit matters if you are leaving a small Shopify store: “Customer data cannot be retrieved for Shopify trial, Basic, or Starter plans.”

When Shopline Fits — and When Shopify Earns Its Price

The answer splits by market and by tier, so the two lists below sort it by what each company publishes.

Where Shopline Is the Sensible Pick

• Lower plan prices at every priced level on the US-dollar price lists a US visitor sees, on both monthly and yearly billing, and in Singapore from the second tier up.
• A Hong Kong business on Pro or above that takes cards through Shopline Payments: the monthly fee is waived on that order value, and the local card rate is 2.99% + HK$2.35, against Shopify Payments' 3.3%, 3.2% or 3.1% + HK$2.35. Pro costs more a month than Shopify Basic, so the lower rate pays back only at higher card volume; the calculator leaves card rates out, so work the difference from the two rates.
• Live-stream selling with in-stream games and comment tag printing, on Shopline Premium at $269 a month on the US-dollar list, or Enterprise, as Shopline's plan comparison table marks it; confirm with Shopline.
• A team: 5 staff accounts on Shopline's Starter plan on its US-dollar pricing page, where Shopify Basic includes no additional ones.

Check one thing before you settle outside the US and Singapore: what Shopline takes on your payment route. Its Malaysia and Taiwan pages, and its Hong Kong Basic plan, don't say the percentage is waived on Shopline Payments, so get that answer in writing.

Where Shopify Earns Its Price

• A business registered in Malaysia or Taiwan: Shopify adds 2%, 1% or 0.6% on outside-gateway sales, while Shopline's Malaysia page lists 3% on every plan and its Taiwan page 2% or 1.5% of GMV, with no waiver stated for Shopline Payments; in Taiwan, Shopline also asks for yearly billing and a one-time NT$5,000 setup fee.
• A Hong Kong business starting on the entry tier: Shopify Basic adds no transaction fee on Shopify Payments, while Shopline's Basic plan lists a 0.8% monthly fee with no waiver stated.
• Published terms at the top: Shopify Plus from $2,300 a month on a 3-year term for standard setups, a 0.2% outside-gateway fee and US card rates from 2.25% + 30¢, where Shopline Enterprise lists “Custom pricing” and “Contact sales”.
• Foreign cards at each paired plan level: on the two US-dollar price lists above, Shopify adds 1% to its 2.9% + 30¢ standard card rate on Basic, while Shopline Payments quotes 4.2% + $0.25 for international Visa and Mastercard on its Starter plan: on standard cards, a lower percentage on Shopify and a higher fixed fee, and the same holds for Grow against Essential and Advanced against Premium.
• International cards in Singapore: Shopify Payments charges 3.6%, 3.5% or 3.4% + SGD 0.50 on Basic, Grow or Advanced, against Shopline Payments' 3.70%, 3.65% or 3.60% + SGD 0.50 on Starter, Essential or Premium.
• If your store is in the US or another of the ten countries Shopify's TikTok Shop channel is open to — none of them Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia or Taiwan — and your live audience is already on TikTok LIVE, selling to it through that channel from the products already in your Shopify store.
• A move from one of the ten platforms Shopify's migration hub covers, such as Amazon, Etsy, Wix or WooCommerce.

None of this makes Shopify's plans the cheaper ones on the US-dollar lists: their plan prices are higher at every priced step there, Basic includes no additional staff accounts, and in Malaysia or Taiwan the card sales you take through an outside gateway carry Shopify's fee on top of the gateway's own charges, because Shopify Payments isn't offered there. Those trade-offs, and others, are catalogued in our list of Shopify's disadvantages.

The Bottom Line

For a store that decides on plan price, the US-dollar lists and Singapore's upper tiers favor Shopline. In Taiwan, and in Hong Kong on Basic or on orders not paid through Shopline Payments, Shopline's monthly fee is a percentage that rises with the orders it counts while the plan price stays flat, and its Malaysia page lists a 3% “Maintenance Rate” marked “(Online)” without stating its base, so run the calculator above with your own volume and exchange rate.

In Malaysia, the waiver question is worth one email before you sign: ask Shopline whether its 3% Maintenance Rate applies to orders paid through Shopline Payments, since its price page doesn't say.

Frequently Asked Questions