Shopify pricing 2025: A complete guide to plans, fees & hidden costs

Picking an e-commerce platform is a huge deal for any business, and let’s be honest, getting a handle on the real cost is make-or-break for your bottom line. Shopify is a top choice for millions of merchants, but its pricing can sometimes feel like a puzzle. You see the monthly subscription price, but what about all the other little fees that can pop up?

This guide is here to cut through the noise. We’re going to break down every Shopify pricing plan for 2025, uncover the sneaky costs you need to look out for, and help you land on the right plan for your business. We’ll cover everything from the basic monthly fees and transaction rates to the often-underestimated cost of customer support as your store gets bigger.

So, what is Shopify? A quick overview

Shopify is an all-in-one e-commerce platform that gives you all the tools you need to set up an online store and sell your stuff. Think of it as the control center for your online business. It takes care of your website, product pages, marketing, payments, and checkout process. It’s used by everyone from solo entrepreneurs running a side project to massive brands like Gymshark and Allbirds.

Shopify pricing plans: A 2025 comparison

Before we get into the weeds, here’s a quick side-by-side look at the main Shopify plans. This should give you a good sense of the landscape before we dig into the details of each one.

Feature	Basic	Grow	Advanced	Shopify Plus
Price (Monthly)	$25/month	$65/month	$399/month	Starts at $2,300/month
Price (Annual)	$19/month	$49/month	$299/month	Starts at $2,300/month
Who It’s Best For	New businesses, solopreneurs	Growing businesses with small teams	Scaling businesses, international sales	High-volume enterprises
Online Card Rate	2.9% + 30¢	2.7% + 30¢	2.5% + 30¢	Custom
3rd-Party Fee	2.0%	1.0%	0.6%	0.2%
Staff Accounts	2	5	15	Unlimited
Reporting	Basic	Professional	Custom Report Builder	Advanced

A detailed breakdown of Shopify pricing plans

So, what do you actually get with each plan? The monthly price is just the beginning. Each level unlocks different features, has lower fees, and is built for a different stage of business growth. Let’s walk through them one by one.

Shopify pricing: The starter plan for social selling

The Starter plan, at just $5 per month, is the easiest way to dip your toes into e-commerce, but it’s important to know what it’s not. This plan doesn’t give you a full, standalone online store. Instead, it’s a smart way to sell products through places you already have an audience. You can add "Buy Buttons" to your blog, share product links on social media, or sell directly through messaging apps. It’s built around Linkpop (Shopify’s link-in-bio tool) and the Shopify Checkout system.

This is perfect for influencers, hobbyists, or anyone wanting to test out a product idea without committing to a full website build. The main thing to watch out for is the 5% transaction fee, which can add up, so it’s not a great long-term solution if you plan on selling a lot.

Shopify pricing: The basic plan for new businesses

At $25 per month (or $19/month if you pay annually), the Basic plan is where most people start, and for good reason. This is where you get your own fully functional online store. It’s the go-to for new small businesses and entrepreneurs who need a professional website to call their own.

With this plan, you can list as many products as you want, have up to two staff accounts, and get access to basic reports to see how you’re doing. You also get shipping discounts and the ability to sell in up to three different international markets. It’s a complete package that gives you everything you need to launch your store and start making sales.

Shopify pricing: The ‘grow’ plan for growing businesses

Once your business starts getting some real traction and you need more help, the Grow plan is the natural next step. For $65 per month ($49/month annually), it’s made for businesses with a small team and a steady flow of orders.

You get everything from the Basic plan, plus a few key upgrades. You can have up to five staff accounts, which is great for delegating things like order fulfillment or marketing. You also unlock professional reports that give you better insights into where your sales are coming from. Most importantly, your online transaction fees drop to 2.7% + 30¢. It might not sound like a huge difference, but as your sales numbers climb, those fee savings can easily cover the higher monthly cost of the plan.

Shopify pricing: The advanced plan for scaling businesses

The Advanced plan is for established businesses that are growing fast. At $399 per month ($299/month annually), it’s a bigger investment, but it’s designed for higher sales volume, larger teams, and selling internationally.

This plan includes everything in Grow but bumps you up to 15 staff accounts. The biggest perks here are the custom report builder, which lets you analyze your data however you want, and third-party calculated shipping rates, which show customers accurate shipping costs at checkout. Your fees drop again to 2.5% + 30¢. Businesses at this level are often dealing with a lot of customer questions, so having an efficient support setup is key.

Shopify pricing: The plus plan for enterprises

Starting at $2,300 per month, Shopify Plus is the enterprise-level solution for high-volume merchants and well-known brands. This is a completely different ballgame. You get unlimited staff accounts, a checkout you can customize from top to bottom, advanced APIs for custom integrations, and dedicated channels for B2B and wholesale.

But with a huge volume of sales comes a huge volume of support tickets. A Shopify Plus merchant can’t have their team spending all day answering "Where is my order?". This is where automation isn’t just nice to have, it’s necessary. An AI platform like eesel AI connects directly to your store and your help desk (whether you use Zendesk or Gorgias) to automatically answer common questions. This frees up your human agents to focus on the tricky problems that actually need a human touch.

The hidden costs of Shopify pricing: What’s not in the monthly fee?

Smart business owners know the monthly subscription isn’t the whole story. To get a true picture of your Shopify costs, you have to account for the other things you’ll need to run your store effectively. Here’s a look at those extra expenses.

Shopify pricing and transaction fees explained: Shopify payments vs. third-party gateways

This is probably the most confusing part of Shopify’s pricing, so let’s simplify it. Shopify has its own payment processor called Shopify Payments. If you use it, you just pay the standard credit card rate for your plan (like 2.9% + 30¢ on Basic). You don’t pay any extra fee to Shopify.

But, if you decide to use an external payment gateway like PayPal by itself, you’ll get hit with fees twice. You’ll have to pay whatever PayPal charges you and an extra transaction fee to Shopify. That extra fee can be as high as 2.0% on the Basic plan.

Pro Tip: For pretty much everyone, using Shopify Payments is the cheaper and simpler option.

Shopify pricing: Domain names, themes, and apps

Here are a few other costs to keep in mind for your budget:

• Domain: Your Shopify plan doesn’t come with a custom domain name. You can buy one through Shopify for about $15 a year or connect one you already own.

• Themes: Shopify has some solid free themes to get you started. If you want a more unique look, you can buy a premium theme, which is a one-time purchase usually costing between $150 and $350.

• Apps: The Shopify App Store is full of tools to add more features to your store, but many of the best ones have their own monthly fees. These can add up, so be picky and only pay for apps that give you a clear benefit.

Shopify pricing and customer support overhead: The cost of growth

This is the hidden cost that sneaks up on almost every growing store. As your sales go up, so does the number of customer questions. Before you know it, you’re spending hours every day answering the same questions about order status, shipping, returns, and products. This leads to one of your biggest expenses: hiring more people for your support team.

An AI support platform like eesel AI can help you get ahead of this. It doesn’t replace your help desk; it works with it, pulling information from past tickets, your help center, and even your Shopify product data to give instant, correct answers. The AI Agent can completely handle common questions on its own, while the AI Copilot helps your human agents write perfect replies in seconds. This lets you manage a growing number of customers without having to hire a proportionally larger support team.

Supercharge your Shopify store with scalable AI support

A great Shopify store doesn’t just make sales; it supports customers so well they keep coming back. As you grow, providing fast, accurate support becomes a huge part of building loyalty and trust.

Instead of throwing out your current help desk and starting over, you can add an intelligent layer on top of the tools you already use. eesel AI is an AI platform that connects your Shopify store, your help desk (like Intercom or Freshdesk), and all your knowledge sources (like your internal Google Docs or public help center). This setup allows you to automate a huge portion of your support tickets, reduce team burnout, and give customers 24/7 answers. It’s how you can turn your support team from a cost center into an engine for growth.

Here’s a simple look at how that works:

Finding the right balance of cost and capability

Shopify gives you a powerful, reliable, and scalable platform with pricing that makes sense for every stage of business, from a new side hustle to a global brand.

The secret is to pick a plan that fits what you need right now while also planning for the other costs that come with selling online. That means thinking about transaction fees, apps, and most importantly, the cost of giving your customers great support. By planning for these costs, you can build a profitable business from day one.

Once you’ve picked your Shopify plan, the next step is making sure your support can keep up with your success. Try eesel AI for free or book a demo and see how you can automate your Shopify support, make your customers happier, and turn your service team into an efficiency machine.