How Much Does It Cost to Run a Shopify Store per Month? The Full Bill, Line by Line
By Ashikur Rahman16 min readQuick answer: A small US Shopify store on the Basic plan costs $29 a month billed yearly or $39 billed monthly, but the plan is the smallest honest line on the bill. On $5,000 of monthly online sales, card processing through Shopify Payments adds $175.00, and a store with a paid theme, a Shopify-bought domain and 20,000 marketing emails lands at $223.08 for the month. Skip Shopify Payments and Shopify adds a 2% fee on top of your gateway's own charges. Prices read on 28 September 2026 from Shopify's US pricing page and help center.
Why do articles quote different prices for the same Shopify plan?
Because two switches change the number, and most pages state neither: the billing period and the visitor's country. The same Basic plan shows as $39, $29, $25 or $19 depending on those two.
Shopify's pricing page loads with "Pay yearly" already selected, so the big number on each card is the yearly-billed monthly equivalent. The table underneath shows both: "Pay monthly $39 USD/mo" and "Pay yearly $29 USD/mo" for Basic. Shopify's free trial help page explains the gap: "Annual billing charges the full year upfront and presents a lower effective monthly rate."
Then the country. Fetched from outside the US on 28 September 2026, the same page showed Basic at $25 monthly and $19 yearly, next to the line "Prices may vary by your store location." Those are real Shopify prices, but not US prices. An article quoting $19 for Basic was written from a discounted page.
That is the finding. The headline plan price is correct but incomplete. The real monthly bill is the plan, plus a percentage of every sale, plus a penalty if you use another payment gateway, plus apps, email above the free allowance, a domain and a theme. Some of those lines keep billing even when the store is paused.
What does each Shopify plan cost per month in 2026?
Basic costs $39 a month or $29 billed yearly, Grow $105 or $79, Advanced $399 or $299, and Plus starts at $2,300 a month. Those are the US prices, with the two rates that change the bill most.
| Plan | Billed monthly | Billed yearly, per month | Online card rate | Third-party gateway fee |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | $39 | $29 | 2.9% + $0.30 | 2% |
| Grow | $105 | $79 | 2.7% + $0.30 | 1% |
| Advanced | $399 | $299 | 2.5% + $0.30 | 0.6% |
| Plus | From $2,300 | No yearly row | 2.25% + $0.30 | 0.2% |
Over a year the billing choice matters. Basic billed yearly is $29 x 12 = $348. Billed monthly it is $39 x 12 = $468. Yearly saves $120. Grow saves $312 ($948 against $1,260), and Advanced saves $1,200 ($3,588 against $4,788).
Staff accounts decide the tier for many shops. Shopify's help page on the Basic plan says: "The Basic plan doesn't support adding staff accounts to your store." Grow allows 5, Advanced 15, Plus unlimited. The pricing FAQ adds: "There are no setup fees on any of our plans."
Two plans still quoted elsewhere do not help a new store. The Starter plan help page says: "The Starter plan isn't available to new stores." Pages quoting Starter at $5 describe a plan you cannot buy.
How does the $1 a month Shopify offer work?
It is a three-month discount on monthly billing, after a three-day free trial. The headline reads: "Try 3 days free, then $1/month for 3 months."
The billing condition sits in the page's code, not beside the offer. The offer message stored there applies the trial price "when billed monthly". The plan cards do not say so. Here is the first year on Basic both ways:
- Monthly with the offer: 3 x $1 = $3, then 9 x $39 = $351. First year: $3 + $351 = $354.
- Yearly, no offer: 12 x $29 = $348.
- First-year gap: $6 in favour of yearly. From year two: $468 against $348.
The free trial help page adds two rules. "Shopify doesn't extend or reset free trials or promotional pricing." And "If you add apps to your Shopify store during your free trial period, then any app-related charges are included on your next invoice." The $1 covers the plan, not the apps.
How much does Shopify take from each sale?
On Basic, Shopify Payments charges 2.9% + $0.30 per online card sale, so a $50 order costs $1.75. The percentage falls as the plan rises; the $0.30 does not. These rates come from the "Accepting payments" table on the US pricing page.
| Payment type | Basic | Grow | Advanced | Plus |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Online standard card | 2.9% + $0.30 | 2.7% + $0.30 | 2.5% + $0.30 | 2.25% + $0.30 |
| Online premium card | 3.5% + $0.30 | 3.3% + $0.30 | 3.1% + $0.30 | 2.95% + $0.30 |
| International card | Plus 1% | Plus 1% | Plus 1% | Plus 1% |
| In-person card | 2.6% + $0.10 | 2.5% + $0.10 | 2.4% + $0.10 | 2.3% + $0.10 |
| Cost of a $50 online order | $1.75 | $1.65 | $1.55 | $1.425 |
The premium row "Includes business cards and American Express," per the page's tooltip.
International cards add 1%, so a $50 overseas order on Basic costs $2.25. If the buyer also pays in their own currency, Shopify's currency conversion page lists a 1.5% fee for US stores and 2% in most other regions: $0.75 more on that order. The same page warns: "Currency conversion fees and credit card fees are not returned to you when you issue a refund".
What does it cost to use your own payment gateway on Shopify?
Shopify charges 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow, 0.6% on Advanced and 0.2% on Plus, on top of your gateway's own fee. The pricing page tooltip says: "Third-party transaction fees are charges that apply if you use a third-party provider."
| Plan | Shopify's third-party fee | On $5,000 a month | Over a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | 2% | $100 | $1,200 |
| Grow | 1% | $50 | $600 |
| Advanced | 0.6% | $30 | $360 |
| Plus | 0.2% | $10 | $120 |
That is only Shopify's share. The gateway still charges its own processing fee, which Shopify does not publish. For the two most common outside processors, see this site's comparison of Stripe and PayPal fees for small businesses.
Shopify's page on using Shopify Payments with a third-party provider says that when you run both, Shopify Payments transactions "are charged at standard Shopify Payments rates plus a 1.25% premium." For stores created on or after May 12, 2025, third-party fees apply to amounts paid with gift cards or store credit, even with Shopify Payments.
What does a Shopify store cost per month at three sales levels?
On Basic billed yearly with Shopify Payments, a store selling $1,000 a month pays $64, one selling $3,000 pays $127, and one selling $5,000 with a paid theme and a Shopify domain pays $223.08. Every line is below. All sales are online, to US cards at the standard rate.
Store one: $1,000 a month, 20 orders of $50
- Plan, Basic yearly: $29. Free theme: $0. Emails under 10,000: $0.
- Domain: connected from another registrar, "No additional cost from Shopify". The registrar bills its renewal separately.
- Processing: $1,000 x 2.9% = $29, plus 20 x $0.30 = $6, total $35.
- Month total: $29 + $35 = $64.
Store two: $3,000 a month, 30 orders of $100
- Plan: $29. Free theme and connected domain: $0 from Shopify.
- Email: 12,000 sends, 2,000 chargeable at $1 per 1,000 = $2. Fixed subtotal: $31.
- Processing: $3,000 x 2.9% = $87, plus 30 x $0.30 = $9, total $96.
- Month total: $31 + $96 = $127.
Store three: $5,000 a month, 100 orders of $50
- Plan: $29.00.
- Domain bought through Shopify at the published floor: $9 a year / 12 = $0.75.
- Email: (20,000 - 10,000) / 1,000 x $1 = $10.00.
- Cheapest paid theme over 12 months: $100 / 12 = $8.33.
- Fixed subtotal: $29.00 + $0.75 + $10.00 + $8.33 = $48.08.
- Processing: $5,000 x 2.9% = $145.00, plus 100 x $0.30 = $30.00, total $175.00.
- Month total: $48.08 + $175.00 = $223.08.
| Line | Store one | Store two | Store three |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly sales | $1,000 | $3,000 | $5,000 |
| Fixed lines | $29 | $31 | $48.08 |
| Card processing | $35 | $96 | $175.00 |
| Month total | $64 | $127 | $223.08 |
| Extra on a third-party gateway | $20 plus gateway fees | $60 plus gateway fees | $100 plus gateway fees |
At every level, processing is larger than the plan. Order size matters too: $0.30 on a $100 order is 0.3%, on a $50 order 0.6%.
These totals leave out paid apps, because Shopify publishes no typical app spend and this article will not invent one. Monthly billing adds $10 to each total.
Transparency note: CriticNest has no affiliate or commercial relationship with Shopify, Stripe or PayPal. Nothing here is a paid placement. Every price and quotation was read from Shopify's own pages on 28 September 2026, and where Shopify publishes nothing this article says so instead of estimating; if that changes, the disclosure will move to the top of this article.
What other charges land on the monthly Shopify bill?
Email above 10,000 sends, a domain, a paid theme, paid apps, and sales tax fees past a threshold.
Email marketing
Shopify Email is now listed as Shopify Messaging. Its pricing help page says: "All stores on these plans have 10,000 free emails to send at the beginning of every month." After that it is "$1 USD per 1,000 additional emails up to 300,000 emails", then $0.65 and later $0.55 per 1,000. At 50,000 emails a month: 40,000 x $1 / 1,000 = $40. Abandoned checkout emails are free, and unused emails do not carry over. If you outgrow it, compare the email marketing platforms reviewed on this site.
Domain
Shopify's domains page says domains "typically start at $9 USD/year, billed annually", with the exact price "shown upfront in your Shopify admin". Shopify does not publish the price of a .com, and warns: "Renewal pricing may differ from initial purchase and can change over time."
Theme
The Theme Store listed 24 free themes and 1,257 paid ones on 28 September 2026, from $100 to $500. Theme pages such as Impulse state: "One-time payment, lifetime license for your store." Spread over a year, $100 is $8.33 a month and $500 is $41.67. For design and setup work on top, see the companion piece on what it costs to have a Shopify store built.
Apps
Several Shopify-built apps are free, including Shopify Flow, Shopify Inbox and Shopify Forms. Third-party apps set their own prices, and Shopify publishes no average app spend.
Sales tax and other add-ons
Shopify Tax is free up to $100,000 in sales. Shopify's tax pricing page makes that annual for stores created before May 13, 2026, and lifetime for stores created on or after it. Past it, Basic pays 0.35% on US orders with calculated tax, capped at $0.99 per order: $0.175 on a $50 order. POS Pro for in-person selling is $89 a month per location.
When does Grow or Advanced cost less than Basic?
When the rate saving beats the higher plan price. On yearly billing Grow costs $50 a month more and saves 0.2 points per card sale: $79 - $29 = $50, and $50 / 0.2% = $25,000 of monthly card sales to break even.
Shopify's help page on choosing a plan publishes its own US estimates: "$200,000 USD/year" for Grow using Shopify Payments, and "$60,000 USD/year" without it. It adds: "Your actual break-even point may vary." Shopify does not publish the inputs behind the $200,000.
| Upgrade | Extra plan cost, yearly billing | Rate saved | Break-even by this arithmetic | Shopify's estimate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basic to Grow, Shopify Payments | $50 a month | 0.2 points | $25,000 a month | $200,000 a year |
| Basic to Grow, own gateway | $50 a month | 1 point | $60,000 a year | $60,000 a year |
| Grow to Advanced, Shopify Payments | $220 ($299 less $79) | 0.2 points | $1,320,000 a year | $1,320,000 a year |
The own-gateway row: $50 / 1% = $5,000 a month, and $5,000 x 12 = $60,000 a year, matching Shopify. The Advanced row: $299 minus $79, divided by 0.2%, times twelve months, gives $1,320,000, again matching Shopify. Shops that need staff logins need Grow anyway.
When does Shopify Plus make sense on cost?
Rarely for a small business. Shopify's Plus pricing page says: "The Shopify Plus plan starts at $2,300 USD a month for standard setups and integrations on a 3-year term, or $2,500 USD per month for a 1-year term." That is $27,600 or $30,000 a year before a single sale. On card rates it says: "Card rates vary by country. Get in touch with sales for the most up-to-date rates for your location."
If I deactivate my Shopify store, will it still charge me?
Yes, for anything already owed. Shopify's help page on billing before pausing or deactivating says: "When you cancel your plan, all apps are automatically uninstalled and any pending charges on your account are charged. These pending charges include any outstanding app usage charges, transaction fees, and shipping label charges." Third-party charges and chargebacks can still arrive later.
Unused plan time is not refunded. The deactivation help page says: "Shopify maintains a strict no-refund policy for Shopify subscription plans as stated in section 5.10 of the Shopify Terms of Service."
Pausing is cheaper, not free. The help page on closing for vacations says: "Selecting the Pause and Build plan changes your subscription fee to $9 USD per month. However, when you decide to unpause, you must select a new plan, as your old plan is no longer valid." That is $108 a year, $20 a month less than Basic billed yearly. The main pausing help page gives no figure, only "a reduced subscription fee".
Apps are the line that catches people. The pausing page says: "All your apps remain active after you pause your store. If you want to pause your apps, then you need to cancel them individually."
| Option | Plan charge | Apps | Checkout | What you keep |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Password, private mode | Full price continues | Keep billing | Closed to the public | Everything |
| Pause and Build | $9 a month | Keep billing until cancelled | Off on all channels | Admin, basic reports |
| Deactivate | Stops at end of cycle | Uninstalled, pending charges billed | Off | Data for two years, credits for 60 days |
What happens to my domain if I close my Shopify store?
It disconnects, but a Shopify-bought domain can keep renewing and charging you. The billing help page says: "Your domain renewals aren't canceled when canceling your store. If your domain is scheduled to renew before your store's close date, then you might still be charged a renewal fee."
To keep the name, move it first. The buying domains help page says: "If you want to deactivate your store or your Shopify account, but you want to keep using your domain, then you need to transfer your domain before you deactivate your store." A .com cannot transfer until 60 days after purchase or a contact change.
This is the case for buying the domain elsewhere. Shopify's connect-vs-transfer page lists connecting as "No additional cost from Shopify", and closing the store never touches ownership.
What does Shopify not publish about monthly cost?
No average app spend and no typical total monthly cost. Also missing on 28 September 2026: the exact price and renewal price of a .com bought through Shopify, a Starter plan price, fixed Plus card rates, the inputs behind Shopify's break-even estimates, and any outside gateway's fees. For first-year costs across builders, see the guide to what a small business website costs. Selling downloads changes the maths; the piece on selling files and ebooks on Shopify covers it.
How this was researched
Every price and quotation was read on 28 September 2026 from Shopify's pricing, Plus pricing, domains, Theme Store and App Store pages, and the help center pages linked above.
Pages were fetched as plain HTML, with a headless browser render of the pricing page. Shopify shows discounted local prices outside the US, and every live fetch was served a Bangladesh-priced page. So Shopify's US prices were read from Shopify's own pricing page as captured by the Internet Archive on 27 September 2026, one day earlier; that archived US pricing page marks the visitor country as the US. Help center pages are not priced by location and were read live.
Not verified: the exact .com price, renewal prices, Plus card rates by country, any gateway's fees, and any paid app's price. No store was opened, nothing was bought, and nothing was benchmarked for this article. The author's role here is the careful reader of the fine print. The totals are arithmetic on published rates, shown so you can redo them.
Verdict: what should you budget per month for a Shopify store?
Budget the plan last. For a US store on Basic, it is $29 billed yearly or $39 billed monthly, the smallest honest line on the bill. The larger line is 2.9% + $0.30 on every online card sale, which reached $175.00 on $5,000 of sales and made that store's month $223.08. Use an outside gateway and Shopify adds 2% on top of the gateway's own fee. Any price that does not state its billing period and country is half a number.
The rules are short. Pay yearly unless you expect to stop within the year. Stay on Shopify Payments unless you have a strong reason not to. Move to Grow near $25,000 of monthly card sales, or $5,000 if you run your own gateway. Buy the domain elsewhere and connect it. Before pausing or closing, cancel each paid app yourself and move any Shopify domain, because neither stops on its own.
Frequently asked questions
How much does it cost to run a Shopify store per month?
A US store on Basic pays $29 a month billed yearly or $39 billed monthly, plus 2.9% + $0.30 per online card sale through Shopify Payments. On $5,000 of monthly sales, processing adds $175.00. With a $100 theme spread over a year, a Shopify domain and 20,000 emails, the month totals $223.08. Paid apps are extra.
What is the cheapest Shopify plan per month?
Basic, at $29 a month billed yearly or $39 billed monthly in the US, is the cheapest plan that runs a full online store. The Agentic plan is $0 a month but covers only selling in AI channels. Starter, still quoted at $5 on some pages, is closed to new stores.
Why does Shopify show me a lower price than this article?
Shopify prices by location, and its pricing page says "Prices may vary by your store location." A fetch from Bangladesh on 28 September 2026 showed Basic at $25 monthly and $19 yearly. The US prices in this article, $39 and $29, come from Shopify's own page as served to a US visitor one day earlier.
Does the $1 a month Shopify deal apply to yearly billing?
The page's code ties it to monthly billing. The headline says "Try 3 days free, then $1/month for 3 months." On Basic, the first year on monthly billing with the offer costs $354, against $348 billed yearly, so yearly still wins by $6. From year two, monthly costs $468.
What are Shopify fees per month on sales?
There is no flat sales fee; Shopify charges per transaction. Through Shopify Payments, online card sales cost 2.9% + $0.30 on Basic, 2.7% + $0.30 on Grow and 2.5% + $0.30 on Advanced. International cards add 1%. With an outside gateway, Shopify adds 2%, 1% or 0.6% by plan.
If I deactivate my Shopify store, will it still charge me?
It bills pending items, then ends the plan at the close of the billing cycle. Shopify charges outstanding app usage, transaction fees and shipping labels on deactivation, and chargebacks or third-party charges can arrive later. Unused plan time is not refunded, and domain renewals are not cancelled.
What happens to my domain if I close my Shopify store?
It disconnects from the store, and if Shopify is the registrar it may still renew and charge you. Shopify says domain hosting needs a paid plan, so to keep the name you must transfer it before deactivating. A .com cannot move until 60 days after purchase or a contact change.
How much does Shopify Pause and Build cost?
Shopify's help page on closing for vacations says Pause and Build "changes your subscription fee to $9 USD per month", or $108 a year. Checkout is off on every channel, but you keep admin access and basic reports. Apps stay active and keep billing unless you cancel each one. Plus stores cannot use it.
Is Shopify Email free?
Up to 10,000 emails a month. Shopify Messaging, the renamed Shopify Email, gives stores on every standard plan 10,000 free sends at the start of each month. After that it costs $1 per 1,000 up to 300,000 emails, then $0.65, then $0.55 per 1,000. Unused emails do not roll over.
When is it worth upgrading from Basic to Grow on Shopify?
On yearly billing Grow costs $50 a month more and saves 0.2 points per card sale, so it pays off near $25,000 of monthly card sales. Shopify's own estimate is $200,000 a year with Shopify Payments. With an outside gateway the fee drops from 2% to 1%, and break-even is $60,000 a year.
