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How much does a Shopify store cost in its first year, beyond the monthly plan?
Summary
A one-person store on Basic pays $354 for its first year on monthly billing, or $348 on annual billing, before tax. Hosting and SSL are included, so the extras come from four places: a paid theme if you want one, apps billed every 30 days, a custom domain, and card processing fees on every sale. With a free theme and no apps, the first year costs the plan fee plus processing and nothing else.
What the plan fee covers
Shopify's pricing page lists hosting, a free SSL certificate, themes and templates, a custom domain name, and app integrations on every plan. "Custom domain name" means you can connect one. It does not mean Shopify gives you one; the free-trial page says you can buy a domain "through Shopify or a third-party provider," and no price is listed on either page.
The current offer is a 3-day free trial, then $1 a month for 3 months. After that, Basic is $39 a month on monthly billing or $29 a month paid yearly. The page does not say whether the $1 months can be combined with annual billing.
A worked first year
Take a store on Basic, monthly billing, that buys a $150 theme and runs one app priced at $20 every 30 days.
- Plan: $1 × 3 months + $39 × 9 months = $354
- Theme: $150, the lowest price among the paid themes on the Theme Store home page (the highest there is $420)
- App: 13 billing cycles start inside 365 days, so $20 × 13 = $260
That is $764 before the domain and processing fees. Budget the app at "$20 a month" and you come up $20 short, because Shopify bills apps on a 30-day cycle, not a calendar month.
Year two, and the Grow exception
Once the $1 months end, Basic on monthly billing runs $468 a year, $120 more than paying yearly. Grow works out differently in year one: $3 plus $105 × 9 is $948, the same as $79 × 12 on annual billing. From the second year, monthly Grow costs $1,260.
When Basic stops being enough
Basic includes no additional staff accounts. Once someone besides the owner needs the admin, Grow is the minimum. Basic, Grow, and Advanced each allow 10 inventory locations. The Starter plan "isn't available to new stores," according to Shopify's help center.
The sales level at which a higher plan's lower card rate pays for itself is worked out in our article on Shopify's processing fees and plans.
Sources
- https://www.shopify.com/pricing
- https://www.shopify.com/pos/pricing
- https://www.shopify.com/free-trial-offer
- https://themes.shopify.com/
- https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/your-account/manage-billing/billing-charges/types-of-charges/third-party-charges/app-charges
- https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/intro-to-shopify/pricing-plans/plans-features/shopify-starter-plan
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