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What does it cost to run a physical shop on Shopify POS, per location and up front?
Summary
Casual in-person selling is included in every paid Shopify plan, so a market stall needs a phone and a $49 card reader. A permanent shop that wants inventory tools and staff permissions pays $89 a month per location for POS Pro, and a full counter of Shopify hardware comes to about $900. In-person card rates differ by only 0.1% between Basic and Grow, so the rate alone does not justify Grow until a store takes about $50,000 a month in person.
POS Pro, location by location
Without POS Pro you get what Shopify calls casual in-person selling: limited staff access to POS, simple customer profiles, and returns only at the location where the item was bought. POS Pro is $89 a month for each location, and the FAQ describes that price as "billed yearly." It adds unlimited staff logins with roles and permissions, richer customer profiles with lifetime value reporting, returns and exchanges at any location, inventory management with stock transfers and in-store pickup, and retail reporting.
Two shops on POS Pro cost $178 a month, $2,136 a year. Shopify Plus includes 20 POS Pro locations, and up to 200 with Shopify Payments. Basic, Grow, and Advanced each cap inventory locations at 10.
Hardware for one counter
US prices from Shopify's hardware store:
- Tap & Chip Card Reader, $49
- Eddy Tablet Stand, $149
- POS Hub, $69
- Star Micronics TSP143IV receipt printer, $289
- CD4 16" cash drawer, $139
- Zebra DS2208 scanner, $209
That set totals $904, not counting the tablet, which you supply. Swapping the reader for the countertop POS Terminal ($349, with a customer display) brings it to $1,204. Verifone's Victa Mobile, a handheld that takes payments and scans barcodes, is $399. The POS Hub carries a one-year warranty, extended to two years with a POS Pro subscription.
If you already own a POS Go, Shopify says it "will stop working as a mobile POS device on May 26, 2027."
The in-person rate crossover
In-person card rates are 2.6% + 10¢ on Basic, 2.5% + 10¢ on Grow, and 2.4% + 10¢ on Advanced. The 10¢ is the same on each plan and drops out. Keyed-in card payments on Basic cost 3.5% + 10¢.
On annual billing Grow costs $50 a month more than Basic. At a 0.1% rate gap, in-person sales have to reach $50,000 a month to cover it, or $66,000 on monthly billing, where the gap is $66. Moving from Grow to Advanced adds $220 a month, which needs $220,000 a month in person.
Stores that sell both ways should add the two savings together. Online, Basic and Grow differ by 0.2%. A store doing $10,000 a month online and $20,000 in person would save $20 plus $20 on Grow, or $40, against a $50 fee increase, so on rates alone Basic is still cheaper. The online-only version of this math is in our article on Shopify's processing fees and plans.
Sources
- https://www.shopify.com/pos/pricing
- https://www.shopify.com/pricing
- https://www.shopify.com/pos/hardware
- https://hardware.shopify.com/
- https://hardware.shopify.com/collections/card-readers
- https://hardware.shopify.com/collections/accessories
- https://hardware.shopify.com/products/verifone-victa-mobile
- https://hardware.shopify.com/products/shopify-pos-hub-us-ca
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