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Shopify Pricing Plans Explained: Starter vs Basic vs Grow vs Advanced
Shopify's pricing page lists several plans, two billing options and a handful of percentages, and it is easy to come away unsure which one you need. The practical answer for almost every new small store is simple: start on Basic. But it helps to understand what the other plans are for, so you know when (and whether) to move up. This guide walks through each plan in plain language, using US prices from October 2026.
The plans side by side
| Starter | Basic | Grow | Advanced | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price (monthly billing) | about $5/month | $39/month | $105/month | $399/month |
| Price (yearly billing) | $5/month | $29/month | $79/month | $299/month |
| Full online store | No, checkout links only | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Online card rate (Shopify Payments) | 5% + 30¢ | 2.9% + 30¢ | 2.7% + 30¢ | 2.5% + 30¢ |
| Extra fee if you use another payment provider | n/a | 2% | 1% | 0.6% |
| Staff accounts | n/a | Owner only | 5 | 15 |
| Reports | Basic | Standard | Standard | Custom reports |
| Who it suits | Selling through social media or DMs | Most new and small stores | Stores with a small team | Growing stores with real volume |
Above Advanced sits Shopify Plus, an enterprise plan that starts around $2,300 a month on a multi-year term. It is not relevant to a first store, so we leave it out of the rest of this guide.
Starter: a checkout link, not a store
Starter is the cheapest plan at roughly $5 a month, and the name causes confusion. It does not give you a website with a homepage, collections and product pages. It gives you product links and a simple checkout that you can share on Instagram, TikTok, in messages or in a bio link. The card rate is higher than Basic (5% plus 30 cents online) to make up for the low subscription.
Starter makes sense if you already have an audience on social media and just want a way to take payment for a few items. If you want people to find you through Google or Pinterest and browse a real shop, you have outgrown Starter before you begin.
Basic: where most small stores should start
Basic is the first full-store plan. You get an online store with unlimited products, free themes, the built-in payment system, discount codes, abandoned-cart emails and shipping labels at a discount. At $39 a month (or $29 on yearly billing) it covers everything a maker, crafter or side-hustle seller needs for a long time.
The limits that eventually push people up a tier are: only the owner can log in (no separate staff accounts), reports are the standard set, and the card rate is the highest of the full-store plans. None of these matter at a few orders a week.
New stores usually get a short free trial and a promotional price (currently advertised as $1 a month for three months, tied to an annual plan). Use that period to build the whole store. Our store setup checklist lists every step.
See Shopify's current plans and free trial
Grow: when you add people or volume
Grow (previously named simply "Shopify") costs $105 a month, or $79 on yearly billing. The headline differences from Basic are five staff accounts, a slightly lower card rate (2.7% plus 30 cents), a lower fee for outside payment providers (1%), better shipping discounts and, at the time of writing, included shipping insurance on labels bought through Shopify.
The useful way to think about it is the break-even on card fees. Going from 2.9% to 2.7% saves $2 for every $1,000 you sell. The plan costs $66 a month more than Basic on monthly billing, so you would need about $33,000 a month in sales to pay for Grow with the rate difference alone. Almost nobody upgrades for the rate. People upgrade because they hired help and need separate logins, or because the shipping savings add up for a store sending many parcels.
Advanced: for stores with real scale
Advanced costs $399 a month ($299 yearly). It adds up to 15 staff accounts, custom reports, the lowest card rate of the self-serve plans (2.5% plus 30 cents), a 0.6% outside-provider fee, and the ability to show live shipping rates from carriers at checkout. These are features for a store with a team, several thousand orders a month and a need to analyze data in detail. If you are reading a beginner's guide, this plan is not for you yet, and that is fine.
Monthly vs yearly billing
Every full-store plan is about 25% cheaper per month if you pay for a year up front: Basic drops from $39 to $29, Grow from $105 to $79, Advanced from $399 to $299. The catch is commitment. Yearly billing is a good deal once you know the store is staying open; it is a bad deal if you might close in month four. A reasonable path is monthly billing for the first two or three months, then switch to yearly once sales are steady.
The fees that are the same on every plan
- Domain name: about $16 a year for a .com, bought through Shopify or elsewhere. No plan includes one.
- Themes: free themes on every plan; premium themes are a one-time $100 to $500.
- Apps: priced by each app's developer, not by your plan.
- Chargebacks and refunds: standard card-network behaviour, independent of plan.
For a line-by-line view of what a first year really costs, see How Much Does It Cost to Start a Shopify Store?
A simple decision rule
- Do you want a real website with product pages? If no, Starter. If yes, continue.
- Is it just you running the store? Then Basic, and stay there until something specific forces a change.
- Did you hire help who needs their own login, or are you shipping dozens of parcels a week? Compare Grow.
- Do you need custom reports or carrier-calculated shipping, with the sales to justify $300+ a month? Compare Advanced.
Frequently asked questions
Can I change plans later?
Yes. You can move up or down from your store's admin at any time. Most stores start on Basic and only consider a change after months of steady orders.
Is the Starter plan enough to sell online?
It is enough to take payments through links on social media. It is not a browsable store and will not rank in search results the way a real website can.
What does "third-party transaction fee" mean?
If you process payments with a provider other than Shopify Payments, Shopify charges an extra percentage of each sale (2% on Basic, 1% on Grow, 0.6% on Advanced) on top of that provider's own fees. Using Shopify Payments avoids it.
Are prices the same everywhere?
No. Shopify prices in local currency and the numbers differ by country. The figures here are US prices as of October 2026.
Is there a free plan?
There is a free trial and a promotional first period, but no permanent free plan for a full store.