What price for Shopify? 

Are you interested in the Shopify e-commerce solution to set up your own online store or to migrate to Shopify? It's a great idea, but you might be wondering.What is the Shopify price or rate And how much will it cost you in the end? 

Let's take stock together of all the associated costs to a Shopify project to master this essential aspect of the price of Shopify.

The Shopify Pricing is broken down into four main parts 

Calculating the real price of owning a Shopify site can only be done by adding together the four main cost sources, which are:

(you can click on each link to access the relevant initials)

1. Shopify license price
2. The initial price of the project (the creation and/or migration of the site)
3. The price of Shopify apps
4. Shopify's sales commission rates

What is Shopify's business model? 

Before going into the calculations, here is a little reminder of Shopify's business model to see it more clearly. 

Shopify develops with the help of a team of several thousand developers, mainly based in Canada, an e-commerce solution to easily sell online and open a store quickly.

It is a "SaaS" solution, software as a service, i.e. (simplifying a little) that Shopify takes care of the hosting (the physical machines that run your site) and the technical part. (the source code, the heart of your site) .

In exchange, Shopify asks you to pay a flat rate every month for this service and a commission on sales. 

The percentage of this commission depends on the Shopify package you choose, but we will come back to it a little below.

"basic" Shopify, so it's a Monthly subscription as well as sales commissions.  This is Shopify's business model.

So in the United States, Shopify has many other services like logistics, Shopify Payments, banking and loans etc… but I will not dwell on it today because very few of these services are available in France. 

The price of Shopify (the plans)

To calculate the total price of your Shopify project, you must therefore start by choosing the package:

• Shopify basic at per month 
• Shopify at /month 
• Shopify Advanced at 9/month 
• Shopify Plus at 00/month 

The features vary a little from one plan to another, but with Shopify basic you have the essentials to sell online without constraint. 

Shopify plus is rather reserved for large merchants and is done on registration only.

Note that the prices are in dollars and that you will be billed in dollars, which is advantageous in Europe at the moment because of the exchange rates. It is expected that payment in euros will be offered later but the date is not yet officially announced by Shopify.

It is possible to pay by credit card or Paypal, in most cases, your bank will charge you commission fees for a payment in dollars. 

From what we see within our e-commerce agency, the price in dollars plus fees very often reverts to the price in euros thanks to the exchange rate in our favor at the moment. 

So why choose a more expensive plan if the features are the same? 

Well the features are not exactly the same for each plan, here is what changes in each plan in addition to the Shopify price

Shopify Basic

This version of Shopify costs /month 

The commission on sales is 2% on the total amount including tax and delivery.

You only have two collaborator accounts in addition to your personal access, the experts Shopify and Shopify partners like Pikka do not count against these limits) 

Only 4 stock slots are available. If you have more than 4 stores or 3 stores + 1 e-commerce warehouse, you will need to upgrade to a higher plan. Note that this point only concerns e-merchants who have several places for storing and shipping orders. 

Simplified sales reports. You will have access to the main dashboards and reporting but some are reserved for the Shopify version above. 

No third-party system for calculating shipping costs. With Shopify basic, it is not possible to go through a third-party app to manage the calculation of shipping costs. You will therefore have to settle for the starting ones, namely by weight or by price. This point is not really a problem for most merchants who ship their orders themselves 

Shopify 

This version of Shopify costs per month and allows you to use all the functions of Shopify Basic, of course, while benefiting from additional features.

The commission on sales is 1% on the turnover including tax (product price + delivery) 

You can with this price have 5 stock slots instead of 4

You can also access advanced reports on e-commerce and therefore manage your e-commerce activity more finely and boost your sales.

Finally, even if you do not have access with this version to the third-party shipping cost calculator, it is offered to you on request if you take an annual subscription (which will also lower the price of your Shopify plan) 

Finally, if you have a slightly larger team then this plan is for you because you can add up to five users on your Shopify site at no additional cost. 

Shopify Advanced

Shopify Advanced is the XXL version of Shopify for stores that are starting to generate a lot of turnover, more than 40 or 50,000 € / month to give you an idea.

The solution costs 9 / month and offers you all the features of Shopify, except those reserved for Shopify Plus. 

The commission on sales is 0.5%, again on the total of your sales including VAT, this also includes delivery. 

Your team can be made up of fifteen people at no additional cost, which will allow you to manage access more precisely and involve more people on your site. Obviously, shopify partners, marketing or technical, are not counted in this limit.

You will also benefit from more inventory locations, up to 8 different locations are possible in the Shopify Advanced plan.

And the advanced postage calculation module is included for free in the default monthly subscription version. This will give you greater freedom to modulate shipping costs.

Shopify Plus

Shopify Plus is a bit apart in the world of e-commerce solutions and even in the Shopify world. In fact, you cannot access it yourself. It is necessary to apply to Shopify or a Shopify Partner to obtain Shopify Plus. 

With Shopify Plus you will be part of a select club of e-merchants relying on the best e-commerce platform in the world to manage very high sales volumes. 

Pricing for Shopify Plus starts at 00/month and gives you access to exclusive features and exclusive apps allowing you to e.g. automate your e-commerce site. The commission on sales is 0.15%, again on the total amount of turnover including tax + delivery.

 This package is rather intended for shops with a turnover above approximately €500,000/month (approximately 5 to 6 million euros annually) 

You can read the complete description of the Shopify Plus project cost in our dedicated article to learn all about this version of Shopify.

Note that it is possible to have a discount on these subscriptions, and therefore to lower the cost of Shopify by committing to several months or several years.

The longer you commit to a longer period, the greater the discount. On the other hand, you will have to pay the package in one go. 

The discount can reach up to 33%! 

Unfortunately, there is no free version of Shopify, except for the first 14 days free or development stores for Shopify partners (apps, demo, non-live sites).

What price for a Shopify E-commerce project? 

The second big part of Shopify's price comes from the price of the website creation in himself. There is no universal rule to find the right price for your Shopify, the best thing is to ask for one or more quotes at your favorite Shopify agency. 

Here are several types of projects with their respective budgets 

Price between 0 and 500 € 

Yes, it is possible to have a Shopify site for a budget between 0 and 500 €.  Obviously at this price for a Shopify site, you will have to make concessions. For a budget of zero euros, you will have to do everything yourself, but this is doable if your project is very simple, you have the time to train yourself and learn how to create a site with Shopify.

For 500 €, you can ask certain companies based in India to create a site for you. Of course, even if it is impossible to generalize, after all a miracle is always possible, you will have in most cases a site at best disposable within a few months, at worst full of bugs.

Whenever we are contacted by entrepreneurs who have tested one or the other solution, the sites often turn out to be incomplete or unusable.

Having a Shopify site at this price is therefore "possible" but you have to know what you are buying, ie not much

Budget between €500 and €3500 

With this budget, no miracle either, it represents between 7 and 10 man days of work and even if it is possible to have a Shopify site at this price, it will often be carried out by a Shopify developer junior, see an intern or a freelancer starting out. 

Again, it's not that bad if that's all you can put into the project. On the other hand, it will be very complicated for you to have a beautiful theme with a tailor-made graphic charter and really adapted functionalities.

You also risk not benefiting from advice or support because of the lack of time available for the project.

This type of budget is still less and less frequent for Shopify sites made in France, the cost of labor obviously impacting e-commerce agencies. 

Budget between €3500 and €7500

Here we enter the types of budget that can be achieved by an agency like ours. With this rate, it is possible to create a Shopify store, create custom features and modify the graphic charter to obtain a unique brand image.

Of course, the precise list of functionalities can vary according to the budget but it is typically the price of a Shopify site for a young brand which is launching and which will concentrate all its activities on Shopify (no external logistician for example)

Budget between €7,500 and €15,000 

With this price for a Shopify site, you will have a real tailor-made site with an adapted graphic charter, enough to have your own visual identity and a site 100% adapted to your needs.

It's ideal for brands wishing to migrate to Shopify and take full advantage of the most powerful e-commerce platform on the market. 

This budget very often includes project management, consulting, graphic integration, for example from a model Figma, and the addition of additional features such as back in stock or personalized marketing actions. 

Budget between €15,000 and €30,000

We enter a category of site and prices that allow many things: exchange of computerized data between different services, migration of data from another e-commerce platform, etc.

This is typically the range of investment to be expected for a migration de Magento vers Shopify for example. 

It takes about 3 to 6 months of project depending on the reactivity of the teams and the precise size of the project.

Budget between €30,000 and €100,000 or more 

Yes it is possible to make Shopify sites for this budget range. Of course, these are often Shopify Plus projects which can include many custom developments or very advanced graphic charters. 

This type of budget is more generally found for projects in the Luxury sector or for sites exceeding millions of euros in turnover. 

The price of a Shopify site of this type is also explained by the many skills that it is necessary to bring together to ensure the development and success of such a complex project. 

Anyway, there is no maximum budget for the development of an e-commerce site. Indeed, it is possible to develop custom apps, graphic charters with thousands of pages and therefore to have Shopify projects with several hundred man days. 

I hope this little summary of the different prices of a Shopify site will allow you to see which box you are in according to your expectations. 

The price of Shopify apps

In defining a budget for a Shopify site, you obviously have to include apps. 

You should indeed know that the applications on Shopify are, almost exclusively, offered with a monthly subscription in front of each application.

All of this is handled by Shopify and luckily you won't have to take out the credit card every time. 

Almost all applications also offer a free trial phase to find out if the application meets your needs or not. 

Except that it will be much more complicated to determine your budget on this point because the price depends almost entirely on your desires in terms of applications. 

Let's be clear: it is possible to create a Shopify site and sell it online without any paid application. But there are many extremely interesting applications to save time in your work, to follow your ROI, to manage this or that feature, and more generally for marketing.

When we build budgets or business plans for e-commerce sites we usually take an estimated budget of 10 to 20% of the Shopify price (total license price + commissions) for the applications. 

This makes it possible to include this budget in the projections while remaining reasonable. 

For example, if you make €40,000 in sales per month, you will have a Shopify price of around €499 / month (€299 license + €200 commission) 

You can estimate your application budget between 30 and 60 € more per month. But be aware that this figure is just an estimate and will strongly depend on your appetite for adding applications and your needs.

Many Shopify developers just add apps on top of each other and it can end up costing a lot more. 

At Pikka, we take the time to build specifications and an e-commerce backlog to best determine what needs to be coded in order to save applications as much as possible. 

The extremely positive point of Shopify applications is that it is possible to stop their subscription at any time and at no cost, so you remain in total control of your budget.

The price of Shopify commissions

Impossible to talk about budget or tarif Shopify not to mention Shopify commissions. This is the point that many merchants do not like and yet Shopify is one of the cheapest e-commerce solutions. 

As indicated at the beginning of the article, Shopify therefore charges a commission on each sale made on your merchant site. This commission varies depending on the Shopify plan, but what is the real price it can represent for you? 

Here is an estimate of the cost of Shopify commissions based on your monthly turnover for the different plans.

Of course, Shopify pricing is based on your turnover, we have just indicated orders of magnitude for the main turnover figures as well as the calculation formula to redo an estimate on your side with the real figures. 

Shopify commission prices for Shopify basic

The calculation is simple, 0.02 X your turnover including tax, this gives approximately (per month): 

• Between 0 and 500 € turnover / month about 10 € 
• Between 500 € and 1000 € approximately 20 € 
• Between €1000 and €2000 approximately €40 
• Between €2000 and €4000 around €80

Above 4000 € per month of turnover, it is often more interesting to switch to the Shopify package 

Shopify commission schedule for Shopify ("normal")

The calculation is simple, 0.01 X your turnover including tax, this gives approximately (per month): 

• Between €1,000 and €2,000 turnover / month approximately: €20 
• Between €2000 and €4000 around €40
• Between €4000 and €8000 approximately €80
• Between €8,000 and €12,000 around €120
• Between €12,000 and €18,000 around €180
• Between €18,000 and €25,000 around €250 
• Between €25,000 and €35,000 approximately €350
• Between €35,000 and €45,000 approximately €450

Above 45,000 € per month of turnover, it is often more interesting to switch to the Shopify Advanced package 

Shopify Commission Pricing for Shopify Advanced 

The calculation is simple, 0.005 X your turnover including tax, this gives approximately (per month): 

• Between €35,000 and €45,000 approximately €225
• Between €45,000 and €65,000 approximately €325
• Between €65,000 and €85,000 approximately €425
• Between €85,000 and €100,000 around €500
• Between €100,000 and €150,000 around €750
• Between €150,000 €200,000 around €1,000
• Between €200,000 and €300,000 around €1,500
• Between €300,000 and €400,000 approximately €2,000 

Above €400,000 in turnover per month, it is recommended to upgrade to Shopify Plus . 

Shopify Plus commission amount 

The calculation is a little more complicated: 0.0015 X your turnover including VAT - 800,000 €, this gives approximately (per month): 

• Between 0 and 800,000 €: 0 € / month of commission
• Between €800,000 and €1,500,000 approximately €1,050
• Between €1,500,000 and €2,500,000 approximately €2,550 
• Between €2,500,000 and €3,500,000 approximately €4,050
• Between €3,500,000 and €5,000,000 approximately €6,300
• Between €5,000,000 and €10,000,000 approximately €13,800 
• Between €10,000,000 and €20,000,000 approximately €28,800 

This means that to host, manage and run a site making 240 million euros annually (20 million times 12) the price of Shopify plus commissions is only around 350,000 €.

This may seem like a lot of money to you, of course, but it's absolutely ridiculous compared to any technical budget for an e-commerce site making 240 million euros. 

Calculate the price of your Shopify site

In order to know the price of your Shopify site, you can use all the different figures in this article to make your first estimate on your end on the cost of the project and the shopify monthly cost. 

For a more precise estimate, you can request a quote from our sales team who will carry out a precise costing of all the components of your e-commerce project to have a final price.