Shopify Plus pricing: plans, fees and real costs

The model uses a 0.40% variable fee once monthly sales exceed $625,000, replacing the flat subscription.

Shopify determines which pricing structure applies based on sales volume, business model and contract terms. B2B and retail rates differ.

The $2,500 monthly rate is Shopify's published one-year price. The 0.40% variable rate and the $625,000 threshold are the most widely reported 2026 figures, not published Shopify terms. Actual contracts vary by volume, business model and negotiation.

The two plans converge at a predictable point. Advanced costs $4,788 a year; Plus costs $30,000. The difference is $25,212 — which matches 0.40% of about $6.3M in annual sales. Below that, Plus is a purchase decision. Above it, the fee is simply the same arrangement sized to the business.

The transaction fee is what makes the ladder bend rather than climb. Advanced charges 0.6% on orders that bypass Shopify Payments; Plus charges 0.2%. At $6.3M those two totals cross: above that volume, upgrading is the cheaper option, and a merchant who pays more for the plan pays less overall. The tables below show both plans side by side for that reason: which one a merchant is on is a fact about their volume, not a choice the comparison gets to make.

The reason merchants switch is rarely price. It is the checkout customization, the B2B catalogs and company accounts, the staff limits, and the lower third-party transaction fee — capabilities that change what the store can sell, not just what it costs to run.

Where Plus stops being the answer is when the next requirement is not on its roadmap at all: a business rule in the checkout, a data model the platform does not have, or a second brand that needs its own operations. That is the point at which the choice stops being Advanced versus Plus and becomes platform versus platform.

Shopify's third-party transaction fee is 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow, 0.6% on Advanced and 0.2% on Plus, charged on products minus discounts plus tax and shipping, and not returned on refunds. Payment processing rates vary by country and method and are set by the provider, not the platform. Taxes such as VAT or GST, shipping labels and third-party marketing tools are excluded as neither platform charges them.

On Shopify Payments, the smallest plan that carries the volume wins: Advanced costs 0.24% of $2M and 0.10% of $5M, because $399 a month is all it charges. Push the same sales through an external gateway and Advanced's 0.6% takes 0.84% of $2M — while Saleor stays at 0.96%, because $19,188 a year is a floor no percentage shrinks.

That floor is the whole low-end story. Saleor is dearer than Shopify at every volume below $8M on an external gateway, and the $2.4M point is where its Select plan stops growing while Advanced keeps climbing at 0.6% — they meet there and separate again in Shopify's favour until $8M. The percentage is a worse guide than the annual total, because the two floors move differently.

The rate depends on the plan, and this is where the upgrade arithmetic gets strange: 0.6% on Advanced, 0.2% on Plus, 1% on Grow and 2% on Basic. Above about $6.3M, upgrading to Plus costs less in total than staying on Advanced, because the fee it removes is worth more than the $2,101 a month it adds.

Merchants using Shopify Payments avoid the fee entirely, although payment processing charges still apply. Saleor charges no gateway surcharge at any plan, so external or multiple providers cost the same as one.

Annual totals are twelve monthly payments, not a prepaid annual price, and assume consistent monthly online DTC GMV. The Shopify columns assume every order runs on an external gateway, so the third-party transaction fee applies: 0.6% on Advanced, 0.2% on Plus. Advanced is $399/month with no variable platform fee; Plus is $2,500/month or 0.40% of online GMV, whichever is greater. Saleor uses the least expensive applicable published Select or Volume plan, likewise billed monthly. Excludes payment processing, apps, integrations and infrastructure.

Neither column applies an upfront-payment or commitment discount. Both vendors offer them, and modelling one without the other would misstate the gap.

The boundaries move with the gateway, and the low end does not move in Saleor's favour. On an external gateway a $5M merchant pays $34,788 on Advanced against $39,988 on Saleor; at $10M, Plus costs $60,000 against $47,988. The crossover is $8.0M, and it exists only because of the gateway fee — on Shopify Payments the two platform fees meet at $12M and the gap is a rounding error on either side.

At $24M annual GMV with every transaction on an external gateway, the modeled difference is $144,000 versus $95,988 — about $48,012 a year. On Shopify Payments the same merchant pays $96,000, and the gap narrows to a few hundred dollars. Both vendors negotiate enterprise terms, which can change every crossover point.

These costs can include Celigo, Pipe17, Recharge, ShipperHQ, Shogun, LoyaltyLion and other software subscriptions. Some provide valuable services. Others rent functionality merchants could own as part of their commerce infrastructure.

See the Shopify app costs and integration tax analysis for spending benchmarks, replaceable apps and potential savings.

A Plus migration is rarely a data export. Catalogs, customers and order history move; the app stack does not. Middleware, checkout extensions, subscription billing, returns and loyalty each have to be rebuilt or reconnected, and the storefront is a rewrite rather than a theme swap.

On Saleor the migration is scoped as an engineering engagement rather than a license change: a $12,000 Forward Deployed Engineering package and a $6,000 Accelerator Plan, both credited back in full against the Cloud subscription over the first year after go-live. The delivered integrations belong to the merchant.

The honest version: a migration is the most expensive quarter of the whole decision, and it is the reason merchants stay on a platform they have outgrown. Budget it explicitly before comparing subscriptions, because the subscription is the smaller number.

Neither number is knowable from outside a negotiation, which is why the tables above use published rates. Treat any comparison — including this one — as a starting position rather than a quote.

Shopify Plus pricing, Shopify Plus Help Center, Shopify plans and prices, Shopify third-party transaction fees, 2026 third-party breakdown of the variable rate, Saleor pricing.

Shopify does not publish its variable platform rate; the 0.40% used here is the figure reported across 2026 third-party breakdowns, applied to Shopify's published $2,500 one-year subscription billed monthly. Advanced is Shopify's published $399 monthly price, which carries no variable platform fee. The per-plan transaction rates — 2%, 1%, 0.6%, 0.2% — are published on Shopify's help center. Negotiated terms and upfront payment can reduce costs with either vendor. Reviewed November 2026.