How Much Does it Cost to Run a Shopify Store?

Shopify has been the go to solution for many entrepreneurs looking to start their eCommerce journey. With its ease of setting up your store to the fact that your store will be scalable as your business grows, Shopify has cemented itself as a reliable eCommerce platform. So, settling for Shopify as your platform makes sense, especially if you read our eCommerce platform comparison blog.
The cost to run a Shopify store varies drastically depending on the plan you choose, additional plugins you opt for, and so on. So, the question that has to be asked is, How much does it cost to run a Shopify store? Well, we’re here to answer just that! At the end of this article, you’ll precisely know how much it would cost to run a Shopify store.

To kickoff your eCommerce journey you gotta start with getting the basics right. So, let’s quickly see the price structure of Shopify to get a peek at how much does it cost to run a Shopify store. It’s important to understand the various plans offered by Shopify to figure out which one would suit your business well.

The basic plan is the most affordable plan that Shopify has to offer for you. This plan covers all of the essential features that many small businesses would need, such as, 24/7 customer support, blog creation, 2 staff accounts and unlimited product listing. Most importantly, you also get abandoned cart recovery to target your visitors in a personalized manner.

The drawback? you wouldn’t be able to make data driven decisions because of the lack of professional reporting. Not accessing to comprehensive reporting will surely impact your business in the long term. However, like we said before, basic Shopify would suffice for many small businesses.

Oh, we can’t forget another important thing. The transaction fees. On a basic Shopify plan, the transaction fee would land around 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction for all purchases. There’s one more catch here to consider. This is applicable only if you use Shopify payment gateway. If you opt for any of the third party payment providers, you will be charged additionally by 2% on every order.

Regular Shopify is the most sought after plan that many eCommerce travelers are preferring. This plan stands right at the middle and it facilitates many features that you would want to maximize your business growth.

Majorly, Shopify plan bumps up your staff accounts to 5 and of course. You’ll get a professional report to get valuable insights. With much-needed data at your hand, you can make impactful decisions that matter a lot. Hey, numbers don’t lie, yes? 

As for the transaction fee, you’ll be charged 2.5% + $0.30 on every online credit card transaction. In this plan, the additional transaction fee for third party payment gateway reduces to 1%.

We can just straight up say that, If you’re a small to mid sized business or just starting out in the eCommerce game, this wouldn’t be a good option for you. Advanced Shopify comes with a whopping price tag of $299 a month, so you get what we’re trying to say.

Advanced Shopify caters all the available features of basic and Shopify plan. One of the major selling points of this plan is the integration of third party shipping partners. With different shipping partners at your hands, your customers can choose the shipping partner that they prefer based on the shipping charge that the delivery partners levy.

The transaction fee for Advanced Shopify plan reduces even further at 2.4% + $0.30 per transaction. If you opt for third party payment gateways, you can enjoy the reduced additional fee of 0.5% on orders.

Apart from spending on Shopify subscription costs, you would have to spend for the below requirements too. Keep in mind that the these numbers are the highest estimate to run your Shopify store. We can reduce the cost even further but we’ll talk about it later on.

Tailoring your store’s design to match your brand identity often involves hiring a Shopify developer and a designer. This expense covers creating a unique layout, implementing custom features, and ensuring a seamless user experience.

The total development cost for this would come around $2000 – $5000 depending on the design and the development team that you choose. This is a one time payment, so think and decide according to your budget.

Shopify’s app store is a treasure of applications designed to expand your store’s capabilities. Many applications are free or offer basic functionalities at no cost, but advanced features or increased usage might require paid subscriptions.

Although the costs for app integration varies heavily on your requirements, an average Shopify owner has about 6 Shopify apps on their eStore. Based on this, the budget for Shopify apps would land about $120 a month, that if you fall under this category.

What’s the point of building your store if you can’t reach new customers? To do that In this competitive era, you have to implement various marketing and advertisement strategies like Google ads, SEO and so on.

Marketing costs for running a Shopify store totally depend on your budget. On an average, you can expect this to go around $1500 a month for you. If you feel like it’s too much for you, you can always reduce this too by crafting a good marketing strategy tailored for you.

While Shopify is effortless to maintain on your own, you might need Shopify developers to help you with maintenance, bug fixes and other technical support if any situation occurs

To maintain your eStore with the a professional’s help, you can expect the time for maintenance would come around 10 hours a month. Based on the average cost of hiring a developer, the cost for maintenance will be $500 a month. And of course, it’ll differ from one company to another.

If you’re a small sized business owner or trying to plan your foot in the eCommerce sphere for the very first time, Basic Shopify would be straight up enough for you! As a matter of fact, basic Shopify is what we as a trusted Shopify development company, would recommend for even mid sized businesses.

Other than the question “How much does it cost to run a Shopify store" you are likely to have another question just like thousands of people out there. “Why shouldn’t I just opt for Magento, WooCommerce or any other eCommerce platforms?"

Before we dive a bit deeper, we just gotta mention that It absolutely makes sense why you would think that. Magento is an open source eCommerce platform. It could make you think the costs for developing a Magento store would be less compared to Shopify. And WooCommerce is a plugin for WordPress and this could make you think you might have more control over your store and the customization aspect of it.

Yes, you might have more control and more customization options but at what cost? The cost for developing a whole new eStore from scratch will definitely put a hole in your pocket. Not to mention the fact that you would have to spend separately for SSL certificates in the other two unlike Shopify which offers SSL certificates for every plan.

If you’re a fresh mind looking to dominate eCommerce with your reliable products, Shopify would be the simple and cost effective way for you to get your eStore up and running in no time. Not to mention the fact that with Shopify, you would need no helping hands to run the store. You can basically use it on your own once you get the hang of it.

Now, let’s take a look at the detailed table we have for you to grasp the cost spent for your Shopify store quickly.

Bear in mind that, what we have mentioned here is the highest estimated cost for running your Shopify store based on the number of Shopify clients we have worked with. It is indeed possible to cut down this cost much further based on your requirements.

To know how much does it cost to run a Shopify store tailored for you, reach out and book a free discovery call with us! With our extensive experience with developing Shopify stores, we would we able to align with your budget while meeting the high standards of the market.