February 22, 2023
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Whether you’re choosing a platform for a new DTC venture, or considering migrating your current store to Shopify Plus, navigating costs can be tricky. We break down pricing and cost of ownership for Shopify Plus, so you’re crystal-clear on what your money will be getting you.
Essentially, what we mean by ‘total cost of ownership’ is the sum of all costs associated with buying, building, and running your e-commerce store. It’s something you’re going to need a good understanding of when weighing up your platform options. We’re here to have an honest conversation about where you should expect to put your money if you’re on Shopify Plus, and what exactly those figures are going to look like.
Let’s start by running over the base platform fee. This is something every merchant on Shopify Plus pays and, as you might expect, the cost depends on your brand’s revenue. As Shopify always expresses their pricing in USD-only, we’ve followed suit to keep this accurate.
If your revenue is between 0-$800k USD/month, you’ll pay Shopify a flat rate of $2k USD per month.
If your revenue exceeds $800k USD/month, Shopify Plus uses a revenue share model, charging 0.25% of your month’s revenue (but solely in the months it surpasses $800k).
For example…
If your revenue in a single month through your store(s) were to be $1,000,000, you’d pay $2,500 for that month in total, as opposed to the $2,000 flat fee.
One point to note: Shopify Plus requires a 12-month minimum contract, with standard payment terms monthly in arrears by credit card or PayPal.
The fee above covers everything below. When you stack it up, it’s very competitive (if not a lot cheaper) than what competing platforms set you back for these sorts of things:
This cost also includes the offer of up to 9 ‘expansion stores’, which can be used for launching sites in new regions and/or for a B2B wholesale store too. Expansion stores must be for the same brand, and, if you want more of them, can be added at $250 USD per additional store, per month.
Aside from this, Shopify Plus merchants will also need to pay payment-processing fees, whether they use Shopify Payments or opt for a third-party gateway. These costs include transaction fees and card processing fees.
No matter which payment gateway you use, you’ll be charged card processing fees to cover the cost of processing payments.
These rates are marked up on top of the card network rates you’re charged (e.g. those of Visa, Mastercard, and American Express) and will vary, no matter which payment gateway you use.
With Shopify, you’ll have the option of using either their own payment gateway, Shopify Payments, or a third party, e.g. Sagepay, Paypal, Worldpay.
The rates you’re charged will depend on your sales volume, what you sell, and where you’re headquartered.
For merchants headquartered in the US, these fees are...
For merchants headquartered in the UK, these fees are…
If you don’t use Shopify Payments as your payment gateway, you’ll also be charged a transaction fee by Shopify. For Shopify Plus merchants, this transaction fee is 0.15%. Other Shopify plans charge between 0.5%-2%.
This is to foot additional security requirements and help Shopify maintain their PCI compliance, as well as the integrity of both your/your customers’ data.
It’s worth noting, using Shopify Payments grants you access to a lot more features. We’ll be covering these within another article soon.
If you’re keen to use a third party, however, you can check which payment gateways are accepted in the United Kingdom here, and which are accepted in the US, here.
Aside from the baseline functionality any e-commerce platform brings, in scaling your business, you’re going to want to curate a tech stack to achieve more and boost those all-important metrics. For example, you could personalize what your site presents to your customers using Nosto, attract loyal customers using Yotpo, and automate email marketing with Klaviyo.
Tech stacks can be built to deal with your logistics, too. For example, taxes can be automatically calculated and filed using Avalara AvaTax, returns can be handled with Clicksit Return Center, and MaxMind GeoIP is perfect for international merchants needing to recommend the correct store to each customer.
Of course, many of these third-party apps have monthly costs. There’s a huge app ecosystem available, with different providers and price points to cater for different complexity requirements and budgets. Some apps are very simple, whilst others are more advanced and geared towards enterprise merchants.
Here are some of the most common areas we see mid-to-enterprise brands invest, with a ballpark monthly spend for each:
On average, the overall app spend of mid-to-enterprise brands is around $2k USD / £1.5k GBP per month. A monthly spend of around $7k USD / £5k GBP could get you an all-enterprise tech stack, but this might not be necessary.
Most Shopify app costs will fluctuate, depending on a combination of: total website traffic, feature usage (e.g. how many browsers interact with the feature), content storage and customizability. This means that your monthly spend can increase the more stores you have, though it’s likely to be in line with how much profit you’re making.
Other things that affect app prices include additional support services offered (e.g. dedicated account managers, expedited service-level agreements [SLAs]), as well as pioneering intellectual property such as AI-based platforms (e.g. Google AI, TensorFlow). Those which are based more on logic and templates rather than AI are generally a lot more affordable.
Sometimes, apps at the lower end of the scale can be just as effective for your needs if you’re willing to accept compromises. Take Product Filter & Search by BoostCommerce, for example. For $69 a month per store, it offers design flexibility, helpful support, good documentation and supports multiple languages too. It even has some basic merchandising functionality.
But what it doesn’t have, is a super slick marketing and support team. Whilst we’ve never had an issue with their support, you can’t pick up the phone and speak to a dedicated human who’s working specifically with you to scale your business. Though, by focusing on the product and stripping away these extra bits, they can keep the costs down and their tech more accessible.
So don’t fall into the trap of thinking something is too ‘cheap’ to be effective. Weigh up how much you want to spend, do your research, and then evaluate whether the more affordable apps can meet your needs.
Now, we move to web design and development agencies. As with all e-commerce projects, the most-part of your budget’s going to need allocating to the actual design and build of your site. With Shopify Plus, there are off-the-shelf themes you can opt for, but mostly all mid-to-enterprise brands will want their own, fully bespoke design and build. This is the case for all of our clients.
To achieve this, you’re going to need the services of a specialist Shopify Plus agency. Of course, costs will fluctuate between places, so let’s look at ballparks for each a small, a medium and a large-sized agency partner. Each has its advantages and disadvantages, as we explore below:
Your smaller agencies are likely to be very good at one particular aspect of e-commerce. They can often turn work around more quickly than larger agencies, as they’ve fewer projects on the go at any one time.
However, a small team equals a lower capacity for work, so the scope of the project should be fairly minimal. What’s more, the track record of previous work carried out can be sparse, with little-to-no standardization of quality across projects.
Best for brands who:
While medium agencies are more expensive than smaller ones, their proven record of completed projects means you’re taking less of a risk when it comes to quality. A bigger team size means they’ll often have more capacity for work, as well as a higher level of specialist knowledge.
However, medium agencies aren’t usually ‘full-service’, meaning you may have to use more than one agency partner if you also want help with the likes of digital marketing, for example.
Best for brands who:
Generally, the biggest agencies are going to have the biggest range of services, which, aside from website design and build, can include everything from SEO & PPC to things like PR & communications.
However, as the size of the agency increases, so does the price — though not necessarily the speed. Large agencies can be notoriously slow when it comes to project progression due to competition with other projects and lengthy sign-off processes.
Best for brands who:
If you’re still on the fence about which tier you need, a price breakdown of the different services for each agency tier might help. Here are the kind of costs you should expect.
For a successful design and development project, it’s important to understand the requirements in detail before beginning. To do this, most experienced agencies will run a short, paid discovery session, to provide a final proposal.
“If I had 8 hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend 6 hours sharpening my axe.” - Abraham Lincoln
When you fully understand the purpose, scope and complexities of a project, you’ll save time and money in the long-run and probably get the desired outcome at first-attempt.
During discovery, every aspect of a project is fully analyzed and a detailed development plan put together before production begins. Along with improving your ideas and getting your product to users in the fastest, most cost-efficient way, the discovery process helps you to determine whether Shopify Plus is the right fit for you.
A Shopify Plus agency will run the discovery. However, you could take your findings from the discovery to another agency if you wanted to — say you were to come out feeling like another agency might suit your needs better. Here’s what you’ll be looking to pay for a discovery (on average):
Small-sized agency: free-$7k USD / free-£5k GBPSome small agencies won’t charge at all for a discovery, or at least, will market it this way but bundle it into the project cost. Others simply won’t charge enough, or may not do a thorough enough job.
Medium-sized agency: $7k-$35k USD / £5k-£25k GBPMedium agencies conduct thorough research in order to explore the best solution to a good degree. We have a dedicated Solutions Team at We Make Websites who specifically run discovery sessions, so that your challenges will be fully understood and the most effective plan drawn-up.Large-sized agency: $35k+ USD / £25k+ GBPAs with medium agencies, large agencies will dedicate plenty of time and effort to conducting a thorough discovery. They’ll just be at a much higher cost.
Once your development plan’s locked down, it’s time to kick things off. The project cost encompasses all agency work thereon, including the design and build of your website, the project management involved, any bespoke development completed, and marketing support too.
Of course, each Shopify Plus project will vary massively in scope and requirements, but as a rough approximation (again, for each agency tier), you can expect to pay around*…
*Not reflective of a headless project (more on this later).
Once your store’s up and running, you might want to consider a monthly retainer with your agency partner for continued design and development work that will increase your return on investment. Generally, all of our clients continue partnering with us this way.
In addition to adding any phrase 2 functionality that wasn’t vital for the site’s launch, the purpose of retainers is to ultimately optimize your conversion rate and increase the profitability of your store.
Here are some brackets for monthly retainers:
Up to 50 hrs per month, for around $7k USD / £5k GBP per monthEnough to keep the lights on and everything ticking over.
50-100 hrs per month, for around $7-$17k USD / £5-£12k GBP per monthNew website features delivered every couple of months.
100+ hrs per month, for around $17k+ USD / £12k+ GBP per monthMonthly delivery of brand new features.
Circling back to project costs, when we touched these before we didn’t include headless builds, which are always a lot more complex and costly than normal websites.
In short, headless is the decoupling of the customer-facing front-end (‘head’) of a website, and the back-end, which the business uses to manage their site. Whilst powering both the front- and back-end using the same system makes things simpler and easier, it has its disadvantages too, which is where headless comes in. Separating the two systems means that each one can be optimized for its specific purpose, without compromising the other.
A desire for greater design or UX flexibility is the most common reason for going headless, but it could also be the better option for those wanting to expand their digital touchpoints, or for businesses with extreme performance requirements (headless sites are lightning-fast).
Headless projects are more expensive due to a higher level of complexity and all the extra development and workshopping required. While the exact cost will vary massively based on the specific site, the project cost of a headless build would likely fall between $140-$500k USD / £100-£400k GBP.
This cost will surface during the discovery process, and from there, the brand can decide to either go ahead with the proposed work, de-scope certain elements of the project, or, if there’s more budget to play with, add more to the scope.
Making the move to a headless website architecture requires a very specific use case. If you’re intrigued, but not sure it would be right for you, our blog post on headless commerce using Shopify Plus might shed some light here.
Now, we look at e-commerce consultants. These aren’t specific to a Shopify Plus project — or, indeed, a necessity — but depending on your team’s capacity, their level of e-commerce knowledge, and the intricacies of your current website (assuming you have one), you may want to look into hiring an e-commerce consultant.
E-commerce consultants tend to come on board early on in a project, to conduct things like platform evaluations and/or audits of existing technology. From there, they can assess and suggest a platform that will get you the functionality, customization, and overall technology you need, that’s also within budget. They can also help you pinpoint any aspects of your existing website (should you have one) where you could be increasing your conversions and maximizing revenue.
The role of e-commerce consulting for a Shopify Plus project will vary depending on factors such as your brand’s internal team (skills, size, experience), as well as the complexity and timeline of your project.
When e-commerce consultants are brought in from the off, this tends to be for things like running a project’s request for proposal (RFP), or for initial business analysis (BA) exercises such as scoping or discoveries. If you’re online already, they’re likely to evaluate your platform, identify potential areas for improvement, and suggest how they might go about your project.
On average, the running of an RFP or initial consultancy exercise could range anywhere from $4k-$28k USD / £3k-£20k GBP, depending on the level or orientation of the consultant.
In our experience, the day rate for consultants is roughly between $500-$1.7k USD / £400-£1.2k GBP — with the lower end likely to be freelancers, and the higher end, enterprise consultancy companies.
Following the initial consultancy, you might wish to keep a consultant for ongoing support throughout the duration of a project (whether that be for project management, solutions architecting, quality assurance or other). It might be that you only want help throughout a few key stages, or want your consultant to stick around right up until the project’s been fully delivered.
Ongoing consultancy could all be priced up on a day rate, retainer, or fixed scope basis. In our experience, the average mid-market brand using a consultant will assign around $20-$55k USD / £15-£40k GBP for ongoing support for the full duration of a project.
As Shopify Plus becomes more and more geared towards enterprise brands, we’re seeing more enterprise consultancies moving into the space and working with large-scale DTC brands, fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) projects, as well as proof-of-concepts (POCs) for businesses.
This is because these are typically larger, business-focused engagements, for which the consultant or consultancy would often set up and manage the whole Shopify Plus project, sometimes putting the cost into the hundreds of thousands! Of course, these aren’t your everyday projects, this is just an observation.
If you’re wondering whether now is the right time for Shopify Plus or for headless, as a rule of thumb, brands should only start looking at…
Shopify Plus: when making $1.4m+ USD / £1m+ GBP annually.
Headless with Shopify Plus: when making $14m+ USD / £10m+ GBP annually (and, of course, when the functional requirements for a headless build are there).
In order to contextualise the figures we’ve been through in this article, we must also point out that, when you take into account all the peripheral costs that crop up with alternative platforms, Shopify Plus is generally the more affordable option over the course of a few years. Other platforms require additional budget for a number of things that are included within Shopify’s pricing, for example...
The cost of website hosting depends on several factors, including bandwidth, storage space and extra services. But generally speaking, shared hosting (the cheapest type) ranges from about $3-$17 USD / £2-£12 GBP per month, while dedicated hosting plans can be anything from $80 USD / £60 GBP to upwards of $550 USD / £400 GBP per month.
Because Shopify is a fully-hosted e-commerce solution, every brand on the platform is hosted by their servers, meaning these additional costs for external hosting or additional bandwidth aren’t required.
There are other benefits of Shopify being a hosted platform, too.
Short for Secure Sockets Layer, an SSL certificate is required on e-commerce websites as users often submit personal or financial information. The certificate prevents hackers from stealing this information and is a legal requirement for merchants to comply with data protection laws. They can cost anywhere between $7-$188 USD / £5-£135 GBP, depending on which provider and deal you go for.
Shopify Plus, however, sets up SSL certificates for all merchants by default, so that’s one less thing you need to think about.
A software patch is a piece of code tailored to fix a bug or vulnerability, or to add new features into an application. With Shopify Plus, software patches are included in the cost, as is any help you need from their support team. With other platforms, you’ll need an agency to handle these for you, usually paid for with a monthly retainer.
Shopify Plus is broadly considered an inexpensive option when it comes to enterprise platforms. But, there’s more to chew over than cost considerations when assessing which platform’s going to be right for your online business. To learn more about why so many high-growth brands opt for Shopify Plus, head to our other article, Why Shopify Plus.
We hope this guide’s given you some clarity on the pricing and cost of ownership around Shopify Plus. Of course, this platform isn’t right for every brand or business. But for enterprise-level e-commerce merchants, we’ve found it to be the most flexible and often the most cost-effective option too.
If you can’t take our word for it, note that many e-commerce consultants agree...
“I've always found the cost of ownership of Shopify Plus to be very compelling in comparison to other platforms. Sure, it can be complicated to assess due to the uniqueness of specific things (payment setup, multi-store impact on apps, general fees, for example) however, there are far fewer unknowns beyond launch. Also, the costs around the platform remain highly competitive as your brand scales. The real stand-outs in comparison to other platforms are the ecosystem (offering more options in most scenarios e.g. integrations, development approach) and the lack of maintenance (which has also been a strategic focus for Shopify).”
-Paul Rogers, E-commerce Consultant & Co-Founder, Vervaunt.
A note: there are other things you might want to consider budgeting for within your e-commerce project than what we’ve touched on in this article (that aren’t Shopify Plus-specific). We’ve an article coming soon outlining the likes of ERPs, PIMs, OMSes, WMSes that you should have a read of — watch this space.
Lastly, if you feel that Shopify Plus could be the platform for you and want to discuss your next steps, don’t hesitate to get in touch.
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