Shopify Plans

Shopify Plans: Basic vs. Lite vs. Advanced vs. Plus Pricing (Feb. 2024)

Written by: Alexandra Anderson

Alexandra Anderson

Alexandra is a web marketer, Agile Product Owner, and die-hard wordsmith who's contributed to HostingAdvice, InMotion Hosting, HostGator, and other prominent hosting and technology blogs, as well as Forbes. She has a master's degree in information technology from Virginia Tech and more than 10 years of experience building websites, advising on web and mobile app design, and crafting content that engages and converts. Her primary subject matter expertise spans WordPress, UX design, Agile project management, and, of course, web hosting.

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Edited by: Lillian Castro

Lillian Castro

Lillian brings more than 30 years of editing and journalism experience to our team. She has written and edited for major news organizations, including The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the New York Times, and she previously served as an adjunct instructor at the University of Florida. Today, she edits HostingAdvice content for clarity, accuracy, and reader engagement.

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When starting your online store, there are a lot of Shopify plans to sift through. But which one is right for you and your business?

Whether you aim to be the next Amazon or you just want to see if your handmade jewelry could become a secondary revenue stream, your online store begins with a web host. Needless to say, Shopify’s reputation is well-regarded in the retail vertical.

Surely, by now, you’ve been sucked in by the free trial, but once those 14 days are up, it’s time to pay the piper. And that means picking a plan. Let’s delve into the features of each Shopify plan — considering pricing, payment features, and other factors — to help you make the optimal decision for your budding business.

Shopify Pricing Plans: Comparison Table

Shopify pricing options are broken down into three main plans: Basic, Standard, and Advanced. Two additional solutions, Shopify Lite and Shopify Plus, are available but less advertised. I’ve mapped out the costs associated with each option in a handy-dandy table below.

Lite Basic Standard Advanced Plus
Price: $9 per month
with a BUY NOW button
$29 per month $79 per month $299 per month Custom
Transaction Fees: 2.9% + $0.30 2.6% + $0.30 2.4% + $0.30
Description: A starter plan for smaller merchants to sell on Facebook, promote products on a site or blog, and accept credit card payments A basic plan for small- to mid-sized merchants to get started A plan for fast-growing companies A premium plan for companies requiring additional features for scalability An enterprise-grade plan for large-scale businesses and high-volume merchants
BEST OVERALL RATING
★★★★★ 4.6/5.0
  • Sell via social media or hosted commerce platform
  • FREE website builder and hundreds of themes
  • Unlimited products and unlimited bandwidth
  • PayPal or Shopify point-of-sale systems
  • Advanced reporting and real-time shipping updates
  • Try Shopify FREE for three days.
Starting Price/Mo. $1.00
Money Back Guarantee 3-Day FREE Trial
Disk Space Unlimited
Domain Name FREE Subdomain
Shopify: Our Expert's Review
Toby Sembower (HostingAdvice.com):

Shopify is easily one of the more well-known ecommerce web builder platforms in the hosting industry. Plans are fully hosted, include a free site builder tool, and allow you to showcase an unlimited number of products with unlimited file storage as well.

Go to full review »

Shopify Basic, Standard, and Advanced all allow unlimited product display, including digital goods, and customers can log in as repeat visitors. While 24/7 email, phone, and chat support is standard across these main plans, the similarities end there.

Unfortunately, none of the Shopify plans include a domain name. You can use one you already own or purchase a new domain through Shopify, but better, more economical options exist.

3 Alternatives to Shopify Plans

We obviously think Shopify is pretty great, but the all-star ecommerce platform ain’t the only fish in the sea. Check out these other options below for building your online store, processing payments, tracking inventory, and marketing your products.

The best programs for building online stores enable you to maximize your sales without getting bogged down in all the technical details involved with maintaining and growing a website. Learn which companies have the best resources, support, themes, and ecommerce systems to keep things running smoothly:

ECOMMERCE RATING
★★★★★ 4.9/5.0
  • Drag-and-drop online store builder for $1/mo
  • Quickly sell products, services, and digital goods
  • Cross-platform selling integrations with social media, Amazon, Google, and eBay
  • Built-in metrics, promos, and coupons
  • Track competitors' Google and social media activity
  • Get started on 1&1 IONOS now.
Starting Price/Mo. $1.00
Money Back Guarantee 30 days
Disk Space Unlimited SSD
Domain Name FREE (1 year)
eCommerce Hosting Plans
1&1 IONOS: Our Expert's Review
Alexandra Anderson (HostingAdvice.com):

The online store builder from 1&1 IONOS gives entrepreneurs a full suite of selling and marketing tools at their disposal — and all for a ridiculously low price. The company’s lightning-fast architecture and tools for SEO and marketing metrics...

Go to full review »
ECOMMERCE RATING
★★★★★ 4.8/5.0
  • Code-free design tools for eCommerce stores
  • Templates for retail, food, clothing, and services
  • Custom WordPress integrations and optimizations
  • 24/7/365 support via phone, chat, and email
  • Try StoreBuilder with a 30-DAY FREE TRIAL
  • Get started on Nexcess now.
Starting Price/Mo. $12.67
Money Back Guarantee 30 days
Disk Space 30 GB - 100 GB
Domain Name New or Transfer
eCommerce Hosting Plans nexcess.net/ecommerce
Nexcess: Our Expert's Review
Laura Bernheim (HostingAdvice.com):

Designing, deploying, and maintaining an online store is best done with a quality host. Nexcess created a one-of-a-kind site builder exclusively for optimizing online stores.

Go to full review »
ECOMMERCE RATING
★★★★★ 4.8/5.0
  • 20 times faster performance that boosts sales
  • 80+ software options: Magento, OpenCart, WooCommerce, PrestaShop, and others
  • Fully managed WordPress and server environments
  • Worry-free migration and 24/7 support
  • DDoS protection and layered security measures
  • Get started on A2 Hosting now.
Starting Price/Mo. $11.99
Money Back Guarantee 30 days
Disk Space 100 GB SSD - Unlimited SSD
Domain Name New or Transfer
eCommerce Hosting Plans www.a2hosting.com/ecommerce
A2 Hosting: Our Expert's Review
Alexandra Anderson (HostingAdvice.com):

For those who understand the importance of page load speed and sales, look no further than A2 Hosting. The company boasts premium storage, optimized security, and one of the most diverse portfolios of one-click software installations we’ve seen.

Go to full review »

See other ecommerce hosting options »

Shopify Starter Plan (Shopify Lite Plan)

Shopify Lite serves as the entryway into mainstream Shopify eCommerce options. This plan is the only one of the five solutions that’s not fully hosted, meaning you have to sign up with a host to actually have an online storefront outside of social media.

Shopify Lite allows users to sell products on Facebook, integrate them into their existing blog or website (which you’ll have once you sign up with for one of the aforementioned hosting plans), and accept payments for items for less than half the cost of Shopify Basic. Needless to say, this starter plan offers the best value, particularly when paired with a high-value, low-cost host.

BEST OVERALL RATING
★★★★★ 4.6/5.0
  • Sell via social media or hosted commerce platform
  • FREE website builder and hundreds of themes
  • Unlimited products and unlimited bandwidth
  • PayPal or Shopify point-of-sale systems
  • Advanced reporting and real-time shipping updates
  • Try Shopify FREE for three days.
Starting Price/Mo. $1.00
Money Back Guarantee 3-Day FREE Trial
Disk Space Unlimited
Domain Name FREE Subdomain
Shopify: Our Expert's Review
Toby Sembower (HostingAdvice.com):

Shopify is easily one of the more well-known ecommerce web builder platforms in the hosting industry. Plans are fully hosted, include a free site builder tool, and allow you to showcase an unlimited number of products with unlimited file storage as well.

Go to full review »

Because this Shopify Plan does not come with an online store, you’ll need to sign up for a separate web hosting account to truly leverage your selling power. Never fear, though — even affordable hosting services come with plenty of user-friendly website and online store templates to help you get started. Here’s one of our favorites:

CHEAP RATING
★★★★★ 4.9/5.0
  • Unlimited everything, from storage to databases
  • FREE site builder & WP performance upgrades
  • FREE daily or weekly backups
  • Custom control panel and auto-installation scripts
  • SSH access & unlimited FREE SSL certificates
  • Get started on Hostinger now.
Starting Price/Mo. $2.49
Money Back Guarantee 30 days
Disk Space 50 GB SSD - 200 GB SSD
Domain Name FREE (1 year)
Hostinger: Our Expert's Review
Laura Bernheim (HostingAdvice.com):

As the shared hosting market becomes increasingly saturated, unlimited storage, bandwidth, and email accounts have become surprisingly average. Hostinger, however, extends the routine, expected metrics to greater lengths — the number of websites, databases, FTP users, subdomains, and parked domains are all unrestricted for most customers.

Go to full review »

More cheap hosting for Shopify users »

2. Shopify Basic Plan Features

Shopify Basic is the cheapest of the main plans, but unfortunately, that’s not saying much. Compared to other eCommerce site-building services, Shopify charges a premium rate for the point-of-sale system, promotional code generator, and fraud analysis tools. Shopify team members pride themselves on the platform’s eCommerce-specific functionality. In other words, you don’t sign up for Shopify to host your blog or post your résumé.

3. Standard Shopify Features

Standard Shopify includes the expected POS system, promo code engine, 24/7 support, and unlimited product display offering covered in Shopify Basic, with the added benefit of gift card capabilities and reporting tools. To us, this hardly seems worth the $30-some-odd hike in price, but, to each his/her own. The abandoned cart recovery tool is a feature intended to help justify the cost, but Shopify’s app marketplace offers much cheaper options to achieve the same result.

4. Advanced Shopify Features

As you might have guessed, every feature included in the aforementioned plans comes standard with Advanced Shopify, which introduces advanced reporting features and real-time carrier shipping. Advanced Shopify is certainly the most expensive of the three main plans, but the credit card fees are the lowest of them all, and the eCommerce analysis tools are competitive with popular analytics services.

5. Shopify Professional Plan (Shopify Plus Plan)

Shopify Plus is so exclusive, we’re not even quite sure what it entails… Just kidding, but the vague “enterprise-grade solution” description does leave much to be desired from a product marketing perspective.

Our takeaway is this: If you’re a heavily trafficked online merchant dealing with tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in monthly revenue from your hundreds of pages’ worth of product inventory, you can give Shopify a call for a free consultation, and the Plus team will craft a custom-ish solution to reinforce your already successful brand.

That said, if you’re seriously in the enterprise class, you’ve probably outgrown the concept of a fully hosted platform. Chances are your site (i.e., your business) will perform best when supported by a hosting service that can handle the kind of traffic and monetization you’re expecting. You probably need a VPS or a dedicated server that can handle enterprise needs, and we can help with that!

Our Recommendation: Web Hosting Plans with Free Shopify Plugin

Honestly, it was difficult for me to give a rundown of some of Shopify’s plans knowing much more feasible, affordable, and support-savvy services exist. Factoring in the cost, the hardware capabilities, the range of eCommerce tools available and how to employ them, we recommend using a WordPress host and installing the free Shopify plugin. You’ll get all the commerce bang for way fewer bucks. Check out the top WordPress host to get started.

WORDPRESS RATING
★★★★★ 4.9/5.0
  • Recommended by WordPress.org since 2005
  • Automatic WordPress updates and initial install
  • FREE WordPress themes in the Bluehost Marketplace
  • 24/7 support via live chat, phone, and email
  • Get exclusive discounts on WordPress plans
  • Get started on Bluehost now.
Starting Price/Mo. $1.99
Money Back Guarantee 30 days
Disk Space 10 GB SSD - 100 GB SSD
Domain Name FREE (1 year)
Bluehost: Our Expert's Review
Ryan Frankel (HostingAdvice.com):

Bluehost's WordPress hosting packages are aimed at first-time site owners and personal bloggers. These services come at a premium compared to the standard Bluehost web hosting (basic shared hosting) plans, but the WordPress optimization and platform-specific resources are arguably worth the cost.

Go to full review »

More WordPress hosting for Shopify users »

Not Convinced? Try Shopify Free for 14 Days

Remember, you don’t have to make this decision straight out of the gate. Shopify’s free trial is a great opportunity to get your feet wet within the platform, play with the interface, and determine whether you could see your business growing from Shopify’s foundation. Should you decide the five plans we’ve discussed today are not up to snuff, fret not. There are tons of quality, reputable hosts for eCommerce to consider instead.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Alexandra Anderson’s interest in website administration was sparked in her teens, priming her for a fast-paced career in managing, building, and contributing to online brands, including HostingAdvice, Forbes, and the blogs of prominent hosting providers. She brings firsthand experience reviewing web hosts, perfecting website design, optimizing content, and walking site owners through the steps that add up to a successful online presence. With a master's degree in information technology from Virginia Tech, she combines her extensive writing experience and technical understanding to unpack some of the most complex topics that daunt novice website owners, as well as the subjects that excite veteran technologists within the HostingAdvice readership.

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