Shopify's pricing page shows a monthly plan. The plan is rarely the largest number on your statement a year later.
The subscription
Plans scale from entry to advanced, with the differences being reporting depth, staff accounts, and the card rate. For a store doing modest volume the entry plan is usually correct; upgrading before revenue justifies it is a common early mistake.
Transaction costs — the real line
Two separate charges, often confused:
- Card processing — roughly 2.4% to 2.9% plus a fixed amount per transaction, depending on plan and country. Unavoidable on any platform.
- Shopify's additional fee — charged when you use an external gateway instead of Shopify Payments. Typically 0.5% to 2%.
That second one is the one that surprises people. On $10,000 a month, 2% is $200 — more than most stores pay for their theme, every month.
Where Shopify Payments is available to you, using it removes that fee. Where it is not, factor the surcharge into your margin from the start.
Theme and build
| Approach | Typical cost |
|---|---|
| Free theme, self-configured | $0 |
| Paid theme, self-configured | $200–$400 one-off |
| Paid theme, professionally fitted | $1,500–$6,000 |
| Custom theme | $8,000–$30,000+ |
Most stores are well served by a good paid theme configured properly. Custom becomes worth it when your merchandising or product configuration genuinely does not fit an existing theme.
Apps — where the bill grows
This is the line that creeps. Reviews, email, subscriptions, upsells, loyalty, search, page building — each $10 to $50 a month, each individually reasonable.
A store running fifteen apps is paying $300 to $500 a month before a single sale, and carrying the performance cost of fifteen scripts on every page load.
The rest
- Domain — $10–$20 a year.
- Product photography — from your phone to $100+ per product professionally.
- Copywriting — often overlooked and frequently the difference between a store that converts and one that does not.
- Email platform — sometimes included in an app, sometimes separate.
Realistic first-year totals
| Setup | Year one, excluding transaction fees |
|---|---|
| Free theme, 3 apps, self-built | ~$800 |
| Paid theme, 6 apps, fitted by a freelancer | ~$4,500 |
| Custom theme, 10 apps, agency build | $15,000+ |
Add transaction costs on top — at $10,000 a month in sales, roughly $3,500 to $4,500 a year in card fees alone.
Where the money is best spent
In order of return for most stores: product photography, then page speed, then copy, then design polish, then apps.
The common pattern is the reverse — a beautiful custom theme, a large app stack, and product photos taken on a kitchen table. Fixing the photos usually moves conversion more than the theme did.
If conversion rather than cost is your concern, reducing cart abandonment without discounting covers the checkout side.