Shopify’s pricing page makes it look simple: pick a plan, pay a monthly fee, start selling. Then the theme, the apps, the payment fees on every order and the designer who makes it look like your brand start adding up, and by the end of the first year a lot of owners have spent two or three times what they planned.
A basic Shopify store you set up yourself costs about $40 to $100 a month to run. A professionally designed store usually costs $1,500 to $4,000 up front, plus $100 to $400 a month in plan and app fees. Here is where every dollar goes, so you can budget before you build.
1. The Shopify plan
Every store pays a monthly subscription. At the time of writing, Shopify’s main US plans are:
| Plan | Monthly (billed monthly) | Monthly (billed yearly) | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | $39 | $29 | New stores, small catalogs |
| Grow | $105 | $79 | Growing stores, more staff accounts |
| Advanced | $399 | $299 | High volume, advanced reports |
| Plus | from $2,300 | Large brands and wholesale |
Most small businesses start on Basic and move up only when the lower card fees on bigger plans begin to save real money. Paying yearly saves about 25 percent. Shopify adjusts its prices from time to time, so check its pricing page before you commit.
2. Payment processing fees
Payment fees are the cost most budgets leave out. With Shopify Payments you pay a percentage plus a fixed fee on every online card sale, roughly 2.9 percent plus 30 cents on Basic and a little less on the higher plans. If you use an outside payment provider instead, Shopify charges its own transaction fee on top.
On $10,000 a month in sales, processing comes to about $300. For many stores that’s the largest ongoing cost, so build it into your prices.
3. Your theme
Shopify offers a handful of free themes that work well for simple stores. Premium themes from the Shopify Theme Store usually cost $150 to $450, paid once. They give you more layouts and features, but the store will still look like a template until someone customizes it to your brand.
A fully custom theme, designed around your products and customers, is where a designer comes in. More on that below.
4. Apps
Apps add what Shopify doesn’t include out of the box, such as product reviews, email marketing, upsells, subscriptions, wholesale pricing and loyalty programs. Many have free tiers, but the useful plans tend to run $10 to $50 a month each. A typical small store ends up with four to eight apps, roughly $50 to $250 a month.
Review your apps every few months. Apps you no longer use still bill you, and they slow the store down, which costs sales.
5. Domain and email
A custom domain runs about $15 to $20 a year. Professional email (hello@yourstore.com) through Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 costs around $6 to $12 per user per month.
6. Design and setup
This is the biggest variable, and it depends on how much you want to do yourself.
- Doing it yourself costs nothing in design fees, but plan on a lot of evenings and weekends. It works fine for testing an idea.
- A professional theme setup runs about $1,000 to $2,000. A designer configures a premium theme, loads your products and collections, sets up shipping, taxes and payments, and brings it in line with your brand.
- A custom design costs about $2,500 to $5,000 for a small business, more for big catalogs or complex features. The store is built around how your customers shop, with pages designed to convert.
Our own Shopify packages start at $1,999 for a professional theme setup and $2,999 for a custom-designed store, at flat prices.
What the first year looks like
Three realistic budgets for the first 12 months:
| DIY starter | Pro theme setup | Custom store | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Setup and design | $0 | ~$2,000 | ~$3,000 to $4,000 |
| Theme | $0 to $350 | included | included |
| Plan (Basic, yearly) | $348 | $348 | $348 to $948 |
| Apps | ~$600 | ~$1,200 | ~$1,800 |
| Domain and email | ~$90 | ~$90 | ~$150 |
| First year total | ~$1,000 to $1,400 | ~$3,650 | ~$5,300 to $6,900 |
Payment processing comes on top of all three and grows with your sales.
Is a designer worth it?
That depends on your conversion rate. The average online store turns roughly 2 to 3 percent of visitors into buyers. A store that loads fast, looks trustworthy and makes checkout easy on a phone can do noticeably better, and over a year even a one-point gain usually pays for the design several times over.
If you’re testing a product with a small budget, start with a free theme and set it up yourself. Once real sales come in and you want to grow, a professional build is usually the next sensible investment.
Budgeting your store
A Shopify store can cost as little as $40 a month or several thousand dollars up front, and most of the gap comes from design, apps and sales volume. Budget for all six cost groups above and the first year shouldn’t hold many surprises.
Not sure which route fits your business? Tell us about your store and we’ll give you an honest recommendation and a flat quote. Still choosing a platform? Read our comparison of WordPress vs Shopify first.