Tool Guide / E-Commerce & Online Business

Shopify: what it is and how to start

A hosted platform for building and running an online store, covering the storefront, checkout, payments, inventory and shipping in one subscription.

Who it is for

Anyone who wants a working store without managing hosting, security or updates. Best suited to businesses selling their own products who want to own the customer relationship, rather than sellers happy to stay on a marketplace.

What it costs

Basic is $29 per month billed yearly, or $39 month to month. Grow is $79 yearly or $105 monthly. Advanced is $299 yearly or $399 monthly. Plus starts at $2,300 per month. There is a 3-day free trial followed by a promotional $1 per month for 3 months. On top of the subscription, online card rates are 2.9% plus 30 cents on Basic, 2.7% plus 30 cents on Grow and 2.5% plus 30 cents on Advanced. Using a third-party payment processor instead of Shopify Payments adds a further fee, from 2% on Basic down to 0.2% on Plus. There is no free tier and no plan cheaper than Basic.

Quick facts

• Category: E-Commerce & Online Business — Online Store Platforms
• Pricing model: paid
• Runs on: Web, iOS, Android
• Difficulty for a beginner: beginner
• Official site: https://www.shopify.com

How to get started with Shopify

• Do the margin arithmetic before you sign up: In a spreadsheet: selling price, minus cost of goods, minus roughly 2.9% plus 30 cents in card fees, minus shipping and packaging, minus expected returns. Then subtract the monthly subscription across your expected order count. If little remains, the platform is not the problem and no store design will fix it.
• Use the trial to build, not to browse: The free trial is short. Have your product photos, descriptions, prices and shipping rates ready beforehand so the trial is spent building a real store rather than exploring themes.
• Pick a free theme and stop: The bundled free themes are fast and competent. Theme selection is the most enjoyable and least important early decision; a paid theme fixes nothing about whether people want your product.
• Set up shipping rates honestly: Configure real rates by weight or price before launch. Unexpected shipping cost appearing at checkout is among the most common causes of abandoned carts, so decide whether to charge it or price it in, and be upfront either way.
• Turn on Shopify Payments unless you have a reason not to: Using an external processor adds a per-transaction fee on top of that processor's own charges. If you have a strong reason to use another provider, price that extra fee into your margin before committing.
• Place a real test order end to end: Buy something from your own store with a real card, then refund it. This is the only way to see the actual checkout, the confirmation email and the refund flow exactly as a customer does.
• Add apps only when something specific is missing: The app store is large and most apps carry their own monthly fee. App subscriptions accumulate quietly and are a common reason a store's running costs quietly exceed its margin.

Should you use this instead of something else?

WooCommerce has no monthly platform fee and requires you to run WordPress, hosting, updates and security yourself, which is cheaper in cash and more expensive in time. Marketplaces such as Etsy or Amazon supply buyers, which is the hardest part, but take a cut and stand between you and the customer. Choose Shopify when you want to own the store and the relationship and would rather pay a subscription than administer software.

Common beginner mistakes

• Signing up before doing the margin arithmetic, then discovering that fees and shipping consume the profit on every order.
• Spending the trial choosing themes rather than building the store, and paying for a month that produced nothing.
• Accumulating paid apps until their combined monthly cost quietly exceeds the subscription itself.
• Setting shipping rates that undercharge, which turns every sale into a partial loss.
• Launching without placing a real test order, so the first person to experience the checkout is a paying customer.
• Assuming a store generates its own traffic. Unlike a marketplace, nobody is browsing it; visitors must be brought.

Last verified: 2026-08-07. Source: https://www.shopify.com/pricing

Read the full E-Commerce & Online Business guide for how this fits into the wider process.