Shopify Plus or not: what you really get, and when it pays

Shopify Plus is the plan agencies love to sell, and sometimes it’s the right call. But a lot of what used to need Plus is now on every plan, and Plus costs thousands a month. Here’s what you really get in late 2026.

What it costs

Plan	Price (USD)
Advanced	$299 a month billed yearly, $399 billed monthly
Plus, 3-year term	from $2,300 a month
Plus, 1-year term	from $2,500 a month

On top of the Plus price, “more complex, higher-volume businesses may pay a variable platform fee based on revenue and business model”, in Shopify’s words. The rate isn’t published. Get a written quote before you compare.

Card and gateway fees are lower on Plus. On Shopify’s current pricing, using a third-party payment gateway costs 0.6% on Advanced and 0.2% on Plus, and Shopify Payments card rates are lower too. Check the rates for your country on Shopify’s pricing page.

What only Plus has

• Checkout UI extensions on the information, shipping and payment steps. Custom fields, messages, upsells, delivery instructions and compliance checks inside checkout. (The thank-you and order status pages can be extended on other plans.)
• Custom apps with Shopify Functions. Your own discount, shipping, payment and cart validation logic, built just for your store. On other plans you can only use Functions through public apps from the App Store.
• Up to 9 expansion stores, included, for other countries, brands or a wholesale store. Each live store needs its own theme licence.
• B2B at scale: unlimited catalogs per company location (other plans get three), direct company catalogs, deposits, partial payments and payment requests per fulfillment.
• Launchpad, to schedule sales, product drops and theme changes and roll them back automatically.
• Shopify Audiences, Shopify’s ad targeting lists for Meta, Google and others.
• Unlimited staff accounts and Plus support.

What you no longer need Plus for

• Shopify Flow automation: free on every plan (some actions are plan-limited).
• B2B basics: company accounts, price lists, payment terms. Available from Basic up.
• Scripts: gone for everyone since 30 June 2026. The replacement, Shopify Functions, works on every plan through public apps.
• Checkout branding and the thank-you and order status pages: on other plans too.
• Markets for selling in several countries and currencies from one store.

When Plus pays

Plus usually makes sense when at least one of these is true:

1. You need to change checkout itself. A compliance step (age checks for alcohol, licence numbers for B2B), custom delivery rules, or fields your operations depend on. Our Shopify alcohol guide covers the alcohol case.
2. Your discount or shipping logic is unusual. If no public app does what you need, custom Functions are the clean answer, and they need Plus.
3. You run several stores. Different countries, brands or a separate wholesale site, where expansion stores replace several paid plans.
4. Volume makes the fees matter. Work out your monthly online sales × the difference in card or gateway rates. If that saving is close to the price difference, Plus partly pays for itself.
5. You run big drops. Launchpad and Plus support earn their keep when one launch day is a large share of the year.

When it doesn’t

• The store converts badly. Plus won’t fix slow pages, weak product pages or a confusing menu. Our speed guide is a cheaper first step.
• You want it for “credibility”. Customers can’t see your plan.
• One app solves it. Many “we need Plus” requests turn out to be one public app built on Functions or a theme change.

A simple way to decide

Write down the three things you can’t do today. For each one, ask: is it in checkout, does it need a custom Function, or does it need a second store? If none of the three answers is yes, stay on Advanced (or lower) and spend the difference on the store. If one is yes, ask Shopify for a Plus quote that includes the variable fee, and compare it with the cost of the workaround.