What Is Shopify Plus? Shopify vs. Shopify Plus

Shopify is a well-known company in the ecommerce space that helps people sell goods online and offline. It offers a service called Shopify Plus, billed as an all-in-one commerce platform and “the best-converting commerce platform” to help online companies drive more sales.

Here’s what you need to know about Shopify and Shopify Plus and which is the right service to boost your ecommerce business. 

Shopify vs. Shopify Plus

Simply put, Shopify Plus is everything that Shopify’s basic service offers, plus more.

Shopify is an ecommerce platform that gives you everything you need to create an online storefront, ship products to customers, and accept multiple forms of online payments. It’s aimed at people looking to build small or medium-sized companies, and this standard version of Shopify offers a few levels of service, each with different features and payment fees. 

Shopify Plus steps things up and focuses on larger enterprises. It comes at a much higher cost but includes a dedicated account manager, greater functionality, more control, more API integrations, and more features.

Shopify Features

To determine whether Shopify or Shopify Plus is the right choice, you need to understand what each service offers. Shopify breaks its services down into four categories.

Start

Shopify offers everything you need to get your company started. It has an easy-to-use website builder that lets you design a site for your company and immediately integrate a Shopify store into that site. You can use thousands of themes and apps to customize the site to your brand or use a template to make the setup process easy.

Shopify also offers domain name services in case you haven’t bought your website’s name yet.

Sell

The next category of services revolves around selling products. With its online storefronts, Shopify makes it easy to sell products online. All you have to do is add products and wait for sales to come in. 

Shopify can handle popular payment methods, such as credit cards or PayPal, and can even manage international customers and currencies for you. It also optimizes the checkout process to increase conversions by making it quick and easy to make a purchase.

If you want to expand your company’s reach, Shopify provides social media integrations to help you sell products through Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. It even offers physical point-of-sale systems so you can sell products in person.

Market

Getting customers to your store is one of the hardest parts of running an online business. Shopify has marketing tools, including content marketing options, SEO tools, email lists, automated social media chat tools, and Facebook Ads integrations to help you drive traffic.

Manage

Once you’ve made sales, you need strong inventory management and logistics to quickly get products to your customers. Shopify has analytics tools to track your company’s performance inventory, management tools to avoid stockouts, and a fulfillment network to outsource the shipping of your products.

Pricing

Shopify offers three service levels, including Basic, Shopify, and Advanced.

Basic costs $39 per month and comes with basic reporting tools, a shipping discount of up to 77%, and two staff accounts. The Shopify tier offers more advanced reports, a shipping discount of up to 88%, and five staff accounts. Advanced lets you build custom reports and have up to 15 staff accounts. 

Each service tier also decreases the fee you pay from credit card payments, from a high of 2.9% + $0.30 to a low of 2.4% + $0.30.

Shopify Plus Features

Shopify Plus offers many of the same tools as standard Shopify but includes access to more apps, integrations, and features with a stronger focus on large, high-volume companies.

Account Manager

Thanks to its merchant success program, every Shopify Plus customer gets a dedicated account manager they can work with to help grow their company. The manager can assist you with starting your Shopify store and connect you with experts who will help you build custom tools that work with Shopify.

More Customization

Shopify Plus merchants get much higher levels of customization for their Shopify site, including full access to Liquid, Shopify’s unique code for theming websites. You also have greater control over the checkout page, letting you adjust the fields customers fill out, customize Shopify payment options, and more.

Shopify Plus also offers a tool called Shopify Flow that lets you automate workflows to save time and money, either with easy-to-use templates or customizable automations. 

Unlimited Staff Accounts

Shopify Plus lets you set up an unlimited number of staff accounts, giving as many people as needed access to manage your site.

Wholesale Channels

If you have customers who want to make bulk purchases, Shopify Plus lets you set up a wholesale store to make bulk sales and discounts easy. This is a separate storefront you can password-protect for exclusive use by your wholesale or B2B customers.

Strong Analytics

Shopify Plus customers get access to an even more detailed and powerful analytics dashboard that they can use to produce custom reports and track performance.

How Much Does Shopify Plus Cost?

Shopify Plus pricing depends on your company's size and sales volume. Pricing starts at a minimum of $2,000 per month and scales up based on factors such as the size of your company, the payment processors you use, any integrations and third-party services you purchase, and other factors.

You can contact Shopify directly to get a quote for your company.

How to Decide Between Shopify and Shopify Plus

Deciding between Shopify and Shopify Plus mostly depends on the size of your business. Shopify is designed for small and medium-sized enterprises, while Shopify Plus targets large companies.

Most ecommerce stores will probably be fine using one of Shopify’s standard service levels. Only the most high-volume companies, like those that feel $2,000 per month is a reasonable fee for an online store and earn more than enough to cover that cost, should consider Shopify Plus.

Consider starting with Shopify’s standard tools if you’re on the fence. You can always upgrade if you find they’re not enough for your company.

When Should I Upgrade From Standard Shopify to Shopify Plus?

If you’ve started a Shopify store, you may think about eventually upgrading to Shopify Plus. 

Shopify says that brands tend to upgrade from a standard Shopify store to a Shopify Plus plan when they reach monthly online sales of about $80,000. Individual needs could vary, so some businesses upgrade sooner while others upgrade later.

If you’re not close to $80,000 per month in sales, you can probably stick with the basic service.

Is Shopify a Good Fit for Small Businesses?

Yes, Shopify is a great fit for small businesses. It offers all the tools you need to get a domain name, build a website, and start selling products online from that website or through other channels, like social media.

It’s also an all-in-one solution for companies that want a physical and online presence, and its low monthly cost is a big draw for smaller companies.

Final Word

Shopify and Shopify Plus are two great ecommerce platforms for companies looking to build an online store. All but the largest businesses, meaning those making nearly $1 million a year in sales, will likely be fine with a standard Shopify store. However, knowing you can easily upgrade as your company grows can be a big draw.