Introduction
You've decided to launch or scale an online store, and Shopify keeps coming up as the obvious choice. But then you open the pricing page and the questions start piling up. Is the $39/month Basic plan enough? Will you get hit with transaction fees if you don't use Shopify Payments? And what happens when your store grows: does the cost scale reasonably, or does Shopify quietly become one of your biggest operating expenses? These are the right questions to ask before you commit.
This guide does two things. It gives you a clear, honest breakdown of every Shopify pricing plan available in 2026, and it compares Shopify head-to-head against four serious competitors, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Squarespace, and Wix, so you can make the right call for your specific situation, not just the most popular one.
Key Takeaway: Shopify's $79/month Shopify plan hits the sweet spot for most growing stores. But if you're moving more than $500K/year in revenue, Advanced or Plus becomes essential to offset transaction fees and give you access to reporting tools that actually drive decisions.
What to Look For in Ecommerce Software
Choosing ecommerce software isn't just about monthly pricing. The platform you pick becomes the infrastructure your entire business runs on. It affects your checkout conversion rate, your ability to sell across channels, your staff's daily workflow, and your long-term scalability. Here are the six criteria that should drive your decision.
Transaction Fees and Payment Processing Costs
This is the single most important, and most overlooked, factor when comparing ecommerce platforms. Many platforms charge a percentage fee on every sale on top of payment processor fees. Shopify, for example, charges 2% per transaction on the Basic plan if you use a third-party payment gateway instead of Shopify Payments. At $10,000/month in sales, that's an extra $200 gone before you've paid for advertising, fulfilment, or staff. Calculate your total cost of ownership using your actual (or projected) monthly revenue, not just the subscription fee.
Scalability and Plan Limits
Entry-level plans often come with caps that aren't obvious upfront: limits on staff accounts, product variants, inventory locations, or reporting depth. A plan that works perfectly at $5K/month can become a bottleneck at $50K/month. Look specifically at how many staff accounts are included, whether there are limits on inventory locations (critical for multi-warehouse or 3PL operations), and whether advanced analytics require an upgrade.
App Ecosystem and Built-In Features
Shopify has over 8,000 apps in its marketplace, and that cuts both ways. It means almost any feature is possible, but it also means many core features (subscription billing, advanced upsells, loyalty programmes) require paid third-party apps that add $20 to $100/month each to your costs. Platforms like BigCommerce build more features natively, which can be cheaper at scale even if the base price is higher. Work out what you need out of the box versus what you'll need to bolt on.
Checkout Customisation and Conversion Rate
Your checkout is where revenue is won or lost. Shopify's checkout is widely regarded as one of the highest-converting in the industry (they cite a 36% higher conversion rate versus competitors in their own benchmarks), but full checkout customisation via Checkout Extensibility requires the Shopify Plus plan at $2,300/month. If conversion rate optimisation is a priority, find out exactly what you can and cannot customise at each price tier before you commit.
SEO and Content Marketing Capabilities
Ecommerce is a long-term game, and organic search traffic is its highest-margin channel. Look at whether the platform gives you control over meta titles, structured data, URL structure, canonical tags, and page speed. Shopify scores well here, but its blogging features are fairly basic compared to platforms built on WordPress like WooCommerce. If content marketing sits at the centre of your growth strategy, this matters a lot.
Support Quality and Reliability
When your store goes down on a peak sales day, the speed and quality of support can mean thousands of dollars in recovered or lost revenue. Look for platforms offering 24/7 live support (not just a chatbot) at the plan level you're considering, guaranteed uptime SLAs, and a track record of handling high-traffic events like Black Friday without downtime. Shopify and BigCommerce both publish strong uptime numbers. Hosted platforms generally outperform self-hosted ones like WooCommerce here.
Top Picks
Shopify
Best for: Serious direct-to-consumer brands that want a polished, scalable, all-in-one platform and are willing to pay for it.
Shopify remains the dominant ecommerce platform in 2026, and for good reason. It's fast, reliable, endlessly extensible, and built for selling. The checkout experience, abandoned cart recovery, and multi-channel selling (across Instagram, TikTok, Amazon, and in-person via Shopify POS) are all built in or trivially easy to add. The platform handles everything from your first sale to millions in annual revenue, and it upgrades gracefully as you grow. The 2026 pricing structure runs from $39/month for Basic, $79/month for Shopify, $299/month for Advanced, and $2,300/month for Shopify Plus (enterprise). All plans are billed monthly. Annual billing saves roughly 25%.
Here's the honest caveat: Shopify gets expensive once you factor in everything. The app ecosystem is excellent but costly. Most growing stores end up spending $200-$500/month on apps alone. Transaction fees (0.5%-2% depending on plan) add up fast if you're not using Shopify Payments, which isn't available in every country. And Shopify Plus, while powerful, requires a minimum 1-year contract at a price that only makes sense for stores doing $1M+ annually. Still, for most mid-market and enterprise DTC brands, the combination of reliability, brand credibility, and ecosystem depth is hard to beat.
Starting price: $39/month (Basic, billed monthly) | $29/month billed annually
Free trial: 3-day free trial, then $1/month for the first 3 months (2026 promotional pricing)
- Industry-leading checkout conversion rates with one-click Shop Pay integration
- Native multi-channel selling across social, marketplaces, and in-person POS
- Massive app marketplace with 8,000+ integrations covering nearly every use case
Honest limitation: Transaction fees on non-Shopify Payments gateways and expensive mandatory app add-ons mean the true monthly cost is often 2-3x the advertised plan price for growing stores.
WooCommerce
Best for: WordPress users, content-heavy stores, and budget-conscious operators who are comfortable with a little technical complexity.
WooCommerce is technically free. It's an open-source plugin for WordPress, and the core software costs $0. But "free" is relative. You'll need to pay for WordPress hosting (typically $20-$80/month from a host like Kinsta or WP Engine for a store with any real traffic), an SSL certificate, a premium theme, and a selection of paid extensions. The WooCommerce Extensions Store offers a wide range of official add-ons, many priced at $49-$199/year each. Add it all up and a well-configured WooCommerce store typically costs $80-$200/month to run, comparable to Shopify's mid-tier, but it gives you far more control over your data, your code, and your costs at scale.
The biggest advantage WooCommerce has over every hosted platform on this list is content. Because it runs on WordPress, you get the world's best CMS baked in, with full control over your blog, landing pages, SEO settings, and page structure. If your growth strategy relies on organic content marketing (long-form guides, product comparison pages, editorial content), WooCommerce is the only platform that truly competes with a standalone WordPress site. The trade-off is that you're responsible for hosting, security, updates, and performance optimisation. For non-technical operators, that overhead is real and shouldn't be underestimated.
Starting price: $0 for the plugin + ~$25-$80/month for managed WordPress hosting
Free trial: No trial needed, it's free to install. Most hosts offer a 30-day money-back guarantee.
- No transaction fees whatsoever, you keep 100% of revenue minus payment processor fees
- Unmatched content and SEO capabilities via native WordPress integration
- Complete ownership of your data, code, and infrastructure, with no platform lock-in
Honest limitation: You are your own IT department. Updates, security patches, plugin conflicts, and performance issues are your responsibility, or you pay a developer to handle them.
Read Our Full WooCommerce Review →BigCommerce
Best for: High-volume stores that need enterprise-grade native features without paying enterprise prices, especially B2B sellers.
BigCommerce is Shopify's most direct competitor among hosted platforms, and it wins on one key point: it charges zero transaction fees on any payment gateway, on any plan. That alone can save stores thousands of dollars per month at scale. The 2026 pricing sits at $39/month for Standard, $105/month for Plus, $399/month for Pro, and custom pricing for Enterprise. BigCommerce builds a remarkable amount natively: multi-currency, advanced product filtering, real-time shipping quotes, a native review system, and B2B features like customer group pricing and purchase order management. These are features that would require paid Shopify apps costing $50-$200/month each.
The limitation is market perception and ecosystem size. BigCommerce has a smaller app marketplace (around 1,200 apps versus Shopify's 8,000+), a smaller developer community, and fewer themes to choose from. It's also less intuitive for first-time store owners. The admin interface has more options but requires more learning. Still, for merchants who have outgrown Shopify's fee structure and want an enterprise-capable platform without the Shopify Plus price tag, BigCommerce Pro at $399/month often makes more financial sense than Shopify Advanced at $299/month, mainly because you're not paying transaction fees on every sale.
Starting price: $39/month (Standard, billed monthly) | $29/month billed annually
Free trial: 15-day free trial, no credit card required
- Zero transaction fees on all plans, regardless of payment gateway
- Native B2B features (customer groups, price lists, purchase orders) built in, not bolted on
- Headless commerce support via Stencil framework and open APIs, ideal for custom storefronts
Honest limitation: Revenue-based plan thresholds mean you can be automatically pushed to a higher (more expensive) plan when your annual sales exceed the plan's cap, a surprise some merchants aren't prepared for.
Read Our Full BigCommerce Review →Squarespace
Best for: Creative small businesses, independent makers, and service providers who sell a relatively small catalogue and want a beautiful storefront with minimal setup.
Squarespace is the most design-forward platform on this list. Its templates are genuinely stunning, best-in-class for industries like fashion, jewellery, photography, food and beverage, and lifestyle brands. The 2026 ecommerce plans run from $23/month for the Basic Commerce plan to $35/month for Advanced Commerce (both billed monthly; annual billing cuts costs by roughly 30%). The Basic Commerce plan removes Squarespace's transaction fee (which applies on lower-tier plans) and adds product reviews, merchandising tools, and point-of-sale integration. Advanced Commerce adds abandoned cart recovery, subscription selling, and advanced shipping capabilities.
Where Squarespace falls short is scale and flexibility. The app ecosystem is thin. There's no marketplace comparable to Shopify's or even BigCommerce's. If you need a specific integration, say a particular ERP, loyalty programme, or wholesale portal, there's a good chance it simply doesn't exist for Squarespace. The platform also limits how deeply you can customise the checkout experience or backend logic. It's a great choice for a boutique doing up to $30K/year. It's elegant, easy to run, and affordable. But it's the wrong foundation for a store with aggressive growth ambitions.
Starting price: $23/month (Basic Commerce, billed monthly) | $16/month billed annually
Free trial: 14-day free trial, no credit card required
- Best-in-class design templates and visual brand control, with minimal design skill required
- All-in-one pricing includes hosting, SSL, and a custom domain for the first year
- Squarespace Payments built in with no extra transaction fees on Commerce plans
Honest limitation: Severely limited third-party integrations and a closed app ecosystem make it a poor choice for stores that need specialised tools or plan to scale rapidly.
Read Our Full Squarespace Review →Wix
Best for: Micro-businesses, sole traders, and first-time online sellers who want a drag-and-drop store they can launch in a weekend without any technical help.
Wix has moved a long way past its old reputation as a website builder that happened to sell products. The Wix ecommerce experience in 2026 is genuinely capable for small stores. It has a drag-and-drop editor that's the most intuitive on this list, built-in marketing tools (email campaigns, Facebook ads integration, a native CRM), and ecommerce plans starting at $29/month for the Core plan and $36/month for the Business plan. The Business Elite plan, aimed at larger operations, runs $159/month. Wix processes payments with zero transaction fees via Wix Payments, with a 2.9% + $0.30 standard card processing rate in the US.
Wix's ceiling is lower than most of the platforms on this list. Inventory management is functional but not sophisticated. Reporting is surface-level compared to Shopify or BigCommerce. And the platform doesn't hold up as well at high traffic volumes. The app market (Wix App Market) has grown to over 300 ecommerce-related apps, which helps, but it doesn't come close to the depth of Shopify's ecosystem. Where Wix wins decisively is ease of use and time-to-launch. A determined non-technical user can have a functioning, good-looking store live within 24 hours. For a side business, local shop, or low-volume seller testing the ecommerce waters, that matters enormously.
Starting price: $29/month (Core plan, billed monthly) | $17/month billed annually
Free trial: No formal free trial on paid plans, but a free Wix site (with Wix branding) lets you explore the builder before committing
- The most beginner-friendly drag-and-drop editor in the ecommerce market, with genuinely zero learning curve
- Built-in CRM, email marketing, and ad management tools cut your total app spend significantly
- Competitive entry-level pricing with no transaction fees via Wix Payments
Honest limitation: Performance and scalability limitations make Wix a poor long-term choice for stores expecting rapid growth. Migrating away from Wix later is notoriously painful.
Read Our Full Wix Review →Pricing Comparison
Comparing ecommerce platform pricing requires looking beyond the headline subscription cost. Here's what you're actually paying, and getting, at each price point across all five platforms.
At the entry level, Shopify Basic and BigCommerce Standard both start at $39/month billed monthly, or around $29/month on annual billing. On paper, they're identical. But BigCommerce charges zero transaction fees regardless of payment gateway, while Shopify charges 2% per transaction if you don't use Shopify Payments. For a store doing $20,000/month in revenue, that's a $400/month difference. BigCommerce Standard ends up significantly cheaper in practice for merchants who prefer or require a non-Shopify payment processor. Wix's Core plan at $29/month looks slightly cheaper on the surface, but the feature set is lighter and it's really built for stores with modest ambitions.
Squarespace sits in an interesting middle ground. Its Basic Commerce plan at $23/month (or $16/month annually) is the cheapest fully-featured ecommerce plan among the hosted platforms. You get no transaction fees, unlimited products, and excellent design tools. For a low-volume store where aesthetics matter and integrations don't, it's extraordinary value. But the moment you need abandoned cart recovery, a Basic feature in most competitors, you're jumping to the $35/month Advanced Commerce plan. That's a proportionally large step up.
WooCommerce defies simple price comparisons because the software itself is free. A realistic all-in cost for a well-run WooCommerce store, including managed WordPress hosting on Kinsta or WP Engine, a premium theme, the most essential paid extensions (subscriptions, bookings, memberships, or advanced shipping), and basic security tooling, typically lands between $100 and $250/month. That sounds higher than Shopify Basic, but with zero transaction fees and complete control over what you pay for, experienced operators frequently find WooCommerce cheaper at scale. Stores doing $500K+ annually in revenue often save $1,000 to $3,000/month by switching from Shopify to WooCommerce, purely on the elimination of transaction and app fees.
At the high end, Shopify Advanced at $299/month gives you 15 staff accounts, advanced reporting, and reduced transaction fees (0.5% with third-party gateways). BigCommerce Pro at $399/month costs more on paper, but it offers similar capabilities with no transaction fees and some stronger native B2B features. For stores processing significant volume, the math often still favours BigCommerce Pro over Shopify Advanced. Shopify Plus at $2,300/month is in a different category entirely. It's a contractual enterprise platform for brands doing $1M to $500M+ annually, and at that revenue level, the fee savings and feature unlocks justify the price comfortably.
Best Value Pick: BigCommerce Standard ($39/month). Zero transaction fees on any payment gateway, strong native features, and a 15-day free trial make it the best bang-for-buck entry point for stores that already have meaningful revenue or expect to grow quickly.
Who Should Read This
Different business profiles need different things. Here's a direct recommendation based on your situation.
The Side-Business Owner or First-Time Seller
If you're launching a store for the first time, selling a small product range (under 50 SKUs), and expect to generate under $3,000/month in revenue in your first year, Wix or Squarespace will serve you well. Wix's Core plan at $29/month gives you a drag-and-drop builder you can figure out in an afternoon, built-in email marketing, and a clean storefront, without paying for features you won't use yet. Squarespace is the better pick if your brand aesthetic is a big part of the sell (think handmade jewellery, artisan food, or independent fashion). Neither charges transaction fees at this scale, and both give you a professional-looking site without a developer.
The Growing DTC Brand Doing $10K to $200K a Month
This is Shopify's sweet spot. If you're a direct-to-consumer brand with real marketing ambitions (running paid social, building a retention programme, selling across channels, managing a team of 3 to 10 people), the Shopify plan at $79/month gives you what you need to scale. You get 5 staff accounts, professional reporting, abandoned cart recovery, Shopify POS, and a platform that every email marketing, loyalty, subscription, and analytics app builds for first. Upgrade to Advanced at $299/month once your monthly revenue passes roughly $100K. The 0.5% transaction fee saving (versus 1% on the Shopify plan) starts to cover the cost of the upgrade on its own.
The High-Volume or B2B Merchant
If you're doing more than $500K annually, selling wholesale or B2B alongside direct-to-consumer, or running a complex multi-location operation, BigCommerce Pro or WooCommerce deserve a serious look ahead of Shopify. BigCommerce Pro at $399/month cuts out transaction fees entirely and supports customer group pricing, purchase orders, and multi-storefront setups natively, without the $2,300/month Plus price tag. WooCommerce is the right call if your business runs on content, if you need full data ownership, or if you have (or can hire) a developer to handle the technical side. At this revenue level, the per-transaction and per-app savings from WooCommerce or BigCommerce often top $1,500 to $3,000 a month compared to an equivalent Shopify setup.
FAQ
How much does Shopify cost per month in 2026?
Shopify offers four main plans in 2026: Basic at $39/month, Shopify at $79/month, Advanced at $299/month, and Shopify Plus starting at $2,300/month. Annual billing cuts these prices by roughly 25%. There's also a Starter plan at $5/month for social selling only, without a full storefront.
Is there a free version of Shopify?
There's no permanently free Shopify plan. Shopify offers a 3-day free trial, followed by a promotional first 3 months at $1/month (subject to change). After the promotional period, full plan pricing applies. The $5/month Starter plan is the cheapest paid option, but it doesn't include a full online storefront.
Which Shopify plan should I start with?
Most new stores should start on the Basic plan ($39/month). It includes unlimited products, 2 staff accounts, abandoned cart recovery, and Shopify Payments integration. Upgrade to the Shopify plan ($79/month) once you need more detailed reports, 5 staff accounts, or your monthly revenue passes roughly $15,000, since the reduced transaction fee rate starts saving you money at that point.
Does Shopify charge transaction fees on every plan?
Yes, Shopify charges transaction fees if you use a third-party payment gateway instead of Shopify Payments. The fee is 2% on Basic, 1% on the Shopify plan, and 0.5% on Advanced. There are no Shopify transaction fees if you use Shopify Payments, though standard card processing rates (typically 2.9% + $0.30 in the US) still apply through any gateway.
Shopify vs BigCommerce: which is better for growing stores?
Shopify suits stores that want ease of use, a wide app ecosystem, and multi-channel selling. BigCommerce suits stores with higher revenue volumes that want to avoid transaction fees and need strong native B2B or multi-currency features without paying for extra apps. BigCommerce's zero-transaction-fee policy often makes it cheaper overall for stores doing more than $50,000/month in revenue.
Shopify vs WooCommerce: which is better for SEO?
WooCommerce has the edge for SEO and content marketing, because it runs on WordPress, the world's most flexible CMS. You get full control over URL structures, schema markup, page speed optimisation, and content architecture. Shopify has solid SEO fundamentals but lacks the depth of content tools and plugin options that WordPress provides. If organic search is your main acquisition channel, WooCommerce is the stronger long-term foundation.
Is there a free version of ecommerce software?
WooCommerce is the most capable free ecommerce platform. The core plugin is open-source with no licence cost. That said, you still pay for WordPress hosting, extensions, and a domain. Wix and Squarespace offer free website tiers, but ecommerce selling requires a paid plan on both. No major hosted ecommerce platform offers a fully functional free plan for selling products without eventually requiring payment.
How much does BigCommerce cost compared to Shopify?
BigCommerce and Shopify have nearly identical entry-level pricing, both starting at $39/month billed monthly. BigCommerce's mid-tier (Plus) runs $105/month versus Shopify's equivalent at $79/month. BigCommerce charges zero transaction fees at every plan level though, which makes the total cost lower for stores using third-party payment processors or doing significant monthly volume.
What is Shopify Plus and who is it for?
Shopify Plus is Shopify's enterprise plan, starting at $2,300/month on a minimum 1-year contract. It's built for brands processing $1 million or more annually. Key extras include unlimited staff accounts, full checkout customisation (Checkout Extensibility), dedicated launch engineers, advanced automation via Shopify Flow, and multi-storefront management. It's overkill for most businesses. The jump from Advanced ($299/month) should only happen when revenue and operational complexity genuinely demand it.
Can I switch ecommerce platforms later without losing my data?
Yes, but it's not painless. Most platforms support product CSV exports, and there are migration tools and agencies that specialise in moving stores between platforms. The hardest parts are usually redirecting SEO URLs, migrating customer account data, and replicating app functionality on the new platform. Shopify to WooCommerce and Shopify to BigCommerce are the most common migrations and are reasonably well-supported. Plan a migration carefully. Doing it during a low-traffic period with professional help is strongly recommended.
Final Recommendation
For most ecommerce businesses in 2026, Shopify is the right answer. Specifically, the $79/month Shopify plan for stores in the $10K - $100K/month revenue range. The platform's reliability, checkout performance, ecosystem depth, and ease of use for non-technical teams beat everything else we tested. It isn't the cheapest option in raw subscription terms, and once you factor in apps and transaction fees, it's pricier still. But for teams that want to grow their business instead of managing infrastructure, Shopify's all-in-one setup earns its premium. The 3-day trial, plus the extended $1/month promotional period, makes it cheap to test for yourself.
The runner-up is BigCommerce, and for a good chunk of readers it's actually the smarter pick. If you already know you'll use a payment processor other than Shopify Payments, if you sell B2B alongside DTC, or if you're expecting rapid revenue growth and want zero transaction fees locked in from day one, BigCommerce's Standard plan at $39/month gives you a better financial foundation than Shopify Basic. Its 15-day free trial, no credit card required, makes it worth testing alongside Shopify before you commit either way.