What is the Difference Between Shopify and Shopify Plus?

Author: Kaitlyn Partington Category: Web Design Date: June 10, 2021

As one of the industry’s most widely used e-commerce website platforms, Shopify is well-known to most web-based business owners and marketers alike. It’s recognized for its reliability, security, ease of use, and top-notch customer support. But for those who are still trying to decide whether the platform is right for their site, one of the most common question that gets asked is: What is the difference between Shopify and Shopify Plus?

What is the difference between Shopify and Shopify Plus?

Quite simply, Shopify offers five different pricing plans, and Shopify Plus is the highest-level, most upgraded option:

• Shopify Lite – $9/month
• Basic Shopify – $29/month
• Shopify – $79/month
• Advanced Shopify – $299/month Shopify Plus – Varies, but starts at $2,000/month

For most small businesses, there really isn’t a need to consider the difference between Shopify and Shopify Plus at all, because “regular” Shopify is a complete and powerful e-commerce platform in its own right, and it does just about everything a small online business owner could ever need. For larger enterprise companies, however – is Shopify Plus worth it? In many cases, absolutely.

The Features and Benefits of Shopify vs. Shopify Plus

When looking at the difference between Shopify and Shopify Plus, the obvious contrast right off the bat is the price tag. Yes, there’s a significant jump between the cost of Shopify vs. Shopify Plus, but it’s justified. Shopify Plus’s features are much more robust than those of the standard Shopify plans because they’re designed to cater to the unique needs of higher-volume companies.

Here are five examples that showcase the difference between Shopify and Shopify Plus and highlight the advantages of Shopify Plus for higher-volume businesses:

Customer Support

Both Shopify and Shopify Plus offer 24/7 customer support, but with Shopify Plus, that support is completely personalized through a feature called the Launch Manager. Through the Launch Manager, Shopify Plus assigns your company a dedicated customer support specialist who can help you and your development team with everything from implementation to post-launch questions and concerns.

Templates and Themes

Shopify offers 10 free website themes to choose from, plus dozens of others that range in price from $140 and $180 – and all of them are available to both Shopify and Shopify Plus customers. But one of the major Shopify Plus benefits is that you aren’t limited to only those themes. Through the Shopify Plus Launch Manager, you can have a completely custom theme built for you, including a customized checkout page.

E-commerce Features

All Shopify users have access to multi-channel integration, abandoned cart recovery, and multi-currency selling. But only Shopify Plus customers get to enjoy Shopify Flow (a feature that tracks your customers’ purchases and alters your homepage to showcase the products they’re most likely to be interested in), Launchpad (an automation tool), and Script Editor (which is the tool that allows you to customize your site).

Wholesaling

One stark difference between Shopify and Shopify Plus is that Shopify’s wholesale channel is available only to Shopify Plus users. Standard Shopify users can still manage their wholesaling through the use of certain third-party apps, but only Shopify Plus customers can create a separate, password-protected wholesale storefront that’s a direct extension of their retail store.

Transaction Fees

Although you pay more upfront for Shopify Plus, the credit card transaction fees you pay are lower than those charged to standard Shopify sellers. With Shopify Plus, the fee is 1.6% plus 30¢ on each transaction; for each of the standard plans, the fees range between 2.4% and 2.9%, plus that same 30¢.

If you’re an e-commerce business with yearly profits in the $1 million range or higher, then considering the difference between Shopify and Shopify Plus is certainly worth your time, as the additional features and services that come with Shopify Plus may prove to be an asset to your business. For smaller companies, however, the more standard Shopify plans are probably a better fit.

To dive even deeper into the differences between Shopify and Shopify Plus, or to get help building out your e-commerce website, contact us today, and one of our Paradigm team members will be in touch.