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Which Shopify plan is actually cheapest at your volume?

The subscription price is a red herring: the processing rate does the real damage. Total cost is subscription plus processing, and the cheapest plan flips as GMV grows. Answer four questions and get the full four-plan comparison with 2026 rates, plus the crossover points where the answer changes.

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By Taylor Sicard · early Shopify employee who helped build and scale the Partner Program, then co-founded WIN Brands Group and scaled it past $100M on the platform · I've paid these fees at every tier
The method behind the number
The pricing pages, decoded.
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Method

How the number is calculated

Total monthly cost per plan is the subscription plus processing on your GMV. With Shopify Payments, online card rates in 2026 are 2.9% + 30¢ on Basic ($39/mo), 2.7% + 30¢ on Grow ($105/mo), and 2.5% + 30¢ on Advanced ($399/mo). Plus is the greater of $2,300 or 0.25% of monthly GMV (capped at $40,000), with negotiated processing modelled here at 2.35% + 30¢ as an estimate of the typical 2.2 to 2.5% range. A third-party gateway adds Shopify's surcharge (2%, 1%, 0.5%, 0.20% by plan) on top of your gateway's own fees. The cheapest plan is arithmetic at your volume; the bands grade the winning stack as a share of revenue.

Platform + processing under 4% of revenueThe stack is priced right for your volume.
4 to 6.5% of revenueCheck the crossover: you are probably one plan away from cheaper.
Over 6.5% of revenueYou are on the wrong plan or the wrong gateway for your volume.

At Plus volume the platform fee stops being the story and the negotiated lines start: the Shopify Plus cost calculator models the full all-in number with apps and services. The DTC profitability calculator shows where platform and processing land in the P&L. All of the free DTC calculators share these benchmarks.

Questions

Common questions

Which Shopify plan should I choose?
The one with the lowest total of subscription plus processing at your volume, unless a feature forces your hand. Cheap plans carry expensive processing: Basic's 2.9% online rate versus Advanced's 2.5% means the subscription ranking and the total-cost ranking are different, and they flip as GMV grows. Run your GMV through the comparison instead of reading the pricing page top-down.
What are Shopify's transaction fees by plan in 2026?
With Shopify Payments, online card rates are 2.9% + 30¢ on Basic ($39/mo), 2.7% + 30¢ on Grow ($105/mo), and 2.5% + 30¢ on Advanced ($399/mo). Plus is negotiated, typically in the 2.2% to 2.5% range. On a third-party gateway Shopify adds a surcharge on top: 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow, 0.5% on Advanced, and 0.20% on Plus.
When does Grow beat Basic?
At about $33,000 in monthly GMV. Grow costs $66 more per month in subscription ($105 vs $39) but saves 0.2 points of processing (2.7% vs 2.9%), and 0.2% of $33,000 is $66. Above that, the processing saving outruns the subscription gap and keeps widening. The same logic puts the Grow-to-Advanced crossover near $147,000 a month: a $294 subscription gap against another 0.2-point saving.
When does Shopify Plus make sense?
Rarely on fees alone. Plus is the greater of $2,300 a month or 0.25% of GMV (capped at $40,000 a month), plus negotiated processing, so pure fee math only favours it at serious volume. The real reasons brands move are features: native B2B, checkout extensibility, higher API limits, and multi-store. The Plus cost calculator models the full all-in number.
Do third-party gateways cost more on Shopify?
Yes, twice. Shopify adds its surcharge (2% Basic, 1% Grow, 0.5% Advanced, 0.20% Plus) on top of whatever your gateway charges to process the card. Unless a gateway is contractually required or your card mix is unusual, Shopify Payments is cheaper on every plan.
Is Shopify cheaper on annual billing?
Shopify has offered a discount for paying annually rather than monthly, and the exact size has moved around. Rather than quote a number that goes stale, check the current terms in the plans and pricing decoder. The crossover logic in this calculator does not change with the billing interval.