Shopify Plus Calculator: Breaking Down Shopify Enterprises Plan

This article will dissect the intricacies of Shopify Plus’s pricing structure and introduce you to the overall picture of calculating the cost – your key to unlocking the beacon of opportunity for enterprises.

When To Upgrade To Shopify Plus?

Thinking about upgrading to Shopify Plus? Here’s a handy guide to help you decide:

Sales Volume and Traffic:

If your store is bustling with traffic and sales, Shopify Plus might just be the upgrade you need.

Let’s break it down: using our Shopify fee calculator, if your sales hit around $60,000 a month across any plan—be it Basic, Shopify, or Advanced—you’ll notice your fees are creeping up to nearly $2,000, which is pretty close to the cost of Shopify Plus.

At this point, it’s a smart move to consider making the switch. It offers the lowest transaction fees alongside a suite of more advanced and customizable features. All of these perks are designed to give your thriving business the boost it deserves.

International Expansion: 

Shopify Plus packs a punch with advanced features tailored for international B2B and Omnichannel selling. These tools are here to smooth the way as you broaden your horizons and introduce your store to new markets worldwide.

Additionally, Shopify Plus facilitates in-person selling with Shopify POS Pro included. If you have multiple brick-and-mortar stores, this plan is a good investment.

Advanced features:

This plan opens doors to advanced analytics and reporting features, giving you the valuable data you need to make smart and informed business decisions. With this upgrade, you’re equipping yourself with the tools to understand your business better and steer it toward success.

Unraveling The Monthly Costs of Shopify Plus

Shopify’s standard plans are an excellent choice for individuals and small businesses venturing into online sales. However, when your enterprise is generating sales in the millions and demands a highly personalized and advanced e-commerce solution, Shopify Plus steps in to meet those demands, which is designed with larger enterprises in mind.

Hence, Shopify Plus’s pricing reflects the scalability and advanced features it offers. Unlike the standard Shopify plans, which are primarily subscription-based, Shopify Plus adopts a customized approach to pricing, starting from $2,000/month.

The overall fee for Shopify Plus can vary based on several factors. Here’s a closer look at what might influence this cost:

• Sales volume: The monthly sales volume of your enterprise is a significant factor. As your business grows and generates more revenue, your base fee may increase to accommodate the higher transaction volume.
• Negotiation: Shopify Plus pricing is often negotiable. Depending on the specific needs of your enterprise and your negotiation skills, you may be able to secure a more favorable pricing arrangement.
• Customization: If your enterprise requires extensive customization, such as tailored app development, intricate theme design, or unique features, this can impact the base fee. Customization typically incurs additional costs.
• Expanding: If your enterprise operates in multiple locations, either domestically or internationally, managing multiple stores and a global e-commerce presence may necessitate additional resources and services, affecting the overall cost.
• Additional services: Opting for extra services for higher requirements, such as advanced reporting, integration with third-party tools, or specialized support, can contribute to higher variable costs.

Primary Cost

Subscription Fees (license fee)

Let’s begin by discussing the base platform fee. This fee is a standard expense for every merchant utilizing Shopify Plus, and its cost is directly tied to your brand’s revenue. 

• For businesses with a monthly revenue of less than $800,000 USD, the fixed platform fee of $2,000 USD per month will apply.
• However, if your revenue surpasses $800,000 USD per month, Shopify Plus adopts a revenue share model. In this case, they charge 0.25% of your monthly revenue up to a maximum of $40,000.

Businesses with more intricate operations and higher sales volume are subject to a variable fee calculated as a percentage of their revenues.

Shopify Plus typically requires a minimum 12-month contract commitment. The standard payment terms involve monthly payments in arrears, which can be conveniently processed through a credit card or PayPal.

Transaction Fees

As usual, when you opt for Shopify Payments, you can enjoy the benefit of waived transaction fees. 

However, if you decide to utilize third-party providers as your payment gateway, Shopify will impose a 0.15% to 0.3% transaction fee on your transactions for Shopify Plus merchants. In contrast, other Shopify plans typically have transaction fees ranging from 0.5% to 2%.

Credit Card Fees

If you opt for a third-party provider, the rates you’ll encounter are contingent on factors like your sales volume, the nature of your products, and your business’s location.

In the case of Shopify Payments, the fee structure differs depending on your business’s headquarters.

For U.S.-based merchants, the fees are as follows:

• 2.15% + $0.3 per transaction for Visa and MasterCard
• 3.15% + $0.3 per transaction for American Express and international cards.

Additional Cost

Apart from the base price for standard setups and integrations, for businesses with more intricate and higher-volume structures, the variable fee option adapts to meet their specific needs.

Shopify Apps

On the Shopify app store, you’ll find a diverse range of pricing options, mostly starting from free and going up to $500 per month, or even more up to a few thousand dollars if the app charges a percentage of your generated revenue.

The app store covers a wide array of categories, with some of the more popular ones to boost your performance metrics being:

• Sales
• Marketing automation
• Logistics
• Inventory management
• Finances

Typically, mid-to-enterprise level brands tend to invest around $1,500 USD  per month on their overall app expenses.

Web Design

The process of crafting an exceptional design for your Shopify Plus website is an absolutely essential journey for your business. It’s your chance to completely overhaul your brand’s identity, from guidelines and color schemes to logos and the overall visual appeal of your site.

When large businesses consider transitioning to Shopify Plus, they typically adopt a Shopify theme with extensive customizations to encompass a complete and modest redesign for their online store. Thus, a Shopify Plus store development provider typically focuses on three main categories: new design, refreshed design, and Shopify theme adoption.

The typical price range for a premium theme falls between $150 and $350. Your design costs can vary significantly depending on where you fall on this design spectrum. 

Most businesses reaching out to us are in pursuit of a unique and customized design that sets their brand apart from the competition. Whether you handle the design and construction internally or engage a design agency or freelance professional, it’s crucial to consider and include this expense in your calculations.

The price of custom themes can range from $5,000 and beyond, contingent on factors like the party you work with, the extent of customization, the required features, and the creation of unique templates to suit your specific needs.

Marketing

Marketing isn’t just an expense; it’s an investment in their growth and success. Large enterprises essentially require more effort in the marketing field than the built-in functionality.

A tool that is impossible to mention is to leverage nearly 2,000 marketing external apps and extensions on the Shopify app store. These apps offer a range of capabilities, from email marketing automation to SEO optimization, affiliate programs, and social media management. While some apps have free versions, large businesses offer more advanced features under monthly subscription plans or transaction-based pricing.

Here are some outstanding and popular options on the Shopify app store to facilitate your marketing functionality:

• Nosto: From $99 per month, tailor the content presented to your site visitors
• Yotpo: From $0 to $699+ per month, cultivate a dedicated customer base or loyal customers 
• Klaviyo: From $0 to $2000+, streamline your email marketing efforts with automation 

Additionally, the companies turn to marketing agencies to leverage their expertise, resources, and industry insights. Agencies, with their specialized skills and dedicated teams, can provide a range of services, from comprehensive SEO strategies to content creation, social media management, and paid advertising campaigns, when your in-house resources are limited. 

Agency fees typically fall between $500 and $5,000 per month,  depending on factors like the scope of work, the agency’s reputation, and the specific services required.

Another prominent method is social media advertising, which allows businesses to rapidly and efficiently increase brand visibility, engage with potential customers, and drive traffic to their Shopify Plus store in the age of the internet and technology. It can be instrumental in generating leads and conversions. 

The estimated monthly cost can range from $1,000 to $10,000+, depending on each platform, such as TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, or Instagram.

Web Development

Once your Shopify Plus store is operational, you might consider establishing a monthly retainer with your agency partner for continuous design and development efforts aimed at enhancing your return on investment. 

These retainer services not only encompass the incorporation of non-essential phase 2 functionalities but also primarily focus on optimizing your conversion rate and bolstering your store’s profitability. Several factors come into play when determining development expenses:

• The degree of design customization
• The total number of pages to be crafted
• Necessary third-party integrations.
• Custom app development.
• Project timelines.

Here are the categorized brackets for monthly retainers:

• Up to 50 hours, costing approximately $5,000 USD, suitable for maintaining essential operations.
• 50 to 100 hours, at around $5,000 to $15,000 USD, ideal for introducing new website features at regular intervals.
• 100+ hours, priced at approximately $15,000+ USD, allowing for the monthly rollout of innovative features and enhancements.

Additional Shopify Features And Tools 

As a Shopify Plus member, merchants are allowed to freely and exclusively access the two principle automation tools, Shopify Flow and Launchpad, in the Shopify app store, and they all provide valuable functionalities. Flow enables the automation of various tasks and processes, while Launchpad streamlines the management of critical events, both of which contribute to greatly improved efficiency and customer satisfaction.

However, for such other crucial automation tools, Shopify Plus merchants still need external integration with add-on costs to enhance the operation. For instances,

• Advanced inventory management: ensuring products are in stock, preventing overselling, and optimizing supply chain operations, ranging from $9 to $600 or more per month
  • TredaGekko: From $39 to $599 per month
  • DEAR system: From $325 to $525 per month
• Tax calculation: streamline and optimize the often complex and time-consuming task of tax management, spanning from $10 to $300 monthly
  • TaxJar: $19 – $99 per month
  • Avalara: volume-based pricing models, up to hundreds of dollars per month.
• Customer relationship management: maintain a database of customer information, improve customer engagement, and track leads and conversions, costing from $10 to $150+ per user per month.
  • Hubspot: $360 – $1200 per month
  • Zendesk: $55 – $200+ per month

Shipping

Beyond the standard subscription fee, the additional costs for the shipping category on Shopify Plus can include various expenses, particularly for businesses looking to optimize their shipping operations.

• Shipping apps and tools: enhance shipping capabilities like real-time carrier rates, shipping label generation, order tracking, and address validation. The cost of shipping apps can vary widely. For instance,
  • Shippo offers a free plan with pay-as-you-go shipping labels or a subscription plan starting at $10 per month for unlimited labels.
  • Shipstation: connect with over 75 carrier integrations and a vast network of e-commerce partners, from $25 to $175 monthly
• Shipping carriers and rates: The actual cost of shipping items depends on the chosen shipping carriers and the shipping rates they offer. It can range significantly, with pricing determined by factors like package weight, size, destination, and service level. For example, USPS, UPS, FedEx, and DHL all have their pricing structures based on these variables.
• Shipping insurance: As a Shopify Plus merchant, businesses can get the $200 insurance cost to protect their orders by purchasing shipping labels with a custom price of about a few dollars per label. However, if this is not enough for your average order, you can purchase insurance for the full shipment value. The insurance premium rates provided by Shopify are:
  • Domestic shipments: 0.89 USD per 100 USD of coverage
  • International shipments: 1.29 USD per 100 USD of coverage

Currency conversion fee

When an e-commerce business on Shopify Plus conducts transactions in multiple currencies, especially in international markets, there is often a need to convert these foreign currency sales into the business’s current currency for payment. The currency conversion fee is contingent on your store’s primary location:

• 1.5% if your primary location is in the United States.
• 2% for all other countries and regions when using Shopify Payments.

How Much Does A Shopify Plus Store Typically Cost a Month?

From the wealth of information provided, it’s evident that Shopify Plus pricing isn’t always straightforward and can fluctuate based on specific facets of your business. To conclude this section, let’s provide a concise overview of the estimated total expenses associated with adopting Shopify Plus as your chosen e-commerce platform.

Assume a business has 4,000 monthly orders and an average order value of $50. Based on these parameters, the expected monthly cost breakdown for Shopify Plus is as follows:

• Subscription fee: $2000
• Fixed transaction fee (using Shopify Payments): $1200
• Variable transaction fees: $4300
• Build cost (custom theme): $30,000
• Development cost: $5,000
• App fees: $1,000
• Marketing cost: $5,000
• Add-on tools: $2,000

This sums up to the initial Shopify Plus pricing of about $50,000 for the first month, followed by a recurring cost of nearly $20,000 per month due to the net upsell revenue.

Thus, a basic Shopify Plus often costs from $5,000 to $60,000 per month.

Tips for Managing and Reducing Shopify Plus Costs

Mastering the art of cost-effective management while harnessing the full potential of Shopify Plus is paramount for large businesses striving to thrive in the digital marketplace. Some strategies for optimizing the Shopify Plus plan are:

• Selective app integration: When integrating third-party apps, be discerning and select those that align closely with your business objectives. Avoid overloading your store with numerous apps, as each typically comes with a subscription cost. Ensure that each app adds tangible value to your e-commerce operations.
• Regular app audits: Periodically review the performance and utility of integrated apps. Identify and remove apps that are underutilized or no longer essential for your business needs. This practice ensures that you are not paying for services that no longer provide value.
• Efficient theme development: Opt for efficient and cost-effective theme development. Instead of creating a completely custom design, consider using existing themes as a foundation and customizing as needed. This approach can significantly reduce design and development costs.
• Data-driven decision-making: Leverage Shopify’s built-in data analytics tools for comprehensive insights into customer behavior, sales trends, and product performance. Make informed decisions based on this data to optimize your marketing strategies without the need for additional analytics subscriptions.
• Inventory management optimization: Implement effective inventory management practices to reduce storage costs and prevent overstocking or understocking, which has a direct impact on operational costs. Consider third-party inventory management apps or services that can help automatically optimize stock levels, reduce warehousing costs, and minimize stockouts.

When it comes to Shopify Plus, securing the best pricing terms is akin to fine-tuning a well-oiled machine; it’s an essential task for businesses to ensure their e-commerce operations run efficiently and cost-effectively. Thus, we provide some essential tips for negotiating Shopify Plus fees:

• Annual contracts: Shopify Plus typically requires a 12-month contract commitment. In exchange for a longer-term commitment, you may be able to negotiate lower monthly fees.
• Sales volume negotiation: If your business has significant sales volume, you can negotiate reduced fees based on the revenue you generate. Shopify Plus often adjusts pricing tiers based on sales volume.
• Customized packages: Work with your Shopify Plus representative to customize your plan to align with your specific needs. This can help you avoid paying for unnecessary features and ensure a tailored solution.
• Negotiation timing: Negotiate Shopify Plus fees during contract renewals or when you’re considering an upgrade. This is when you have the most leverage to secure better terms.

Bottom Line

Shopify Plus is a valuable asset for rapidly growing brands and enterprise-level businesses, with a cost from $5,000 to $60,000 per month. Although its pricing structure may initially seem more intricate than Shopify’s basic plans, it becomes straightforward with comprehension, enabling consistent monthly budgeting.

Therefore, if your store revenue surges beyond a few thousand dollars per month, upgrading to Shopify Plus can be a wise move, it grants access to advanced enterprise features, dedicated development support, and substantial savings on each transaction within your store. 

Nonetheless, it is vital to perform a thorough cost-benefit analysis before making this decision.

Shopify Plus Calculator: FAQs