Shopify with its user-friendly interface, dedicated support system and customisation options has emerged as one of the most popular platforms for e-commerce brands across the globe. However, as one decides to expand the business, you can’t ignore the need for upgradation. Here’s when Shopify Plus enters the scene, which claims itself to be an omnichannel enterprise platform.
We have brought to you an elaborate comparison between Shopify and Shopify Plus. Hopefully, it will help you pick the best one that suits all your requirements.
| Shopify | Shopify Plus | |
| Costs | Basic: $29/month Shopify: $79/month Advanced: $299/month | Starts at $2,000 per month for standard setups and integrations; variable fee option is available for higher volume business structures. |
| Payment Processing Fees | Basic: 2.9%, additionally 30 cents is charged for online card sales and flat 2.7% for in person sales. Shopify: 2.6%, along with 30 cents for online card sales and flat 2.5% will be charged for in person sales. Advanced: 2.4%, additional 30 cents is charged for online card sales, flat 2.4% exist for in person sales. | Credit card fees vary from country to country. For third-party payment processors, 0.15% is charged per transaction. This fee gets waived if you use Shopify Payments. |
| Sales Limits | Though technically it is unrestricted, however, Shopify politely suggests a limit of 100,000. After exceeding the limit, start thinking about switching to Shopify Plus. | Unrestricted sales limits |
| Contract Requirements | Monthly, annually or biennially | Monthly, annually or biennially |
| Software Support | 24/7 live support via email, telephone calls or chat | 24/7 live support via email, telephone calls or chat |
| Extra Features | Gift cards, professional reports,sell unlimited products (including digital products), abandoned cart recovery | All the standard Shopify features along with real-time carrier shipping and an advanced report builder. |
| Best Suited For | All e-commerce businesses (irrespective of its scale, type of products) who are raking in revenue less than $1 million annually. | Enterprise-level businesses who consistently sell lot of products and earn a revenue of over $1 million annually. |
A Glimpse
As you know there are three Shopify plans — Basic, Shopify and Advanced, which allow merchants to kick-start, develop and manage their online businesses. Anyone can build an online store with customised features and begin the sale across a number of locations including web, mobile devices, social media and brick-and-mortar stores among others. One doesn’t need to have any prior coding knowledge to start the online setup. Also, the 24/7 customer support of Shopify makes the process quite smooth. However, as your business grows and you start feeling the need for change, you can opt to upgrade your Shopify account simply by switching the account preferences.
Assume that your business started growing. You made some additions to your product list and that too received a warm welcome from the customers. Now, you don’t just have an online business but also stores across the country and now you are planning about franchising. Here enters Shopify Plus. Launched in 2014, this is actually an extension of the original offering. It offers myriad choices and better control regarding the stories and websites.
What’s new, free, and here to rock the influencer marketing world?
— Shopify Plus (@ShopifyPlus) August 16, 2022
Shopify Collabs, our newest app.
As customers look to influencers for recommendations, Shopify Collabs makes it easy for you to connect with creators.
But wait, it’s more. pic.twitter.com/Q2p2ipOrwN
Pricing
Standard Shopify plans are easy to understand and the pricing tiers are also simple. Basic is for $29 a month, Shopify is $79 per month and Advanced is for $299 a month. To decide which is the best for your business, you can go for a 14-day trial which is for free.
Shopify Plus has complex pricing as you are supposed to pay final fees on the basis of sales volumes. A minimum sum of $2,000 per month needs to be paid for standard setups and integrations. Once you reach $800,000 per month in sales, Shopify Plus switches to the revenue-based model, which is maximum $40,000 per month.
Features
To retain its customers, Shopify offers some distinctive features as compared to other platforms. Firstly, the process of creating a storefront is quite simple, even an inexperienced person will get to know about domain names, branding, customisation like blogging and professional themes.
Other features are shopping cart and store management options, which include automatic carrier shipping rates, abandoned checkout recovery, customer profiles and refunds. With Google Ads credits, social media integrations and discounts, there’s ample scope for marketing and SEO. Merchants will also get access to analytics, different levels of product organisation and mobile app possibilities. In case you get stuck somewhere, Shopify’s 24/7 support system will come to your rescue via email, live chat and phone call.
As far as Shopify Plus is concerned, besides all the standard features, it has additional resources that are meant to assist merchants and help them boost revenue and sales. The Shopify organization admin allows you to manage all the stores from a single location. Shopify Plus also supports additional application programming interface (API) calls that enable you to integrate with custom apps. One also get access to advanced apps that are particularly made for high-growth business. Along with additional integrations and permissions, merchants can also make use of Shopify POS Pro, Merchant Success Program, Shopify Plus Partner Program and a Shopify Plus Community on Facebook.
Conclusion
Before choosing an e-commerce platform, you should judiciously consider factors like budget, contracts, customer support and additional features. Later, when you want to switch from Shopify to Shopify Plus, evaluate all the factors as your single decision can make or break your plans.
While Shopify is a user-friendly and multidimensional platform with a wide range of customers, Shopify Plus is an entirely different ball game. As Shopify Plus is costly, it is more than a simple top-tier standard Shopify plan. It caters to sellers who have sufficient funds and they need a higher support level. Hence, if you are not minting millions of dollars annually, it is advisable to stick with Shopify.
