A detailed guide on Shopify website cost
Instant Team
A detailed guide on Shopify website cost
If you're trying to boost your Shopify conversion rate optimization, nailing down your website costs is a great place to start. At first glance, the expenses associated with building a Shopify website can seem overwhelming. Your Shopify website cost will depend on your store's unique needs, goals, and features. For example, a store that focuses on increasing sales through Shopify conversion rate optimization will need to invest in a range of tools and features upfront to improve their chances of success. This might include a Shopify theme designed for conversions, powerful apps to help manage store operations, and a custom-built landing page to capture specific audiences. By taking the time to understand your Shopify website costs, you can better prepare for your online store's launch and create a solid plan for improving your Shopify conversion rates over time.
Let’s explore the expenses associated with building a Shopify website and how you can manage these costs as you work toward optimizing your store for sales. Instant's Shopify landing page builder can help readers achieve their objectives, such as building a stunning landing page for Shopify without any code.
Table of contents
What is a Shopify website?
In technical terms, Shopify is a subscription-based SaaS sales platform. Shopify offers four standard store subscription plans with fees starting at $29 per month. All standard plans support a branded online store and a full array of in-person and online selling tools. Shopify also offers a Lite plan for just $9 per month. It doesn’t include an online store but supports mobile POS sales and a Buy Button for selling on other websites, blogs, and via email.
All plans deliver a full suite of business management tools. Essentials are built into every Shopify plan, such as:
Product sourcing
Sales and inventory tracking
Payment processing
Shipping
Customer accounts
Marketing
Reporting
Plus, you can expand your Shopify toolkit quickly with hundreds of Shopify apps.
How does Shopify work
Shopify centralizes your product data, customers, and operational tasks in one system that seamlessly connects to your sales channels. Once the essentials are in place, Shopify will easily explore and expand into new product lines and sales channels.
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How much does a basic Shopify website cost
The cost of building a Shopify website can vary dramatically from one online store to the next. For example, the price of a Shopify website design depends on the features and functionalities you choose.
A web design agency charges around $500 to $1,000 for basic Shopify web design. However, these costs are for using standard templates.
If you hire a mid-tier web design agency, the costs will go from $1,000 to $1,200. These mid-level packages are fine.
For the top-notch Shopify website design, the cost can be between $1,500 to $5,000.
Hiring a top-notch Shopify store design is the best option. Design plays a critical role in how eCommerce works. The more attractive your eCom store is, the higher the audience acceptance will be. Also, as your Shopify store expands, you will eventually need to upgrade your design to accommodate more products.
What are the Shopify pricing plans?
Apart from the development and design costs, there’s a recurring cost to run Shopify stores. Typically, there are three main Shopify plans that you can opt for.
Basic Shopify Plan: $29 monthly (2.9% + 30¢ per online transaction.)
Shopify Plan: $79 monthly (2.6% + 30¢ per transaction.)
Advanced Shopify Plan: $299 monthly (2.4% + 30¢ per transaction.)
Note that the other Shopify variants, such as Shopify Plus and Shopify Lite, are offered at $2,000 per month and $9 per month, respectively.
What are the common costs of building a Shopify website?
There are six common costs associated with building a Shopify website. These include:
1. Hosting
Website hosting costs can vary, starting at $2.49 per month and climbing to $1,000 or higher. The cost depends on various factors, such as the amount of traffic your store gets and any extra services you may need, such as automated backups.
Regardless, every website needs hosting to store its files. You’ll also need a domain name, which is like the digital home for your ecom websites.
2. Payment processing
A payment processor is a company that manages transactions so shoppers can buy your products. Every eCom store must have one to take payments from credit cards, debit cards, and other smart pay options. Payment processing costs depend on the plan you have with your eCommerce platform.
The Shopify Basic plan has a processing fee for online credit card payments of 2.9% plus 30¢ per transaction.
The Advanced Shopify plan has a fee of 2.4%.
If you are taking payments in-person, the fee is lower because there is lower fraud risk.
Every Shopify plan comes with Shopify Payments, which helps you start selling immediately. Once you turn on Shopify Payments, you can accept credit cards and other popular payment gateways like:
Shop Pay
Apple Pay
G Pay
3. eCommerce web design costs
Did you know that it takes about 50 milliseconds (0.05 seconds) for someone to form an opinion about your website? Also, shoppers buy based on trust, and your branding can help build that trust right away. eCommerce platforms like Shopify have templates you can apply to your site easily. They are a fast and affordable way to get up and running. Shopify themes offer built-in tools to customize:
Layout
Colors
Style
Other settings
These templates come set with everything you need to start your store:
Homepage
Product pages
Shopping cart
Checkout page
FAQ
About pages
Shopify themes offers over 100 free and paid themes to help you find the right look and feel for your store. You can find themes based on categories like:
Video
3D products
Big imagery
Large inventories
Minimalist style
Fun and lively, and more
4. Custom development
From full design overhauls to customized back ends, you may need help to get your store looking the way you want. Custom eCom website development costs are related to designing, deploying, and maintaining your store for specific business needs. Store owners can work with developers to create custom storefronts or tweak Shopify themes.
Prices vary depending on what services you need.
Some development agencies like OuterBox charge upward of $100,000 for a customization job.
Other established Shopify agencies can cost between $5,000 and $20,000, depending on the scope of the work.
5. Add-ons and extensions
It’s nearly impossible for one eCommerce software to satisfy the needs of every eCommerce business. Chances are, you’ll want to add a few features to your website. The best eCom software lets you add applications to your store to extend its eCommerce functionality and improve the user experience. Some are free and some are paid, which can increase the cost of creating your online store.
The Shopify App Store has thousands of apps for you to choose from and many free Shopify apps. There’s an app for that whether you want to:
Add email marketing
Sell on social media
Add social proof to your store
Improve your SEO
The price for paid apps varies. Most are available on a monthly subscription basis. You can also add private apps made specifically for your store. These apps are stored and run on another server, but you can generate Shopify API keys to give the app access permissions. Custom apps can cost upward of $5,000, depending on your developer’s experience and rates.
6. Business costs
Budget is always a consideration. You can launch an online store for as little as $100, but you’ll likely have to spend more than that to get your business moving. According to the latest research, most small business owners spend around $40,000 in their first year, with 9% allocated to online business needs. (Shopify merchants spend an average of $38,000, while non-Shopify merchants average around $41,000.)
What are Shopify fees for?
Shopify charges sellers monthly subscription fees to use its platform for their stores. It has adjusted these fees for 2024. There are five different tiers. Shopify provides a 25% discount if you pay yearly rather than monthly. New signups pay $1 per month for the first month.
The pricing below reflects payments done on a monthly subscription:
Starter: $5 USD/month
The Starter plan allows businesses to create a simple online store with product images and descriptions. It best suits selling products through social media and messaging apps using product links. The plan also includes a mobile Shopify point of sale (POS) to accept in-person smartphone payments.
Basic: $39 USD/month
The Basic plan includes the tools businesses need to create and customize a full online store. Sellers can add unlimited product listings and manage orders and customer information from the Shopify account admin. This option includes:
Basic sales reports
Two staff accounts
International market management
Language translation
Sellers receive shipping discounts of up to 77%.
Shopify: $105 USD/month
The Shopify plan includes the features of the basic plan but with lower credit card rates and transaction fees. It comes with five staff accounts. It adds more detailed reports that show how customers use the store and who buys which products. Sellers receive shipping discounts of up to 88%.
Advanced: $399 USD/month
The Advanced Shopify plan is designed to help growing businesses expand their sales and use analytics to find new opportunities. It includes all the Basic and Shopify features and offers the lowest credit card rates and transaction fees. It also provides a custom report builder and 15 staff accounts.
As with the Shopify plan, sellers receive shipping discounts of up to 88%. This option lets you show customers' calculated shipping rates and collect duties and import taxes at checkout. This gives customers the total cost of the product upfront, which can help to increase sales conversions and reduce the risk of parcel refusals or returns.
Shopify Plus: $2,300 USD/mo
The Shopify Plus plan is designed for businesses selling large volumes, allowing them to manage multiple stores from a single location. The plan starts at $2,300 USD per month, with companies selling higher volumes able to negotiate a variable percentage fee. The management tools include:
Specialized apps and channels for high-growth merchants
Customizable checkout
API resources to integrate with custom apps
Access to curated service partners
This option also includes access to a launch team to assist with migration tools and strategy, custom integrations, and other solutions to help you get your store online faster. Unlimited staff accounts allow:
Businesses can expand employee access to the Shopify admin without additional costs.
Feature an extra permission settings to give staff more control, including separate permissions to export reports and specific apps.
Supports nine expansion stores for separate physical locations and international sales.
Access to Shopify POS Pro for up to 1,000 locations.
Transaction fees on Shopify
Once you’ve signed up for a plan, how much does it cost to sell items on Shopify? In addition to the monthly subscription fees, Shopify charges transaction fees as a percentage of each sale if you use a third-party payment provider rather than its own Shopify payments service. The fees vary based on the subscription plan:
Basic: 2%
Shopify: 1%
Advanced: 0.6%
Shopify Plus: 0.2%
Sellers who use Shopify payments pay 5% transaction fees on the starter plan. On the basic, Shopify, and advanced plans, they pay credit card fees for each transaction, while sellers on Shopify plus in the US pay no transaction fees.
Credit card fees on Shopify
Shopify charges a fee to accept payments from credit card networks, such as Visa and Mastercard. The fees vary depending on the plan and whether the payment is online or in person via a Shopify POS. This is because of the higher risk of taking payments online compared to in-person. The rates are:
Basic: 2.9% + $0.30 online and 2.6% + $0.10 in person
Shopify: 2.7% + $0.30 online and 2.5% + $0.10 in person
Advanced: 2.5% + $0.30 online and 2.4% + $0.10 in person
Shopify Plus: Most competitive rates
In general, sellers pay an additional 1% for payments with international credit cards.
Shopify POS fees
How much does selling products on Shopify online and in person cost? Shopify’s monthly subscription plans come with basic POS features for online businesses that occasionally sell at in-person events. For companies with physical locations, the Shopify POS Pro plan costs $89 monthly for each location or $79 if billed yearly. POS Pro includes:
Staff management
Omnichannel selling
Customer relationship management
Inventory management
Instant: Your no-code solution for high-converting landing pages
Instant is a user-friendly Shopify landing page builder that allows eCommerce teams and agencies to create fully customizable and advanced pages without any coding knowledge. With its intuitive drag-and-drop interface, users can quickly design and publish:
High-converting landing pages
Product detail pages
Sections, all while maintaining complete control over their store's design
Instant also offers seamless integration with Figma and other eCommerce tools, making it a versatile choice for enhancing online store performance and increasing conversions.
Try Instant's Shopify landing page builder today!
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How to build a Shopify website as a beginner
Use Instant for an outclass landing page
Instant is a Shopify landing page builder that makes creating well-designed, high-converting landing pages without any coding knowledge a breeze. eCommerce teams and agencies can use Instant's user-friendly features to create fully customizable pages that will improve store performance and boost sales.
With its intuitive drag-and-drop interface, users can:
Quickly design and publish high-converting landing pages
Product detail pages
Sections
Instant also offers seamless integration with Figma and other eCom tools, making it a versatile choice for enhancing online store performance and increasing conversions.
Plan your store design
Designing your online store can feel overwhelming without a structured approach. That's why it's important to plan your store design before making changes to your Shopify theme.
You’ll want to create a blueprint of your online store so you understand how it will function and look before you start making design changes.
You should identify your store's MVP or minimal viable product. An MVP is the least amount of work needed to launch your store, collect feedback, and then iterate to improve your online store based on that feedback.
Don’t feel discouraged about launching your first store with the bare minimum. For example, if you look at a store like Nike.com, Nike had a very bare-bones store and slowly made improvements based on customer feedback, resulting in an industry-leading brand and shopping experience. Now that you’re familiar with the concept of an MVP site, let’s go over six principles of modern eCommerce design you'll need to plan for:
Customer trust
Visual appeal
Color scheme
Typography
Mobile optimization
Product collections
As you develop your store's design, those principles will be your guiding foundation. The last part of planning your store will be choosing the right Shopify plan for your business's needs. Shopify offers several plans to help your business grow at each stage:
Basic: Offers everything you need to create a store, ship orders, and process payments.
Shopify: For businesses that require professional reporting and more staff accounts.
Advanced: For veteran stores that require custom reporting and lower transaction fees.
Shopify Plus: For enterprise stores that do high-volume sales.
Choose the perfect theme
Now, we will choose the bones of our online store by selecting a Shopify theme. Luckily, with Shopify, you can find many amazing themes (both free and paid) on the Shopify Themes Store. If you haven’t already, you’ll want to sign up for a free trial with Shopify.
There’s no credit card required. This will let you follow this tutorial and give you two weeks to build your online store. Before choosing a theme, ask yourself the following few questions:
What's your web design budget?
How many products do you plan on selling?
What industry are you in?
Add your products
Now that you have your theme, it’s time to add products to your store. Go to Products > Add product to your new Shopify store to create your first listing. There are several decisions to make on this page. Let’s break them down.
Write your product title
Your product title clearly identifies the product. Customers will see it when browsing your store. If possible, keep titles short, between 20 and 70 characters.
Add a description
Describe and sell your product. Highlight incentives, address common questions and objections, and help customers envision themselves using your product.
Upload product photos
Add high-quality photos that show your products in their best light. Help shoppers imagine using your product by including action shots.
Set your price
Add the price customers will pay to purchase the product. Several variables influence how you price your products, such as:
Shipping costs
Raw materials
Product’s perceived value
Set up your plug-ins and preferences
Another way to make your Shopify store successful is to add Shopify apps. These plug-in programs provide additional functionality to your store, helping you create better shopping experiences and earn more sales. The Shopify app store offers more than 8,000 apps.
You can find apps to help you look for:
Products to sell
Bring in customers
Deliver products
Master SEO
Customize your store
Scale your business
Your options are endless. Installing a Shopify app is incredibly easy. Most apps also offer free trials, so you don’t have to worry about spending money upfront.
Add your own personal touches
Once you’ve chosen a theme, you can start customizing the look and feel of your store's pages. You’ll notice theme settings below your homepage options in the customizer tool. When you select that option, you’ll notice you can update your color scheme based on your chosen color palette and your heading and body typography based on your chosen font choices.
Note: Every theme will have its own configurable options, but color and typography will typically be the same.
12 Best apps for a fast and responsive Shopify store
1. Instant: The easy way to create high-converting Shopify pages
Instant is a user-friendly Shopify landing page builder that allows eCommerce teams and agencies to create fully customizable and advanced pages without any coding knowledge. With its intuitive drag-and-drop interface, users can quickly design and publish:
High-converting landing pages
Product detail pages
Sections, all while maintaining complete control over their store's design
Instant also offers seamless integration with Figma and other eCommerce tools, making it a versatile choice for enhancing online store performance and increasing conversions.
Try Instant's Shopify landing page builder today!
Purpose
Landing Page Builder
Use
Instant is a Shopify landing page builder that allows users to create customizable and advanced pages without coding. A drag-and-drop interface helps design high-converting landing pages, product pages, and sections. It integrates seamlessly with tools like Figma, enhancing store design and performance.
2. Printful: Create a custom Shopify store in no time
Printful is a print-on-demand service for custom-designed products. If you want to sell custom products like clothing, mugs, and pet supplies, Printful is a great way to design your Shopify store. The app handles order fulfillment and shipping, allowing you to focus on creating and marketing your custom products rather than worrying about inventory.
Purpose
Print-on-Demand Service
Use
Printful allows Shopify users to design and sell custom products like clothing and mugs. It handles order fulfillment and shipping, making it easier to run a store without worrying about inventory.
3. Shopify Email: Easily create branded email campaigns
If you want to promote your business with email, Shopify Email is a great marketing app for building an email list and managing your campaigns. With Shopify Email, you can send branded emails to subscribers from your Shopify admin dashboard in just a few clicks. The app has a variety of pre-made templates that pull your:
Logo
Product images
Descriptions
More from your store
You can also customize the text and buttons in minutes. Simply import your contact lists into Shopify. Create and send your campaigns, then track results like opens, clicks, add to carts, and purchases to optimize your customer acquisition and retention campaigns further. You get 10,000 emails for free each month, then pay only $1 for every 1,000 emails you send after that.
Purpose
Email Marketing
Use
Shopify Email helps businesses promote their store via email. It offers pre-made templates and easy integration with store data to create and send branded emails. Users can track campaign performance, making it a valuable tool for customer acquisition and retention.
4. Klaviyo: Targeted email and SMS campaigns
Klaviyo is a robust marketing platform that integrates seamlessly with Shopify, allowing merchants to leverage customer data for highly personalized email and SMS campaigns. Klaviyo enables businesses to automate communications, such as abandoned cart reminders, and send tailored messages based on customer behavior and preferences. This targeted approach not only enhances customer engagement but also drives conversions and boosts sales.
Purpose
Email and SMS Marketing Automation
Use
Klaviyo transforms Shopify data into actionable insights for effective marketing strategies. It helps:
Create personalized email and SMS campaigns based on customer interactions
Automate follow-ups to recover abandoned carts and increase sales
Segment audiences for targeted messaging, improving overall marketing effectiveness
5. Matrixify: Import, export, and update Shopify store data
Matrixify lets you bulk import, export, and update your Shopify store data using Excel and CSV files. If you’re migrating to Shopify from another platform, this app lets you quickly move all your products, customers, and orders over to Shopify, streamlining the migration process.
Purpose
Store Management
Use
Matrixify allows bulk import, export, and update of Shopify store data using Excel and CSV files. It's especially useful for migrating data from other platforms to Shopify, streamlining the store's setup and management.
6. Peek: Analyze user behavior to reduce abandoned carts
Ever wonder why shoppers don’t convert on your website? Peek! ‑ Better Replay & Survey provides live recordings of shoppers’ sessions so you can see how people interact with your Shopify store and what items they look at. With this information, you can see and fix where shoppers get stuck and evaluate new ideas to improve conversions and lower abandoned carts in your store. The best part? The app is free, and no coding is required.
Purpose
User Behavior Analysis
Use
Peek provides live recordings of shopper sessions on your Shopify store. It helps identify where customers get stuck, allowing you to improve conversion rates by fixing usability issues.
7. Spocket: Simplify your dropshipping business
Spocket is a dropshipping marketplace offering thousands of products from global suppliers. Simplify your dropshipping business with:
One-click purchase options
Order fulfillment
Real-time order tracking
Flat-rate shipping
Cross-sell new products to increase average order value.
Purpose
Dropshipping Marketplace
Use
Spocket simplifies dropshipping by offering thousands of products from global suppliers. It includes features like:
One-click purchase options
Order fulfillment
Real-time tracking
8. Event Ticketing: Manage events with this Shopify tool
This app allows you to easily design, sell, and scan event tickets. With Event Ticketing, you can add your own custom branding to tickets, sell them directly through your online store, and scan them using your phone. Event ticketing also integrates with Apple Wallet, making it easy for customers to save their tickets on their mobile devices.
Purpose
Store Management, Store Design
Use
Event Ticketing enables the design, sale, and scanning of event tickets through Shopify. It allows:
Custom branding
Integration with Apple Wallet
Easy management of event sales
9. ESC: Create size charts to improve the shopping experience
A must-have for any fashion brand is an easy-to-read size chart. Size guides empower customers to confidently make purchase decisions, helping to recover sales that may have otherwise been lost. They also help reduce the number of returns and refunds since sizing issues are less likely to occur when customers know exactly which size fits their needs.
ESC’s size chart app helps merchants create size guides to match the look and feel of their store, and easily paste them into any page on their website. The app has a free plan that allows merchants to create up to three charts and a paid plan is available for merchants who need more.
Purpose
Size Chart Creation
Use
ESC helps fashion brands create size charts that match their stores' look and feel. By giving customers accurate sizing information, it reduces returns and improves the shopping experience.
10. Warnify: Communicate critical information to customers
Warnify makes it easy to communicate with your customers through pop-ups. Announce low inventory, shipping delays, an upcoming store closure, and more through fully customizable pre-checkout pop-ups. Target certain countries, states, and provinces to choose which customers can view the pop-up.
Purpose
Store Design
Use
Warnify allows you to communicate important information to customers through customizable pre-checkout pop-ups. It helps announce:
Low inventory
Shipping delays
Other critical updates
11. Smile: Reward customers to increase their loyalty
Smile is a loyalty program app that rewards customers for various actions. Turn shoppers into loyal customers by rewarding them for purchases, referrals, account registrations, social shares, and followers. Over ten engagement methods are available in the free plan.
Purpose
Loyalty Program
Use
Smile allows you to reward customers for various actions, such as purchases, referrals, and social engagement. It's designed to increase customer loyalty and repeat purchases.
12. CrowdFunder: Manage crowdfunding campaigns with ease
Crowdfunder is your one-stop shop for hosting and managing a crowdfunding campaign directly through your Shopify store. This app can:
Manage pre-orders
Product launches
Limited edition releases
Crowdfunder is also a great solution for nonprofits, making raising funds for causes and charities easy.
Purpose
Crowdfunding
Store Management
Use
CrowdFunder helps you manage crowdfunding campaigns directly through Shopify. It's useful for:
Pre-orders
Product launches
Fundraising for causes or charities
Related Reading
Optimize your Shopify store for conversions without breaking the bank with Instant's Shopify landing page builder
Instant is a user-friendly Shopify landing page builder that allows eCommerce teams and agencies to create fully customizable and advanced pages without any coding knowledge. With its intuitive drag-and-drop interface, users can quickly design and publish:
High-converting landing pages
Product detail pages
Sections, all while maintaining complete control over their store's design
Instant also offers seamless integration with Figma and other eCommerce tools, making it a versatile choice for enhancing online store performance and increasing conversions.
Try Instant's Shopify landing page builder today!
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