Shopify vs Shopify Plus: what actually changes when you upgrade
Shopify vs Shopify Plus, compared on price, fees, checkout, Functions, stores and API limits, with figures checked on shopify.com in September 2026.
Shopify and Shopify Plus run on the same platform. Same admin, same themes, same products and orders. Upgrading is a plan change, not a migration. What changes is the price, the fees, and a specific set of things you are allowed to build, most of them around the checkout.
That makes the decision simpler than it looks. You are not asking “is Plus a better platform?”. You are asking “do I need the things only Plus allows, and do they pay for the higher subscription?”.
Shopify vs Shopify Plus at a glance
The table compares Advanced, the top standard plan, with Plus. Figures are US pricing in USD from shopify.com/pricing, checked on September 29, 2026. Prices and rates vary by region.
| Shopify Advanced | Shopify Plus | |
|---|---|---|
| Subscription | $399/month, or $299/month billed yearly | From $2,300/month on a 3-year term, $2,500/month on a 1-year term |
| Online card rate (Shopify Payments, standard cards) | 2.5% + 30¢ | 2.25% + 30¢ |
| Third-party payment provider fee | 0.6% | 0.2% |
| Staff accounts | Up to 15 | Unlimited |
| Inventory locations | 10 | 200 |
| Expansion stores included | None | Up to 9 |
| Headless storefronts | 1 | 25 |
| API rate limits | Up to 2x on select APIs | Up to 10x on select APIs |
| Checkout customization | Limited | Full |
Basic ($39/month, or $29/month billed yearly) and Grow ($105/month, or $79/month billed yearly) sit below Advanced with higher rates and fewer staff accounts. For the full cost picture, see our Shopify Plus pricing breakdown.
The difference that matters most: checkout
“Limited” versus “full” checkout customization is the line on Shopify’s pricing page that hides the most. Here is what it means in practice:
| What you want to change | Basic, Grow and Advanced | Shopify Plus |
|---|---|---|
| Logo, colours, fonts, layout | Checkout editor | Checkout editor, plus the Checkout Branding API for deeper styling |
| Custom content, upsells and fields | Thank you and Order status pages only | Also the information, shipping and payment steps |
| Discount, payment, delivery and validation logic | Shopify Functions inside public apps | Also custom apps running your own Functions |
| Tracking | Web pixels | Web pixels |
Shopify’s developer docs are explicit: checkout UI extensions for the information, shipping and payment steps, and checkout styling customizations, are available only to Shopify Plus stores. If you want a custom field before payment, an upsell on the shipping step, or a checkout that looks like your brand rather than a recoloured default, you need Plus.
The same goes for logic. Any store can install a public app built on Shopify Functions. Only Plus can run a custom app with its own Functions, which is how you build a discount, delivery or payment rule that is specific to your business. Now that Shopify Scripts have been switched off (they stopped running on June 30, 2026), that is the only way to get custom checkout logic that no app offers.
We cover what can be built in our Shopify checkout extensibility service.
Other things only Plus includes
Shopify lists these under “Just for Plus” on its pricing page, and its Help Center describes several in more detail:
- Expansion stores. Up to 9 extra stores included in the plan, for example for international markets or separate locations.
- Launchpad. Scheduled and automated promotions, so a sale starts and ends on time without someone in the admin.
- Fuller B2B tools. Plus adds B2B capabilities such as unlimited catalogs and assigning catalogs directly to companies and locations.
- Higher API limits and extra APIs. More headroom for integrations, plus Plus-only resources such as Multipass and gift card APIs.
- Custom user groups and unlimited staff. Useful once several teams, agencies and regions share one admin.
- Other Plus features. High volume checkout, Shopify Audiences, combined listings, bot protection and Plus Certified apps.
When Shopify Plus is worth it
Plus tends to make sense when one or more of these is true:
- You need custom checkout. Fields, content or upsells on the checkout steps, deeper branding, or custom logic that apps cannot express.
- You are losing money to fees. On high card volume, the lower card rate starts to cover part of the subscription. We work through the numbers in the pricing guide.
- You run several stores. Up to 9 expansion stores are included, instead of paying for separate plans.
- You sell B2B at scale. The fuller B2B toolset lets you run wholesale beside direct-to-consumer.
- Integrations are hitting API limits. ERPs, PIMs and custom middleware on busy stores often do.
When to stay on standard Shopify
Plus is not a growth hack on its own. Stay where you are if:
- The default checkout, plus apps on the Thank you and Order status pages, already does what you need.
- You do not need custom Functions, extra stores or B2B.
- The subscription difference would not be covered by lower fees or new revenue from Plus-only features.
A useful test: write down the three things you would build first on Plus. If you cannot, you probably are not ready.
How upgrading works
Shopify handles the plan change. Your products, customers, orders, theme and apps stay where they are, so the upgrade itself is quiet. The real work starts afterwards: rebuilding checkout content as extensions, moving custom logic into Functions, setting up expansion stores and retiring apps that Plus makes unnecessary.
That is the work we do as a Shopify Plus agency. If you want a second opinion on whether Plus is worth it for your store, tell us what you are trying to build and we will give you an honest answer.