When is the Right Time to Upgrade to Shopify Plus?

If you’re using Shopify to run your online business, you may wonder whether it’s time to upgrade and what features you might be missing out on without Shopify Plus. We have all the information you need to make an informed decision on which Shopify plan is right for you. Read on to learn more.

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    What is Shopify Plus? 

    Shopify is an eCommerce platform that you can use to start, grow, and scale your business, no matter how large or small it is. Shopify Plus is their enterprise offering for businesses who need additional features and functionality to unlock a brand’s next layer of growth

    Think of Shopify Plus as the engine behind your eCommerce business. The platform handles all of the complex hosting, security, content management, etc., so you can focus on your passions and run a successful business online. This software not only aims to make complex technologies and applications simple but also provides features to automate and expedite new marketing channels (e.g., paid media feeds, email), bringing online sales to all businesses, big and small.

    Who Needs Shopify Plus?

    Shopify Plus offers a number of powerful and easy-to-use features that could benefit nearly any business, but it’s generally targeted toward online retailers who have sales of $5-7M per year. This is the sales threshold when savings offered by Spotify Plus’s discounted payment processing and shipping fees start paying for the premium subscription.

    Of course, if there are specific features that you feel would greatly benefit your business, you may want to upgrade before you reach this threshold. Other businesses that should consider the upgrade include fast-growing eCommerce businesses that are quickly scaling their business or larger enterprise businesses looking for an easy online option.

    Shopify vs. Shopify Plus 

    Let’s compare Shopify vs. Shopify Plus to help you decide if upgrading is worthwhile. Shopify is a great platform for businesses that are just starting out with eCommerce and has plenty of features to help support your brick-and-mortar stores. It offers inventory management features to support up to five retail locations and reasonable payment processing fees for both online and in-person transactions. 

    Shopify Plus has all the features and functionality of Shopify and much more. What are the commonalities? Both versions offer the following features and benefits:

    • Branding: Nobody wants a cookie-cutter online experience (except perhaps cookie-cutter stores!). With Shopify and Shopify Plus, you’ll have plenty of options for adding your own branding and customizations to your eCommerce store. Shopify’s robust Theme Customizer allows you to edit the content of sections across your homepage and site, add mega menu tiles, determine how many products to display across a single category page, etc., depending on what functionality is built out in your theme.

    • Discounts: All Shopify stores can deploy product-level and order-level discounts to entice potential customers to make a purchase. Shopify’s discount functionality includes coupons for a percentage off specific products, a percentage off the total order value, Buy X get Y product discounts (e.g., buy a baseball bat, get 20% off a baseball glove), and free shipping. Each of these discounts can be applied either by a discount code at checkout or automatically. 

    • Language Support: One of the best benefits of eCommerce is that it allows you to reach a much broader audience than traditional brick-and-mortar stores. But a broader reach means you’ll need to support customers in various languages. Shopify offers language support features that will help translate your store into the native tongue of your customer’s home region. 

    • Reporting: Data is king in today’s eCommerce world, and you’ll need robust reporting options to get ahead in this competitive landscape. Fortunately, both Shopify and Shopify Plus offer the reporting capabilities you need to make informed business decisions and propel your brand into the future.

    • Shopping Cart Features: Shopify has the nuts and bolts of online shopping covered with abandoned checkout recovery, automatic shipping rates, and support for refunds, among other common customer service concerns.

    • Themes & templates: Build your brand’s online presence on the framework of one of the well-tested templates. There are 10 free templates to choose from, as well as a wealth of paid templates, so you’re sure to find one to suit your needs. (Note: Be sure to select an Online Store 2.0 compatible theme if you’re considering setting up a new Shopify store or upgrading your existing theme).

    • Unlimited Products and Bandwidth: You’ll never need to worry about hitting some arbitrary limit on the number of products you sell or the number of visitors to your store.

    • PCI Compliance: Shopify is certified Level 1 PCI DSS compliant, and this certification applies across all Shopify plans.

    • Privacy: Shopify offers features and functionality to lessen the burden of your business becoming compliant with privacy regulations such as General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).

    Additional Shopify Plus Features 

    Beyond these commonalities, Shopify Plus has bonus features to make your store even more powerful and profitable. When you switch to Shopify Plus, you’ll also get these features and many more:

    • Discounted Shipping & Credit Card Processing Rates: The feature we most often cite as justification for migrating from a base Shopify plan to Shopify Plus is the discounts on shipping & credit card fees. When helping a brand determine if they should migrate, we will pull the trailing 12 months of credit card fees and calculate if the decrease in fees will pay for the $2,000+ per month Shopify Plus subscription fee.

    • Customize Your Checkout: Base Shopify plans let you stamp your brand across nearly every aspect of your online store, except your checkout (beyond simple changes such as the logo and colors). Shopify Plus allows brands access to edit their checkout.liquid file which enables more sophisticated design and functionality.

    • Integrations: Some of Shopify’s integration partners are only available to Shopify Plus members, including Avalara AvaTax, which helps brands collect the right sales tax in each jurisdiction

    • Merchant Success Program: When you want a guide to help you get the most out of your Shopify account, the Merchant Success Program is the way to go. It’s designed to help you make the most of every step of the eCommerce journey.

    • Shopify Organization Admin: This bonus feature is a fully-featured analytics dashboard designed to help you manage multiple stores from a single location. Each Shopify Plus account is allowed to have up to nine additional “expansion” stores, which allow you to manage multiple businesses under a single LLC. The Shopify Organization Admin makes it easy to manage access and track overall financial metrics across the entirety of your business.

    • Shopify Plus Academy: Self-guided training on everything you need to run your online business is available at your fingertips with the Shopify Plus Academy. 

    • Specialized Apps and Channels: As a Shopify Plus member, you’ll get access to the wholesale channel (to manage price lists and company-level rollups of your wholesale customers), script editors (to implement highly customized discounts and promotions at checkout), launchpad (to help schedule and execute store events), a bulk account invite tool, and the Transporter app (to transfer customer, product, or order information into your Shopify system if you’re migrating from another platform). 

    • Support up to 20 Point of Sale Locations: Shopify Plus lets you support up to twenty physical locations via Shopify POS, as compared to the five-location functionality of Shopify. 

    • Unlimited Staff Accounts: Each of the Shopify base plans have caps on the number of staff accounts you can invite to your store. If you have a large eCommerce and marketing team (or you’re managing multiple physical stores), Shopify Plus unlocks the ability to give access to your whole team. 

    • Community: The Shopify Plus community is a network of Shopify brands who share tips and tricks and generally support one another as they grow their businesses. In fact, some Shopify users find the community to be the best Shopify feature available!

      Shopify Plus Cost 

      With all of these amazing features and more at your fingertips, it’s easy to assume that Shopify Plus must be expensive. The truth is, if you are doing at least $5 million in sales each year, the service will likely pay for itself when you factor in the shipping and credit card fee discounts included. 

      Shopify Plus starts at $2,000 per month if paid annually. Stores making over $800,000 in any one month instead pay 0.25% of each sales transaction. When you break down the cost, this is not going to put too much of a dent into a large and growing business. Rather, it’s an investment in the future of your brand and one that will almost certainly pay off. 

      Shopify Plus Benefits: Is Shopify Plus Worth It?

      The bottom line is, there are a myriad of benefits to using Shopify Plus, and a growing business should consider upgrading, given these key differentiators between the two plans. 

      There’s no question that Shopify Plus is an investment. But if you want to scale your business, you need to invest in top-tier technology to ensure everything runs smoothly. Shopify Plus offers the lowest transaction fees of any plan and the ability to scale your business without fear of outgrowing the platform.  

      What are the top, most important benefits of Shopify Plus for fast-growing online retailers?  Deep and insightful analytics and a robust and lively community offer the type of support that a growing business needs to thrive in the marketplace. If you want to move into the enterprise space, you’re going to need this level of support and reporting. 

      FAQs: 

      How do I have multiple Shopify stores? 

      Shopify base plans do not allow you to manage multiple stores from a single paying account. However, Shopify Plus allows for up to nine expansion stores. If your email address has access to multiple different Shopify base plan accounts, you can use the drop-down in the top left of your admin (next to the Shopify logo) to navigate between different stores. 

    How many stores can you have on Shopify Plus? 

    Shopify allows up to ten total stores under a single Shopify Plus account, as long as they are under the same legal entity. In addition, Shopify Plus allows with Point of Sale Pro (POS Pro), allows support for up to twenty physical locations.

    Which Shopify subscription is best? 

    Every level of Shopify Subscription offers the power of Shopify’s eCommerce capabiltiies. The most robust and fully featured is Shopify Plus, though it may be pricey for brand-new or very small businesses. If your online store is profitable enough to justify the cost, however, you can’t beat Shopify Plus for its ability to help you grow and scale your business well into the future.

    Can you negotiate Shopify fees? 

    Unfortunately, Shopify typically does not negotiate where their fees are concerned. That said, they do offer some pretty amazing discounts on credit card processing and shipping rates that can help offset the cost of the subscription.

    Is the basic Shopify plan enough? 

    If you’re just about to open your very first online store, Shopify Basic is probably going to be more than enough to support you through your first phase of growth. Even the Shopify Basic plan offers robust features like 24/7 phone support, easy-to-use store management software, helpful reporting, and support for unlimited products. That said, if your store is already thriving and you want the best of the best to propel your business to the next level, consider upgrading to the Shopify Plus plan.


    Eyeful Media is a certified Shopify Plus partner. Reach out if we can help you with your eCommerce strategy, Shopify Plus upgrade or store.

    Antonella P.