You are currently viewing Shopify VS Shopify Plus: Ultimate Showdown

Shopify VS Shopify Plus: Ultimate Showdown

In this competitive E-Commerce environment, businesses need to thrive using a suitable and easily scaled platform in order to sustain their growth.

This decision will usually lead to a crucial choice, Shopify or Shopify Plus.

Both these platforms are known to offer a sturdy foundation; however, Shopify Plus has been specifically designed to withstand High-volume and High-growth enterprises or businesses.

If you choose the wrong choice of platform, this decision can be a critical failure as it might just collapse your business’s success.

This article will delve into a comprehensive analysis which will identify the key differences between Shopify and Shopify Plus, by considering important factors such as the pricing, existing features, flexibility and which platform targets what kind of business or enterprise.

Shopify:

Shopify VS Shopify Plus - Shopify Logo

Shopify is a well-known leading E-Commerce platform that helps businesses of all sizes to easily create and manage various online stores.

Shopify offers user-friendly interfaces with a extensive range of features and a wide variety of apps and all sorts of integrations.

Shopify is easily accessible and has a comprehensive functionality, making it a well favoured choice for businesses alike, especially for those businesses who are seeking to expand their online presence.

By the end of this article, you will have a proper educated understanding of which platform best fits your business’s goals and will allow you to topple the rest of the competition.

Shopify Plus:

Shopify VS Shopify Plus - Shopify Plus Logo

Shopify Plus is well known to be used by enterprise-level businesses, this version of Shopify has been specifically designed to cater businesses and brands unique requirements of various industries.

Offering a wide variety of features and capabilities, making it a perfect choice for businesses with thriving sales, intricate operations and having a powerful demand for more control and flexibility.

This provides a versatile and customizable platform that will be able to handle the difficult demands of quickly expanding businesses, all while also offering a dedicated support with a broad range of premium features that are normally not seen on the standard Shopify subscription.

Differences of Shopify VS Shopify Plus


Features


Shopify


Shopify Plus


Price
A fixed subscription monthly fee.
Ranging from 29 SGD/month to 399 SGD/month
Subscription based, 1 Year Term to 3 Year Term.
Ranging from 2300 USD to 2500 USD

Audience

  • First-Time Entrepreneurs
  • Small Businesses
  • Medium Businesses
  • Startup Businesses


  • Enterprise Businesses
  • High-Volume Businesses
  • Flourishing Brands
  • B2B & Wholesale Businesses
  • Global & Multi-Region Sellers
  • Market Leaders
  • Esteemed/Redefined Businesses

Versatility
Can be used by businesses to a certain extent.Designed to specifically enhance large businesses and can manage significant growth.

Customizability

  • Custom Themes
  • Customizable Theme Code
  • Shopify Liquid
  • API Standard
  • Third-Party Integration
  • Custom Apps
  • Wholesale Channels
  • International Pricing
  • Customizable Domains


  • Custom Themes
  • Customizable Theme Code
  • Shopify Liquid
  • Script Editor
  • Shopify Functions
  • API Advanced/Unlimited
  • Custom Checkout
  • Third-Party Integration
  • Customizable Apps
  • Dedicated API
  • Multi-Store Management
  • B2B Custom Tools
  • Wholesale Channels
  • Shopify Flow
  • International Pricing
  • Customizable Domains


Support Services

  • 24/7 Email & Chat
  • Phone Dial (For higher priced plans)
  • Help Centre
  • Community Forums
  • Shopify Academy


  • 24/7 Priority Email & Chat
  • Priority Phone Calls
  • Troubleshooting Support
  • Help Centre
  • Community Forums
  • Shopify Academy
  • Integration Support
  • Custom Technical Support
  • Migration Assistance
  • API Support


Platform Functionalities

  • Basic E-Commerce Features Tools
  • App Integrations
  • User-Friendly Interface


  • Basic E-Commerce Features
  • App Integrations
  • User-Friendly Interface
  • Predictive Inventory
  • Advanced Reports
  • App & Channel Integration
  • Basic & Advanced E-Commerce Tools

Shopify VS Shopify Plus: Crucial Features & Why are they important

Whenever you are deciding which is the right E-commerce platform that best suits you, there is a critical choice needed to be made in any business or enterprise.

In this section, we will dive into the most crucial features when you are deciding to choose between Shopify and Shopify Plus.

We’ll be taking a comprehensive look into important factors such as the price, the target audience, how customizable they are and finally what kind of support services are provided in both Shopify and Shopify Plus.

These factors could directly affect your abilities to either achieve your business goals, enhancing your operations or even affecting your success in the competitive E-commerce market.

Price:

2025 Shopify Prices

When you are consider to start with anything, especially with Shopify and Shopify Plus, Price is one of the first things that come into mind.

Shopify would offer similarly tiered pricing plans with slightly more features at higher prices, making it a good choice for businesses that have flexible budgets.

Shopify Plus on the other hand, uses a subscription-based model which are priced according to your business’s or enterprise’s MRR or Monthly Recurring Revenue.

This approach could be a more cost-effective plan for rapidly growing businesses with the cost sales also increasing with your business’s or enterprise’s revenue.

So in this section of the article, we will be diving into the pricing models of both Shopify and Shopify Plus.

We will be taking at peek at Shopify’s tiered pricing plans as well as Shopify Plus’s subscription-based models and will be analyzing how their pricing could impact your expenses and profitability.

Shopify:

Shopify offers a variety of plans at scaling prices, all of them are designed to cater small to medium sized businesses. Each of these plans can provide a variety of features, such as customization and support, this can impact a business in the way it operates or scales.

  1. Basic: The perfect plan for solo entrepreneurs, this plan would provide basic essential E-commerce features such as website building tools, product listing, simple reports and are given access to simple app integrations. It maintains a low operational cost which would limit advanced customization and automation, however this is a great option for Solo Entrepreneurs or extremely small businesses.
  2. Shopify (Standard): This plan is meant for businesses in the midst of growth, this plan will be offering more advanced tools and features, including professional reports, 5 additional staff accounts and have lower transaction fee. It can directly support a business expansion as it can provide valuable insights and the operational efficiency of the business.
  3. Advanced: This plan has been tailor-made for large businesses or enterprises, this plan will include the following features: Advanced Reports, Custom pricing for markets and Lower Credit Card fee. With this, enhanced analytics and a better customization, these two will definitely support in the international growth and the data-driven decisions in the business or enterprise.

Shopify Plus:

Shopify Plus offers a fairly high initial pricing model with much customizable options, all catered to develop businesses for rapid growth, enterprise-level businesses.

Unlike the standard Shopify plans with their fixed prices, Shopify plus will always start with at least $2300 a month which then can be scaled based on the business’s sale volume, customization requirements and how complex the operations are.

For businesses that generate exceptionally high revenue, the prices may change to be a revenue-based model, this are typically around the 0.25% of the business’s monthly sales that surpasses the threshold.

Due to Shopify Plus’s custom price model, we will take a look at how their price could potentially affect businesses:

  • Initially High Investment: The initial starting cost are definitely much more than the standard, fixed Shopify plan prices, this can be a substantial price to pay for some businesses.

Despite this, the investment can be used to gain access to an enterprise-level features that can significantly aid the overall growth and operational efficiency.

Some of these features would be:

Less Transaction & Payment fees

  • The transaction fee are reduced more compared to the other plains found on any of the lower tiered plans, this especially to payments done through Shopify Payments.
  • This will definitely save costs and provide a positive impact to the business’s profit margin, especially for the high-volume sales.

Next-Level Customization & Automation

  • Shopify Plus will contain features such as customized checkout experiences, Shopify Flow, which is the automation, and a Script Editor, these will help businesses create a more smooth operation and enhance the overall customer engagement.
  • These features and tools will dramatically improve the overall conversion rates, retention of customers and the overall operational efficiency, this justifies the higher cost between Shopify and Shopify Plus.

Versatility & Global Expansion

  • Shopify Plus aids businesses to create multi-store managements, global selling and local customer experience.
  • Businesses now can seamlessly expand themselves into new markets without needing to worry about needing to invest into separate systems, this will accelerate the overall international business’s growth.

Devoted Support & Quicker Problem Resolution

  • Shopify Plus provides priority support and devoted Launch Engineer, businesses and enterprise-level businesses can both receive valuable insights from experts and gain guidance during both setup and the scaling.
  • This will reduce the downtime while enhancing the issue resolution and will lessen the overall risk of having costly disruptions of operational functions.

Customizable Prices

  • Shopify Plus has versatile pricing model which will ensure business’s overall growth in line with their revenue.
  • Despite the ever-growing brands, the overall value of these state-of-the-art tools and framework both will overcome the overall cost.

The Impact on the Business:

Despite Shopify Plus’s high considerable investment, Shopify Plus will be able to greatly aid businesses with high volume sales or have aspiring growth goals.

By harnessing these advanced features, you can easily manipulate the market by using its automation tools, dedicated support, sales increase, upgraded efficiency and ascend rapidly.

This acquisition will bring in strong returns by minimizing the operational congestions while also releasing new sale channels and overall, enhancing the business’s growth.

Target Audience:

When deciding whether or not to use Shopify or Shopify Plus, you also need to know who could benefit the most from either platforms.

The reason behind this is because if you choose the wrong platform, you may not be able to use everything within the platform at its best and most of its features may not even benefit your business in the slightest.

In addition to that, by choosing the wrong platform, it may cost you heavily and prevent you from achieving your business’s goals.

So we will take a look at what kind of businesses and what kind of individuals could benefit the most from Shopify and Shopify Plus.

Shopify:

Shopify has been specifically created to cater enthusiasts and businesses who are looking for user-friendly interface and easily obtainable platform in order to build and overall growth of their online stores.

This would suit a wide variety of users and consumers, ranging from new entrepreneurs or learners who have limited technical expertise and all the way to established businesses who are seeking to expand on their operations.

Shopify provides important E-commerce tools such as its versatile options and slick integrations which aids users to easily evolve their business quickly without needing to have extensive technical knowledge.

  • Small to Medium Businesses: From startups to small or medium sized established businesses who are seeking to widen their presence online.
  • New Entrepreneurs: New to the market, these individuals have limited knowledge into the technical expertise who are desperately looking for a way to create a user-friendly platform to build and structure their online stores on.
  • Businesses looking for easier usage: Businesses or companies seeking to prioritize the simplicity of their online stores and design it in a way that it would have user-friendly interfaces.
  • Limited Budgets: Shopify offers low priced and affordable fixed plans, this allows for more businesses with limited financial sources to create and utilize Shopify’s features.
  • Businesses working with various industries: From retail to fashion to even food and beverages, Shopify will suit business across different industries.

Shopify Plus:

Shopify Plus is the perfect platform for large businesses or enterprises who are seeking for an advanced E-commerce platform with excellent capabilities, robust versatility and substantial customization.

This will give enterprises the ability to prioritize their business’s own growth, efficiency and the overall personalization of the brand by allowing them to comprehend their high volume sales, automated processes and provide excellent experiences for customers across various channels.

  • High Sale Volume Businesses: For businesses or enterprises with large amounts of sale volumes and have constantly high traffic peaks, these two will require a strong infrastructure and versatility in order to handle their demands accordingly.
  • Enterprise Businesses: From Large to Massive organizations who are actively looking to take advantage of state-of-the-art features, global presence and have tailor-made integrations to streamline their E-commerce workflow.
  • Flourishing Brands: Swiftly expanding to the direct-to-consumer or directly to omnichannel brands who are in need of automation and overall efficiency in operation to maintain its growth.
  • Multi-Regional & Global Sellers: For Companies or Enterprises swelling internationally, needing multi-store management systems, local prices and have multi-language support in order to pierce the markets.
  • Business-to-Business & Wholesale Businesses: Enterprises who are keen to selling to other businesses, by taking the advantage of custom prices, dedicated portals and great discounts to cater wholesale requirements.
  • Esteemed/Redefined Businesses:  Organizations seeking to transition from old platforms to new platforms, looking out for a versatile and extremely reliable source of solution with the ease of the migration and state-of-the-art capabilities.
  • Marketing Leaders: Businesses or Enterprises who offers exquisite, subscription-based or even homemade products that would depend on select experiences or custom solutions in order to differentiate themselves.

Customizability:

When it comes to customizability, it is important to take advantage of the features given to you when you pay to use the platforms.

Doing this will allow your business to use everything included in each platform to is fullest.

We will be taking a look at what some of these features are and what they could do to benefit your brand or business.

Shopify:

  • Custom Themes: Be able to decide from a large range of free themes to premium themes, customize their designs and feel free to match your brand.
    • Customizable Theme Code: Take advantage of Shopify Liquid’s specialized language to create state-of-the-art revamps to your own theme’s look, design and overall functionality.
    • Shopify Liquid: An established language which grants the ability for more control over the design and functionality of your store.
    • API Standard: Allow your store’s own applications and services through Shopify’s very own standard API, this will authorize the use of integration using multiple tools of various variety.
    • Third-Party Integration: Innovate your extensive ecosystem of third-party apps using Shopify App Store to upgrade your overall store’s functionality.
    • Custom Apps: Create or use fully customized built-in apps and add in your unique features and custom functionalities to cater your business’s requirements.
    • Wholesale Channels: Manifest a entirely different wholesale store that includes its very own unique prices and have its very own product list catered for its wholesale customers.
    • International Pricing: Manage prices for various customers that come from various countries or regions based on their local currencies.
    • Customizable Domains: Instead of relying on using Shopify’s subdomain for your online store, create your own domain using your own Brand or Shop’s name instead.

Shopify Plus:

Shopify Plus includes all of the features found in the standard Shopify fixed-priced plans with the addition of even more versatility and includes even more exclusive features not found in the already existing set of features in standard Shopify.

In addition to this, there are these new, state-of-the-at features you can gain access to in Shopify Plus, this includes:

  • Script Editor: This feature will grant you the power to add in your very own JavaScript code to your store for more customizability, such as adding personalized experiences, interactive elements and adding unique functions.
  • Shopify Functions: Demonstrate serverless workarounds all from your store. This advanced logic, integration and overall customization are all done without the need of external servers, this enhancing the overall performance and drastically improving security.
  • API Advanced/Unlimited: Grants authorization to Shopify’s State-Of-The-Art and unlimited API features like calls, allowing for easier integrations with third-party systems, customized apps and complete it all with some innovative business logistics.
  • Custom Checkout: Create a different atmosphere for your customer’s checkout experience as it perfectly aligns with your brand. Enchant your checkout experience with your brand’s unique feel, design and overall functionality to prioritize conversion rates.
  • Dedicated API: Gain access to Shopify Plus’s very own devoted API, to ensure consumer’s peak performance, optimal reliability and have an overall trust of good security, these are vital for large stores that constantly have high performing integrations and overall sales.
  • Multi-Store Management: Organize multiple stores all at once from one dashboard, this will ease up operations and will improve the efficiency and creates a overall centralized view of the entire business.
  • B2B Custom Tools: Take advantage of specially designed for managing B2B sales which includes creation of custom quotes, bulking discounts, creating portals for customers and overall create a smooth-running fulfilment of orders for wholesale customers
  • Shopify Flow: Fully automate your business’s processes using Shopify Flow to create stunning workflows virtually, engaging tasks such as order fulfilment, inventory management and overall communication with the customers, this will enable giving more valuable time and save up precious resources.

Support Services:

When it comes to support services between Shopify and Shopify Plus there should be a fine line between them.

Shopify by itself supplies their consumers with the basic and general support features, just to suffice the consumer’s own enquiries and most technical supports.

Shopify Plus on the other hand has a much wider range of support services, from specialized support teams to priority support channels.

We will take a look at Shopify’s and Shopify Plus’s support services and channels, as well as what more Shopify Plus has to offer over Shopify.

Shopify Help Center

Shopify:

Shopify provides basic support services for merchants or entrepreneurs to get answers to their enquiries and give them the necessary information they need to achieve what they need.

Shopify support services would include Email and online Chatting support available 24/7, Phone-Dial support for higher plans, devoted Help Centre, gain access to the support community forums and have the educational resources from Shopify Academy.

This versatile support system targets to qualify merchants with the needed knowledge and overall assistance in order to easily navigate through Shopify and manage to grow their businesses.

The current support services Shopify provides to consumers are as follows:

  • 24/7 Email & Chat: Contact support via Emails or Chats online when pondering for assistance or any needed support you may ever encounter while using Shopify, this service are available 24-Hours a day.
  • Phone Dial (For higher priced plans): Phone Dials are available if you have paid for a higher priced plan as this form of service can be instant and provides personalized assistance coming from Shopify’s very own dedicated customer service team.
  • Help Centre: Explore Shopify’s very own online resource-rich place where you can find valuable articles, guides and even tutorials which could aid users answer their questions when possible, this will usually cover a large range of topics all related and referring over to Shopify’s very own platform.
  • Community Forums: The place where you can discover and interact with various kinds of merchants from all kinds of industries, share your experiences, tips and any form of solutions for common challenges faced within Shopify.
  • Shopify Academy: Gain the knowledge from free online courses and rich resources all specifically made to help users learn more in-depth about E-commerce, ways to improve their E-commerce Stores and how they can transform their business into success.
Shopify VS Shopify Plus: Ultimate Showdown 1

Shopify Plus:

While standard Shopify provides the basic needs from support services for merchants and entrepreneurs, Shopify Plus will be providing the same support services found in the standard Shopify plans with more priority and features, mainly for the Help Centre, Community Forums and the Shopify Academy.

In addition to this, Shopify Plus comes with additional support services to further aid consumers in a wider range of dedicated services such as Troubleshooting and Migration support.

Some of the other support services found in Shopify Plus are as follows:

  • Troubleshooting Support: Whenever any issues occurs and it is related to technical or operational flaws, Shopify Plus offers a fast and reliable support service to solve those issues. This service provides Shopify Plus consumers with priority support from Experts and will minimize the disruption caused within business operations.
  • Integration Support: Get valuable knowledge and resources from Experts to easily connect Shopify Plus over to third-party apps, tools and systems such as ERP, CRM or even marketing platforms. This service allows for a smooth integration across businesses in order to maintain fast and efficient workflows and improve the overall functionality.
  • Custom Technical Support: A fully personalized service tailored for businesses that have unique technical requirements, some of these unique requirements would include, implementing customizations or management of complex systems. Shopify Plus enhances their consumer’s experience by providing proficiency in giving solutions and support for challenges to ensure the up-most platform optimal performance.
  • Migration Assistance: This service helps businesses to help transition their stores from one E-commerce platform over to Shopify Plus, this would include the transfer of the system, store data, setup and the whole database linked to the store over to Shopify Plus. Doing tis will allow for a streamlined process during migration with minimal disruption and preserving the continuity of the business or brand.
  • API Support: By signing onto Shopify Plus, you will be able to access their very own devoted support solely for all enquires or problems regarding API. This will aid businesses to easily construct custom apps, automation of workflows and develop integrations smoothly. This support service will benefits businesses as they can take full advantage of Shopify’s full capabilities as a whole in order to achieve their business’s goals.

Shopify VS Shopify Plus: Which is best for you?

When making the decision of choosing between Shopify and Shopify Plus, the final decision may be overwhelming.

When are going to select which of these two platforms you need to first identify what kind of business you are managing or working in.

These two platforms could severely impact your business as a whole as Shopify standard is known for at most medium-sized businesses, whereas Shopify Plus is catered for Enterprise-Level Businesses.

You should also consider these questions before you make your final decision:

  • What are your current estimate of Sales?
  • To what extent do you need for control over your store’s functionality and overall design?
  • How much is your budget?
  • What are your Long-Term Business Goals during its growth?
  • Does your business’s requirements need state-of-the-art features?

Small to medium businesses, those just starting out or have a small to limited budget:

  • Shopify would be the best choice. Shopify by itself is already affordable and provides a wide range of features and have some of the most user-friendly interfaces of all E-commerce platforms on the market.

Enterprise-Level Business or High Profit Businesses:

  • Shopify Plus would be the best choice. Shopify Plus allows businesses to have a versatile, large range of advanced features and much needed dedicated support to ensure growth for complex business operations.

All-in-all, the perfect way to justify which of these platforms is the best for you will all come down to what your specific requirements are and what are the priorities of your business.

By taking into account between the two platforms of their prices and what kind of benefits they provide, you may have to first try out their free trials before using up your expenses unnecessarily.