Total Cost of Ownership

Budget what Shopify costs you all in each month, with plan, apps, processing and agency spend counted at your revenue, and against other platforms.

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Common Questions

For a merchant doing $500K/month in GMV, is the fully-loaded cost of staying on Advanced with a heavier app stack actually cheaper than upgrading to Plus and consolidating natively?

Shopify Advanced with a heavier app stack costs less than Plus at $500K a month on US Shopify Payments unless Plus replaces over $651 to $1,451 of monthly app spend. The gap remains because Plus's published card-rate cut covers 34 to 66% of its extra plan fee (shopify.com/pricing, shopify.com/plus/pricing, October 2026; Deploi arithmetic). A third-party gateway leaves both plans level.

Is Shopify genuinely cheaper in total cost of ownership than BigCommerce Enterprise or Adobe Commerce at the same $50M/year GMV, once all fees are counted?

Shopify Plus cannot be shown cheaper in total cost of ownership at $50M a year, because no vendor publishes the price at that size. Plus starts at $2,300 a month on a 3-year term (shopify.com/plus/pricing, October 2026). BigCommerce Performance, formerly Enterprise, starts at $1,499 a month billed annually (bigcommerce.com/pricing, October 2026). Adobe publishes no Adobe Commerce price (business.adobe.com, October 2026).

For a $5M-$10M/year merchant still on Advanced (not yet Plus), what's the realistic full monthly spend including apps, processing, and a part-time freelance developer?

Shopify Advanced costs a $5M to $10M merchant $299 a month billed yearly, plus 2.5% + 30¢ per standard US online card (shopify.com/pricing, October 2026). Shopify Tax adds 0.35% of US orders from states where you collect tax, capped yearly at $5,000 on stores created before 13 May 2026 (Shopify Help Center, October 2026). Apps and developer time have no published total, so your invoices and quotes set them.

What's the realistic all-in monthly TCO for a mid-market Shopify Plus merchant running a minimal app stack (just email and reviews) versus one running 15+ apps?

A 15-app Shopify Plus stack costs more than an email-and-reviews stack by the sum of the extra apps. No published benchmark gives that sum, because Shopify App Store listings stop at entry tiers and overage rates. Klaviyo lists email at $20 a month for 251 to 500 contacts (Klaviyo listing, October 2026). The Gorgias helpdesk charges $900 a month for 5,000 tickets plus $36 per additional 100 (Gorgias listing, October 2026).