Which is the better Shopify plan: Shopify vs Shopify Plus?
If you’re in the process of launching an ecommerce store, you might’ve asked this question more than once. Unfortunately, only you – the store owner – hold the answer to this question. But we’re here to help you make the right choice for your online store, providing you with the information you need to compare Shopify vs Shopify Plus and find the right match for your needs.
Trying to choose between Shopify and Shopify Plus? Look no further. We’ve got a detailed comparison that will help you clearly identify the differences between these Shopify plans to make it worth the investment.
Article Overview:
What is the Shopify Plan?
What is Shopify Plus?
1. Merchant Success Manager
2. Advanced Apps
3. Shopify Checkout Customization
4. Unlimited User Accounts
5. Multi-Currency Selling
6. API Integrations
7. Enhanced Shopify POS Features
8. Wholesale Channel
9. In-Depth and Custom Reports
10. Exclusive Access to Resources
Shopify vs Shopify Plus: Key Differences
FAQs
What is the Shopify Plan?
First, Shopify and Shopify Plus are built within the same ecommerce platform; they’re not different platforms.
The Shopify plan refers to the ‘normal’ subscription plan available to an online store owner. The Shopify plan allows you to build a standalone online store with multilingual selling features and a multi-currency selling option. In addition, Shopify store owners can access dropshipping tools and the exclusive Shopify front POS functionality.
The Shopify ecommerce platform has helped many small businesses build their online presence with an ecommerce store. Since Shopify is a platform specifically designed for ecommerce businesses due to its integration of ecommerce features and capabilities. It’s ideal for small businesses looking for an an online sales presence, allowing them to showcase their products or services online.
But as your business grows, the current capabilities and offerings of the Shopify plan might no longer provide the tools you need. This is where Shopify Plus comes in. While small businesses could find a lot of use with the basic features of the Shopify plan, large brands and ecommerce businesses need more advanced features only available with Shopify Plus.
What is Shopify Plus?
Shopify Plus is an omnichannel and enterprise-grade version of Shopify subscription plans. This plan is recommended for large ecommerce businesses that deal with high-volume orders (100,000 or more) and consequently need more advanced features.
Key features are unique to Shopify Plus, making it an ideal choice over a basic Shopify store. Let’s take a closer look at them to get more insight and make an informed choice.
1. Merchant Success Manager
Shopify is notable for delivering outstanding customer support. But Shopify Plus offers Merchant Success Manager, which isn’t available in the regular plan. It’s one of the advantages of Shopify Plus over the usual account since there is a dedicated manager for each account, making it suitable for large-scale businesses.
Merchant success managers are vital in providing quality service to all Shopify Plus customers. It helps ensure that all aspects of running your online business and Shopify store runs smoothly.
Not only that, Shopify Plus users can also access the Shopify Plus Academy. It’s an exclusive program providing advanced resources to ecommerce store owners, such as courses and webinars. These resources are critical in improving your Shopify store design, a launch manager, marketing your products, automating services, and other advanced features. You will gain the essential knowledge you need to succeed in the ecommerce business.
2. Advanced Apps
The normal version of Shopify gives you access to third party apps (over 8,000!), and you will have access to more advanced and custom apps with Shopify Plus.
The Shopify app store provides countless options for third party apps and integrations for your website. But access to other unique apps not available with the basic Shopify plan helps to optimize how you run your ecommerce store. For example, you can use custom apps for building digital marketing campaigns, content management, automation, order fulfillment, and shipping.
A few examples of the third party apps you can access with Shopify Plus include the Launchpad, which is an app that helps you plan and launch sales campaigns, and other discount offers. You can also integrate The Wholesale Channel into your Shopify store when dealing with high sales volume or those stores with wholesale customers.
3. Shopify Checkout Customization
Shopify Plus users can customize their online store to suit their branding requirements. One neat feature available to all the stores created with Shopify Plus is the ability to customize the Shopify checkout page, such as font, images, and color. You can install additional functionalities to manipulate Shopify’s theme language using your choice of apps from the Shopify app store. The goal is to make the checkout page consistent with the rest of your website, particularly your website theme.
You can integrate the Shopify Scripts that add a coding functionality to the checkout page. This feature enhances what you can do with your store’s checkout page, such as pre-calculating shipping costs and automating adding discounts and promotions.
Another potential customization available to Shopify Plus users is the abandoned cart recovery. Many shoppers like adding items to their carts, but it does not mean anything to your sales volume unless these customers check out their items. Unfortunately, most customers do not return to their abandoned carts.
These advanced features available to Shopify Plus users greatly influence the customer experience in your ecommerce store.
4. Unlimited User Accounts
If you run a large brand or high sales volume website, you need to set up staff accounts for them to help manage and run your ecommerce store. The staff accounts you can set up for your online store depend on your subscription plan, starting from one to 15 accounts.
But when you subscribe to the Shopify Plus plan, you can set up unlimited user accounts. It’s convenient for large online stores that have several employees. With this set-up, your employees can access the online store dashboard, and you can delegate specific tasks to your employees.
5. Multi-Currency Selling
Shopify merchants can enjoy another unique advantage when choosing this Shopify plan over the standard version: multi-currency selling. Large and major businesses that cater to international markets can accept Shopify payments in multiple currencies worldwide.
It’s a convenient feature that helps create personalized experiences in your ecommerce store. Giving your customers a chance to edit the country and currency they’re buying from (or automatically adjust based on the IP address) helps foster that unique customer experience.
Why does multi-currency selling important? It allows your customers to automatically adjust the product pricing in their local currency instead of manually adjusting those prices. It is convenient and practical and influences the customer’s buying decision on your ecommerce store. When you eliminate the concern of converting the prices to the local currency, you don’t cause any delay in your customer’s buying choices and improve your sales volume over time.
6. API Integrations
Shopify Plus also offers another unique feature not available in the standard Shopify plan: API integrations. The App Store is one of the appealing aspects of buying a Shopify subscription since you can access over 7,000 free and paid apps. 28 apps are directly available from Shopify, but hundreds of third-party app developers and partners also create them.
The basic Shopify plan users can access these apps and other integrations. But Shopify merchants under the Shopify Plus plan give you more flexibility with your API integrations. For example, you can integrate the API into your existing CRM systems, which is a feature not available to other regular Shopify users without store subscriptions.
A few examples of API integrations on Shopify include setting up gift cards in the Shopify POS or unit customer login details for the store and community forums. These simple tweaks can create personalized experiences that boost your online store performance.
7. Enhanced Shopify POS Features
The enhanced Shopify POS features make it possible to sell in physical locations, not just via the online store. It also simplifies your inventory management and tracking.
The basic Shopify plan already provides users various POS features, but the premium plans expand on that option. If you have the basic plan, you must pay extra to access additional POS features. With the more expensive plans, those extra POS features are bundled into your subscription, eliminating the need to pay extra for them.
So, what are these extra POS features and functionalities on Shopify Plus? Here is an overview:
- Facilitate the exchange of orders
- Enable local pick-up for online orders
- Custom printed receipts
- Creating purchase orders
- Attribute sales to specific staff (for performance analysis or incentives)
- Set up over 1,000 locations
8. Wholesale Channel
Large businesses that involve a high sales volume amount have the option to cater to wholesale customers with Shopify Plus. It is one of the unique advantages of the Shopify Plus subscription plan, which is capable under the enterprise-level platform.
The wholesale channel feature available to this Shopify plan enables you to create a password-protected storefront that wholesale customers can access. Therefore, you can offer the same products at wholesale prices within this wholesale-only storefront.
Another option is to set up unique discount codes for wholesale buyers on your ecommerce store. Shopify Plus makes it easy for Shopify merchants to cater to B2C and B2B business models. Your ability to manage multiple stores is also a unique feature in this subscription plan within the Shopify platform.
9. In-Depth and Custom Reports
Shopify Plus merchants can access in-depth and custom reports for their online store. These detailed analytics and professional reports are available through the Shopify dashboard, which includes critical information like returning customer rates, landing pages, sales, and top-selling products.
This tool enables you to generate professional reports and customer reports informing you about how well your online store is doing and what can be improved in your current marketing efforts to improve customer retention.
Ecommerce businesses rely on customer data and analysis to achieve data-driven insights via the Shopify analytics dashboard. It helps you understand the latest trends and store performance. These insights enable you to maximize what’s working for your store and improve the areas where they’re needed.
10. Exclusive Access to Resources
Finally, the Plus merchants under the Shopify platform can exclusively access resources and tools unavailable to other Shopify merchants in the lower-priced plans. The Merchant Success Program is not the only one that Shopify Plus can utilize to improve sales.
There is an exclusive Facebook community for Shopify Plus users. This is where Shopify merchants can share ideas and experiences to enhance online store performance.
Another unique feature exclusive to Plus users is the Shopify Audiences. This new tool makes it easy for online store owners to target Facebook and Instagram users that will likely purchase your products. However, this feature is currently available only to users within US and Canada.
The Shopify Plus Partner program also helps you find agency, technology, and solution partners for your ecommerce site. This program makes it easier to vet the potential partners for your ecommerce site, greatly enhancing your ability to create personalized experiences for customers.
Shopify vs Shopify Plus: Key Differences
Shopify vs Shopify Plus Pricing
How much does subscribing to the basic Shopify plan and Shopify Plus cost?
If you’re enticed by the features available to Shopify merchants with the Plus plan, you might be curious to know how much you must pay for them.
The standard Shopify pricing is as follows:
- Starter – $5 per month
- Basic – $25 per month
- Shopify – $65 per month
- Advanced – $399 per month
Regardless of which Shopify plan you choose, you can build an ecommerce store using the website builder functionality, which is built in with ecommerce tools. You can utilize various sales channels depending on your subscription level. And you have access to Shopify POS features and 24/7 support.
The Shopify Plus merchants can access enterprise-level ecommerce solutions. It is the ideal solution if you want to scale fast and convert more checkouts. It is an all-in-one ecommerce platform that enables you to sell across various channels and markets with centralized data insights and diverse selling features.
The Shopify Plus pricing starts at $2,000 per month and a variable fee, which varies according to your monthly sales (percentage-based). The Plus plan is a customized plan, which means that the cost will vary according to the complexity of your requirements for setting up an ecommerce store.
Shopify vs Shopify Plus Transaction Fees
When comparing Shopify vs Shopify Plus, you should look at the transaction fees as they could significantly impact your profitability.
Shopify transaction fees are straightforward because it is based on a percentage of your sales volume and value. However, there is no transaction fee when using the integrated payment system from the Shopify platform (as of May 2022). Therefore, you can only expect to pay transaction fees when you utilize external payment gateways. The transaction fee is as follows:
- Basic – 2% on all transactions
- Shopify – 1% on all transactions
- Advanced Shopify – 0.5% on all transactions
With Shopify Plus, your transaction fee is waived depending on whether you use Shopify Payments as your payment gateway. But when using other payment terminals, it will cost the following:
- Domestic – 2.15% and 30 cents
- International – 3.15% and 30 cents
Shopify vs Shopify Plus: Which to Choose?
Shopify is an excellent platform known for its ecommerce features and easy-to-use interface. If you’re a new store owner, it’s convenient to use since you can easily customize it to launch your small businesses.
But it’s also a suitable platform for major and large businesses that require enterprise-level ecommerce features and support. It is integrated with advanced features and integrations for high-volume stores that the basic Shopify plan cannot support. However, subscribing to the Shopify Plus plan entails a more expensive price tag than the traditional pricing plans on the Shopify platform can offer.
With that said, choosing the right platform and plan depends on the ecommerce features and support you need. It’s ideal for B2C and B2B businesses dealing with high orders and international customers.
FAQs
What is the difference between Shopify and Shopify Plus?
The obvious difference between Shopify vs Shopify Plus is its pricing. Shopify Plus is more expensive, starting at $2,000 per month, giving you access to advanced features, some of which are unavailable in the standard Shopify plans.
Shopify is ideally suited to small businesses, and Shopify Plus includes features better suited to large businesses.
Why is Shopify Plus better than Shopify?
Shopify Plus merchants have more flexibility and customization options. They also enjoy advanced support and access to resources that enable them to maximize business profitability.
Is it worth upgrading to Shopify Plus?
Yes, upgrading to Shopify Plus is worth the investment for businesses dealing with a high volume of orders or those businesses that require advanced selling features. From a cost perspective, Shopify merchants in the Plus subscription level have lower transaction fees and more functionalities available to them.
Can you change from Shopify to Shopify Plus?
Yes. Upgrading your account from the basic plan to Shopify Plus is easy. You must update your information, and you’re good to go! Contacting the customer support team to facilitate the account upgrade is also a good idea.
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