Shopify sells two product lines. The Shopify Standard tiers — Basic, Grow, and Advanced — cover most Australian small-to-medium businesses and run between $7 and $575 AUD per month. Shopify Plus is the enterprise tier: custom-priced from $3,700 AUD/month and built for high-volume merchants, multi-store operators, B2B sellers, and brands that need real control over their checkout.

The gap between the two tiers is wider than the monthly invoice suggests. Lower per-sale rates, features that replace paid apps, multi-store management, and a dedicated account manager all shift the maths once your volume hits a certain point. Here's how they actually compare.

Shopify Plus Pricing - Quick Comparison

For small businesses, the Standard tiers offer everything you need to start selling. If you're scaling quickly or need advanced tools, Plus provides the flexibility and power to support that growth.

What Does Shopify Plus Actually Cost in Australia?

Let's get the numbers out of the way — because this is the part most articles dance around.

The base subscription starts at $3,700 AUD per month. But that number on its own is misleading. What you actually pay includes your platform fee, per-sale charges, app spend, and any development work your store needs.

Here's how the costs break down.

The Monthly Subscription

The $3,700 base is the minimum you'll pay. If your store generates over a certain gross merchandise volume (GMV), Shopify adjusts this upwards — typically to a percentage of sales. The contract is usually a 1–3 year commitment, which is worth knowing before you sign.

This is different from the Standard tiers where you can cancel on a month-to-month basis. With Plus, you're locked into a contract term. For most Australian businesses doing the kind of volume that justifies the upgrade, this isn't a dealbreaker — but it's a cost you need to factor into your planning.

Transaction Fees and What You Pay Per Sale

This is where the numbers get interesting for high-volume merchants.

On the Standard tiers, if you use a third-party payment gateway (not Shopify Payments), you'll pay an additional transaction fee of up to 2% per sale. On Plus, that drops to 0.2%.

To put that in real numbers: an Australian store doing $500,000 per month through a third-party gateway pays $10,000 in transaction fees on a Standard tier. On Plus, that same store pays $1,000. Over a year, that's $108,000 in savings — which more than covers the higher subscription.

If you're using Shopify Payments (and most Australian merchants should consider it), the processing rates are lower on Plus from day one. The Standard tiers charge between 1.75% + $0.30 and 1.4% + $0.30 depending on your tier. On Plus, the base rate is 1.2% + $0.30 — and for stores processing large transaction volumes, even that rate is negotiable downward. A store doing $200,000 per month saves $400 every billing cycle just on the rate difference between Advanced and Plus.

The Breakeven Calculation

Here's the maths that actually matters.

The Plus subscription runs roughly $44,400 AUD per year at the base rate. If you're currently on the Advanced tier ($575 per month = $6,900 per year), the difference is about $37,500 annually.

To justify that jump, your business needs to be saving at least that much through lower per-sale charges, reduced app spend (because Plus includes features that the Standard tiers require paid apps for), and operational efficiencies from automation. The higher entry point means the breakeven threshold sits higher than it used to.

As a rough guide: if your store does $80,000+ AUD/month in sales, it's worth running the numbers. If you're doing $150,000+ per month, the comparison almost always favours Plus.

What About the Hidden Costs?

Beyond the subscription and per-sale charges, there are costs that don't show up in the comparison table but absolutely affect your bottom line.

App spend is the big one. A typical Australian store on the Advanced tier runs 10–20 paid apps. Loyalty programs, advanced reporting, B2B wholesale tools, checkout upsells, subscription management — each adding $20–$100 monthly. On Plus, several of these come built into the platform. Shopify Flow replaces many automation apps. The native B2B portal replaces wholesale apps. Checkout extensibility replaces upsell apps. When you audit what you're actually spending on apps, the numbers add up fast.

Development and agency spend differs between the tiers. Standard Shopify stores are generally simpler to maintain, but you're also more constrained in what you can build. Plus gives developers more room to work — but that flexibility means you might invest more in customisation. The question is whether that investment generates returns through better conversion rates and operational efficiency.

Opportunity losses are the hardest to quantify but often the most significant. If your current tier limits what you can do with your checkout, and that limitation means you're missing even a 0.5% conversion improvement on $100,000 in monthly sales, that's $500 every single billing cycle in lost revenue. Over a year, that's $6,000 — real money that doesn't appear on any invoice.

The Standard Tiers Explained

Each Shopify tier offers a different balance of features, charges, and flexibility. Here's what you actually get at each level.

What Each Tier Includes

The Starter ($7 per billing cycle) is for businesses focused on social selling. You get a basic storefront and the ability to sell through social media. It's testing-the-waters territory — not a full online store.

Basic Shopify ($56 per billing cycle, or about $42 billed annually) gives you a full online store with payments at 1.75% + $0.30 when using Shopify Payments. You get 2 staff accounts, inventory management, and basic reporting. This is where most Australian businesses begin.

Shopify (Grow) ($149, or $114 billed annually) drops payments to 1.6% + $0.30 and gives you 5 staff accounts. Better reporting, better shipping tools. This is the sweet spot for stores that have outgrown the basics but aren't ready for enterprise features.

Advanced Shopify ($575, or $431 billed annually) is the top of the standard range. Payments drop to 1.4% + $0.30, you get 15 staff accounts, and the reporting becomes genuinely useful for data-driven decisions.

Annual billing saves up to 25% across Basic, Grow, and Advanced. And using Shopify Payments eliminates the extra third-party charges, which can add up to 2% on some tiers.

All tiers include access to the Shopify app ecosystem, theme customisation, and the default checkout. For most Australian ecommerce businesses, this covers the essentials.

Who Should Use the Standard Tiers?

Basic works for new online stores, solo operators, and anyone testing whether ecommerce is right for them. If you're a Melbourne retailer adding online sales alongside your physical store, or a creator selling merchandise, Basic gives you what you need without overcomplicating things.

Grow suits established brands with small teams that need better shipping options and more detailed reporting. If you're managing inventory across multiple locations or your store is doing consistent monthly revenue, this tier makes sense.

Advanced is for larger operations with high volumes. The lower per-sale charges offset the higher monthly outlay once your sales hit a certain threshold. If you're doing $20,000+/month, run the numbers — the savings might surprise you.

The right choice depends on your current volume and where you're headed. As your business scales, the savings from reduced charges at each level can have a meaningful impact on profitability.

Shopify Plus Explained

Plus is the enterprise tier — built for businesses that need more power, more flexibility, and more control than what the standard tiers offer. Unlike the fixed rates of the lower tiers, Plus operates on a custom model based on your sales volume and operational needs.

This isn't just a bigger version of what you already have. The platform handles heavy traffic, increased transaction volumes, and peak demand periods (think Black Friday, Boxing Day) without breaking a sweat. It's a different experience from top to bottom.

What You Actually Get

Checkout customisation is the headline feature. With Shopify Scripts and checkout extensibility, you can customise the entire purchase experience — dynamic discounts, shipping logic, personalised upsells, payment method rules. On the standard tiers, checkout is limited to what the theme allows. On Plus, you control it. For brands where conversion optimisation matters (and when doesn't it?), this is the single biggest differentiator between the two tiers.

Multi-store management lets you run multiple branded stores, regional websites, or wholesale portals from one centralised platform. For Australian brands expanding into New Zealand, Southeast Asia, or running a separate B2B storefront alongside their DTC operation, this is the feature that changes operations overnight.

Built-in B2B and wholesale functionality means you don't need third-party apps to serve wholesale customers. You get dedicated portals with custom terms, minimum order requirements, payment schedules, and approval workflows. For businesses serving both DTC and wholesale customers, this alone can justify the subscription fee.

Shopify Flow gives you enterprise-level automation. Tag customers based on behaviour, auto-update inventory, trigger emails, sync data across your tech stack — all without writing code. Your development team (or agency) can build integrations that the standard tiers' rate limits make difficult or impossible.

Dedicated support means a named account manager and priority technical assistance. When your store goes down during a flash sale, you're not waiting in a general support queue. During crucial sales periods, this level of support pays for itself.

Headless capabilities open the door if you want to decouple your frontend from Shopify's backend. You can build a completely custom frontend while the platform handles inventory, payments, and fulfilment behind the scenes. For brands with very specific UX requirements or those running native mobile apps alongside their web store, headless is increasingly where things are heading.

Advanced analytics and reporting go beyond what the standard tiers offer. Dashboards tailored to your operations, deeper customer behaviour data, and metrics that help you make decisions based on what's actually happening — not what you think is happening.

Who Should Use Plus?

The obvious answer is high-revenue brands — businesses doing enough volume that the lower charges and operational efficiencies cover the platform costs. But it's more nuanced than that.

Rapidly scaling businesses benefit because Plus handles growth without requiring a migration to another platform entirely. If you're on the Advanced tier and hitting the ceiling on staff accounts, checkout flexibility, or integration limits, upgrading is cheaper than replatforming to BigCommerce or Magento.

Brands that need customised checkout experiences — fashion labels with complex sizing, subscription businesses with recurring billing, luxury retailers building a premium purchase experience. These businesses can't do what they need within the standard checkout constraints.

Companies running multiple stores or regions. If you're managing an Australian store, a NZ store, and a B2B portal separately, Plus consolidates that into one platform with shared inventory and unified reporting.

Businesses with complex integrations. If your store connects to a warehouse management system, a custom fulfilment platform, or a retail POS network, the higher rate limits on Plus make those connections reliable rather than fragile. One of our clients was hitting their integration ceiling every afternoon during order sync — the upgrade solved that overnight.

Direct Comparison: Plus vs the Standard Tiers

Here's the detailed breakdown — because the monthly amount only tells half the story.

Feature Comparison Table

As at the 14th of April 2026

How to Decide

The decision isn't just about whether you can afford the higher subscription — it's about whether what you're currently paying is actually costing you more than you realise.

Look at what you're paying per sale first. If your store processes payments through a third-party gateway and does significant volume, calculate what you're paying in transaction fees right now. Then compare that to the 0.2% rate on Plus. For many Australian businesses, the savings alone cover the platform fee.

Count your app spend. Merchants on the standard tiers often cobble together $200–$500 per month in apps for things that come built into the Plus platform — B2B functionality, advanced automation, loyalty programs, checkout customisation. Add those up and the gap narrows quickly. These are real costs that many businesses overlook when comparing plan levels.

Consider what you can't do right now. If you're losing sales because your checkout can't handle complex discount logic, or you're manually processing wholesale orders because there's no built-in B2B portal, those are hidden costs that don't show up on an invoice but hit your bottom line every single month.

Think about the commitment. Plus requires a multi-year contract. The standard tiers are month-to-month. If your business is still finding its footing, that flexibility has real value. If you're established and growing, it's worth requesting a demo with the Shopify Plus team to get a custom quote based on your actual numbers. The $3,700 base is negotiable for high-volume merchants.

Making the Right Choice for Your Business

Choosing between Plus and the standard tiers comes down to where your business is today and where it's heading over the next 12–24 months.

If you're doing under $80,000/month in revenue with straightforward operations, the standard tiers give you everything you need. Pick the one that matches your volume — the savings at each level are meaningful as you grow.

If you're doing $80,000–$150,000 per month and bumping up against limitations — checkout restrictions, app costs stacking up, manual B2B processes — it's time to run the full comparison. Factor in what you're paying now across your subscription, per-sale charges, app spend, and the time your team loses to manual workarounds on the current platform. Then compare that to the Plus number.

If you're above $150,000 per month, you should already be on Plus or seriously evaluating it. At that volume, the lower per-sale charges, built-in wholesale features, and platform capabilities typically make it the more cost-effective option — even with the higher subscription and contract commitment.

The upgrade path is straightforward. Shopify makes the migration relatively seamless, and your store data carries across. The question isn't whether you can upgrade — it's whether the numbers justify it today or whether you're better served growing into it over the next 6–12 months.

If you're on the fence, the easiest first step is to calculate what your current tier actually costs you: subscription + per-sale charges + app spend + any sales you're leaving on the table from checkout limitations. If that number is within striking distance of $3,700 per month, Plus deserves a serious look.

The Australian Context

A few things worth noting for Australian businesses specifically.

All Shopify plans are billed in AUD, and Shopify Payments supports Australian dollars natively. This means your customers pay in AUD and you receive AUD — no currency conversion fees eating into your margins. For businesses selling internationally, Plus gives you the ability to set up region-specific stores with local currencies, local payment methods, and localised content, all managed from a single platform.

GST handling is built into both Standard and Plus tiers, but Shopify Plus gives you more flexibility around tax rules for wholesale and B2B pricing — something Australian businesses dealing with both retail and trade customers find genuinely useful.

The Australian ecommerce market has matured significantly, and the variety of Shopify stores operating at scale here reflects that. From fashion brands doing seven figures to specialty retailers serving niche audiences across the country, the platform supports a wide range of business models. The question isn't whether Shopify works for Australian businesses — it clearly does. The question is which tier and pricing level matches where your business is right now, and whether Shopify Plus makes sense for where you're headed.

FAQs

How do I know if my business should upgrade from Shopify Standard to Shopify Plus?

If your business is expanding quickly, managing several online stores, or in need of advanced customisation features and B2B capabilities, Shopify Plus could be the solution you’re looking for. This plan caters specifically to larger businesses that require more flexibility and tools to sustain their growth.

You might be ready to upgrade if you’re handling high transaction volumes, require advanced automation tools, or need access to dedicated support. Another appealing benefit of Shopify Plus is reduced transaction fees, which can make a big difference for businesses processing a high number of sales.

What makes Shopify Plus a great choice for fast-growing businesses?

Shopify Plus caters to businesses that are growing quickly, providing the tools and capacity to manage higher traffic and sales volumes with ease. It offers features like advanced customisation, automation tools, and tailored personalisation options to simplify operations and enhance the shopping experience for customers.

By using Shopify Plus, you can automate routine tasks, minimise manual efforts, and dedicate more time to focusing on strategic growth. It's a great choice for brands aiming to scale rapidly while maintaining a polished and seamless online presence.

What are the differences in transaction fees between Shopify Standard and Shopify Plus, and how do they affect your business's profitability?

Transaction fees can eat into your profits, especially as your sales climb. On Shopify's Standard plans, you're looking at fees of up to 2% when using third-party payment gateways. In contrast, Shopify Plus reduces this to just 0.2%, offering a much smaller cut for third-party processors.

Let’s break it down: if your business handles $500,000 in monthly sales through a third-party provider, you'd be paying $10,000 in transaction fees under a Standard plan. But with Shopify Plus, that fee drops to $1,000. Over the course of a year, that’s a massive saving of $108,000, making Shopify Plus a smarter financial choice for businesses with higher revenue.