Is Shopify Plus Worth It? Here’s What You Need to Know
Shopify is a massive e-commerce platform that makes it simple for aspiring business owners to launch and grow an e-commerce store. The platform has different plans for different business needs, starting as low as $29 per month and reaching $2,000 per month.
So, what do you really need? Shopify Plus is the top-tier option and the priciest, but it offers exclusive features and capabilities designed to skyrocket growth and sales. Learn more about what Shopify Plus has to offer and see if it’s the best choice for your business.
What is Shopify Plus?
Shopify Plus is the highest plan on offer for Shopify and includes a variety of features and options that aren’t available for other plans. You have full customization and scalability with Shopify Plus, as well as B2B functionality, customizable checkout options, unlimited staff accounts, and limitless app integration.
With all these features, Shopify Plus usually pays for itself.
Advantages of Shopify Plus over Shopify
Low Transaction Fees
All Shopify plans use transaction fees, but they have different rates depending on the plan. Shopify Plus is 0.15% lower than Advanced Shopify, which can add up over high-volume transactions.
Scalability
As businesses grow, owners often want to open options for international shipping and fulfillment. This can be challenging with other plans, but Shopify Plus allows you to create store alternates for different countries – up to nine – and change individual features to suit cultural differences, currencies, and languages. This also gives you the option to tailor marketing efforts for specific countries.
Stability
During high-volume sales or the holiday rush, websites can’t handle the customers and may lag or crash. If this happens to a customer, it’s frustrating and they may miss out on what they wanted, which leads to a bad experience.
Many brands made the switch to Shopify Plus for just this reason, since the plan boosts performance to rates of 10,000 per minute. When the customers rush in, your store will be ready.
Integrated Systems
Shopify Plus uses Shopify Partners and flexible APIs to seamlessly integrate tools to optimize and customize your store. Some of these options include forward-facing features like storefronts and checkout customization.
Shopify Plus Features
Wholesale Channel
B2B is making the switch to e-commerce. For many store owners, this means having a customer store and a wholesale store, doubling the site management duties and expenses. Shopify Plus streamlines this feature with a password-protected wholesale channel that only certain customers can access. You can customize the wholesale channel with bulk discounts, custom pricing, or wholesale-only products.
Launchpad
Planning a flash sale or promotion? Shopify Plus features the Launchpad tool, which allows store owners to launch a product or set up a flash sale quickly and conveniently. You’ll have control over just about any setting, including automatic price adjustments, start and end dates, and launch themes.
Unlimited Staff Accounts
Large businesses usually have massive teams and remote teams to handle different departments and countries. Shopify Plus supports remote and hybrid teams by giving you unlimited staff accounts, each with customizable limitations. You can add as many team members as you like, but you have the option to limit access or control for certain team members as admin.
Custom Checkout
A smooth checkout experience is crucial to customer experience. Shopify Plus gives you full customization of your checkout, including customer fields, discounts, VIP customer options, and more. For example, you can set conditions like a cart price to trigger an automatic discount.
Shopify Pricing
Shopify Plus is the most expensive option and has a unique pricing setup. Take a look at this breakdown:
- Basic Shopify: $29 per month with basic features for an e-commerce website
- Shopify: $79 per month with tools for a growing e-commerce business
- Shopify Advanced: $299 per month with up to 15 staff accounts, eight locations, and five languages
- Shopify Plus: $2,000 per month with exclusive features, functionality, and customization. This is the starting price, but the full price requires a quote. Price is based on $2,000 per month to start or 0.25 percent of revenue, whichever is greater. The pricing caps at $40,000, however
Shopify Plus also has lower transaction fees when you use a third-party payment processor and no transaction fees with Shopify Payments. This can add up over time and high-volume transactions.
Keep in mind that Shopify Plus is intended for large, high-volume, enterprise-level businesses. Most Shopify experts recommend businesses make the shift when they hit $2 million in sales. While the plan may be too much for your business right now, it may be perfect as you grow.
Ready to Make the Switch?
Shopify Plus pays for itself in features, resources, and tools that maximize conversions, brand loyalty, and customer experience. Making the switch is a big decision, however, so be sure to decide if its benefits outweigh the costs for your current business needs.
Sean Richards is VP of Strategy & Partnerships at Vincit.