What is Shopify Plus? Features, Pricing & How it Works

To compete with enterprise eCommerce platforms such as: Magento, Volusion and Demandware and attract large eCommerce merchants, Shopify created the Shopify Plus program in 2014. Shopify Plus is a fully hosted enterprise eCommerce platform designed for high growth merchants and brands. Shopify has added a robust set of features to their Plus offering and has taken significant market share from the enterprise incumbents. 

If your brand is doing over $60,000 a month in eCommerce sales, contact us for a free Shopify Plus evaluation and we can let you know if Plus is a fit for your business.

Shopify has four plans for all their stores: Basic, Shopify and Advanced and Plus. As your business grows, Shopify has a path for you and the different pricing plans will let your business access more features, lower your transaction rate and give you more tools to grow your business. 

Shopify Plus is trusted by brands worldwide:

We have summarized the primary features of Shopify Plus below.

How Much Does Shopify Plus Cost?

If you are a merchant considering Shopify Plus for your store, congratulations! Shopify Plus is a powerful, ecommerce enterprise solution that is ideal for high growth online stores. When it comes to the cost of Shopify Plus, there are many categories to consider, here are the most common pricing questions Shopify Developer get:

1. How Much is the Shopify Plus Monthly Cost?
2. Is There a Variable Shopify Plus Price?
3. How Much are Shopify Plus Credit Card Transaction Fees?
4. How Much do Shopify Plus apps cost?
5. What does it Cost to Migrate Data to Shopify Plus?
6. How much does Shopify Plus Design Cost?
7. What do you Charge for Shopify Plus Development?

To read more about Shopify Plus pricing, check out our Shopify Plus pricing article that will walk you through all the details.

Because Shopify Plus have nailed it when it comes to some key features for high volume stores.

But there are still aspects of Shopify Plus features and pricing that are very misunderstood.

Do you really need it? How much actually is it? Is it worth the investment?

All questions we’ve found to be rolling around a lot of heads. So we put together this post covering everything you need to know about:

1. Key Shopify Plus features
2. Shopify Plus pricing
3. When you’re ready for Shopify Plus

Key Shopify Plus features

There are a number of key Shopify Plus features that help the platform stand out from the crowd.

Let’s take a look at them:

1) It can handle serious traffic

There’s one thing that matters above all else for any ecommerce retailer:

That their website is live and fully operational.

All the marketing, email flows and conversion tactics mean nothing if there’s no working site to actually make purchases on. So every second of downtime is money down the drain.

High volume merchants therefore need a platform that won’t come crashing down when flash sales or seasonal events create huge traffic spikes.

And Shopify Plus provides that – able to withstand massive demands like:

• Over 200,000 people simultaneously flooding the Kylie Cosmetics site during a New York pop-up event.
• Death Wish Coffee taking $2,083 a minute after their Super Bowl commercial aired.

2) Built with global expansion in mind

Global ecommerce presents a huge opportunity for retail businesses.

But it takes much more than just driving traffic from multiple countries to one website.

International success means having dedicated storefronts for different countries or regions. With the appropriate languages, currencies and payment options available for each.

Shopify Plus (currently) allows 10 additional clone stores on top of your original. Meaning you can operate up to 11 different storefronts from one Shopify Plus account.

3) Full store customisation

Many of the more basic platforms aren’t great for store customisation. With not too much room for manoeuvre beyond the design or theme you initially settled on.

But it’s different with Shopify Plus. Allowing your dev team full site control through editable CSS files and scripts.

“Shopify Plus is an easy-to-use, yet highly customisable platform for ecommerce. Since the UI is so intuitive, most of the daily operations can be taken care of by in-house staff rather than hiring costly agencies or IT staff.

4) Automated workflows and campaigns

There’s a lot to get done every day when running an ecommerce business.

But one of the Shopify Plus features is all about being able to create a whole host of automation capabilities aimed at cutting hours of repetitive busy work from day-to-day tasks.

On top of this, Shopify Plus’ Launchpad tool lets you put marketing campaigns on autopilot too. Meaning you can schedule a heap of crucial tasks when it comes to flash sales and product launches.

5) Advanced multichannel capabilities

Shopify Plus isn’t just about creating a killer ecommerce site. It also sets you up for seamless native social selling in some crucial places – like Instagram, Facebook Messenger and Kik.

And it’s all connected – on the back end and the front.

6) Dedicated wholesale online store

Wholesale B2B ecommerce orders can make up a significant chunk of revenue for growing ecommerce brands. But dealing with it all manually via email is simply not scalable.

So the fact Shopify Plus lets you integrate B2B and B2C operations can be a major game changer.

Shopify Plus pricing

This is because pricing for Shopify Plus is heavily based on usage and sales volumes. Meaning it can be very different for each business – and even month to month.

Here’s a run-down of what exactly to expect for Shopify Plus pricing:

• Build costs. Using a pre-designed template is an option, but most enterprise merchants will want something unique to align with branding. Expect to pay a quality third-party design agency anywhere from $30,000 to $250,000 and beyond.
• Licencing costs. Monthly fee starts at $2,000 and runs up to $40,000. This increases incrementally after hitting $800,000 in monthly sales, up to a cap of $16 million.
• Transaction costs. Payment processing fees are also added at 1.6% + $0.35/£0.20 per transaction if using Shopify Payments. There’s also a 0.15% fee if using a third-party processor.

Yes, this sounds like a big investment.

But Shopify Plus pricing can be quite cost-effective when compared to other enterprise solutions. Especially with what the platform can actually do for your business too.

When are you ready for Shopify Plus?

Shopify Plus features can offer a growing ecommerce business an exciting opportunity. But the power and relative expense of the platform means it’s not suited to everyone.

It’s a judgement call. But first and foremost you need to make sure the monthly costs involved aren’t going to cripple your business.

“Shopify Plus is the best choice for retailers who want to focus on growth instead of just maintaining. If you feel like you are outgrowing your current platform or that technology issues are holding you back, it’s probably time to upgrade to Plus.”