Shopify has been our consistent pick for the best ecommerce platform for small businesses, and its enterprise solution, Shopify Plus, is no exception. If you are hitting an annual revenue of $1 million (or roughly more than $600,000 in monthly revenue), consider upgrading to Shopify Plus.
You end up saving more in terms of time and fees, and gain access to Shopify exclusive programs for merchant success, along with a dedicated account manager.
My Shopify Plus review discusses Shopify’s enterprise plan’s pros and cons, pricing, standout features, and alternatives.
Shopify Plus Overview
Who the Shopify Plus Plan Is Right for
- Businesses earning $1 million annually (roughly $600,000 monthly) in revenue: Shopify Plus is specifically designed for the needs of high-revenue businesses. It has advanced tools and exclusive resources for scalability. Shopify Plus also offers lower processing fees, which can deliver more profit in the bottom line as your business continues to grow.
- Businesses that sell or plan to expand globally: Shopify Plus provides tools to help you reach new customers and make selling across the globe easier. You can create clones of your online stores in multiple languages and currencies at no extra cost.
When to Use an Alternative
- Small businesses or startups: Those who are just starting an online store will be better off going with Shopify’s standard plans, ranging from $39 to $299 a month. Once they have stable revenue and are ready to scale, upgrading to Shopify Plus is easy. You can learn more about the different Shopify pricing plans, associated fees, and costs involved in starting an online store in our Shopify pricing guide and calculator.
- Businesses on a budget that need a full standalone store: If subscribing to Shopify is still a bit out of budget for your business, there are other free ecommerce website builders like Square Online and Big Cartel that let you have a website and store under a free plan. Learn more about these platforms in our Square Online review and Big Cartel review.
Shopify Plus Pricing
Shopify Plus doesn’t have clear-cut pricing plans, but monthly subscription fees start at $2,000 and can go higher depending on your business requirements. Since Plus is an enterprise solution, you’ll need to reach out to Shopify’s team for a custom quote.
Other than expected monthly fees, additional costs include credit card processing fees, developer retainer fees (if you are keen on hiring one—Shopify has a list of accredited Shopify Plus partners you can choose from), and paid apps you add from the Shopify App store.
One of the advantages you get as a Shopify Plus merchant is having lower credit card fees—2.15% plus 30 cents when using Shopify Payments; plus 0.15%–0.30% in transaction fees when using third-party payment providers. You also have access to apps exclusive to Shopify Plus, which we discuss more in detail in the next section below.
Shopify Plus Features
Shopify Plus includes all the features found across all Shopify plans. I cover most of its standout features in my in-depth Shopify review and compare Shopify plans with Shopify Plus in my Shopify vs Shopify Plus guide. Here, I tackle features exclusive to Shopify Plus.
Some exclusive Shopify features include:
- Unlimited bandwidth, test-load checkout (can handle up to 10,000 checkouts per minute), and 99.99% guaranteed server uptime
- Full customization flexibility when it comes to storefront and backend solutions
- Add up to 100 themes to your Shopify account so you can test any new themes, keep seasonal versions of your published theme, or test changes to a copy of your published theme
- The first 20 Shopify POS Pro locations of your storefront
All-in-One Organization Settings
This feature provides additional functions to the Shopify admin in terms of managing users, store/s, finances (billing), and analytics. From here, you can manage and perform actions across multiple stores in your account instead of managing each store individually.
With Shopify Plus, you gain access to:
- Unlimited staff accounts at no additional costs, with additional permission settings for actions your staff can take in your Shopify admin, including separate report export permissions and permissions to specific apps
- Ability to create new stores—up to nine expansion stores for global selling, retail storefronts, and other purposes; support for unlimited development stores
- A single organization billing entity for all stores, instead of managing bills for each store, manage payment for subscriptions, usage fees, and one-time charges with a single payment method
Customizable Checkout
Under the Shopify Plus plan, you have the ability to use checkout extensibility to add apps and customize your checkout pages further with advanced branding customizations that work with Shop Pay. You also have access to the checkout editor—a tool that lets you customize and edit the functionality and the appearance of your checkout, separate from your theme editor.
For example, you can add a logo to your checkout header, add a background image or color to your checkout form and order summary, and customize the font and colors of your checkout page.
With the ability to add apps, you can enhance your checkout with added features—from product upsells to rewards for your most loyal customers.
Take a look at an example of a custom checkout page for a Shopify store. Notice the difference between the default checkout page from the upgraded customer checkout with better branding and colors.
API Resources
Shopify Plus supports additional API resources which you can integrate with custom apps or build your own private app through Shopify Functions. You can request increased API rate limits by contacting support.
Some examples of Shopify Plus API solutions include:
- Gift Card: Unique gift cards that work in the Shopify POS; consider this as an alternative payment method
- Multipass: Unite customer logins for your forum, website, and online store—without the need to synchronize any customer database
- User: Add, remove, edit, and retrieve data about Shopify staff accounts
Some examples of existing platforms you can integrate your stores with include:
- Product information management (PIM)
- Enterprise resource planning (ERP)
- Inventory and order management (IMS and OMS)
- Customer relationship management (CRM)
- Third-party logistics (3PL)
- Warehouse management software (WMS)
- Global fulfillment partners
Specialized Apps & Channels
As a Shopify Plus merchant, you have access to these Shopify apps designed for high-growth merchants. These exclusive apps and channels are the following:
- B2B: A toolkit that lets you sell business-to-business through your online store without the use of third-party apps or workarounds; set customer-specific catalogs, payment terms, and currencies; add a purchase order (PO) number to business-to-business (B2B) orders and draft orders
- Wholesale channel: Create a separate (but unified) storefront from wholesale customers
- Launchpad: Schedule and roll out events like promotions, restocks, and product drops
- Bulk Account Inviter: Ask large groups of users to activate accounts on your store (super helpful for post-migration)
- Shopify QL Notebooks: Understand how your business is performing, create custom reports, and better visualize your business growth
Specialized & Personalized Support
Shopify Plus merchants are automatically included in the Merchant Success Program, where you are assigned a dedicated account manager who serves as your launch engineer during your store setup and migration—from solution engineering to providing ongoing support.
Under the Merchant Success Program, you also have exclusive resources such as:
- A private Facebook community where you can share experiences with other Shopify Plus users
- A directory of Shopify Plus Partners you can consult with to help keep you up to speed with industry trends and help stage events for your online store
- Access to the Shopify Plus Academy—an exclusive program with more advanced self-guided resources like courses and webinars to help you improve your online store’s design, operations, marketing, and more
- Access to exclusive beta programs
What Users Say in Shopify Plus Reviews
Shopify remains the most popular ecommerce platform among online merchants, and this holds true for Shopify Plus. A majority of user reviews gave it glowing reviews, with most of them mentioning that it is an easy-to-use platform for an enterprise solution.
At the time of publication, Shopify Plus reviews earned the following scores on popular user review sites:
- G2: 4.4 out of 5 based on nearly 450 user reviews
- Software Advice: 4.8 out of 5 based on almost 100 user reviews
- Trustradius: 9 out of 10 based on more than 150 user reviews
When reading through Shopify Plus user reviews, I noticed these trends:
Users Like | Users Don’t Like |
---|---|
Easy to use | Expensive |
Great customer support | Integration issues |
Extremely scalable—fast checkout, lower credit card fees, and streamlined customer interface | Need to pay for apps for added functionality |
Shopify Plus Review Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Click through the questions below to get answers to some of your most frequently asked Shopify Plus questions.
Shopify Plus is highly customizable so you can have unlimited stores with one account. Its base plan at $2,000/month supports up to nine expansion stores on top of your ecommerce store.
Shopify Plus doesn’t have a robust content management system (CMS) and its variant attributes are still limited to 100 options, similar to standard Shopify plans.
If you have a high-growth business and have outgrown your standard ecommerce subscription, Shopify Plus provides huge advantages such as lower card processing fees, extremely scalable and customizable features, and a dedicated account manager to help and guide you through navigating your business to new high levels of success.
The main difference between standard Shopify and Shopify Plus subscriptions aside from pricing is the ability to customize one’s store—both on the front end and back end. Shopify Plus has exclusive features such as apps for high-growth businesses, a dedicated account manager, and an exclusive merchant success program.
Bottom Line
What I like about Shopify is its full range of features and tiered pricing to accommodate the budget needs of a startup and also the growing needs of a thriving online store. Shopify Plus, meanwhile, is intended for those businesses that have grown immensely and need a more robust solution to support the demands of their growth. If you are a business on the verge of tipping the scales toward a medium-sized or large enterprise, it is worth making an investment in Shopify Plus.
Remember the ballpark figure—once you are earning more than $600,000 in monthly revenue, it’s time to upgrade to an enterprise solution like Shopify Plus.