How much does a Shopify website cost in 2026?

A Shopify website costs $348 for a year of the Basic plan if you build it yourself on a free theme. If you hire someone to build it, you add a one-time build fee, which at EVDEV starts at CA$3,000 (about US$2,102). Either way you then pay Shopify every month: $29 to $299 for the plan on yearly billing, plus a card fee on every sale. We checked every Shopify price on this page on shopify.com on October 11, 2026.

EVDEV is a Shopify agency in Toronto, and we sell Shopify builds. Every build price on this page is our own published fixed-price floor, in Canadian dollars, with the US-dollar conversion and the date of the rate next to it. We don't repeat other agencies' price ranges that we can't trace to a source.

Pricing a store in Canada? Our Shopify development cost guide for Canada covers build costs in CAD, and Shopify pricing in Canada covers plans and fees in CAD.

How much does a Shopify website cost?

Building it yourself costs the plan fee plus an optional theme: $348 for a year of Basic billed yearly, and $0 or $100 to $500 for the theme. Hiring EVDEV adds a fixed build fee from CA$3,000 (about US$2,102). After launch every approach pays the same Shopify bill: the plan from $29 a month on yearly billing, card fees on each sale and your apps.

The USD figures use the Bank of Canada rate of 1.4271 CAD per US dollar for October 9, 2026. Your bank or card will convert at its own rate on the day you pay.

What does it cost to build a Shopify store yourself?

Building your own Shopify store costs the plan fee and, if you want one, a paid theme. Basic is $39 a month billed monthly, or $29 a month billed yearly ($348 a year). Paid themes in the Shopify Theme Store cost $100 to $500, paid once. Free themes cost nothing.

New stores get a 3-day free trial, then $1 a month for the first 3 months on most plans, and you don't need a credit card to start. Hosting comes with the plan, so there is no separate hosting bill (shopify.com/pricing FAQ).

The real cost of doing it yourself is your time, plus everything you have to get right without help: product data, photos, shipping rules, taxes, page speed and the apps you install. Each app is priced by its developer on its App Store listing, so add up the ones you actually plan to use.

Two other plans show up in search results. The Agentic plan costs $0 a month, but on it you can't publish an online store or take orders through its checkout. Starter isn't available to new stores. For a website, Basic is where you start.

Can you build a Shopify store for under $500?

Yes. On monthly billing with the intro offer, the first year of Basic costs $354: 3 months at $1 plus 9 months at $39. With a free theme you stay at $354. Add the cheapest paid theme at $100 and you reach $454. Neither total includes a domain, apps or the card fee on each sale.

Shopify's pricing page doesn't say whether the $1 offer also applies when you pick yearly billing. A full year of Basic billed yearly is $348.

What does a Shopify freelancer charge?

Freelancers set their own prices, by the hour or per task. Advertised rates in August 2026 ran from about $15 to $45 an hour for marketplace freelancers and about $60 to $150 for independent contractors. Those ranges come from our guide to what a Shopify expert costs, which also explains the four kinds of Shopify help and how each one usually bills.

A freelancer is often the cheapest way to get a bounded task done, such as a theme tweak, a size chart or a product import. The risk is in work that needs judgment, testing on real devices, or someone who is still around after launch. Ask for a fixed price against a written task list, and ask who tests the result.

What does a Shopify agency charge?

EVDEV's fixed-price projects start at CA$3,000 for development, CA$2,500 for design and CA$2,000 for migration. At the Bank of Canada rate above, that is about US$2,102, US$1,752 and US$1,401. These are published floors in Canadian dollars. The quote for your store can be higher, and you get it in writing before work starts.

Every project includes 3 months of post-launch support, and the monthly support plan after that is optional. See what each service covers on the design, development and migration pages.

In the same guide, small specialist agencies advertise about $100 to $200 an hour, above most freelancers, because you also pay for scoping, project management, QA and cover when someone is away. On a migration or a store with integrations, that overhead is what keeps the launch on schedule. On a one-line theme fix, you don't need it.

Theme customization vs a custom theme: what the price difference buys

Customizing an existing theme costs less than building a custom one, and it suits most stores. A Theme Store theme costs $100 to $500 and already handles the cart, search, filters and mobile layouts, so the build budget goes into your sections, content and brand.

A custom theme is worth paying for when your merchandising doesn't fit any theme: bundles and configurators, an unusual catalog structure, B2B and retail on one storefront, or a speed target the theme can't meet. We quote theme work from the same CA$3,000 development floor, and the written scope decides which of the two you need.

Headless builds on Hydrogen cost more than either, because they add a second codebase to build and maintain. Few stores need one.

What drives the cost of a Shopify website?

Scope drives the price: how many templates and custom sections you need, how messy your data is, and how many other systems the store has to talk to. The list below runs roughly in the order these items move a quote.

• Templates and custom sections. Each page type (home, collection, product, landing pages) and each section built from scratch adds design and development time. Reusing the theme's sections keeps the price down.
• Catalog structure. Product count matters less than structure. Many options per product, metafields and filters take more setup than a large catalog of similar products.
• Migration. Moving products, customers and orders from another platform, plus a 301 redirect for every old URL, is its own line item. Our migrations start at CA$2,000. See what a Shopify migration costs.
• Integrations. An ERP, a 3PL, accounting, reviews, or email and SMS tools such as Klaviyo. Each connection needs field mapping, error handling and testing, and it is often the largest single item on a quote.
• B2B and wholesale. Company accounts, catalogs and payment terms. Basic, Grow and Advanced include up to 3 B2B catalogs. Plus has no limit.
• Markets and languages. Each extra currency, language or region adds content, pricing rules and testing.
• Content. Product copy and photography are the items most often missing from a quote. Ask who supplies them.
• Accessibility, speed and SEO targets. A written target, such as WCAG 2.1 AA or a Core Web Vitals budget, takes time to meet and to test.

None of these adds a fixed percentage. Two stores with the same number of products can get very different quotes because one needs an ERP integration and the other doesn't.

What does a Shopify website cost every month?

After launch you pay the Shopify plan ($29 to $299 a month on yearly billing, below Plus), a card fee on every sale, your apps, and any support you buy. The plan fee is fixed. Card fees grow with sales, and in all three budgets below they are the larger number.

Shopify plan fees in the US

Yearly billing saves $120 a year on Basic, $312 on Grow and $1,200 on Advanced. Plus is a term contract; Shopify Plus pricing covers it in detail. Prices are from shopify.com/pricing, checked October 11, 2026.

Card processing and transaction fees

With Shopify Payments you pay one card rate per order and no transaction fee. If you use a third-party payment provider instead, Shopify adds its own fee on top of what that provider charges: 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow, 0.6% on Advanced and 0.2% on Plus.

International cards cost an extra 1% on every plan. Shopify's US page lists it as "+ 1%", which we read as one percentage point on top of the rate shown. Selling in another currency through Shopify Payments adds a 1.5% currency conversion fee for US stores. A chargeback costs $15, which you get back if you win it. Card fees and the third-party fee are not returned when you refund an order.

If a third-party provider is your main card processor, payments that still run through Shopify Payments (Shop Pay or local payment methods, for example) cost the standard rate plus a 1.25% premium.

To see your own numbers, enter your sales and average order value in our Shopify fee calculator.

Apps, POS and other running costs

Apps are billed by their developers, monthly or by usage, and this is the line that tends to grow without anyone noticing. Selling in person adds POS Pro at $89 a month per location on Basic, Grow and Advanced. Casual in-person selling is included on every paid plan, and Plus includes 20 POS Pro locations. A custom domain is a yearly charge from whichever registrar you buy it from.

How much does Shopify website maintenance cost?

Maintenance is optional, and whoever does it sets the price. Every EVDEV build includes 3 months of post-launch support: bug fixes, content updates, speed monitoring, small design changes and SEO adjustments. After that, our monthly support plan starts at CA$299 a month, about US$210.

If you maintain the store yourself, set aside time for app and theme updates, and check the store when Shopify changes a feature you rely on. Hosting and platform updates are Shopify's job.

Three worked Shopify budgets

Here are three stores with the arithmetic shown. Shopify figures are US list prices checked October 11, 2026. Build lines use EVDEV's published CAD floors, converted as above. The sales figures and order values are made up for the example, so swap in your own. Each budget has an apps line with no figure: add your own list at each app's listed price, plus your domain, so the total isn't read as all-in.

A new DTC brand with 30 products

Assumptions: the store sells online only, to US customers paying with standard cards through Shopify Payments. It makes $10,000 a month in sales at a $50 average order, which is 200 orders a month, on Basic billed yearly.

Grow would cost $30 a month more here: $79 + 2.7% × $10,000 + $60 = $409. On yearly billing, Grow's lower card rate covers its higher plan fee once you sell about $25,000 a month online: ($79 − $29) ÷ 0.2%.

If you build it yourself instead, you drop the build fee and spend your own time, plus $100 to $500 if you buy a paid theme.

A WooCommerce store moving to Shopify

Assumptions: $40,000 a month in online card sales at an $80 average order (500 orders), a redesign done alongside the move, and Grow billed yearly.

On Basic the same month would cost $29 + 2.9% × $40,000 + $150 = $1,339, so Grow saves $30.

Keeping your current payment gateway changes the math. Shopify would charge a 1% third-party fee, which is $400 a month at this volume, on top of the gateway's own fees. Card processing through Shopify Payments costs $1,230 here, so the old gateway only comes out ahead if its fees on the same 500 orders total less than $830 a month ($1,230 − $400). That is under 2.075% of sales, per-order fees included.

After the 3 included months of support, 9 months of our monthly support plan would add CA$2,691 (9 × CA$299), about US$1,886. Our WooCommerce to Shopify migration guide covers what moves across and what doesn't.

A B2B and wholesale catalog

Assumptions: $150,000 a month in sales. $60,000 of that is retail, paid online by standard card through Shopify Payments at a $120 average order (500 orders). The other $90,000 is wholesale, paid by bank transfer against an invoice. Data moves from an existing platform, and an ERP needs connecting.

A bank transfer is a manual payment method, so Shopify takes no card fee and no third-party fee on that $90,000.

On fees alone, Grow is $100 a month cheaper than Advanced for this store. Advanced's lower card rate only covers its higher plan fee above $110,000 a month in online card sales: ($299 − $79) ÷ 0.2%. Choose Advanced if you need 15 staff accounts instead of 5, or higher API limits, and know that those cost you $100 a month here.

Basic, Grow and Advanced all include up to 3 B2B catalogs. If you need more price lists than that, you need Plus, which has no catalog limit. Our Plus projects range from CA$15,000 to CA$150,000 (about US$10,511 to US$105,108), and Shopify Plus pricing covers what Shopify charges for Plus.

Is Shopify cheaper than other platforms?

Shopify's Basic plan costs $29 to $39 a month with hosting included; a self-hosted store such as WooCommerce has no plan fee but pays for hosting, plugins and developer time. Whether Shopify costs less overall depends on how many developer hours your self-hosted store needs each month to stay patched and fast.

On a marketplace such as Etsy you pay the marketplace's fees and don't have to run a website. On Shopify you pay a plan fee and card fees, and you own the storefront and the customer list.

If you run WooCommerce today, add up your hosting, plugin licenses and developer hours, and compare that total with the Shopify plan and card fees in the budgets above. The Shopify migration cost guide covers the one-time side.

How do you get an accurate Shopify quote?

Send a written brief that covers your catalog, your integrations, the data you need to move and your deadline. Then ask for a fixed price that lists its assumptions. Quotes built from the same brief can be compared line by line. Quotes built from a phone call can't.

What to send:

1. Product count, variants per product, and how your products are organized.
2. Every system the store connects to: ERP, 3PL, accounting, email, reviews, subscriptions.
3. What moves from the old store: products, customers, orders, blog posts and URLs.
4. The pages and templates you need, with two or three reference sites and what you like about each one.
5. Who supplies the copy and the photos.
6. Your launch date, and whether it can move.

What to ask:

1. Is it a fixed price or hourly, and what happens if the scope changes?
2. What is excluded? Content, photography, apps and the theme license are the usual gaps.
3. Who tests, and on which devices and browsers?
4. For a migration, is a 301 redirect map included?
5. Will you work through a collaborator account and a staging copy of the store?
6. Who owns the code at the end?
7. What support is included after launch, and for how long?

Here is how we quote: a 30-minute call, then a written fixed-price proposal in Canadian dollars. You can book the call directly.

Frequently asked questions

Does it cost money to make a Shopify website?

Yes. Shopify gives you a 3-day free trial, then $1 a month for 3 months on most plans, but you need a paid plan to publish the store. Basic is $39 a month, or $29 a month billed yearly. The $0 Agentic plan can't publish an online store.

Do you pay for hosting on Shopify?

There is no separate hosting bill. Hosting comes with every Shopify plan, so the plan fee covers it. You still pay for a domain, any paid theme and your apps.

How much does a custom Shopify theme cost?

A paid Theme Store theme costs $100 to $500, paid once. A custom or heavily customized theme is a development project. It is quoted from the same CA$3,000 development floor as above, takes 3 to 10 weeks, and is priced against a written scope.

How long does it take to build a Shopify store?

At EVDEV, design projects take 2 to 6 weeks, development 3 to 10 weeks and migrations 2 to 8 weeks. A store you build yourself on a theme can go live once products, payments and shipping are set up. How long that takes depends on your catalog and your time.

How much does Shopify take from a $100 sale?

On Basic with Shopify Payments, Shopify takes $3.20 on a standard US card: 2.9% of $100 plus 30¢. A premium card costs $3.80 and an international card $4.20. With a third-party gateway on Basic, Shopify takes $2 and the gateway charges its own fee on top. The fee calculator works this out for your plan.

What is the downside of Shopify?

The costs grow as you sell. Card fees scale with sales, a third-party gateway adds 0.2% to 2% on top of its own fees, apps add monthly bills, and card fees aren't refunded when you refund an order. Subscription fees are generally non-refundable, and checkout customization is limited below Plus.

Does a Shopify website cost more in Canada?

Canadian stores pay Shopify in CAD. Basic is CA$49 a month, or CA$37 billed yearly, and online card rates start at 2.8% + 30¢. Our Canadian Shopify development cost guide and Shopify pricing in Canada cover the CAD side.

Sources and how we checked

We read every Shopify price and fee on the pages below on October 11, 2026. Shopify shows prices by visitor location, so we confirmed the US prices three ways: a server-side render of the US page, Google US results, and the help center's Plus price table.

• Plans, card rates, third-party fees, POS Pro, hosting: shopify.com/pricing
• Freelancer and agency hourly ranges: our guide to what a Shopify expert costs, August 2026
• Plus terms: Shopify Plus plan, Shopify Help Center
• Third-party transaction fee rules: Shopify Help Center
• Shopify Payments alongside a third-party gateway: Shopify Help Center
• Currency conversion fee: Shopify Help Center
• Chargeback fee: Shopify Help Center
• Theme prices: Shopify Theme Store, paid themes
• Exchange rate: Bank of Canada daily exchange rates, October 9, 2026
• EVDEV floors and timelines: our Shopify experts service pages