by Shopify Inc.E-commerce platforms
A hosted online store with its own payments, POS and sales channels, from Basic at $29 a month billed yearly, with card rates that fall on higher plans.
A store, its payments, in-person selling and the main sales channels in one admin, with card rates that fall as you move up a plan.
Every Shopify plan includes unlimited products, a custom domain, abandoned checkout recovery, gift cards, local-currency prices, casual in-person selling and channels for Google, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, with Amazon, eBay and Walmart through Shopify’s own Marketplace Connect. Shopify Payments is built in, so there is no separate gateway to sign up for, and Shopify is certified PCI DSS Level 1 for the stores it hosts. Subscriptions and digital downloads come through free first-party apps, and products, orders and customers export to CSV on every plan.
Against 3 other products we reviewed in E-commerce platforms: what you pay for with each, the five access facts, the plan limits we recorded and each review's bottom line. The note under the table says how each one was checked.
| Metric | Shopify | Square Online | Ecwid | BigCommerce |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| What you're paying for | Built-in reachA store, its payments, in-person selling and the main sales channels in one admin, with card rates that fall as you move up a plan. | Worth the priceAn online store that shares one catalog, customer list and payments account with Square POS, free to start and taking real orders. | Worth the priceA store you can add to the website you already have, with no Ecwid transaction fee and abandoned cart emails and subscriptions from $49 a month. | Built-in reachA hosted store with unlimited staff and products on every plan, marketplace channels built in and ISO 27001 behind it. |
| Overall score | 7.5 | 7.7Best | 6.1 | 6.0 |
| Free option | 3-day free trial | Free plan | Paid only | 15-day free trial |
| Card to start | No card needed | –Not measured | –Not measured | No card needed |
| Getting access | Self-serve | Self-serve | Self-serve | Self-serve |
| Starter priceCheapest paid plan | $29/mo | $49/location/mo | $5/mo | $29/mo |
| Pricing model | Flat rate | Flat rate | Flat rate | Tiered |
| Pricing page | Public prices | Public prices | Public prices | Public prices |
| Billing unit | Flat monthly plan per store, plus card processing | Monthly plan per location, plus card processing | Flat monthly plan per store, plus card processing | Flat monthly plan per store, tied to annual sales (GMV caps), plus card processing |
| Free option | No free store plan; 3-day trial, no card, then $1/mo for 3 months on most plans | Square Free with real orders (unlimited products, square.site address); 30-day trial of Plus or Premium | No free plan for new sign-ups; no trial listed; Starter $5/mo | No free plan; 15-day trial, no card |
| Reference scenario ($10K/mo, 2 staff, annual) | $409/mo on Grow ($79 + $270 + $60), computed | $399/mo on Square Plus ($49 + $290 + $60), computed; monthly billing only | $399/mo on Business ($49 + $290 + $60), computed | $598/mo on Scale ($299 + $239 + $60), computed; Growth’s $100K sales cap is exceeded |
| Month-to-month price | $39 / $105 / $399 for Basic, Grow and Advanced | $0 / $49 / $149 per location for Free, Plus and Premium | $5 / $35 / $65 / $149 for Starter, Venture, Business and Unlimited | $39 / $105 / $399 for Core, Growth and Scale |
| US online card rate | 2.9% + 30¢ (Basic), 2.7% + 30¢ (Grow), 2.5% + 30¢ (Advanced) | 3.3% + 30¢ (Free), 2.9% + 30¢ (Plus and Premium) | 2.9% + 30¢ on Lightspeed Payments, every plan | 2.89% + 30¢ (Core), 2.59% + 30¢ (Growth), 2.39% + 30¢ (Scale) |
| Fee with another payment provider | 2% / 1% / 0.6% (Plus 0.2%) | Checkout lists only Square payments | $0 on Ecwid pages; Lightspeed agreement sets a monthly fee for eligible customers | 2.0% / 1.0% / 0.6% on Open Payment Providers; 0% on 21 embedded providers |
| Products and staff | Unlimited products; staff 0 / 5 / 15 / unlimited | Unlimited items; team members on every plan, no limit stated | 10 / 100 / 2,500 / unlimited products; staff 0 / 0 / 2 / unlimited | Unlimited products and staff accounts on every plan |
| Abandoned cart recovery | Every plan | Square Plus and up | Business and up | Growth and up |
| Selling channels | POS, Google, Meta, TikTok on every plan; Amazon, eBay, Walmart via Marketplace Connect | Square POS, Facebook, Instagram and Google listings on every plan | Facebook, Instagram, Google listings; marketplaces through third-party apps; mobile POS | Amazon, eBay, Walmart built in; Google and Meta through Feedonomics; POS through apps |
| PCI / SOC 2 / ISO 27001 | PCI DSS Level 1; SOC 2 Type II; ISO 27001 not stated | PCI DSS Level 1; SOC 2 not stated on a public page; ISO 27001 | PCI DSS Level 1; SOC 2 Type II (Lightspeed E-Series); ISO 27001 not stated | PCI DSS Level 1; SOC 2 (type not stated); ISO/IEC 27001:2022 |
| Data export | CSV of products, orders and customers; Admin API on every plan | Items and customers to CSV; order export not stated; Square APIs and webhooks | CSV of products, orders and customers from Venture; REST API on paid plans | CSV or XML of products, orders and customers; API and webhooks on every plan |
| Data after closing | Kept 2 years after deactivation | No fixed retention period stated | Erased when the account is deleted; $12.50/mo Suspension plan | Deleted 30 days after cancellation |
| Bottom line | From its public pages, Shopify has the broadest set of selling features here on the plan our scenario needs, with PCI Level 1, SOC 2 Type II and a 2-year data window. Staff accounts start on Grow, and a store that uses another payment provider pays Shopify a fee on top. | From its public pages, Square Online offers the most complete free start here: a store with unlimited items that takes real orders and shares Square’s POS and payments, with Plus at $49 for a custom domain and cart emails. Live shipping rates need Premium, and payments are in one currency. | From its public pages, Ecwid is a low-cost way to add a store to an existing site, with cart emails, subscriptions and full CSV export from $49 a month. There is no free plan or trial, and whether Lightspeed’s monthly fee for other payment providers applies to Ecwid stores is worth asking. | From its public pages, BigCommerce puts unlimited staff, reviews and marketplace channels on every plan and lets you keep your own processor. Plans are tied to sales, so our $10,000-a-month store lands on Scale, and several pages disagree on trial and billing details. |
Evidence: Shopify: facts checked 2026-10-16 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run; Square Online: facts checked 2026-10-16 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run; Ecwid: facts checked 2026-10-16 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run; BigCommerce: facts checked 2026-10-16 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run. Prices in USD as listed, excluding tax. "–" means not recorded.
Review from public pages
Written from Shopify's public pages (pricing, security or privacy, and docs) as read on Oct 16, 2026. We did not sign up, and no hands-on run is published yet.
We read Shopify's pricing page and plan table, the Plus pricing page, the security, PCI and compliance-report pages, the terms, Payments terms and DPA, help center articles on plans, staff limits, the free trial, the Agentic plan, carrier-calculated shipping, card rates, Shopify Tax, CSV exports, activity logs, two-step authentication, SAML, domain transfers, store deactivation and refunds, and the App Store listings for subscriptions, digital products and channels on Oct 16, 2026. We did not start a trial for this review.
From our location shopify.com/pricing shows a regional price list in US dollars without card rates, and adding a US country parameter does not change it. We therefore took the US list prices and card rates from the Internet Archive copy of the same page from Oct 1, 2026: Basic $29, Grow $79 and Advanced $299 a month billed yearly, or $39, $105 and $399 month to month, with online card rates of 2.9%, 2.7% and 2.5% + 30¢.
The plan table is detailed, and a few points need a question. The trial is 3 days on the pricing page, but the help center says its length can vary and stores made with AI tools get about 4 months. The terms say there are no refunds, while the help center describes refund review windows. Grow can add carrier-calculated shipping for a monthly fee the pages do not price, or get it by billing yearly.
Carrier-calculated rates (on Grow billed yearly), gift cards, free first-party subscriptions, local-currency prices, in-person selling and marketplace and social channels are all available on the scenario plan.
vs Square Online: Square Online puts real-time shipping rates on Premium and has no multi-currency pricing; BigCommerce needs apps for subscriptions and POS.
The plan table lists unlimited products from Basic, with up to 2,048 variants and three options per product in the help center.
vs Ecwid: Big Cartel allows 500 products on Diamond; Ecwid allows 2,500 on Business.
PCI DSS Level 1 covering each store, SOC 2 Type II and SOC 3 reports, a DPA built into the terms and two-step authentication for staff.
vs BigCommerce: BigCommerce does not state whether its SOC 2 reports are Type II; Ecwid documents no native two-factor login.
The help center says a deactivated store’s information is guaranteed for 2 years, and a Shopify-managed domain can be transferred out even when the store is paused.
vs BigCommerce: BigCommerce deletes data 30 days after cancellation; Ecwid erases data when the account is deleted.
The help center lists 0 staff accounts on Basic, 5 on Grow and 15 on Advanced. Collaborator accounts do not count toward the limit.
Workaround: A one-person store can run on Basic; for our scenario with 2 staff, Grow is the cheapest plan.
Stores that use a provider other than Shopify Payments pay Shopify 2% (Basic), 1% (Grow) or 0.6% (Advanced) of each order, besides the provider’s own fees.
Workaround: Shopify Payments has no extra fee; PayPal Wallet is listed from 3.49% + 49¢.
Shopify Tax is free on the first $100,000 of lifetime sales, then charges 0.35% for stores created since May 13, 2026, capped at $0.99 per order; marketplace orders beyond 50 a month cost 1%, capped at $99.
Workaround: Both rates and caps are published, so they can be budgeted before launch.
Shopify’s first-party Product Reviews app is no longer available in the App Store, so reviews come from third-party apps.
Shopify bills a flat plan per store plus card processing. For our scenario, Basic does not qualify because it has no staff accounts, so the store needs Grow: $79 a month billed yearly, plus 2.7% of $10,000 ($270) and 30¢ on 200 orders ($60), $409 a month (computed); month to month, $435. Business cards and American Express are charged the premium rate, 3.3% + 30¢ on Grow, and international cards 1% more. Without staff, Basic would come to $379 (computed). Costs rise with Shopify Tax after $100,000 of lifetime sales, marketplace orders above 50 a month, paid themes and apps, and POS Pro at $89 per location. The $1-a-month offer for the first 3 months is an introductory price; we used the regular price.
Products, orders and customers export to CSV on every plan (customer files up to 15 MB; large exports are emailed), but product images are not in the product CSV and blog posts and pages have no native export. The Admin API is on every plan. A deactivated store’s data is kept 2 years, and a Shopify-managed domain can be transferred out. Plan changes take effect at the end of the billing cycle.
From its public pages, Shopify has the broadest set of selling features here on the plan our scenario needs, with PCI Level 1, SOC 2 Type II and a 2-year data window. Staff accounts start on Grow, and a store that uses another payment provider pays Shopify a fee on top.
| Limit | As recorded |
|---|---|
| Billing unit | Flat monthly plan per store, plus card processing |
| Free option | No free store plan; 3-day trial, no card, then $1/mo for 3 months on most plans |
| Reference scenario ($10K/mo, 2 staff, annual) | $409/mo on Grow ($79 + $270 + $60), computed |
| Month-to-month price | $39 / $105 / $399 for Basic, Grow and Advanced |
| US online card rate | 2.9% + 30¢ (Basic), 2.7% + 30¢ (Grow), 2.5% + 30¢ (Advanced) |
| Fee with another payment provider | 2% / 1% / 0.6% (Plus 0.2%) |
| Products and staff | Unlimited products; staff 0 / 5 / 15 / unlimited |
| Abandoned cart recovery | Every plan |
| Selling channels | POS, Google, Meta, TikTok on every plan; Amazon, eBay, Walmart via Marketplace Connect |
| PCI / SOC 2 / ISO 27001 | PCI DSS Level 1; SOC 2 Type II; ISO 27001 not stated |
| Data export | CSV of products, orders and customers; Admin API on every plan |
| Data after closing | Kept 2 years after deactivation |
Read from the vendor's public pages on Oct 16, 2026. No hands-on run is published yet. How we check
We have not published a sign-up run for Shopify yet. The access facts above were read from its sign-up and pricing pages on Oct 16, 2026.
We have not published API calls for Shopify yet.
Shopify lists 4 plans. The cheapest paid plan, Basic (billed yearly), costs $29/mo.
Prices as listed, USD, excluding tax; observed 2026-10-16.
Source: shopify.com pricing page. Prices change; the observed date above is when our agent read them.
We read the pricing, payments, trust, legal and help center pages of three online-store platforms on the same day and scored them on the same six indicators. What a store selling $10,000 a month pays, where staff, cart emails and shipping rates sit, and who should pick which.
