The 2026 price model, and the break-even math

First the sticker prices, then the math that matters. Note that Plus pricing changed structure — plenty of comparison articles still describe the old model.

• 01
  The 2026 lineup: Basic $39/mo ($29 annual), Grow $105 ($79), Advanced $399 ($299), Plus from $2,500/mo on a 1-year term or $2,300 on 3-year. Plus now covers up to $1M in monthly GMV before a 0.25% variable fee kicks in, with caps negotiable above $100M annual GMV. The older $2,000 base with an $800K threshold still appears in circulating guides. It's the pre-change model, and Shopify now negotiates variable terms per contract.
• 02
  The working delta is $1,901/mo — Plus at $2,300 (3-year) against Advanced annual at $399 monthly-equivalent pricing conventions used across agency comparisons, or roughly $23–24K per year. Every upgrade case has to clear this number with fee savings, app replacement, or conversion gains.
• 03
  The single most useful line: third-party gateway surcharges run 0.6% on Advanced vs 0.2% on Plus. On Shopify Payments both plans pay 0% surcharge, and Plus gets the better base rate (2.15% + 30¢, negotiable, vs 2.5% on Advanced). If you're locked into an external gateway, this delta does most of your math for you.
• 04
  At $1M annual revenue, Plus usually loses. Ringly's calculation: fee savings cover only about $3,500 of the ~$24K annual subscription delta. Plus at this level costs roughly 2.3% of revenue, justifiable only if a specific Plus feature is in heavy, measurable use.
• 05
  At $3M annual revenue on a third-party gateway, the math turns. Advanced at 0.6% costs ~$15K/year in surcharges after the base fee; Plus cuts that to ~$5K and the gap covers roughly half the delta before you count a single feature. Add $1,500+/mo of Advanced-plan apps doing B2B, automation, or checkout work and Plus's effective cost drops below what you already pay.
• 06
  Shopify's internal benchmark says brands typically upgrade around $80K/mo in sales (~$960K/year). Practitioner consensus puts the real ROI inflection at $1–2M annual GMV — later than the benchmark, earlier than most operators assume. A brand at $1.5M with a fast-growing wholesale channel should evaluate now; a $2M pure-DTC brand with simple checkout needs can wait. Run your own inputs through the ECM platform calculator before any agency call.
• 07
  A $399 first-month Plus trial now exists. Useful for pressure-testing the admin and B2B setup against your real catalog before committing to a multi-year term. Shopify doesn't charge for the plan migration itself; the theme, app, and integration work is on you.

What moved down the ladder, and what stayed at the top

Shopify has quietly democratized several formerly-Plus capabilities. Knowing which ones is how you avoid paying $23K/year for features you already have.

Now on every paid plan

• →
  Core B2B, since April 2, 2026: company accounts, company locations, catalogs, net payment terms, quantity rules, quick ordering, and B2B automations. If your wholesale motion is a price list and net-30 terms, you no longer need Plus for it.
• →
  Most visual checkout customization. Checkout Extensibility apps deliver branding, trust badges, and field additions on lower tiers now. Agencies are explicit about this one: don't upgrade to Plus purely for checkout branding anymore.
• →
  The one-page checkout and Shop Pay — the conversion engines — work identically on every plan. Shopify's 15% average checkout conversion edge over competing platforms is a platform property, not a Plus perk — how it compares to other platforms is covered across the ECM platform reviews.

Still Plus-only in 2026

• →
  Full Checkout Extensibility depth: the Checkout Branding API, Shopify Functions at full capability for dynamic discount logic and tiered pricing, custom fields, buyer-type personalization, and — new in the Winter 2026 Edition — per-market checkout flows serving different countries or B2B segments from one store. Merchants report checkout running up to 50% faster than legacy Scripts implementations.
• →
  Expansion stores: up to 10 storefronts under one organization (additional stores $250/mo each), with centralized admin. This is the feature that decides multi-region and multi-brand architectures.
• →
  Enterprise B2B depth: unlimited catalogs, direct catalog assignment to companies, deposits, partial payments, and payment requests per fulfillment. Partial payments alone change cash flow for made-to-order and high-ticket wholesale.
• →
  Launchpad for scheduling flash sales, drops, and coordinated storefront changes — it has powered over $3B in sales since 2017 and typically replaces several paid apps for brands running four or more scheduled campaigns a year.
• →
  Materially higher API limits (agencies cite 5–10x depending on resource), unlimited staff accounts vs 15 on Advanced, priority support, and a 99.99% uptime commitment with throughput past 10,000 transactions per minute. This is what your ERP, PIM, and 3PL syncs feel at peak. Audit where your current stack actually throttles with a proper tech stack audit before assuming you need it.

The June 30 deadline that reshaped this comparison

2026 is the year Shopify finished rebuilding its customization layer. Two dates did the reshaping.

• 01
  Shopify Scripts and checkout.liquid were permanently retired on June 30, 2026. Every custom checkout behavior now runs on Shopify Functions and Checkout Extensibility. Plus stores that hadn't migrated legacy Scripts faced a forced rebuild this year; if yours still has unconverted logic, that's the first project, not the upgrade evaluation.
• 02
  Since August 28, 2025, even Thank You and Order Status page customizations require Checkout Extensibility. Direct HTML/CSS editing of checkout is gone on every plan. The practical effect: checkout work is now developer work (React-based UI extensions), which is worth knowing before budgeting a Plus rollout.
• 03
  Functions is where the real Plus advantage sits. Discount stacking, B2B-specific logic, delivery and payment customization by segment — the programmable layer runs at full capability on Plus. On standard plans you approximate this with apps, at $30–$300/mo each, with each app adding checkout latency.
• 04
  Automation depth compounds quietly. Merchants report saving 20+ hours weekly through Flow automation at scale — VIP tagging, high-risk order routing, restock alerts, loyalty tiers. The honest threshold from agency practice: when your ops team spends 15–20 manual hours a week on work Flow and Functions could absorb, the labor math starts covering the plan delta on its own. Measure it against your KPI baseline, not a feeling.

When Advanced is the right answer, and when Plus wins

Both mistakes cost real money. Here are the honest profiles, assembled from agency data rather than Shopify's sales page.

Stay on Advanced when

• →
  You're under roughly $1M–$2M annual GMV on Shopify Payments with no multi-store requirement. The fee delta barely moves and the features you'd pay for sit idle. Reinvesting the $23K/year into marketing or a developer usually beats the upgrade.
• →
  Your B2B needs fit what April 2026 put on every plan: company accounts, catalogs, net terms. Simple wholesale no longer justifies Plus.
• →
  Your checkout ambitions are visual. Branding, trust signals, and field tweaks are achievable on Advanced through extensibility apps; upgrade for programmable checkout logic, not aesthetics — and if conversion is the actual goal, a CRO specialist on your current plan often beats a plan change. The ECM Shopify review covers what each plan's checkout actually permits.

Move to Plus when

• →
  You clear $1M monthly GMV or you're on a third-party gateway at $3M+ annual revenue, where the 0.6%-to-0.2% surcharge drop plus app consolidation covers most of the delta before conversion gains are counted.
• →
  Wholesale exceeds roughly 20% of revenue and needs unlimited catalogs, deposits, or partial payments — the B2B depth that stayed exclusive. Or you're launching regional storefronts and expansion stores replace duct-taped multi-store workarounds.
• →
  You run four or more coordinated campaigns a year (Launchpad territory), your integrations hit API throttling at peak, or your Advanced-plan app bill for B2B, automation, and checkout work exceeds $1,500/mo. At that point you're paying Plus prices for an Advanced experience. A vetted Plus implementation partner can pressure-test the case before you sign.

If you upgrade: timeline, sequencing, and contract terms

The upgrade itself is not the risk. Activating everything at once, and signing without written terms, are.

• 01
  A standard Advanced-to-Plus migration runs 8–12 weeks with clean data. No replatforming, same store, same URLs — the time goes into checkout extensibility work, Functions conversion, B2B configuration, and QA. Budget agency support for the React-based checkout work specifically; the rest is manageable in-house.
• 02
  Sequence the rollout in phases. Agencies that run these weekly report that activating checkout customization, Functions, B2B, and expansion stores simultaneously creates a debugging mess where nothing can be isolated. Foundation first (checkout migration, Scripts-to-Functions), then automation, then expansion. Phased rollouts shave 3–4 weeks off launches in agency data.
• 03
  Get the variable-fee terms in writing: the exact GMV threshold, the percentage, the cap, and the downgrade conditions. Shopify negotiates these per contract now, and verbal commitments don't survive renewal. This is the single most repeated piece of advice from agencies who've watched the renewals.
• 04
  Downgrading is possible and non-destructive. Store data and products survive; you lose Plus-exclusive features (expansion stores, full extensibility, enterprise B2B, elevated API limits). Knowing the exit is clean should lower the anxiety on a borderline decision — the $399 first-month trial lowers it further.
• 05
  Measure the result or the upgrade never ends. Set your pre-upgrade baseline on checkout conversion, ops hours, and app spend, then compare at 90 days. ECM tracks how these platform economics shift in weekly Insights; the plan you're on should be a standing quarterly review item, not a one-time decision.