The 2026 Guide to Shopify Plus: When to Upgrade (And When to Wait)

Your Shopify store is growing. Maybe you're doing $50K a month, maybe $150K. Either way, you keep hearing about Shopify Plus and wondering if it's time to make the jump.

The short answer? It depends. Plus costs $2,300-$2,500 per month, which is a lot more than the $399 you're paying for Advanced. So let's cut through the marketing speak and figure out if it actually makes sense for your business.

What You Actually Get with Shopify Plus

Shopify Plus is the enterprise version of Shopify. The biggest differences:

Unlimited staff accounts (Advanced caps at 15). Ten expansion stores are included, great for running separate sites for different countries or a B2B store. You can actually customize your checkout page. Something you can't do on regular Shopify. Lower transaction fees that add up with volume. Priority support and a dedicated account manager. Shopify Flow for automating repetitive tasks.

Plus, can handle significant traffic spikes without breaking. We're talking 10,000+ checkouts per minute, which matters if you're running flash sales or your products go viral.

What It Really Costs

Here's where it gets interesting. The base price is $2,300/month for a 3-year commitment, or $2,500/month for a 1-year contract.

But once you reach $800K in monthly revenue, Shopify switches to charging you 0.25% of sales. That caps at $40,000/month, so you won't get a surprise $100K bill if you have a massive month.

The transaction fees are lower as well. With Shopify Payments, you pay 2.15% + 30¢ per transaction instead of 2.4%. Using a different payment processor? You only pay 0.15% instead of 0.5%. At scale, these savings start to offset the higher monthly cost.

Don't forget the hidden costs, though. Apps, custom development work, migration, if you're coming from another platform, all of this adds up. Budget at least a few thousand extra for the first few months.

When Plus Actually Makes Sense

You're doing $80K-$100K+ per month consistently

This is the most common benchmark. At this revenue level, the fee savings alone start to justify the cost. A store doing $100K/month saves roughly $250/month in processing fees alone. As you grow past $150K or $200K, Plus starts to save you money.

Your team needs more than 15 logins

Shopify Advanced is limited to 15 staff accounts. If you've got customer service reps, warehouse staff, marketing team members, and contractors who all need access, you'll hit that limit fast. Plus gives you unlimited accounts with better permission controls.

Traffic spikes are killing your sales

If your store crashes during Black Friday or when you run a big promotion, you're losing money. Plus was built to handle massive traffic without slowing down. Regular Shopify plans work well for most traffic, but if you're running flash sales or product drops that create significant spikes, Plus eliminates that risk.

You're expanding to other countries

Running separate stores for different regions is a pain on regular Shopify. Plus gives you 10 expansion stores included, so you can have a UK store, an EU store, and an Australian store, all managed from one dashboard with proper currency and language support. If international is part of your growth plan, this feature alone can justify the upgrade.

Checkout optimization matters to your conversion rate

Regular Shopify locks down the checkout page. You can't add upsells, you can't customize the layout, you can't really do anything. Plus lets you modify checkout however you want. If you've been frustrated by checkout limitations and think customization could improve your conversion rate, that's a good reason to upgrade.

You're adding B2B or wholesale

Plus has built-in B2B features. Wholesale pricing, custom catalogs for different buyers, bulk ordering, and payment terms. If you're planning to add a wholesale channel alongside your regular store, Plus makes it much easier than trying to build it on a standard plan.

When You Should Definitely Wait

You're under $80K/month

Below this threshold, the math just doesn't work. You're paying an extra $2,000+ per month for features you probably don't need yet. Stay on Advanced, invest that money in marketing or product development, and revisit when you're consistently hitting higher numbers.

You don't have a developer

Many Plus features, especially checkout customization and advanced automation, require someone who can write code. If you're a solo operator or a small team without access to developers, you won't get full value from Plus. It's like buying a sports car when you only know how to drive automatic.

Your current setup works fine

Sounds obvious, but worth saying: if you're not hitting any walls with your current plan, don't upgrade. Plus solves specific problems. If those aren't your problems, save your money.

You're still figuring things out

Plus requires a contract, either 1- or 3-year. If your business model is still evolving, you're testing different products or markets, or things feel uncertain, the flexibility of Advanced's month-to-month pricing is likely more valuable than the Plus features. For businesses, this means targeting keywords such as "Lawrence, Kansas [your product]" or "where to buy [product] in Lawrence."

How to Decide

Run the numbers first. Compare what you're paying now (Advanced + fees) versus what you'd pay on Plus at your current revenue. If you're over $100K/month, Plus might actually be cheaper once you factor in the fee savings.

Then ask yourself what's actually holding your business back. Is it checkout conversion? International expansion? Traffic capacity? Staff access? If Plus solves your actual problems, it's worth considering. If your challenges are marketing, product-market fit, or operations, Plus won't fix those; spend your money elsewhere.

Think about where you'll be in 12 months, too. If you're planning significant growth, launching new markets, expanding B2B, or scaling to $200K+/month, upgrading now may make sense even if the numbers are tight today. If you're in maintenance mode with steady growth, you can wait.

One last thing: talk to Shopify's sales team. They can provide custom pricing based on your situation, especially if you're doing high volume or are willing to commit to 3 years. The published rates aren't always final.

Bottom Line

Shopify Plus isn't magic. It's a tool that solves specific problems for stores at a certain scale. If you're facing those problems: volume, complexity, international growth, checkout limitations, and you're seeing revenue to justify them, Plus makes sense.

If you're below $80K/month, don't have dev resources, or aren't bumping into platform limits, stay where you are. Invest that $2,000-$3,000/month into things that'll actually grow your business right now.

The right time to upgrade is when it solves real problems or saves you real money. Not because it sounds cool or because your competitors are doing it.

Still not sure? We help ecommerce brands figure this stuff out all the time. Book a free call, and we'll walk through your specific numbers.