Shopify markets itself as one of the easiest ways for UK businesses to launch an online store. What the marketing page doesn't tell you is that the plan fee is just the starting point. Once you factor in transaction fees, apps, themes, domain costs, and payment processing, the true monthly cost of running a Shopify store in the UK can be three or four times the headline price.
This guide breaks down what Shopify actually costs in the UK in 2026, including the fees most pricing comparisons leave out, so you can plan a realistic budget before signing up, or work out whether you're overpaying on your existing store. If you have not committed to the platform yet, our honest review of whether Shopify is worth it in 2026 weighs those fees against what you actually get back.
Shopify UK plan pricing (2026)
Shopify currently offers three core plans for direct-to-consumer brands in the UK, plus a higher tier for enterprise stores. The prices below are annual-billing rates (monthly billing runs around 25% higher). All include Shopify's £1/month introductory rate for the first three months.
Basic, £19/month (annual)
The entry-level plan suits new UK stores. It covers the storefront builder, unlimited products, basic reporting, and Shopify's new AI assistant for commerce. Online card rate: 2% + 25p per transaction on Shopify Payments. The trade-off is the highest third-party gateway fee on the platform.
Grow, £49/month (annual)
The plan most growing UK SMEs settle on once they're past launch month. Online card rate drops to 1.7% + 25p, third-party transaction fee is 1%, and you get up to five staff accounts plus up to 10% off Shopify Shipping rates.
Advanced, £259/month (annual)
For stores that need finer control. Card rate: 1.5% + 25p. Third-party transaction fee drops to 0.6%. Live third-party shipping rates, regional customisation, and up to 15 staff accounts. Worth it when monthly sales push past about £50k, when the lower per-transaction rates start outrunning the higher plan fee.
Plus, from £1,800/month (3-year term)
Enterprise tier with a fully customisable checkout, unlimited POS locations, B2B wholesale, priority 24/7 phone support, and the lowest commercial rate (1.3% + 25p online). Negotiable for stores trading at £1m+ annual revenue.
There are also two niche plans worth flagging: Agentic at £0/month for AI-channel sales only (still pays 2% + 25p on transactions), and POS Pro at £69/month as a retail-focused add-on. Most UK ecommerce founders can skip both.
The fees Shopify doesn't put on the pricing page
The plan fee is roughly a third of what an active store actually pays each month. Here's where the rest goes.
Payment processing, 1.3%–2.4% + 25p per transaction
Even on Shopify Payments (Shopify's own gateway), every card transaction costs you the plan's processing rate plus 25p. International cards are pricier. American Express adds 0.5%. For a store doing £10k/month in card sales, that's £150–£240 just in card processing, sometimes more than the plan fee itself. Stores settling in several currencies have more room than they did, since Shopify replaced the eight account cap on multi-currency payouts with one account per supported currency, though the per-transaction economics above still apply to each.
If you use a third-party gateway like PayPal, Stripe, or Worldpay, you'll pay their fees and Shopify's third-party transaction surcharge on top (1% on Grow, 0.6% on Advanced). That surcharge is the single biggest hidden cost most new sellers miss, it can quietly eat 1–2% of every sale.
Themes, £0 to £270 one-time, or £3k–£15k+ custom
The free themes are functional but generic and tend to make new stores look like, well, new stores. Premium themes from the Shopify Theme Store are a one-time £170–£270. A custom theme built by an agency runs £3,000–£15,000+ depending on scope. Most growing brands buy a premium theme and pay a developer to customise it, budget for both rather than picking one.
Apps, typically £30–£250/month
Almost every active store needs at least a few of: a review/UGC app (£10–£30), an email marketing tool (£15–£100 if you're not using Shopify Email), an inventory or wholesale add-on (£20–£60), an SEO or schema app (£15–£35), and a returns or shipping app (£20–£50). It's normal to find established Shopify stores spending £100–£250 a month on apps alone.
Domain, £10–£15/year
Trivial in the scheme of things, but Shopify doesn't include domain registration on any plan. Buy it from Shopify itself, GoDaddy, or your registrar of choice.
POS hardware, £49–£399 one-time
If you sell in person too, the Shopify Tap & Chip card reader is around £49 and the Shopify POS Go terminal is around £349. POS Lite is included with all plans for free; POS Pro at £69/month per location is only worth it if you need staff roles, register shifts, and unlimited registers.
Working out your true monthly cost
For a typical new UK Shopify store doing £5,000/month in sales, here's a realistic 2026 budget on the Grow plan:
- Shopify Grow plan: £49
- Payment processing on £5k sales (1.7% + 25p × ~150 orders): ~£123
- Premium theme (amortised over 24 months): ~£8
- Core apps (reviews, email, SEO, returns): ~£80
- Domain (monthly equivalent): ~£1
- Total: ~£261/month
So the "£49 Shopify plan" is really around £260 once the store is actually trading. A store doing £25k/month typically runs at £500–£800 all-in. The plan fee itself becomes a smaller and smaller proportion as sales grow, processing fees scale linearly, while the plan fee is fixed. Platform fees are only one line in the budget, and the build itself is usually the larger number: our guide to ecommerce website cost in the UK covers what design and development add on top.
How Shopify compares to the alternatives
The two main alternative platforms by UK usage are WooCommerce and BigCommerce, and the cost comparison is more nuanced than the headline price.
WooCommerce is free as a WordPress plugin, but you'll pay for managed WordPress hosting (£15–£50/month for a host that handles 1k+ daily visitors), SSL, security plugins, payment gateway fees, premium plugins (subscriptions, bookings, points), and developer time when something breaks. Real-world total for an equivalent £5k/month store: £100–£250/month, comparable to Shopify, with significantly more technical maintenance on your side.
BigCommerce charges plans similar to Shopify's but takes no transaction fees of its own, which makes per-sale economics better at high volumes. The theme and app ecosystem is smaller though, and onboarding is slower. Best for stores already running on it or for high-volume merchants doing the maths on transaction-fee savings.
For most UK SMEs, Shopify wins on speed-to-market and ecosystem depth, while costing roughly the same as WooCommerce by the time you've added everything up. Choose Shopify when you want to focus on selling rather than maintenance; choose WooCommerce when you have or want full control of the codebase. If you'd like to weigh both side by side, our ecommerce website development service walks UK clients through Shopify vs WooCommerce decisions every week.
How to keep your Shopify costs down
A few practical levers we use with the Shopify stores we build and support:
- Use Shopify Payments unless you have a specific reason not to. Avoiding the third-party transaction surcharge alone can save 0.6–2% on every sale.
- Audit your apps quarterly. Most stores accumulate apps over time that they no longer use but keep paying for. Cutting two unused apps can save £40–£80 a month with zero downside.
- Annual billing on the plan saves around 25%. Worth it once you're confident the platform is sticking.
- Premium theme vs custom build is a long-term decision. A premium theme is faster off the rank; a custom theme pays back when you're optimising for conversion rate, not launch speed.
- Negotiate Shopify Plus rates if you're trading over £100k/month. Shopify's sales team has more discretion than the public pricing page suggests.
- Switch from Basic to Grow once you're processing more than ~£1,500/month in card sales. The lower per-transaction rate pays back the extra plan fee.
The bottom line
The honest answer to "what does Shopify cost in the UK?" is: between £200 and £700 a month for most active stores, depending on plan, app stack, and sales volume. The plan fee is the smallest piece of that.
Plan the full stack, apps, theme, processing, support, before you launch, not after. If you're already trading and feel like the costs have crept up, an audit of your monthly stack is the fastest place to find £50–£200 a month of savings. And if the honest answer is that the store is no longer earning its keep, know the exit routes before you act. Our guide to pausing, downgrading or cancelling a Shopify subscription explains what each one costs you.
If you'd like help reviewing your Shopify setup or planning a new build, the Peak Digital Shopify team works with UK brands across plans and stack sizes. We can spot the avoidable fees, swap underused apps for better ones, and forecast a realistic monthly budget before you commit. Once the store is built and trading, our Google Ads for Shopify service runs the paid-acquisition layer with the same fee transparency we apply to platform costs above.
For platform reference, you can compare current pricing directly on Shopify's UK pricing page, just be aware that the headline numbers are the start of the story, not the end of it.
