What is Shopify Plus: Differences & When It’s Time To Upgrade

What is Shopify Plus?

Shopify Plus is Shopify’s enterprise-grade solution for high-volume merchants, offering advanced features and priority customer support beyond its lower-tier Shopify plans.

Don't confuse Shopify Plus with Shopify Advanced. The latter is simply a higher-tier standard plan with lower credit card rates and transaction fees than the Basic and Grow plans.

What's the difference between Shopify and Shopify Plus?

Both Shopify and Shopify Plus offer unlimited products, web hosting, and other standard features. In terms of functionality, here are the key differences.

Product customization

Shopify

• Up to 1,000 new variants daily uploads for stores with 50,000+ variants

Shopify Plus

• No daily upload limit for stores with 50,000+ variants

• Access to Shopify Combined Listings, an advanced feature that combines individual products across multiple colors, materials, or lengths into a single product listing

Both Shopify and Shopify Plus let you add up to 100 variants per product, each with up to 3 options (size, color, and style). What if you need more than 3 options? From our experience, this usually means you need to:

• Build your own product configurator. This is arguably the best approach since you can customize it extensively to fit your unique needs. However, with the average custom-built product configurator costing anywhere from $300,000 to $750,000+ and requiring 12–18 months of development, it's impractical for most eCommerce stores. A better alternative is to…

• Use an intuitive third-party product configurator like Kickflip. At $59/month, you get built-in Shopify integration; unlimited products, variants, and bandwidth; dynamic pricing; advanced inventory management software; bulk ordering; easy-to-apply logic rules; and more — in one intuitive product builder.

With Kickflip, get your product configurator running in a few weeks, not months.

Try this demo to see how Kickflip differentiates your store with unique, personalized products

Set up your completely customized product in a few weeks. Kickflip is the fastest way to get your customized product to market.Start your free 14-day trial today.

Checkout customization

Shopify

• Customization of thank you and order status pages

Shopify Plus

• Advanced customization of information, shipping, and payments pages — including branded experiences and custom fields — plus thank you and order status pages

• Access to Checkout Branding API

• Ability to create custom checkout experiences for both DTC and B2B customers within the same store

Both Shopify and Shopify Plus grant access to the checkout and accounts editor.

Automation and API

Shopify

• Basic automation like email campaigns, marketing flows, and task workflows

• Integration with third-party apps via Shopify App Store

Shopify Plus

• Advanced automated workflows and scheduling capabilities through Shopify Launchpad (e.g., product releases, promotions, sales campaigns)

• Ability to build custom integrations and logic through Shopify Functions (not to be confused with Shopify Flow, a user-friendly visual automation tool primarily for store owners, not developers)

• Exclusive access to certified app partners solving complex eCommerce challenges

• API access with up to 500% higher API call limits for robust integrations

• Comprehensive feature test drives to ensure seamless workflows and API integrations

High-volume checkout

Shopify

• None

Shopify Plus

• Capacity to handle traffic spikes with simultaneous checkouts during high-volume sales events, leading to optimized conversion rate during peak traffic periods

• Bot protection that safeguards your flash sales from automated purchases

Expansion stores

Shopify

• Limited to one main store

Shopify Plus

• Main store with up to 9 expansion stores under the same brand, supporting multi-market presence while maintaining brand consistency. To host multiple brands under a single company, you'll need a separate Shopify Plus contract per brand.

Staff accounts

Shopify

• 5 and 15 additional accounts for Grow and Advanced plans respectively

Shopify Plus

• Unlimited accounts

• Option to create custom groups with similar-role users (e.g., assign permissions in bulk, onboard new employees), streamlining team management.

Inventory locations

Shopify

• Limited to 10 inventory locations, restricting multi-channel fulfillment needs

Shopify Plus

• Expanded capacity for 200 inventory locations, supporting large and complex fulfillment networks

For more information on inventory; here are the top features to look for in inventory software for small businesses.

Shopify POS Pro

Shopify

• $89/month per location

Shopify Plus

• 20 locations for third-party payment processors, or up to 200 locations if you use Shopify Payments (and process at least one retail transaction per month at any location)

Headless storefronts

Shopify

• Limited to 1 headless storefront

Shopify Plus

• Supports 25 headless storefronts, enabling more creative and development control

B2B capabilities

Shopify

• No B2B functionality, limiting business customers to consumer purchasing flows

Shopify Plus

• Wholesale features to create a B2B-only store or sell B2B sales and DTC from a single store

• Advanced B2B features like draft orders, B2B catalogs, APIs, self-serve purchasing, and customer accounts for B2B buyers

• Ability to expand internationally with Markets functionality; customize language, currency, domains, shipping, and delivery rates for different B2B markets

Support

Shopify

• 24/7 live chat

Shopify Plus

• 24/7 priority phone and live chat

Pricing plans

Shopify

• Monthly terms that can be canceled any time

• Basic, Grow, and Advanced require $39, $105, and $399 monthly costs respectively

• Credit card rates range from 2.75% to 3.6%

• Third-party transaction fees cost 0.6%–2%

Shopify Plus:

• Longer-term contracts

• Starts at $2,300/month for a 3-year term or $2,500/month for a 1-year term

• Lowest cost of processing payments (tip: negotiate with sales for competitive credit card rates and transaction fees)

• Third-party transaction fees cost 0.2%

When should I use Shopify Plus? 

Shopify Plus offers enterprise-level features at $2,000+ monthly, an eye-wateringly expensive investment. How do you determine if this premium platform justifies its price tag for your store?

Here are four signs it's time for an upgrade.

1. You’ve crossed $1–3M in annual revenue

Shopify Plus delivers unignorable ROI once you cross the $1–3M annual revenue threshold, thanks to the reduced transaction fees that directly impact your bottom line.

Notice how the rates decrease as you upgrade your plan

Let's illustrate this with a fictional sporting goods store earning $2.5M in annual revenue.

Shopify Advanced ($399/month)

• Using a third-party payment processor at a 1.5% transaction fee

• Annual transaction fees: $2.5M × 1.5% = $37,500

Shopify Plus ($2,500/month)

• Using a third-party payment processor at a 0.2% transaction fee

• Annual transaction fees: $2.5M × 0.2% = $5,000

• Annual transaction fee savings: $32,500 ($37,500 - $5,000)

• Additional annual cost for Shopify Plus: ($2,500 - $399) × 12 = $25,212

• Net annual savings: $7,288 ($37,500 - $5,000 - $25,212)

The transaction fee savings alone more than cover the price difference between both plans, plus the sporting goods store gains access to all Shopify Plus features as a bonus. As it scales beyond $2.5M, the ROI becomes even more greater.

Kickflip tip: If your store generates less than $1M annually but you're outgrowing your current plan, consider Shopify Markets or creating a second Shopify store. Both expand your capabilities while saving you $1,000+ monthly compared to Shopify Plus.

2. You want advanced checkout customization

Shopify Plus unlocks advanced checkout customization that standard plans can't match.

Both Shopify and Shopify Plus allow customization of thank you and order status pages. However, if you want complex shipping, payment, and custom discount combinations that's where the former falls short.

For example, to apply tiered promotions like "Spend $600 and get $60 off" and "Spend $1,000 and get $100 off" simultaneously across different product categories — no doubt, a clever strategy to boost AOV — you'll need custom apps with Shopify Functions APIs, an advanced feature exclusive to Shopify Plus.

Kickflip tip: Both Shopify and Shopify Plus offer similar product customization. If you’re seeking more variants, start your free 14-day trial on Kickflip. You get access to unlimited variants, multi-component products, price quote configuration, and more. 

3. You need several expansion stores

Expansion stores are separate stores under one Shopify Plus plan. Each operates with its own domain, product catalog, and customized theme. This makes them ideal if you:

• Sell in multiple regions with individual storefronts featuring localized content or complying  legal requirements (e.g., Store A in Italian and Store B in Japanese)

• Manage different product lines, each requiring different eCommerce marketing strategies (e.g., Store A is a cake shop and Store B is an art print store. Both target completely different SEO keywords.)

• Streamline employee operations across countries, like assigning permission controls to employees from specific regions.

Multi-store management and international selling capabilities make Shopify Plus ideal for brands with global ambitions.

Note that a Shopify Plus account includes a maximum of 10 stores (1 main store + 9 expansion stores) at no extra cost.

4. You want to sell wholesale

B2B eCommerce demands dedicated customer portals to assign curated catalogs with customized pricing, payment terms, and prefilled payment details for each business customer.

Shopify Plus offers these enterprise-grade B2B capabilities, making it suitable for wholesale operations.

Is Shopify Plus worth it?

If you're a million-dollar brand, Shopify Plus is worth the hefty price tag. The reduced credit card rates and transaction fees deliver measurable ROI. Other features like advanced customization, multi-store management for global expansion, and B2B capabilities are an attractive bonus.

For most emerging stores, the standard Shopify plans will do just fine.

Speaking of smart budget decisions, remember that you don't need Shopify Plus for advanced product customization. Kickflip integrates seamlessly with both standard Shopify plans and Shopify Plus, offering enterprise-grade product configuration at a fraction of the cost.

With Kickflip's flexible pay-as-you-grow model starting at just $59/month, you can eliminate upfront expenses and scale as your revenue grows.

Supercharge sales through product customization, differentiate your brand with unique products, and deliver a cutting-edge customer experience.Start your free 14-day trial on Kickflip today.