Upgrading to Shopify Plus

With Shopify Plus comes a ton of added functionality, and discounted credit card processing fees. That being said, Shopify Plus, at that price point, is obviously not for everyone. Nor is it mandatory to have to run a successful ecommerce business.  Don't let that price tag fool you though, there are scenarios where it actually saves you money.

When it makes sense to upgrade to Shopify Plus

• The added functionality it opens can significantly ease tasks on your everyday operations. Saving you time and money in other avenues like staffing and resourcing.
• You have functionality desired to be added to the checkout process. With a standard Shopify plan, you can only customize the cart experience. Once you get to checkout, you’re very limited.
• Your sales are at a point where the discount you get on credit card processing fees with Shopify Plus makes the additional cost a wash. At this point, it’s a no brainer, and you may as well upgrade. 

Your sales are at a point where the discount you get on credit card processing fees with Shopify Plus makes the additional cost a wash. At this point, it’s a no brainer, and you may as well upgrade. 

Knowing that, let’s overview the perks of Shopify Plus.

Added Functionality with Shopify Plus

What can you do with Shopify Plus that you could not before? A lot, really.  However one common misconception is that these features are baked in out-of-the-box. They aren't, and most require a good bit of setup or web development to get going. Shopify Plus opens the door to many new possibilities. Here’s a few:

Checkout Customization

• With Shopify Plus, we have full access to customize the checkout through the checkout.liquid file for either functional or branding purposes.
• Run advanced tracking (ie. Google Tag Manager, pixels etc.) in checkout 
• Reduce checkout time with social login (ie. Login with your Facebook or Google account) 
• Ability to implement conversion strategies, like upselling products in checkout

Shopify Scripts

Shopify Scripts opens the possibility of adding new features that are pre-built and easily integrated or customized. Example of that are:

• Discounting without discount codes.
• Native control over line item properties (for advanced discounting), shipping options, and payment options.
• Buy one get one sales, quantity breaks, offering specific shipping and payment options for certain customers or regions. 

More information and documentation on Shopify Scripts is here.

Wholesale

• Shopify Plus has an integrated wholesale solution giving you a separate password protected storefront for corporate accounts.

International

• Native Multi-Currency so your customers can buy in their local currency.
• Ability to have 9 expansion stores included within the cost. These are typically used for selling international or wholesale.

Launchpad

• Automate and schedule flash sales, events, product launches, Black Friday, etc.
• Schedule changes to inventory, pricing, showing/hiding products, and more.

Shopify Flow

• Shopify Plus gives you access to the app for Shopify Flow, allowing you to automate many things based on orders or other customer actions within your shop.

Here are some common automated Shopify Flows: 

• Tagging loyal customers, and building flows based on that.
• Canceling high-risk orders.
• Flagging high-risk orders before payment has been captured.
• Notifying your fulfillment or logistics team of urgent orders.
• Sending reorder requests when your inventory levels become low.
• Identifying and adding tags to products based on their title or SKU.

Shopify Support

• Access to Shopify’s Merchant Success Team (team of eCommerce consultants) for strategic advice on your business. Enrolment in our Merchant Growth Model.
• 24/7 phone / chat access to Plus Specialty Support.
• Access to Shopify Plus Academy.

Shopify Plus Pricing Details

Beyond the features, there’s a point at which Shopify Plus will save you money, plain and simple.  There’s a revenue threshold around $1 million annually where the extra monthly fees with Shopify Plus become a wash. This is because of the discount on credit card processing fees, if you’re using Shopify Payments. 

There’s not a clear threshold, as it really depends on what payment methods your customers are using, and there is some variance in these figured because of that.

As far as credit card processing fee is concerned, here's the breakdown:

If you use Shopify Payments, on a standard Shopify plan ($79 per month), you would pay 2.6% + $0.30 for Visa and MasterCard and 3.6% + $0.30 for international credit cards and American Express.

If you use Shopify Payments, on an Advanced Shopify plan ($299 per month), you would pay 2.4% + $0.30 for Visa and MasterCard and 3.4% + $0.30 for international credit cards and American Express.

If you use Shopify Payments, with Shopify Plus, you would pay 2.15% + $0.30 for Visa and MasterCard and 3.15% + $0.30 for international credit cards and American Express. That’s a discount of .25% with Shopify Plus over Advanced Shopify.

If you’re processing about $1,000,000 in sales through those payments methods, that discount amounts to around $25,000 per year.  Shopify Plus would cost you $24,000 ($2,000/mo) at that point, which means you’d actually save around $1,000 per year by upgrading to Shopify Plus. This is why there’s a threshold where upgrading to Shopify Plus is a no brainer, especially if you're well over $1 million in sales. ‍

This is why there’s a threshold where upgrading to Shopify Plus is a no brainer. 

The price of Shopify Plus does increase, but only with very high revenue of over $800,0000 per month.

Here’s the breakdown:

Shopify Plus’s platform fee is $2,000 USD per month (or 0.25% of your monthly revenue, whichever is greater). If your sales are anywhere between $0-800,000 USD per month, you will only pay $2,000 for that month. If your sales exceed $800,000  in a single month, for that month you will pay 0.25% of your revenue. For example, if you do $850,000  in a month, for that month you will pay $2,125.

Shopify Plus Upgrade Process

If upgrading from a lower tiered Shopify plan, the upgrade process is very simple.

Once you’ve shuffled the paperwork with Shopify, the process takes 24-48 hours and there's no migration required. It's a seamless process and there's no interruption of service or sales, all they do is open the gates to more tools and services.