E-Commerce
What Shopify actually costs to run
The plan fee is the part everyone sees. The transaction fees are the part that quietly adds up.
Realm Digital
2 min read
Most people size up Shopify by looking at the monthly plan and stopping there. That is the visible number, and it is the smallest part of the story. The costs that decide whether a store is profitable sit underneath it, on every order you take.
There are three separate costs to understand. Get all three straight before you commit to a plan, and you will not be surprised by your first invoice.
The monthly plan fee
This is the fixed subscription you pay to be on Shopify. It only changes when you move up or down a plan, and it buys you a set of features and limits rather than a lower cost per sale. Paying annually rather than monthly reduces the figure. Shopify publishes current plan prices on its own pricing page, and they change often enough that quoting them here would only mislead you.
The plan you pick matters for a reason beyond the monthly line: it sets the rate you pay on every transaction. That is where the real cost lives.
The fees on every sale
Two charges apply each time a customer pays. The first is a payment-processing fee, a percentage taken by whoever moves the money. The second is a Shopify transaction fee, and this is the one people miss.
Shopify adds its own transaction fee whenever you use a third-party payment provider instead of Shopify Payments. In regions where Shopify Payments is not available, including South Africa, you have to use a provider such as PayFast or PayU, so that extra fee applies to every order. The rate depends on your plan, which is why the plan decision and the fee decision are the same decision.
Because these charges are percentages of what you sell, they scale with your revenue. A rate that looks trivial on a single order becomes a meaningful monthly figure once volume climbs.
Work out your real number
The honest answer to what Shopify will cost you depends on your sales volume, your plan, and whether Shopify Payments is available where you trade. Rather than reason from a headline price, put your own figures in and see the total.
Realm's Shopify fee calculator does exactly that. Enter your expected turnover and it works out the plan fee and transaction fees together, so you can compare plans on the number that matters: /shopify-development/shopify-calculator/
