Shopify's Hidden Costs: What They Don't Tell You on the Pricing Page
Shopify's pricing page says "Basic starts at £25/month." That's technically true — in the same way that a car "starts at £20,000" before you add sat nav, alloy wheels, and the paint colour you actually want.
For many UK sellers, the real monthly cost of running a Shopify shop is closer to £80–150, sometimes more. This isn't because Shopify is doing anything dishonest — the pricing is all there if you look for it — but the way the platform is structured means you almost inevitably end up paying for extras.
Here's a clear breakdown of every cost you'll encounter on Shopify, so there are no surprises.
The Subscription: £25/month
Shopify Basic costs £25/month, or £19/month if you commit to annual billing. This gets you a functional online shop with unlimited products, 2 staff accounts, basic reports, and access to Shopify's app store.
For many small sellers, Basic is sufficient. The higher tiers — Shopify (£65/month) and Advanced (£344/month) — add features like professional reports, more staff accounts, lower processing rates, and third-party calculated shipping rates.
The subscription itself is straightforward and fair. It's everything else that adds up.
Transaction Fees: 0–2% Per Sale
This is the fee most people miss when comparing Shopify to other platforms.
If you use Shopify Payments (Shopify's built-in payment provider, powered by Stripe), the transaction fee is 0%. But if you use any other payment provider — PayPal, a separate Stripe account, Klarna, or anything else — Shopify charges an additional fee on every transaction:
- Basic: 2.0%
- Shopify: 1.0%
- Advanced: 0.6%
This fee is on top of whatever the payment provider charges. So if you use PayPal (which charges roughly 1.2% + 20p for UK transactions), you'd pay PayPal's fee plus Shopify's 2% — totalling over 3.2% per transaction on the Basic plan.
The practical effect is that Shopify Payments is essentially mandatory for most sellers. Which brings us to the next cost.
Payment Processing: 2% + 25p Per Transaction
Shopify Payments rates for UK sellers on the Basic plan are:
- UK cards: 2.0% + 25p
- International cards: 3.1% + 25p
- Amex: 3.1% + 25p
These rates improve on higher plans (1.7% + 25p on Shopify, 1.5% + 25p on Advanced for domestic cards), but most small sellers are on Basic.
For context, standard Stripe rates in the UK are 1.4% + 20p for domestic cards and 2.5% + 20p for international. That means Shopify Payments on Basic is more expensive than standard Stripe by about 0.6% + 5p per domestic transaction.
On a £30 order, that's the difference between paying 62p (standard Stripe) and 85p (Shopify Payments Basic) — an extra 23p per order. Across 200 orders a month, that's an extra £46.
International and Currency Conversion
If you sell internationally (which most UK online shops do to some degree), you'll also face:
- Higher processing rates: 3.1% + 25p for non-UK cards
- Currency conversion fee: 2% if the customer pays in a different currency via Shopify Payments
A £30 sale to a US customer paying in dollars could cost you 3.1% + 25p + 2% = roughly £1.78 in processing and conversion fees — nearly 6% of the sale price.
The App Store: Where It Really Adds Up
Shopify's app store is both its greatest strength and its most expensive feature. There are thousands of apps — but many of them charge monthly fees for functionality that other platforms include as standard.
Here's what typical UK sellers end up paying for:
Product Reviews — £0–10/month
Shopify's built-in reviews are extremely basic. Most sellers install a third-party reviews app. Judge.me has a good free tier. Loox (photo reviews) starts at £9.99/month. Yotpo starts free but pushes you towards paid plans quickly.
SEO Tools — £15–40/month
Shopify's built-in SEO is functional but limited. Apps like Plug in SEO (£30/month), SEO Manager (£20/month), or Smart SEO (£10/month) are common additions. Some free options exist but are limited.
Email Marketing — £0–30/month
Shopify Email gives you 10,000 emails/month free, then charges £0.80 per 1,000 additional emails. Many sellers use Klaviyo instead (free up to 250 contacts, then from £16/month), which is more powerful but adds another cost.
Loyalty and Rewards — £20–50/month
No built-in loyalty programme. Smile.io starts at £42/month for the paid tier (free tier is very limited). LoyaltyLion starts at £144/month. Even basic stamp-card style apps typically cost £10–20/month.
Back-in-Stock Notifications — £5–20/month
Not included in Shopify. Back in Stock by Swym starts at £15/month. There are cheaper options, but functionality is limited on free tiers.
Other Common Apps
- Size guides: £0–5/month
- Upsells and cross-sells: £10–30/month
- Advanced shipping rules: £10–20/month
- Cookie consent/GDPR: £0–9/month
- Image optimisation: £0–25/month
Typical Total App Spend
A survey of UK sellers in Facebook groups and forums suggests most small shops spend £30–80/month on apps, with some spending considerably more. A shop using reviews, email, SEO, and one or two other apps can easily hit £50/month in app costs alone — doubling the effective subscription price.
Theme Costs: £0–350+
Shopify has around 12 free themes. They're functional and well-coded, but they're also used by thousands of other shops, and customisation options are limited.
The theme store has premium themes ranging from £150 to £350. These are one-off purchases, but you might buy a new theme if you rebrand or outgrow your current one. Some sellers end up trying two or three themes before finding one that works, especially if the demo looked better than the reality with their own products.
Beyond the theme itself, most sellers pay a developer for customisations at some point — tweaking the header, adjusting the product page layout, or adding a feature the theme doesn't support. Budget £200–1,000 for initial customisation, and expect occasional ongoing costs.
The Total Picture
Here's what a typical UK seller on Shopify Basic actually pays, at different monthly revenue levels:
| Cost Component | £1,000/mo revenue | £3,000/mo revenue | £5,000/mo revenue | £10,000/mo revenue |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Subscription | £25 | £25 | £25 | £25 |
| Shopify Payments (2% + 25p, ~33 orders) | £28 | £85 | £142 | £283 |
| Apps (estimated) | £40 | £50 | £60 | £80 |
| Theme (amortised over 2 years) | £10 | £10 | £10 | £10 |
| Total Monthly Cost | £103 | £170 | £237 | £398 |
| As % of Revenue | 10.3% | 5.7% | 4.7% | 4.0% |
Assumes all UK domestic card payments at 2% + 25p, average order value of £30. International sales would increase the processing cost. App costs scale slightly with revenue as sellers add more tools.
At £1,000/month revenue, you're giving Shopify over 10% of your turnover. Even at £10,000/month, it's still 4%. For context, that 4% is pure platform cost — before you account for product costs, shipping, packaging, marketing, and your own time.
What Shopify Does Well
It would be unfair to list all these costs without acknowledging what you get for them. Shopify is the most popular ecommerce platform for good reasons:
- Reliability: Near-perfect uptime. Your shop will not go down during a sale.
- Ecosystem: If you need a feature, there's almost certainly an app for it.
- Scalability: Shopify can handle shops doing £10k/month and shops doing £10m/month. You won't outgrow it.
- Support: 24/7 support, extensive documentation, enormous community.
- POS: If you sell in person as well as online, Shopify's point-of-sale system is excellent.
- International selling: Multi-currency, multi-language, duties and taxes — Shopify handles complexity that smaller platforms can't.
If you're a large or fast-growing shop that needs these capabilities, the extra cost may be worth it.
The Alternative: What Would You Save?
If you're a smaller UK seller — doing, say, £1,000 to £5,000/month — and you don't need Shopify's enterprise features, the cost difference compared to a simpler platform is significant.
On Haul, the same £3,000/month shop would pay:
- £15/month subscription (Starter plan)
- Standard Stripe processing: ~£59/month (1.4% + 20p on ~100 orders)
- Apps: £0 (reviews, SEO, email templates, back-in-stock, stock control all included)
- Theme: £0 (included with visual page builder)
- Total: ~£74/month — compared to ~£170 on Shopify
That's roughly £96/month saved, or over £1,150/year. For a small business, that's meaningful.
Haul won't be right for every seller. It doesn't have Shopify's app ecosystem, POS system, or international selling infrastructure. But for a UK-based independent seller with a straightforward product catalogue, it covers the features you'll actually use — without the app-store tax.
What to Do Next
If you're already on Shopify, log into your admin and check your actual costs:
- Go to Settings → Billing to see your subscription and app charges
- Go to Settings → Payments to see your processing rates
- Go to Analytics → Reports → Finances to see total fees paid
You might be surprised. Many sellers don't check these numbers regularly, and app costs have a way of creeping up over time.
If you're comparing platforms before choosing one, have a look at our full comparison of ecommerce platform costs, which covers Shopify, Etsy, Squarespace, Wix, and Haul side by side. And for a direct comparison, see our Shopify vs Haul page.