Shopify Plus & Shopify: How Do You Know Which To Use

Are you looking to upgrade your current eCommerce platform or start an online store? With so many choices in the market, choosing the most suited one for your brand can be daunting. Shopify is a SaaS eCommerce platform that has been gaining traction over the years, and it offers users two plans: Shopify and Shopify Plus.

You might be wondering, “Isn’t Shopify Plus going to be better since it will have more features?” While that may be true, in this case, more does not mean better for your brand. To sum it up, Shopify, with its affordable pricing and straightforward features, is ideal for small to medium-sized brands. Shopify Plus, on the other hand, offers more customisable features and options and is ideal for larger brands with more complex needs.

In this article, we will explore the differences between the two plans to help you make the right decision for your business.

As mentioned earlier, they target different-sized businesses.

One of the most significant differences between Shopify and Shopify Plus is the level of customisation. Shopify offers pre-built templates that can be tailored to your business. However, larger businesses may find those given options very limited. With Shopify Plus, businesses are offered advanced customisation, the ability to access source codes, personalised API integrations, and custom checkout pages.

Another significant difference is the level of available features. Shopify offers basic features, such as a built-in blog, multi-channel sales integrations, and abandoned cart recovery. Shopify Plus offers the same features and more, such as advanced analytics and reporting, wholesale pricing, and customisable checkout pages.

When choosing between the two platforms, pricing is an integral factor. Shopify offers a range of cost-effective plans, with basic plans as low as $39 a month and advanced plans as high as $531 a month, depending on the level of features your business needs. Shopify Plus, on the other hand, starts at approximately $2,700 a month and can cost more depending on your desired level of customisation and business needs.

All in all, Shopify offers pre-built themes and templates for straightforward customisation, multi-channel sales integrations, such as Amazon, Instagram, and Facebook, a built-in blog for SEO and content marketing, abandoned cart recovery to capture lost sales, automatic shipping rates and tax calculations, as well as basic analytics and reporting.

Shopify Plus offers wholesale pricing options to support B2B sales, customisable checkout pages for a smooth UX, personalised API integrations, dedicated account support and management, as well as advanced analytics and reporting to get insights into user behaviour.

In this section, we will compare the two platforms more comprehensively to help you make a more informed decision for your online business.

If your business deals internationally, it is crucial to understand what the two have to offer.

Shopify works well for international businesses. However, they need to create separate eCommerce stores for every region or country they operate in. This means if they sell their products in three different countries, they need to create three different eCommerce stores. Shopify offers limited cross-border tools that adjust the currency and language accordingly.

Shopify Plus is best if your business operates in various international markets. With the “Multi-Store” or “Clone Store” feature, you can create up to 10 identical eCommerce stores for varying demographics, making the platform significantly advantageous for wholesale, international, and regional businesses.

When Shopify was developed, online businesses were prioritised. If you are looking to boost conversion rates, you need to optimise your eCommerce page. One way of doing so is to offer limited offers, such as seasonal discounts and promotions. Here are the differences between the two platforms in terms of promotional offerings.

With Shopify’s plans, promotions can be easily made straight through the dashboard. Furthermore, you can also allow your customers to use in-store discounts using Shopify’s integrated POS system. The types of promotional deals you can create using Shopify’s plan include fixed value, free or discounted shipping, and percentage offset.

On the other hand, Shopify Plus can help you advance your marketing initiatives. Using Launchpad, you can raise the value of the cart. The bulk of product launches, flash sales, discounts, and promotional efforts are automated by the system.

Payments are made easy on Shopify. The total transaction fees are displayed as a percentage of the total order. Shopify’s integrated POS system includes a credit card reader that will integrate your offline and online sales seamlessly, no matter what plan you are on.

For Shopify, the transaction fee can be 0.5% to 2%, depending on the type of plan your business subscribes to. For Shopify Plus, the transaction fees for external payment gateways are 2.15% plus 30 cents for domestic transactions and 3.15% plus 30 cents for international transactions.

Other than these three differences, Shopify Plus offers businesses complete control over their checkout pages, limitless employee accounts, more API integration, as well as exclusive features and apps that support larger enterprises efficiently and effectively.