The true cost of Shopify over 5 years (it is not just the monthly fee)

Shopify advertises plans starting at £25/month. That sounds reasonable for an online store. But the headline price is not the full picture. By the time you add POS, transaction fees, a theme, and the apps you actually need, a service business can end up paying £6,240 over 5 years for features it never uses.

Here is the real cost breakdown, with every number cited from Shopify own pricing page.

Shopify pricing plans (August 2026)

Plan	Monthly cost	Shopify Payments card rate	What you get
Basic	£25/mo (£19 annual)	2% + 25p	Basic online store, unlimited products
Grow	£65/mo (£49 annual)	1.7% + 25p	Gift cards, professional reports
Advanced	£344/mo (£259 annual)	1.5% + 25p	Custom reports, lowest rates
Plus	From £1,800/mo	1.3% + 25p	Enterprise-level, multi-store

Source: shopify.co.uk/pricing. Last verified: August 2026.

The costs beyond the monthly fee

Shopify POS Pro: £79/month per location

If you have a physical shop, salon, or any location where you sell in person, you need Shopify POS. The Lite version is free with your Shopify plan, but POS Pro costs £79/month per location and is required for in-person inventory management, staff PINs, and unlimited registers.

That means a single-location shop pays £25 + £79 = £104/month before selling anything. For a service business that does not ship anything, that is money straight off your profit every month for features you will never use.

Source: shopify.co.uk/pos/pricing

Card rates: what you pay to take a payment

On the Basic plan, Shopify Payments charges 2% + 25p per transaction. That is the cost of taking the card, not a fee on top of one, so the fair comparison is against what you would pay a processor anyway. Stripe charges from 1.5% + 20p. On £2,000/month across 40 orders that is roughly £50 with Shopify against £38 with Stripe. A difference, but a small one, and not the reason to pick either.

There is one genuine extra. If you use a different payment provider instead of Shopify Payments, Shopify adds a separate third-party gateway fee on top of whatever that provider charges you.

Themes

The free Shopify themes are fine but basic. A professional theme is a one-off cost on top, and prices vary a lot depending on the theme.

Apps

Need reviews, email marketing, booking, or anything beyond the basics? Each is a separate app. Plenty are free, but the ones doing real work usually charge monthly, and what you end up paying depends entirely on which you pick.

What the monthly fee actually buys

It is easy to look at £25/month and see only a bill. Some of it is buying real work you would otherwise have to do yourself.

Shopify keeps shipping rates current with the carriers, handles tax rules as they change, maintains PCI compliance on checkout, and patches security without asking you. If a tax rule changes somewhere you sell, that is their problem, not yours.

It is a bit like renting. You do not own the house, but when a tree comes through the window, you are not the one buying the glass.

On a site you own, that maintenance is real and it belongs to someone. Either you learn it, or you pay someone to stay on top of it. That is an honest trade, not a catch.

The 5-year cost comparison

Option	Monthly	Year 1	5-year total
Custom build + self-hosted	£0	£500	£500
Custom build + managed	£18	£716	£1,580
Shopify Basic only	£25	£300	£1,500 + build
Shopify Basic + POS Pro	£104	£1,248	£6,240 + build
Shopify Grow + POS Pro	£144	£1,728	£8,640 + build

For a service business (no shipping, single location), Shopify Basic + POS Pro comes to £6,240 over 5 years plus the initial build. A custom build with managed hosting costs £1,580 over the same period, and you own the code.

That gap is real, but it only exists because a service business is paying for shipping and inventory features it never touches. Put a business that genuinely ships products into the same comparison and the numbers stop favouring custom, because now all of that has to be built and maintained by someone.

When is Shopify actually worth it?

Shopify is genuinely the right tool when:

• You sell physical products that need inventory, shipping, and tax
• You have multiple sales channels (online, in-store, marketplaces)
• You need order management, fulfillment, and stock tracking
• Your monthly sales volume justifies the fees

Shopify is overkill when:

• You sell services, vouchers, or digital items (no shipping)
• You are a single-location shop without inventory
• You just want to take payment for bookings online
• Your monthly sales are under £1,000

For services and digital items, a custom site with Stripe checkout does the same job for less. See how to sell online (depends what you are selling).

Is Shopify worth it for your business?

Take the quiz below for an honest answer.

Sources

1. Shopify pricing plans (UK) - accessed August 2026
2. Shopify POS pricing (UK) - accessed August 2026
3. See also: Wix vs Squarespace vs Shopify vs custom
4. See also: How to sell online (depends what you are selling)