- Shopify now powers over 5 million online stores worldwide, making it easier for businesses of all sizes to increase sales, streamline operations, and grow their customer base. From small startups to large, multinational enterprises, Shopify offers a range of plans designed to meet the diverse needs of merchants, with Shopify Advanced and Shopify Plus representing the highest-tier options.
While Shopify Advanced provides a robust set of features suitable for growing businesses, Shopify Plus takes things up a level, offering enterprise-level solutions for merchants who need more control, scalability, and customisation for their stores. Shopify Plus includes advanced APIs, dedicated support, and full checkout customisation, enabling businesses to tailor the buying experience, automate complex workflows, and integrate seamlessly with multiple sales channels.
Deciding to move to Shopify Plus is often about preparing for growth. Businesses that are processing high volumes of orders, expanding internationally, or managing multiple brands and storefronts will benefit from the added flexibility, lower transaction fees, and access to exclusive tools like Shopify Flow and Launchpad.
However, knowing when to upgrade from Shopify Advanced to Shopify Plus depends on a combination of growth metrics and operational needs of your business. Making the change to Shopify Plus is often the next step when it comes to future-proofing your ecommerce business, providing the infrastructure, support, and tools needed to scale efficiently while maintaining a supercharged store and high-quality customer experience.
In this guide, we’ll explore the key differences between Shopify Advanced and Shopify Plus, highlighting the features, functionality, and services that make Plus the preferred choice for fast-growing or more complex ecommerce businesses. Understanding these differences will help you determine whether Shopify Plus is the right solution for your business today or where it can support your growth goals for the future.
Shopify Plus vs Advanced: Comparisons
Note: Pricing is variable and may change based on exchange rates and Shopify agreements. Shopify Plus pricing is typically customisable based on individual business requirements.
Shopify Pricing Plans
Shopify offers a range of different plans to suit different business needs and stages of growth, with each tier providing additional features and capacity as your business grows.
Basic
The Basic plan is ideal for new or smaller businesses, including a Shopify-hosted website, blog functionality unlimited products, discount codes and SSL security.
Grow
Designed for growing businesses, the Shopify Grow plan provides a wider variety of features such as professional reports, increased staff accounts and enhanced tools as order volumes increase.
Advanced
The Advanced plan is designed for high-volume merchants that require additional features to manage their online store. It includes all of the standard Shopify features along with other elements such as enhanced reporting, third-party real-time carrier shipping rates and increased staff accounts.
Plus
Shopify Plus is the ultimate, enterprise-level solution on offer when it comes to reaching more customers, boosting conversions, and scaling your ecommerce business rapidly. It’s designed for merchants who want to grow fast, simplify their operations, and expand across multiple channels. If you’re on the Advanced plan but find yourself feeling limited, needing more B2B functionality or require additional storefronts, chances are you’re ready for the move to Plus!
Choosing Between Shopify Plus vs Advanced
When comparing Shopify Plus vs Advanced overall, the decision equally depends on the scale, flexibility and operational complexity of your ecommerce store.
Shopify Plus is designed for high-growth and high-volume merchants who need:
- Custom checkout experiences
- Automation (e.g. Shopify Flow)
- Dedicated support and infrastructure
Shopify Advanced is ideal for growing brands that need strong reporting, lower transaction fees and solid integrations without expensive overheads. Choosing between Shopify Advanced and Plus isn't always straightforward, and the right answer depends on the specifics of your business. Our ecommerce discovery audit is designed to cut through the noise, giving you a clear picture of your current setup and a roadmap for where to go next.
Shopify Plus vs Advanced Pricing Plans
One of the biggest considerations when choosing which Shopify tier to go for is pricing:
Shopify Plus uses a custom pricing model, typically starting at £1,800/month and scaling with revenue Shopify Advanced has fixed monthly pricing.
While Shopify Plus is a bigger investment, it often delivers increased ROI through:
- Improved conversion rates (via checkout optimisation)
- Lower transaction costs at scale
- Automation efficiencies
What’s new in 2026?
The Shopify ecosystem continues to evolve rapidly, and the gap between Plus and Advanced is becoming more defined as new features are added. Here are some key updates to consider:
1. Checkout Extensibility (Plus Advantage)
Shopify has fully transitioned away from legacy checkout customisation, so now Plus merchants use Checkout Extensibility for flexible, secure customisations, while Advanced still has limited checkout control.
2. Increased Focus on Automation
Automation tools such as Shopify Flow have become more powerful and accessible, helping to streamline operations, especially for high-end stores. As it stands, advanced automation is still primarily a Shopify Plus benefit.
3. Improved B2B Capabilities
Shopify have significantly expanded their Plus B2B offerings, with custom pricing and catalogues along with company accounts and payment terms. This is a major differentiator if you’re a wholesale business or hybrid DTC or B2B.
4. International Expansion Tools
Both Plus and Advanced support Shopify Markets functionality, however, the Plus tier offers more scalability for multi-store and international setups, which is better suited for more complex global operations.
Reasons to Choose Shopify Plus Over Shopify Advanced
Here we run through some of the key features, functions, services and teams that become available to merchants on the Plus plan.
1. Checkout customisation and extensibility
Shopify Plus gives merchants significantly more control over the checkout process, allowing full optimisatiom of one of the most important stages of the customer journey. While Shopify has moved away from direct checkout.liquid customisation, Plus users now benefit from a more robust and scalable approach through checkout extensibility, which allows for advanced customisations using apps and APIs without the risk of impacting the checkout during platform updates.
2. Shopify Functions
Shopify Functions adds a new layer of flexibility, giving merchants the ability to customise the commerce experience with precision.
By extending and replacing parts of Shopify business logic, Functions can handle large-scale events without affecting performance and have the ability to create unique shopping rules, making them fast, flexible and scalable for developers.
Functions are available to both Advanced and Plus merchants, but when any custom functionality is required, they then become available for Plus merchants only.
3. Shopify POS Pro (Point of Sale)
While POS Pro is not specific to Shopify Plus, it is more cost-effective and well optimised for Plus merchants, including subscriptions for a number of retail locations, which makes it more scalable, especially for omnichannel brands. Merchants can also sync online and offline products and integrates with apps for useful functionality like loyalty, returns, appointment booking and more.
4. Selling Internationally
Shopify wants to streamline its commerce offerings and allow merchants the ability to sell their products everywhere. This can be done using Shopify Markets or for businesses using Plus, the Expansion Store Model.
- With Shopify Markets: You can localise pricing, content, language and products.
- Expansion Store Model On Plus: Gives you up to 10 stores in total.
While it depends on the individual business’ goals and territories for which is the best option, often there is a hybrid approach using Markets and (if using Plus) the Expansion Store. Many factors can impact this, including how many bank accounts will be used, whether market-specific discounts are needed and what apps and integrations are required.
If you are using Plus, Expansion Stores include market-specific fulfilment priorities, payouts to different bank accounts or currencies, and the creation of local teams and staff permissions.
5. B2B
With Shopify Plus, you are able to run B2B and B2C operations from one store. Merchants have the ability to choose between a single online store for direct and wholesale business, or a dedicated B2B store at no additional cost.
B2B-specific tools:
- Companies, locations and buyers
- Product catalogues
- Payments (pro-formas and terms)
- Price lists and discounts
- Buyer self-serve portal
- Draft orders and requests for quotes
- One-off shipping address
- Quantity purchasing rules
Platform features
- Integrated natively with Shopify
- Over 200 mobile-optimised themes
- Partner and app ecosystem
- Customer engagement tools
- Automation and scheduling tools
- Search and discovery features
- Global selling features
- The best converting checkout available
These tools allow Plus merchants the flexibility and power to scale more efficiently.
6. Building Custom Storefront Experiences
Larger merchants often look to move beyond pre-built theme, particularly if there is a different CMS or frontend they want to use. For example, while headless builds are possible on all Shopify plans, Plus is better suited to support these setups at scale.
With higher API rate limits, greater operational headroom, and enhanced support for complex implementations, Plus enables merchants to run more advanced, high-traffic storefronts without compromising performance.
7. Connecting Your Own Identity Provider
Merchants often have a separate website (e.g. a blog or a forum), and want to create a seamless experience when directing customers to their Shopify store. With Plus, merchants can connect this through their own identity provider, which allows customers to log in using the same credentials across different systems. This creates a single sign-on (SSO) method, which improves user experience while still maintaining a high level of security through authentication.
8. Streamlining Ops
One of the main appeals of Plus is that it brings everything into one place for merchants, meaning that from a single admin, you can access up to 10 stores, create roles and permissions, track sales data, and launch new stores for different markets.
9. Shopify Launchpad
This Plus feature helps merchants automate the launch of new products or collections. With Launchpad, merchants can schedule product releases, set price changes and create custom landing pages for new products and set timers for products to launch, making it easy to create a buzz and efficiently implement sales tactics across your store.
10. Shopify Payment Rates
Upgrading to Shopify Plus lowers your payment processing rates, and merchants can benefit from reduced credit card and transaction fees, which helps with saving on every sale as you scale.
12. Launch Consulting
The Launch Consulting team works with merchants upgrading to Plus or businesses coming across to Plus via a platform migration. They sit between the Shopify sales and solution engineering team, providing guidance through the launch process, giving advice and guidance on navigating the Shopify ecosystem. Launch Consultants work closely with merchants and Shopify Partner agencies like us at Eastside to make sure the launch goes smoothly and the merchant is maximising their Plus value from the platform.
13. Product Consultants
This Plus-exclusive team is made of Solutions Engineers for the post-launch merchant journey. They combine strong technical discovery and solutioning with product expertise to increase the value of Shopify to merchants using Plus. Product consultants can help with issues such as:
- Using Shopify’s products and features to improve strategic outcomes
- Aligning a tech stack with Shopify Plus for the best combination and more possibilities
- Migrating from older or third-party solutions to native Shopify products
While there is a crossover with Product Consultants and partner agencies, Product Consultants are there to advise, whereas Shopify Partners can provide further consultation, advice along with building and implementing features on your site.
12. Shopify Plus Merchant Success Program
Finally, Plus merchants benefit from access to even more support service designed to help brands scale efficiently. While support is available across all plans, Plus merchants are better positioned to leverage structured guidance and partner expertise for more advanced use cases, including enhanced onboarding guidance, access to specialised resources and support for more complex technical requirements, such as platform migrations and integrations.
Signs You’ve Outgrown Shopify Advanced
As your business grows there comes a time when Shopify Advanced can start to limit growth, especially when it comes to cost, flexibility and operational efficiencies. Here are some key signs it might be time to consider an upgrade to Shopify Plus.
Transaction Fee Break-even Point
One of the clearest indicators that it's time for an upgrade is transaction fees. Shopify Advanced charges 0.6% on third-party payment providers, while Shopify Plus typically reduces this to around 0.2%, or 0% if you're using Shopify Payments. So, if you're paying more than £27,000/year in third-party transaction fees, the savings from lower fees on Shopify Plus can effectively cancel out the increase in licence cost when moving up from Advanced.
For a full breakdown of fees and costs across every Shopify plan, including how transaction rates compare at each tier, take a look at our Shopify pricing guide.
Note: Shopify Plus transaction rates are negotiated based on volume and business type, so the 0.2% figure is indicative rather than guaranteed. Merchants using Shopify Payments as their primary gateway won't pay third-party fees at all, in which case the case for upgrading usually comes from conversion uplift through checkout customisation, lower Shopify Payments card rates at scale, and operational savings from automation.
Multi-store Scalability
Managing multiple storefronts for different brands, regions, or currencies becomes increasingly complex when using Shopify Advanced. With Shopify Plus, you can:
- Manage multiple stores more efficiently
- Handle international expansion at scale
- Streamline operations across regions
This makes Plus ideal if you’re growing into new markets or running multiple brands.
Run B2B and B2C from a single admin
- Shopify Plus has significantly improved its native B2B capabilities, allowing merchants to:
- Manage wholesale and direct-to-consumer in one place
- Offer custom pricing, terms and catalogs
- Avoid workarounds or third-party apps
Build Custom Functionality (Beyond Apps)
On Shopify Advanced, you’re often reliant on third-party apps to extend functionality. With Shopify Plus:
- Developers can build custom apps and integrations
- Extend store functionality
- Connect external systems
For brands with more technical requirements, this makes Shopify Plus an ideal choice.
If you're weighing up the costs and benefits of moving to Plus, it helps to start with a clear picture of your business. Our ecommerce discovery audit can help identify exactly where the opportunities are, so any investment you make in the platform is backed by data and not just guesswork.
FAQs
Is Shopify Plus worth it for small businesses?
Shopify Plus is typically not necessary if you’re running a small business, unless you’re trying to scale or need advanced functionality, such as custom checkout or automation. If you’re a small- to medium-sized brand, Shopify Advanced is probably the most suitable tier at this stage.
What’s the main difference between Shopify Plus and Advanced?
The key differences are flexibility and scale. Advanced offers solid features but with limitations, including no checkout customisation. Whereas Shopify Plus unlocks advanced checkout control, automation opportunities, and more dedicated support from the team.
When should I upgrade from Shopify Advanced to Shopify Plus?
You should consider upgrading to Shopify Plus when your business is scaling rapidly, if you need more customisation or require full control over your checkout experience. Shopify Plus is also the best choice if you’re managing multiple storefronts or expanding internationally.
Choose Your Shopify Plan Today
Ultimately, whether you decide to go with Shopify Advanced or Plus depends on your needs as an online retailer, and which plans’ features will best support your business now, but most importantly in the future. It’s easy to switch between plans as your enterprise grows, and you start to need more features and services. The tricky part is knowing when and how to make the change.
At Eastside, we help brands stay ahead of Shopify's latest updates and choose the right plan based on where they're going, not just where they are today. If you'd like to talk it through, get in touch for a conversation with our team, or find out more about our Shopify experts and how we've helped hundreds of brands scale on the platform. We're happy to help you find the best path forward for your business.