Webloped blog · 9 min read
How much does Shopify cost in Canada in 2026?
Every plan in Canadian dollars, the card fees and surcharges Shopify does not put on the pricing page, and what a small store really costs in its first year.
The short answer: Shopify costs $49 per month in Canada for the plan most small businesses start on, before card processing fees, apps, a theme, a domain, and any setup help. Your true monthly number is usually 30 to 60 percent higher than the plan price once everything is added in.
That is not a criticism of Shopify. It is the most popular way for Canadian small businesses to sell online for good reasons, and it bills in CAD, which removes the currency surprises you get with some competitors. But the pricing page only shows the subscription. This guide walks through every plan at current Canadian pricing, the fees that stack on top, the costs most guides skip, and two realistic first-year budgets - so you can decide with a clear head.
Prices below reflect Shopify's published Canadian pricing as of October 2026. Shopify does change prices, so confirm the current numbers on their pricing page before you sign up.
The plans and what each costs in Canada
Shopify's plan names changed in recent years: the old "Shopify" middle plan is now called Grow. Prices are billed in Canadian dollars for stores based in Canada, which is genuinely convenient - no FX surprises on your card statement.
| Plan | Billed monthly | Billed yearly | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | $7/mo | n/a | Selling through social media, not a full store |
| Basic | $49/mo | $37/mo | New stores, solo founders |
| Grow | $132/mo | $99/mo | Growing stores with a small team |
| Advanced | $517/mo | $389/mo | High-volume stores, international selling |
| Plus | from ~$3,400/mo | by contract | Enterprise and B2B |
The yearly column shows the effective monthly rate when you pay for a full year up front - about a 25 percent discount on Basic, Grow, and Advanced. Annual billing makes sense once you are committed to the platform; in the first few months, most stores stay monthly while they figure out whether the product has legs.
New stores also typically get a short free trial followed by a promotional rate (often $1 per month for the first three months) on the main plans. Treat it as a grace period for building, not a real price - budget for the full rate from month four onward.
What the plan price does not include
The subscription is only the cover charge. These are the costs that stack on top, and they are where most first-year budgets go sideways.
Card processing fees
Every online sale pays a processing fee to Shopify Payments (Shopify's built-in processor, powered by Stripe). In Canada, the published online rates as of October 2026 are roughly:
- Basic: 2.8% + 30 cents per online transaction
- Grow: 2.6% + 30 cents
- Advanced: 2.4% + 30 cents
On a $100 order at Basic, that is $3.10 in card fees. It sounds small until you multiply it by a thousand orders - at which point plan upgrades start to look attractive. Notice that higher plans get lower card rates, which is part of the real math behind when to upgrade (more on that below).
The extra fee if you do not use Shopify Payments
This is the fee that surprises people. If you take payments through a third-party provider instead of Shopify Payments, Shopify adds a surcharge on top of whatever that provider charges: 2 percent on Basic, 1 percent on Grow, and 0.6 percent on Advanced. For almost every Canadian store, Shopify Payments is the cheaper path - you would only skip it if you have a specific reason, like a payment method Shopify Payments does not support.
Apps
Shopify's core is solid, but most stores need a few apps: product reviews, email capture, loyalty programs, shipping automation, or a language switcher for a Quebec audience. Free apps exist, but the useful paid ones add up fast. Review the app pricing before you fall in love with one - three or four app subscriptions can quietly double your monthly platform cost. Audit them quarterly and delete the ones you stopped using.
Theme
Free themes are included and genuinely decent. Paid themes are a one-time purchase that you can skip at the start. A heavily customized theme - which is what professional setup usually involves - is design and development time, priced separately.
Domain and email
Your store's domain (roughly $15 to $25 per year for a .ca) is separate from the plan. So is professional email at your domain - Shopify does not include email hosting, so budget for a service like Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 if you want yourname@yourstore.ca on invoices and receipts. Customers notice.
Shipping and POS
Higher plans earn bigger Canada Post label discounts (up to 45 percent on Basic, 50 on Grow, 53 on Advanced, per Shopify's published numbers). If you also sell in person, Shopify's POS Pro is a separate subscription per location. If you are purely online, you can ignore this.
A realistic first-year budget
Two worked examples, both in CAD, before the cost of your time or inventory:
The lean startup store
A founder sells a small catalogue herself, on Basic, monthly billing for the first six months then yearly:
- Shopify Basic: roughly $49 x 6 + $37 x 6 = about $516 for the year
- Domain: about $20
- Email hosting: about $100 to $200 for the year
- One or two paid apps: $0 to $400 for the year
- Card fees: at 2.8% + 30 cents, about $310 per $10,000 in sales
Total fixed cost: roughly $950 to $1,350 for the year, plus card fees on every sale. This is the honest floor. It assumes you build the store yourself on a free theme and take your own product photos.
The growing store with professional setup
A store doing steady volume, on Grow with annual billing, set up by a professional, with reviews, email marketing, and loyalty apps:
- Shopify Grow, annual: about $1,188 for the year
- Domain and email: about $150
- Apps: $600 to $1,800 for the year is common once reviews, email, and loyalty are in play
- Professional setup (design, product pages, taxes, shipping, launch testing): many Canadian small businesses pay a freelancer or studio in the low four figures for a proper setup - this is the single biggest variable
- Card fees: about $290 per $10,000 in sales at Grow's 2.6% + 30 cents
Total fixed cost: roughly $2,000 to $3,200 per year plus setup, plus card fees. The lesson: the platform is cheap; the ecosystem around it is where the money goes.
Which plan should you pick?
Simple decision tree for Canadian small businesses:
- Just testing an idea? Start on the trial and launch on Basic. It is a full online store - the plan below it (Starter) is for selling through social links, not running a real storefront.
- Steady sales and two or more people touching the store? Grow adds staff accounts, better reports, and lower card fees. The card-fee drop alone starts to matter around $10,000 to $15,000 in monthly sales.
- Doing serious volume or selling internationally? Advanced earns its keep through the lowest card rates, calculated shipping rates at checkout, and duties calculations. Below six figures a year, it is more store than you need.
A useful rule of thumb: upgrade when the lower card rate saves you more than the plan costs. Moving from Basic to Grow costs an extra $83 per month but saves 0.2 percentage points on every transaction - at roughly $40,000 a month in sales, the savings cover the upgrade. Run your own numbers; most stores upgrade later than they expected.
When Shopify is the wrong choice
Shopify is built for selling things online. If your website's job is to generate phone calls, quote requests, or bookings - a trades business, a clinic, a consultant - a proper brochure website usually costs less and does the job better. Compare the trade-offs in our guide to hiring a developer vs using a website builder, and see the broader picture in how much a website costs in Canada.
Shopify is also a subscription you never stop paying: the day you cancel, the store is gone. If you want to own your platform outright and you are comfortable with more moving parts, WordPress with WooCommerce is the main alternative - we covered its current state in Is WordPress still good for business websites in 2026? Most non-technical store owners stay with Shopify anyway, because the maintenance is Shopify's problem instead of theirs.
How Webloped works
We are a web design and AI automation company based in Cambridge, Ontario. We set up and customize Shopify stores and WordPress sites for Canadian small businesses, and we also build custom sites for businesses that need more than a template. When you ask us for a price, you get a fixed quote in CAD before any work starts - the number we agree on is the number you pay. Our pricing page explains how projects and care plans are structured, or send us a message (or email contact@webloped.ca) and we will take it from there.
Frequently asked questions
Is Shopify really $1 a month?
The $1 promotional rate is real but temporary: new stores typically get it for the first three months after a short free trial, then the full plan price kicks in. It is a grace period for building your store, not a permanent price. Budget for the full rate from month four.
Do I need the Basic plan or can I use Starter?
Starter ($7/month) is for selling through links - social media bios, messaging apps, an existing blog. It does not give you a full online store with product pages and checkout. If you want a real storefront customers can browse, Basic is the starting point.
Can I sell on Shopify without using Shopify Payments?
Yes, but you will pay Shopify's extra surcharge (2% on Basic, 1% on Grow, 0.6% on Advanced) on top of whatever your payment provider charges. For most Canadian stores, Shopify Payments ends up cheaper. Only skip it if you specifically need a payment method it does not support.
Is Shopify cheaper than hiring a developer to build my store?
For the platform itself, almost always: a custom e-commerce build costs many times more than a year of Shopify. But compare fairly - Shopify's subscription is forever, while a professionally set-up Shopify store still usually needs paid setup help. The real comparison is between DIY Shopify (cheapest), Shopify with professional setup (mid-range), and fully custom (most expensive). See our full breakdown of website costs in Canada for the custom side of the math.