How much does Shopify cost in euro?

How much does Shopify cost? In euro, the plan runs from 24 to 289 euro a month billed yearly, before VAT, for a store based in Belgium. Having a store built costs more: Shopify partners start between 500 and 7,500 dollars, and a full starter project costs around 4,000 euro. On top come apps every month and payment fees on every order.

Over three years our worked example comes to about 2,100 euro for a small store you set up yourself, and close to 20,000 euro for a growing store an agency builds. We build stores, on Shopify or custom, from Ghent, Belgium, for businesses anywhere in Europe; see webshop development.

What drives the cost of a Shopify store

Four things, each billed at a different moment:

• The build, once: choosing or designing a theme, loading products and collections, setting up payments, shipping and VAT, and connecting your accounting or stock system if you need it.
• The plan, every month: Basic, Grow or Advanced, cheaper when you pay a year up front.
• Apps, every month: reviews, newsletters, invoices, translations. Many have a free tier for small stores and a paid tier once you grow.
• Payment fees, on every order: a percentage plus a fixed fee for cards, a fixed fee for local methods such as iDEAL and Bancontact.

The more you sell, the more the payment fees weigh. In a small store the plan is the largest fixed line; in a busy store it is the orders themselves. What we set up for a store that sells in several EU countries is on Shopify agency.

What an order costs with Shopify Payments

With Shopify Payments, Shopify's own payment service, each online payment costs:

A higher plan only lowers the card rate. Use another provider, such as Mollie or Stripe, and you pay that provider while Shopify adds its own percentage. Selling in more than one currency through Shopify Payments costs 2% for the conversion.

Why Shopify gets expensive

Not because of the plan, at 24 euro a month for Basic. It is what piles up around it:

• Apps with their own monthly priceJudge.me reviews cost 15 dollars a month on the paid plan, Klaviyo newsletters 20 dollars from 251 contacts, Order Printer Pro invoices 10 dollars from 51 orders a month. Three such apps cost more than Basic itself.
• A paid themeShopify offers 24 free themes. The paid themes on the first page of the Theme Store cost 200 to 380 dollars, and a theme is bought per store.
• Another payment providerOn Basic Shopify then adds 2% per order.
• More currenciesConverting through Shopify Payments costs 2%.
• Monthly billing96 euro a year more on Basic than paying yearly.
• The agency buildDesign, catalogue, integrations and testing are the largest one-off amount.

A lot can be free. Shopify Translate & Adapt translates your store automatically into two languages, which covers a German and a French version for many European stores. Shopify Email sends 10,000 emails a month for free, then 1 dollar per 1,000. Judge.me and Order Printer Pro have free tiers for small volumes. Price each app at the size you are growing into, not the size you start at.

Three paid apps already cost more than the Basic plan. Count them before you count the plan. Moving from another platform? The steps are in Shopify migration; leaving Shopify instead, see how to cancel your Shopify subscription.

The worked example, spelled out

The small store is set up by you with a free theme and the free tiers of its apps. It takes 30 orders a month at 45 euro on average, all by card. A year costs 288 euro for the plan and 414 euro in payment fees, 702 euro in total, or 2,106 euro over three years, before your own time.

The growing store is built for 4,000 euro, the price of a typical starter project. It runs three paid apps (Judge.me, Klaviyo and Order Printer Pro, 45 dollars a month, or 480.68 euro a year) and grows from 100 to 250 to 500 orders a month at 55 euro, all by card. In year three it moves to Grow, because at 500 card orders a month Grow is cheaper. Three years come to 19,956.04 euro, of which 13,110 euro is payment fees.

What these amounts leave out

• VATShopify lists its plans before tax. It bills European stores from Ireland and asks for a VAT number valid for cross-border trade, which it checks in the EU's VIES system. Enter it before your first invoice.
• VAT on your own salesSelling to consumers in other EU countries for more than 10,000 euro a year means charging their VAT, declared through one EU country. Shopify offers automatic VAT collection on Basic.
• Shipping and packagingA shipping app such as Sendcloud charges per label and has paid plans from 40 dollars a month next to a free one.
• Your domain, email, product photos and copyPaid separately, and rarely part of a build price.
• Your own timeLoading products, handling orders, keeping apps up to date.

Shopify or a custom store?

A custom store drops the plan, and the app features are built in. In the example that saves 864 euro over three years for the small store and 2,846.04 euro for the growing one. The payment fees stay: Mollie charges 1.8% plus 0.25 euro for a European consumer card and 0.39 euro for Bancontact. Building your own store costs more than filling in a Shopify theme, so on cost alone a custom build rarely wins for a small store.

Custom pays off for other reasons: when the store has to talk to your own stock, planning or accounting system, or sells something a standard cart cannot handle. To compare Shopify with a builder, read Wix vs Shopify.

Which Shopify route fits you

• Set it up yourself on Basicif you have fewer than a hundred products, a free theme is enough and you have time to enter your catalogue.
• Have a partner build itif your brand must stand out, you sell in several languages, or the store must connect to accounting or stock.
• Look at customif what you sell does not fit a standard cart: configure with a price, book a date, request a quote instead of an order.

Rules every EU store faces

On Shopify the store is still yours, and EU rules apply. Since 28 June 2025 consumer web shops must be accessible; see the European Accessibility Act and what changed a year later in EU accessibility law one year on. A mandatory withdrawal button is coming, and stores shipping small parcels from outside the EU face a customs duty on small parcels. Selling across borders also means VAT in the customer's country above 10,000 euros a year in EU distance sales. A Shopify theme does not handle all of that for you. Why a store does not sell is a different question, answered in why is my online store not selling.