Using Shopify to launch your ecommerce brand was a fantastic first step. But as you start to attract more customers and site visitors, it may be time to upgrade to a more robust platform.
But what’s really the difference between Shopify and Shopify Plus? What ecommerce platform features should brands prioritize when scaling?
You’ve come to the right place: We’re here to answer all your questions about enterprise ecommerce brands, Shopify Plus, and growing your store.
With more than 800,000+ merchants on the platform, Shopify is one of the best platforms to kickstart your ecommerce journey. After all, it offers a robust marketplace of useful apps, beautiful themes, and helpful partners to address your every need.
Even if you’re doing everything right, you still might find yourself struggling with Shopify’s basic features, which offer limited wholesale, automation, and personalization capabilities.
That’s where Shopify Plus comes in, a platform designed for high-growth brands crushing their revenue goals month over month. It also happens to be the platform of choice for top ecommerce retailers like Kylie Cosmetics and MVMT.
The Shopify Plus dashboard.
While both Shopify and Shopify Plus use the same dashboard, there are a few key differences:
Shopify | Shopify Plus | |
Price per month | $29 to $299 | $2,000+ |
Best for | Startup and mid-sized ecommerce brands | High-volume ecommerce brands |
Number of staff accounts | 2 | Unlimited |
Customer support | Standard help channels (email, phone, chat) | Standard help channels + a dedicated Launch Manager + an ongoing Merchant Success Manager |
By upgrading to Shopify Plus, you can expect:
Personalized checkout experiences, so you can A/B test different layouts, checkout copy, and fields to analyze their impact on checkout and cart abandonment rates.
Access to script editor. Instead of relying on third-party apps, Shopify Plus allows you to use Script Editor to write custom scripts and code to build a unique store and customer experience. It’s a massive game-changer for brands looking to add non-generic functionalities to their sites, whether that’s reordering features, product bundles, or special pricing for return customers.
The back end of Script Editor.
Lower transaction fees. Rather than pay 2.2-2.9% plus $0.30 in credit card fees per transaction, you pay 0.15% for third-party payment processors (and nothing for orders paid with Shopify Payments).
Bandwidth for high-traffic sessions. More growth = more site visitors, but with Shopify Plus, you never have to worry about your site crashing on Black Friday or Cyber Monday again — the platform can handle 500,000 users and 6,000 checkouts per minute.
More customer service and support. While Shopify offers its merchants a ton of helpful resources (including forums, experts for hire, and webinars), Shopify Plus takes it to the next level by providing a dedicated Platform Migration and Merchant Success manager. You’ll also gain access to an exclusive Shopify Plus Facebook community.
International expansion tools. Shopify Plus has many tools to help you widen your customer reach in different countries, such as cloning your store for different languages and currencies.
Wholesale features. If you’re looking to sell your products wholesale, you can launch a dedicated channel that integrates directly with your existing product, customer, and inventory data.
New automation solutions. From order management to shipping to product launches, Shopify Plus offers automation solutions that’ll save time and money.
Itching to make the upgrade? Pause for a second and consider these questions:
How much revenue is my Shopify store making? (Generally speaking, Shopify Plus is only appropriate for enterprise-level brands making more than $1 million in annual revenue.)
Am I spending too much time on repetitive tasks?
What are my growth plans for the year?
Do I need more customer support, or am I able to easily find answers to my questions?
What types of site customization am I looking for? Can I manage with third-party apps?
For more questions to see if Shopify Plus makes sense for your brand, check out this guide.
If you’re not quite ready to make the leap to Shopify Plus yet, there’s another growth solution you should check out: AdRoll.
As an all-in-one AI-powered marketing platform that covers ads, emails, and beyond, AdRoll helps brands like yours better attract, engage, convert, and delight shoppers — regardless of industry or target audience.
Check out how AdRoll can help you crush your 2022 goals by downloading our app for Shopify merchants.
Last updated on November 5th, 2022.
