Shopify Fees UK Explained - How Much is Shopify UK?

“Success is where preparation and opportunity meet,” said a famous automobile racer, Bobby Unser.

Just like racing, e-commerce is full of opportunities to take the lead. But you can’t seize them when you’re unknowingly paying fees that eat at your profit margin.

When it comes to Shopify fees, UK sellers often don’t realise all the implications.  This blog post will help you uncover Shopify's pricing, including monthly payments, transaction charges, and extra expenses.

Once you choose your plan, remember that our software, Link My Books, can streamline your Shopify store’s bookkeeping. Whether you use Xero or QuickBooks, it removes the manual work and errors.

Start your free trial and enjoy automated workflows to skip the headaches of everyday bookkeeping.

Is Shopify Free?

While Shopify is not free, it offers a free trial of 3 days.

Following that period, you can get a first month for only £1 before you switch to your plan’s full price.

How Much is Shopify Per Month?

Payments vary depending on your chosen plan and how often you choose to pay. So, the answer to ‘How much is Shopify a month?' may not be that straight.

For monthly payments, you’ve got the following subscription fees:

• £25/month: Basic plan for solo entrepreneurs
• £65/month:  Shopify plan for small teams
• £344/month: Advanced plan for scaling businesses
• $2,300/month: Plus plan for more complex businesses

Note: You can save 25% on these if you choose to pay yearly.

Shopify fees UK at the time of writing this post.

However, Shopify charges different transaction fees besides your subscription. Check out Shopify UK’s pricing plans for the latest subscription fee and card rate information.

What is Shopify Payments?

Shopify Payments is Shopify's integrated payment gateway that sets up automatically when you create your Shopify store.

With this gateway, you can accept all major payment methods directly through Shopify without having to use any third-party provider.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Shopify Payments

Shopify strongly encourages merchants to use its payment gateway - they also waive off certain transaction fees. But perhaps you’d like to weigh the pros and cons of Shopify Payments before going for this option.

Advantages

The most significant benefits of choosing Shopify Payments are:

• Simple Setup: Shopify Payments sets up automatically. You no longer need to work with third-party providers and learn how to set up their systems.
• Immediate Acceptance of Major Payment Methods: Since it’s active the moment you create your store, you can immediately take any payments.
• Fewer Transaction Fees: You don’t have to pay any third-party transaction fees for the orders processed through Shopify Payments, Shop Pay, Shop Pay Instalments, and PayPal Express.
• Supports Co-Branded Cards: You can accept co-branded Cartes Bancaires cards globally.

Disadvantages

The following potential drawbacks, however, might impact your decision to go for Shopify’s payment gateway:

• Geographical Limitations: Shopify Payments is only available in certain countries.
• Prohibited Business Types: Regulated or illegal products, adult products, and financial products or services are not supported.
• Account Holds: You might deal with payout holds due to standard reviews and information requirements.
• Bank Account Restrictions: Your bank account must meet specific criteria for you to receive payouts through Shopify Payments.

Overview of Shopify Plans UK 

Shopify offers you four different plans and three alternative solutions for businesses. The alternatives are:

1. Starter: For selling through messaging apps, social media, or a simple online store for only £5/month
2. Retail: For selling in-person, with inventory, advanced staff, and loyalty features, from £69/month
3. Enterprise Commerce: Available upon request

As for the four main plans, we’ll detail them below. They all offer 24/7 chat support and share a few core features, with the more expensive plans offering additional features and capabilities.

Basic

This plan is the most affordable and popular, starting from just £25/month, or even £19 if you go for the annual payment. Shopify says it’s best for solo entrepreneurs and includes a couple of core features in it:

• A full-featured online store that supports product collections, informational pages, and blogs
• Up to 10 inventory locations and localised global selling for up to 3 markets
• One-click checkout
• Unlimited hosting for your online store with a free SSL certificate and custom domain
• Shopify POS Lite that you can use to sell at markets and pop-ups
• Unlimited contacts to your Shopify account
• Special forms for lead capturing, customer segmentation, and up to 10,000 free monthly emails
• Option to chat with customers and send automated messages or discount codes and gift cards
• Automation for marketing and abandoned checkout recovery emails

Shopify

The Shopify plan is best for small teams because it includes everything in the Basic plan plus five extra staff accounts. It starts at £65/month or £49 if you opt for an annual payment.

Like the Basic plan, it includes up to 10 inventory locations and localised global selling for up to 3 markets. But it does come with lower commissions for third-party payments and gives you full data access to custom apps.

Advanced

If your business scales, and you’re looking for up to 10 times extra checkout capacity and 15 additional staff accounts, the Advanced plan is right for you. You can get it for £344/month or £259 with the yearly plan.

On top of everything we’ve mentioned so far, this plan comes with:

• Enhanced live chat
• Custom reports and analytics
• Option to localise for additional markets for a monthly fee
• More third-party apps (up to two times the rate limit on select APIs)

Plus

The Plus plan is the most complex and has a hefty price tag and a three-year term condition. For $2,300/month, as a high-volume merchant, you’ll get competitive card rates and extra features like:

• Access to select third-party apps with up to 10 times the rate limit
• 40X checkout capacity and the option to fully customise it
• Option to localise global selling in up to 50 markets
• 200 POS Pro locations (with Shopify Payments)
• Priority support on both phone and live chat
• As many staff accounts as you need
• Up to 200 inventory locations
• Sell wholesale/B2B

Overview of Shopify Transaction Fees UK

The Shopify transaction fees include all the fees applied when a transaction occurs. These vary from one plan to another.

As you’ll see below, fees are the highest with the lowest plan and the most competitive with the Plus plan:

Note: If you choose to process your payments with Shopify Payments, you won’t have to pay the “third-party payment providers” fee mentioned below.

Basic Shopify Plan Fees:

• Online: 2.0% + 25p GBP per transaction
• In-Person: 1.7% per transaction
• Third-Party Payment Providers: 2% per transaction

Shopify Plan Fees:

• Online: 1.7% + 25p GBP per transaction
• In-Person: 1.6% per transaction
• Third-Party Payment Providers: 1% per transaction

Advanced Shopify Plan Fees:

• Online: 1.5% + 25p GBP per transaction
• In-Person: 1.5% per transaction
• Third-Party Payment Providers: 0.5% per transaction

Plus Shopify Plan Fees:

• Online/In-Person: Most competitive
• Third-Party Payment Providers: 0.2% per transaction

Managing your store’s transaction fees can be difficult with so many different rates. However, Link My Books helps you automate Shopify bookkeeping to reduce errors and avoid manual data entry and reconciliation.

Set up a free demo today and see how our software can streamline your Shopify bookkeeping and keep it accurate.

Other Shopify Costs for Sellers

Aside from Shopify's monthly plans and card rates/transaction fees, there are several other potential costs when you sell on this platform. These costs relate to:

• Domain Name: If you don’t want to use the free myshopify.com domain​
• Themes: If you don’t like the free ones and would like to try a premium theme (paid themes range from £130 to £290)
• Apps from the Shopify App Store: Not all of them are free
• Email Marketing: If you’re sending more than the free 10,000 monthly emails (approximately 76p per additional 1,000 emails sent)
• Shipping Services and the Provider’s Fulfilment Fees: These vary depending on carrier, service level, and destination
• Point of Sale (POS) Hardware: For in-person sales (card readers, receipt printers, barcode scanners, etc.)
• Transaction Fees on Refunds: Shopify doesn’t refund transaction fees when you issue a refund to a customer​
• Chargebacks for Disputed Transactions: If a customer disputes a transaction, you may incur a chargeback fee, which can add to your overall costs​.

Use Link My Books to Streamline Your E-commerce Accounting

Accurate bookkeeping is the foundation for effective Shopify accounting that supports all your strategic business decisions.

You can’t rely on your data analysis and reporting if your bookkeeping is inconsistent or inaccurate. This is an issue many Shopify sellers deal with. And whether you’ve reached that point or just trying to avoid it, Link My Books is here to offer you a robust solution.

If you want to streamline your bookkeeping, use Link My Books, and you will:

• Save yourself hours of manual work
• Reduce the likelihood of errors and fines
• Generate detailed financial reports fast and easy
• Keep your financial data accurate and up-to-date
• Have your transaction data synchronised in real-time
• Enjoy automatic Shopify to Xero integration or Shopify to QuickBooks integration.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Before you commit to Shopify, make sure to check the answers to these FAQs:

Which Shopify Plan Should I Choose?

Shopify recommends its four plans for specific business needs. 'Basic' is best for solo entrepreneurs, Shopify is for small businesses, and 'Advanced' is for growing businesses. 

'Plus' is the custom plan that only complex businesses should look into.

Can I Try Shopify Before Committing?

Yes, Shopify offers a free three-day trial. During this period, you can set up your store without entering any payment information and explore its features. 

If you need further testing, you can then try it one month for just £1.

Is Shopify a Good Fit for Small Businesses?

Yes, Shopify is an excellent fit for small businesses because it offers user-friendly tools, customisable templates, and scalable plans that grow with the business. 

Consider the Basic plan to get started and leave the advanced tools for when your business expands.

Conclusion

When most sellers think about Shopify, they’re tempted to believe it’s just a monthly fee they have to pay.

But you have a better understanding now that you’ve learned about the transaction fees and all the extra expenses that may or may not apply to your store. It all depends on which Shopify features you use or how many refunds/chargebacks you handle.

Knowing this makes bookkeeping all the more relevant. The more transactions you have (of any kind), the more you need to keep up with your books.

To simplify financial management and keep your bookkeeping up-to-date, try Link My Books. Our software handles all your data processing and reconciliation automatically. All you need to do is to take the free trial today.