Shopify’s 2023 Pricing Model
Shopify is a leading e-commerce platform that provides businesses with a comprehensive solution for setting up and running an online store. Through having a user-friendly interface, customizable templating options, and integrations with popular payment gateways, Shopify has become a popular choice for small businesses, entrepreneurs, and established brands.
Shopify’s Price Increase
This article will tackle how Shopify’s price increase has become a widespread talking point throughout the eCommerce industry, and what this means across business growth.
Shopify launched in 2004, with a singular pricing model. There was one basic plan available, which provided users with access to the platform’s core features, including the ability to set up an online store, process payments, and manage orders. This basic plan was offered at a monthly fee, with no long-term commitment required. Over time, Shopify evolved to add more features to its platform, it also introduced additional pricing plans with varying levels of functionality and support, to cater to businesses across different scopes of growth. Since 2004, Shopify has always retained its reputation for being committed to making eCommerce accessible and affordable for businesses of all types.
At the beginning of 2023, Shopify announced a new pricing model to increase the cost of the monthly subscription packages as well as the payment transaction fees. Naturally, there was an instinctive reaction to the announcement creating a buzz around the topic of Shopify’s pricing model. The primary concern throughout the industry was that Shopify no longer caters to the original goal of making eCommerce accessible to smaller businesses.
The price increase from Shopify this at an average of approximately 30% across their plans. Whilst an initially daunting figure there are 3 considerations that need to be part of the conversation when debating the long-term implication of the pricing structure change:
- How frequent are price increases in Shopify?
- How does this compare to alternate eCommerce platforms?
- Why are Shopify implementing the price increase?
How frequent are price increases in Shopify?
The 2023 Shopify price increase is their first price alteration in 12 years. Shopify have always been praised for their ability to cater across business demographics, and their pricing model has always made them an attractive alternative for small business looking to create a serious eCommerce platform.
Shopify has always put itself mid-priced within eCommerce. Their company IPO was largely successful due to their USP of offering the functionality through templating, integration, and payment processing of a larger platform, with the pricing model and user-friendly interface of a cheap templating website service. Even with the price increase, Shopify is still a more affordable platform than the enterprise competitors as the option to select a plan for you allows the different service offerings to provide a range of pricing models. The price increase does separate Shopify from a general templating service, however, the functionality that the Shopify platform offers means the increase in price is more than justified.
Why are Shopify increasing prices?
So the question is asked, after 12 years of a consistent pricing model, why are Shopify now increasing their prices? In their own words “In order to not change the value of Shopify, we’ve had to change the price.”
I have two takeaways from this message. The value of Shopify is going to outperform any competition within the pricing bracket, therefore:
- Companies that are using the Shopify platform and can stay profitable throughout the price increase, will gain access to impressive site features and Shopify continues to improve their service.
- Shopify pushed the boundaries of what eCommerce can do for small businesses. They allowed small businesses to scale; they will now allow the scaled business to enterprise.
There has never been a better time to jump on board with a successful Shopify merchant.
At Adapt Talent we specialize in eCommerce Recruitment, Magento Recruitment, Web3 Recruitment and AI Recruitment and, we have a range of vacancies.
If you’re looking to scale your business and move into the eCommerce space contact us today and we should be able to find someone to help you.
