Hidden Costs of Running a Shopify Store
A realistic all-in budget for a new Shopify store is around $100 per month, not $39. Beyond the subscription and card fees, budget for apps ($0 to $100+/month; the average store runs 6+), a premium theme ($0 to $350 one-time), a domain ($15/year), email marketing (free to $50/month at small list sizes), shipping and packaging, and chargeback fees ($15 each). The subscription is usually under half the total cost.
The subscription is the smallest line item. Here is everything else, with realistic numbers.
Apps: the subscription multiplier
The average Shopify store runs six or more apps, and apps are the fastest-growing line item in most P and Ls. Reviews, upsells, subscriptions, loyalty, advanced shipping, and analytics each cost $10 to $50 per month. Two or three paid apps can double your $39 subscription. Audit quarterly: for each app, check whether you used its output in the last 30 days. Stores routinely find $60 per month in apps installed for a feature they used once.
Prefer native features before apps. Shopify has absorbed many former app categories into the core platform: discounts, subscriptions, search and discovery, and email are all built in now. Every app you avoid is $15 per month saved and one fewer third party with access to your customer data.
Themes, domains, and email
Themes range from free to about $350 one-time in the theme store. A free theme is genuinely fine to start; premium themes buy design polish and built-in features that might otherwise need apps. Budget it as a one-time cost amortized over years, not a monthly fee. A custom domain through Shopify costs about $15 per year for a .com, or bring your own from any registrar. Email hosting is not included: you get unlimited forwarding addresses but need your own email provider.
Email marketing deserves its own line. Shopify Email includes a generous free tier, then scales with volume; Klaviyo and competitors start free and reach $50 to $200 per month as your list grows. For a store doing email properly, this is a top-three cost after the subscription and card fees, and it is also usually the highest-ROI spend on the list.
Shipping, packaging, and returns
Shipping is not a Shopify fee, but it is the largest cost most product stores face. Shopify's carrier discounts save up to 77% on Basic and 88% on Grow and Advanced off retail postage, which is real money, but packaging, labels, and labor are all yours. A store shipping 300 orders per month at $2 in packaging and $1.50 in labor per order spends $1,050 per month before postage. Returns add the reverse logistics cost plus refunded revenue; model your return rate as a cost per order, not an afterthought.
Chargebacks, refunds, and fraud
Each chargeback costs a $15 fee plus the lost sale and the lost product. A 0.5% chargeback rate on $20,000 per month is $100 in merchandise plus $15 per dispute. Fraud prevention apps and Shop Pay's buyer protections reduce this, but budget a line for it. Refunds through Shopify Payments return the card processing fee, a small mercy that third-party gateways do not always match.
A realistic first-year budget
Month one for a lean new store: $1 (trial pricing), free theme, free apps only, existing laptop and phone. Month four onward, realistic: $39 subscription, $30 to $80 in apps, $20 to $50 in email marketing, $15 per year domain, plus card fees at roughly 3.5% of sales and shipping as its own P and L. That is about $100 per month in fixed platform costs before you sell anything, which is why stores need roughly $3,000 per month in sales to cover fixed costs at typical margins. The subscription is the smallest number on the page. Budget the whole page.
Prices current as of October 2026. Sources: Shopify pricing page (shopify.com), US rates; annual billing saves roughly 25%. New stores: 3-day free trial, then $1/month for 3 months on most plans.