If you are planning to sell online, one of the first questions is how much does a Shopify website cost in Canada. Search for “how much does a Shopify website cost Canada” and you will find plenty of answers priced in US dollars; this guide sticks to Canadian dollars throughout. Shopify bills Canadian merchants in CAD, which makes the math refreshingly simple, but the subscription is only one part of the total. This guide breaks down plan pricing, themes, apps, transaction fees, and build costs so you can budget the real number.
How Much Does a Shopify Website Cost in Canada? Plan Pricing in CAD
Shopify’s published Canadian pricing for 2026, billed monthly (annual billing lowers the effective monthly rate by roughly 25%):
- Starter at $7 per month: sell through social media and messaging, no full online store. Fine for testing an idea, not for a real storefront.
- Basic at $49 per month (about $37 on annual billing): the standard starting point for a new store. Full online store, unlimited products, checkout, and basic reporting.
- Grow at $132 per month (about $99 on annual billing): for growing brands. Lower payment processing rates, more staff accounts, better reporting and shipping discounts.
- Advanced at $517 per month (about $389 on annual billing): for scaling stores. Advanced reporting, carrier-calculated shipping, and international pricing tools.
- Plus from roughly $3,400 per month: enterprise tier with custom checkout and automation. Overkill for almost every small business.
Most Canadian small businesses start on Basic and upgrade when sales volume justifies it. A common mistake is overbuying the plan on day one. The higher tiers earn their keep through lower transaction fees and better shipping discounts, which only matter at volume. Start on Basic, watch your monthly total including apps, and upgrade when the math says the higher plan costs less than what you are paying in extra fees. Shopify lets you change plans as you grow, so there is no prize for guessing right in advance. Note that plan prices change over time, so confirm current pricing on Shopify’s site before budgeting.
How Much Does a Shopify Website Cost in Canada Beyond the Subscription?
The monthly plan is the floor, not the ceiling. Budget for these:
Themes
Shopify offers solid free themes that work well for new stores. Paid themes in the theme store typically cost a few hundred dollars as a one-time purchase and buy you a more distinctive design with more built-in features. Many stores do perfectly well starting free and upgrading later.
Apps
Shopify’s app store is both its strength and its budget trap. Reviews, loyalty programs, advanced filtering, and subscriptions each tend to cost $5 to $50 per month. Three or four apps can quietly double your monthly platform cost, so audit them twice a year and delete what you do not use.
Transaction fees
Using Shopify Payments, expect around 2.9% plus 30 cents per online transaction on Basic, dropping on higher plans. Using an external gateway adds a surcharge (around 2% on Basic). On meaningful revenue these percentages dwarf the subscription fee, which is why higher plans can pay for themselves at volume.
Domain and extras
A custom domain runs roughly $15 to $25 per year. Professional product photography, copywriting, and logo work are separate costs that vary widely but matter enormously for conversion.
Typical Build Costs: DIY vs. Hired
- DIY with a free theme: $0 to $500 plus your time. Realistic if you have under 50 products and simple needs.
- Freelancer or small studio: typically $2,000 to $8,000 for setup, theme customization, product imports, and payment configuration.
- Agency build: typically $5,000 to $15,000+, climbing with custom design, integrations, and large catalogs.
These are typical ranges. A store with 20 products and standard shipping is a different project from one with 2,000 SKUs, multi-warehouse inventory, and B2B pricing.
Shopify vs. the Alternatives: A Quick Note
Shopify is not the only way to sell online. WooCommerce, the free ecommerce plugin for WordPress, can be cheaper month-to-month since you pay only for hosting, but you take on maintenance yourself. Squarespace and Wix offer simpler stores with lower ceilings. Marketplaces like Etsy and Amazon let you sell with no store at all, in exchange for marketplace fees and zero control over the customer relationship. Shopify’s advantage is the middle path: a real store you control, without becoming a part-time systems administrator. For most small retailers, that trade-off is worth the subscription.
A Realistic First-Year Budget
For a typical new Canadian store on Basic with annual billing, a paid theme, and two or three apps, expect roughly $1,500 to $3,000 in platform and tool costs for the first year, before transaction fees and before any build cost. Here is how that breaks down in practice: annual Basic billing runs about $444 per year, a paid theme is a one-time few hundred dollars, two apps at $15 per month each add $360 per year, and a domain adds roughly $20. That puts the realistic platform total near $1,000 to $1,500 before you sell a single item, or closer to $2,000 to $3,000 once you include product photography and copy help. Then transaction fees take their percentage of every sale. None of this is unreasonable; it is simply the full picture.
Shopify is priced to scale with you: cheap to start, and the costs that matter most, transaction fees and apps, grow with your revenue. Budget the whole picture, not just the subscription.
Revisit the math every six months as you grow. The right plan at $10,000 a month in sales is rarely the right plan at $100,000, and downgrading an overgrown app stack is one of the easiest cost wins available to an established store.
Planning a store and want it built right the first time? Our custom and ecommerce builds start from $1,499, published openly on our pricing page. Get a free quote with your product count and must-have features, or browse our website development services to see what is included.