What is Shopify Plus? Complete Guide [2024]

Shopify is a powerful e-commerce platform with more than 4.4 million online stores globally. Even its most basic package can transform a budding store into a thriving enterprise. However, once your store starts performing even better and you move on to large inventory, standard Shopify plans (Basic, Shopify, and Advanced) may only work to hold your store back. This is where Shopify Plus comes in. 

In this guide, we’ll share everything you need about Shopify Plus, including its features, pricing, and the perfect time for a merchant to upgrade. 

What is Shopify Plus?

Shopify Plus is a separate e-commerce platform for high-volume, enterprise-level stores. Unlike standard Shopify plans, Plus provides essential enterprise-scale software and apps that give merchants more customization and control. This way, merchants can reliably and conveniently move large amounts of inventory. 

Plus, it is the perfect plan for merchants who want their store to reach its full potential by improving multichannel omnichannel functions and automation capabilities. And with the improved loading speed, you can expect your store to reach new heights. 

Shopify Plus Key Features

There is an abundance of features that you can leverage to transform your store. Here’s an analysis of the best ones.  

Multichannel & Omnichannel Solutions

Despite online or foot traffic, a merchant needs to know whether they can handle demand in their store. For this reason, Shopify Plus caters to massive demands and traffic from different online platforms. Plus, it has unlimited bandwidth and offers 200TB of storage to store owners. 

Merchants can leverage its multichannel sales and omnichannel solutions to sell products wherever customers are online. You can target, remind, and convert customers across various social media platforms, operating systems, devices, and search engines. 

Global Selling Compatibility 

Unlocking new regions and markets is a surefire way to grow any business. Shopify Plus developers understand this, so they made cross-border sales simpler for enterprise stores. When you opt for Plus, you can reach over 175 countries where Shopify brands and partners operate. 

Additionally, Plus helps you find new customers in different regions faster due to improved SEO and tailored shopping experiences. You can drive more sales to your store by using content localization tools, letting customers shop in local currencies, and offering discounted worldwide shipping rates. 

You can also go a step further by offering all your customers reliable shipment tracking across regions with ParcelPanel, specially designed for Shopify Plus.

Reliable App Ecosystem

While most Shopify apps also work with the Plus plan, some are more effective and reliable. You can discover the top apps for this plan in the Shopify Plus Certified App Program within the Shopify app store. These Shopify Plus apps are carefully chosen to meet specific merchant requirements and are among the highest-rated in the Shopify store, making them perfect additions to your app stack.

Now, if you don’t want to nitpick from a handful of selected apps, you can choose from our stack-Channelwill and manage the apps from one place. 

Exclusive APIs and Shopify Scripts

When creating a stellar Shopify store that makes you stand out from your competitors, you need APIs. These application programming interfaces allow you to connect apps to your store, which makes them essential for any Shopify Plus developer. You can use APIs to integrate existing CRM or ERP systems for more simplified and improved business processes. 

Some APIs are exclusive to Shopify Plus merchants and partners. For example, Multipass allows merchants to have a separate website to redirect users and seamlessly log them into their stores. These APIs, with Shopify scripts, which let you create and add your code on Shopify servers, can make your store stand out. 

Customizable Checkout 

You will find that most Shopify stores have the same checkout page; this is by design. The Plus plan, however, lets you customize different aspects of your checkout page however you want. You can:

• Customize branding, design, and layout of the checkout page
• Offer geo-specific click-and-collect options 
• Set custom pricing rules
• Calculate international taxes
• And assign personalized discounts and messages to customers

These features are beneficial for creating a seamless and customized checkout experience for your customers. 

Robust and Reliable Automation

Managing a small online store is already tedious work, so you can only imagine how much work an enterprise store needs. Fortunately, Shopify Plus comes packed with tons of automated workflows and campaigns. These automation capabilities are designed to cut hours of repetitive day-to-day tasks like adding tags and re-ordering inventory. Shopify Plus experts praise two features above all for their ability to make automation easier: Shopify flow and Launchpad.

Flow allows merchants to hide out-of-stock products, identify and cancel high-risk orders, create custom logic triggers, and build connectors. On the other hand, Launchpad helps merchants automate and schedule product launches and sale events and adjust inventory levels. 

B2B and DTC Tools

When creating partnerships and collaborations with your suppliers, wholesalers, vendors, distributors, or other businesses, Shopify Plus covers you on all fronts. The Plus plan has many built-in features that aid in B2B operations, collaborations, and communications among Shopify Plus partners. Plus, merchants can assign payment terms, set customer-specific prices, create payment reminders, and build tailored delivery and payment logic. Shopify Plus agencies can build custom B2B and DTC solutions using B2B APIs, apps, discounts, and custom themes. 

Even DTC businesses can leverage B2B platforms and features. B2B Shopify Plus features are flexible enough to support DTC stores that plan to expand into wholesale. 

Greater Organizational Capabilities

The Plus plan also offers advanced organization settings, which add more unique functions to the Shopify admin page. This function is useful for merchants running multiple stores, as it allows one to perform actions across multiple stores. These actions can affect users, store management, and billing. 

For example, stores with many staff members can add new users, assign or remove access to users, control permissions, create roles, and enforce two-step verification. Now, couple this with the fact that a Shopify Plus agency has access to unlimited staff accounts, and you have a recipe for boundless growth. 

Additionally, the Plus plan comes with in-depth analytics and reporting capabilities. These analytics and reports provide valuable data on performance across different stores, so you can better understand your Shopify Plus enterprise. 

World-class Customer Support

Shopify has one of the best customer support teams in the e-commerce space. Their customer service is reliable and responsive to all merchants. However, Shopify Plus support is on a different level. 

Plus, merchants receive higher and more responsive support than standard Shopify merchants. The plan entitles you to a dedicated team of Shopify Plus experts who help you fix errors, guide you on launches, and oversee the success of your store. You’ll get a launch manager, solutions engineer, and merchant success manager when you opt for this plan. 

You can also give your customers professional support by integrating Willdesk into your store and providing stellar customer support service. 

Shopify Plus Pricing

Unlike standard Shopify plans, pricing for Shopify Plus isn’t fixed. The website sets a starting price of about $2,000, merchants are encouraged to contact the platform for a quote. 

The Shopify Plus pricing variation ensures every business is charged fairly according to their usage. Sometimes, it charges the same business vary from month to month. The more complex your business structure, the more you may have to pay.  

Here’s what you can expect to pay when you choose to become a Plus Merchant: 

• Store building costs – You can use a pre-designed template or opt for something unique for your brand. To build a custom store, you can expect to pay third-party Shopify plus agencies between $30,000 and $250,000. 
• Transactional fees – You can expect 1.6% plus $0.35 or £0.20 of payment processing fees per transaction if you use Shopify payments. 
• Licensing fees – Monthly fees start at $2,500 for a one-year engagement term, or you can opt for a three-year engagement at a monthly fee of $2,300. The licensing fee may vary for more complex stores with higher volumes based on their business model and revenue generated.

Although Shopify Plus’s cost might seem high, it’s a cost-effective, long-term solution for large brands, especially compared to other enterprise solutions. Additionally, Shopify doesn’t charge merchants when migrating to the Plus plan. 

Key Advantages of Shopify Plus

Now that you know what features the Plus plan holds for you and have a rough estimate of how much it will cost to upgrade, it’s time to look at the value the switch will bring you. 

Here are the three key reasons enterprises and fast-growing brands are upgrading to the Plus plan:

1. Operation Efficiency 

In today’s fast-changing e-commerce landscape, speed and adaptability are important for the success of online stores. So, Shopify has addressed this need by providing efficient operation and automation tools: Shopify Flow and Launchpad. 

Shopify Flow helps automate tasks, saving time and minimizing errors. Launchpad schedules and automates product releases, sales campaigns, and events, making it easier for businesses to manage retail operations efficiently.

Shopify Plus offers enhanced usability, with a streamlined admin interface and theme editor for quick edits and instant publishing. This enables marketing teams to efficiently launch campaigns and sales from the admin panel without extensive technical support. 

Furthermore, Shopify Plus facilitates the creation of expansion stores tailored to different regions, offering localized shopping experiences with native languages and currencies. These features collectively empower businesses to excel in the dynamic e-commerce landscape.

2. Improve Sales & Conversions 

Shopify Plus merchants can now enjoy a one-page checkout. Now, it’s no secret that a complicated checkout process is one of the leading causes of cart abandonment. For this reason, Shopify rolled out this feature after years of R&D. One-page checkout ensures that you convert as much traffic as possible into paying customers.  

Shopify checkout is already the best conversion in the e-commerce landscape. A Big Three consulting company shows that Shopify converts 15% better on average than other e-commerce platforms like Magento, BigCommerce, and Salesforce. If you couple this stat with the Shopify plus checkout customization feature, you can create an exceptional checkout strategy that will convert.

3. Omnichannel eCommerce Capabilities

Merchants should use multiple platforms to market and sell products across various channels, as customers appear on various platforms. Since most consumers tend to purchase from brands they follow on social media, maintaining a strong online presence counts. The Shopify Plus plan enables merchants to discover and sell products to customers wherever they may be online. The plan natively integrates with over 20 channels like Facebook, Amazon, Instagram, and eBay. Additionally, Shopify Plus enables store owners to manage all their channels in one centralized hub integrated with analytics and automation. 

With these key values, you can easily see why, when it comes to Shopify vs. Shopify Plus, the Plus plan is always the winning strategy for fast-growing brands. Shopify Plus offers multistore capabilities, allowing merchants to oversee numerous stores using just one account and offering tools such as multicurrency and multilanguage capabilities for a localized experience.

Learn More in Shopify Vs Shopify Plus: Comparison & Key Differences [2024]

When to Upgrade to Shopify Plus

As a Shopify user, you might wonder when migrating to the Plus plan is the best time. Understandably, the starting Shopify Plus cost alone is enough to make anyone want to think twice. And the fact that migrating might incur some cost, even if Shopify doesn’t charge users for plan migrations, can be off-putting. However, it’s important to note that, in some cases, not upgrading can cost you more in the long term.

Shopify explains that most online stores migrate to the Plus plan when their monthly sales reach $80,000, equivalent to $1 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR). And if your business reaches $10 million ARR, you must consider migrating. 

Final Words

Upgrading to Shopify Plus to scale your business might seem daunting. However, the payoff might be worth the risk in the end. From the start, the plan offers many helpful tips, tools, and guides to help you scale your business. The platform also allows you to find a Shopify Plus partner from a list of vetted, world-class agencies and app partners.