Ecommerce
How much does a Shopify store cost in the UK?
By Felix Grant5 min read
A Shopify store in the UK costs from £19 a month on the Basic plan billed yearly, plus card fees of 2% plus 25p per standard online sale, if you build it yourself on a free theme. A store built by a UK agency typically costs £5,000 to £20,000 or more up front, plus the plan, apps and ongoing care each month. The plan fee is rarely the big number. Build, apps and card fees are. Prices below were checked on Shopify's UK pricing page in November 2026.
Plans
Shopify plan fees
Shopify's UK plans are Basic at £25 a month, or £19 a month billed yearly, Grow at £65, or £49 yearly, and Advanced at £344, or £259 yearly. Shopify Plus starts at £1,800 a month on a longer term. Shopify regularly runs introductory offers, at the time of writing a short free trial followed by three months at £1 a month, so check the pricing page on the day you sign up.
For most new UK stores, Basic or Grow is enough. Grow adds more staff accounts and lower card rates, which starts to pay for itself as sales rise. Advanced and Plus make sense for larger catalogues, multiple markets, B2B selling or heavy automation, and Plus is a conversation about revenue, not features.
Budget for VAT on top of plan and app fees, and confirm with your accountant how it is charged and reclaimed for your business.
Payments
Card fees and payment providers
With Shopify Payments, standard online card rates are 2% plus 25p on Basic, 1.7% plus 25p on Grow, 1.5% plus 25p on Advanced and 1.3% plus 25p on Plus. Amex and international cards cost more, for example 3.1% plus 25p on Basic. In-person rates are lower if you use Shopify POS.
If you use another payment provider instead of Shopify Payments, Shopify adds its own transaction fee on top of that provider's charges: 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow, 0.6% on Advanced and 0.2% on Plus. PayPal, Klarna and other options shown at checkout carry their own fees too.
Run the numbers on your own order volume. A store selling £100,000 a year online at an average order of £50 makes 2,000 sales. On Basic at 2% plus 25p, that is £2,000 plus £500, so £2,500 a year in card fees. On Grow at 1.7% plus 25p, it is £2,200, a saving of £300 that almost covers the higher plan fee on its own.
Theme and apps
Theme and apps
Shopify offers a range of free themes, and they are good enough for many stores. Paid themes on the official Theme Store are a one-time purchase, mostly priced between about $100 and $500, with a median around $300 according to one independent tracker of Theme Store prices. Updates are included, and you do not pay again each year.
Apps are where monthly costs creep. Reviews, subscriptions, search, loyalty, bundles, product options and email each tend to be a separate subscription, and several modest fees soon add up to more than the plan. Audit them every six months. Many stores pay for apps they tried once, and some leave code in the theme that slows every page after they are uninstalled.
Before adding an app, check whether the theme or Shopify already does the job. Native features cover more each year, and fewer apps means fewer monthly bills and fewer things to break.
Build
What a build costs
Doing it yourself costs time rather than money: a free theme, your own product photos and copy, and a few weekends. It is a sensible start for a new brand testing demand.
Agency prices vary widely, and few agencies publish them. ExpertSure puts custom Shopify theme development from a UK agency at £5,000 to £20,000 or more. Kwiboo puts a standard Shopify or WooCommerce build from most UK agencies at £5,000 to £15,000, and complex custom work at £12,000 to £40,000. Treat these as ranges, not quotes.
What moves the price is scope. The number of products and variants, how many page templates need designing, migrating from another platform with redirects and customer data, integrations with accounting, stock or courier systems, multiple currencies or markets, and B2B pricing all add time. A migration that keeps rankings and tracking intact costs more than a fresh store, and is worth it.
The plan fee is rarely the big number. Build, apps and card fees are.
Care
Ongoing care
Shopify hosts the store, applies security patches and keeps checkout running, so there is no server to maintain. That does not mean nothing needs doing. Theme updates, app conflicts, tracking that breaks after a checkout change, page speed, new landing pages and small fixes all take someone's time.
UK care plans vary with what they include. General website maintenance in the UK is commonly priced from tens of pounds a month for basic updates to several hundred for monitoring, content updates and performance work, and an ecommerce store usually needs the upper end. Ask what response times, hours and checks are included, and whether tracking is tested after every change.
Marketing is separate. Ads, SEO, email and content are where most stores spend after launch, and a store without traffic costs the same to run as a store with it.
Budget
Worked budgets, and what we charge
A small store run in-house might pay £19 a month for Basic billed yearly, nothing for a free theme and around £30 a month for apps, so roughly £600 in the first year before card fees. A growing brand using an agency might pay £8,000 for the build, £49 a month for Grow, £150 a month for apps and £250 a month for care, which comes to about £13,400 in the first year before card fees, with around £5,400 a year after that.
When you compare quotes, ask each agency for the same things in writing: what is fixed and what is charged extra, how many templates and rounds of changes are included, who handles redirects and tracking at launch, which apps they expect you to pay for, and what care costs after the first month. A cheaper build that leaves you £200 a month in apps you did not plan for is not cheaper.
Our Shopify builds and migrations start from £6,000, with a fixed quote and a written scope before work begins, and store care starts from £250 a month.
Key takeaways
- Shopify plans run from £19 to £259 a month billed yearly, with Plus from £1,800
- Card fees are 2% plus 25p per standard online sale on Basic, less on higher plans
- Paid themes are a one-off of roughly $100 to $500; apps are monthly and add up
- UK agency builds commonly range from £5,000 to £20,000 or more
- Budget for care and marketing after launch, not just the build
Written by
Felix Grant
Founder of Kitebox, a business technology and AI consultancy that builds what it recommends. Based in Mallorca, working with UK businesses.
About Felix →
