You are paying somewhere between $2,500 and tens of thousands per month and you want to know exactly what you are buying. Shopify Plus is marketed with broad strokes: enterprise features, unlimited staff, customisable checkout. But merchants routinely upgrade, discover the features they actually needed are still third-party apps, and end up with a higher bill and roughly the same capabilities.

This guide breaks down every Plus-only feature clearly, names what you do not get, and gives you the revenue number where upgrading becomes financially rational rather than aspirational.

What does Shopify Plus actually include?

Shopify Plus is a separate contract tier rather than a plan you upgrade to through your admin. Here is what you gain access to that standard Advanced plan merchants do not have.

Checkout Extensibility

This is the headline Plus feature in 2026 and it is genuinely valuable. Checkout Extensibility replaced the old checkout.liquid file (deprecated August 2024) and gives you a structured, upgrade-safe way to customise the checkout experience.

With Checkout Extensibility you can add:

Post-purchase upsell pages
Custom fields (gift messages, delivery instructions, VAT number capture)
Trust badges and social proof elements
Loyalty point balance display
Order summary customisations
Custom thank-you page content

All of this is built using Checkout UI Extensions, which are sandboxed components that survive Shopify's own checkout upgrades. This is a meaningful improvement over the old checkout.liquid approach where every Shopify upgrade could break your customisations.

Apps like Checkout Blocks (from around $99/month on Plus) let non-developers build checkout customisations without writing extension code. Rebuy's checkout upsell features are also unlocked fully on Plus.

Shopify Flow

Flow is Shopify's native automation builder. Think of it as a no-code workflow tool that triggers actions based on events in your store.

Common use cases:

Tag high-value customers automatically when they hit a spend threshold
Send internal alerts when inventory drops below a set level
Auto-apply tags to orders based on product type for fulfilment routing
Pause campaigns for out-of-stock products
Create tasks in your helpdesk when high-value orders need review

Flow is available free on all plans from 2023 onward, but the enterprise automation depth and third-party integrations are more extensive on Plus. If you were previously paying for a tool like Mechanic (around $29/month) to handle automations, Flow can replace it on Plus.

B2B Commerce (Native)

Shopify Plus includes native B2B functionality that lets you run wholesale and DTC from a single store. This includes:

Company profiles with multiple contacts and locations
Custom price lists per company or segment
Net payment terms (net 15, 30, 60) on orders
Order minimums and quantity rules
A self-serve B2B portal for buyers
B2B-specific checkout experiences

Prior to Plus introducing native B2B, merchants had to use third-party wholesale apps (Wholesale Club at around $24/month, Wholesale Gorilla at around $39/month) or build a separate Shopify store. For merchants with a genuine wholesale channel, this alone can justify part of the Plus cost.

Launchpad

Launchpad lets you schedule and automate flash sales, product launches, and promotional events. You set a start and end time, configure what changes (price adjustments, theme changes, product visibility), and Launchpad executes everything automatically, then reverts after the event ends.

For merchants running frequent sales events, this removes a significant operational headache. It is genuinely a Plus-exclusive feature with no direct equivalent elsewhere in the Shopify ecosystem without custom development.

Organisation Admin

If you operate multiple Shopify stores under one brand, Organisation Admin gives you a single dashboard to manage users, billing, and reporting across all of them. This is relevant for:

Brands with separate stores by region (UK, US, EU)
Merchants with separate DTC and B2B stores
Agencies managing multiple client stores under one Plus contract

The ability to manage staff permissions across stores from one login is a meaningful time-saver at scale.

Unlimited Staff Accounts

Standard Shopify plans cap staff accounts (Basic at 2, Shopify at 5, Advanced at 15). Plus removes this limit entirely. For larger operations with warehouse staff, customer service teams, and marketing managers all needing Shopify access, this matters.

Expanded API Rate Limits

Plus stores receive higher API call limits, which matters if you are running complex integrations with ERPs, PIMs, or custom internal tools. Standard plan rate limits can become a bottleneck for high-volume stores with heavy integration requirements.

200 Checkout Capacity

Standard Shopify stores can process around 40 checkouts per minute at peak. Plus increases this to 200 checkouts per minute. For most merchants this never becomes a constraint, but during major sale events (Black Friday, product drops with significant demand) the standard limit can cause checkout queues and failed transactions.

Exclusive and Enhanced Third-Party App Access

Certain apps and features are only available to Plus merchants:

Checkout Blocks (checkout UI extensions without coding)
Bulk Account Inviter (for migrating wholesale customer bases)
Transporter (for bulk data migration)
Gift Card Generator
Enhanced versions of several loyalty and review apps

What does Shopify Plus NOT include?

This is where merchants often feel misled. Plus does not include:

Better SEO out of the box: Your SEO capability is identical to Advanced plan unless you build it through apps
Superior themes for free: You still pay for premium themes separately
Built-in ERP or PIM: These remain third-party integrations regardless of plan
Automatic performance improvements: Page speed is still your responsibility
Free development support: Shopify Plus comes with a dedicated merchant success manager, not a development team
Reduced transaction fees automatically: You still pay Shopify's transaction fee unless you use Shopify Payments

What does Shopify Plus cost?

Shopify Plus pricing has two structures:

Revenue Band	Monthly Fee
Up to ~$800k USD/month GMV	$2,500/month (fixed)
Above ~$800k USD/month GMV	0.25% of monthly GMV

The 0.25% GMV rate is negotiable at high volumes. At $10m/month GMV, you would pay $25,000/month at list price, though large merchants typically negotiate this down.

The contract is annual, not month-to-month. You are committing to at least $30,000 in the first year at the entry rate.

Note on transaction fees: Shopify Plus merchants using Shopify Payments pay 0% transaction fees. Those using third-party payment providers pay 0.15% per transaction (versus 0.5% on Advanced). At high volumes, the transaction fee saving alone can offset a significant portion of the Plus subscription cost.

At what GMV does Shopify Plus make financial sense?

Here is a practical comparison for a UK merchant currently on Advanced plan (£399/month):

Annual GMV	Advanced Plan Cost	Plus Plan Cost	Net Difference
£500k	£4,788/year	£30,000/year	+£25,212
£1m	£4,788/year	£30,000/year	+£25,212
£2m	£4,788/year	£30,000/year	+£25,212
£5m	£4,788/year	~£37,500/year (0.25%)	+£32,712

The raw cost comparison makes Plus look expensive at most revenue levels. But the calculation changes when you factor in:

Transaction fee savings: At £1m GMV, saving 0.35% (the difference between Advanced and Plus rates with a third-party processor) saves £3,500/year
App consolidation: If you are paying for Wholesale apps, automation tools, and checkout customisation tools separately, Plus replaces some of those costs
Checkout conversion improvement: Even a 0.5% checkout conversion lift on £1m GMV is worth £5,000 in recovered revenue

The breakeven point is typically around £3-5m annual GMV when you genuinely need B2B, checkout customisation, and high-volume automation. At £1-2m GMV, the financial case is weaker unless you have a specific feature requirement (particularly B2B) that Plus solves cleanly.

Shopify Plus vs standard plans: feature comparison

Feature	Basic	Shopify	Advanced	Plus
Staff accounts	2	5	15	Unlimited
Transaction fee (third-party)	2%	1%	0.5%	0.15%
Checkout customisation	None	None	None	Full (Extensibility)
B2B native	No	No	No	Yes
Shopify Flow	Basic	Basic	Basic	Advanced
Launchpad	No	No	No	Yes
Organisation admin	No	No	No	Yes
API rate limits	Standard	Standard	Standard	Enhanced
Checkout capacity (per minute)	40	40	40	200
Report builder	No	No	Yes	Yes (enhanced)
Dedicated success manager	No	No	No	Yes

Key actions to take now

Calculate your actual transaction fee spend on your current plan and compare it to what you would pay on Plus at 0.15%. At high GMV this is often the strongest financial argument for upgrading.
Audit your current app stack and identify which tools Plus would replace natively. If you are paying for separate wholesale, automation, and checkout customisation tools, add those costs to your comparison.
Identify the specific feature that would generate revenue: checkout customisation for conversion lift, B2B for a new wholesale channel, or Launchpad for sale event automation. If no single feature has a clear revenue case, Plus is likely premature.
Model the GMV threshold: use the 0.25% GMV pricing to work out at what revenue level Plus becomes equivalent to your current plan plus third-party app costs.
Request a Shopify Plus demo: Shopify's Plus sales team will give you access to a demo environment where you can explore checkout extensibility and B2B before committing.
Negotiate the contract: at £2m+ GMV, there is usually room to negotiate on both the fixed fee and the revenue share rate, especially on annual commitments.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Shopify Plus worth it at £1m annual revenue? At £1m annual revenue, the financial case for Plus is weak unless you have a specific feature need. The entry cost of $2,500/month ($30,000/year) is a large overhead at that GMV. The exception is if you need native B2B functionality or you are running checkout customisations that are directly linked to a measurable conversion improvement.

Can I negotiate Shopify Plus pricing? Yes. At higher GMV levels (typically above $5m/year), Shopify's Plus team will negotiate the revenue share rate. Even at the entry tier, you can sometimes negotiate additional months free or onboarding credits, particularly if you are migrating from another platform.

What is the difference between Shopify Plus and Shopify Advanced? Advanced is a self-serve plan at £399/month with 15 staff accounts, a report builder, and reduced transaction fees. Plus is an enterprise contract starting at $2,500/month that adds checkout extensibility, native B2B, Launchpad, unlimited staff, Organisation Admin, and enhanced API limits. The feature gap is significant at scale but the cost jump is substantial.

Does Shopify Plus include development support? No. Plus includes a dedicated merchant success manager who helps with strategy, onboarding, and connecting you to Shopify's partner network. It does not include development hours or a dedicated developer. You still need to engage a Shopify Plus Partner agency for custom development work.

Shopify Plus Features: What You Actually Get and Whether It Is Worth the Cost