Shopify Starter Plan 2026: $5 a Month, Closed to New Stores

The Shopify Starter plan is closed to new stores: Shopify's Help Center says it isn't available to new stores, and that a merchant who leaves it can't switch back, as read on November 4, 2026. The last US version of Shopify's Starter page, archived on May 27, 2026, priced it at $5 a month with 5% transaction fees on sales paid through Shopify Payments. Starter sells through product links shared on social media and in messages, with a simplified store on the Spotlight theme.

This guide reads Shopify's Help Center, its US pricing page and the archived Starter page as they stood on November 4, 2026, with prices in US dollars. It is written for two readers: merchants already on Starter who wonder whether to move up, and new merchants looking for the $5 plan they read about elsewhere. For every Shopify plan side by side, see our guide to Shopify pricing.

Is the Shopify Starter plan still available?

Not for a new store. Here is what Shopify's own pages showed on November 4, 2026:

For a store already on Starter, two rules follow:

• Don't change plan to try another one. The move is one way, so run the numbers below on your real orders first.
• Treat a pause with the same care. Shopify's billing article lists pausing your store, next to changing plans, as a step after which a discontinued plan can't be chosen again.

For a new store, the plans on offer are the ones on the pricing page. The last section of this guide covers the cheapest ways in.

How much does the Shopify Starter plan cost?

None of the live US Shopify pages we read on November 4, 2026 showed a Starter price. The Help Center describes Starter's transaction fees as competitive and sends you to the Starter page for your region's rates, and that page now redirects to the free trial. The last US version we found is the archived copy of shopify.com/starter from May 27, 2026: its FAQ said the plan costs $5 USD per month, with transaction fees of 5% when you use Shopify Payments.

Source: Shopify's Starter page, archived by the Wayback Machine on May 27, 2026, read on November 4, 2026.

What 5% means on one order: on a $40 sale, Starter's fee comes to $2.00. On Basic, the US pricing page lists 2.9% + 30¢ per online standard card payment as of November 4, 2026, so the same sale costs $1.16 + $0.30 = $1.46. Starter's low subscription is paid back through a higher cost on every sale.

What does the Shopify Starter plan include?

The Help Center describes Starter as the plan for merchants who are starting out and want to sell through social media platforms or messaging apps, with a simplified online store. On November 4, 2026, it listed:

• Product links. You create links to your products and share them in social media posts or in messages.
• The Spotlight theme. In the theme editor you add a logo, a brand introduction and social media links, and you set the colors.
• Default pages. A home page, product pages, a contact page, a 404 page, the cart and the checkout.
• Reports. The analytics page, Live View, and finance, product, acquisition, inventory, behavior, marketing, order, sales, retail sales, profit and customer reports.
• International commerce. Cross-border tools for selling to other countries.
• The features on all plans, except staff accounts, collections and POS Pro. The features on all plans page lists unlimited products, discount codes, manual orders, abandoned checkout emails and fraud analysis when you use Shopify Payments.

For selling in person, the Help Center says all paid plans include some in-person selling features, and the archived Starter page said you can sell in person with Shopify POS. The POS Pro subscription is not available on Starter.

What does the Starter plan not include?

The same Help Center page lists what Starter leaves out:

Source: Starter plan, Shopify Help Center, read on November 4, 2026, unless another link is given.

The missing collections matter most once the catalog grows: without them, products can't be grouped by category for shoppers who browse. Starter fits a handful of products sold through links, not a catalog that visitors explore. The archived Starter page made the same distinction, describing Basic as the plan that adds theme editing and blog posts.

Can Starter stores install Shopify App Store apps?

Shopify's pages don't give a single rule. The archived Starter page listed access to Shopify apps among the plan's features. The live Help Center page doesn't mention apps, either as a feature or as an exclusion.

What does apply is the App Store's own check. According to Shopify's guide to finding and choosing apps, developers can set installation requirements, and one of the five types is having the Online Store channel. If your store doesn't meet an app's requirements, its listing shows it as Not compatible, and you can't install it until your store settings change. On a Starter store, open the listing and read that notice before you plan around an app.

Starter or Basic: which one costs less?

Starter has the lower subscription, Basic the lower cost per sale. On November 4, 2026, Shopify's US pricing page listed Basic at $39 a month paid monthly, or $29 a month paid yearly, with online card rates from 2.9% + 30¢ and a 2% fee when you use a third-party payment provider. The Help Center notes that annual billing charges the full year upfront.

Source: Shopify pricing page, US version, read on November 4, 2026.

Sources: archived Starter page, Shopify pricing page and Help Center, read on November 4, 2026.

Where is the break-even point?

Both plans take a percentage of each sale, and Basic adds 30¢ per payment. Take a fictional store with a $40 average order, paid online by standard card through Shopify Payments:

• Starter: 5% of $40 = $2.00 per order.
• Basic: 2.9% of $40 = $1.16, plus $0.30 = $1.46 per order.
• Gap: $0.54 per order in Basic's favor.

Basic's subscription costs $34 more than Starter's when paid monthly ($39 minus $5), and $24 more when paid yearly ($29 minus $5).

Break-even orders per month = subscription gap ÷ fee gap per order

• Against Basic paid monthly: $34 ÷ $0.54 = 62.96, so Basic costs less from 63 orders a month, about $2,520 in sales.
• Against Basic paid yearly: $24 ÷ $0.54 = 44.44, so Basic costs less from 45 orders a month, about $1,800 in sales.

Calculation with Starter's last published US figures and Basic's prices read on November 4, 2026. Taxes, apps and Shopify's introductory offer are left out.

The average order moves the result, because Basic's fixed 30¢ weighs more on small orders. At a $20 average order, the gap narrows to $0.12 per order and Basic only costs less from 284 orders a month ($34 ÷ $0.12). At a $100 average order, the gap is $1.80 and Basic costs less from 19 orders ($34 ÷ $1.80).

Who is the Starter plan for, and when should you move up?

Starter fits a store that sells a few products through links: replies to direct messages, posts with a product link, a link-in-bio page. The archived Starter page presented it as a lightweight way to launch a business or test a sales idea without building a full website.

Signs that it is time to move to Basic or higher:

• Your monthly orders pass the break-even point for your average order.
• Your catalog needs structure: collections, more pages, a blog or another theme.
• You want email or SMS campaigns with Shopify Messaging, available from Basic.
• You sell wholesale with Shopify B2B, available from Basic.
• You open a shop or a permanent stand and need POS Pro: our guide to Shopify POS pricing covers its cost per location and the hardware.
• You hire: staff accounts start on Grow, which costs $105 a month or $89 a month paid yearly on the pricing page as of November 4, 2026.

The change is permanent, so decide on your real numbers. If they point to Basic, our Shopify pricing guide compares Basic, Grow and Advanced in detail, and our guide to Shopify Plus pricing covers the enterprise plan. For a verdict on the platform itself, see our Shopify review.

What can a new store use instead of Starter?

Two options appeared on Shopify's US pricing page on November 4, 2026:

• Basic with the introductory offer: 3 days free, then $1 a month for 3 months, before the standard $39 a month on the pricing page. It is a promotion and can change, and it gives you the full online store that Starter doesn't have.
• Agentic, at $0 a month: you add products to Shopify's Catalog, choose AI channels to sell in and pay card rates from 2.9% + 30¢ online when you make a sale, according to the same pricing page. According to the Help Center, this plan doesn't let you publish a Shopify online store or sell through its checkout, so it does not replace Starter's product links.

If social selling is your starting point, a full plan connects to Instagram and Facebook: our Shopify Instagram integration guide walks through the setup.

How do you check your Starter costs before you switch?

1. Confirm your plan. In your Shopify admin, go to Settings, then Plan, and note your current plan and billing cycle, as described in the Help Center.
2. Count your orders. Take the last three months, and note the number of orders per month and your average order value.
3. Price both plans. Apply the break-even formula above to your own average order, and compare the monthly and yearly Basic prices.
4. List what you are missing. Collections, staff, Shopify Messaging, B2B or POS Pro, and the lowest plan that includes each one.
5. Switch when the numbers agree. In Settings, then Plan, click Change plan, select the new plan, choose a billing cycle and click Subscribe.
6. Expect an immediate bill. The billing article says an upgrade is billed right away for the new plan's subscription, with the cost of the previous plan prorated and deducted.

Where does WhatsApp fit on the Starter plan?

Messaging apps are what Starter was built for. The Help Center describes it as the plan for selling through social media platforms or messaging apps, and the archived Starter page named WhatsApp as a place to sell through direct messages when customers reach out with questions.

On Starter, that selling is manual: a customer asks a question in a chat, you answer and paste a product link. Three habits make it smoother. A WhatsApp click-to-chat link in your bio and posts opens a chat with your number in one tap. A WhatsApp Business catalog shows your products inside the conversation. Saved replies handle the questions you get every day.

The manual approach stops scaling around the point where Basic already costs less than Starter: dozens of orders a month, carts left unpaid, customers asking where their parcel is. Kanal, our WhatsApp marketing app for Shopify, handles that part on WhatsApp with abandoned cart recovery, order notifications, WhatsApp campaigns sent to segments and a shared team inbox, and it tracks the revenue of each message. Kanal is a paid app: on the Kanal pricing page, read on November 4, 2026, Pro costs €89 a month, Scale €149 and Business €350, and Meta bills WhatsApp messages on top.

Shopify Starter plan at a glance

If your store is on Starter, the plan still does what it was made for: a few products sold through links in chats and posts. Compare it with Basic on your real orders, since the move is one way, and switch when your volume passes the break-even point. If you are opening a store today, Starter isn't on offer: start on Basic or another plan from the pricing page.