Shopify Plus Review 2023 – Worth The Price?

If you’ve been considering enterprise level ecommerce solutions for your business, but feel like it’s cost-prohibitive to get started – this review is for you.

In this Shopify Plus review, we're going to cover all the major features, pricing options, pros and cons, and considerations you may have before purchasing the Plus plan.

Shopify Plus offers the best of both worlds: a robust platform that requires no coding experience to operate and all of the benefits of enterprise software at an affordable price point.

Is Shopify Plus The Best Ecommerce Platform?

Every day, entrepreneurs are faced with the same question: what is the best ecommerce platform to use? 

There are so many options available. However, when it comes to ecommerce platforms for enterprise level businesses and high-volume stores, there's one clear winner: Shopify Plus.

The benefits of using this platform includes scalability, security features that guarantee your store won't be hacked or compromised in any way, 24/7 customer support from experts who know all about building a successful business on Shopify as well as an impressive list of features ecommerce tools.

In this review of Shopify Plus, we're going to cover the pros and cons of this enterprise platform, pricing, features, and why it is the best solution for high-volume stores, as well as what makes Plus different from other Shopify plans.

What Is Shopify Plus Exactly?

Shopify Plus is a hosted, all-in-one ecommerce solution built for high volume merchants and enterprise ecommerce businesses. Shopify Plus is designed to do everything from hosting your ecommerce website content on their secure servers (so you don't have to worry about site security), managing inventory, and processing orders in a timely manner with the Shopify POS system.

When you sign up to Shopify Plus, not only do you get all the tools you need to build and scale your high-volume ecommerce store, you also get a dedicated account manager, a launch engineer to help you seamlessly migrate to the platform, a solutions engineer to help you integrate all of your tools, and amazing 24/7 support.  

Shopify Plus Pricing - How Much Does Shopify Plus Cost?

The Shopify Enterprise plan is the only Shopify Plus pricing option available and starts at $2000 per month. It includes all of the features found in other plans, as well as some enterprise perks such as a dedicated account management team to help with implementation.

Pricing for Shopify Plus can be difficult to calculate as it varies per merchant, sales volume, and individual store needs.

Starting Price: $2,000 licensing fee per month to start, plus additional fees: 

1. Ecommerce website build out fees: To get started and sell online, you’re going to need to build your store. You can use the free Shopify pre-built website themes, or you’ll need to get a custom store built, which could range from $15,000 - $250,000 depending on your needs and the agency you use. 
2. Payment processing fees: Transaction fees cost 1.6% plus $0.35 per transaction if you’re using Shopify Payments, or 0.15% per transaction if you’re using your own solution (plus you’ll need to factor in the 3rd party payment gateways costs). 
3. Shopify Ecosystem App Fees: Shopify is well known for its rich ecosystem of plugins and apps you can use to extend the power of your store. Some of these are free, but others will cost you extra. Budget between $100 - $1,500 extra per month depending on your needs.
4. Maintenance Fees: Since Shopify is a hosted SaaS platform with dedicated customer service and account management as well as technical support, you can expect this to be minimum, however, it’s wise to plan for the occasional additional expense as needed.
5. Migration Fees: Ecommerce businesses migrating to Shopify Plus is free, but may incur its own costs. A Shopify rep can help you figure out any costs relevant to your business.

What's included in the $2,000 per month Shopify Plus plan?

• All features found in the Shopify plan and advanced plan, including unlimited bandwidth and storage space.
• Dedicated account management team to help with implementation.
• A dedicated team of developers on hand to handle any issues that may arise so you don't have to worry about it.
• Unlimited transactions, orders, and products (refer to the above pricing list for transaction fees).
• Integration with third party apps like Mailchimp for email marketing and Salesforce for CRM.
• 24/7 uptime guarantee.
• 60% faster checkout experience with higher conversion rates and Shop Pay

And a ton more.

Pros and Cons of Shopify Plus

In this Shopify Plus review, we wanted to make sure you get the Pros as well as the Cons so you can decide for yourself if Shopify Plus is the best ecommerce platform for your business.

Based on some reviews out there you might think this is the only enterprise option out there, but it’s not right for everyone.

Shopify Plus Features - What Is Best About Shopify Plus? 

Shopify Plus has a ton of ecommerce features to explore for your eCommerce business, including :

• Unlimited bandwidth, storage and hosting for your website content.
• Account managers and Shopify customer service chat team available during business hours in a variety of languages, which is included with every plan.
• Shopify POS system to process orders on desktop or mobile devices - all plans include access to the app.
• Priority phone access to their customer success team, which includes one year of training with an ecommerce expert and a dedicated launch manager to help you get your enterprise ecommerce business off the ground quickly
• The ability to sell on Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram - all plans include access to the apps.
• 100% uptime guarantee with their site hosting service (shopify.com).
• 60-day notice for cancellation of your Shopify Plus agreement without penalty or fees.
• Manage unlimited stores in unlimited languages.
• Wholesale channel management to manage your logistics.
• CSS and JavaScript support  to customize your website.
• Advanced security including SSL, bot protection, brute force protection and two-step verification.
• Support for multiple languages to personalize your customer experience.
• Advanced developer tools including access to the API store, theme editor and more.

And there's a ton more features Shopify Plus gives you access to, let's go through the standout features below.

Shopify Plus Website Designs & Website Templates

Shopify Plus comes with an array of website designs and website templates so you can easily customize your websites look, feel, and functionality. 

Shopify themes can be customized, and are mobile responsive. This means that your website will look good and perform well on any device - from a desktop computer to an iPhone or Android phone.

You get 10 free themes for your store, with an additional 59 options that cost extra. 

You can also edit your site to have a customized look with the many different color and font combinations available. 

The templates are all very user-friendly, so no coding knowledge is needed!

Since Shopify plus is intended as an enterprise solution for enterprise ecommerce stores, you can expect to have technical support included in your monthly fee.

Shopify Plus Security, Uptime & Scalability

Shopify Plus is designed to give you peace of mind with it's 24/7 99.9% uptime guarantee and solutions for scalability.

Your shop is automatically backed up every minute of every day which means if anything happens to it internally or externally it can be restored quickly by simply clicking ‘restore from backup.'

As for scalability, your store will be automatically scaled for high-traffic periods or seasons.

As a fully-hosted SaaS platform, you'll be able to scale to 500,000 hits per minute if necessary.

If you're wondering how robust Shopify Plus security is for your store, you get: 

1. Fraud and risk analysis
2. 3D secure checkout
3. Payment data encryption
4. Bot protection
5. Level 1 PCI DSS compliant
6. SOC2 type 2 compliance

And a number of other security features designed for high-volume stores.

Shopify Plus Integrations

Shopify Plus integrates with a ton of marketing and business apps, so you can plug in the tools you already use with your Shopify store. 

Here are a few integrations they offer:

Salesforce leads - automatically sync your customer data to Salesforce.

Zapier - connect your apps together with Zapier and automate tasks like sending notifications, updating inventory in Shopify or creating new customers from Zoho CRM when you get an email.

Mailchimp - send emails through the MailChimp service, which has double opt-in features for subscribers as well as automation campaigns powered by their API.

There's a ton of other integrations available, including: SAP, NetSuite, QuickBooks, MicroSoft, Acumatica.

You get unlimited sandbox and testing environments so you can test integrations on a staged site before implementing them live. 

Stripe Payment Processing (formerly known as Checkout) is available on all plans so that merchants can accept payments online without having to set up a merchant account themselves.

Shopify's built-in app center offers more than 500 external apps for integration.

Shopify Plus Automation Capabilities

Shopify Plus comes with a ton of automation tools for enterprise companies, including:

1. Automated tasks - create and track orders, automatically ship products to customers, update inventory levels in Shopify or Zoho CRM when you get an email. The automation app Zapier connects with more than 100 apps like Mailchimp (send emails), Stripe Payment Processing (accept payments), and Dropbox so that merchants can send invoices from within their account without having to use a separate tool.
2. Automate Inventory management for your products by setting up specific rules for when to add or delete inventory, and how much.
3. Automate fulfillment by connecting your store with a third-party logistics company like Fulfillment By Amazon (FBA) in the US so you can use their shipping rates and delivery times while still managing customer orders yourself.
4. Scheduled publishing of posts on social media networks using the Hootsuite application. 
5. High-risk order cancellation - protect your business against unwanted purchases by setting up a cancellation rule.
6. Advanced tax calculations - recalculating taxes for each order based on the specific product and customer location. This feature is only available if you live in Canada or Australia.
7. Tag and segment customers for targeting - categorize your customers based on their behavior, so you can create a targeted offer and email to drive sales.
8. Shopify Flow - Shopify Flow, only available on Plus, you can automate support tickets, track negative reviews, personalize marketing, organize customers by LTF, tag and track conversions, and so much more. It’s a game changing automation plugin that covers everything from risk management to inventory and merchandising, to order management, and the buyer experience.

And so much more - as far as ecommerce software automation goes, Shopify Plus is the best out there.

Shopify Plus Shipping & Fulfillment Network, What You Need To Know

Shopify Plus gives ecommerce store owners the peace of mind they need when it comes to shipping and fulfillment. 

Let's explore some of the advantages of using Shopify Plus to handle multi channel shipping and fulfillment.

1. Faster delivery time - new orders are fulfilled more quickly because of the shipping and fulfillment network, which includes Shopify’s own fulfillment centers located in strategically-chosen locations (Canada, US) near major metropolitan areas.
2. Variety of services offered - with this platform you can choose between various carriers like UPS or USPS to determine what is best for your business needs. These carriers offer different rates and service levels that suit each company's individual preferences. When it comes to international shipments there are a variety of options as well including UPS Worldwide Express and DHL Global Mail International Priority.
3. Accurate inventory and orders - Shopify Plus works to ensure that all your inventory and orders are accurate at all times.
4. Quick order processing - when an order is entered on the Shopify platform, it goes into a queue for fulfillment with one of their warehouse partners (in Canada or US). The entire process from entering the order to fulfilling it can take as few as six hours.
5. Accessible data and always up-to-date: Reduce errors with your inventory and customer data.

Shopify Plus Payments & Finance

For high volume merchants, there's a ton of concern when it comes to how your ecommerce software handles your online sales.

Shopify Plus has an enterprise-grade payment platform with a PCI certified, Level One Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) compliant gateway.

It’s also fully integrated with your regular Shopify store and offers live rates for all major currencies to help you make the best decisions when pricing your goods worldwide while taking advantage of any discounts offered by strategic partners such as PayPal. This is especially handy in international markets where exchange rates can fluctuate daily.

According to the sales page, they "Make it easy to pay and get paid."

With Shopify Payments you get:

• Sell in over 133 globally recognized currencies and accept payments in your own
• Track order and payment information with one platform.
• Fast, predictable payouts with automated reconciliation
• Track refunds right from the order
• Streamline and manage chargebacks
• Shopify POS helps you unify online and in-store sales

Customer Service On Shopify Plus - What Can You Expect?

Customer service is a big concern if you're spending $2,000+ per month for a software platform, so what can you expect from the level of service on Shopify Plus?

With Shopify plus you get:

• 24/7 live chat and 24/7 phone support for enterprise-level customers
• Access to a personalized customer success team to help you reach a higher level of success with the product, process and their expertise. They’ll get to know your business goals and work around them specifically so that they can offer the best support possible.

Here's a review of their customer service from TrustPilot:

"Shopify's customer service has been excellent and they have been very helpful with anything I've needed," said one reviewer. "The UI makes everything so easy to do."

Shopify Plus Alternatives

There are several ecommerce platforms out there like Shopify Plus that could be considered a viable alternative to Shopify Plus, and we wanted to quickly cover them in this Shopify plus review:

BigCommerce Enterprise:

"Bigcommerce is a complete, secure online store that helps entrepreneurs sell more. Our powerful e-commerce platform gives you everything you need to launch and run your business, including web hosting, an intuitive shopping cart system, SEO tools to attract new customers and so much more." - From BigCommerce website

Like Shopify, BigCommerce is designed for high-volume ecommerce stores and includes 24/7 support, multiple sales channels (eBay, Amazon, etc.), and a ton of features. 

Unlike Shopify Plus, BigCommerce doesn’t display their price plans, instead you have to request a quote which will depend on your requirements.

Salesforce Commerce Cloud:

"The Salesforce Commerce Cloud is the world’s first enterprise cloud for commerce. It powers more than 100,000 businesses in 160 countries with a unified cloud platform that integrates CRM and ERP data, provides merchants with unparalleled insights into customer behavior, and delivers lightning-fast transactions." - From SFCC website

One differentiator for Salesforce is it’s connected to the Sales Force marketing stack, offering advantages if you’re already using Salesforce products or need B2B solutions. 

Salesforce Commerce Cloud has three main price plans, Starter, Growth, and Unlimited plans, each which offer pricing based on a % of your GMV sold through the platform(Gross Merchandise Value). 

You might also want to take a look at our Shopify Vs Kartra review or our ActiveCampaign Vs Shopify review. 

Magento Enterprise:

"Magento Enterprise Edition is the enterprise-ready ecommerce platform that enables businesses of all sizes to compete more effectively in a global marketplace by delivering unparalleled power and flexibility. It includes unlimited support, deep customization capabilities, flexible deployment options and advanced features for managing front-end catalogs." - From Magento website

Similar to Salesforce, Magento also offers strong B2B / wholesaling features, and can be heavily customized.

Magento Commerce starts at $23,000 per year, which makes it slightly more affordable at the base level to Shopify Plus, however depending on the volume your store is doing, it can get really expensive. 

There are several more enterprise ecommerce tools out there that could be considered competitors to Shopify Plus, like WooCommerce Enterprise Edition, and Solidus, but we can't cover them all in this review.

Frequently Asked Questions About Shopify Plus

The Bottom Line - Is Shopify Plus Right For You?

We hope you enjoyed this Shopify Plus review!

In conclusion, Shopify Plus is best for ecommerce businesses that need the tools necessary to scale their already growing company.

The bottom line is, if your business needs a scalable solution with features like custom domains and unlimited bandwidth, then it might be worth considering upgrading from Basic Shopify to Shopify Plus.

However, before investing in Shopify Plus, make sure that you take the time to understand what it will cost and if your business needs all of its features.

If you are a small company that is just starting out, Basic Shopify might be enough for now. If not, then consider upgrading to Plus as soon as possible or scaling separately with another provider such as BigCommerce, Magento, or WooCommerce.