How Much Does a Shopify Website Cost in Canada? A 2026 Pricing Guide

Last updated: October 22, 2026

A Shopify website in Canada usually costs between about CA$40 a month at the simplest end and CA$20,000 or more up front once you add professional design and development, and there are really two price tags to think about: the Shopify subscription you pay every month, and the one-time cost of building the store. Most Canadian small businesses land around CA$79 to $150 a month for the platform, apps, and domain, plus a build that runs anywhere from a few hundred dollars if you do it yourself to $3,000 to $10,000 when an agency handles it. What you actually pay comes down to who builds the store, how custom the design is, how many apps you bolt on, and how much you sell, since payment processing is a real slice of the total.

To compare the ongoing monthly bill across platforms, see our guide to how much a website costs per month.

Shopify website cost in Canada at a glance

• Shopify Starter: US$5 per month, a checkout link for social and messaging rather than a full store
• Shopify Basic: US$29 per month billed yearly, or US$39 month to month, best for solo founders
• Grow (formerly the Shopify plan): US$79 per month yearly, or US$105 monthly, for small teams
• Advanced: US$299 per month yearly, or US$389 monthly, for scaling brands
• Shopify Plus: from about US$2,300 per month, roughly CA$3,400, for enterprise stores
• Custom domain: about CA$14 to $30 per year, or free on a myshopify.com subdomain
• Premium theme: usually CA$0 for a free theme, or a one-time CA$200 to $500 for a paid one
• Apps: often CA$0 to $100+ per month each, with a typical small store spending $50 to $300 a month
• Payment processing: about 2.4% to 2.9% plus 30 cents per online sale on Shopify Payments
• Build cost: roughly CA$0 to $500 DIY, $500 to $5,000 with a freelancer, or $3,000 to $30,000+ with an agency

Key Shopify cost terms, defined

• Subscription plan: the recurring monthly fee that unlocks the store, checkout, and Shopify’s hosting and security.
• Shopify Payments: Shopify’s built-in payment processor, which sets your card rates and waives the extra transaction fee.
• Transaction fee: an added cut Shopify takes, from 0.6% to 2%, when you use a third-party gateway instead of Shopify Payments.
• Theme: the design template that controls how your store looks, available free or as a one-time paid purchase.
• App: an add-on from the Shopify App Store that adds features like reviews, subscriptions, or email, usually for a monthly fee.
• Build cost: the one-time price to design, set up, and launch the store, separate from the ongoing subscription.
• Total cost of ownership: everything added together over a year, subscription plus apps plus fees plus the build and upkeep.

Treat every figure here as a range rather than a quote. Shopify publishes its plan prices in US dollars even for Canadian merchants, so the exact Canadian total shifts with the exchange rate and with GST or HST on top. The build cost varies even more, because a five-product store for a local bakery and a 5,000-product catalogue with custom checkout logic are not the same job. One thing worth saying early: the cheapest subscription is rarely the real cost. A $39 plan with $250 of apps and 2.9% payment fees on real sales volume adds up to far more than the sticker price, so it pays to budget for the whole picture instead of the plan alone.

Key takeaways

• A Shopify website has two costs that people often confuse: the monthly subscription, which runs from US$5 to US$389 for standard plans, and the one-time build, which runs from nothing if you do it yourself to $30,000 or more for a custom agency store.
• Most Canadian small businesses run comfortably on the Basic or Grow plan, spend $50 to $300 a month on apps and a domain, and pay a build cost that depends entirely on whether they DIY, hire a freelancer, or bring in an agency.
• Payment processing is the cost people forget. At roughly 2.4% to 2.9% plus 30 cents a sale, a store doing $20,000 a month in orders pays close to $500 to $600 a month just in card fees.
• Shopify bills in US dollars, and GST or HST applies to the subscription and to your Canadian sales, so your real Canadian budget is a little higher than the headline plan price suggests.
• The right number is the total cost of ownership over a year, not the plan you pick in month one. Scoping the build, apps, and marketing together is exactly what our web design services for Canadian businesses are set up to help with, and you can book a free consultation to get a number that fits your store.

If you’re weighing Shopify against a general website build, it helps to read this alongside our broader guide to how much web design costs in Canada, since a Shopify store is one flavour of that larger question. This piece zooms in on the ecommerce side, where the platform fee, apps, and payment processing change the math.

What goes into the cost of a Shopify website?

The reason Shopify pricing feels confusing is that two different bills get lumped together. One is the ongoing platform cost, the subscription you pay Shopify every month to host and run the store. The other is the build cost, the one-time work of designing the store, setting up products, installing apps, and getting it ready to sell. You can spend almost nothing on the build and a little each month, or spend tens of thousands on the build and still pay the same modest subscription. Both are real, and a sensible budget accounts for each.

Here’s how the main pieces break down, and roughly what each one runs for a Canadian small business.

Notice that the subscription is often the smallest line once a store is actually trading. Apps and payment processing tend to grow with the business, and the build cost is a single decision that shapes everything after it. A good storefront also has to load fast and work on phones, which is where the design work earns its keep. If you want to see why that matters for sales, our piece on how web design impacts conversions makes the case with the mechanics rather than the marketing.

Shopify subscription plans and pricing in Canada

Shopify runs on a tiered subscription. Every plan includes hosting, security, unlimited products, and the core online store, and the differences come down to reporting, staff accounts, shipping discounts, and how much Shopify takes on each sale. Prices below are Shopify’s published rates as of 2026, billed in US dollars even for Canadian merchants, with the yearly price giving a meaningful discount over paying month to month.

For most Canadian small businesses, the choice is between Basic and Grow. Basic is plenty to launch and sell, and the usual reason to move up to Grow is either that you’ve added staff who need their own logins, or that your sales volume is high enough that the lower card rate saves more than the extra subscription costs. That crossover is worth doing the arithmetic on rather than guessing. Advanced makes sense for stores doing real volume where the reporting and the even lower card rate start to pay for themselves.

Shopify Plus sits in a different league. It’s aimed at large stores that need custom checkout, higher API limits, and dedicated support, and the starting price of around US$2,300 a month means it only makes sense once the business is well past its first growth stage. Very few Canadian small businesses need it, and being told you do early on is a small red flag.

How much does it cost to build a Shopify store?

This is the number that varies most, because it depends entirely on who does the work. The subscription is fixed by Shopify. The build is a choice, and the same store can cost nothing but your weekend or five figures with an agency, depending on the route you take and how custom you want it.

Doing it yourself

Shopify was built so that a non-technical owner can launch a store without hiring anyone. You pick a theme, add your products, write your descriptions, connect a payment method, and go live. If you use a free theme, your only real costs are the subscription, a domain, and any apps you add. The trade-off is your time and the ceiling on how polished and distinctive the result looks. DIY suits a new store testing an idea, a side project, or a founder who genuinely enjoys the setup. It’s the cheapest path, and for a lot of first stores it’s the right one.

Hiring a freelancer

A freelancer sits in the middle. For roughly $500 to $5,000, you get someone who sets up the theme properly, customizes the design, uploads products, and configures the apps and shipping so the store actually works. It’s a good fit when you want a store that looks intentional but don’t need custom code or complex integrations. Quality varies a lot at this level, so the usual advice applies: look at real stores they’ve built, agree on scope in writing, and be clear about who owns the account when it’s done.

Working with an agency

An agency costs more because you’re paying for a team, a process, and accountability. A small agency store in the $3,000 to $10,000 range typically means a custom design built on a solid theme, a considered app stack, proper product and collection setup, and support through launch. Go up into custom territory, past $10,000, and you’re paying for bespoke design, custom functionality, and integrations with systems like your inventory or accounting. This route makes sense when the store is central to the business and the cost of getting it wrong is high. It’s also where planning the store alongside your wider marketing pays off, since a beautiful store nobody can find doesn’t sell. Our web design team scopes ecommerce builds this way, and we treat the store as one part of how you attract and keep customers, not a thing that exists on its own.

Themes, apps, and domains: the add-ons that change your total

Two stores on the same plan can have very different monthly bills, and the difference is almost always apps. This is the part of Shopify budgeting that creeps up on people, so it’s worth looking at each add-on honestly.

The honest guidance here is to add apps as you need them, not in advance. Every app is a recurring cost and a little more weight on your page speed, and a store slowed down by a dozen half-used apps converts worse, not better. A tidy stack of three or four apps you actually use beats a sprawling one every time. Because speed genuinely affects sales, it’s worth knowing why website speed matters before you install your tenth plugin. The same goes for making sure the store works properly on phones, which is where most ecommerce traffic now comes from, a point we cover in why mobile-friendly web design is important.

Payment processing and transaction fees

This is the cost that scales directly with your success, and it’s the one new store owners most often leave out of the budget. Every time a customer pays, Shopify or your payment gateway takes a cut. On Shopify Payments, the built-in processor, that’s roughly 2.4% to 2.9% plus 30 cents per online transaction, with the exact rate depending on your plan. Higher plans have lower rates, which is the main financial reason to move up a tier as your volume grows.

There’s a second fee that catches people out. If you use a third-party payment gateway instead of Shopify Payments, Shopify adds its own transaction fee on top, from 2% on Basic down to 0.6% on Advanced. Using Shopify Payments waives that extra fee entirely, which is why most Canadian stores use it unless they have a specific reason not to.

The table shows why the plan question isn’t really about the subscription. Once you’re doing real volume, the card rate matters more than the monthly fee, and the arithmetic of moving from Basic to Grow or Advanced turns on how much the lower rate saves you against the higher subscription. It’s a calculation worth redoing every few months as sales change.

What a Shopify store costs to run each month

To make this concrete, here’s what a realistic monthly budget looks like at three stages. These are illustrative Canadian examples, not quotes, and your own numbers will shift with your app choices and sales.

The pattern is clear enough: early on, the subscription dominates because you have few sales, and later, payment processing and apps take over as the store grows. That’s healthy, because those later costs only rise when revenue does. Ongoing upkeep is its own line, and if you’d rather hand it off, our guide to website maintenance costs in Canada breaks down what a support plan runs and what it should include.

Shopify vs other platforms: how the cost compares

Shopify isn’t the only way to build an online store, and cost is one reason people compare. The short version is that Shopify charges a predictable monthly fee and makes the build easier, while some alternatives have a lower sticker price but push more of the work and technical cost onto you. Here’s a rough comparison for a small Canadian store.

WooCommerce often looks cheaper because the plugin itself is free, but the total cost of ownership tells a fuller story once you add hosting, security, and the time to maintain it. If you’re weighing that route, our comparison of the average cost of website design for small business puts the platform choice in context. The honest answer is that the right platform depends on what you sell and how much you want to manage yourself, not on the sticker price alone.

What a Shopify website costs for different business sizes

Because the ranges are wide, it helps to see where a typical business actually lands. These are rough Canadian profiles, meant to give you a starting point rather than a quote.

First-year cost bundles the build and roughly twelve months of subscription, apps, and support, which is a fairer way to think about it than the plan price alone. After year one, your recurring cost drops to the ongoing lines, since the big build number is behind you. If you sell to the local market, it’s also worth pairing the store with a plan to be found, which is where our work with ecommerce businesses and our writing on building a search-friendly online store come in.

Canada-specific costs and considerations

A few things are particular to running a Shopify store from Canada, and they nudge the real cost a little above the headline US-dollar plan price.

First, the currency. Shopify prices its plans in US dollars even for Canadian merchants, so your subscription costs a bit more in Canadian dollars than the number on the pricing page, and it moves with the exchange rate. You can still sell to your customers and get paid out in Canadian dollars, and you can set your store’s selling currency to CAD, but the plan itself is billed in USD.

Second, tax. GST or HST applies to your Shopify subscription, and once you pass the small-supplier threshold you’ll need to charge and remit tax on your Canadian sales too. Shopify has built-in tax settings that handle the calculation, but registering and remitting is on you, so it belongs in the budget conversation even though it isn’t a Shopify fee. The Canada Revenue Agency is the authority on when you need to register, and it’s worth checking rather than guessing.

Third, a point of local pride that’s also practical: Shopify is a Canadian company, headquartered in Ottawa, with strong support for Canadian payment methods, shipping through Canada Post integrations, and Canadian tax rules baked in. If you sell into Quebec, factor in French-language product content and a bilingual storefront, which is a content cost rather than a platform one but real all the same. For the official plan prices in your region, Shopify’s own Canadian pricing page is the primary source and the number that actually gets billed.

Is a Shopify website worth the cost?

For most businesses that want to sell online, yes, and the reason is that Shopify bundles a lot of expensive problems into one predictable fee. Hosting, security, checkout, payment processing, and the constant updates that keep an ecommerce site safe are all handled for you. Build those yourself on a custom platform and the cost and risk climb fast. Shopify’s fee buys you out of that, which is why it’s the default for so many stores.

Where it’s less obviously worth it is at the very small and the very large ends. If you’re selling one or two items occasionally, a simple Starter plan or even a social checkout link may be all you need, and a full store is more than the job requires. At the other end, a very large business with unusual requirements sometimes finds a custom build gives more control, though most reach that point long after Shopify has served them well. For the broad middle, a growing Canadian business that wants to sell online without babysitting servers, the cost is usually money well spent. If you’re still deciding whether an online store is the right move at all, our questions to ask before you commit in is it time to redesign your website apply just as well to a first ecommerce build.

How to budget for your Shopify website

Putting it together, here’s a sensible way to arrive at a real number rather than a guess.

Work through those six and you’ll have both a launch number and a monthly running number, which is exactly what a lender, a partner, or your own planning needs. If you’d rather not piece it together alone, that’s the sort of scoping we do every week. Marketing the store is its own budget line too, and it’s worth reading our overview of what digital marketing costs and what SEO costs in Canada so the plan to drive traffic doesn’t get left out. Paid ads through a managed PPC program and presence on social media round out how most stores actually get their first customers.

Frequently asked questions about Shopify website cost in Canada

How much does a Shopify website cost in Canada?

A Shopify website in Canada costs from about CA$40 a month at the simplest end to CA$20,000 or more up front once you add professional design. There are two costs: the subscription, which runs from US$5 to US$389 a month for standard plans, and the one-time build, which runs from nothing if you do it yourself to $30,000 or more with an agency. Most small businesses spend $79 to $150 a month on the platform and apps, plus a build cost that depends on whether they DIY or hire help.

How much does Shopify cost per month in Canada?

Shopify’s standard plans cost US$29 per month for Basic billed yearly, US$79 for Grow, and US$299 for Advanced, with month-to-month pricing a little higher at US$39, US$105, and US$389. There’s also a US$5 Starter plan for selling through a link, and Shopify Plus starts around US$2,300 a month. Because Shopify bills in US dollars, the Canadian-dollar amount is a bit higher and moves with the exchange rate.

How much does it cost to build a Shopify website?

Building a Shopify store costs nothing but your time if you do it yourself with a free theme, roughly $500 to $5,000 with a freelancer, and $3,000 to $10,000 with a small agency for a custom design on a solid theme. Fully custom agency builds with bespoke features and integrations run from $10,000 to $30,000 or more, and enterprise Shopify Plus builds can pass $50,000. The build is a one-time cost separate from the monthly subscription.

Is Shopify free to start?

Shopify isn’t free, but it offers a free trial, usually a few days, so you can build and preview a store before paying. After the trial you need a paid plan to go live and sell, starting at US$5 a month for Starter or US$29 for Basic billed yearly. There’s no free forever tier for a full store, though a free theme keeps your build cost down.

How much does Shopify take from a $100 sale?

On a $100 online sale using Shopify Payments on the Basic plan, Shopify takes roughly 2.9% plus 30 cents, so about $3.20, leaving you around $96.80 before other costs. Higher plans have lower card rates, closer to 2.5% on Advanced, which is why stores with more volume often move up a tier. If you use a third-party gateway instead of Shopify Payments, Shopify adds an extra transaction fee on top.

How much does it cost to develop a Shopify website with an agency?

A Shopify store built by an agency in Canada typically costs $3,000 to $10,000 for a custom design on a theme with proper setup and launch support, and $10,000 to $30,000 or more for a fully custom build with bespoke features and integrations. Enterprise Shopify Plus projects run higher again. At the agency level you’re paying for a team and a process behind the work, and for someone who’s accountable if something breaks, more than for the setup itself.

Do I need to pay for a Shopify theme?

No, Shopify includes free themes that are genuinely good and enough for most stores to launch and sell. Paid themes cost a one-time CA$200 to $500 and add more layout options and design flexibility, not any core selling ability. Plenty of successful stores run on free themes, so a paid theme is a nice-to-have rather than a requirement, especially early on.

How much do Shopify apps cost?

Shopify apps range from free to CA$100 or more per month each, and a typical small store spends CA$50 to $300 a month across a handful of them. Common paid apps cover reviews, email marketing, subscriptions, and advanced shipping. The practical advice is to add apps only as you need them, since each one is a recurring cost and adds a little weight to your page speed, which can hurt conversions if it piles up.

What is the cheapest way to get a Shopify store?

The cheapest route is to build it yourself on the Basic plan with a free theme, which keeps your costs to the subscription, a domain of about CA$14 to $30 a year, and any apps you choose to add. That can put a working store online for well under CA$100 a month plus your own time. The Starter plan at US$5 a month is cheaper still, but it’s a checkout link rather than a full store, so it suits a very small operation.

How much does Shopify Plus cost?

Shopify Plus starts at about US$2,300 a month, roughly CA$3,400, and is priced individually for larger stores based on volume and needs. It adds custom checkout, higher API limits, more staff accounts, and dedicated support. Plus is aimed at enterprise and high-volume merchants, and most small and mid-size Canadian businesses are better served by the standard plans until they’ve grown well beyond their first stage.

Are there transaction fees on Shopify?

Shopify charges payment processing fees of roughly 2.4% to 2.9% plus 30 cents per online sale through Shopify Payments, with the rate depending on your plan. If you use a third-party payment gateway instead, Shopify adds an extra transaction fee from 2% on Basic down to 0.6% on Advanced. Using Shopify Payments waives that extra fee, which is why most Canadian stores use it unless they have a specific reason not to.

Does Shopify charge in Canadian dollars?

Shopify bills its subscription plans in US dollars even for Canadian merchants, so your plan costs a little more in Canadian dollars than the sticker price and shifts with the exchange rate. You can still sell to customers and receive payouts in Canadian dollars, and you can set your store’s selling currency to CAD. So the platform fee is USD, while your sales and payouts can be CAD.

Do I have to charge GST or HST on my Shopify store?

Once your business passes the small-supplier threshold, you generally need to register for GST or HST and charge it on taxable sales to Canadian customers, then remit it to the Canada Revenue Agency. Shopify’s built-in tax settings can calculate the right amount at checkout, but registering and remitting is your responsibility, not Shopify’s. Because the rules depend on your situation, it’s worth confirming with the CRA or an accountant rather than assuming.

Is Shopify worth it for a small business in Canada?

For most small businesses that want to sell online, Shopify is worth it because it bundles hosting, security, checkout, and payment processing into one predictable fee and handles the constant updates that keep an ecommerce site safe. That saves both money and risk compared with building and maintaining a custom store. The exceptions are very small sellers, who may need only a Starter plan, and very large or unusual businesses that sometimes prefer a custom build.

How much does it cost to run a Shopify store each month?

A new Canadian store often runs CA$60 to $120 a month, a growing small business CA$350 to $800, and an established store CA$1,200 to $2,500 or more. Early on the subscription is the biggest line because sales are low, and later apps and payment processing take over as revenue grows. Those later costs only rise when your sales do, which is a healthy way for a cost to behave.

How long does it take to build a Shopify store?

A simple do-it-yourself Shopify store can be live in a weekend to a few weeks, a freelancer build usually takes two to six weeks, and an agency project runs four to ten weeks for a custom design, or two to four months for a fully bespoke build. The timeline depends on how custom the design is, how many products you have, and how quickly content and decisions come together on your side. For how this compares with other platforms, see our guide to how long it takes to build a website.

Shopify or WooCommerce: which is cheaper?

WooCommerce looks cheaper because the plugin is free, but the real comparison depends on total cost of ownership. With WooCommerce you pay for hosting, security, and the time to maintain a WordPress site yourself, while Shopify folds all of that into its monthly fee. For a content-heavy site already on WordPress, WooCommerce can make sense, while Shopify usually wins on simplicity and predictable cost for a store that just needs to sell.

Sources and methodology: Subscription prices in this guide reflect Shopify’s published 2026 plan pricing, cross-checked against Shopify’s Canadian pricing page, with build, app, and payment-processing figures aggregated from commonly reported Canadian market rates as of 2026. All build and running-cost figures are general market observations in Canadian dollars, not quotes from Owls Digital. Shopify bills subscriptions in US dollars, and GST or HST and exchange rates affect your final Canadian total. Every store is scoped and priced individually.

Weighing WordPress against Shopify? See our full breakdown of what a WordPress website costs in Canada to compare the two.