Shopify
The row for a business that mainly sells online: no caps on pages or products, a UK entity billing in pounds, and a plan ladder built around checkout rather than content.
Who owns it
Shopify Inc. is a Canadian company founded in Ottawa in 2006 by Tobias Lutke, Daniel Weinand and Scott Lake and listed on the NYSE and TSX. A founder share approved in 2022 gives Lutke 40 percent of the votes while he stays involved, whatever his equity. The UK company is Shopify UK Limited, Companies House 11256480, and UK and EEA data runs through Shopify International in Ireland. We found no Russian or Chinese link in ownership or engineering.
What it costs
Prices are in pounds as shown to a UK visitor on shopify.com/uk/pricing on 16 September 2026; VAT is reverse-charged for a VAT-registered business and added otherwise. Basic is the plan we score, and unusually it passes the business-plan test outright: £19 a month on annual billing, £25 billed monthly, a 32 percent premium, with a custom domain, unlimited products, no cap on pages, blog posts or storage, lead capture and checkout. The higher plans buy fees and seats, not content: Grow (formerly "Shopify") is £49 or £65 with five extra staff accounts, Advanced £259 or £344 with fifteen, Plus from £1,800 with unlimited. Shopify Payments card rates run 2 percent plus 25p on Basic down to 1.3 percent plus 25p on Plus; use another gateway and Shopify adds 2 percent on Basic, 1 percent on Grow, 0.6 percent on Advanced and 0.2 percent on Plus. The current offer is three days free then £1 a month for three months. There is no free plan, a no-fee Agentic plan lists an existing catalogue into AI shopping channels, and the old Starter plan could not be found.
What you get and what to watch
The theme editor is section-based with an AI prompt to draft a store, themes are switchable and the code is Liquid you can edit or export on any plan; a blog, scheduling and Shopify Markets translation are included, and Sidekick and Shopify Magic are the AI layer. Memberships in the content sense are not a native feature. Headless is a first-class route: one Hydrogen storefront on Basic to Advanced, hosted free on Oxygen. Shopify names four official MCP servers on shopify.dev, Storefront, Customer Account, Checkout and Dev, and every eligible store gained a Storefront MCP endpoint in early 2026 under the Universal Commerce Protocol. The status page was clear in the two weeks before our read. Support is live chat on Basic and Grow and 24/7 phone only on Plus.
Leaving is partial: products, customers, orders and discounts export as CSV and the theme downloads through the CLI, but product images are referenced by URL and vanish when the original store closes. Trustpilot is 1.3 on 5,118 reviews, 87 percent one-star, and the sampled complaints are from people who bought from a Shopify store, not people who run one, so we weight it lightly. Saaskly may earn a commission if you buy through the link on this page; the link was added after the score was set and did not change it.
Not yet tested by Saaskly: assessed on published pricing, vendor documentation, the vendor's own help centre and status pages, and third-party reviews.
Pros
- +No cap on pages, blog posts, storage or products on any plan; Basic already passes the business-plan test at £19 a month in pounds from a UK entity
- +Four official MCP servers, 16,000 apps, Hydrogen headless storefronts hosted free, and Markets translation included
- +The checkout, payments, inventory and shipping stack the other eleven cannot match if you sell
Cons
- −Built for selling: card fees of 2 percent plus 25p, an extra 2 percent unless you use Shopify Payments, and no content memberships
- −Product exports carry images as links that die with the store; phone support only on Plus; no free plan
- −Trustpilot 1.3 on 5,118 reviews, though mostly shoppers not merchants; plan names changed recently and Starter has disappeared
Pricing
Minimum commitment: £19 (£19/mo × 1 seat × 1 months). The least you can spend before walking away; excludes numbers, minutes and add-ons.
Basic
£25/mo · month-to-month
£19/mo on an annual commitment
Month-to-month costs 32% more
- ✓£19 a month on annual billing, £25 billed monthly (read 16 Sep 2026, UK page; VAT reverse-charged for VAT-registered businesses). Custom domain, unlimited products, no page, post or storage cap, lead capture, checkout, blog, one headless storefront. Shopify Payments 2% + 25p; 2% extra with another gateway. Offer: 3 days free then £1 a month for 3 months.
Grow
£65/mo · month-to-month
£49/mo on an annual commitment
Month-to-month costs 33% more
- ✓£49 a month on annual billing, £65 monthly. Five extra staff accounts, full API access, 1% third-party gateway fee. Advanced £259 or £344 with fifteen staff, live shipping rates, 0.6% fee. Plus from £1,800 with unlimited staff, 25 headless storefronts, 0.2% fee and 24/7 phone support.
Specifications
| Rating | 3.4 |
| Pricing and plans | |
|---|---|
| Scored plan* | £19/mo annual · £25/mo monthly (Basic) |
| Month-to-month | £25/mo (+32%) |
| Free plan | Trial only |
| Scored plan name | Basic |
| VAT basis | Excluding VAT |
| Licence | Subscription |
| Free trial (days) | 3 |
| Entry plan | Scored plan is the entry plan |
| Top plan | £1,800/mo (Plus) |
| First-term promotion | 3 days free then £1 a month for 3 months, site-wide offer on 16 Sep 2026; Plus quoted as "from £1,800" with no monthly figure |
| Monthly price only at checkout | No |
| Domain free first year | No |
| Domain renewal | Custom domain connection included; registration through Shopify optional |
| Transaction fee | 0% |
| Editor seats | 1 included |
| Storage and bandwidth | Unlimited hosting on every plan |
| Price changes | "Shopify" plan renamed Grow and a no-fee Agentic plan added by 16 Sep 2026; Starter plan no longer found |
| UK VAT handling | ✓ |
| Features | |
| Shape | Commerce-first builder |
| Visual editor | ✓ |
| Custom code | Full theme code |
| Blog | ✓ |
| Forms | ✓ |
| Commerce | Included |
| Memberships | Not offered |
| Multilingual | Included |
| SEO controls | Basic |
| UK or EU hosting | No |
| Vendor hosting | ✓ |
| Page and item limits | No cap on pages, posts or products |
| Editor | Section-based theme editor with AI prompt drafting; Liquid theme code editable |
| Switch template after launch | ✓ |
| Form submissions | Theme contact forms; no published cap |
| Scheduling | ✓ |
| Roles and approvals | ✓ |
| Bookings | No |
| AI site generator | ✓ |
| AI content tools | ✓ |
| Accessibility tooling | No |
| Redirects | ✓ |
| Structured data control | No |
| Image optimisation | ✓ |
| CDN included | ✓ |
| Injected scripts | Not confirmed |
| Performance | Not measured |
| Payment providers | Shopify Payments (2% + 25p on Basic), PayPal, Klarna and others; 2% surcharge with a third-party gateway on Basic |
| Domain transfer out | Not captured |
| Integrations and developers | |
| API | ✓ |
| Headless | ✓ |
| MCP server | ✓ |
| Export your site | Content only |
| Open source | No |
| Self-hostable | No |
| Webhooks | ✓ |
| MCP server note | Four official servers on shopify.dev: Storefront, Customer Account, Checkout and Dev; Storefront MCP live on eligible stores since early 2026 |
| CRM integrations | HubSpot, Salesforce and others via the App Store |
| Zapier or Make | ✓ |
| App market | Over 16,000 apps (vendor figure) |
| Export note | Products, customers, orders and discounts as CSV; theme code via CLI; product images referenced by URL only |
| Import tooling | Store Importer and migration apps from WooCommerce, BigCommerce and others |
| Ownership and trust | |
| Owned in** | Canada-owned |
| Russian or Chinese link | None found |
| Trustpilot (reviews) | 1.3 (5,118) |
| HQ | Canada |
| Listed on | NYSE and TSX |
| Founded | 2006 |
| Data location | Canada, US, Ireland and Singapore; no UK-only option |
| Link evidence | None found |
| Governance | Founder share (2022) gives the chief executive 40 percent of votes while he remains involved; UK entity Shopify UK Limited |
| GDPR tooling | No |
| SOC 2 | No |
| ISO 27001 | No |
| Status page | ✓ |
| Major incident on record | No |
| Incident note | No incidents in the two weeks before the read |
| Security updates | Vendor-managed |
| Support | |
| Phone support | No |
| Live chat | ✓ |
| UK support hours | Live chat on Basic and Grow; 24/7 phone on Plus only |
| Community | Shopify Partners programme; the largest commerce agency ecosystem |
| Support channels | Live chat, Help centre, Community forum |
*Scored plan: the business plan the score is set on (the cheapest plan with a custom domain and no vendor branding, contact forms, basic SEO controls and room for a fifty-page site; for a managed WordPress host, one production site with staging and daily backups), per month on annual billing at the renewal price, then per month billed monthly where that is offered, in the currency the vendor shows a UK visitor on the research date. Developer CMSs show the licence plus a stated reference hosting cost. See each profile for the VAT basis, first-term promotions and what the plan above adds.
**Owned in: where the company that owns the vendor answers to. A US-owned vendor is subject to US law (including the CLOUD Act) wherever the site is hosted. "Russian or Chinese link" records ownership, management or engineering links found on the research date, with the evidence on the profile; Saaskly marks these down in the score by editorial rule and says so.
Ready to try Shopify?
Affiliate link: Saaskly may earn a commission. It never affects our verdict.
Researched and drafted with AI assistance; reviewed and approved by Tim Meredith. How we use AI
Work at Shopify? Something not look right? Register in the vendor portal to see what we publish and send corrections.