Shopify Plus is an advanced platform designed for enterprises running large-scale ecommerce operations. This article explains Shopify Plus's features, pricing structure, key functionality, and real-world implementation case studies in detail. It will help you understand how Shopify Plus meets the needs of large businesses and supports their growth.
What is Shopify Plus?
Shopify Plus is a Shopify plan built for large enterprises and high-volume stores with significant sales.
Compared to Shopify's main plans, Shopify Plus has a considerably higher monthly cost, but its benefits include lower fees, greater customization flexibility, and unlimited staff accounts.
With Shopify Plus, you can also launch up to 10 stores for free, and from the 11th store onward you can launch an unlimited number of stores for ¥47,800 per store, per month.
Shopify Plus also offers many additional features that aren't available on other plans, such as the ability to fully customize your checkout page and reduced additional fees for external payment methods like Amazon Pay.
Shopify Plus pricing and payment fees
- Monthly fee:
- ¥398,000/month for a 1-year contract
- ¥368,000/month for a 3-year contract
- Card fees: Contact for details
- Transaction fees: Contact for details
The article below provides a thorough comparison of Shopify's plans, including pricing, fees, and features. Feel free to use it as a reference.
What you can do with Shopify Plus (benefits)
Checkout page customization
Only Shopify Plus lets you customize your Shopify store's checkout page.
If you want to require agreement to terms of service on the checkout page, run upsell campaigns, or let customers specify a delivery date and time, you'll need to subscribe to Shopify Plus.
The blog article below introduces ways to customize the checkout page and recommended apps. Feel free to use it as a reference.
Building multiple stores
With Shopify Plus, you can launch up to 10 stores for free. From the 11th store onward, you can launch an unlimited number of stores for $250 per store, per month.
Reduced fees (payment fees and transaction fees)
Shopify Plus keeps Shopify Payments payment fees lower than other plans, and can significantly reduce the transaction fees charged for payment methods other than Shopify Payments. Because of this, for stores with a high monthly transaction volume, Shopify Plus can end up being the most cost-effective option even with a fixed monthly fee of $2,500 or more.
SSO (Single Sign-On) authentication
You may want to let customers log in to your Shopify store with social accounts like Twitter (X), Facebook, or LINE (SSO authentication*).
For a Shopify Plus store we helped build, login authentication using a d-Account was a development requirement. Authentication via a d-Account, or social accounts such as Twitter or Facebook, requires using the Multipass API, which is only available with Shopify Plus.
So if you want to implement SSO authentication, you'll need to subscribe to Shopify Plus.
* SSO stands for "Single Sign-On," a system that lets users log in to and use multiple services after entering their ID and password just once.
Shopify Plus-exclusive apps and channels
Shopify Plus gives you access to the following exclusive apps and channels:
- B2B wholesale channel
- Launchpad
- Bulk Account Inviter
- ShopifyQL Notebooks
The blog article below introduces how to run B2B wholesale sales on Shopify. If you're considering wholesale sales using Shopify, feel free to use it as a reference.
Shopify Plus-exclusive APIs
As mentioned earlier, you need a Shopify Plus subscription to use the Multipass API. In addition to the Multipass API, Shopify Plus also gives you access to the following APIs:
- Gift Card
- Multipass
- User
Unlimited staff accounts
For large enterprises with many employees and a strong security focus, managing permissions on a per-employee basis is essential. Even on the Advanced plan, you can only register up to 15 staff accounts, which likely isn't enough for many organizations.
If you have many writers on staff and the limit on staff account registrations means you don't have enough authors to list on your blog articles, you don't need to subscribe to Shopify Plus to solve this — "RuffRuff Author Profiles" can help. Give "RuffRuff Author Profiles" a try.
RuffRuff Author Profiles
"RuffRuff Author Profiles" is a Shopify app that helps build trust in your Shopify store. With this app, you can register an unlimited number of authors and display author information — such as a profile photo, bio, and title, in addition to the author's name — on your blog articles. It's also easy to set up with no coding required.
Shopify Plus case studies
Kuradashi
Kuradashi, which listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Growth Market on June 30, 2023, runs the social-good marketplace "Kuradashi" on Shopify Plus. Kuradashi says the deciding factors for choosing Shopify Plus were "server stability" and "feature expansion through customization." See the interview article below for more details.
Francfranc
"Francfranc ONLINE," the official online store of Francfranc Corporation, which operates over 100 stores across Japan, also runs on Shopify Plus. The three reasons Francfranc ONLINE chose Shopify were: "the ability to scale and expand overseas according to size," "being a SaaS that anyone can use," and "the ability to automate logistics infrastructure with robotics." See the interview article below for more details.
Reference: 5x sales growth in 3 years! Francfranc's secret to growing its own ecommerce business (Japanese)
Soup Stock Tokyo
The online store of "Soup Stock Tokyo," a soup specialty chain with around 60 or more stores across Japan, also runs on Shopify Plus. To deliver a seamless experience between its physical stores and online store, the company wanted to implement "single sign-on," "point integration with physical stores," and "database integration of member information with physical stores," which is why it adopted Shopify Plus. See the interview article below for more details.
Blue Bottle Coffee
The online store of "Blue Bottle Coffee," a coffee chain with roughly 100 or more stores across the US, Japan, South Korea, and Hong Kong, also runs on Shopify Plus. The reason for adopting Shopify Plus was its support for Google Tag Manager. See the interview article below for more details.
Setting up Google Tag Manager on the checkout page requires Shopify Plus, but it can be set up everywhere else without it. The article below explains in detail how to add "Google Tag Manager (GTM)" to a Shopify store. Feel free to use it as a reference.
Koala Mattress
"Koala Mattress," the Japan-facing site of a D2C startup headquartered in Sydney, Australia, also runs on Shopify Plus. The reasons it chose Shopify were: "already using Shopify in Australia," "the reliability of a service with the world's largest number of merchants," and "high extensibility." See the interview article below for more details.
Conclusion
Shopify Plus is a powerful solution built specifically for large-scale ecommerce businesses. It offers advanced features such as checkout page customization, multi-store setup, reduced fees, and SSO authentication. It also comes with capabilities essential for running a large business, including access to exclusive apps and APIs and unlimited staff accounts.
As the case studies show, major companies across a range of industries — Kuradashi, Francfranc, Soup Stock Tokyo, Blue Bottle Coffee, and Koala Mattress — have adopted Shopify Plus and achieved success. These companies highly value Shopify Plus's flexibility, scalability, and stability.
Shopify Plus is certainly a premium-priced plan, but for enterprises running large-scale ecommerce operations, its features and flexibility offer plenty of value. As your business grows and you need more advanced features and flexibility, upgrading to Shopify Plus is well worth considering.
