Shopify Starter Plan Ends

Shopify has quietly stopped offering its low-cost Starter plan to new merchants, removing what had been the cheapest way to start selling through the ecommerce platform.

Shopify’s Help Center now states that the Starter plan “isn’t available to new stores.” Existing Starter customers can continue using it, but there’s an important catch: once they switch to another Shopify plan, they won’t be able to move back to Starter later.

The change doesn’t appear to have been accompanied by a major announcement from Shopify, but the Starter plan has also disappeared from the company’s main pricing page.

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What was the Shopify Starter plan?

Priced at $5 per month, Shopify Starter was mainly geared toward very small businesses and individuals selling through social media, messaging apps, and other channels — rather than through a conventional ecommerce website.

Instead of giving merchants access to the full Shopify website builder, the Starter plan provided a simplified storefront using Shopify’s Spotlight theme. Sellers could also create product pages and share links to them through channels like Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook.

The plan came with significant limitations, however. For example, it didn’t let users organize products into collections, add staff accounts, or access Shopify’s full range of theme customization options.

But at $5 per month, the Starter plan gave creators and very small merchants an unusually cheap way to access Shopify’s selling infrastructure. And that option has now effectively disappeared for newcomers.

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Shopify Basic becomes the new entry point

For merchants wanting a conventional Shopify store, the cheapest option is now its Basic plan.

In the US, this plan costs $39 per month when paid monthly, or $29 per month when billed annually. In the UK, the equivalent prices are £25 per month or £19 per month via an annual subscription.

This means the normal entry price for Shopify is considerably higher than the $5 Starter subscription — but on the plus side, the Basic plan gives merchants a much more complete ecommerce solution in return. It lets you build a full online store, use multiple themes, and sell unlimited products. It also gives you access to Shopify’s Sidekick AI assistant and the option to install a much wider range of apps.

Shopify is currently offering new users a three-day free trial followed by three months at $1 per month in the US (or £1 per month in the UK), reducing the initial cost of getting started with the Basic plan.

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What about Shopify’s new Agentic plan?

Interestingly, Starter’s disappearance comes as Shopify adds another extremely cheap — in fact, free — option to its pricing lineup.

Its new Agentic plan costs $0 per month and lets businesses add products to Shopify Catalog and sell through AI shopping channels and the Shop channel. Merchants pay transaction or payment-processing fees when sales occur rather than a monthly subscription.

But Agentic isn’t really a direct replacement for the Starter plan, mainly because it doesn’t let you build a storefront or product pages. Rather, it’s aimed at businesses that already have an ecommerce presence elsewhere but want their products to become available through AI-powered shopping experiences.