The Shopify Plus quote is the easy part: a base fee, one number, agreed up front. The bill you actually pay is that number plus the app you need to run subscriptions, plus a percentage of what that app processes, plus a surcharge if you bring your own payment processor.
None of that is hidden. It is just spread across four line items that arrive from three different places, which is why it rarely gets added up before the contract is signed.
This page adds it up. Every assumption is listed at the bottom, and every one of them is set in Shopify's favour.
What Shopify Plus does well
It is a genuinely strong platform and the comparison is not close on every axis. Plus has an enormous app ecosystem, a mature POS, checkout that converts as well as anything on the market, and infrastructure that will not fall over on your biggest day of the year. If you sell one-off products at high volume and want the widest possible choice of tooling, it is a reasonable place to be.
The cost case below is not an argument that Plus is bad. It is an argument that a subscription business pays for a lot of Plus it does not use, and then pays again for the one thing it does need.
The four line items
The platform fee. Around $2,300 a month on a three-year term, or $2,500 on a one-year term. At $1.35 to the pound that is roughly £1,700 a month, or £20,400 a year.
The subscriptions app. Plus does not run subscriptions natively. Recurring billing, variable shipments, member self-service and tier management come from an app. Awtomic, one of the ones built for this, publishes $299 a month, or $249 on an annual contract, plus 1% of every order it processes. That 1% is the line that grows with you.
The payment surcharge. Use any processor other than Shopify Payments and Plus adds 0.20% to every order. On £2M of sales that is £4,000 a year for the privilege of choosing your own processor.
The variable platform fee. Above roughly $800,000 a month in sales, the flat fee gives way to about 0.35% of everything you sell, capped around $40,000 a month. That threshold is about £7.1M a year, so most businesses reading this will not reach it. It is worth knowing it is there.
What each platform charges for
| Cost line | Shopify Plus | Marzipan |
|---|---|---|
|
Platform fee
|
~£20,400/yr | From £99/mo by band |
|
Subscriptions
|
App, from ~$299/mo + 1% | Built in |
|
Variable fee on sales
|
~0.35% above ~$800k/mo | No |
|
Using your own payment processor
|
+0.20% per order | No charge |
|
Features held back for higher tiers
|
Plan-dependent | No |
|
Events & ticketing
|
App | Built in |
|
Where your data is hosted
|
Global, US-based | EU-hosted, UK-built |
What that adds up to
Three businesses, each with half their revenue coming from subscriptions, which is a conservative split for a club or membership brand. Annual figures throughout.
Annual cost, worked through
| Business | Shopify Plus | Marzipan | You keep |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Turning over £750,000
|
£27,900 | £9,600 | £18,300 |
|
Platform fee
|
£20,400 | £9,600 | |
|
Subscriptions app + 1%
|
£6,000 | Included | |
|
Own-processor surcharge
|
£1,500 | None | |
|
Turning over £2,000,000
|
£36,600 | £21,600 | £15,000 |
|
Platform fee
|
£20,400 | £21,600 | |
|
Subscriptions app + 1%
|
£12,200 | Included | |
|
Own-processor surcharge
|
£4,000 | None | |
|
Turning over £3,500,000
|
£47,100 | £36,000 | £11,100 |
|
Platform fee
|
£20,400 | £36,000 | |
|
Subscriptions app + 1%
|
£19,700 | Included | |
|
Own-processor surcharge
|
£7,000 | None |
Two things worth saying plainly about that table, because a cost page that only works at one revenue level is one you will catch out.
The gap narrows as you grow. Our fee steps up by band and the Plus base fee does not, so the further up the table you go, the more of the saving comes from the app and the surcharge rather than the platform. At £3.5M our platform line is higher than theirs. We would rather you saw that here than found it yourself.
The saving is still five figures at every level. Not because the platform is cheap, but because a percentage of your subscription revenue is a bill that grows exactly as fast as the thing you are trying to grow.
Those are three example businesses. Put your own numbers in and the calculator works the same sums against your revenue and your subscription share.
When Shopify Plus makes sense
- Subscriptions are a small share of what you sell, so the 1% barely registers
- You use Shopify Payments anyway, so the surcharge never applies
- You depend on specific apps that exist nowhere else
- You need a mature in-person POS across multiple retail sites today
When Marzipan makes sense
- Subscriptions, clubs or memberships are a serious part of your revenue
- Your shipments vary between cycles, with tiers, allocations or member choice
- You want to keep your own payment processor without being charged for it
- Your customers are in the UK or EU and where their data lives matters
- You want the front end to stay yours, built against an API rather than a theme
The assumptions, in full
Shopify does not publish Plus pricing thresholds. The base fee, the variable-fee threshold and rate, the cap and the payment surcharge are all reported consistently by partner agencies rather than by Shopify, so treat them as well-sourced rather than official. Check your own contract before acting on any of it.
- Currency converted at $1.35 to the pound, checked 14 August 2026. Shopify bills in dollars, so this moves.
- Shopify Plus base fee taken at $2,300 a month, the three-year term, which is the cheaper of the two.
- Subscriptions app taken at Awtomic's published $249 a month plus 1% per order. That is their annual-contract price, matching the multi-year Plus term used above rather than mixing a committed rate with an uncommitted one.
- Own-processor surcharge of 0.20% applied to total revenue.
- No allowance made for the rest of an app stack, which for most Plus merchants runs to several hundred a month more.
- Card processing fees excluded on both sides, because they are the same either way.
- Marzipan figures are the published bands on our pricing page, taken at the band matching each revenue level.
The bottom line
Shopify Plus charges you a large fixed fee and then charges you again, as a percentage, for the one capability a subscription business cannot do without. Marzipan charges a monthly fee set by revenue band, includes subscriptions, and takes no cut of your sales at any volume.
The bands are published in full on the pricing page, or book a call and we will work through your own numbers rather than these ones.
Related
- The cost calculator, with your own figures
- Marzipan vs Shopify, on capability rather than cost
- How migration works
- All platform comparisons
