You might be thinking about opening a Shopify store, but you don’t know how much it costs to use this platform to run an online store. We put together a list of all the important costs you need to plan for. This guide gives you an approximate expenditure draft.
You are the only one who can count. We give you as many options as we can for every expense. You will see a basic result and another one that has our extra ideas that you might want to use or have. Only recommendations are in the second half of the list. But you can’t skip the first few ideas if you want your online Shopify store to be successful and valuable.
We’ll give you sections that start with “from” and end with “to.” You can make notes in your planning book and see what you end up with based on your own needs.
Do you know what drop shipping or the remote warehousing service are? You can save more money on the inventory if you choose one of these retail models. Also, you can make your life easier and keep your credit card or purse thicker if you choose the right app. But don’t get to the point right away. Let’s take things step by step.
We hope that this guide will help you get started with Shopify and run a successful store full of beautiful items.
C O M P U L S O R Y C O S T S
These are the paid services that everyone says you should get. If you read on the Internet that you can run an online store without putting any money into it, you should quickly throw that idea out the window. Yes, you can save a lot of money if you choose the right business forms and make smart choices, but there are still some fields you can’t skip. Well, as you will see, not all of the things below are required, but they are all things you should think about. These are the most important ones.
Plan for Shopify
You can choose from even more Shopify plans. You can start with the smallest and then upgrade it if you need to. You can choose an advanced plan if you want to start a bigger business.
When you start your 14-day free trial, you don’t have to worry about what will happen after the two weeks are up. This is because you don’t need a credit card, so you can be sure that no money will be taken out of your account. But the monthly fees are easy to understand. Here’s what they are. We list the interest rates and transaction fees for credit cards here so that you can also think about those.
Shopify Plus is the name of a different plan. This is a solution for large businesses and retailers who do a lot of business. About pricing, you can talk to the Shopify team.
Shopify Lite is another option, but it is a little different from the others. Every month, it costs $9. You can sell on Facebook and talk to your customers on Messenger. You can also add your products to any website or blog and accept credit card payments.
Applications
If you want your online store to work well, you need to get some apps from the Shopify App Store and install them. You can use them to make your life easier. There is a reason why they were made. Just be careful about which one you choose and pay for. For example, you can feel safe if you read reviews and look up information about the software on Google. You can also go to the app’s website and check out what the service and company look like there.
The types of applications that are most often suggested are:
- Product sourcing
- Cart abandonment
- Remarketing
- Personalized recommendation
- Automatic currency exchange
- Pop-up
- E-mail management
- Reward program service
Costs:
The basic plans for the app each cost between $20 and $70. (this is just an average).
Getting hold of things
Running a drop shipping or remote warehousing service is a good idea. Both of these things mean that you don’t need to keep stock. You will have a virtual stock, and only customers who want to order something will pay for it. The customer gives you money, and then you give it to the supplier.
So you don’t have to pay!
If you want to test any of the things you sell, the only cost can be the cost of the test product. It’s a good idea. Also, if you choose the remote warehousing service, you can check the quality of each item you order. If you have a small business and don’t make that much money, they will come to you first. Then you can repackage, put more items in one box, and check the quality. But it’s not the same as trying out the products you want to sell in your store. What you sell affects how much the test product costs.
The suppliers pay a fee for the drop shipping service.
It’s not a fee that you can always count on. Not every supplier needs it, and many of them let you work with them and use their drop shipping service for free. They offer different price plans, and you can choose the one that works best for you.
On average, this costs about $100 per month. If you sign up for a half-year or a year-long plan, you can get a good deal. You might want to try out the products before signing up for a more expensive long-term plan, but that’s up to you and the company you choose.
Shipping
It will definitely cost you. But you can change this cost by adding it to the price margin of the product. In this case, you can put banners on your website that say your store offers free shipping.
It all depends on the number of items bought, their weight, and where the customer or you are going. For example, it can be 11 dollars for three kilograms or a fixed 3 dollars for each purchase.
But if you add this to the price of your product as a margin, it won’t be your cost.
E X T R A C O S T S
Please note that you don’t have to pay these costs. You don’t have to run and give money for all of these. You can only do this if you want to or if your business is big enough. Some of these costs, like the last three, are best skipped by people who are just starting out.
Marketing
You don’t have to use the following services. You can choose whatever you think you need to get people to your site and make sales. You can grow your business more if you use all of them, but we only recommend the ones that are really worth it.
- Influencer (on YouTube, Instagram, blogs)
- Advertisements on Instagram that run on Facebook
- Google Ads (AdWords) is a tool for email marketing
Cost:
Maybe the Influencer is one of the ones on the list above that costs the most to pay for. Most YouTube vloggers charge between $2,000 and $2,500 for just one video. However, Instagram or blog influencers ask for less. On Instagram, it can be anywhere from $100 to $1,000.
The next one is Advertising on Facebook. It depends on a lot of different things, like how long you want your ad to be up. This might seem like it costs a lot, but if you set it up right, it could be worth it. There are more ways to advertise on Facebook than ever before. One is about clicks and conversions. On average, a click on a Facebook ad costs between $0.20 and $0.80. Its name is CPC. The other is that you have to pay for campaigns. For example, if you pay $5 per day, that’s $150 per month. CPM, which stands for “cost per thousand impressions,” is another option. This can be $10. But you have to make sure that after people click on your link, they will buy something from your store. To do this, you need a nice website with good content.
So, let’s say you can count on at least $150 per month for one ad, no matter what you do. Use the remarketing tool on Facebook.
Advertising on Instagram is a little less expensive than on the most popular social media site. The CMP can cost $5 per 10,000 impressions. “The average CPC on Instagram is between 50 cents and a dollar. When there is a lot of competition, like in the clothing business, you will pay more. Costs for Instagram ads can go up to $3 per click.”
You could also use Google Ads. With this service, you can get more people to your site. “In Google Ads, the average cost per click on the search network is between $1 and $2,” and “the average small business that uses Google Ads spends between $9,000 and $10,000 per month on paid search campaigns on Google.” Google AdWords used to be the name of this service. This “program lets you make ads that will show up on relevant Google search results pages and [Google’s] network of partner sites.” Along with the Facebook feature, this is one of the best tools for remarketing.
If you have an online business, it’s a good idea to do Email marketing. You can do this with a Shopify app or just an emailing program, but both of these will cost you money. Shopify apps cost an average of $20 per month for a basic plan.
But you don’t have to spend money on marketing when you first open your online store. On the following sites, you can do social media marketing for free by making regular posts that are creative and useful. It can cost you your time or the money you pay an expert to do it for you. Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube. You can also send out newsletters.
VA
Virtual Assistant is what VA means. Many people in forums and social media groups offer their services as virtual assistants (VAs) and can help you make content for your social media platforms, website, blog, and newsletters. There is no set price that everyone will tell you, but the average for their work is between $3 and $6 per hour. You should know that many of the people who offer to help you aren’t qualified. They might know about writing content like everyone else. Before hiring someone, it’s best to look at their past work and talk to their references.
If we could give you advice, we would tell you to work with someone who lives in the same area as you do so that you can meet them in person and talk to them more effectively about your preferences. Even if the assistant shares posts in another language, like English, it’s easier if you both speak the same native language. Please be aware of scams and people who want to make money by offering a service they don’t know much about.
Paid theme for Shopify
You can buy a unique theme for your Shopify store if you don’t want to use a free, simple one. But at first, it’s not worth spending money on a paid theme. In general, they cost between $160 and $180.
Designer
The service of a virtual designer can cost around $200, but it depends on what a person needs. If you want a special theme that isn’t yet in the Shopify theme store, you can pay someone to do this for you. You can also ask for a unique brand logo, banners, or any other images you want to use on your website or social media.
As a result, it costs about $350 a month to run a Shopify store on average, but it can be more or less depending on your needs.