What upgrading to Plus means in practice
When a store moves from Basic, Grow or Advanced to Shopify Plus, no new store is created and nothing has to be copied. Shopify handles the change, activating the plan on your existing store and linking it to a Plus organization. From then on you have an organization admin where you manage users, stores and some shared settings.
This has an important consequence: on the day of the switch, your customers notice nothing. The site looks the same, SEO is untouched and orders keep coming in as usual. The benefits of Plus appear when you start using what you could not use before, and that takes development and configuration work afterwards.
That is why you should arrive at Plus with a plan: what you will build in the first few months and why. Paying for Plus to keep using the store exactly as you did on Advanced is the fastest way to make the plan feel expensive.
Checkout: the most visible difference
On standard plans the checkout supports branding (colors, fonts, logo) and extensions on the thank you and order status pages. On Plus you can also add checkout extensions to the information, shipping and payment steps. That lets you, for example, ask for an extra field before payment, show a message based on the chosen shipping method or add a complementary product inside the checkout itself.
All of this is built with Checkout Extensibility, Shopify's current system. The old checkout.liquid has been retired, so if your store used it in the past there is nothing to recover: customizations are built from scratch as extensions, which also keep working on their own when Shopify updates the checkout.
Shopify Functions in custom apps
Shopify Functions is how you change backend logic: discounts with your own rules, payment methods hidden or reordered based on the cart, shipping options renamed or hidden, cart validations. Public apps can use Functions on any plan, but building Functions in a custom app made for your store is only possible on Plus.
For many brands this is the real reason to upgrade. Rules like “no cash on delivery above a certain amount”, “hide express shipping when the cart has bulky items” or “tiered discount only for customers with a specific tag” are solved with a custom Function instead of stacking several paid apps.
B2B, expansion stores and staff
Native B2B is also available on Basic, Grow and Advanced, with a maximum of 3 catalogs. On Plus, catalogs are unlimited and Shopify adds more advanced B2B features for companies with many accounts and price lists. If you sell to many distributors with different price lists, the 3-catalog limit runs out quickly.
Plus also includes additional stores for expansion, useful when a brand needs a separate store per country, for a wholesale channel or for a second brand. Before opening another store, check whether Shopify Markets covers your case within a single one, because running several stores duplicates your catalog, themes and apps.
On the team side, Plus allows unlimited staff accounts and user groups with custom permissions, and raises the inventory location limit from 10 to 200.
- Checkout extensions on information, shipping and payment
- Shopify Functions in custom apps
- Unlimited B2B catalogs and more B2B features
- Additional stores for expansion
- Up to 200 inventory locations
- Unlimited staff and group-based permissions
What is not a reason to upgrade to Plus
Shopify Flow is free on Basic, Grow, Advanced and Plus, so automating processes does not justify the switch. Neither do speed or SEO: the infrastructure is the same on every plan and performance depends on the theme, apps and images. Selling in several countries does not require it either, because Markets is available on all plans.
Another common mistake is upgrading to Plus to get real-time carrier rates. That feature is already in Advanced. Go through what you need point by point and confirm that what you are looking for is exclusive to Plus before you sign.
How to prepare the upgrade
The order that works best is this: first define what you will build with Plus, then activate the plan and then develop in a development store or an unpublished theme. Checkout extensions and Functions are tested before being activated on the live store.
Use the opportunity to review your installed apps too. Many stores reaching Plus have apps that filled gaps in the checkout or discounts and that can now be replaced with custom development, lighter and with no monthly fee.
- List of needs that only Plus covers
- App inventory and what can be replaced
- Design of checkout extensions and Functions
- Testing in a development store before activation
- Team training on the organization admin
Pricing and contract
Plus has its own contract with Shopify and the price depends on the terms agreed. Plan prices change, so the up-to-date reference is shopify.com/pricing and, for Plus, the conversation with Shopify's sales team.
To decide, compare the cost of Plus with what it saves you: the difference in fees based on your real revenue, apps you stop paying for and development you could not do before. If the numbers do not add up, Advanced is still a very complete option.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need to migrate my store to upgrade to Shopify Plus?
No. Plus is activated on your existing store. Theme, products, customers, orders and URLs stay the same and your customers do not notice the change.
Does Shopify Plus improve SEO or speed?
Not directly. All plans use the same infrastructure. Performance and rankings depend on the theme, apps, images and content.
Can I customize the checkout without Plus?
Partly. All plans allow checkout branding and extensions on the thank you and order status pages. Extensions on the information, shipping and payment steps are exclusive to Plus.
Do I need Plus to sell B2B?
Not always. Basic, Grow and Advanced include native B2B with up to 3 catalogs. If you need more catalogs or advanced B2B features, Plus is the usual choice.