Which Shopify plan do you actually need?

The cheapest one until a specific feature or the transaction fee forces a move. Upgrading in anticipation of growth is money spent on a future that has not arrived.

What decides it

The two things that genuinely force an upgrade are the payment rate at volume and staff accounts. Report features rarely justify the difference on their own — most of what stores need can be read out of the orders.

The part that gets skipped

The apps in the Shopify store are where the cost quietly grows. Six at twenty dollars a month is more than the plan.

Most Shopify performance problems are the theme and the images, not Shopify.

Shopify handles the parts that are genuinely hard and genuinely regulated: payments, taxes, order records. That is what the subscription is for.

Where an app fits

A mobile app sits on top of Shopify rather than replacing it — the catalogue syncs, and checkout stays Shopify’s.