Shopify Plus vs Advanced: what the extra ₹1.4 lakh a month buys

Shopify Plus costs ₹1,44,836 a month more than Advanced in India (₹1,75,000 on a 3-year term against ₹30,164 billed monthly). That money buys full checkout customization, custom apps with Shopify Functions, unlimited staff, up to 9 extra stores, Launchpad, unlimited B2B catalogs and priority phone support. The fee drops from 0.6% to 0.2% too, but that saving alone only pays for Plus above about ₹3.62 crore a month of prepaid sales.

A lot of "Plus vs Advanced" comparisons online are out of date. B2B used to be Plus-only. Flow used to be Plus-only. Neither is true in 2026. So I went through Shopify's pricing pages, Help Center and developer docs as of October 2026 and listed only the differences that still exist.

All plan prices and a fee calculator are on the Shopify pricing hub for India.

How much do Plus and Advanced cost in India?

Advanced costs ₹30,164 a month billed monthly, or ₹22,680 a month billed yearly. Plus starts at ₹1,75,000 a month on a 3-year term, or ₹1,90,000 a month on a 1-year term, according to Shopify's India pricing pages.

Shopify adds GST to its fees for Indian stores unless you've submitted a GSTIN, so check your invoice. Shopify Payments isn't available in India, so every prepaid order goes through a third-party gateway like Razorpay or Cashfree and carries Shopify's fee. Cash on Delivery orders pay no Shopify fee at all. That detail matters a lot when you do the fee maths later.

What does Plus have that Advanced doesn't?

These are the differences I could confirm on Shopify's own pages in October 2026.

The rows that matter most to Indian D2C brands are the first four. Here's what each one means in practice.

How different is checkout on Plus?

This is the biggest real difference. On Advanced, you get the checkout and accounts editor for branding and layout, and apps can add content to the thank you and order status pages. On Plus, apps can also change the information, shipping and payment steps, which is where most conversion work happens.

So on Plus you can add a custom field at the address step, show a delivery date promise beside shipping methods, or place a trust block next to the payment options. On Advanced, those steps stay as Shopify ships them, apart from what the editor allows.

There's a nuance that saves a lot of Indian brands from upgrading. Shopify's developer docs say stores on any plan can use public App Store apps that contain Functions. That covers payment customization apps, which can hide, rename or reorder payment methods. Hiding COD above a cart value, or for certain pin codes, works on Advanced with an off-the-shelf app.

What Advanced can't do is run a custom app with your own Function. The docs say only Plus stores can use custom apps that contain Function APIs. A few operations are also Plus-only regardless of app type: setting payment terms and hiding specific payment placements in the Payment Customization API, and price-changing line updates in the Cart Transform API. If your discount or bundle logic is unusual enough that no public app does it, that's a Plus reason. Some of this logic used to live in Shopify Scripts, which stopped running on 30 June 2026.

I cover the checkout side in more depth in Shopify checkout customization on Plus and the Functions side in Shopify Functions examples.

Do you need Plus for B2B or wholesale?

Usually not anymore. Shopify B2B runs on Basic, Grow, Advanced and Plus. On Advanced you get companies with multiple locations, net payment terms, vaulted cards, quantity price breaks, the quick order list, Flow with B2B objects and up to 3 active B2B catalogs. Advanced also gets contextual checkout and storefront customization through Markets, which Basic and Grow don't.

Plus is for wholesale that needs more than three price lists or per-company deals. It adds unlimited catalogs, catalogs assigned directly to a company or company location, deposit requirements, partial payments and payment requests per fulfillment. One catch for lower plans: Shopify says B2B catalog features on Basic, Grow and Advanced need the new Shopify Markets.

If you sell to a handful of distributors at one or two wholesale price tiers, Advanced covers it. If every retailer has its own negotiated catalogue, that's Plus. More on the setup in Shopify Plus B2B and wholesale.

What do expansion stores, staff and locations get you?

Plus includes your main store and up to 9 expansion stores on one contract, with staging stores on top that don't count toward the limit. Shopify pre-approves them for things like international stores, a separate B2B wholesale store, employee stores and physical retail. Each store needs its own theme licence, and only stores billed in USD or INR can join a Plus agreement. Extra stores beyond ten cost ₹23,000 a month each on Shopify's India Plus pricing page.

On Advanced, a second regional store is a second Advanced subscription. For most Indian brands selling abroad, Markets on a single store does the job instead, and Advanced already lets each market have its own theme and checkout settings. I go through that route in selling internationally from India with Shopify Markets.

Staff and locations rarely force the decision. Advanced allows 15 staff accounts, and collaborator accounts for agencies and developers don't count toward that. Ten inventory locations is plenty unless you run many stores or dark warehouses.

If you're unsure which of these your brand actually needs, send me your setup and I'll tell you whether Advanced covers it.

When does Plus pay for itself on fees?

Rarely, for Indian brands. The saving from Advanced to Plus is 0.4% of prepaid sales, and it has to cover the ₹1,44,836 monthly price gap (Plus 3-year against Advanced billed monthly). That's about ₹3.62 crore a month of prepaid revenue before the fee saving alone breaks even.

Here's the maths for two brands. Only Shopify's plan price and its third-party fee are counted, since your gateway charges the same on either plan.

1. Brand A: ₹2 crore a month, 70% prepaid. Prepaid sales are ₹1.4 crore. Advanced costs ₹30,164 + ₹84,000 (0.6%) = ₹1,14,164. Plus costs ₹1,75,000 + ₹28,000 (0.2%) = ₹2,03,000. Plus costs ₹88,836 a month more.
2. Brand B: ₹5 crore a month, 80% prepaid. Prepaid sales are ₹4 crore. Advanced costs ₹30,164 + ₹2,40,000 = ₹2,70,164. Plus costs ₹1,75,000 + ₹80,000 = ₹2,55,000. Plus saves ₹15,164 a month.
3. The general rule. Divide the monthly price gap by 0.004. Against Advanced billed yearly, the gap is ₹1,52,320, so the crossover rises to about ₹3.81 crore of prepaid sales. On a 1-year Plus term at ₹1,90,000, it's about ₹4 crore.

A COD-heavy brand needs far more total revenue to reach the crossover, because COD saves nothing. Brand A's ₹88,836 a month is about ₹10.7 lakh a year. Plus is worth that if a custom checkout or a wholesale channel earns more than it. If not, it's an expensive badge. The full fee tables are in Shopify Plus pricing in India and the affordability side in the revenue level where Plus makes sense.

Who should stay on Advanced?

Stay on Advanced if public apps cover your checkout and discount needs, you sell wholesale at three price tiers or fewer, one store with Markets handles your countries, and your prepaid revenue is well under ₹3.62 crore a month. That describes most Indian D2C brands I talk to.

Move to Plus when you can name the specific feature you need and roughly what it's worth:

• A checkout change on the information, shipping or payment step that you expect to lift conversion
• Discount, bundle or pricing logic no public app handles, which needs a custom Function
• Wholesale with per-company catalogues, deposits or partial payments
• Separate stores for regions, B2B or retail under one contract
• Scheduled drops and sales that Launchpad would run for you
• Integrations that hit Advanced's API rate limit

If you're on Basic or Grow and wondering about Advanced first, start with Shopify Basic vs Advanced in India.

What I'd do

I'd write down the one or two things you want that Advanced can't do, put a rupee value on each, and compare that with the extra platform cost: about ₹17 to ₹19 lakh a year in plan price, less whatever the lower fee saves you. If the list is empty or vague, stay on Advanced and spend the difference on the store itself.

When a brand does need Plus, I'd plan the move with the build work in mind. Mum & You moved from Magento to Shopify Plus between April and June 2025, and the work that mattered was the redirect map and rebuilding their subscriptions, with zero data loss at the end. The plan switch itself is the easy part. The checkout extensions, Functions and B2B setup are where the time goes.

If you want a straight answer on Plus vs Advanced for your store, tell me about it here. I'll look at your checkout, discounts and wholesale setup and tell you which plan fits. For Plus build work, see my Shopify Plus developer page.

Related reads

• When should you upgrade to Shopify Plus?
• Shopify Plus pricing in India (2026)
• At what revenue does Shopify Plus make sense in India?
• Shopify Basic vs Advanced plan for Indian D2C
• Shopify checkout customization on Plus

Sources

• Shopify India pricing (plan comparison table)
• Shopify India Plus pricing
• Shopify Help Center: Shopify Plus plan
• Shopify Help Center: Advanced plan
• Shopify Help Center: checkout extensibility
• Shopify Help Center: B2B features by plan
• Shopify Help Center: maximum users by plan
• Shopify Help Center: expansion stores
• Shopify Help Center: Launchpad
• Shopify Help Center: Shopify Flow
• Shopify Help Center: contacting Shopify Support
• Shopify Help Center: billing taxes in India
• shopify.dev: Shopify Functions (plan availability)
• shopify.dev: Payment Customization Function API
• shopify.dev: Cart Transform Function API
• shopify.dev: GraphQL Admin API rate limits
• shopify.dev changelog: Shopify Scripts deprecated on June 30, 2026