How much does it cost to maintain a Shopify store?

By Alex Abushanab, founder of Apex Software Engineering · Oct 12, 2026 · Shopify help pages checked on Oct 12, 2026

Keeping a Shopify store running costs two things every month: the bill Shopify sends you, and the time it takes to keep the store correct. Shopify looks after the servers, the checkout’s security and the certificate that puts the padlock in the address bar. The theme, the apps, the products and the policies are yours, and someone has to keep them up to date.

The short answer

• Shopify’s bill: the plan, $29 to $399 a month from Basic to Advanced, plus whatever your apps charge.
• Included in the plan: hosting, security of the platform and checkout, and a free SSL certificate.
• Yours to maintain: theme updates, apps, products and inventory, broken links, page speed, store policies and who has access.
• Do it yourself: costs your time. Fine for a small store with a theme you have not edited.
• A retainer: a monthly fee for a developer’s time, which suits a store that adds features every month.
• A care plan: a flat monthly price to keep the store as it is. Apex’s Website Care Plan is $100 a month, month to month.

1. What Shopify looks after, and what it does not

Shopify is a hosted platform, so a whole category of website upkeep is not your job. There is no server to patch and no hosting bill on top of the plan. Shopify is certified PCI DSS Level 1, the card industry’s security standard, and says every store on the platform is compliant by default. A TLS (SSL) certificate is free for every domain added to Shopify and is issued automatically.

What stays with you is everything you added on top of the platform:

• The theme, and any code changes made to it
• The apps you installed, and what each one charges
• Products, prices, photos and inventory
• Links, redirects and page speed
• Your store policies
• Who can log in, and how securely

Shopify Support helps with its own free themes, but it does not write custom code or troubleshoot third-party code, which includes code from Shopify Partners, or help with themes that have significant code changes. A paid theme is supported by the developer who made it.

2. The monthly bill: plan and apps

The plan is the fixed part. Shopify’s pricing, checked Oct 9, 2026: Basic is $39 a month, or $29 billed yearly, Advanced is $399 ($299 yearly), and Plus starts at $2,300. The Shopify cost guide covers every plan and payment fee.

Apps are the part that grows. Each app sets its own price, and recurring app plans are charged every 30 days and added to your Shopify bill. Some apps bill you outside Shopify, so they do not appear on that bill at all. An app installed to try out, or for a sale that ended, keeps charging until it is removed.

Removing an app is not quite the end of it either. Shopify’s help center says:

• Uninstalling a paid app cancels future charges, but you might still be billed for the current cycle.
• Some apps add code to your theme that is not removed automatically when you uninstall them.
• Some apps store data you cannot recover after uninstalling.

So every few months, list the apps on your bill and the ones billed outside it, check each is still used, and look for code left behind by apps you removed.

3. The upkeep itself

Theme updates

Themes from the Shopify Theme Store get automatic updates for bugs and security issues only. They do not change how the store looks. Uploaded themes, such as one bought outside the Theme Store, do not get automatic updates.

A new version with new features is not applied to your live store. Shopify adds it to your draft themes as an “Updated copy”, and you publish it when you are ready. Settings made in the theme editor carry over. Code edits come along only if they do not conflict with the update, and anything that does not carry over has to be copied in by hand. That is why a heavily edited theme costs more to keep current than one used as it came.

The age of the theme matters too. Online Store 2.0 themes support sections on every page and app blocks and app embeds, which let apps add features without editing theme code. Older “vintage” themes do not, and Shopify’s free vintage themes get nothing beyond security fixes. Before any code change, Shopify’s advice is to duplicate the theme as a backup: each file’s history can be restored, but that history is finite.

Products and inventory

New products, price changes, sold-out variants, photos and descriptions are the most frequent work on any store. Stock levels live on the Inventory page of your Shopify admin, where you also choose what happens when a product runs out. On a large catalog, small inconsistencies in titles and product details build up and are worth fixing in bulk.

Broken links and redirects

When you delete a product or change its URL, links to the old address break. A URL redirect sends visitors on to a working page. Shopify only lets you redirect from a broken URL, so check for “Page not found” errors after you remove or rename anything.

Page speed

Shopify’s web performance reports measure loading speed, interactivity and visual stability (LCP, INP and CLS) from real visitors over the past 30 days, and rate each as good, moderate or poor. The summary is on the Themes page of your admin. The reports show how changes such as app installs, theme updates and new code have moved those numbers over time, so check them after each change, not once a year.

Store policies

Shopify can generate your refund, shipping and terms policies from your store settings, but says its templates are not legal advice and do not guarantee compliance. You are responsible for what your published policies say, so review them when your shipping, returns or prices change.

Access and account security

Remove staff and collaborator accounts for people who no longer work on the store, and use two-step authentication. Shopify says that without it, your payouts might be placed on hold. Each staff member turns it on for their own account: the owner cannot do it for them.

4. Who does it: yourself, a retainer or a care plan

Whichever you choose, the store, the domain and the logins should stay in your name, so you can change who looks after it without starting over. The hiring guide covers what to ask.

Automating the upkeep: Almaza Fine Jewelry

On a big catalog, the repeated work is worth automating. Almaza Fine Jewelry is a Shopify store Apex built, with more than 2,000 gold jewelry products whose prices move with the gold market. Its upkeep runs as scheduled jobs:

• Every 30 minutes, every gold piece is re-priced from its weight, its karat and the live gold price, with a second price source if the first is down. A product with a gold weight but the wrong product type is corrected, so it is not missed.
• Every day, product titles are made consistent, product details are filled in, and gaps such as missing image alt text are fixed.
• Changes are emailed as a summary, so nobody has to check by hand.

Most stores do not need this. If your team spends hours each week on the same edits, though, it is cheaper to automate them once. Read the Almaza case study.

What Apex charges to maintain a Shopify store

The Website Care Plan is $100 a month. It includes:

• Hosting, domain and SSL kept current, plus security updates
• Content updates: staff or tenant profiles, photos, prices, hours and listings
• Google Business Profile and Facebook page upkeep
• Every contact form, booking and tour request routed to your inbox
• Monitoring, and fixes when something breaks
• Month to month: no long-term contract

On Shopify, hosting and the SSL certificate come with your Shopify plan, so the plan’s time goes on the theme, apps, products and the rest of the upkeep above. A new feature or a redesign is not part of the plan: it is quoted as a fixed price in writing before work starts, and there is no minimum project size. New websites start at $3,000. See pricing for the details.

Apex is based in Austin, TX and works with businesses across the US. See what a build includes on the shopify stores page.

Frequently asked questions