Costs · Margins · The business of ecommerce
Shopify's own plan prices moved this quarter and merchants keep asking what a theme costs on top of them, which misleads because a theme price is a separate line item that no plan tier waives.
Most merchants typing “shopify theme prices” into a search bar expect one number to answer the question, but a theme price and a plan price are two different bills that land in two different places, and confusing them is where the budgeting mistake starts. The plan is the rent for the store. The theme is a one-time or recurring add-on that sits on top of the rent, and neither number substitutes for the other.
Shopify’s own pricing page, loaded on September 5, 2026, lists Basic at €24 per month, Grow at €69 per month, and Advanced at €289 per month, all on the yearly payment schedule. Plus starts from €2,100 per month for businesses with more complex requirements. A new store can also run for three days free and then at €1 per month for three months, which matters for anyone timing a theme purchase against a trial window. None of these four figures include a theme. A merchant on Basic and a merchant on Advanced pay Shopify Theme Store prices exactly the same way, through the same checkout, because the theme purchase is not tied to the plan tier at all.
| Plan | Monthly price (yearly billing) | Card rate |
|---|---|---|
| Basic | €24 | from 2% + €0.25 EUR |
| Grow | €69 | 1.8% + €0.25 EUR |
| Advanced | €289 | 1.6% + €0.25 EUR |
| Plus | from €2,100 | not listed in the facts above |
These rates come straight from Shopify’s pricing page as loaded on September 5, 2026. They apply to every sale processed through the store’s checkout, regardless of which theme is installed. A merchant weighing a theme purchase should treat the transaction rate as a running cost that scales with revenue, separate from whatever the theme itself costs once.
This is the part of “theme prices” that most searches skip past: price is not the only gate a theme has to clear before it reaches the store listing. Shopify’s Theme Store requirements page, checked September 5, 2026, states that a theme must have a minimum average Lighthouse performance score of 60 across the product, collection, and home page, measured on both desktop and mobile. The same requirements page sets a minimum average Lighthouse accessibility score of 90 across those same three page types, again on both desktop and mobile. A theme that misses either floor does not get listed, no matter what price the vendor wants to charge for it. This is context that belongs next to any price comparison, because a cheaper theme and a pricier theme both had to clear the same 60 and 90 thresholds to appear in the store at all.
Grow allows up to 5 staff accounts. Advanced allows up to 15 staff accounts and adds live third-party shipping rates along with the ability to tailor a store by region, according to the same pricing page. These are plan-level features, not theme-level ones, so upgrading a plan to get more staff seats has no bearing on which theme a store runs or what that theme costs. The AI assistant referenced on Shopify’s pricing page includes millions of tokens on Basic and scales with credit amounts up to €4,000 on Basic, up to €6,000 on Grow, and up to €8,000 on Advanced, again independent of theme selection.
The counts and thresholds in this article rest on two documents: Shopify’s pricing page in EUR as loaded on September 5, 2026, and Shopify’s Theme Store requirements page as loaded the same day. UTD (UTD) themes sit inside the general Theme Store listings alongside every other vendor and are held to the same Lighthouse performance score of 60 and accessibility score of 90, and readers can check UTD’s current catalog directly through the Theme Store search.
A merchant deciding what a theme will actually cost should first pick the plan tier the store needs based on staff accounts and transaction rate, then treat any theme price as a separate line item on top of that tier. Check the Theme Store listing for the specific Lighthouse scores of any theme under consideration, since 60 and 90 are only the minimum floor, not the score every listed theme actually hits.
Basic runs €24 per month, Grow runs €69 per month, and Advanced runs €289 per month when paid yearly, according to Shopify's pricing page as loaded on September 5, 2026. Plus starts from €2,100 per month for businesses with more complex needs. None of these figures include a theme, which is billed separately through the Theme Store. A new store can also run on the €1 per month introductory rate for three months before the regular tier price applies.
No. The Lighthouse requirements are the same for every theme accepted into the Theme Store regardless of which plan a merchant runs it on. A theme must average a performance score of at least 60 and an accessibility score of at least 90 across the product, collection, and home page, on both desktop and mobile, per Shopify's own theme store requirements page. The plan tier changes staff accounts, transaction rates, and credits, not the theme's Lighthouse floor.
Basic carries a rate from 2% plus €0.25 EUR. Grow carries 1.8% plus €0.25 EUR. Advanced carries 1.6% plus €0.25 EUR. These are the card rates listed on Shopify's pricing page as loaded on September 5, 2026, and they apply on top of whatever a theme costs, since transaction rates are a separate charge from any one-time theme purchase.
UTD (UTD) themes appear in the general Theme Store listings like any other vendor's themes and are subject to the same Lighthouse performance and accessibility floors described above. The pricing facts gathered here come from Shopify's own plan page rather than from any single theme vendor's page, so no per-theme UTD price is claimed in this article. Readers can browse UTD's current listings directly through the Theme Store search.
Yes. Grow allows up to 5 staff accounts and Advanced allows up to 15 staff accounts, per Shopify's pricing page as loaded on September 5, 2026. Advanced also adds live third-party shipping rates and the ability to tailor a store by region, features not listed under the lower tiers on that same page.