Shopify Plus gets spoken about as if it were a different platform. It runs on the same Shopify most NZ retailers already know, with the same admin, the same product records and the same theme architecture. What changes is the contract, the way you are charged and a specific set of capabilities that the standard plans either cap or leave out. Once you can name those capabilities, deciding whether your business needs them becomes a commercial question you can answer with your own numbers.
Shopify bills New Zealand merchants for their plan in US dollars, so plan fees here are in USD. Card processing is charged in NZ dollars. All figures are ex GST and match Shopify's published pricing as at October 2026.
What Shopify Plus costs
Plus starts at US$2,300 a month on a three-year term or US$2,500 a month on a one-year term. For comparison, Shopify Advanced is US$399 a month billed monthly, or US$299 a month billed annually. Larger and more complex businesses move from the flat fee to a variable platform fee based on revenue and business model, which Shopify agrees with you during the sales process rather than publishing as a rate card.
Processing is cheaper on Plus. Domestic online card payments through Shopify Payments cost 2.25% plus 30 cents, against 2.35% plus 30 cents on Advanced and 2.65% plus 30 cents on Basic. In-person card payments drop to 1.3%. If you use a third-party payment provider, Shopify adds 0.2% to each transaction on Plus, compared with 0.6% on Advanced and 2% on Basic. Those percentages add up at volume, though the licence gap between Advanced and Plus is wide enough that card savings on their own seldom cover it. Our piece on the points at which upgrading to Plus pays off works through that arithmetic.
What the licence includes
Strip away the sales language and Plus adds a defined list of capabilities to what Advanced already gives you. Each one solves a particular operational problem. Most retailers who move to Plus need two or three of them, and very few need the full set.
Checkout customisation
On Basic, Grow and Advanced you can brand the checkout and add extensions to the thank-you and order status pages, while the information, shipping and payment steps stay as Shopify built them. Plus lets you add checkout extensions inside those steps. In practice that means a delivery date picker for regional deliveries, a purchase order field for trade buyers, gift messaging that flows through to the packing slip or a single relevant add-on offered before payment. A customer in checkout has already decided to buy, so every field and prompt added there has to earn its place. The capability pays when there is a specific commercial reason for each change and costs you conversions when checkout becomes somewhere to test promotions.
Custom Shopify Functions
Shopify Functions control the logic behind discounts, delivery options, payment methods and cart validation. Every plan can install public apps built on Functions. Only Plus stores can run custom apps containing Functions written for one business, and you need one of those when your rules are specific to you: free shipping over a threshold except on bulky items that go by freight, a payment method hidden for orders to rural addresses or a cart that blocks trade-only products for retail customers. Rules like these used to be handled with discount apps and scripts layered on top of each other. A custom Function runs inside Shopify's own checkout infrastructure, so it behaves the same way at five orders an hour as it does at five hundred.
The full B2B toolset
Shopify extended its native B2B features to Basic, Grow and Advanced in 2026, which changed the case for Plus considerably. Standard plans now include company profiles, payment terms, volume pricing, quantity rules and up to three custom catalogues. Plus adds unlimited catalogues, the ability to assign a catalogue directly to a specific company or location, partial payments and deposits. A wholesaler with three price lists can now run on Advanced. A wholesaler with forty trade accounts on negotiated pricing still needs Plus, and we cover how to structure trade and retail on one store in setting up Shopify for B2B and wholesale.
Expansion stores
Your Plus fee covers the main store and nine expansion stores, with extra stores at US$300 a month each. NZ retailers use expansion stores for an Australian storefront with its own pricing, content and shipping rules, a separate trade store or an outlet store that keeps clearance stock away from the main brand. Each store has its own theme and settings, and Plus includes an organisation admin for managing staff and permissions across them. One condition sits in the contract: expansion stores are for a single brand, so a second brand needs its own Plus agreement.
Locations, staff and POS Pro
Standard plans allow ten inventory locations, while Plus allows 200. Staff accounts are unlimited, against fifteen on Advanced and five on Grow. POS Pro, which adds staff roles, inventory tools and store-level reporting for physical retail, is part of the Plus plan. For a retailer with a handful of stores, a warehouse and a 3PL, the location limit is the one that bites first. Our guide to Shopify POS in New Zealand covers the payment hardware side, which has complications of its own here.
Headless and priority support
Plus includes Shopify's React-based headless stack at no extra licence cost, for businesses that want a custom front end running on Shopify's commerce engine. That suits a small number of retailers with unusual content or performance requirements and adds cost and maintenance for everyone else, as we explain in when headless Shopify makes commercial sense. Support moves to 24/7 priority access, which earns its keep at 9pm on a sale night when a checkout question needs an answer from someone at Shopify.
What sits outside the licence
A Plus contract switches capabilities on. It doesn't design a theme, configure a checkout extension, write a custom Function or connect your ERP. Every item above needs scoping and building before it does anything for your customers, and the build carries its own cost alongside the licence. A store that moves to Plus and keeps its existing theme, apps and checkout looks and behaves exactly as it did the week before, at a much higher monthly fee.
Apps stay a separate line as well. Plus doesn't bundle the reviews, subscriptions, loyalty or search apps a store already pays for, although some of them can be replaced by Functions or native features once you are on Plus. Integrations with accounting, inventory and freight systems are built by the relevant platform or integration partner. Our role on a Plus project is to scope how each of those systems should work inside the store and manage that work through to launch.
What used to be Plus-only
A lot of what has been written about Plus is now out of date, because Shopify has moved several headline features down into the standard plans. Shopify Flow, the automation tool for tagging customers, routing orders and raising stock alerts, is available on every paid plan. Native B2B features reached Basic, Grow and Advanced in 2026. Advanced already includes third-party calculated shipping rates and the custom report builder. If the case for Plus in your business rests on automation or a simple wholesale price list, check whether Advanced now covers it before signing a three-year term.
The capabilities that remain exclusive to Plus are tied to scale and complexity: checkout steps you can change, custom Functions, unlimited B2B catalogues, multiple storefronts, 200 locations and the lowest processing rates. NZ retailers who move to Plus now do it for one or more of those six.
What established NZ retailers build on Plus
The Plus projects that pay back start the same way. The business has a specific operational problem the standard plans can't solve, and the build is scoped around that problem before anything else. Four of those problems come up again and again in New Zealand.
Trade and retail from one catalogue
Wholesalers and brands with stockists want retail customers and trade accounts on one product catalogue with one stock figure, instead of a Shopify store for retail and a spreadsheet or separate system for trade. Plus handles the account-specific pricing, payment terms and ordering rules. The build makes sure a trade buyer who logs in sees a store that behaves like a trade portal, with reorder lists and their own pricing, while the retail customer never sees any of it.
New Zealand and Australia as separate stores
Shopify Markets lets one store sell into Australia with local currency and pricing, and for many retailers that is enough. Retailers with different ranges, promotions, shipping partners or content for Australia often prefer an expansion store, so the Australian site can be run by its own team without touching the NZ one.
Store networks and warehouses
A retailer with eight stores, a central warehouse, a 3PL and a returns location is already at the ten-location limit before adding a pop-up or a second warehouse. Plus lifts that limit and adds POS Pro, so online and in-store stock sit in one system with one set of figures.
Freight and delivery rules at checkout
New Zealand's geography produces delivery rules that generic checkouts handle badly: rural delivery surcharges, bulky items that only go by freight, deliveries to Waiheke or Stewart Island and click-and-collect from specific stores. Custom Functions and checkout extensions let those rules run inside checkout itself. Every rule enforced at checkout is one less order your team has to edit, refund or chase after purchase.
If one or more of those describes your business, our Shopify Plus service starts by mapping exactly how each licence feature would be used, so you know what you are buying before anyone signs a contract with Shopify.
Common questions
How much does Shopify Plus cost in New Zealand?
Shopify Plus starts at US$2,300 a month on a three-year term or US$2,500 a month on a one-year term, billed in US dollars and quoted here ex GST. Larger businesses move to a variable fee based on revenue. Card processing through Shopify Payments is charged in NZ dollars at 2.25% plus 30 cents for domestic online cards. The cost of building and configuring the store sits on top of the licence.
What is the difference between Shopify Advanced and Shopify Plus?
Plus adds checkout extensions inside the information, shipping and payment steps, custom apps running Shopify Functions, unlimited B2B catalogues with deposits and partial payments, nine expansion stores, 200 inventory locations, unlimited staff, POS Pro and 24/7 priority support. Processing rates are slightly lower. Advanced costs US$399 a month on monthly billing, so the licence difference is roughly US$1,900 to US$2,200 a month.
Do I need Shopify Plus to sell wholesale in New Zealand?
Since 2026, Basic, Grow and Advanced include company profiles, payment terms, volume pricing and up to three custom catalogues. That covers a wholesaler with a small number of price lists. You need Plus when trade accounts are on individual negotiated pricing, when catalogues must be assigned to specific companies or locations, or when you take deposits or partial payments on trade orders.
Can a New Zealand Shopify Plus store run a separate Australian site?
Yes, it can. The Plus fee includes nine expansion stores, and many NZ retailers use one for Australia with its own pricing, content, promotions and shipping partners. Each expansion store has its own theme and settings, managed through the organisation admin. If your Australian range and pricing are close to New Zealand's, Shopify Markets on a single store may do the job without a second storefront.
Is Shopify Plus worth it for a smaller NZ business?
For most smaller businesses it isn't. The licence costs several times what Advanced does, and the extra capability only produces a return when you have a specific problem that needs it, such as complex trade pricing, many locations or checkout rules the standard plans can't run. If your store runs cleanly on Advanced and you can't name the Plus feature you would use, stay where you are.
