What Is Shopify? 2026 Pricing and How to Build a Store

Shopify is a subscription-based e-commerce platform: you register an account, choose a theme, add products and sell on infrastructure that Shopify manages. A shop doesn't install servers or patch core software; in return it pays a monthly plan fee, app fees and sometimes transaction fees. In Vietnam, Shopify suits people who need to open a shop fast, test the market or sell internationally. Local payments, invoicing and shipping must be checked carefully before you run ads.

Price list checked on 07/08/2026 from the Shopify Vietnam pricing page. The Basic plan billed yearly is 19 USD/month, but the real total rarely stops there. This article breaks down plans, apps, themes, payment gateways, tax, the seven steps to build a shop, and the comparison with WooCommerce, Haravan, in about 20 minutes of reading. Getting started is very fast.

What is Shopify, and what exactly are you renting?

Once you sign up, you have an admin panel in the cloud and a storefront where customers browse. Shopify handles the servers, SSL certificate, checkout, core updates and the shared infrastructure layer. The shop owner keeps the products, content, prices, configured theme, own domain and data that can be exported with the platform's tools or API.

Put simply, you are renting a shop unit that already has power, security and a checkout counter. You arrange the goods, build the brand, bring in customers, handle orders and are responsible for tax. How deep you can go in knocking down walls or changing the counter depends on the plan, theme, apps and checkout limits.

Shopify currently offers a free trial of 3 days, after which the pricing page on August 7, 2026 shows 1 USD/month for 3 months. That is a launch offer, not a long-term running price. From the following month the shop goes back to the price of the chosen plan. That is the rent.

A basic account already includes the main parts:

• Product catalog, variants, inventory and collections.
• Cart, checkout, discount codes, gift cards and orders.
• Theme Store, theme editor and the ability to attach your own domain.
• Reports, customer segments, email, and recovery of abandoned checkouts.
• App Store for adding reviews, shipping, payments, sync and marketing.
• Sidekick and other AI features Shopify has built into the admin.

We like Shopify for testing an idea. A shop of about 30 products can have its framework built in 2 days, with data entered and test orders run in 1 week if the workflow is simple. Don't confuse launch speed with getting customers; the platform builds the store, it doesn't create buying demand.

Shopify fees in 2026: how much are Basic, Grow and Advanced?

Shopify Vietnam price list checked on 07/08/2026 shows two ways to pay. Billed monthly it is 25, 65 and 399 USD/month; billed yearly it drops to 19, 49 and 299 USD/month for Basic, Grow and Advanced. Shopify Plus starts at 2,300 USD/month, but this article focuses on the three plans Vietnamese shop owners usually consider. The prices are clear.

The conversion table below uses an estimated exchange rate of 26,000 VND/USD so you can plan a budget. The card-issuing bank sets the actual rate, foreign exchange fee and tax on the real invoice on the payment date.

Basic is for sellers who run things themselves. The current pricing page lists this plan with no additional staff accounts, but it lets you invite outside collaborators, and it includes 10 inventory locations and the core store features. Grow opens up to 5 staff accounts. Advanced opens up to 15 accounts, has higher API call limits in some areas, and takes shipping rates directly from third parties.

The price gap between Basic and Grow on yearly billing is 30 USD/month, equal to about 780,000 VND/month at the estimated rate. If the shop uses a third-party payment gateway, the platform fee drops from 2% to 1%. The break-even point only considers transactions of around 78 million VND of online revenue/month; it doesn't yet count the need for accounts, reports or API.

Don't upgrade on a hunch. Take revenue through the online gateway, multiply by the difference in transaction rate, then compare with the difference in subscription. It takes 10 minutes. Don't upgrade in a hurry.

Shopify's hidden fees are in apps, themes and transactions

A shop paying 19 USD/month can still spend several million VND a month. Three costs tend to push it up: apps, payment gateways and themes. Domain, domain email, design, product entry and theme customization work are also outside the platform subscription.

Paid apps add up month by month

Product reviews, filters, search, bundles, loyalty, shipping sync, invoices, subscriptions and multilingual translation usually go through apps. Each app prices differently: fixed monthly, per order, per view or per revenue. Six apps at an average price of 15 USD/month already add up to 90 USD/month, about 2.34 million VND.

We often see a very common mistake: an app is installed to try out, the campaign ends, and nobody removes it. After 12 months, the six apps in the example consume 1.080 USD, nearly 28.08 million VND at the estimated rate. Each quarter, open Billing and compare each app against how many steps it saves or how many orders it generates. An old app still charges.

Themes are paid once, but customization work remains

Shopify has free themes and paid themes in the Theme Store. Each theme's price is shown right on the official listing; a theme bought once does not include every adjustment, app or content work. A theme that looks great in the demo still needs its images, fonts, colors, menus, product pages and policy display replaced.

Shop owners often skip a step: 3 days they pick a theme, upload images in the wrong ratio, and speed and layout still end up off. Decide the five pages you need first: home, category, product, cart and checkout. A theme is worth buying only if it serves those five pages well.

Transaction fees have two layers

Vietnam does not yet appear in the list of countries supported by Shopify Payments on the checking date. When you use a third-party payment provider, the shop pays the gateway fee plus Shopify's transaction fee by plan: 2%, 1% or 0.6%. The two layers must be added together. Shopify Payments is not available in Vietnam.

Say a Basic shop has 200 online orders/month, with an average value of 800,000 VND, revenue through the gateway is 160 million VND. Shopify's 2% fee alone is 3.2 million VND/month, not including gateway fees. If most customers pay by COD or manual bank transfer, Shopify states that manual methods are not charged the third-party transaction fee.

In the example, the subscription is only 494,000 out of 5,254,000 VND/month before gateway fees. Shopify's fee is neither expensive nor cheap on its own. It has to be set next to the number of orders and how customers pay.

Hidden costs are hard to see because each one sits on a different screen: the subscription in Billing, apps in each listing, the payment gateway in an external contract, and theme customization in a partner's quote. If you don't pull the four places into one table in 12 months, a shop easily argues around 19 USD and misses a cost many times larger. We call this the shop's real price list. Build it once, then update it every quarter.

Three Shopify budget examples for Vietnamese shops

The examples below use the estimated exchange rate of 26,000 VND/USD and the listed prices on 07/08/2026. The amounts are budget calculations, not including ads, goods, photography, gateway fees or tax on service invoices. Put in your own order count and payment mix. Don't copy the sample as is.

A shop testing products

A shop with 30 products, on Basic billed yearly, a free theme, two free apps, mostly COD and bank transfer. The subscription is about 494,000 VND/month; domain and domain email add a few tens to a few hundred thousand VND a month on average, depending on the provider. If the owner enters products and edits the theme alone, a technology budget under 1 million VND/month is realistic.

This model suits testing a product for 3 months. You don't need a paid theme, loyalty or bundle apps yet. Spend the money on images, content and the first 20 orders to learn why customers buy.

A domestic shop with revenue

Say a shop has 300 orders/month, with an average value of 700,000 VND, revenue of 210 million; 40% of it goes through the online gateway, i.e. 84 million VND. On Basic, Shopify's 2% fee comes to 1.68 million VND/month. Four apps at an average of 15 USD add 1.56 million VND, the subscription adds 494,000 VND; the three items total 3.734 million VND/month before gateway fees.

If it moves to Grow, the subscription becomes about 1.274 million VND and Shopify's fee on 84 million drops to 840,000 VND. The total of subscription, four apps and platform fee is 3.674 million VND/month, nearly the same as Basic. Grow is worth a look here because of the 5 accounts and the lower transaction fee, not because the plan name sounds bigger.

An international shop with an operations team

A shop on Grow, with six apps totaling 120 USD/month, theme 300 USD a one-time theme payment, and a domain and email around 1.2 million VND/year will cost about 4.394 million VND/month for subscription plus apps. Spreading the theme over 12 months adds 650,000 VND, and domain and email add 100,000 VND; the base budget before transactions comes to around 5.144 million VND/month.

The next large costs are the payment gateway, refunds, currency exchange and ads. An international shop must calculate its margin after all four, not just cost of goods. A product with a 35% gross margin can be very thin after the cost of acquiring customers.

How to build a basic Shopify store in 7 steps

Our review dated 07/08/2026 uses the current admin flow. Button names may show in English or Vietnamese depending on the account language, but the path still follows the Products, Online Store and Settings sections. Set aside 7-day for the first version; don't try to launch after a single session and skip the test orders. Just follow the menu.

Step 1: Create an account and set the store details

Go to the Shopify site, click Start free trial, answer the setup questions and create the store. Open Settings > General to check the store name, email, address, time zone and units of measure. Choose the currency before taking real orders; changing currency after orders exist makes reports hard to reconcile.

Don't buy apps yet. Create one sample product, one sample order and go through the default checkout first. Only then note what the platform is missing.

Step 2: Connect your own domain

Open Settings > Domains. You can buy a domain through Shopify or connect an existing domain with DNS records. After connecting, set the primary domain and check that the SSL certificate works. The shop owner must keep control.

Keep the domain registration account in the shop owner's name, turn on two-factor authentication and record who has permission to edit DNS. Changing contractors should not turn into a hunt for passwords.

Step 3: Choose a theme and build the five main pages

Go to Online Store > Themes, try a free theme first, then click Customize. Build the home, category, product and cart pages and the parts around checkout; then check the phone screen. Banner images must follow the ratio the theme requires; don't squeeze a desktop image down to mobile.

Keep the number of apps that change the interface low. Two apps editing the same filter or cart easily stack JavaScript, slow the page and make errors hard to trace.

Step 4: Enter products and organize collections

Go to Products > Add product, fill in title, description, media, price, SKU, inventory, weight and variants. Group products into collections the way customers search, such as material, purpose, skin type or price range. Each variant needs its own SKU.

If you have 300 products, use a CSV file and import 10 products first. Check images, Vietnamese diacritics, compare-at prices, variants and stock; once they are right, import the rest. One wrong column multiplied by 300 is painful. Test with a few first.

Step 5: Set up payments

Open Settings > Payments. For COD or bank transfer, go to the manual payment methods section and create the payment instructions, account number, transfer note and how the shop confirms. For an online gateway, choose a provider available in the account or an integrated app confirmed by both sides.

Create at least 6 test orders: two COD, two bank transfer, two online gateway. Refund one order, cancel one order and check the fees shown. Don't see a button appear and assume the integration is done.

Step 6: Set up shipping, tax and policies

Go to Settings > Shipping and delivery to create delivery zones, rates and free-shipping conditions. Go to Settings > Taxes and duties to set how tax is displayed for your business model; policies go under Settings > Policies. Shopify provides the configuration fields, but the responsibility for declaring tax stays with the seller. The three sections must match.

For Vietnam, test at least 3 delivery zones: inner city, other provinces and places with surcharges. Use one light parcel, one bulky parcel and one free-shipping order. A wrong weight throws the shipping fee off right at checkout.

Step 7: Run test orders, add tracking, then open the store

Check the phone layout, confirmation email, payment status, stock deduction, discount codes, shipping fee and refund flow. Connect Google Analytics, Search Console and ad pixels when needed; don't attach three tracking apps to the same purchase event. Then remove the storefront password and open for sales.

We use a set of 12 test orders for a basic shop: 3 devices, 3 payment methods, 2 delivery zones, plus the cancel and refund branches. If one order is wrong, fix it and rerun the related branch. Test for real. Only sell after testing.

Shopify payments, shipping and VAT in Vietnam

Three questions decide whether a Vietnamese shop can run: what customers pay with, who the order is passed to, and which system issues the invoice. Shopify handles checkout. The rest has to be fitted with your partners and processes.

Which payments can connect?

Shopify's manual payment guide confirms that COD, cash and bank transfer are set up directly; these orders are not charged Shopify's third-party transaction fee. PayPal Express is an international option. Card, QR or local wallet gateways must be checked in Settings > Payments, the App Store and the provider's documentation at the time you sign.

VNPay, MoMo or a domestic bank gateway should not be promised with a logo placed in a proposal. There are three valid routes: an approved app, a provider listed in the account, or a custom API integration supported by both sides. Before signing, ask for a run of 1 real transaction, 1 refund and 1 reconciliation. A logo is not enough.

Which shipping can be used?

Shopify lets you create manual rate tables by zone, order value or weight. Connecting carriers in Vietnam usually goes through the carrier's app, a partner app or middleware software. Don't stop at creating a waybill; check whether status updates, extra charges, COD and returns flow back to the Shopify order.

A shop running 100 orders/day that has to copy tracking codes by hand at 45 seconds/order will lose 75 minutes/day. An app is worth buying when it cuts those 75 minutes and reduces entry errors. At only 5 orders/day, doing it by hand is tolerable in the first month.

Does Shopify issue Vietnamese VAT invoices?

Shopify has a Taxes and duties area to calculate or display tax, but Shopify's Help Center on taxes states clearly that the seller is responsible for registering, declaring and paying tax. Shopify does not issue Vietnamese e-invoices for outgoing sales on the shop owner's behalf. You need invoicing software, an app or an integration with the accounting system you use. Shopify does not pay on your behalf.

Don't apply one VAT rate across the whole catalog from memory. The tax rate, the timing of invoicing and the data sent to the tax authority must be settled by the shop's accountant or tax advisor according to goods type and legal model. Shopify holds the order data; the tax obligation still sits with the seller.

Shopify is strong on launch speed, weak on fees and custom workflows

What Shopify does very well is reduce the technical work before the opening day. Hosting, SSL, core updates and checkout are already there. Themes, apps and rich documentation let a person who doesn't code build a basic store in 7-day.

The platform also suits shops selling across borders, using international apps and needing to test many landing pages by product. The storefront itself is fast enough to start with if images, theme and apps are kept lean. We don't advise rewriting a custom system just to replace what Shopify already does well. That is a real advantage.

The weakness appears when the process leaves the platform standard. Agent-specific pricing, checkout with an approval step, complex bundle stock deduction, local invoicing, multiple warehouses or ERP sync make apps pile up. Each added app brings another bill, another update schedule and another place for conflicts.

Platform lock-in must also be understood correctly. You can export data with the tools Shopify supports, and keep your own domain and content assets; you cannot take Shopify's core source code to another server. If the day comes to leave the platform, plan for products, customers, orders, images, URLs, reviews and customer account passwords.

Which data moves easily, and which must be redone?

Products, customers and orders have export routes by CSV or API, but an export is only raw material. Variants must keep the correct SKU, images must be fully downloaded, order totals must match, and customer passwords usually do not carry over as they are to a new platform. A migration with 50,000 customers that skips the password reset invitation will leave the support team with a flood of questions on the day the shop reopens.

Themes with Liquid structure do not carry straight over to WooCommerce or a custom system. Review, loyalty, subscription and gift card apps also have their own data models; ask each vendor how to export before you leave. We build a table of 7 data groups, choose 30 sample records for each group, then reconcile both before and after the migration.

SEO breaks easily at the URL. An old product /products/ao-so-mi that moves to a different path without a redirect loses a page Google already knows. Export all URLs that have traffic in 12 months, build a redirect table, keep titles and content that carry value, and monitor 404 errors for at least 30 days after changing platform. Finishing the data transfer does not mean the website transfer is finished.

One threshold we use to review the architecture is when app costs plus transaction fees exceed 15 million VND/month in 3 months, or when there are more than 4 manual steps per order because the system doesn't follow the business process. At that point, work out the next three years. Haven't reached it? Keep running. Reached it? Recalculate.

Shopify vs WooCommerce vs Haravan for Vietnamese sellers

Shopify wins on speed to international sales and the app ecosystem. WooCommerce wins on keeping control of hosting, code and WordPress content. Haravan is closer to Vietnamese operations in POS, marketplaces, social, shipping, invoicing and local support.

Prices checked on 07/08/2026: Shopify Basic billed yearly 19 USD/month, equal to about 494,000 VND at the estimated rate; Haravan lists Standard at 300,000 VND/month and Omni Pro with a website at 680,000 VND/month; WooCommerce does not charge for the core software, but the shop pays for hosting, theme, plugins and maintenance work.

Choose Shopify if you are testing products, targeting international customers, want to open fast and accept a USD subscription. Choose WooCommerce when SEO content is the main axis, and you need control of data and hosting and deep edits on a moderate budget. Choose Haravan when the shop sells mostly in Vietnam through stores, Facebook and marketplaces and wants one local point of contact. Each has its own ground.

Don't choose from demo images. Take 20 real orders, run the same flow on a demo or trial, then note the number of steps and the total fee. The platform that takes fewer steps for your process is the one worth buying.

When to build Shopify yourself, and when to hire a custom build?

For test selling, just run on Shopify. One person with clean product data, a COD or bank transfer flow, a free theme and under 50 products can build the first version alone in 7-day. If you can do it yourself, do it; no need to hire MONA yet.

Hire someone to configure Shopify when the launch date is tied to an ad budget, you need a custom design, migration of several thousand products, many apps, or payments that must be checked carefully. They still work on Shopify; you are buying time, design and responsibility for testing, not ownership of the platform.

Consider a custom website when the business process forces the shop to patch with Excel, app and transaction fees keep rising, or data must flow through ERP, warehouse, dealers and accounting under its own rules. Don't switch just because you dislike the 19 USD fee. Custom build and maintenance costs are usually much larger. A low fee is not enough reason.

Before deciding, check eight questions:

1. How many products, variants and warehouses does the shop have?
2. Do customers pay by COD, bank transfer, card, QR or wallet?
3. How much real revenue goes through the online gateway each month?
4. How many apps are required, and what is the total fee after 12 months?
5. Which software must orders go to after checkout?
6. Does the shop need wholesale pricing, approvals or accounts receivable?
7. Who issues invoices and reconciles refunds?
8. If you leave the platform, which data must you take with you?

We usually build a three-year table for three options: stay on Shopify, move to WooCommerce, or build a custom system. With the same revenue of 160 million VND/month, the share of COD versus online gateway alone changes the fees sharply. Get the numbers first, then choose.

Frequently asked questions about Shopify in Vietnam

Is Shopify free?

Shopify has no long-term free store plan. The pricing page on August 7, 2026 offers a trial of 3 days, then shows an offer of 1 USD/month for 3 months; when the offer ends it returns to the plan price. Basic billed yearly is currently 19 USD/month. Not free in the long term.

Can Shopify use a custom domain?

Yes. Open Settings > Domains to buy or connect a domain you already own. A custom domain separates the brand from the myshopify.com address, but the registration account and DNS must be held by the shop owner.

Does selling on Shopify in Vietnam accept COD?

Yes. COD and bank transfer are created under manual payment methods. Shopify states that orders using manual methods are not charged the third-party transaction fee; the shop still pays delivery and reconciliation fees under the shipping contract.

Does Shopify run ads and SEO by itself?

No. Shopify has title, meta, sitemap and redirect fields and ad channel connections, but you still have to research keywords and produce content, images, feeds and ads, and measure conversions. The platform provides tools. The seller owns the results. Tools don't create customers on their own.

Does moving from Shopify to a custom website lose data?

Not if you prepare properly, but not everything carries over intact. Products, customers and orders have export routes; themes, apps, customer passwords, URLs and reviews need separate handling. Build a reconciliation table of 5 data groups and set up URL redirects before the domain switch day.

MONA builds e-commerce websites for when Shopify no longer fits

MONA has operated since 2016 and has completed 14,000+ projects and keeps a rate of 85% returning clients. We don't start by telling you to leave Shopify. If the shop is still testing products, with few orders and a standard sales flow, just run on Shopify for test selling.

Once the shop has data, we break down five parts: products, prices, inventory, payments and the order after checkout. Where Shopify and apps make a part tidy, keep it. Only where each order has to be copied by hand into Excel, ERP or accounting does it enter the scope of a custom website. Keep what runs well.

A custom project at MONA hands over the domain, source code, admin rights, integration documentation, backup schedule and the person who receives alerts. We also run a test order set for COD, bank transfer, online gateway, cancel, refund and stock change before the launch day. A demo image is never a substitute for acceptance.

If your fee table already has the subscription, four apps and 2% transactions as in the example of 5,254,000 VND/month, bring your actual Billing invoice and 20 sample orders to a system review session. We will work out the options of staying, trimming apps or building custom over three years, and only then make a recommendation. See e-commerce website design service or call 1900 636 648 to review the exact problem Shopify you are running. Just work out the numbers first.