Shopify

Verdict: the obvious choice for a brand’s own storefront, and the right second channel only once your Amazon listings are already working.

What it does

Shopify is the hosted platform behind most independent ecommerce stores: themes, checkout, payments, shipping labels, a point-of-sale app, and an app store that covers everything else. For an Amazon seller it is where the brand lives off-marketplace: the site your creator traffic lands on, the customer list you actually own, and the home for Klaviyo, PostPilot, Printful, and the rest of the off-Amazon stack.

Pricing (checked 20 October 2026, US)

Three-day free trial without a card, then most plans are offered at $1 a month for the first three months.

• Basic: $39/mo billed monthly, or $29/mo on the annual plan. Online card rate 2.9% plus 30 cents.
• Grow: $105/mo, or $79/mo annual. 2.7% plus 30 cents. (This was the “Shopify” plan; renamed this year.)
• Advanced: $399/mo, or $299/mo annual. 2.5% plus 30 cents.
• Plus: from $2,300/mo on a three-year term.

The old $5 Starter plan is no longer available to new stores. Shopify now advertises 1% of subscription spend back as credits.

Who it is for

Brands with an audience or a plan to build one: creator traffic, an email list, a product that benefits from a story Amazon’s detail page cannot tell. Basic is enough for almost everyone until the payment-rate savings on Grow outweigh the price difference, which happens around $25,000 a month in online sales.

Who should skip it

Sellers whose entire demand comes from Amazon search. A store with no traffic is a monthly fee and a to-do list. Get the Amazon business stable first; the storefront is not going anywhere.

Runs our store

Shopify hosts our brand’s own storefront and is the hub the rest of the off-Amazon tools plug into. The honest summary of running it next to FBA: the store is where the margin is better and the volume is smaller, and keeping both channels in step is why Sellbrite and AfterShip are in this stack.

The honest caveats

The app store is where the real cost accumulates; a working store usually carries $50 to $150 a month in apps on top of the plan. Payment rates drop only if you use Shopify Payments. And the annual plan is where the advertised prices live; the monthly rate is a third higher.

Bottom line

Take the trial, build on Basic, pay annually. No affiliate link here; the vendor link is below.

See Shopify pricing