Comparing Shopify Advanced vs. Shopify Plus: Unlock Enterprise eCommerce

You're likely already leveraging Shopify's robust capabilities for your ecommerce stores in Southeast Asia countries like Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand and Taiwan. You are now facing a critical question: Should you stay with Shopify Advanced or upgrade to Shopify Plus? We at 360&5, a leading Shopify Plus agency, understand this crucial moment. 

Choosing the right platform is essential for ambitious ecommerce businesses poised for significant growth. The decision will influence your technology investment, operational efficiency, customer experience, and revenue potential. This in-depth guide dissects Shopify Advanced and Shopify Plus. Drawing upon our extensive experience working with high-growth brands on the Shopify platform, we'll share a detailed comparison of their features, benefits, pricing structures, and scalability to help your business. Our goal is to empower you with the knowledge to make an informed decision – or better yet, to reach out to us for a personalised consultation to navigate this critical choice.

Navigating the Shopify Landscape: Understanding Advanced and Plus with your Shopify Plus

Before we delve into the nuances, let's establish a clear understanding of each plan's role within the Shopify ecosystem, offering insights from a seasoned agency's perspective.

Shopify Advanced: A robust stepping stone, often where growth stalls

Shopify Advanced is strategically positioned as the next logical step for established businesses experiencing consistent growth. It’s tailored for merchants who have outgrown the entry-level Shopify plans but aren't yet operating at a true enterprise-scale—or so they think. Many businesses view Shopify Advanced as "powerful enough," but in our experience, it often represents a growth ceiling for brands with significant ambitions.

While Shopify Advanced offers enhanced reporting, shipping, and scaling tools, it lacks the enterprise-grade infrastructure and bespoke customisation capabilities necessary to unlock exponential growth. It’s suitable for businesses processing a moderate volume of orders. Still, for those targeting aggressive expansion, particularly into complex markets, Shopify Plus quickly becomes the more strategic and cost-effective choice in the long run.

Key benefits of Shopify Advanced

• Enhanced analytics: This plan provides more detailed reporting than lower plans, but it lacks the granular, customisable dashboards and real-time insights that larger organisations demand.
• Lower transaction fees: This reduces Shopify Payments and third-party transaction fees, offering immediate cost savings, but these savings become negligible—and often outweighed by missed opportunities—as revenue scales on Shopify Plus.
• Improved shipping: It offers better shipping options but lacks the advanced API integrations and carrier partnerships crucial for complex, high-volume shipping strategies.
• Basic automation: It includes some automation features but lacks the powerful Shopify Flow, which is essential for streamlining enterprise-level operations and reducing manual processes – a key focus for our Shopify Plus clients.
• Cost-effective entry point—But consider long-term scalability): Appears budget-friendly initially, but businesses often outgrow Advanced quickly, leading to costly and disruptive platform migrations down the line – a scenario we frequently help clients navigate.

Shopify Plus: The enterprise ecommerce powerhouse

Shopify Plus is Shopify’s premier, enterprise-grade solution, purpose-built for high-volume, high-growth organisations demanding unmatched customisation, robust automation, and a truly scalable ecommerce ecosystem. Shopify Plus offers exclusive features and the infrastructure to handle intricate operations, massive traffic events (like peak seasons and flash sales), global expansion, and highly personalised customer experiences. For businesses serious about leading their market, Shopify Plus isn't just an upgrade—it's the foundation for sustainable, enterprise-level success. And we are the agency that will help you achieve exponential growth and market dominance.

Key benefits of Shopify Plus:

• Reduced app reliance—Streamlined efficiency: Shopify Plus brands we work with often see a dramatic reduction in their reliance on third-party apps. The platform's inherent functionalities, coupled with expert custom shopify development by agencies like ours, eliminate the need for often clunky and performance-hampering app ecosystems – particularly regarding discounting and promotions.
• Unlocking localisation potential—Global reach: Shopify Plus provides significantly enhanced localisation capabilities. While Shopify Advanced limits you to a single storefront, Shopify Plus offers nine expansion stores, which are included in the Shopify subscription cost. This allows for truly localised experiences across multiple regions—a crucial element for the global brands we support.
• Unmatched scalability and performance—Built for enterprise traffic: Shopify Plus is engineered to handle massive traffic and order volumes without performance degradation. This enterprise-grade infrastructure is non-negotiable for brands experiencing rapid growth or seasonal traffic spikes – a core requirement for many of our Shopify Plus clients.
• Extreme customisation and flexibility—Bespoke brand experiences: Shopify Plus grants unparalleled control over every facet of your storefront and checkout. With access to advanced APIs, Script Editor, specialised apps, and 360&5's expert development capabilities, you can create unique, conversion-optimised experiences that are impossible to achieve on Shopify Advanced.
• Dedicated support & strategic partnership—Your merchant success manager and 360&5: Shopify Plus provides a dedicated Merchant Success Manager for personalised guidance. Combine this with the dedicated strategic partnership of a Shopify Plus partner like 360&5, and you have an unbeatable support system to navigate complex implementations and optimise your long-term ecommerce strategy.
• Advanced automation with Shopify Flow—operational excellence: Shopify Flow, exclusive to Shopify Plus, is a game-changer for operational efficiency. Our agency helps businesses leverage Flow to automate complex workflows across order management, customer segmentation, inventory, and more, freeing up valuable resources and minimising manual errors.
• Robust B2B ecommerce capabilities—Wholesale ready: Shopify Plus offers native B2B features designed for complex wholesale operations. For brands with significant B2B channels or those looking to expand into wholesale, Shopify Plus, combined with our B2B expertise, is the clear choice for seamless and scalable B2B ecommerce.
• Multi-storefront mastery—Global brand management: Shopify Plus's multi-storefront functionality allows for granular control over regional or brand-specific storefronts, all managed from a single dashboard—a critical feature for the leading brands we empower.
• Free Shopify POS Pro licenses—Scalable retail: This eliminates the recurring subscription fees typically associated with the advanced POS system, streamlining operations and reducing overhead for high-volume retailers. By integrating seamlessly with the robust Shopify Plus platform, businesses gain access to enhanced features like advanced staff permissions, and in-depth reporting, all without the added cost.

Key differences decoded: Shopify Advanced vs. Shopify Plus subscription plans

Choosing between Shopify Advanced and Shopify Plus demands a deep understanding of the crucial differences across key business functions. As a Shopify Plus agency, we regularly guide clients through this evaluation. Here's our side-by-side comparison:

1. Pricing structures of Shopify Advanced and Shopify Plus

• Shopify Advanced: At SGD 399 per month, it appears cost-effective. However, the 0.5% transaction fee (unless using Shopify Payments) can accumulate quickly as sales grow. Clients often focus on this lower monthly fee initially, overlooking the longer-term cost implications and missed revenue opportunities.
• Shopify Plus: Starting at USD 2,300 per month (variable), it's a significant investment. However, from our agency's experience, the ROI is substantial for enterprise businesses. The minimised transaction fees, combined with gains in efficiency, automation, conversions (through custom experiences we build), and dedicated support, often make Shopify Plus demonstrably more profitable in the long run.

2. User management and security: Limitations vs. Enterprise control

• Shopify Advanced: It is limited to 15 staff accounts. In our experience, this becomes a significant bottleneck for larger teams, often leading to account sharing—a security risk and operational inefficiency that we advise against.
• Shopify Plus: Unlimited staff accounts with granular permissions. Enterprise-grade user management is critical for security and efficient delegation, especially for large teams managing complex ecommerce operations. Shopify Plus allows for role-based access, separate reporting permissions, and app-specific permissions – essential for data security and operational control, the best practices we implement for our clients.

3. Web design flexibility and control: Themes vs. Limitless customization

• Shopify Advanced: Both offer access to Shopify's Theme Store. However, Shopify Advanced customisation remains within the theme's limitations. Save up to 20 themes in the theme library.
• Shopify Plus: Unlocks true design freedom for your Shopify store. While themes provide a starting point, Shopify Plus, when combined with our website design expertise, allows for complete front-end design customisation using Liquid, advanced APIs, and custom app web development. We specialise in creating bespoke, brand-defining storefronts and checkout experiences on Shopify Plus that go far beyond theme-based limitations. Shopify Plus also allows for 100 themes in the library, providing greater flexibility for testing and seasonal website designs.

4. App integrations: Standard vs. Enterprise-grade ecosystem

• Shopify Advanced: Access to most Shopify apps lacks exclusive integrations and advanced API access to Plus. Often, complex functionality requires a patchwork of apps, which can impact performance and increase maintenance overhead.
• Shopify Plus: It prioritises native functionality and custom solutions. We often find that Shopify Plus merchants require significantly fewer apps especially for discount mechanics. Shopify Plus offers an editor for checkout customisation, Shopify Launchpad for streamlined campaign management, Shopify Flow for automation, and superior API access for building truly bespoke integrations with ERP, CRM, and other enterprise systems. We help clients move beyond app dependency and towards efficient, custom-built solutions.

5. B2B selling: Basic features vs. Native enterprise B2B

• Shopify Advanced: Suitable only for straightforward wholesale needs.
• Shopify Plus: Robust native B2B functionality. Shopify Plus is designed for complex wholesale operations with features like custom pricing lists, private storefronts, net payment terms, and company accounts. As a Shopify Plus agency, B2B ecommerce is a core area of our expertise. We help brands fully leverage these native features and build highly customised B2B experiences on Shopify Plus to drive wholesale growth on their Shopify store.

6. Multi-store management: Single store vs. Global expansion

• Shopify Advanced: Single storefront limitation. Global expansion becomes complex and less efficient, often requiring separate Shopify Advanced accounts and fragmented management.
• Shopify Plus: It offers 10 storefronts (1 primary + 9 expansion stores) within one Shopify subscription. This multi-store functionality is a game-changer for global brands. We help clients architect and manage complex multi-store setups, enabling localised experiences, streamlined operations across territories, and enhanced data security through regionalised store access. Each expansion store can be linked to its ERP, offering greater control.

7. Scalability and growth: Potential with Shopify Plus for enterprise ecommerce

• Shopify Advanced: It is scaleable for growth but potentially limited under extreme load. Performance issues may occur during peak traffic periods or rapid growth spurts.
• Shopify Plus: Unrivaled enterprise-grade scalability and performance. Engineered to handle massive traffic surges and transaction volumes without compromising uptime. For enterprise brands, this reliability is non-negotiable. Our agency ensures your Shopify Plus store is scalable and optimised for peak performance through ongoing monitoring and optimisation.

8. Automation: Streamlined workflows vs. Enterprise efficiency

• Shopify Advanced: Basic automation capabilities, limited scope.
• Shopify Plus: Shopify Flow is a powerful, native automation engine. As Shopify Plus experts, we help businesses leverage Flow to automate complex workflows across order management, customer journeys, inventory, fraud prevention, and marketing – driving significant operational efficiencies and cost savings that are not achievable on Shopify Advanced.

9. Customer support: Standard vs. Personalized merchant success

• Shopify Advanced: Standard 24/7 support. Helpful but lacks the personalised, strategic guidance enterprise businesses require.
• Shopify Plus: A key benefit is that a dedicated merchant success manager is assigned to high-volume businesses and provides personalized support. However, partnering with a dedicated Shopify Plus agency like 360&5 takes this support to the next level. We become an extension of your team, offering platform support, strategic ecommerce guidance, custom development expertise, and proactive optimization—delivering a level of service that goes far beyond standard support.

Is Shopify Advanced the Right Plan for You?

Shopify Advanced can be a suitable stepping stone for businesses that:

• Experience moderate growth and need more advanced features than basic Shopify plans.
• Require improved reporting and analytics compared to lower-tier plans but don't need highly customised dashboards.
• Are scaling operations but are not yet facing enterprise-level complexity in terms of global expansion, B2B sales, or massive traffic events.
• You may have a tighter budget in the short term but need to upgrade to Shopify Plus as growth accelerates—a migration we can expertly manage at 360&5.

When is the right time to upgrade from Shopify Advanced to Shopify Plus?

Shopify Plus is unequivocally the right choice for businesses that:

• Established, high-volume ecommerce enterprises are processing significant transactions daily and experiencing consistent high traffic.
• It requires granular control and extreme customisation over the entire customer journey and brand experience.
• Global businesses in multiple markets demanding multi-store functionality and localised experiences.
• Regularly experience high-traffic events (flash sales, product launches) and require a platform that guarantees uptime and performance under extreme load.
• Have significant B2B sales channels or are strategically expanding into wholesale ecommerce.
• Value proactive, strategic support from a dedicated team of Shopify experts and a specialised Shopify Plus agencies.

Examples of Businesses Perfectly Positioned for Shopify Plus:

• Global beauty and fashion brands: Targeting international markets, requiring localised storefronts, complex fulfilment networks, and bespoke brand experiences.
• Large electronics and consumer goods brands: Holding high-volume flash sales, demanding robust B2B ecommerce capabilities, and requiring seamless integration with existing enterprise systems.
• Major CPG and FMCG companies: Managing complex direct-to-consumer and wholesale channels, requiring advanced automation and enterprise-grade scalability.
• Multi-brand retail conglomerates: Managing distinct online storefronts for each brand, needing centralised administration and multi-store management across diverse categories.

Final verdict from your Shopify Plus Agency: Align platform choice with enterprise ambition

The ultimate decision between Shopify Advanced and Shopify Plus isn't just about features – it's about aligning your ecommerce platform with your enterprise ambitions.

Don't solely focus on the monthly price tag. For enterprise businesses, Shopify Plus isn't an expense; it's a strategic investment that yields significant returns when implemented and optimised by an agency like ours. Consider your break-even point, but more importantly, consider the revenue potential unlocked by Shopify Plus, particularly with expert agency guidance. If your business is growing and seeking advanced features but isn't yet operating at an enterprise scale, Shopify Advanced might seem like a temporary solution. However, in our experience, for businesses with serious growth aspirations, Shopify Plus is not just an upgrade – it’s the foundation for long-term success.

Shopify Plus provides the enterprise-grade infrastructure, unparalleled customisation, robust automation, and dedicated support necessary to compete and dominate your market. Partnering with a certified Shopify Plus agency like 360&5 maximises the platform's potential, accelerates your growth, and achieves your enterprise ecommerce vision.

Ready to unlock enterprise ecommerce with Shopify Plus? Let's Talk. Our Shopify Plus B2B experts can assess your business needs, project your growth trajectory, and provide a tailored recommendation on whether Shopify Plus or Shopify POS is the right platform to propel your enterprise forward.