How much does an online store cost? On Shopify’s Basic plan, it costs $37 CAD a month billed yearly, plus 2.8% and 30 cents per online order, per Shopify’s Canadian pricing page in October 2026. Building it yourself takes as long as entering your products.

Syndicate builds online stores for neighbourhood shops, cafés and restaurants, so we have a stake in how you sell online.

What does Shopify cost a shop in Canada?

Shopify’s Canadian pricing page, checked October 26, 2026, lists three main plans in Canadian dollars. Basic costs $37 a month billed yearly or $49 billed monthly. Grow costs $99 a month billed yearly or $132 monthly. Advanced costs $389 a month billed yearly or $517 monthly.

Card fees come on top. Shopify’s Canadian pricing page lists online card rates of 2.8% plus 30 cents on Basic, 2.6% plus 30 cents on Grow and 2.4% plus 30 cents on Advanced. If you use a payment provider other than Shopify Payments, Shopify adds its own fee of 2%, 1% or 0.6% depending on the plan.

Square’s Canadian pricing page lists the same online rate as Shopify Basic, 2.8% plus 30 cents, and an online store starting at $0 a month. If you already use Square at your counter, compare its paid plans with Shopify’s before you choose.

What does the first year cost on Shopify Basic?

Take a shop selling $2,000 a month online in 50 orders, on Shopify Basic billed yearly. Use this first-year cost worksheet to swap in your own numbers.

That’s about $1,300 for the year before a theme, apps or anyone’s time. On Grow, the same sales would cost $1,188 in subscription and $804 in card fees, about $2,000 in total. The card fees grow with your sales, so a busy December raises them too. At this volume, Grow costs about $700 more a year and saves only $48 in card fees, so Basic is the better fit. Our page on having a store built that you own sets the other route beside it.

What costs do the plan pages leave out?

For many shops, the largest cost is the hours you spend. Someone has to photograph every product, write a description, enter prices and stock, set up pickup and delivery, and keep all of it in step with your shelves. For a shop with a few hundred products, that can add up to weeks of work before the first sale, plus time every week after.

Shopify’s free themes work, but you may want a paid theme. Features like subscriptions, gift cards or a connection to your till can each need an app with its own monthly fee. Add those to the worksheet before you compare options.

If your online stock doesn’t update when you sell at the till, customers will order things you’ve already sold, and someone on your team has to call them.

How long does it take to build an online store?

On a do-it-yourself platform, the setup takes as long as your products take. You can open a Shopify account in an afternoon, but the store isn’t ready until your photos, descriptions and prices are in. As an example, if each product takes you 15 minutes to photograph, describe and price, 300 products take 75 hours, or about two working weeks.

If someone builds it for you, ask what they need from you before the clock starts. A build waits on your product lists, photos and prices, so gather those first.

When does doing it yourself make sense?

Shopify is a good choice if you have time, a small catalogue and someone on your team who likes this kind of work. You can start today, you pay month to month, and Shopify’s help centre and app store cover the basics.

It makes less sense when nobody has the hours. A store that sits half-finished or falls out of step with your shelves costs you the subscription and the sales.

Where do these numbers come from?

The Shopify prices and card rates come from Shopify’s Canadian pricing page, and the Square rate from Square’s Canadian pricing page, both checked October 26, 2026. Neither page shows a date. We built the first-year example from those rates; the $2,000 in sales and 50 orders are example inputs, not data from any shop.

We checked these prices in October 2026. Platforms change their pricing without notice, so confirm them at the linked pages before you decide.

What does Syndicate charge to build a store?

With Syndicate, we build the store for you around the counter you already run, with pickup, local delivery at a flat rate you set, gift cards and subscriptions. A connection to your point-of-sale system (POS) keeps transactions, inventory and customer profiles in step. Our team trains yours to run it, and every store comes with a French version.

That costs more than a do-it-yourself plan, because you’re paying for the build, the setup and the training instead of your own hours. It starts from 500 CAD a month, financed over one year, and the store belongs to you. Once we have everything we need from you, we can have it ready in as little as 7 to 10 days. After the first year, the store is paid off. You can add an optional care plan for maintenance and support, from 500 CAD a month, no contract.

Would it be a bad idea to see what your shop would cost to build, with your own products? Book a free demo or call 1-844-404-4796.