Should You Start Out with a “Lite” Shopify Membership?

Many people that are starting to work with Shopify for the first time wonder about the very first membership level that Shopify offers. This is the “Lite” membership level, which is offered for just nine dollars a month. But what is this actually give you? Is this membership enough for you to actually make money with e-commerce? We’ll explore what you get with the Lite membership and who it is appropriate for to decide if you can stick with the nine dollar a month level or if you need to upgrade.

General Information

The first thing that you need to know about this membership level is that it doesn’t actually include Shopify store. This is difficult to understand until you realize that it does allow you to use the integrated social media by buttons that are included with Shopify. However, you’re not able to create a store with your products in it. We’ll get to which other features are missing from this membership plan in a moment.

Fees

The next thing that we will want to discuss is the fees and costs that you’ll pay when you have this membership level. Obviously, there is the membership fee, or the cost of your monthly Shopify plan, which is nine dollars a month. The credit card transaction rates are exactly the same for the lowest membership level as they are for the next level up which is $29 a month. As you move up the scale those fees go down. The transaction fees that come with the membership levels are also the same for both this membership and for the $29 a month “Basic” level. So, when it comes to fees, there is no reason to move up to the next membership level but if you find you’re doing a huge amount of volume you’ll lose a lot of money on processing fees and transaction fees if you don’t upgrade.

Other Features

Some of the other features that you don’t get access to by using the lowest level might be a good reason to upgrade at least to the $29 a month level. For example, you don’t get access to Twitter or Pinterest integration but you do get Facebook. Since Pinterest is a very good marketing tool for real world products, and you can incorporate a buy button with the next level it might be advisable to upgrade.