Shopify is a cash register that happens to have a website

The first order book at Kepner Sign Works was a spiral notebook. Kellie wrote the name, the decal, the check number, and prayed. When yard sign orders from three counties outgrew the notebook, she asked me for "one of those online store things." I set up Shopify Basic on my card, she pays me back monthly, and we have run it that way for two years.

So here's the thing. Shopify is not a website with a store bolted on. It is a cash register that happens to have a website attached. If your business ships product, that is exactly the machine you want. If you are a plumber or a tax office, it is the wrong machine entirely, and I will tell you what I set those folks up with instead.

What it costs, real numbers

The plan ladder as of this year, straight off their pricing page:

1. Starter, $5 a month. No real store. It is a buy button you paste into an existing site or social page. Fine for one product.
2. Basic, $39 a month by the month, $29 a month billed yearly. This is the one Kellie runs. Real store, real inventory, discount codes.
3. Grow, $105 a month, $79 billed yearly. More staff accounts and lower card fees. Bigger shops than mine.
4. Advanced, $399 a month, $299 billed yearly. High volume, real shipping rate tools. Not us.
5. Plus, starts around $2,300 a month. Enterprise. If you need this you already have an IT person.

Card processing on Basic through Shopify Payments runs 2.9 percent plus 30 cents a sale. Use an outside gateway instead and Basic tacks on another 2 percent, so I have never once done that. The free theme was good enough for Kellie. Premium themes run up around $300, and the reviews I read gripe about the same two things. Apps that should be built in cost extra, and the blog tools are weak.

What Kellie's bill actually looks like

$348 a year for Basic on annual billing. Two paid apps for shipping labels and email receipts add about twenty bucks a month between them, which stings but earns its keep in her case. Card fees come off every sale like they do everywhere. That is the honest total for a small store doing maybe $2,500 a month. It is real money. It is also less than one lost commercial sign order used to cost her.

Setup took me two evenings. I am not going to pretend I did anything clever. I picked a free theme, typed in her products with photos off her phone, hooked up Shopify Payments, and set shipping flat rate because carrier rates are an Advanced feature. Her nephew runs the day to day in an app on his phone. She has not called me about the store in eight months. That is the review.

The pallet jack test

Shopify is a pallet jack. Heavy, purpose built, moves serious weight all day. Nobody buys a pallet jack to move one microwave, and nobody should pay $29 a month to sell eight mugs a year. But when the orders are coming on pallets, a hand truck in the corner does not cut it. For most of my clients, the right tool is a hand truck. A simple site and a form. For Kellie, the pallet jack pays for itself every week.

The gripes I hear from other users line up with mine. App costs creep. Updates occasionally land during business hours. The editor takes more clicks than it should for basic jobs. None of it has cost Kellie a sale. I cannot say that about the notebook.

What to do Monday

Pull your last card processing statement and write down the total percentage you paid per sale, fees and all. If it is over 3 percent and you are not on Shopify Payments, that gap is the 2 percent penalty for using somebody else's gateway. One phone call or one settings change fixes it. That is found money, and it is your Monday afternoon.