Shopify Break-Even Calculator

Break-even orders = Monthly plan cost / Profit per order. With Basic ($25/month) and $8 profit per order: 25 / 8 = 4 orders needed just to cover the plan (rounded up). This ignores Shopify Payments savings vs competitors, which can partially offset the plan cost.

Shopify has a fixed monthly cost (from $25) while Etsy takes ~6.5% transaction fee plus payment processing per sale, with no monthly fee. Shopify becomes cheaper at higher volume when per-transaction savings exceed the subscription — typically once you're doing 10–20+ orders a month at a reasonable margin.

Break-even price is the minimum you can charge per unit and still cover variable costs (product, shipping, ad spend, payment fees) with zero profit. Break-even order count is how many units at your actual price you need to sell to also cover the fixed monthly plan cost. Both numbers matter: price too low and every sale loses money; sell too few and the plan fee alone puts you underwater.

Product cost $18, shipping $6, ad spend $5 per order, Shopify Basic with Shopify Payments (2.9% + $0.30): break-even price (variable only) = ($18 + $6 + $5 + $0.30) / (1 − 0.029) ≈ $29.99. At 30 expected monthly orders, break-even price including the $25/month plan rises to roughly $30.85 — the plan cost adds under $1 per order once you're above ~30 sales/month.

The plan's fixed monthly fee gets divided across however many orders you expect. At 10 orders/month, a $25 plan adds $2.50 per order to break-even price; at 100 orders/month, it adds only $0.25. This is why low-volume stores are more sensitive to plan choice than high-volume ones.

Etsy and eBay have near-zero fixed costs (Etsy has a small $0.20 listing fee, eBay is free to list on most categories) but higher percentage fees (~6.5–13.6%). Shopify flips this: a real fixed cost ($25–399/month) but lower percentage fees (2.5–2.9% + $0.30). Low-volume sellers often break even faster on marketplaces; high-volume sellers usually do better on Shopify.