Do you need Shopify Plus? The features that actually require it

The upgrade conversation often starts with one feature: a checkout field, a wholesale price list, a second store for another country. Before paying for Plus, check whether that feature is actually gated. Several features often associated with Plus, such as B2B and Shopify Flow, run on lower plans, while a few checkout and developer capabilities remain firmly behind Plus.

This page lists what Shopify’s own documentation says, grouped by the reason merchants usually upgrade. It does not cover pricing, which you should confirm with Shopify directly.

Checkout: the most common reason

Shopify splits checkout customization into standard and advanced. Standard customization is available on the Basic plan or higher: in the checkout editor you can add a logo, a background colour or image, and change colours and fonts on the checkout, Thank you and Order status pages. Apps built with UI extensions for the Thank you and Order status pages, and for customer account pages, also work on Basic or higher.

Advanced customization is Plus-only. That covers apps that customize the information, shipping and payment pages, meaning custom fields, banners or upsells inside the main checkout steps, and access to the Checkout Branding API for styling beyond the editor’s settings. If the feature you want has to appear before the customer pays, it almost certainly needs Plus.

In practice this is the gate merchants hit most: a delivery-date picker, a gift message field or an upsell block on the shipping step. None of those can be added below Plus, from any app. A survey or message after purchase can.

Checkout logic: custom Functions

Shopify Functions replace custom discount, delivery and payment logic, and they no longer have a Scripts alternative: Scripts stopped running on June 30, 2026 (see where each Script’s logic goes). Stores on any plan can use App Store apps that contain Functions. Only Plus stores can use a custom app that contains Functions, and some capabilities need Plus whatever the app: setting payment terms and hiding payment methods at specific placements, for example.

So the test is simple. If an App Store app implements your rule, you don’t need Plus for it. If the rule is specific to your business and needs custom code, you do.

B2B and wholesale

Shopify B2B runs on the Basic, Grow, Advanced and Plus plans. What changes with Plus is scale and control:

• Catalogs. Basic, Grow and Advanced can assign up to 3 active catalogs across all B2B markets. Plus allows an unlimited number of B2B market catalogs.
• Company-specific pricing. Assigning catalogs directly to companies and company locations, for customer-level pricing, is available only on Plus.
• Payments. Deposit requirements, partial payments and payment requests per fulfillment are Plus-only.
• Contextual checkout and storefront customization through Shopify Markets is available on Advanced and Plus.

A wholesale channel with one or two price lists can run on a lower plan. Per-customer pricing, many price lists or deposits are the Plus triggers.

Operations and scale

Shopify’s Plus plan page lists these as included in Plus:

• Up to 9 expansion stores, for internationalization, separate physical locations and similar purposes, plus unlimited staging stores.
• Unlimited staff accounts, and custom user groups for assigning permissions in bulk.
• Up to 200 locations, with the first 20 POS Pro locations included.
• Up to 100 themes and 1 TB of file storage per store.
• Launchpad, for scheduled promotions.
• Suppressing specific Shopify notification emails to customers.
• API rate limit increases on request, and Plus-only API resources such as GiftCard, Multipass and User.

These matter at a certain size rather than for a certain feature. Expansion stores suit brands that need separate stores per region or business line. Staff and location limits matter to retail and wholesale operations with larger teams. Launchpad matters when promotions have to switch on and off on schedule. If none of these describe your business today, they are not a reason to upgrade on their own.

What doesn’t need Plus

Custom partner app tasks in Shopify Flow are the one Flow feature the Help Center lists for Plus only.

Headless storefronts

A custom storefront built with Hydrogen does not require Plus. Oxygen, Shopify’s hosting for Hydrogen, gives Starter, Basic, Grow and Advanced stores one public environment, and Shopify Plus stores 25. Development stores and trial plans get none. The Plus plan page describes this as building up to 25 custom storefronts. For a single storefront, the plan is not the constraint; the cost of building and maintaining a headless site usually is. See headless Shopify with Hydrogen.

What a store below Plus can still do at checkout

Merchants are sometimes told that nothing can be changed at checkout without Plus. That is not accurate. Below Plus, a store can:

• Match checkout to the brand in the checkout editor: logo, background, colours and fonts on the checkout, Thank you and Order status pages.
• Add apps to the Thank you and Order status pages, for example a post-purchase survey or delivery information.
• Use App Store apps with Functions to add discounts, hide or reorder delivery and payment options, and block orders that break a rule.
• Sell B2B with companies, payment terms and up to 3 active catalogs.

What it can’t do is put custom interface inside the information, shipping and payment steps, or run its own custom Function code. If your requirement is one of those two, Plus is the route; if not, it is worth checking the App Store first.

A quick way to decide

1. List the features driving the upgrade, one line each.
2. Mark each against the sections above: Plus-only, Advanced and up, or any plan.
3. For each Plus-only item, ask whether an App Store app or a change in process gets you close enough.
4. If two or more items are genuinely Plus-only, or one is central to how you sell (per-customer B2B pricing, custom checkout steps), Plus is likely the cheaper path than workarounds.
5. If only custom checkout logic is on the list, check first whether a public app with a Function already does it.

Where Lintel fits

Lintel does not sell Shopify plans. We scope the work: which of your requirements need Plus, which can be met by an existing app, and what custom build is left. On Plus, that is usually Shopify Functions and checkout extensions; below Plus, it is theme and app work that stays inside what your plan allows. See our Shopify development page for the full range.