Last checked October 25, 2026
Shopify guides, answer first
Six guides to the questions Shopify brands ask most: what a store costs, how to choose an agency, SEO, Shopify Plus, migrations and the European Accessibility Act. Each one opens with the answer, then shows the facts behind it, with the sources and the date we checked them.
Pick your question
Costs
How much does a Shopify store cost in 2026?
A Shopify store costs $29, $89 or $359 a month for Shopify's plan billed yearly, or from $2,300 a month on Shopify Plus, plus card fees on every sale, any paid apps and a theme. Shopify's own themes are free, and paid themes in the Theme Store cost $100 to $500, paid once. If you hire help, Rolling Pandas publishes its prices: migrations from $5,000, the Growth Diagnostic at $997 and a monthly team from $3,500.
Hiring
How to choose a Shopify agency
Choose a Shopify agency on three things before price: live stores it built that you can click through, the people who will do your work, and what happens after launch. Get the scope and price in writing, read its reviews in Shopify's Partner Directory and talk to a past client. A freelancer fits one clear job, and an agency fits when you need several skills working as one team.
SEO
The Shopify SEO checklist for 2026
A Shopify SEO checklist starts with what the platform does by default: product URLs inside collections, filtered collection pages, partial structured data and app scripts that slow pages down. Then write collection and product pages for real searches, redirect every changed URL with a 301 and link your pages together. Google says the same work counts for its AI Overviews and AI Mode.
Plans
Shopify vs Shopify Plus: when does Plus pay off?
Shopify Plus costs from $2,300 a month on a three-year term, against $359 a month for Advanced billed yearly, so it has to earn back about $23,300 a year more. It pays off when you need something only Plus does: custom checkout steps, custom Shopify Functions, more than three B2B catalogs, extra stores or more than 15 staff accounts. Without one of those needs, Advanced does the same job for less.
Migrations
The Shopify migration checklist
Before a Shopify migration, list your data, map every old URL to its new address and record your traffic and rankings. During it, import products, then customers, then orders, rebuild the theme and apps, add 301 redirects and place test orders. On launch day, connect the domain, turn off private mode, check the redirects and submit the new sitemap.
Accessibility
The European Accessibility Act and your Shopify store
The European Accessibility Act has applied since June 28, 2025 to e-commerce services provided to consumers in the EU, so it covers most Shopify stores that sell to EU shoppers, and it can cover stores based outside the EU too. Microenterprises that provide services, with fewer than 10 people and no more than €2 million in annual turnover or balance sheet, are exempt. Every other store needs a site people can use with a keyboard, a screen reader or zoom, and accessibility information for its customers.
How we write these guides
The answer first
Each guide answers its question in the first two or three sentences, and every section opens with one sentence you can quote.
Sources you can check
Every outside fact comes from the source itself, such as Shopify's help center, Google's documentation or the EU's official text, and each guide lists its sources and the date we checked them.
Our prices, nothing invented
Where a guide names a price for help, it is one we publish. We don't quote market averages we can't check.
Want a team that knows this already?
Book a call, or start with a free store audit. We tell you what we would change first, and what it costs.