What Are the Limitations of Shopify Plus?
Shopify Plus Shopify has an enterprise-level offer—used by major brands such as Allbirds, Gymshark, and Heinz. It promises scalability, performance, and adaptation, making it a powerful platform for rapidly growing ecommerce businesses. But when it provides many advantages, Shopify Plus is not without its limits.
In this post, we will find out the major shortcomings of Shopify Plus, which you should consider before investing. Whether you're working with a Shopify Plus design agency in Raleigh or evaluating platforms on your own, understanding these limitations is critical.
1. High Cost
Shopify Plus starts at $2,000/month with pricing scaling based on your monthly revenue. Although this may be a decline in the bucket for large enterprises, it can be a significant expenditure for medium-sized businesses.
What to consider:
Until your business generates adequate revenue, ROI cannot stop the cost compared to low-level Shopify schemes or other platforms such as WooCommerce or BigCommerce.
Hire a Shopify consultant on Upwork
to assess whether Shopify Plus fits your budget and ROI expectations.
2. Limited backend adaptation
Shopify Plus allows more flexibility than standard Shopify, including scripts and access to Launchpad. However, you are still limited by Shopify's ownership backend and Liquid templating language.
What you can't do:
- Full access to backend/database
- Modify the checkout experience beyond the permission of the Shopify script (e.g., dynamic logic based on the shipping method)
- Host your store outside Shopify's server
3. No complete control over checkouts (yet)
Shopify Plus gives you a checkout.liquid, which allows more control over the checkout process—but this feature is being phased out in favor of Shopify's new checkout extensibility (based on apps and UI extensions).
Boundaries:
- Advanced logic or design changes may now require third-party application
- Custom payment gateway or checkout flow ban
4. Dependence on apps for advanced features
While Shopify Plus supports more integration and automation devices, you will still rely very much on the third-party application for major tasks:
- Advanced inventory management
- Wholesale features
- Custom product bundle
- Market integration
This can add complication, increase monthly costs and create a possible point of failure.
Work with a verified Shopify app expert on Upwork
to streamline setup.
5. Multi-Store Management Is Clunky
Shopify Plus allows you to run up to 9 extension stores without any additional license fee—but they are still managed separately. You do not get a centralized dashboard to basically control all shops.
This means:
- Inventory is not coordinated in shops until you use the third-party solution.
- You will need to duplicate the theme and app setup
- Localization requires manual work (or advanced integration)
6. Wholesale channel is basic
Shopify Plus includes a wholesale channel, but it is relatively limited:
- No custom pricing argument beyond the original price list
- Poor design adaptation
- No built-in net conditions or credit limit
- Strong B2B efficiency requires workaround or third-party apps
For increasing B2B operations, wholesale channels often decrease with expectations.
7. Limited internationalization
You can run several stores for different countries or languages, but Shopify still lacks underlying international facilities:
- Use Shopify Payment until
- Poor translation management without third-party equipment
- Handling limited to complex international markets
8. Support quality may be different
Shopify Plus traders get priority support and access to a dedicated merchant success manager (MSM). However, the quality of support may vary depending on the delegation assigned, and some traders feel that it is not on the hands as expected.
Final Thoughts
Shopify Plus is powerful, but it is not perfect. Although it offers scalability, safety, and enterprise-grade features, businesses should be aware of its limitations—especially when it comes to backend flexibility, multi-store complexity, and third-party dependence.
Whether you work with a Shopify website agency or a professional Shopify web agency, always evaluate if your requirements align with Shopify Plus or if another solution may provide better long-term value.
It should help to decide whether Shopify Plus is perfect for your brand?
Talk to a Shopify specialist on Upwork
for honest advice and personalized support from a trusted Shopify expert agency.
