Shopify feels expensive?

Already, we broke down the real cost of running a Shopify store, not just the ₹1,994/month subscription, but also the 2% transaction fee, app charges, payment gateway fee, all that jazz.

Let’s talk about how to reduce those costs.

But before we get there, let’s address something most agencies try to upsell: premium Shopify themes.

If you’ve ever asked for a clean, custom-looking site, you’ve probably heard this: “Sure, but you’ll need a premium theme – ₹28,000 upfront.”

Here’s my honest take: Don’t buy a premium theme in the beginning.

Most of the good ones cost around $300–$360 (₹25,000–₹30,000+). Yes, it’s a one-time cost – but unnecessary in the early stage.

Shopify already gives you 10+ free themes that are fast, responsive, and decent to work with.
And if you (or someone in your team) knows a bit of coding, you can customize these themes to look and feel just like a premium one.

We’ve built 50+ full-fledged stores using free themes that look better than ₹50K sites.

So save that money. Spend it on marketing. Or better packaging. Something that moves the needle.

Now let’s talk about monthly recurring costs.

Here’s what typically adds up:

• Shopify subscription: ₹1,994/month

• 2% Shopify transaction fee: ₹6,000 on ₹3L revenue

• Shopify apps: ₹2,000/month

• Payment gateway (like Razorpay): another 2% or ₹6,000 on ₹3L revenue

Total: ₹16,000/month

Now, if you switch to annual billing, Shopify brings that base fee down to ₹1,500/month – ₹500 saved right there.

But here’s the real smart move:

You can cut the 2% transaction fee + 2% payment gateway fee to just 2–2.2%, saving ₹10,000+/month if you’re making ₹5L/month revenue.

How?

By replacing Shopify’s checkout system with third-party solutions like:

✅ Razorpay Magic Checkout
✅ GoKwik Checkout (my personal favourite – not sponsored)

With GoKwik, you get both checkout + payment gateway bundled at a combined rate of ~2%.

Already a win, right? But wait, there’s more.

Picture this:

A new customer visits your site → adds to cart → clicks checkout. They enter their phone number. Suddenly, their address autofills – without typing anything.

How’s that possible?

Because GoKwik already knows them from previous purchases on other websites like boAt, Mamaearth, etc.

So the customer completes the checkout in just 25 seconds. Faster checkout = fewer drop-offs = more conversions.

And that’s not all.

GoKwik analyses COD behaviour across brands to flag high-risk orders. This helps reduce RTO losses, especially useful if you’re scaling prepaid orders.

It reduces the RTO orders, thus saving a huge amount on shipping costs. Now let’s talk about Shopify apps– the other money leak.

Say you’re starting with 3 products, each available in 5 colours. From a customer’s view, if your store only shows 3 items, they might think: “Is this a new brand? How can I trust this?”

This perception can affect sales.

So, one solution is to list each colour variant as a separate product – so instead of 3 products, your store shows 15.

But here’s the issue: Customers may get confused – “Are these different products?” “Are they the same in different colours?”

So here’s what we usually do: On the collection page, show each colour as a separate product (better first impression). But once clicked, take the customer to a single product page with all the colour options laid out.

Smooth, right?

But here’s the catch – Shopify doesn’t support this by default. You’ll need a third-party app for this.

And these apps aren’t cheap.

Good ones cost $10–$20/month (₹1,000–₹2,000). Nowadays, you won’t find anything useful under $5.

To process returns & exchanges automatically, you need another app. That’s another ₹1,500 – ₹2,000/month.

All these tiny bits add up.

You can try to custom-code wherever possible to reduce a few apps. That is highly possible. You save a few thousand there for sure. 

When you add all these savings, you will save at least ₹5,000+ per month without a doubt.

And that’s how your Shopify site becomes your most efficient, most cost-effective salesperson.

So here’s my question for you:

Would you be open to using a system like GoKwik? Or does it feel overwhelming? What do you think?