Used For

• +**You're tracking 200 orders per week in Excel spreadsheets** → Everything syncs automatically, inventory updates in real-time, you get 15 hours back
• +**Your checkout has 7 steps and 70% of people abandon their cart** → One-page checkout with saved payment info, conversions jump 25%
• +Handles inventory sync across your website, physical store, and marketplaces so you never oversell
• +**You're manually calculating shipping costs and tax rates for each order** → Shopify does the math automatically based on customer location

Best For

• >Your Etsy fees are eating 20% of profits and you need your own store this week
• >You tried WooCommerce and crashed the site adding 100 products
• >Selling on Instagram but tired of losing customers in DMs

Not For

• -Big enterprises needing heavy B2B customization — Shopify Plus caps out where Salesforce-level CRM begins
• -Solo sellers making under $1,000/month — the $29 base plus 3% fees will eat your margins
• -Anyone wanting full control over hosting and code — it's cloud-only with locked-down customization

Pairs With

• *Klaviyo (for email marketing because Shopify's built-in email tools are basic)
• *QuickBooks (to sync your sales data for actual accounting and taxes)
• *Google Analytics (because Shopify's analytics are pretty but not deep enough for real optimization)
• *Oberlo or similar (for dropshipping product imports since manual entry gets old fast)
• *Stripe or PayPal (as backup payment processors when Shopify Payments randomly holds your money)
• *Zapier (to connect Shopify to the 47 other tools it doesn't integrate with natively)

The Catch

• !The $29/month is just the entry fee — apps add $20-100/month and you'll need them (email marketing, reviews, SEO)
• !Transaction fees disappear only if you use Shopify Payments, which has its own limitations and holds funds
• !You'll spend more time managing apps than actually selling — install 20+ and your site slows to a crawl

Bottom Line

The WordPress of online stores — easy to start, expensive to scale, and you'll hit limits right when business gets good.